Why materialism is probably false: A Hindu argument

[Spirit_Warrior]

We disagree on what Hinduism as depicted in the Upanisads and Gita is saying. I will not comment further here.

Sure we do, and yeah this is not the place to do it, and nor was my thread "Anti-materialism" the place to do it either. The place to do it was my thread "Can Hindu's be atheists" which you bowed you out of. In any case I know what you are arguing here is not Hinduism, but more sunyata/emptiness school of Buddhism, because you also reduce consciousness to skandas too, like they do, leaving nothing but void. If we are having a proper shastrath right now you wouldn't stand a chance against me.

Anyway, we both agree this is not the place to have this discussion. But I still bring an argument to your original argument, which does not depend on whether it is Hindu, Buddhist or whatever. My argument, though technically I should be on your side is, nothing you say entails something other than matter existing. As you even get rid of consciousness in your analysis: matter, space, time, energy, consciousness and matter. So what are you left with? Void.

There is nothing in your arguments that predicates an entity called Brahman existing, only a void. Now you can respond to this argument or not respond to it, that's your choice, but all this will show is you are avoiding an argument that has been placed to counter yours. Does not look good to others.

 

[viole]

You have failed to connect your entities properties (being blue, smiling, flying) to the thing in need of an explanation (being conscious) and your entity has logically contrary properties (being blue and being invisible). These are fatal flaws.
Any final successful theory will have certain entities with certain properties with which it explains the hows and why of all phenomena with precision. The justification of positing such final successful theories and entities within them is in their explanatory and predictive success. This is true for all scientific theory or any final theory of matter as well.

Ah, but now you are assuming materialism.

Being invisible is a physical property. No reflection of photons. Blue may not be. Property dualists believe that. You know the story of Mary and qualias?

So, it is possible for my invisible fairy to cause the metaphysical sensation of blue, while meeting with say, the pink fairy, while still being invisible to the naked eye. Since all those fairies do not have physical eyes. They just communicate via qualias.

So, are you calling your Braman a scientific theory? I really do not see how it is more scientific than my fairy tale.

Caveat: science, by definition, assumes methodological naturalism.

Ciao

- viole

 

[sayak83]

Ah, but now you are assuming materialism.

Being invisible is a physical property. No reflection of photons. Blue may not be. Property dualists believe that. You know the story of Mary and qualias?

So you are proposing that the fairy is not present in the physical world but only in the mental world accessible by qualia of the mind?
Cool. But if your fairy is a mental creature, where is it flying? In the mental world? If it is flying in the mental world , how is it smiling at the lettuce. Is the lettuce in the mental world too. Please be precise as to what kind of entity the fairy is and how its blueness, flying, smiling connect to the lettuce being conscious. Thank you.

So, are you calling your Braman a scientific theory? I really do not see how it is more scientific than my fairy tale.

Yes, I believe that Brahman will be something that would eventually be accessible by the sciences as well.

Caveat: science, by definition, assumes methodological naturalism.

Actually it does not. Any phenomena that is tractable through observation and testing and explainable through models is accessible to science. It is erroneously called methidological naturalism as it is assumed that only natural entities behave this way. This we deny.

 

[Darkstorn]

Actually it does not. Any phenomena that is tractable through observation and testing and explainable through models is accessible to science. It is erroneously called methidological naturalism as it is assumed that only natural entities behave this way. This we deny.

In my opinion, although i do think it might be more than that, natural refers to something that CAN behave within explained models for... Well. Nature. A thing that doesn't behave exactly THAT way, is by definition, not natural...

If a thing or phenomenon would be observable and testable through models accessible to science, then it by definition is natural.

So a supposedly "supernatural" phenomenon or thing is in actuality only supernatural until observed and tested. Then it by definition, becomes natural.

I "feel" that "natural" is a scientific term, not one from feeling.

 

[sealchan]

In my opinion, although i do think it might be more than that, natural refers to something that CAN behave within explained models for... Well. Nature. A thing that doesn't behave exactly THAT way, is by definition, not natural...

If a thing or phenomenon would be observable and testable through models accessible to science, then it by definition is natural.

So a supposedly "supernatural" phenomenon or thing is in actuality only supernatural until observed and tested. Then it by definition, becomes natural.

I "feel" that "natural" is a scientific term, not one from feeling.

There is "raw" data, experimentation on raw data, and then there are paradigms (over-arching, guiding metaphors) that are used to frame questions, propose theories and structure interpretations.

The soft sciences lean more on paradigms, but all sciences presuppose some sort of bare bones metaphoric metaphysics in order to sensibly communicate and interpret results of lab and field work.

 

[viole]

So you are proposing that the fairy is not present in the physical world but only in the mental world accessible by qualia of the mind?
Cool. But if your fairy is a mental creature, where is it flying? In the mental world? If it is flying in the mental world , how is it smiling at the lettuce. Is the lettuce in the mental world too. Please be precise as to what kind of entity the fairy is and how its blueness, flying, smiling connect to the lettuce being conscious. Thank you.

I did not say it was exclusively a mental creature. Flying and smiling are physical, albeit visible only to other fairies. It is mental (pun intended) only for what concerns blueness.

And we believe that consciousness would not exist without a fairy flying and smiling around you. They become conscious by flying and smiling around themselves.

Not all lettuces are conscious. Because they did not have the blue fairy smiling and flying around them. We are allowed to eat only this kind. Once I was about to eat a conscious one, but it promptly informed me it that it might find that suboptimal, being conscious and all.

So, it all fits.

Yes, I believe that Brahman will be something that would eventually be accessible by the sciences as well.

To believe that something will be, is an admission that that something is not. So, I also believe that my blue fairy theory will become part of science.

Actually it does not. Any phenomena that is tractable through observation and testing and explainable through models is accessible to science. It is erroneously called methidological naturalism as it is assumed that only natural entities behave this way. This we deny.

With "we", do you mean the scientists? I know what spiritual people deny. You can believe your Braman as much as you want, but when you enter a lab, you must check it at the door,

Ciao

- viole

 

[idav]

That is the argument that I would ask atheists and materialists to consider.

When people think building blocks and materialism, some may think like legos that only react to things within space and time. However the real building blocks, particles of atoms,don't have such limitations according to QM. In QM a particle has capabilities of being connected outside the boundaries of space time. Certainly consciousness of events is possible with that, do we really need to bring in some non-substance immaterial non-thing to explain it?

 

[sealchan]

I did not say it was exclusively a mental creature. Flying and smiling are physical, albeit visible only to other fairies. It is mental (pun intended) only for what concerns blueness.

And we believe that consciousness would not exist without a fairy flying and smiling around you. They become conscious by flying and smiling around themselves.

Not all lettuces are conscious. Because they did not have the blue fairy smiling and flying around them. We are allowed to eat only this kind. Once I was about to eat a conscious one, but it promptly informed me it that it might find that suboptimal, being conscious and all.

So, it all fits.

- viole

If I may...without having closely followed your whole line of reasoning on this thread, I think that sayak's concern about the partial physicality of the fairy is valid. Brahman or even consciousness is purely a mental construct from a materialist point of view. If there was some sense that God or spirit had a physical component then would it not be amenible to scientific inquiry?

Or are you saying that recognizing something is blue and then saying that that blueness is also actually a fairy is essentially unnecessarily adding to the quality of blueness and therefore beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?

If the latter, then I think that what sayak is raising here may be of greatest value in recognizing that there is substance to what is purely psychological in that mystical traditions, such as Hinduism, have mapped an objective phenomenological reality of what it is like to be conscious, to know reality and to be aware that one's knowing always also impacts that reality.

Whether that unseats the supremacy of materialism or not I am not making a claim to myself. But I think that there seems to always be a need for a sort of dualistic approach to our reality when taken in at the broadest scale.

 

[sealchan]

I think that sayak's second post makes the more subtle argument for "materialists" to consider. Looking at things from a system perspective does bring with it an ontological difference that resets the underlying assumptions of most paradigms in science. Quantum theory introduces these same perspectives but at a scale and in a context that might not make itself seem relevant to a broader approach to reality.

And at least one scientist, Stuart Kauffman, has made the claim that it can be demonstrated when a system is irreducible. So this claim on sayak's part I do not see as too extreme although it may be a rare one made in traditional academic circles.

Perhaps, this paradigm shift brings with it a sense that one is bringing in something insubstantial and unnecessary, but I think that the science of systems has developed well beyond its infancy and deserves to be considered as introducing a sort of ordering principle to reality that cannot be strickly found within the individual manifestations of order we study in the various layers of systemic activity of the physical Universe.

 

[Fire_Monkey]

As we uncover the workings of the natural world certain things become clear:-

1) Stuff (matter-energy-space-time) interact with each other in highly predictable ways which we call "laws of nature", "causality" etc. However the reason for the existence of this structured patterns of behavior and their invariable attachment with stuff is unknown.

2) The laws of nature themselves are mathematical, a realm of abstract and extraordinarily rich realm of reality that is "somehow" glued into "stuff" through these laws and accessible to knowledge through rationality. Why should there be such a realm of abstract rational world of mathematics and why they intermingle with stuff is also not known.

3) Stuff..connected with the mathematical world via the laws of nature, is extraordinarily and unexpectedly fecund, coalescing in property rich groups with utterly novel qualities and functions starting from molecules, crystals, living things, stars, galaxies and sentient beings. The repeated (and apparently limitless) potential of emerging wholes with novel properties all stacked on top of each other (from molecules to man i.e.) from "stuff" is observable and describable; but why stuff has such properties is unknown.

Therefore Hindu-s propose that there is something more fundamental than matter-energy, laws of nature, mathematics and consciousness/information. On this more fundamental entity all these domains rest, and of which these various domains are aspects of. And this singular fundamental entity, which we call Brahman, provides the connecting glue and the structural richness around which stuff is coalescing to make it manifest in the sensory plane. This provides a "why" explanation rather than a what and how explanation. Such an explanation is needed as the interconnectivity of stuff, laws, maths, information, consciousness and repeated emergence are not mere facts, but extraordinary features that cannot be left unexplained.

And just like biology has provided us with senses to see stuff and rationality to see mathematics..it has also provided us with inner capabilities, which when honed through meditation or other proper spiritual practices, can help us grasp this fundamental entity undergirding all these domains of knowledge...at least to some extent.

That is the argument that I would ask atheists and materialists to consider.

The first tenet of your argument is only partially correct.

At the level of quantum mechanics, matter does NOT work with each other--that is, interact---in "highly predictable ways." Nope, far from it. The fact is that the inner workings of sub-atomic particles are so convoluted and Unpredictable that even many so-called experts in the field, those with Ph.D educations, admit they do not understand it.

Just sayin'.

FM

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

With "we", do you mean the scientists? I know what spiritual people deny. You can believe your Braman as much as you want, but when you enter a lab, you must check it at the door,

Ciao

- viole

Exactly, this is what I have already told Sayak. He is attempting to legitimise his religious Hindu beliefs in Brahman etc through Science by trying to present them as scientific theories using scientific language(word salads basically) but then gets a rude awakening when the scientists he tries to win over snub it as religious pseudoscientific theories. At the same time he alienates his own Hindu kind who do not appreciate his attempts to reduce spiritual entities like Brahman etc to scientific objects. In the end, he lands up on no-mans land.

In the end he is neither faithful to Science or the Hindu religion. I can categorically tell you Brahman in Hindu thought refers to God as an impersonal pure consciousness or a personal being that creates, preserves and destroys this universe as sport --- not this weird word salad ur-entity that is the basis of laws of mathematics, science, physics, psychology, consciousness -- that Sayak is trying to pass it off as.

 

[viole]

If I may...without having closely followed your whole line of reasoning on this thread, I think that sayak's concern about the partial physicality of the fairy is valid. Brahman or even consciousness is purely a mental construct from a materialist point of view. If there was some sense that God or spirit had a physical component then would it not be amenible to scientific inquiry?

Or are you saying that recognizing something is blue and then saying that that blueness is also actually a fairy is essentially unnecessarily adding to the quality of blueness and therefore beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?

If the latter, then I think that what sayak is raising here may be of greatest value in recognizing that there is substance to what is purely psychological in that mystical traditions, such as Hinduism, have mapped an objective phenomenological reality of what it is like to be conscious, to know reality and to be aware that one's knowing always also impacts that reality.

Whether that unseats the supremacy of materialism or not I am not making a claim to myself. But I think that there seems to always be a need for a sort of dualistic approach to our reality when taken in at the broadest scale.

I am a materialist. Actually, I prefer the term naturalist. People get confused sometimes and might think I am a material girl.

So, I reject any claim of things that invlove fuzzy spiritual things.

My point is to show that I can fill any hole in our knowledge by just inventing stuff and be happy with that. Like all hole fillers with enough imagination do.

Ciao

- viole

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So you skeptics beware...science has already taken a step past your incredulity.

I don't think so.

 

[sayak83]

Exactly, this is what I have already told Sayak. He is attempting to legitimise his religious Hindu beliefs in Brahman etc through Science by trying to present them as scientific theories using scientific language(word salads basically) but then gets a rude awakening when the scientists he tries to win over snub it as religious pseudoscientific theories. At the same time he alienates his own Hindu kind who do not appreciate his attempts to reduce spiritual entities like Brahman etc to scientific objects. In the end, he lands up on no-mans land.

In the end he is neither faithful to Science or the Hindu religion. I can categorically tell you Brahman in Hindu thought refers to God as an impersonal pure consciousness or a personal being that creates, preserves and destroys this universe as sport --- not this weird word salad ur-entity that is the basis of laws of mathematics, science, physics, psychology, consciousness -- that Sayak is trying to pass it off as.

As usual, nothing Spirit Warrior says is anything other than his own opinion.

 

[sayak83]

I am a materialist. Actually, I prefer the term naturalist. People get confused sometimes and might think I am a material girl.

So, I reject any claim of things that invlove fuzzy spiritual things.

My point is to show that I can fill any hole in our knowledge by just inventing stuff and be happy with that. Like all hole fillers with enough imagination do.

Ciao

- viole

I am going to come back to this thread shortly. Entangled in other stuff.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

As I argued in my most recent post, life begins as functional from the very beginning at the single cell stage. It is an extremely fine-tuned intricate nanofactory made up hundreds of thousands of parts performing hundreds of thousands processes all so that the cell can function.

It is irreducibly complex Therefore, we must posit a principle of intelligence beyond matter.

Non sequitur. Your conclusion doesn't follow from what came before it. Mere complexity is not an argument for intelligence, and you're going to have to demonstrate the irreducible complexity if you want to claim that it is preset. Your intuitions are not an argument.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

As usual, nothing Spirit Warrior says is anything other than his own opinion.

It isn't, it just standard Hinduism 101 that anybody else who knows Hinduism can recognise. This is why I keep telling you if you were having debate with me among Hinduism experts, you wouldn't stand a chance. You are misrepresenting materialist and sometimes Buddhist ideas as Hindu. In Hinduism Brahman is called pure consciousness(suddha chaitanya)

It is your arrogance that you are not recognising that what I am saying is standard Hinduism and standard Vedanta and what you are preaching is not. I can happily quote from standard Hindu web sites or Vedanta web site to show this is what Hinduism teaches. You should have the humility to accept yours is not a standard interpretation. I would actually respect you more if you did. As I have no qualms about you having a right to interpret Vedanta(Upanishads) as you wish, but don't go around telling people citing traditional interpretations from recognised schools of Vedanta, that they are making it up.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

^^ Just to back up what I said that Brahman is pure consciousness in traditional Hindu understanding:

Brahman or the Supreme Self is beyond time and space, causation. He is limitless. He is tranquil. He shines with equal effulgence in all bodies. He cannot be any particular thing. He is chaitanya or pure consciousness. He is the jewel of jewels. He is the imperishable, inexhaustible supreme wealth, which no dacoit can rob.

What is Brahman?

​

Here is what the Upanishads themselves say about Brahman:

Ishavasya Upanishad (v. 8):
​

Atman pervades all, is resplendent, bodiless, scatheless, having no muscles, pure, untouched by sin; far-seeing, omniscient, transcendent, self-sprung; he duly allotted to the various eternali] creatures their respective functions.


The Upanishads say that Brahman, the ultimate reality, is pure consciousness (prajñānam brahma)

The very nature of this substratum is sat-cit-ānanda: absolute existence (sat), pure consciousness (cit), and bliss (ānanda). In other words, pure being is Self-aware and is of the nature of pure conscious-ness and bliss, or ‘loving consciousnesses.

Consciousness in Advaita Vedanta - Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia


As early as the Vedic times, the Rishis investigated the nature of reality from two levels of experience, one of which may be called the absolute, acosmic or transcendental level and the other relative, cosmic or phenomenal level. At the phenomenal level one perceives the universe of diversity and is aware of one's own individual ego, whereas at the transcendental level, the differences merge into an inexplicable non dual consciousness. Both of these levels of experience are real from their respective standpoints, though what is perceived at one level may be negated at the other.

Reality experienced at the transcendental level is called Brahman. This term denotes the non-dual Pure consciousness which pervades the universe yet remains outside it.(Just as the sun pervades all life on earth yet remains outside it). Brahman is described as the first principle; from it all things are derived, by it all are supported, and into it all finally disappear. In Brahman alone the apparent differences of the phenomenal world are unified. Brahman is identical with the self of man, known as atman.

Nature of Reality

For classical Advaita Vedānta, Brahman is the fundamental reality underlying all objects and experiences. Brahman is explained as pure existence, pure consciousness and pure bliss. All forms of existence presuppose a knowing self. [/b]Brahman or pure consciousness underlies the knowing self.[/b]

Vedanta, Advaita | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy


​

Thus we can see from above it is the traditional Hindu understanding that Brahman is pure consciousness, also described as omniscient, omnipotent, and for all intents and purposes 'God' Hence, you can see it not my opinion. Sayak is misrepresenting basically the Hindu concept of God in this thread as some "Ur-field" It is fine, to to come up with your own idea of a ultimate principle that is the basis of all laws of science which is inspired by some some Hindu ideas but it is not fine to misrepresent well known and sacred Hindu ideas as he is doing.

 

[sayak83]

It isn't, it just standard Hinduism 101 that anybody else who knows Hinduism can recognise. This is why I keep telling you if you were having debate with me among Hinduism experts, you wouldn't stand a chance. You are misrepresenting materialist and sometimes Buddhist ideas as Hindu. In Hinduism Brahman is called pure consciousness(suddha chaitanya)

It is your arrogance that you are not recognising that what I am saying is standard Hinduism and standard Vedanta and what you are preaching is not. I can happily quote from standard Hindu web sites or Vedanta web site to show this is what Hinduism teaches. You should have the humility to accept yours is not a standard interpretation. I would actually respect you more if you did. As I have no qualms about you having a right to interpret Vedanta(Upanishads) as you wish, but don't go around telling people citing traditional interpretations from recognised schools of Vedanta, that they are making it up.

The only person who has analyzed Brahman from the Upanishads directly in this thread so far is me
Why materialism is probably false: A Hindu argument

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

The only person who has analyzed Brahman from the Upanishads directly in this thread so far is me
Why materialism is probably false: A Hindu argument

And as usual you are selectively citing. What about the Upanishads that say "Then Brahman will that he shall be many, then Brahman thought, Brahman is the Lord, Worship Brahman the creator etc

Verily in the beginning, All this was Atman, one only, there was nothing else blinking whatsorever. He thought "Shal I send forth worlds" He send forth these worlds

Aitareya Upanishad

He the knower of Self, knows the highest home of Brahman, in which all is contained and shines brightly. The wise one without desiring happiness, worship that person, transcend this seed and are not born again.

Mundaka Upanishad


He who knows the Brahman attains the highest Brahman. On this the following verse is recorded: He who knows Brahman, which is the cause and not the effect, which is conscious which is without end, as hidden in the depths of the heart, in highest ether, enjoys all blessings, at one with omniscient Brahman

He wished, may I be many, may I grow forth. He brooded over himself, like a man performing penance. After he had thus brooded, he created all, whatever there is

Taitttriya Upanishad


But what is praised in the Upanishads is the highest Brahman, and in it there is the triad. The highest Brahman is the safe support, it is imperishable. The Brahma-students, when they have known what is within this world, are devoted and merges into Brahman, free from birth. The Lord supports all this together, the perishable and the imperishable, the developed and the undeveloped. The living Self, not being a lord, is bound, because he has to enjoy the fruits of his works, but when he has known God, he is freed from all fetters.

This whole universe is filled by this person, to whom there is nothing superior, from whom there is nothing different, than whom there is nothing smaller or larger, who stands alone, fixed like a tree in the sky. That which is beyond this world is without form and without suffering. They, who know it, become immortal, but others suffer in pain. That Bhagvat exists in the faces, the heads and necks of all, he swells in the cave of the heart of all beings, he is all pervading, therefore he is the omnipresent Shiva. That person is the great lord; he is the mover of existence; he possesses the purest power of reaching everything, he is light, he is undecaying

He is the creator and supporter of the gods, Rudra, the great seer, the lord of all, who saw Hiryangarbh(primordial womb of the universe), may he endow us with good thoughts. He who is the sovereign of gods, he in whom all the worlds rest, he who rules over all two footed and four-footed beings, to that god let us sacrifice our oblation

He being one, rules over all and everything, so that the universal germ ripens its nature, diversifies all nature that can be ripened and determines all qualities.

Some wise men deluded, speak of nature, and others of time as the cause for everything; but it is the greatness of the God by which this Brahma-wheel is made to turn. It is at the command of him who always covers this world, the knower, the time of time, who assumes qualities and all knowledge, it as his command, that this work, creation unfolds itself, which is called earth, water, fire, air and ether. He who, after he has done that work, rested again.

He is the One God, hidden in all beings, all pervading, the Self within all beings, watching over all works, dwelling in all beings, the witness, the perceiver, the only one, free from all qualities

Shvetasvatara Upanishad

​

Summary of the words used to describe Brahman

"He thought"
"Worship that person"
"He created all"
"Conscious"
"Omnscient Lord"
"He is the One God"
"Rules over all beings"
"Omnipresent"

It will therefore become clear to the readers that "Brahman" which Sayak is passing off here as "ur-field" as the basis of all laws of physics, chemistry biology and consciousness etc, is none other than the Hindu concept of God. Not only is what Sayak presenting pseudoscience(dressing up Hindu god in fancy scientific words) it is pseudo-Hinduism too(misrepresenting the Hindu god as some abstract field)