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
Question: what do you think belongs to epistemic idealism, that isn’t already included in transcendental idealism? — Mww
arise from states of complex systems. — Kenosha Kid
Yes minds are things. Not material things. Things. — khaled
To a materialist, again, consciousness is a pattern, — khaled
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. — Kenosha Kid
Some are property dualists. Some are mysterianists (materialists who think we'll never figure out consciousness). — RogueAI
A materialist cannot say anything about consciousness with confidence because A), there's no way to prove that matter exists in the first place — RogueAI
B) even if matter does exist, if consciousness is patterns of matter, why does pattern A give rise to the feeling of stubbing a toe, while pattern B gives rise to the beauty of a sunset, while pattern C gives rise to no experience at all? — RogueAI
How does that work? — RogueAI
Why are we conscious in the first place? — RogueAI
If pattern of matter XYZ gives rise to (or is the same as) experience ABC, and that machine over there looks like it's an instance of pattern of matter XYZ, how do we verify it's having experience ABC? — RogueAI
Agreed? — RogueAI
If you disagree, then explain how a scientist would go about detecting consciousness in a machine. — RogueAI
Do you believe that mental states are identical to brain states? — RogueAI
If so, how is it that I can have a song playing in my head, but there's no music in my skull? — RogueAI
If mental states are identical to brain states, then my mind weighs a couple pounds and is about the size of both of my fists. — RogueAI
This assumes there is a material thing called a brain that exists outside our minds — RogueAI
Got any other examples of non-material things? — Wayfarer
There’s no ‘outside’ of that. Both ‘inside the mind’ and ‘in the world’ are mental constructs, vorstellung (Schopenhauer) or Vijñāna (Buddhism). But that cuts against realism, so generally it is instinctively rejected. — Wayfarer
I was reading an interesting articlep yesterday about a phenomenon called ‘representational drift’. Experimenters put electrodes on mouse brains and measure which neural systems respond to stimuli. The thing that they’re perplexed by is that the location of the responses keep changing. They would have expected that once a reaction to a familiar experience was habituated, that it would light up the same areas of the brain. But this doesn’t happen - the reactions 'drift' all over the brain. So, what is producing or co-ordinating the unified, holistic response which we call 'memory'? This is somewhat similar in a way to the problem of the subjective unity of perception. — Wayfarer
Come on now. Matter existing is a given. Or else you're not talking to a materialist. — khaled
if consciousness is patterns of matter, why does pattern A give rise to the feeling of stubbing a toe — RogueAI
I didn't find your other answers compelling — RogueAI
I suspect that Descarte's duality was a philosophical compromise to allow Materialist Science to do its thing, without stepping on the toes of Spiritualist Theologians. So the "split" was not really between Materialism (atomic theory) and Idealism (Plato's Forms), but between pragmatic Science (bodies) and hypothetical Religion (souls). Yet that rupture also reflected different values. Most of us are Materialists in our daily lives, as we tend to the needs of our physical bodies. But some among us are Spiritualists, in that they are also concerned with the needs of their meta-physical minds or souls.I just never got the idealist materialist split. The idealists seem to be claiming the existence of something that's not needed for explaining anything. — khaled
Without a brain we'd have no mind — Manuel
Got any other examples of non-material things?
— Wayfarer
God as most people define him. Ghosts, angels, devils, etc as most people define them. Etc. — khaled
Sure, I agree we know mind exists. But it rests on matter - the brain. Without a brain we'd have no mind. — Manuel
Unless someone would say something like "we don't know that mind depends on brain" or "the brain is mental stuff too". I think we can say that the first option here is too plausible. — Manuel
On the other hand, if you say brains are a construction of mind, then yes this makes sense. What doesn't would be to say that brains aren't matter. — Manuel
I know you have not been suggesting this at all, I'm just pointing our some options that would follow from the argument. — Manuel
My point is that the Explanatory Gap is evidence that we have a situation where brain states are correlated with mental states, but are not causing mental states- if brain states are causing mental states, we'd have at least some idea of how that happens, but it's still a complete mystery. — RogueAI
Materialism goes from the unknown (mindless stuff) to the known (mind) via an unknown (and possibly unknowable) mechanism. That's not parsimonious. — RogueAI
"Mind exists" does not need to be proven. We know for a certainty that at least one mind exists. That is not the case with matter. — RogueAI
we have a situation where brain states are correlated with mental states — RogueAI
My personal "journey" away from materialism is similar to his. — RogueAI
I've asked on this thread since the start of one thing that requires a materialist/idealist viewpoint and no one has presented anything. — khaled
God as most people define him. Ghosts, angels, devils, etc as most people define them. Etc. — khaled
Nope. The mind is definitely not a thing.
— Wayfarer
"Thing" is the most general word you can use. Yes minds are things. Not material things. Things. — khaled
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