I’m not the one mixing up here. — Wayfarer
It is not physics. It is metaphysics. But because it is associated with physics, then it attracts a kind of scientific imprameteur, which is fallacious, in my opinion. — Wayfarer
The point I was making was that the materialist position was stronger a a century so ago when we felt we had a good grip on what matter was — Count Timothy von Icarus
The problem is in claiming all reality is something, and then being unable to define what that something is. Without a definition for the material you risk falling into a tautology, "everything that exists is matter. What is matter? It's everything that exists." — Count Timothy von Icarus
As to impotence, if results are what matter, the idealists have plenty of those. As the grand father of communism and nationalism, the arch idealist Hegel certainly can't be accused of not getting results; the last two centuries have revolved around the ideas he helped birth. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I’d reverse that. Neuroscience always operates at a delay with respect to more abstract psychological subfields. — Joshs
I'm not calling you crazy, I'm saying your claim is crazy. I didn't mean any offense. Idealism is completely out there, so I know about making crazy-seeming claims. — RogueAI
Look at a red thing, stub a toe, lose a loved one (though hopefully not). I'm looking at a red object in my room. I'm having the experience of seeing red. There is something that is it like for me to see this red object: me seeing this red object. — RogueAI
Are you then making the argument that the most satisfying explanations of aspects of behavior such as cognition, motivation, affectivity, empathy and perception is being offered by neuroscientists rather than , for instance, philosophers of mind , clinical psychologists or phenomenological philosophers? — Joshs
I can't ever remember having any sort of disadvantage for being an atheist (I'm Austrian, for what it's worth. Roughly 70 % Roman Catholics when I was a child, I think.) — Dawnstorm
I think it is trivially true that there IS "what is it like to see red/be in pain/lose a loved one" and denying the reality of that is crazy, but we're at the axiomatic level here, and your claim is similar to the move some materialists make when they try to deny consciousness (or claim it's an illusion). I think it's just totally obvious that such moves are not persuasive and are doomed to failure. — RogueAI
there IS "what is it like to see red/be in pain/lose a loved one" — RogueAI
You agree then that experience is necessary to answer "what is it like?" questions? For example, you would agree that Mary needs to experience seeing red in order to know what it is like to see red? — RogueAI
I wasn't clear on what you were saying, hence my question. Can you answer it? Is Mary's Room meaningful? — RogueAI
There is a necessary gap between the first person and the third person that arises from purely physical considerations: I am a physically distinct entity, with my own unique initial state; I am an autowiring brain which will learn from the same information (in principle) in my own idiosyncratic way (I never learned to wink with my right eye, for instance); and most importantly, I am not subject to the same causes of perception as anyone else (even in a common experience, like going to the cinema, I have a slightly different perspective, have come with a different companion, am surrounded by differently disruptive assholes...). — Kenosha Kid
Strangely, I WAS raised in a religious family and it STILL took me by surprise some time during my growing-up when I realized that adults didn’t think of Jesus and Santa Claus the same way: stories you tell children as if they were true as a kind of game or moral lesson but not something grown-ups literally believe in.
My family gave me all kinds of religious fiction (as in, stories even the believers knew was fiction) that featured angels in modern times and prayer saving people via miracles, or events in ancient times featuring fantastic monsters defeated by righteous soldiers of God, that so far as I could tell was indistinguishable from urban or high fantasy respectively. So that probably (unintentionally on their part) helped me to categorize religious mythology in the same category as any avowedly fictional mythopoesis. — Pfhorrest
Neat dodge! — Wayfarer
So I take it you’re not an Everettian? — Wayfarer
Are you claiming Mary's Room is meaningless/devoid of meaning? — RogueAI
I have a question for the good folks on both sides of this discussion - does any of this makes a difference in how I should lead my life? — EricH
These hopes collapsed in spectacular fashion with the onslaught of new geometries — Count Timothy von Icarus
the Incompleteness Theorem — Count Timothy von Icarus
the continual discovery of new elementary particles underlying the previously "elementary" ones — Count Timothy von Icarus
As to hit rates, something being useful doesn't make it true. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The problem for materialists, and I say this as one, is that you are essentially stuck making the claim that... — Count Timothy von Icarus
Again, the dualist will admonish against claims regarding insight into ourselves, for which there is a plethora of justifiable speculation, in juxtaposition to claims about the mechanistic origin of ourselves, for which there is barely any insight at all. In short, we have been given what’s necessary for insight into ourselves (brains/matter), but not yet what is sufficient (causality) — Mww
Now, the pure undifferentiated idealist does have something interesting to say, if he is so bold as to invoke the cum hoc ergo proper hoc argument, in that it is because we don’t think in terms of natural law, that unknowable mitigating factors are proved, which demand explanation, over and above mere brains. And of course, under those conditions, an explanation will be impossible. — Mww
Anyway....didn’t mean to butt in. Ok, fine. I did. Now I’ll butt out. — Mww
.I would ask, can we also say we don’t know what it’s like for our neurons to fire? — Mww
The 'what is it like to be' schtick leaves me a little cold. I'm not sure what it is like to be me, let alone Nagel's winged mammal. — Tom Storm
What do you understand by this:
But the observing subject is not anywhere to be found in the objective domain, so in no sense can be derived from or imputed to the properties or attributes of objects.
— Wayfarer — Tom Storm
The problem with this is that the same people reject any evidence that there are some animals that would do something remotely similar, of which there are many. What would constitute "remotely similar" is always subject to revision by those that believe there can be no such thing. — Kenosha Kid
Of course some people propose to have such evidence, it's their reason for being atheists. E.g. "If God existed, I wouldn't lose my job/my partner wouldn't get cancer/the Nazis wouldn't kill Jews." — baker
The problem being that physics, intent on discovering the fundamental physical constituents of reality, found itself embroiled in epistemology instead. — Wayfarer
Einstein asked, I presume exasperatedly, 'Doesn't the moon continue to exist when nobody is observing it?' Presumably, he asked this question rhetorically, with the implicit answer being that 'of course it does!' Nevertheless he was obliged to ask the question. Variations on this very question were at the centre of the famous Bohr Einstein debates which occupied the subsequent two decades. And I believe the overall consensus is that Bohr's view, the 'Copenhagen interpretation', has prevalied. — Wayfarer
If, at that time, an unequivocable, 'mind-independent' stratum of reality had been disclosed by physics, then the sentiment might be truthful. But it was not. This was even noted by Bertrand Russell in the concluding chapter of HWP in 1946, so it's not news. — Wayfarer
'A physicist', said Neils Bohr, 'is an atom's way of looking at itself'.
Ultimately, we are not apart from, or outside of, reality. That is why the purported division of subjective and objective has no absolute foundation. That principle is made explicit in Kant and Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and I don’t accept has been superseded by anything that science has discovered since their day. — Wayfarer
I feel like a similar level of critique works against the materialist though. They want to think they are special. They want to be in the know. They are not like a toddler stumbling around a dinner party with only faint concepts of what is going on. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Of course some people propose to have such evidence, it's their reason for being atheists. E.g. "If God existed, I wouldn't lose my job/my partner wouldn't get cancer/the Nazis wouldn't kill Jews." — baker
This is why a moderator is necessary. To keep those two things from derailing the discussion like every other time. Without one we are into the same old shit as before. — DingoJones
Quite so, it is a conclusion based on evidence, and having been concluded, by most folks is set aside. — tim wood
All the Prophets God sent were beautiful and handsome. Even if you don't believe in a God , you can sense the importance cultures give to good looks. — Wittgenstein
Surely he wasn't Catholic (because a Catholic isn't supposed to have certainty about who in particular will go to hell or not; although a Catholic still looks forward to God's justice being done, and as such, rejoices at the thought of people burning in hell for all eternity). — baker
This is what makes you an atheist: not taking pleasure in God's justice. — baker
If you looked like Alain Delon, your life would have been a lot easier and fun. — Wittgenstein
But this is not true. The Astra Zenica vaccine had extremely minor risks of blood clots and it was pulled instantly in most nations in order to evaluate further if it's safe or not. — Christoffer
Firstly, Ivermectin is not a new medicine; according to the information I have it has been around for forty years, and is considered one of the safest medications. — Janus
Nevertheless it may well be us that is wrong on this. :razz: — Tom Storm
The point about reason, language and imagination is that it can 'see into the possible' - it can discover ideas and make them real. No animal can do anything remotely similar. — Wayfarer
We have weighed and measured the cosmos, created technology that has changed the world. — Wayfarer
As a physics lecturer, you must be aware of these and many other similar ideas expressed by modern physicists. — Wayfarer
Bear in mind we're coming from a world that was taught that God made us bespoke, with His divine breath, and made the universe just for us: being ever so special is important to many. — Kenosha Kid
Could it have to do with the fact that if it was approved, the vaccine rollout would likely be halted and the pharmaceutical companies fail to make the unprecendented profit they stand to make from the vaccines? — Janus
Are idealists necessarily more susceptible to a bunch of unverifiable tosh? — Tom Storm
How does one discern 'good' idealism from 'bad' and how does this play out in a quotidian life? — Tom Storm
It's not a matter of it being offensive - it's a matter of it being false, on account of the fact that the rational, linguistic and imaginative capacities of h. sapiens places us in a different category. — Wayfarer
What difference does/can it make to a person's life to hold an idealist position? — Tom Storm
Point is that by the materialist definition you get everything an idealist would want.
— khaled
Well, you don't, that's why they're not materialists. Principally, you don't get magical humans. Lots of people don't like being described as a the same sort of thing as rocks, rivers, or even trees, apes, and computers. They find that quite offensive. Bear in mind we're coming from a world that was taught that God made us bespoke, with His divine breath, and made the universe just for us: being ever so special is important to many. — Kenosha Kid
Remember the Cold War? — Mystic