An argument against materialism

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bahman
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by bahman »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:48 pm
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:35 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 9:40 am
When we plug data into our variables here, "F" is "minds" or "creatures with minds" and "x" is "laws of physics."
Yes.
So 3.5 billion years ago, there were no creatures with minds, right?
True. At least within materialism.
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bahman
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by bahman »

Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:12 am
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:16 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 1:39 pm

Laws desribe these things and are objective.
Laws are objective only in the mind.
No.
There is no mind.
Of topic. The question is how could you (thought) move the electrons of your brain.
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Sculptor
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by Sculptor »

bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:54 am
Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:12 am
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:16 pm
Laws are objective only in the mind.
No.
There is no mind.
Of topic. The question is how could you (thought) move the electrons of your brain.
Consciousness is not a claim that "YOU" could move an electron.
You are the electrons and neutrons and the protons, and the molecules they comprise, and the energetic state they prepresent, and the neurochemicals ad infinitem.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by Terrapin Station »

bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:50 am
Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:48 pm
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:35 pm
Yes.
So 3.5 billion years ago, there were no creatures with minds, right?
True. At least within materialism.
Do you believe there were creatures with minds 3.5 billion years ago?
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RCSaunders
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by RCSaunders »

Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 11:40 am
bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:54 am
Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:12 am

No.
There is no mind.
Of topic. The question is how could you (thought) move the electrons of your brain.
Consciousness is not a claim that "YOU" could move an electron.
You are the electrons and neutrons and the protons, and the molecules they comprise, and the energetic state they prepresent, and the neurochemicals ad infinitem.
Very good, sculptor. All these questions about, "moving electrons," assume conscious choice is some kind of physical process, not an attribute of an entire living organism.
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RCSaunders
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Terrapin Station wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:02 pm Do you believe there were creatures with minds 3.5 billion years ago?
Do you believe there couldn't have been?

Unless you swallow the latest cosmologist's conjectures, why not?

Not that it would make a particle of difference one way or the other.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by Terrapin Station »

RCSaunders wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 2:24 pm Do you believe there couldn't have been?
Either way is possible. Very few propositions are impossible; almost all are possible.

Hence why possibility isn't sufficient for belief, and why belief doesn't suggest (belief in the) impossibility of the contradictory proposition. And hence why belief typically has nothing to do with certainty. Certainty isn't something worth bothering with.
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Sculptor
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by Sculptor »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 2:52 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 2:24 pm Do you believe there couldn't have been?
Either way is possible. Very few propositions are impossible; almost all are possible.
This is like saying that most pieces of string are longer than this one which I am imagining.
I can spend all day inventing impossible propositions.
My computer can run a four minute mile.
The possibilities are endless.

Hence why possibility isn't sufficient for belief, and why belief doesn't suggest (belief in the) impossibility of the contradictory proposition. And hence why belief typically has nothing to do with certainty. Certainty isn't something worth bothering with.
Certainty is worth considering, especially certainty of impossibility. It stops silly people making silly claims.

I'm not sure why the notion of conscious life existing before 3.5 billion years ago came up, but I think we can be sure that, with the reference to earth, and the framework from which the date derives, there was no life before that time.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: An argument against materialism

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Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 3:26 pm I'm not sure why the notion of conscious life existing before 3.5 billion years ago came up,
In the context of bahman saying that:
(1) physical laws are mental phenomena only
(2) matter obeys physical laws
(3) if matter didn't obey physical laws, its "behavior" would be arbitrary

So I was asking him about, for example, the sun and Earth three and half billion years ago, to which his response was that the sun and the Earth "behaved" according to physical laws. I was trying to get him to see the problem with this in the context of his claims above.
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: An argument against materialism

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bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:15 pm Can you control your synapse?
Since when "control" (or lack of it) of the behavior of the electrons in my biological organism has anything to do with the relevance of consciousness to materialism. The cells from the central nervous system do their work and conscious experience is produced. What are we supposedly missing?
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:15 pm Does matter behave according to the laws of nature when you affect it?
I don't know of nature not behaving naturally.
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:15 pm I am saying that the properties of the substance water are a function of the properties of the electrons and the nucleus. You could even simulate the molecule of water these days.
But saying that the properties of water are a function of the properties of its constitutive elements does not equate saying that the properties of water are the simple mereological sum of the properties of its constitutive elements. Clearly, hydrogen substance has some properties and oxygen as well, but water has other different properties not found in those substances, considered alone. I challenge you to never drink water again, just assimilate hydrogen and oxygen separately (actually this is a complementary therapy), and then tell me (when you're still alive) how it goes. Or drink hydrogen peroxide, instead, and we''ll see if the properties of hydrogen and gas have the same effect on you as water.
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bahman
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by bahman »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:52 pm
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:15 pm Can you control your synapse?
Since when "control" (or lack of it) of the behavior of the electrons in my biological organism has anything to do with the relevance of consciousness to materialism. The cells from the central nervous system do their work and conscious experience is produced. What are we supposedly missing?
What you are missing is the question that I asked. Can you control any part of the tissue of your brain by your thought? Yes, or no?
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:52 pm
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:15 pm Does matter behave according to the laws of nature when you affect it?
I don't know of nature not behaving naturally.
Then you don't understand the question that I asked. If matter behaves correctly according to the laws of nature then how the mind can intervene. No need to say that to cause you to need to create energy. How else could you affect the matter? How thought can create energy?
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:52 pm
bahman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:15 pm I am saying that the properties of the substance water are a function of the properties of the electrons and the nucleus. You could even simulate the molecule of water these days.
But saying that the properties of water are a function of the properties of its constitutive elements does not equate saying that the properties of water are the simple mereological sum of the properties of its constitutive elements. Clearly, hydrogen substance has some properties and oxygen as well, but water has other different properties not found in those substances, considered alone. I challenge you to never drink water again, just assimilate hydrogen and oxygen separately (actually this is a complementary therapy), and then tell me (when you're still alive) how it goes. Or drink hydrogen peroxide, instead, and we''ll see if the properties of hydrogen and gas have the same effect on you as water.
Hydrogen and oxygen are not elementary particles. The right expression is that the properties of water are a function of the properties of its constituents, electrons, nucleus.
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bahman
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by bahman »

Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 11:40 am
bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:54 am
Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:12 am

No.
There is no mind.
Of topic. The question is how could you (thought) move the electrons of your brain.
Consciousness is not a claim that "YOU" could move an electron.
You are the electrons and neutrons and the protons, and the molecules they comprise, and the energetic state they prepresent, and the neurochemicals ad infinitem.
I know what consciousness is, it is the state of experience. I am asking how conscious state as thought can affect material?
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Sculptor
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by Sculptor »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 5:24 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 3:26 pm I'm not sure why the notion of conscious life existing before 3.5 billion years ago came up,
In the context of bahman saying that:
(1) physical laws are mental phenomena only
(2) matter obeys physical laws
(3) if matter didn't obey physical laws, its "behavior" would be arbitrary

So I was asking him about, for example, the sun and Earth three and half billion years ago, to which his response was that the sun and the Earth "behaved" according to physical laws. I was trying to get him to see the problem with this in the context of his claims above.
I think the problem here is the phrase " I was trying to get him to see ".
Good luck with that.
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Sculptor
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by Sculptor »

bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 9:52 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 11:40 am
bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:54 am
Of topic. The question is how could you (thought) move the electrons of your brain.
Consciousness is not a claim that "YOU" could move an electron.
You are the electrons and neutrons and the protons, and the molecules they comprise, and the energetic state they prepresent, and the neurochemicals ad infinitem.
I know what consciousness is, it is the state of experience. I am asking how conscious state as thought can affect material?
As a physicist you know that energy can affect matter. What is the difference?
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bahman
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Re: An argument against materialism

Post by bahman »

Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 10:15 pm
bahman wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 9:52 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 11:40 am
Consciousness is not a claim that "YOU" could move an electron.
You are the electrons and neutrons and the protons, and the molecules they comprise, and the energetic state they prepresent, and the neurochemicals ad infinitem.
I know what consciousness is, it is the state of experience. I am asking how conscious state as thought can affect material?
As a physicist you know that energy can affect matter. What is the difference?
Consciousness is not energy.
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