You are all missing the point (well most of you anyway). Destroying the thesis of materialism is easy. Berkeley just applies a sophisticated form of Cartesian doubt and 'poof' materialism crumbles away. Hume does the same thing afterwards aimed at all forms of knowledge.

The theory that Berkeley replaces materialism with does seem to be 'better' than Descartes at least in instrumental terms. It also competes with Locke's theory and if you accept God then it is also 'better' instrumentally.

The weakness I am trying to expose is Berkeley's reliance on the same 'insufficient empiricism' he accuses Locke of using, Berkeley admits this but says that his 'notions' of minds and God are immediate to us in a way that matter is not.

Is he right? — Jamesk

No, it is you that is missing the point. The materialist just says that the mind is matter and there you go, now mind is just a process of matter and we have immediate access to matter. To say that what exists out there is different than what exists in here is the mistake dualism makes. Causation occurs across the boundary of mind and matter, in other words they are both the same substance. The problem comes when you want to call that substance, "mind" because that would be like a tree calling the primary substance, "wood" because that is what the tree would have immediate access too.

Also, if God were immediate, then why are their atheists? Atheists don't deny the existence of their minds, but do deny the existence of God.

But then matter is so mind-like that materialism loses it charge. — sign

What is its "charge"? I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

The materialist just says that the mind is matter and there you go, now mind is just a process of matter and we have immediate access to matter. — Harry Hindu

Which is a claim with no immediate proof. Many scientists, especially in neurosciences are having a hard time with materialism and cannot rule out some form of dualism. We understand less about our own minds than we do about matter, note I said minds not brains.

Philosophy of mind is one of the most active departments where ll the modern 'rock stars' of philosophy are making names.

The materialist just says that the mind is matter and there you go, now mind is just a process of matter and we have immediate access to matter. — Harry Hindu

I'm not for or against mind as a process of matter versus matter as a process of mind, but something occurs to me. If matter includes the process of mind, then the 'immediate access' we seemed to gain is lost. I only have immediate access to matter if I have immediate access to its mindlikeness. I would surely, I might think as this materialist, have immediate access to myself as a process of matter. And yet I keep questioning and overhearing myself, as matter exploring matter.

It seems to me that trying to collapse either concept into the other just sweeps the complexity of the situation (which inspired the imperfect but serviceable distinction in the fist place ) under the rug. And for the materialist, this very conversation about matter is a mode or process of matter. Which is fine, but matter is more or less the same protagonist as mind at that point. Matter does philosophy. And the idealist crashes into 'mind' that also known as a telephone poll, glad that it wasn't a human with a mind in the limited sense of mind distinguishing it as something not 'in' telephone poles.

What is its "charge"? I'm not sure what you're referring to there. — Terrapin Station

If we say that everything is matter and yet that matter includes mind as a process, we aren't saying much in some sense. The drama or edge of the initial statement is quickly replaced by a sense of renaming the same old experiences. If we say everything is mind, it's the same situation. In both cases the concepts are stretched beyond recognition in a false overcoming of the distinction. I'm not saying I embrace dualism as some final position, but I do suggest that we all tend to be part time dualists in action and attitude. To propose collapsing the issue ('all is mind 'or 'all is matter') is the rely on both concepts in their difference implicitly. I propose such a thing to others about some kind of stuff that is not only those others but also the very proposition itself and the ground we walk on.

Which is a claim with no immediate proof. Many scientists, especially in neurosciences are having a hard time with materialism and cannot rule out some form of dualism. We understand less about our own minds than we do about matter, note I said minds not brains.

Philosophy of mind is one of the most active departments where ll the modern 'rock stars' of philosophy are making names. — Jamesk

You don't need proof to label something. Labeling things is arbitrary. It doesn't matter if we call the mind "matter" or "mental", or "humpfalump". That's the point.

What is important is the nature of "mind" and "matter". What is the difference in the nature of "mind" and "matter"?

If we say that everything is matter and yet that matter includes mind as a process, we aren't saying much in some sense. The drama or edge of the initial statement is quickly replaced by a sense of renaming the same old experiences. — sign

I don't think anyone is a materialist/physicalist to be dramatic or edgy. What we're saying is simply that mental stuff isn't something different than material/physical stuff, contra claims otherwise (for example, from Wayfarer).

I'm not for or against mind as a process of matter versus matter as a process of mind, but something occurs to me. If matter includes the process of mind, then the 'immediate access' we seemed to gain is lost. I only have immediate access to matter if I have immediate access to its mindlikeness. I would surely, I might think as this materialist, have immediate access to myself as a process of matter. And yet I keep questioning and overhearing myself, as matter exploring matter.

It seems to me that trying to collapse either concept into the other just sweeps the complexity of the situation (which inspired the imperfect but serviceable distinction in the fist place ) under the rug. And for the materialist, this is very conversation about matter is a process of matter. Which is fine, but matter is more or less the same protagonist as mind at that point. Matter does philosophy. And the idealist crashes into 'mind' that also known as a telephone poll. — sign

It makes no sense to call the substance outside of you one thing and the substance inside of you another. They are both the same substance because they interact.

Now, what do we call the substance? Does it make a difference?

I don't think anyone is a materialist/physicalist to be dramatic or edgy. What we're saying is simply that mental stuff isn't something different than material/physical stuff, contra claims otherwise (for example, from Wayfarer). — Terrapin Station

I don't mean edgy as in disruptive. I mean that the weight of the idea is reduced as matter swallows what used to be called mind. At most the distinction can be theoretically abolished. We live 'toward' two basic kinds of entities, persons and non-persons, in very different ways. I talk to persons. I care about what they think. I don't talk to beer cans (usually). We live a certain dualism in a way that makes any reduction highly theoretical and secondary, one might say. (Really we have something like a continuum, because we don't experience or act toward dogs, for instance, as we experience clouds or stones. We can already pity an ant and wish it on its way. )

What we're saying is simply that mental stuff isn't something different than material/physical stuff, contra claims otherwise — Terrapin Station

That's what I've been asking all along. If there is no difference (You've finally come around to seeing that they're the same thing), then it doesn't matter what we call it.

Idealists could keep on referring to it as "mental" and materialists refer to it as "matter" and they would both be talking about the same thing and therefore there are no disagreements.

So, (I asked this question earlier in the thread) why the debate for the past 1000 years?

It makes no sense to call the substance outside of you one thing and the substance inside of you another. They are both the same substance because they interact.

Now, what do we call the substance? Does it make a difference? — Harry Hindu

I'd say the distinction is imperfect but useful. I agree that their interaction shows the limitations of the distinction. At some point these issues lead back toward meaning and language. While I understand your point, that interaction implies identity of type leads to abolishing just about all distinctions. The world is full of different kinds of things that interact. We perhaps categorize them according the specifics of these interactions. I don't interact with a human as I do with a can-opener. Both are just things (share in being and maybe a causal nexus) from a point of view of maximum abstraction, but this doesn't say much. It just grasps them as separate and otherwise indeterminate unities.

don't mean edgy as in disruptive. I mean that the weight of the idea is reduced as matter swallows what used to be called mind. At most the distinction can be theoretically abolished. We live 'toward' two basic kinds of entities, persons and non-persons, in very different ways. I talk to persons. I care about what they think. I don't talk to beer cans (usually). We live a certain dualism in a way that makes any reduction highly theoretical and secondary, one might say. (Really we have something like a continuum, because we don't experience dogs as we experience clouds or stones.) — sign

The point isn't for it to have "weight," though, either. It's just to accurately describe the world in a way that's coherent/that makes sense. The ideal would be for that to be completely mundane because no one is saying anything wrong/stupid/incoherent/insane/etc.

I'd say the distinction is imperfect but useful. I agree that their interaction shows the limitations of the distinction. At some point these issues lead back toward meaning and language. While I understand your point, that interaction implies identity of type leads to abolishing just about all distinctions. The world is full of different kinds of things that interact. We perhaps categorize them according the specifics of these interactions. I don't interact with a human as I do with a can-opener. Both are things from a point of view of maximum abstraction, but this doesn't say much. It just grasps them as separate and otherwise indeterminate unities. — sign

Different things are just different arrangements of the primary substance (whatever we decide to call it). If you define "substance" as something that allows things to interact, then everything is made of the same "substance" and making a distinction between "substances" would be incoherent.

That's what I've been asking all along. If there is no difference (You've finally come around to seeing that they're the same thing), then it doesn't matter what we call it. — Harry Hindu

It doesn't matter what we call it, but it matters what think it is/think what its nature is, etc.because we don't want to say things that are wrong, incoherent, etc.

Consciousness does not appear to be material. No one can be sure what the mind is about. We will find out with AI if we can create a consciousness in which case a lot of philosophy will be debunked.

If there is no difference ..., then it doesn't matter what we call it. — Harry Hindu

I agree with the spirit of this. Substance is subject, or subject is substance. But either way this subject or substance tends to divide itself into...subject-likeness and substance-likeness, things who might love it (us as matter or mind) and things that are just there, in the way or useful.

Consciousness does not appear to be material. — Jamesk

See, Harry, you get people saying things like this.

Consciousness does not appear to be material. No one can be sure what the mind is about. We will find out with AI if we can create a consciousness in which case a lot of philosophy will be debunked. — Jamesk

For the umpteenth time, What does it mean to be "material" as opposed to "mental"?

See, Harry, you get people saying things like this. — Terrapin Station

I'm not getting him to say that. He's performing all these mental gymnastics to avoid the questions I'm asking.

subject-likeness and substance-likeness — sign

I don't understand what this means if you're not simply talking about different arrangements of the primary substance.

Different things are just different arrangements of the primary substance (whatever we decide to call it). — Harry Hindu

I'm open to this. I think it's fair, however, to question whether it makes sense to talk about a primary substance. Maybe it does. The mind (or matter in a mind-like mode) seems to aim at unifying experience this way. Let's grant your point. Then all the apparently plurality (all the different kinds of things) would seem merely to be renamed as 'arrangements' or 'modes' of a primary substance. So there is 'really' just one kind of thing. But it's the nature of this primary thing to express itself not only in different modes that ask for useful and illuminating categorization but also this categorization itself.

The primary substance has to be the kind of thing that can mistake itself as a plurality. Moreover the primary substance has to be able to exist in the form of the question too. The primary substance unveils itself as primary substance, within time, by having a conversation with itself. So it also has a memory. It is (or one of its arrangements is) a speaking, thinking mode of primary substance (tempting us to call it a subject all over again.) It is also the world in which these subjects converse. Even if 'mind' and 'matter' are 'false' categorizations in some sense, they are inescapable at least as the ladder with which primary substance learns to grasp itself as one and homogeneous. [All this is just following out the implications of there being a primary substance and us becoming aware of it and how it happened.]

I'm not getting him to say that. He's avoiding the questions I'm asking. — Harry Hindu

lol--"you get" not in the sense of "you personally are producing this." The sense is akin to "one experiences."

I'm open to this. I think it's fair, however, to question whether it makes sense to talk about a primary substance. Maybe it does. The mind (or matter in a mind-like mode) seems to aim at unifying experience this way. Let's grant your point. Then all the apparently plurality (all the different kinds of things) would seem merely to be renamed as 'arrangements' or 'modes' of a primary substance. So there is 'really' just one kind of thing. But it's the nature of this primary thing to express itself not only in different modes that ask for useful and illuminating categorization but also this categorization itself.

The primary substance has to be the kind of thing that can mistake itself as a plurality. Moreover the primary substance has to be able to exist in the form of the question too. The primary substance unveils itself as primary substance, within time, by having a conversation with itself. — sign

<Turns down the poetry knob>

I don't understand what this means if you're not simply talking about different arrangements of the primary substance. — Harry Hindu

Yes, assuming a primary substance, I just mean its tendency to be like persons or non-persons (that which inspires the loose, everyday distinction in its pre-philosophical ambiguity which is perhaps never perfectly sharpenable.

<Turns down the poetry knob> — Terrapin Station

Well this is what reducing 'mind' to 'matter' leads to. Matter gets all the embarrassing and poetic qualities of mind that materialists perhaps wanted to escape in the first place. Their own questioning and answering becomes 'matter,' and 'matter' becomes a poet and philosopher. (Or poetry and philosophy are deemed somehow unreal, paradoxically.) Is our situation strange enough to inspire poetry? I think it can be. In some ways the 'all is X' project is maybe a flight from this strangeness to the comfort of a name. On the other hand, it is also found in ecstatic speech. Maybe it's 'be astonished at nothing' versus 'philosophy begins in wonder.' We might think of opposed appetites for closings and openings of the situation.

For the umpteenth time, What does it mean to be "material" as opposed to "mental"? — Harry Hindu

Material is made up of atoms that we can empirically measure. Mental states produce thoughts and ideas which cannot be empirically measured. We do not know how the brain works, all we know is which parts of the brain are working when we are thinking.

Materialists are gambling that one day they will have advanced enough equipment to actually 'see' our thoughts. Idealists are gambling that science will never be able to so.

Poetry is fine in literature class.

Material is made up of atoms that we can empirically measure. Mental states produce thoughts and ideas which cannot be empirically measured. — Jamesk

"We know how to measure this, and it's relatively easy to do so" isn't actually a criterion for something being physicall. You don't think that neutrinos aren't physical, do you?

Consciousness does not appear to be material.
— Jamesk

See, Harry, you get people saying things like this — Terrapin Station

You obviously believe that mental states are brain states which are biological states which are physical states and so mental states are physical states. This has yet to be proven.

This has yet to be proven. — Jamesk

You know that empirical claims are not provable, right? (Assuming that you're using "proof" in a more strict sense of that term.)