What's wrong with Materialism?

[Runewolf1973]

I don't believe in all that nonsense people call "life" or "death". So if there is no life and there is no death, then what is there?...Continual interaction in one form or another. Seems to me it will be an interesting eternity.

 

[atanu]

I begin with three assumptions: that a world exists external to the self; that the senses are capable of informing the self about this world; and that reason is a valid tool. (I have to assume them since I can't run an argument for them without having already assumed they exist.)

You need to assume that consciousness is true. Then you speculate that this consciousness came from inert material by some process. If that is true, then there can be no reason as to why your intellect and your data are objective. Why should your assumption hold?

If you ponder a bit you may discern that you are you are imposing an imagined history on top of he consciousness evident in 'Now'. This imagined history is imaginable only because consciousness is true.

Materialists are self deluded, in self harmful ways.

OTOH, we do not at all doubt that consciousness at the root of intellect enables it to discern truths objectively -- once the imagined stories are stripped away. We understand that the true nature cannot take birth or die. God remains gold whether you make a bangle or a chain out of it, or if you beat it flat.

A thing has objective existence when it exists independently of the concept of it in any brain; and a thing with objective existence is real. Things that aren't real exist only as concepts in brains, with no real counterpart. I usually group them as 'imaginary'; certainly they don't exist outside the individual's mentation.
In this context, there's no distinction between my brain functions and me, so 'my brain' doesn't tell 'me' anything. (On the other hand, it's not simply possible but usual to be able to have internal dialogs.)

That is bunkum. One has actually no way to ascertain objective existence of anything, since no object can be proven to exist external to mind-senses.

Evolution, of course. Even the most primitive forms of life are built to react to food, grasshoppers know not to waste time gnawing plastic flowers, and animals can edit the suitability of food with the sense of taste ─ excellent, okay, careful, nonono. It's a survival device which has been edited to serve as a cultural device.

My question was "Why blind processes started liking hot, sweet, sour etc. etc. Why blind processes wanted pleasure of senses?"

You answer 'Evolution'. That answer is blind. Why should a rock or a molecule or any combination of inert unconscious material develop taste?

OTOH, we hold that consciousness and all its mental-sensual faculties are unborn and are true. The manifestations take birth or are absorbed --- like when we go from dream to deep sleep state.

In some respected theories of infant development, it's posited that the newborn infant has no sense of identity separate from its mother; and that it doesn't acquire that for most of its first year, and after that only slowly. Yet even in its first few days it can make look at faces, within a couple of weeks it can focus its eyes, within a couple of months it can see colors, and so on. By instinct it responds to motherese (which both women and men use with infants, also by instinct) and early on begins to imitate gestures, expressions and sounds. Who first by single words, then in the third year by sentences of increasing complexity, speaks English, or Spanish, or Navajo, or as the case may be.

And after three or four years of this emerges a young person with a rounded sense of being Jack, or Jill, or as the case may be.

If you have any children, you'll know it's a totally engrossing process for a parent to watch.

I have two grown up daughters. I was present at the operation theatre when my elder daughter who was in distress inside the womb of mother was brought out. As soon as she came out she pulled at some tubes that nurses were putting in her mouth. She cried out.

Sense of self is instinctive in humans, animals, and plants. We surely consider the instinctive actions beyond intellect but within consciousness.

We hold that the sound maker in all of us is a reality. We call it Rudra.
......

 

[atanu]

The sense of self is very important in our culture, indeed.

Or else it's a function or by-product of a working brain. This view is at least supported by examinable evidence.
That is, it's not examinable evidence.

I'd say, a strong tendency to reject the objective existence of anything for which there is neither examinable evidence nor inference well-grounded in reason.

I had given you an example. Can you describe the taste of mango to me? But two or more people can agree that mango tastes stupendous. Likewise, the the non dual experience and its implications cannot be appreciated by an ignorant person who has had no experience at all.

...
I realise that our paradigms are vastly different. I also know that some critical events may force you to re-evaluate your paradigms. Bye until then. Now, it is futile and wastage of time.

 

[blü 2]

You need to assume that consciousness is true.

Cogito ergo sum is a datum, not an assumption.

Then you speculate that this consciousness came from inert material by some process.

From the evolution of the nervous system, to be precise.

If that is true, then there can be no reason as to why your intellect and your data are objective.

Subjectivity is a fact of reality. We look out at the world and make of it what our senses, culture and education let us make of it. When we realize the importance of objectivity for making accurate statements about external reality then reasoned enquiry, of which scientific method is part, is easily the sharpest tool in the shed.

If you ponder a bit you may discern that you are you are imposing an imagined history on top of he consciousness evident in 'Now'.

Do you mean a remembered history? One that can be verified to a substantial degree from contemporary records still extant?

If you don't, then what imagined history are you alleging?

Materialists are self deluded, in self harmful ways.

A pity you don't set out examples and demonstrate their correctness, then.

OTOH, we do not at all doubt that consciousness at the root of intellect enables it to discern truths objectively -- once the imagined stories are stripped away.

If you read modern brain research, you're know that almost all brain activity is non-conscious.

We understand that the true nature cannot take birth or die.

Are you referring to the conservation-of-energy rule in physics? If not, what test will tell us if something is 'true nature' or not?

God remains gold whether you make a bangle or a chain out of it, or if you beat it flat.

Gods are imaginary. There isn't even a definition useful to reasoned enquiry of a real god, a god with objective existence. If you can provide me with one, I'll be delighted, of course. After that it will only be a question of your providing a satisfactory demonstration of such a god.

One has actually no way to ascertain objective existence of anything, since no object can be proven to exist external to mind-senses.

I assume that a world exists external to the self, and I assume that the senses are capable of informing us about this world, and I assume reason is a valid tool.

And you're shouting over yourself here, because by posting on RF you demonstrate that you share those assumptions, or at the least the first two.

So your complaint appears incoherent.

You answer 'Evolution'. That answer is blind. Why should a rock or a molecule or any combination of inert unconscious material develop taste?

Because it's become biochemistry, moved into the category 'life', evolves according to natural selection, by which lifeforms less able to survive and breed in their environment for the time being pass their genes into the next generation on fewer occasions than their fellows who are better at surviving and breeding. And the ability to sample in advance the suitability of potential food leads to the spread of the first taste bud ─ a biological reactor to particular chemical stimuli. And these send a nerve signal to the brain which the brain registers. And that registration takes the form of our sense of taste, our awareness of the reaction.

OTOH, we hold that consciousness and all its mental-sensual faculties are unborn and are true.

If only you had evidence for that, perhaps you could persuade people that you're right.

The manifestations take birth or are absorbed --- like when we go from dream to deep sleep state.

What does that mean? What evidence supports it?

Sense of self is instinctive in humans, animals, and plants.

Not sure about plants.

We surely consider the instinctive actions beyond intellect but within consciousness.

No, we consider instinctive actions to be independent of intellect and consciousness. You don't need conscious thought to act instinctively. You don't stare at the flying object, say, Ah, that's a ball; I'll raise my hand and catch it. Instead you just catch it.

 

[atanu]

Cogito ergo sum is a datum, not an assumption.

That is only a fraction of the data.

From the evolution of the nervous system, to be precise.

Subjectivity is a fact of reality. We look out at the world and make of it what our senses, culture and education let us make of it. When we realize the importance of objectivity for making accurate statements about external reality then reasoned enquiry, of which scientific method is part, is easily the sharpest tool in the shed.

Yeah. Please examine the above two statements. First, TOE does not equal to an explanatory mechanism. Second, if your thinking evolved through evolution, how objective your knowledge regarding evolution could be?

I request genuine contemplation, free from ego bias and dogma.

No, we consider instinctive actions to be independent of intellect and consciousness. You don't need conscious thought to act instinctively. You don't stare at the flying object, say, Ah, that's a ball; I'll raise my hand and catch it. Instead you just catch it.

Yeah, again. We had already agreed that our definitions of consciousness vary. I have actually no contention with you at one level. I am a scientist myself. But being a scientist entails a questioning and a free mind, without adherence to any dogma or philosophy.

Suppose, a child, who does not know that a programer was behind the so called AI activities of a computer may believe computer's actions to be intelligent. It will fail to even acknowledge the possible role of programmer/s. But you and me know that the scope of intelligence is much wider, in case of AI. It emanates from a very wide base of prior knowledge in which the programmer also is a part.

In a similar vein, there must be some knowledge mechanism in nature that brings together a sperm and an egg to bring about a certain identity with certain proclivities. Why do we imagine that the manifest thoughts of that identity is all that there is to consciousness?

The manifest thoughts constitute the intellect. But beyond that is the data and its knowledge regarding identity with its baggage of genetic memory and a competence to read and execute that data. You call that nature. I say that that nature's nature is consciousness.

 

[blü 2]

That is only a fraction of the data.

Hard to think of a datum more basic.

TOE does not equal to an explanatory mechanism.

What aspect of evolution does it fail to explain, exactly?

if your thinking evolved through evolution, how objective your knowledge regarding evolution could be?

Same as yours.

I request genuine contemplation, free from ego bias and dogma.

Amen.

being a scientist entails a questioning and a free mind, without adherence to any dogma or philosophy.

A scientist without a philosophy is a scientist with no place to stand.

there must be some knowledge mechanism in nature that brings together a sperm and an egg to bring about a certain identity with certain proclivities.

Very exact descriptions of the biochemistry of this process exist. It's been very much studied in a number of contexts ─ IVF, cloning, the whole range of genetic enquiry.

Why do we imagine that the manifest thoughts of that identity is all that there is to consciousness?

What identity?

The manifest thoughts constitute the intellect.

What manifest thoughts?

How do they constitute intellect?

But beyond that is the data and its knowledge regarding identity with its baggage of genetic memory and a competence to read and execute that data. You call that nature. I say that that nature's nature is consciousness.

Then I fear you're going to need evidence acceptable to science. The nature of consciousness is a question for brain research.

 

[Apologes]

For me the problem with materialism is that it's false.

More constructively, I reject materialism because I believe there is a God.

 

[Yerda]

I'm a materialist, principally because I think the primary question is, What's true in reality? and I'm not aware of any meaningful alternative to materialism.

By 'materialism' I mean (as Smart and Armstrong put it) the idea that the only entities and processes that exist are those recognized by physics from time to time.

And accordingly, by 'reality' I mean the realm of the physical sciences, the sum of things that have objective existence.

The purpose of this thread is to invite those who oppose materialism to set out the reasons for their opposition.

If you reject materialism, why?

I can't always make sense of what it means to be a materialist or to hold materialism as true or false.

Is there any chance you can untangle, the only entities and processes that exist are those recognized by physics from time to time, ?

 

[Willamena]

The meaningful alternative to materialism is found in a sister question: How do we know what's in reality? The epistemic vs. the ontological. For every object in objective reality, there is the necessity of being aware of that object in order to assert its truthfulness. Nothing is true apart from judgement: its truth is that judgement.

 

[blü 2]

Is there any chance you can untangle, the only entities and processes that exist are those recognized by physics from time to time, ?

Things can exist in two way: as things with objective existence, and as things imagined.

A thing has objective existence if it exists independently of the concept of it in any brain eg 'this chair'.

A thing with objective existence is 'real'.

'Reality' is the sum of things with objective existence.

(A thing is wholly imagined ─ ie solely the product of our mentation ─ if our concept of it doesn't correspond to anything with objective existence. 'A chair', for example, is an abstraction, not corresponding to any particular real thing. Mathematical objects such as numbers likewise exist only as concepts. Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes, Dumbledore and vampires, exist only as concepts. And so on. But we have as part of our mentation many concepts that refer directly to real things, not least other people.)

Everything ─ entities such as atoms and energy, processes such as atomic fusion and fission, the reactions of chemistry, the forces in action ─ recognized by the physical sciences as having objective existence, is real. Things composed of real things are real.

And by my definition (from Smart and Armstrong, two philosophers in the field of non-supernatural metaphyics), nothing else is real. Thus the Higgs boson was only an hypothesis until its existence was confirmed by experiment; and after that, it was real. Dark matter and dark energy are presently names for problems, not even of agreed hypotheses, so they're not presently real either. The lumeniferous ether used to be real until the Michelson-Morley experiments, and after that it wasn't. Hence the 'from time to time' part of the definition.

 

[blü 2]

I reject materialism because I believe there is a God.

Can you say what real thing ─ what thing with objective existence ─ you intend to denote by the word "God"? Or are you only referring to something you've imagined?

 

[blü 2]

The meaningful alternative to materialism is found in a sister question: How do we know what's in reality? The epistemic vs. the ontological. For every object in objective reality, there is the necessity of being aware of that object in order to assert its truthfulness. Nothing is true apart from judgement: its truth is that judgement.

Its truthfulness is exactly proportional to its correspondence with reality. Truth is indeed a judgment, but because of the test, a falsifiable one.

 

[Willamena]

Its truthfulness is exactly proportional to its correspondence with reality. Truth is indeed a judgment, but because of the test, a falsifiable one.

And until reality is known, there is no means to say what corresponds with it.

 

[blü 2]

And until reality is known, there is no means to say what corresponds with it.

I don't see it that way. Truth changes as our best understanding of reality changes. It was once true that the earth was flat. Now it isn't.

I like to think we're making progress, but that's a difficult one to demonstrate.

 

[Apologes]

Can you say what real thing ─ what thing with objective existence ─ you intend to denote by the word "God"? Or are you only referring to something you've imagined?

A transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent mind.

 

[Apologes]

I don't see it that way. Truth changes as our best understanding of reality changes. It was once true that the earth was flat. Now it isn't.

I like to think we're making progress, but that's a difficult one to demonstrate.

You're confusing the truth of a proposition with us being justified in believing it.

 

[blü 2]

A transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent mind.

I've never seen a real one of those, not even piece by piece ─nothing transcendent in this sense, nothing omniscient, nothing omnipotent, nothing omnibenevolent. Never seen a real disembodied mind either. All the examples, alas, exist only in imagination.

Do you have a definition that would identify a real being, a being with objective existence?

 

[blü 2]

You're confusing the truth of a proposition with us being justified in believing it.

But the only test for truth is correspondence with reality, and therefore truth changes as our understanding of reality changes.

Truth isn't fixed, immutable or absolute. That statement may be the one exception.

 

[Apologes]

I've never seen a real one of those, not even piece by piece ─nothing transcendent in this sense, nothing omniscient, nothing omnipotent, nothing omnibenevolent. Never seen a real disembodied mind either. All the examples, alas, exist only in imagination.

Non-sequitur.

But the only test for truth is correspondence with reality, and therefore truth changes as our understanding of reality changes.

Truth isn't fixed, immutable or absolute. That statement may be the one exception.

Again, you're confusing the truth of a proposition with us being justified in believing it. For atemporal propositions such as "There is a God" what changes is whether we're justified in believing it, not whether it's true or not.

If you think otherwise you need to read on epistemology.

 

[blü 2]

Non-sequitur.

No.

God is either real or imaginary. If [he]'s real then [he] has objective existence. If [he] has objective existence then [he] has physical form and [he]'s somewhere in spacetime, so a satisfactory demonstration of [his] reality is possible.

If [he]'s imaginary, then that can't be done.

Sequitur, without a doubt.

Again, you're confusing the truth of a proposition with us being justified in believing it.

Truth is correspondence with reality. If it corresponds with reality, it's true. If it doesn't, it's untrue. That's to say, if it doesn't correspond with reality, we're fully and entirely justified in thinking it's untrue.

For atemporal propositions such as "There is a God" what changes is whether we're justified in believing it, not whether it's true or not.

Take the case of a real god, one who isn't imaginary but instead has objective existence. The idea of a real god is incoherent, in that 'god' has no definition such that if we found a candidate we could tell whether it were a real god or not. As long as that's the case, to speak of a real god is not to know what one's actually talking about.