I’m not the one mixing up here. — Wayfarer

If you hold that QM is not a physical theory, then we don't have the same language.

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

No, the wavefunction is physics, not metaphysics. You're mixing up the interpretation with what it's interpreting. MWI describes a single physical reality: the universal wavefunction which doesn't need MWI itself. The branching (superposition) is just ordinary quantum mechanics.

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

But we didn't. You're treating ignorance as a strength.

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

So your response to the fact that I'm not a materialist is that I need to be because you know how to dismiss that? I'm a physicalist, in the Popper sense. It doesn't matter (haha) whether one considers spacetime or photons to be matter: they are physical.

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

That's clearly not what I had in mind.

I’d reverse that. Neuroscience always operates at a delay with respect to more abstract psychological subfields. — Joshs

Well I guess it depends what you find satisfying. This criteria suggests 'that which comes first'. What I had in mind, after you'd prompted it, is that only neuroscience is explaining *how*, i.e. what is fundamentally going on. This isn't to diss cognitive psychology or philosophy of mind -- big fan -- any more than the satisfaction of quantum electrodynamics disses chemistry.

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

Absolutely no offense taken. I was just highlighting the conversational dead end of your change in mode of conversation.

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

Ah but here you've switched from "what it is like to see red") to "what it is like for me to see red". I was rejecting the former. But I would reject a "what it is like for me to see red" too.

A good demonstration that there is no "what it is like to see <a colour>" is the infamous blue and black/white and gold dress, where the colours of a photograph depend very much on who is doing the looking. But even considering only a single person, what colour an object appears to have is very much in the moment: the unconscious brain does a lot of preprocessing before your consciousness gets its hands on data. You see white, even when it's yellow. To test this, just film a white wall in your house with a camcorder and play it back on your TV at various times of day, with and without interior lighting. How a colour looks even just to you is not fixed, but is context-dependent. You are the most important context (there is no "what it is like to see red"), but not the extent of that context (there is no "what it is like for you to see red").

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

That wasn't actually my intent, and with respect to that intent my wording was too narrow. But now that you've asked me, I think... yes? Yes, that's probably true, with no disrespect at all to philosophers of mind , clinical psychologists or phenomenological philosophers.

Interesting, thank you. You did remind me, I wasn't completely divorced from the influence of religion as a child. My school, while a state school, was very Christian, with Bible stories, daily prayers, hymns, etc. And we lived around the corner from a Mormon church. My grandfather had tried to enroll his family into it, even tried to move them to Utah (for the pusseh) before I was born. Two elders used to come to our house (I actually believed for a long time I'd killed one of them). They asked me once if I said my prayers and I said yes because we did that at school.

With hindsight I'm wondering why it was such a shock when my best friend told me he believed in God. But I think you and Pfhorrest are both a testament to the way children can absorb ritual and mythology.

I'm thinking about Evelyn Waugh's tremendous novel Brideshead Revisited. In case you haven't read it, it's anti-atheist stance is very peculiar for focussing on the comfort of religious ritual in the face of the abject stupidity of theology. Waugh (himself a liberal, intellectual Christian) wasn't denying that the content of Christianity is bunkum, but that the solace of its artefacts and gestures was negligible.

Maybe that accounts for some of the difference. For us, a tabernacle just isn't very emotive.

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

In the west, anti-atheist sentiment seems to me an American thing. I dare say it would be harder to run for government here in the UK if you were openly an atheist, but you'd not lose the job if the press found it out. Weirdly the one place where Western anti-atheist is the norm has the least Christian Christians in the world.

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

Well, I know this is a big ask but how about giving the opposing argument an airing rather than just claiming it to be true, calling others crazy, and doubting their motives and prospects.

I've given a pretty comprehensive explanation as to why there is no "what it's like to see red" and you're not presenting any specific problems with anything I've said. Park that, and make a compelling case for:

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

Mary needs to (to keep it short) process red photons into images in order to have information about how Mary processes red photons into images, which is close enough. There is no "what it is like to see red," that's idealism. The above involves only physical processes.

I wasn't clear on what you were saying, hence my question. Can you answer it? Is Mary's Room meaningful? — RogueAI

Yes, it is. It's a good example of:

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

Knowing the wavelength of a shade of red, how it will refract in a centimeter of glass, which materials absorb and emit it is a way of knowing things about that shade of red, but it is not equivalent to knowing what it causes in someone's perceptions when photons of it have struck their retina, causing a characteristic current in their optic nerve, cascading idiosyncratic neural events (like memory recall) forged by that person's learning before being transformed by their imaging centre in particular into the metadata only they can see. Blind people can't do this: that's a subset of the information about that shade of red not available to them, just as what's going on in the oldest alien's home in the nearest star system with intelligent life is not available to me.

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

Ah now that's interesting. I wonder how common this is.

Neat dodge! — Wayfarer

I left it open for disagreement. If you can't disagree, then I guess we agree?

So I take it you’re not an Everettian? — Wayfarer

I'm not, but same goes there. In MWI, the universe is described by a single wavefunction containing all of the branching through its history. This is still physics.

Another version of parallel universes is in some inflation theories, in which the inflaton field collapses locally to form new universes potentially an infinite number of times. But it's still a physical field creating physical universes in a single objective multiverse reality.

Are you claiming Mary's Room is meaningless/devoid of meaning? — RogueAI

Well let's see... Is that what I said?

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

Yes. Shameless plug: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8732/natural-and-existential-morality

These hopes collapsed in spectacular fashion with the onslaught of new geometries — Count Timothy von Icarus

... as per general relativity, a physical theory...

the Incompleteness Theorem — Count Timothy von Icarus

... which is why we can know more but not everything...

QM — Count Timothy von Icarus

... a physical theory...

the continual discovery of new elementary particles underlying the previously "elementary" ones — Count Timothy von Icarus

... the on-going improvement of physical theory...

Where is the rejection of the hypothesis that there is a single objective reality?

As to hit rates, something being useful doesn't make it true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Being able to predict how things will be is useful, but equally insightful if you want to know anything meaningful. Impotence is not a virtue here.

The problem for materialists, and I say this as one, is that you are essentially stuck making the claim that... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, but I don't claim to be a materialist, I claim to be a physicalist, which has none of the ambiguity of that archaic term.

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

As in neuroscience is an on-going project? Yes, I'm well aware (and you're probably aware of one of catchphrases in response :) ).

All numbers are large compared with zero, so I'd argue we know a lot! To do neuroscience, you have to be able to make predictions, and to develop theory you have to have some of those predictions be reliable. This makes it the only player in Explanation Town, however many gaps there remain (as long as they shrink with time).

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

I'm reminded of people typing on computers connected to the internet that science cannot possibly work...

Anyway....didn’t mean to butt in. Ok, fine. I did. Now I’ll butt out. — Mww

All butts welcome, I always appreciate your posts.

.I would ask, can we also say we don’t know what it’s like for our neurons to fire? — Mww

Ah! Perfect timing Mww, see my above response to Tom.

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

Quite right. :100: I did actually mean to add... We don't actually have a great deal of insight into ourselves. Our consciousness is of second-hand and incomplete metadata about our own state, including our beliefs about ourselves, and our senses. In some ways, others know us better than we do.

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

It's just a belief. If a neuron fires (objective) when someone has a particular experience (subjective), a physicalist would likely say that that firing was identically that 'having that experience', while a dualist would say that the neuron firing is some physical effect of a non-physical subjective mind, and an idealist... well, frankly an idealist has nothing interesting to say as neurons firing are a redundancy.

It's similar to what I said earlier:

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

Because there's an element of magic involved (mystery is apparently only terminal for physicalism), idealism, dualism, theism et al are always free to add and revise criteria ad hoc. Just as a notion of what it is to be human must be refined as we discover more about other animals (the soulful elephant, the cooperative dolphin, the chatty gorilla), the notion of consciousness can also be whittled down to what, in the end, is a plain assertion: the neuron firing is not identically the having of the experience, there is an extra bit that can only be known in the first person.

In reality, I don't know what it is like to be a bat and never will. But nor will I know what it is like to be a little girl, a gay man in '50s Utah, a gorgeous Hollywood star, autistic, dyslexic, left-handed, or a dwarf. I will never know what it is like to be you, Wayfarer, Nagel, or Trump. 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...).

Empathy relies on the fact that different humans are at least similar enough that we can mirror their first person perspective with enough accuracy to, e.g., predict a threat or help a suffering person. The more different another mind is to our own, the more likely our empathy is to fail us. Psychopaths are unnerving precisely because we cannot empathise with them or them with us, and this is still within the realm of purely physicalist considerations. It's very difficult for me to empathise with individualists, racists, misogynists, etc., and these people exhibit lack of, or counter-action to, empathy themselves. (Note that when people like NOS lament the lawlessness and socialism of BLM, the one thing that never factors into their thinking is the plight of black Americans. They're not even on their radar as considerations.)

This is what I meant when I said that idealism (likewise dualism) is an explanation in search of a problem: the first/third person gap arises from purely physicalist considerations, and not at the human/animal or human/rock boundary. Nonetheless, many (most?) people insist without compelling justification that there is an additional thing: the so-called hard problem of consciousness, such that if all of the physical barriers to knowing what it is like to be a bat were overcome, we would still not know what it is like to be a bat. This is just proof that sentences can be valid without conveying understanding or meaning imo.

The observing subject is overwhelmingly likely to be found in the objective domain: imo this has been achieved, curious details notwithstanding. This does not mean that anyone should or could know what it is like to be something else. We have purely physical explanations for this that are consistent with the same purely physicalist explanations that render our world explicable and predictable, with no need of magical concepts that explain and predict nothing, not even the thing they're conjured to explain.

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 got me thinking about Darwin this morning, a man who lost his Christian belief in the face of facts. I was not raised in any religion at all, and was about 7 years of age when I first realised that people actually believed this stuff (the fundamental difference between Jesus and Superman). So for this brand of atheism -- clean atheism, perhaps -- there are no facts that lead one to conclude that there is no God, rather, as I said before, an absence of facts to conclude that there is one.

For a religious person, or an atheist more deeply embedded in a religious culture, facts such as those presenting themselves to Darwin can and do lead to a conclusion of no God.

The problem being that physics, intent on discovering the fundamental physical constituents of reality, found itself embroiled in epistemology instead. — Wayfarer

This would be problematic if reality had presented us with anything that obviously did not sit in physics' purview. However, the success of physics relies on their being no such thing. Every physical change appears to have a physical cause: wishing the cup to be moved is insufficient; I must physically move it, which means moving, say, my arm as an intermediary. And between my wish and this intermediary, we discover other physical intermediaries such that most of the process is understood and is physical. Nothing jumps out as needing a second kind of stuff to explain, including the wish itself which is an example of processes increasingly understood by neuroscience and that are physical. The only _opportunity_ for non-physical stuff lies in the sliver of remaining mystery, as is the case for all magical human theories.

Scientists of my generation and younger are well aware of the roles of language, consensus, modelling, epistemology, ontology and phenomenology in what they do. It isn't remotely tricky; it's actually really interesting, but it only really says anything about scientific progress, not reality.

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

I think I've already treated much the same point earlier. Quantum mechanics is not a suitable basis for idealism.

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

Demands for certainty usually are this asymmetrical. On the one hand, all we need for idealism to be certain is a sliver of mystery in the physical sciences. For physicalism to be even considered, we need a formal proof that there's e.g. nothing non-physical that we don't know about yet. Obviously no such proof will ever be forthcoming, nor is it necessary if one is not so asymmetrically afflicted.

For hundreds of years, the simplest, best, and maximally sufficient explanation for our experiences, their continuities, and our consensus about them has been the existence of a single objective reality that obeys physical laws. Nothing has changed. Yes, there will always be little gaps to fit gods and dualism and idealism in, but these necessarily explain less and less as physicalism explains more and more. Quite likely, the less idealism could explain and the more physicalism does explain, the more enthusiastically idealists (or dualists or theists) must insist that science doesn't work but the unavoidable fact is that it does: we are drowning in an ocean of applications of physicalist assumptions to control our world, each one asking the question: If physicalism is false, why must I act as if it is true?

Equivalent hit rate for idealism? At last count, zero. All you can really do with it is believe it or not believe it. It's an inert notion on a shrinking stage without an audience. Physicalism is a conclusion; idealism an assumption. They're not in the same league.

Well I was wrong as it turned out. Never take gambling advice from me.

'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

No dispute from me here. Say no to dualism, kids. But the rest seems to arise from the same prejudice: toward tying reality innately to the mind rather than trying the mind innately to (physical) reality. One of these follows logically from the fact that there are rocks and trees and insects and rodents and apes and humans; the other does not.

Because 3017 will probably never give his opening argument, and 180 won't provide a counter-argument until he does so.

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

That's not a particular feature of materialism. Any firm, undoubted, unexamined position, whether right or wrong, would qualify, including religious ones, but also political ideology, conspiracy theories and, yes, philosophical positions.

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

Not logically. One could say something like, 'There is no perfect, omnipotent God who would not allow a Holocaust."

Ummm I've read the book? And seen a very good stage adaptation. Anyhoo, a quote, as Freud famously said, is sometimes just a quote. :|

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

I predict no derailment. It would be a miracle (ha!) if the train ever leaves the station.

Quite so, it is a conclusion based on evidence, and having been concluded, by most folks is set aside. — tim wood

I disagree. Weak atheism requires no consideration at all, and strong atheism is a rejection of the proposition 'God exists' for want of evidence. You cannot have evidence that God does not exist.

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

Sure, there's a long tradition in literature of equating ugliness, old age, and deformity with evil as well. monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo

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

I used to live with a Catholic and we had a conversation about theology, my argument being that the Bible is apparently insufficient. She disagreed so I asked her about the chasm between Revelations and what the church preaches about the afterlife, heaven, hell, etc. She argued that there was no chasm: it may well _seem_ that they contradict, but... Thereafter theology, i.e. stuff not in the Bible necessary to reconcile the Bible with actual beliefs. I more or less gave up trying to make sense if it.

This is what makes you an atheist: not taking pleasure in God's justice. — baker

Well, that and not believing it's real of course.

Shit, he finally agreed to the debate he's always demanded? This is my new box set.

If you looked like Alain Delon, your life would have been a lot easier and fun. — Wittgenstein

I'm not sure Alain Delon really did fun. Melville went to his apartment to talk him into doing Le Samourai. Delon barely spoke, lived in a spartan home, and just seemed cold and obsessive, as he does in his interviews. Weird guy. French though, so...

You just reminded me about a Christian preacher a few weeks ago who was lambasting Moslems for praying openly and outside, when God wants your faith to be private. I had to ask him: And what are _you_ doing? He said that was different.

He went on to ask me if I took comfort from the fact that Hitler was burning in Hell for all eternity. He almost fell off his box when I said no. I'm not sure which interpretation of 'no' stunned him, but I think it was the idea that I might derive no pleasure from someone being tortured for eternity for their crimes.

Anyway, tl;dr version: even those who say religion is a private matter get in your face about it.

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

When there were multiple other vaccines in the rollout. That's not what we're talking about here: Janus' idea is that we should stop that rollout altogether and go a whole new route with under-tested medicine.

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

Irrespective, it's proposed application to Covid is new. Stopping an already successful vaccine rollout to try a whole new approach that maybe would work would be nuts.

Nevertheless it may well be us that is wrong on this. :razz: — Tom Storm

True, but if we discovered that, there'd have to be some compelling evidence... a paradox?

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

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.

Further, this is an explanation in need of a problem, not vice versa. People aren't scratching their heads about the sophistication of human language in the apparent absence of some fundamentally non-physical thing. It's an explanation that's only remotely compelling if you're really looking for a home for said fundamentally non-physical thing.

Accounting for the physical differences between humans and chimps largely accounts for the difference between how chimps communicate and how humans communicate, give or take some on-going research in the never-ending project that is science. The premature conclusion of non-physical stuff is not logical.

We have weighed and measured the cosmos, created technology that has changed the world. — Wayfarer

We? Exceptional people have done this. "We" throw plastic bottles in the ocean and watch the Kardashians ;)

As a physics lecturer, you must be aware of these and many other similar ideas expressed by modern physicists. — Wayfarer

Of course! (Although I was never a lecturer, just a researcher.) Referring back to myself:

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

Physics, science generally, has a long history of exceptionalism when it comes to the human mind. Creation myths are kind of prototypical scientific models.

The recent stuff on observer-dependence in QM is fascinating, I'm very excited about it, but it is just observer-dependence: no one* is saying that the cat, alive or dead, is created by minds, rather that the physical (!!!) states of brains can, in exotic circumstances, become entangled with quantum states, such that you might see dead cat and know that, for me, there's life in the thing yet.

How that entanglement occurs is very much because of the physicality of observers, cats, and whatnot.

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

Could it be due to the fact that, for safety reasons, no health organisation fast-tracks new medicines in under two months on the say-so of some initial findings from a middling journal paper? Or that, knowing how mammoth a global vaccine rollout is, that changing course at this stage would be impractical when the current course appears to be working okay?

Are idealists necessarily more susceptible to a bunch of unverifiable tosh? — Tom Storm

Idealism _is_ unverifiable tosh.

How does one discern 'good' idealism from 'bad' and how does this play out in a quotidian life? — Tom Storm

I'm unaware of a good idealism. Could you provide an example?

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

I'm talking about people who find the idea offensive. Are you telling me they don't find the idea offensive? (Also, finding an idea offensive inevitably leads one to reject it as false, so the above isn't really saying anything.) There's nothing about reason, language and imagination that leads an unbiased person to infer a second fundamental kind of stuff, some of-the-gaps arguments notwithstanding.

What difference does/can it make to a person's life to hold an idealist position? — Tom Storm

I just got through talking about it:

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

The cold war was also lost, not just won.

A better example might be: remember Pfizer?



One problem is, models of complex systems aren't often very good at long-term prediction, because they have to be approximated to be tractable. It would be nice to be surer how long we've got to solve the problems listed in the OP; the danger is finding out too late to implement those solutions.

The other problem is that, even given a solution and the time to implement it, it's difficult to get people to actually do it. Powerful people are very invested in HOW THINGS ARE NOW and aren't apt to adapt.

For me, the nervousness arises from this unknowable balance between the problem solvers and the exploiters, and the progressives and conservatives who respectively enable them, more than the problems by themselves. Another Republican President and everyone might be fucked.