Materialism and Faith

Great Debates
41

This very issue goes back to what I said in the “why don’t you believe” thread, i.e. it’s yet another of the key angles I said was a contributor to my philosophy but that I would be omitting for length.

Say: I’m on my deathbed. My life fades, and disappears. I see the ceiling, the faces of my loved ones (hopefully), the darkness of my brain shutting down, and then… What?

What RexDart and others are getting at is that this lack of viewpoint cannot be imagined. It’s impossible to imagine something without a point of view from which to imagine it.

However, it’s quite possible to imagine this for somebody else. I can conceive of a different person on his deathbed, and imagine his consciousness as a line progressing through time, and when he dies, the line stops. Period.

The fact that we are unable to visualize this from our own perspective suggests that our intellectual and imaginative capacities are somehow inextricably tied to our sense of self. In other words, to borrow from Hofstadter, lack of personal consciousness is the record that cannot be played on the metaphorical record player of the tortoise’s mind.

The only question, in my mind, is what to conclude from this impossibility. Personally, I chalk it up to a quirk of human psychology, and leave it at that. I don’t need to invent “no-time” or anything else. When my time is up, my consciousness, which is a side effect of my cognitive apparatus, dies with the tissues that house it.

Some people, though, conclude that because it is impossible to imagine, it must be impossible to exist. I don’t buy that, because it’s easy to propose things that can be defined but that defy our ability to imagine them in any concrete sense. Try to picture, for example, a four-dimensional cube. We know, mathematically, they exist, and we can manipulate them predictably according to all sorts of different rules and systems. It’s virtually impossible to simply put the object in our mind’s eye, though. Does that mean it doesn’t exist, even as an abstraction? Of course not.

I deny the proposition that the concept of consciousness loss cannot be conceived or defined, because one can use the “negative ground” method to think about it. Like the classic figure/ground illusion, if there’s something about the vase that the human brain simply can’t penetrate, one analyzes the faces to get at least a sense of the perimeter and shape.

There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Merely assume a Godelian limitation to human cogitation, use this to define the boundaries of self-analysis, and then project the experience onto somebody else. Hence, I can conceive, indirectly, that my consciousness will end with my death, without needing to open the black box of actually imagining the experience.

I suspect that this intellectual chasm is yet another reason a belief in life after death has been so persistent through human philosophical history. Because it’s impossible to imagine the loss of consciousness without a consciousness to provide perspective for the experience, our brain rebels, and we leap to the conclusion that the unimaginable experience is impossible, and that something of ourselves must persist after death.

For my part, I see nothing about it that is more impossible to visualize than the four-dimensional cube, and I’m comfortable concluding that when I’m gone, I’m gone.

42

Cervaise

Thoughtful analysis and commentary as always. I really don’t think it’s quite so hard as imagining a four-dimensional cube.* I think that imagining that is more along the lines of imagining a spiritual existence without a corporeal one.

Death must be something along the lines of passing out. Cognition is nullified and although there is brain activity, there is no awareness of it. Many of us have had that experience and can appreciate how it might be at least analogous.

Spirituality, of course, is not about cognition but is about morality. That which is good survives, since love is the propogation of goodness. It is the metaphysical world that is much more difficult to apprehend, in my opinion, than the material world, particularly when it is categorically rejected by the worldview. (As I showed above, neutrality and rejection are doxastically the same.)

The nature of my spiritual existence — its ontology — is easy enough to define (as necessary existence) but very difficult to perceptualize. When I passed out, there were no records of my existence retained by my brain, and yet I am convinced that I continued to exist. It is in that sense very much like the ambiguous figure/ground illusion that you mentioned in that there is apparently an ablative separation of the two experiences.

It seems to me that if existence is predicated on cognition (or perception and the like), then there are certain very murky circumstances in which it would seem reasonable to say that people who are living in a biological sense do not exist. An unconscious state is not nonexistence. When Jesus said that His Kingdom is not of this world, He meant it.

  • An interesting way to envision a four-dimensional cube in three-dimensional space is to consider it analogous to envisioning a three-dimensional cube in two-dimensional space. If you were a Flatlander, what you would see as I passed a cube through your space from up to down is the sudden appearance of a two dimensional figure depending on my angle of entry. If I come in corner-first, you will see an ever enlarging square) until the cube is halfway through. From then until the cube passes completely through, you would see an ever shrinking square until it disappears. You will be able to see the square moving around in two-dimensional space if I move it along the axes of your plane. What you could not see is that the square you perceived still existed as an integration of what you saw as cross-sections in space not accessible to you. Likewise, if a four-dimensional creature were to pass a four-dimensional cube through our three-dimensional space from ana to kata (directions in the fourth spatial dimension — analogous to up and down), what you would see would be what appears to be an ordinary three-dimensional cube that is “magically” increasing in size to a maximum as it passes into your space, and then decreasing in size until it vanishes from your space. That’s what you would see — an enlarging and shrinking cube as it passes from ana to kata through your space. You can imagine ana and kata hold the entire integration of the hyper-cube and that what you saw were cross-sections of it as it passed through.
43

No. If you look at cross-sections of a cube taken along the diagonal from one corner to its opposite, you’ll see an equilateral triangle that reaches a maximum size, shifts into a hexagon, shifts further into an equilateral triangle whose orientation is opposite to that of the first, which shrinks constantly and disappears.

A hypercube wouldn’t appear as an expanding and shrinking cube, either. It wouldn’t appear as a cube unless you perceived a face-oriented cross section, in which case its size would remain constant.

44

BTW…

Lib, you seem to have alot riding on your assault against materialism. You seem as if you have a personal need to declare materialism equal to spiritualism in terms of foundations of belief. While I doubt you have ever, or will ever, accomplish that equivocation…what is it meant to do? Casting doubt upon the bases of materialism lends absolutely zero support for spiritualism. Even if you managed to show that both are founded upon an acceptance of a prefab set of propositions that hasn’t the evidence to justify the acceptance of those facts, you cannot explain away the case that given each’s set of facts materialism is internally consistent and gives a comprehensible worldview and spiritualism is meandering and lost without a notion of causality nor a way to explain and predict observable phenomenon.

45

Equivocation: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

The equivocation is already established. Some materialists claim that their faith is different, more reasonable — the kind of faith that you might have in gravity when you jump, for example. Others say that their kind of faith is valid because it predicts some material event reliably, hoping to distinguish their faith from the faith of spiritualists. Some even condemn the very logic they believe in and hold that faith is altogether the wrong word because they do not disbelieve but merely don’t believe.

What I am trying to do is stop the equivocation. The faith is essentially the same: a reliance upon an epistemology or epistemologies as being valid sources of knowledge.

Most remarkable of all to me is the very point you just made, namely that materialism is internally consistent in explaining material things and therefore is superior to spiritualism because spiritualism fails to explain material things. For every assertion, there is a contrapositive, and the contrapositive always has the same truth value as the original assertion. Thus, if spiritualism is applied then it will not explain material things is true, but so is it true that if material things are explained then spiritualism has not been applied.

In other words, working on the pipes will not fix the broken lamp. Just as spiritual things do not account for material phenomena, so do material things fail to account for spiritual phenomena.

You speak of meandering and pin it on spiritualism as though it were an endemic attribute. And yet, in this discussion it is you — the materialist — who are meandering and I — the spiritualist — who is grounded and invoking logical principle. You are the one who mused about incomprehensible things that you “know” are in your future. You are the one who suspected that the concept of time might need to be denied. You are the one who was vexed over the significance of a statement that is factual but to which you cannot relate.

It is therefore utterly remarkable that you would say that I am meandering and lost while you are establishing a comprehensible worldview.

The fact is that there are spiritualists who meander and there are materialists who meander. Likewise, there are spiritualists who are consistent and well grouned in reason and there are materialists who are the same. I’ve encountered them here at Straight Dope. Spiritus, Xeno, Sentient, Cervaise, and others who acknowledge that they and I are intellectual peers. They do not ever say that they are grounded while I am meandering.

Materialism, when rightly applied, explains material things, but spiritualism, when rightly applied, explains spiritual things. Materialism fails when it attempts to explain things like the nature of existence. Likewise, spiritualism fails when it attempts to explain things like why it rains.

What I’m after is a common ground acknowledgment among mutually respectful peers. If I say that a material philosophy necessarily makes certain presuppositions and rests on a foundation of faith, it is not to imply that a spiritual philosophy necessarily makes no presuppositions and is a priori analytic. It is merely intended to imply that a material philosophy is no more intrinsically valid than a spiritual one.

The tug-of-war will end when we stop digging in and pulling. But meanwhile, my contention is that we have equal strength.

46

You can’t even describe a cross-section of a hypercube properly. What would make us think that you can construct a meaningful argument about the ultimate nature of existence?

47

“Inconceivable!”

“Me fail English, that’s unpossible!”

Point taken, I’ll buy a dictionary :slight_smile:

48

Indeed. In his assault on macroeconomics science was the only admissable epistemology. Now that he’s discussing his superstitions not only is science not the only valid epistemology, but it is flawed at its foundation as well. That doesn’t seem like the reasoning of an objective mind.

49

You will recall, possibly, that the discussions on macroeconomics resulted in my admitting my error and changing my view. Do objective minds dismiss the philosophical views of their peers as “superstitions”.

50

How about we both just stop using that dirty f-word, “faith” :wink: Let’s just call it an “assumption not yet validated.” You’re probably tired of having accusations of blind “faith” being tossed at you (never from me) so you’re trying to equate (right word that time?) the two frameworks of thinking and thus throw the insult back at the materialists. That’s your point in essence, that both systems of thought presume something as a starting point that may not have enough evidence to be concluded via deduction from known facts. I’m not conceding that substantive point here, but I’m simply recommending that we switch terminology to some other description. “Faith” is a loaded word. I’ll stop accusing you of having “faith” like some ignorant child who doesn’t know any better and just say you have a “presupposition providing the basis for an analytical framework.” Sounds better, right?

Secondly, I think I gave your observations and reasoning plenty of respect, in both this thread and in others, and never disparaged your intelligence. I may disagree, quite frequently, with your conclusions, and with the methods of logic you employ (such as my issues with modal logic), but I never denied that you employ them well and are a strong reasoner. I’ve also said many times in various discussions that I have respect for those theists who impose a rational framework upon their beliefs and employ the tools of logic when they can, thus my respect for Catholic theologians. I had been under the impression that we got along just fine on these boards, so I don’t understand why you would imply openly that you consider yourself intellectually superior to me.

Again, I don’t concede the substantive point. I think I can reduce my contention to a point where the disagreement is minimized, perhaps find a few things to agree on. Materialism as a framework for understanding the world, when using the power of logic and reasoning in that framework, tends to “work” more often. At least most of our observations on a daily basis are of the sort that can be explained entirely materially. (Of course, I think they all can, but I’m trying to reduce this to the lowest common agreement.) Materialist explanations of most things tend to be rather simple, whereas spiritualist explanations tend to be rather befuddling. There may very well be consistency in spiritualism, but by it’s very nature it would be impossible to actually observe that consistency through the lens of our daily material existences. At best it would be like seeing a string of apparently random numbers that actually are being generated by a perpetually hidden and undiscoverable algorithm.

Thus materialism is more successful than spiritualism when put to use in understanding the things we need to know to fulfill most of our desires, the bulk of which are biologically programmed and require the accumulation and manipulation of material goods. Being more successful does not mean it is necessarily right, but it does give a practical reason for choosing one over the other if in fact both are simply “choices” as you assert.

51

I hypersphere would grow and shrink, though.

52

RexDart wrote:

That’s an excellent paraphrase of my point. In fact, it’s better put than I said it myself, because you have highlighted the fact that deduction cannot even begin without prior induction (the axiom set).

I meant to imply no such thing. You even quoted what I said: “But meanwhile, my contention is that we have equal strength.” How can you get an impression of superiority from equal strength?

I don’t think they’re “befuddling”. Goodness is the aesthetic most valued by God. Love is the facilitator of goodness. God is Love. Ockhamly simple and straightfoward to me.

Ah! There’s the rub.

Your desires and mine might be vastly different. What I ask from you is your respect of my desire. I am willing to respect your desire to accumulate and manipulate material goods so long as you are ethical in your dealings. And in fact, that respect is so deeply ingrained in me that I take that ethic as my user name. Can you respect that I desire something else? My thirst cannot be quenched by material water, but only by the Living Water. My hunger cannot be satisfied by material bread, but only by the Bread of Life. My treasure is not in my brand new Saturn Ion. My treasure is in the Love Everlasting. He satisfies my in every regard.

On what basis then is my worldview less successful than yours?

53

You mean the positive claim that non-material forces exist? Do you have new evidence I haven’t seen? Every supernatural argument I’ve seen has been completely vacuous. From the ontological argument, to claims of miracles, to psychics & ghosts, to misunderstandings of probability. If Pascal couldn’t come up with a good argument, why should I think you can? You’re smart. But smarter than Pascal? So yes, they do dismiss certain claims as superstitions because the good reverend Bayes has given them the reason to do so. Just as flipping heads a hundred times in a row would lead one to justifiably conclude that the coin is not fair, the emptiness of repeated supernatural claims can lead one to justifiably conclude their superstitious nature.

54

No non-material forces exist. To exist, they would have to interact with the material world; if they interact with the material world, they are material themselves.

55

See, this is the kind of stuff I really dislike about materialism.

That depends: what kind of evidence are you willing to consider?

56

Non-material forces? Water pipes are not connected to the electric lamp. Force is a material concept and is an attribute of the material world. Why apply a material phenomenon to a non-material noumenon?

New evidence you haven’t seen? My whole experience and consciousness constitutes something you haven’t seen. I’m not trying to convert you; I’m trying to be seen by you as your intellectual equal.

Completely vacuous ontological argument? You need to come out of your hibernation. In the past decade, the ontological argument has been reformed into intensional logic tableaux. Even Peter Suber, a staunch atheist logician, has conceded that the new argument is valid. Pascal was not privvy to modern modal symbologies.

If you reserve the right to call me superstitious, then I reserve the right to call you myopic.

57

Now, just a few posts ago, you were talking about how ‘force’ was used in a variety of different contexts with different meanings.

You don’t think there’s the least bit of hypocrisy there?

58

Fine. What would you like to call it? Supernatural? Spiritual? Non-material existence? You’re the one talking about materialists, it seems fair to conclude that you’re advocating something non-material.

I never said you weren’t, though it would be insulting to you to say that you are–I’m not too bright. But that doesn’t give me any reason to conclude that your religious/spiritual beliefs are founded on anything other than faith. I can’t consider faith to be any evidence in favor of the existence of the supernatural, or non-material, or whatever you’re calling it. If you want to take god’s existence as a matter of faith, that’s fine with me. If you want to claim there is real world evidence backing it up, then you’re moving into a whole new ball game. Either way, absent evidence backing it up, it’s still superstition to me

Yep, vacuous. It may be valid, but that doesn’t mean it is meaningful. I’m referring to the link you provided in another thread that explained the modal ontological argument. It was pretty bad.[ul][li]It used a computer metaphore for the many-worlds hypothesis which is, to say the least, controversial. So there really isn’t a strong reason to conclude that the analogy fits our world. []It was measuring on some scale called “greatness” which was undefined and given no operational meaning. []Its conclusion was trivial; here’s a faster argument: beings can be rated on greatness, at least one being will be as great or greater than every other. []It didn’t prove a god that fits any theology that I’ve heard about–it didn’t even prove that this god is supernatural. It concluded at best that this god exists in all worlds. So what? Some creature is maximally great does not imply that the bible is valid, or that ghosts haunt old battlefields, or that out of body experiences are anything more than a snafu in the angular gyrus. []It maintained that god can only be as great as possible and gave no reason to conclude that existing in multiple worlds is possible. It didn’t even give reason to conclude that supernaturalness is a possible trait for a being to have![/ul][/li]IIRC, the list is actually longer, that’s just off the top of my head. A logically valid argument proving that in a many-worlds multiverse some creature is maximally great does not prove a supernatural god. It doesn’t prove much of anything. It is vacuous. Sorry.

**

I wish I were. Life would be easier. But whatever you choose to call me, it doesn’t change the fact that arguments for supernaturalness, or whatever, simply don’t carry weight. Well, none I’ve seen do.

59

Put together your best case and make it. Please note that the tone of that sentence was not to be sarcastic, or condencending, or paternalistic, or boasting, or cocky, or arrogant. You can post it here.

What evidence will I find compelling? Depends on the situation. Give me what you’ve got, and I will take the time to consider it.

60

Js_africanus wrote:

Force, as you used it, is a physics term. Physics is a materialist philosophical discipline. Jesus taught that God is spirit. It is not a matter of force, but of volition.

I am satisfied by the evidence I have seen. If you and I disagree on our interpretations of evidence, why must either of us charge the other with lacking anything? And why should your faith in Nogod supercede my faith in God? Is this how you would behave on a jury? Your interpretation of whether there is sufficient evidence is the right one no matter what?

It isn’t a computer metaphor. Modal intension dates from the Middle Ages. There is controversy about applications in deontic, doxastic, and temporal logic, but there is no controversy about applications in alethic logic, which is the logic used in the onotological proof.

Not so. Greatest is defined as necessary, since necessary existence exists in all possible worlds.

But not necessarily in every possible world. Besides, how can you maintain that the conclusion is trivial while at the same time maintaining that there is controversy?

Not all worlds. Just all possible worlds. Inasmuch as actual existence does not imply necessary existence (unless it is defined that way), nothing in the physical universe can be said to exist necessarily. Therefore, the Supreme Being is supernatural.

But that is the conclusion of the Modal Axiom itself.

Here is a narrative proof, and here is a formal proof.

That’s a rehash of your other point. And as I said there, since the physical universe cannot be shown to exist necessarily, and since it can be proved that necessary existence exists, the Supreme Being must be supernatural.

Maybe you should look again at what might be vacuous. Perhaps it might apply to your own interpretations rather than the argument itself.

I’m confident that you are a good and decent person with the same distaste for bigotry that I have. You will note that the same reasoning you use to justify calling me superstitious is used to justify any bigotry. “I don’t see things the way that guy does, so he must be inferior to me.”