# Materialism and Faith **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2003, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585 "2003-01-30T11:19:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/81 "2003-02-04T14:23:39Z")
**Lib** : > [@](#): > > In other words, since truth is noumenal, there is no way that both your argument is true and rocks are real. Truth is noumenal only in the sense that “agreement with actuality” exists independently of experience. However, since “truth” denotes a perceptive _value judgement_, the truth of something is irrelevant to its actuality. “Truth” is only relevant to truth-seekers. The reality of rocks and electrons is unaffected by the truth of **MEBuckner** ’s argument. Which rather makes the argument itself irrelevant, but doesn’t say anything about rocks, beauty, electrons or gaussephemology. (On preview, I see **hawthorne** has said what I wanted to say better than I did. Damn clever Aussies…) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/82 "2003-02-04T14:24:20Z")
**Lekattarian** , please stop implying that we reread your work with an open mind and imply that we did not “get” something. You were trying to show that Lack of belief implies Belief in a Lack, and you did no such thing. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/83 "2003-02-04T15:24:19Z")
**Ludovic** My username is “Libertarian”. If you cannot get that straight, how are you to be trusted with psychic projections of my intentions? I showed what I showed. Your opinion of what I was “trying to show” is without relevance. **Hawthorne** I was using “objectively moot” to mean “moot with respect to objectivity”. > [@](#): > > Isn’t the point of this thread that the rocks might be real and the argument might be true but that materialists have no business making the argument? If the rocks are real, then whatever truth is is intrinsic to the rocks. No statement about the rocks would have any truth value, and the rocks themselves would be truth bearers. The point of this thread is to debate whether materialism is an exercise in faith. To me, especially with my gift of retrospect, it appears as mystical as any philosophy I have seen. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, will you grant us that in the absence of what we think is any case for any non-materialist world [i.e please take that on board for the purposes of argument], adopting a supposition of the prior and continuing existence of rocks is an understandable (sensible? reasonable?) “default assumption”? Yes, of course. If you have already defined “world” strictly and unidefinitionally as “that which is material”, then what other conclusion could you possibly reach? But typically, and certainly in logic, a “world” is a “state of affairs” that either attain or do not attain. A world is possible if its description does not include a logical contradiction. A world is necessary if it includes every possible world. A world is actual if its truth is epistemic. Actuality implies an agency of perception — so that truth can be actualized. > [@](#): > > Whilst it is unjustified (since it’s unjustifiable), what would you have us do, absent a personal supernatural revelation? In your case, exactly what you’re doing. And this applies to Xeno, Eris, and others as well. You have a willingness (in fact, apparently an eagerness) to see things from alternate points of view, to study, to inquire, and to keep an open mind. A man might not himself appreciate classical music, but that does not preclude him from respecting those who do. Nor does it preclude him from attempting to understand, in an honest and unbiased way, why they find it fulfilling. My greatest fault as a materialist was my closed mind, my presumption of intellectual superiority, and the grudge that I held against people of faith. It was as though I thought they had cooties or something. **Xeno wrote:** > [@](#): > > Truth is noumenal only in the sense that “agreement with actuality” exists independently of experience. However, since “truth” denotes a perceptive value judgement, the truth of something is irrelevant to its actuality. Right. And that was my point. There is no sense in saying anything at all about the rocks or the electrons if there is no world within which what you say might be true. A contradiction can be used to prove anything. > [@](#): > > “Truth” is only relevant to truth-seekers. The reality of rocks and electrons is unaffected by the truth of MEBuckner’s argument. Which rather makes the argument itself irrelevant, but doesn’t say anything about rocks, beauty, electrons or gaussephemology. But that’s the whole irony! Without truth, what Buck says about rocks is not about rocks. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/84 "2003-02-04T16:09:23Z")
But what **Buck** says about rocks is about what we can _say_ about rocks (or beauty, or God). The irony, to me, is that one theologian’s faith in an ontological proof for the existence of God is no different than one materialist’s faith in objective evidence for the existence of rocks. We can define neither into existence, but we can experience either or both (and to about the same degree of subtlety, I might add). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/85 "2003-02-04T18:27:10Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\* > Unless you can refute this argument, as I stated it to Hawthorne, there is no difference between “not believing” and “believing not”:_\* so, do YOU believe this or not, since it seems that you are trying to show it with: \*\* > [@](#): > > The Doxastic Axiom states ~Bp -\> B~Bp; that is, lack of belief that p is true implies belief in a lack of belief that p is true. You at least believe that you lack belief. Applying the preservation principle of neutral epistemologies, your belief in your lack of belief in p preserves your lack of belief in p. That’s why you behave as though ~p were true, since p -\> Bp and therefore ~Bp -\> ~p by modus tollens — lack of belief in p implies that p is false. > \*\* unless, of course, the second paragraph is a complete non sequitor. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/86 "2003-02-04T18:29:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > \*\*But what **Buck** says about rocks is about what we can _say_ about rocks (or beauty, or God). > > The irony, to me, is that one theologian’s faith in an ontological proof for the existence of God is no different than one materialist’s faith in objective evidence for the existence of rocks. We can define neither into existence, but we can experience either or both (and to about the same degree of subtlety, I might add). \*\* Beautifully stated! And perfectly suited for this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/87 "2003-02-04T18:44:59Z")
Ludovic You’re being messy with the propositional calculus. You said that I was “trying” to show that ~Bp-\>B~p. What I in fact showed was that ~Bp v B~p, since both ~Bp -\> ~p and B~p -\> ~p. In the first paragraph you cited, I am stating that not believing p or believing not p is a tautology. In the second, I am saying that not believing p implies that p is believed false. The inference implies the tautology. Originally, the second paragraph preceded the first. Why I am having to explain this is beyond me, since you have the two paragraphs right in front of you and had to harvest them to put them there. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/88 "2003-02-04T18:50:19Z")
Thanks, **Lib**. Need I follow my remarks through to the necessary conclusion that neither the atoms nor God can be shown _not_ to be real? [mostly serious] In fact, I find it imprudent of you to say “the atoms are not real” while propounding that God is Love. What if love and rocks are made of the same stuff? 😉 [/mostly serious] ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/89 "2003-02-04T19:01:27Z")
Love is the conduit of goodness. Rocks can be used to facilitate goodness, but they are never the agent of it. Rocks and atoms are mere props, scenery in the moral play. He Who is the facilitator of goodness, and what He has made in His likeness — these alone are real. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/90 "2003-02-04T19:26:03Z")
My mostly serious point is that that conduit of goodness is constructed out of reality. I believe I’m living in the house of God; it would feel rather unseemly for me to disdain the bricks. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/91 "2003-02-04T19:42:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\* > What I in fact showed was that ~Bp v B~p, since both ~Bp -\> ~p and B~p -\> ~p. > > In the first paragraph you cited, I am stating that not believing p or believing not p is a tautology.\*\* if I were to state the same thing, I’d wager even odds you’d accuse me of using _tautology_ in a logical manner, in which case, that statement is nothing of the sort. Or, you could mean that ~Bp v B~p is [redundant](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=tautologous), in which case, you have yet to show this, like I have stated several times. Please clarify your unnecessary assumptions that > [@](#): > > ~Bp -\> ~p and B~p -\> ~p I see no need to take these as a given. That is exactly what I was trying to show in the first place. B~p-\>~p would be true, if I were omniscient, and I am claiming you CANNOT assume B~p-\>~p, since I am not. ---
**Author:** ![Iamthat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamthat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamthat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/92 "2003-02-04T19:46:37Z")
\*\* MEBuckner\*\* wrote: > [@](#): > > Beauty, honor, and loyalty all exist in the thoughts of thinking beings. If there were not thinking beings–which, so far as we yet know, means if there were no human beings–those things would not exist. You don’t know that, for you can’t prove thinking and knowing are confined to the human brain. Some say they are not. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, electrons or rocks existed for billions of years before there were humans (yes, I know, no one called them electrons or rocks, but they were still there); if we all died tomorrow, even if there are no other thinking, language-using, symbol-assigning beings anywhere in the Universe, there would still be electrons and rocks. Another guess. That rocks exist independent of the perceptions of them is unknown (by most). > [@](#): > > However, theists contend that God exists in the same way electrons or rocks exist–externally to us, and even if God had never made us or decided to annihilate us all tomorrow. At least, I thought that’s what theists contended. Not all theists. How can god be a mere percept ? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/93 "2003-02-04T19:47:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > \*\*My mostly serious point is that that conduit of goodness is constructed out of reality. I believe I’m living in the house of God; it would feel rather unseemly for me to disdain the bricks. \*\* An excellent point, and one that I neglect to make often enough. Although the atoms are not real in a metaphysical sense, our moral decisions with respect to them are very real. There is real tragedy in murder, or torture, or ridicule, or oppression. But the tragedy is a moral tragedy, not a metaphysical one. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/94 "2003-02-04T20:02:04Z")
Ludovic I’m sorry that I’m not saying what you want me to say. There is nothing wrong with tautologies. Tautologies are not illogical. They are in fact the only a priori truths in logic. In fact, every statement proves a tautology. I am not “assuming” ~Bp -\> ~p. It follows by modus tollens from p -\> Bp (the Doxastic Axiom). You copied and pasted that yourself that I said so. B~p -\> ~p is trivial, since it obtains synchronically from ~Bp -\> ~p. Thus, by modus ponens, ~Bp v B~p. Keep in mind that these are inferences in weak (doxastic) knowledge and not strong (epistemic) knowledge. There are only a couple of axioms available to us. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/95 "2003-02-04T20:24:32Z")
**Lib** what I said about your permutations that follow from the Doxastic Axiom, > [@](#): > > I see no need to take these as a given. That is exactly what I was trying to show in the first place. B~p-\>~p would be true, if I were omniscient, and I am claiming you CANNOT assume B~p-\>~p, since I am not. applies equally to p-\>Bp. Or are you claiming I **do** consider myself omniscient? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/96 "2003-02-04T20:30:56Z")
~Bp -\> ~p is not an implication of what I mean when I say “I don’t believe p.” Perhaps someone has a better insight to what I should be saying I mean than I do when translated into symbols, but the implication seems false to me at least insofar as any failure to be able to list various proposed “p” as one my beliefs is concerned. Does the statement: "there is no difference between “not believing” and “believing not” mean that there is litterally no difference? Or simply no difference in some criteria important for some purpose? Because at least insofar as my own experience goes, having both not believed (for things I have not even heard of as well as for things I’ve heard of) and believed not for various things, there is quite a large difference. —Even an infant who cannot reason its way out of a paper bag is said to be sentient. — Even adults need more than just the capacity to reason alone to get out of paper bags. Perhaps we can discuss how we get out of paper bags, and then how we reasoned doing it, but perhaps the problem we all face is that discussions might not ultimately mesh very well. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/97 "2003-02-04T20:37:09Z")
Ludovic We are (or at least, I am) dealing with doxastic logic (Bx), not with epistemic logic (Kx). Omniscience is a topic for epistemic logic. See [Logic System Interrelationships](http://www.cc.utah.edu/~nahaj/logic/structures/). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/98 "2003-02-04T20:49:31Z")
Apos wrote: > [@](#): > > Does the statement: "there is no difference between “not believing” and “believing not” mean that there is litterally no difference? Or simply no difference in some criteria important for some purpose? The latter. It is purely a matter of an agent’s assignment. As Hawthorne was saying, the fact that he does not believe makes it appear that he believes not and even makes him behave that way. What I said to him was, “That’s why you behave as though ~p were true, since p -\> Bp and therefore ~Bp -\> ~p by modus tollens — lack of belief in p implies that p is false.” I was helping him to rationalize his intuition. p -\> Bp is induced because it is assumed that a person will believe something that he knows is actually true. That’s the problem with doxastics. There are precious few axioms because belief is epistemically weak. It isn’t like the difference between not knowing and knowing not. Not believing and believing not differ basically in whatever way the agent pleases. But if he appears not to believe, then he risks appearing and behaving as though he believes not. As you can see by Ludovic’s insistent and ceaseless protests, people take their beliefs (and their not beliefs) very seriously, almost as though they were knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/99 "2003-02-04T20:50:37Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Iamthat \* > \*\* MEBuckner_\* > wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > Beauty, honor, and loyalty all exist in the thoughts of thinking beings. If there were not thinking beings–which, so far as we yet know, means if there were no human beings–those things would not exist. > > You don’t know that, for you can’t prove thinking and knowing are confined to the human brain. Some say they are not. I did say “so far as we yet know”. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > On the other hand, electrons or rocks existed for billions of years before there were humans (yes, I know, no one called them electrons or rocks, but they were still there); if we all died tomorrow, even if there are no other thinking, language-using, symbol-assigning beings anywhere in the Universe, there would still be electrons and rocks. > > Another guess. That rocks exist independent of the perceptions of them is unknown (by most). Well, I consider it necessary to assume the existence of an external world in order to get anywhere at all. Perhaps you are all figments of my imagination. I can’t _prove_ that you aren’t. Does my provisional acceptance of the objective existence of the rest of the world constitute some great “leap of faith”? No more so than _not_ accepting the objective existence of the rest of the world; and not accepting the objective existence of the rest of the world leaves me at a loss as to what I _do_ accept: is _all_ of it just a figment of my imagination, or maybe only _some_ of it, and which parts are not real and which parts are real (the “other players”, my “prison guards”, or whatever the case may be). Accepting—in some sense provisionally, but with a high degree of confidence–the existence of the external world independent of my perceptions of it (the world was here before I was and will go on after I die) there were “rocks”–non-living material things–before there was life, since living things consist of the same materials as non-living things and from what we known (although we don’t know the details) arose from those non-living material things. And the living things which can think evolved from the living things which (as far as we can tell, and I think it’s pretty safe to say it about living things at _some_ level) can’t think, so the non-thinking life existed before we did. > [@](#): > > How can god be a mere percept ? I’m probably not understanding your terms here. It seems to me either rocks or beauty would be “percepts”. However, without a perceiver, there is nothing to say if a particular rock is “beautiful”; but there would still be rocks, which could eventually evolve into things which can perceive the rocks and form concepts like “beauty”. So, whether or not God is a “percept” says nothing to me about whether or not God exists independently of perceivers–some things which are perceived do and some things which are perceived don’t. And of course the theist God would be a percept. If God makes himself known to believers, they perceive him–certainly the Christian God, when he became Jesus, was perceptible. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585/100 "2003-02-04T20:54:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ludovic \* > **Lekattarian** … **Moderator’s Note:** A formal ruling on whether or not this constitutes an “insult” could wind up insulting not only **Libertarian** but also **lekatt** ; still, making fun of people’s user names is an awfully silly debating tactic, don’t you think? Why don’t we all just not do that in Great Debates? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/materialism-and-faith/151585.md?page=6)