An argument against materialism

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Sculptor
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Re: An argument against materialism

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uwot wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 12:54 pm
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 11:30 amWhen a field moves through the universe if looses information. Light turns to dead heat.
All fields disipate and change; they fade.
Well, the cosmic microwave background radiation is the wavelength it is because space, the material through which it propagates is expanding, according to the most prevalent hypothesis. The information is still there, it's just stretched out a bit. The expansion of the universe is not generally thought to affect electromagnetic and gravitational fields in the same way. The redshift of distant galaxies is believed to be a simple example of the Doppler Effect, but the information carried in them is exactly the same as it has been for the perhaps billions of years they have been travelling through space, it's just spread out a bit.
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 11:30 amBrain energy is barely detectable outside the head, and cannot be read. What is important about it is how the connections in your neural matter are organised - that is the essnence of your learning and memory.
Ok; so consciousness is not
Sculptor wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 9:57 pm...the energetic field emitted from neural matter. It is what the brain does.
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 11:30 amWhen I said "I can prove it". I mean I can remove your memories with an electric dill and vacuum cleaner. WIth care I could remove a part of your brain so that you could not recogise any person by sight - not even your mother.
Yeah, when you offered to prove it, I was fairly confident I would be inviting the 'I could blow your fucking brains out' line of argument, so I thought I'd pass.
You got nothing here.
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by uwot »

Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 1:52 pmYou got nothing here.
My point is that, short of a power drill and a vacuum cleaner, nor do you.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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uwot wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 3:38 pm
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 1:52 pmYou got nothing here.
My point is that, short of a power drill and a vacuum cleaner, nor do you.
Ah yes, but I have two vaccum cleaners and a selection of electrical goods.
Tell me how you want to change your personality, and what memories and motor skills you would like to loose and I can get to work as soon as you like.
How much conviction that your consciousness is going to persist into the universe? Care to put it to the test??? I doubt it.

Let's face it - if your consciousness field carries on forever then just how far out does it reach in the x number of years you are already lived??
According to your flim-flam mine will be way out of the solar system by now as it has been travelling for 61 years. Odd that I can't feel that in some way.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 8:36 pmTell me how you want to change your personality, and what memories and motor skills you would like to loose and I can get to work as soon as you like.
Well, if you can excavate the bit that doesn't give a fuck what you think, perhaps we could have the fight you apparently want.
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 8:36 pmHow much conviction that your consciousness is going to persist into the universe?
None, hence this exchange:
uwot wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 6:24 pm
Sculptor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 4:36 pmThere is no survival,: consciousness disappears when the brain rots in the ground.
I think that is probably correct.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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uwot wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 11:24 pm
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 8:36 pmTell me how you want to change your personality, and what memories and motor skills you would like to loose and I can get to work as soon as you like.
Well, if you can excavate the bit that doesn't give a fuck what you think, perhaps we could have the fight you apparently want.
Thank you for conceding the argument, not that you had much of an argument.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Sculptor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:37 am
uwot wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 11:24 pm
Sculptor wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 8:36 pmTell me how you want to change your personality, and what memories and motor skills you would like to loose and I can get to work as soon as you like.
Well, if you can excavate the bit that doesn't give a fuck what you think, perhaps we could have the fight you apparently want.
Thank you for conceding the argument, not that you had much of an argument.
Well, if you had read just a little further, you would have got to the bit where I pointed out that I had already conceded the part you are objecting to:
uwot wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 6:24 pm
Sculptor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 4:36 pmThere is no survival,: consciousness disappears when the brain rots in the ground.
I think that is probably correct.
If you want to challenge the argument I am defending, it is that any story that isn't demonstrably false could be true.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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uwot wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:49 am I am defending, it is that any story that isn't demonstrably false could be true.
This is the bit I found objectionable:
...then I don't see why it should be assumed to be different from other physical fields which will propagate through the universe for as long as there is a universe.

What is important about the brain, is the interconnectivity, anything outside the brain is just a fuzz, and is not eternal.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Sculptor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 11:34 amThis is the bit I found objectionable:
...then I don't see why it should be assumed to be different from other physical fields which will propagate through the universe for as long as there is a universe.
It was you who said that consciousness...
Sculptor wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 9:57 pm...is the energetic field emitted from neural matter.
At what distance from emission does the energetic field stop being part of consciousness?
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Re: An argument against materialism

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bahman wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 8:22 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 2:29 am
bahman wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 8:37 pm
Emergence properties are not even necessary since the matter follows the laws of physics. The matter acts blindly. The question is why something which is not necessary exists and is not arbitrary.
From where did you get that emergent properties and laws of physics run in different paths? If you get 2 atoms of hydrogen (a gas) and one of oxygen (another gas), and put them together, you get water (a liquid). That follows physical laws and creates emergent properties.
I am talking about mental properties rather than physical properties. Matter behaves according to the laws of physics. Mental phenomena are assumed to be emergent. They are not needed for the matter to act according to the laws of physics.
But "mental properties" as anything different than intrinsic properties of physical objects and their material processes, is not materialism qua substance monism. Don't confuse emergence with creation. I thought you wanted to advance an argument against materialism, as the OP states.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm
bahman wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 8:22 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 2:29 am
From where did you get that emergent properties and laws of physics run in different paths? If you get 2 atoms of hydrogen (a gas) and one of oxygen (another gas), and put them together, you get water (a liquid). That follows physical laws and creates emergent properties.
I am talking about mental properties rather than physical properties. Matter behaves according to the laws of physics. Mental phenomena are assumed to be emergent. They are not needed for the matter to act according to the laws of physics.
But "mental properties" as anything different than intrinsic properties of physical objects and their material processes, is not materialism qua substance monism.
What do you mean? I mean withing materialism which is a sort of monism, matter acts according to laws of physics rather than any other thing like laws of psychology. Consciousness is irrelevant. It is the byproduct of the matter process which obeys the laws of physics.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm Don't confuse emergence with creation.
Consciousness is either emergent (strong emergence)/created or it is an intrinsic property (property dualism). I am arguing against the first one.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm I thought you wanted to advance an argument against materialism, as the OP states.
Yes.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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bahman wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:19 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm
bahman wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 8:22 pm
I am talking about mental properties rather than physical properties. Matter behaves according to the laws of physics. Mental phenomena are assumed to be emergent. They are not needed for the matter to act according to the laws of physics.
But "mental properties" as anything different than intrinsic properties of physical objects and their material processes, is not materialism qua substance monism.
What do you mean? I mean withing materialism which is a sort of monism, matter acts according to laws of physics rather than any other thing like laws of psychology. Consciousness is irrelevant. It is the byproduct of the matter process which obeys the laws of physics.
What do I mean? I mean that the laws of physics do not preclude conscious processes being physical. That is what the concept of emergence entails, matter organized in such a way that some properties, only possible when this lower order is present, arise as a higher order. It is not then that "consciousness is irrelevant".
bahman wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:19 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm Don't confuse emergence with creation.
Consciousness is either emergent (strong emergence)/created or it is an intrinsic property (property dualism). I am arguing against the first one.
If you imply creation as a new thing independent of the lower order from which it emerges, then that's not emergentism. Water has different properties than the oxygen and hydrogen gases from which it emerges, but that does not mean that water has been created new and no longer has any relation with oxygen and hydrogen. Just the same, consciousness emerges as a property of matter in a new order of organization of that same matter.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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bahman wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:19 pm What do you mean? I mean withing materialism which is a sort of monism, matter acts according to laws of physics rather than any other thing like laws of psychology. Consciousness is irrelevant. It is the byproduct of the matter process which obeys the laws of physics.
And you're still ignoring that there are physicalists (or materialists) who are not realists on physical laws. In other words, who do NOT say that matter "obeys the laws of physics." The "laws of physics" are simply a way of thinking/talking about regularities that are observed in particulars.
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Terrapin Station wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 12:57 pm " The "laws of physics" are simply a way of thinking/talking about regularities that are observed in particulars.
That is what a law is. It is a human conceived generalism build inductively from observations, and designed to predict future events.

Dumb matter cannot be said to "obey". It has no volition, so how can you argue from that teleological position?
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Sculptor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:18 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 12:57 pm " The "laws of physics" are simply a way of thinking/talking about regularities that are observed in particulars.
That is what a law is. It is a human conceived generalism build inductively from observations, and designed to predict future events.

Dumb matter cannot be said to "obey". It has no volition, so how can you argue from that teleological position?
Exactly
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Conde Lucanor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:59 am
bahman wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:19 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm
But "mental properties" as anything different than intrinsic properties of physical objects and their material processes, is not materialism qua substance monism.
What do you mean? I mean withing materialism which is a sort of monism, matter acts according to laws of physics rather than any other thing like laws of psychology. Consciousness is irrelevant. It is the byproduct of the matter process which obeys the laws of physics.
What do I mean? I mean that the laws of physics do not preclude conscious processes being physical.
There is only physical process in materialism. There is no such a thing as conscious process within materialism.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:59 am That is what the concept of emergence entails, matter organized in such a way that some properties, only possible when this lower order is present, arise as a higher order.
How does matter behave in the brain? It is based on the laws of physics. There is no higher or lower order. The matter gets ordered and this order can be formulated in terms of physical properties only.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:59 am It is not then that "consciousness is irrelevant".
Consciousness is irrelevant since matter behaves based on the laws of physics.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:59 am
bahman wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:19 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:20 pm Don't confuse emergence with creation.
Consciousness is either emergent (strong emergence)/created or it is an intrinsic property (property dualism). I am arguing against the first one.
If you imply creation as a new thing independent of the lower order from which it emerges, then that's not emergentism.
No, I don't mean that. Emergence is the result of the lower-order process, the so-called physical process.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:59 am Water has different properties than the oxygen and hydrogen gases from which it emerges, but that does not mean that water has been created new and no longer has any relation with oxygen and hydrogen.
All properties of water, which are physical properties, are a function of the physical properties of hydrogen and oxygen. There is no emergence (strong emergence) there.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 1:59 am Just the same, consciousness emerges as a property of matter in a new order of organization of that same matter.
Again, all properties of the brain, which are physical properties, are a function of physical properties of the brain constitutes.
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