That’s a fair point. In that case maybe ‘reading thoughts’ may never become a precise exercise - although that is not the same as saying that some part of the thought is not material and hence immeasurable.
I’m not sure how anyone can claim to be a Materialist and disagree with the analysis of ambushed.
I think it’s close to my own view as well - the “sentient minds give their own meaning to their actions and they judge other’s actions as well” is particularly important.
In regards to Determinism and Materialism being inextricably bound.
Then is it fair to say that, by evidence of deeds if not words, no one is more deluded than the Materialist? It seems that you’ve fallen into the very futility that you describe. There is no beauty, and yet you find it everywhere. There is no truth, and yet you pursue it with adamant resolve. There is no concept that is not abstract, and yet you wallow in these abstractions even to the point of abstractly codifying your own worldview. It has been asked before of the faithful, knowing God will reward you with heaven, why you do not just lay down and die. I would ask the same of the Materialist, who’s existence is no more significant than bacterial gas, why do you cling to the illusion of subjective reality? Why not just lay down and die?
Who is more deluded, the man who sees a painting of a door and knocks on it for entrance, or the man who paints a picture of a window and imagines looking through it?
Significance is relative, is it not, and requires a receiving entity? Bacterial gas is significant to bacteria. Human lives are significant to other humans. Both are significant to the biosphere. And in a finite universe, every material thing is significant in some way to all other material things.
But relative insignificance in “the grand scheme of things” holds no relevance to my individual subjective experience of existence.
Respect by whom? Does hydrogen gas genuflect, criticize bad poetry, or weep at weddings? Do igneous rocks tell dirty jokes?
Is it not enough that nobility can exist not only in every instant it is exhibited, but also whenever it is apprehended in concept? If there is a point to nobility, I do not think it is to gain respect (although I realize that is not what you mean to imply), it is to act ideally. Because there is an actor, in every instance of nobility of spirit, it exists within the actor. It suffices for me that such nobility is instantly shared upon its perception by another.
Sorry I haven’t been on for a couple of days… I got a verbal warning over my Internet use and had to cool it. But I can’t stay away from this debate (or the unions debate, which seems to have sunk :()
I’ll try to tackle everybody who’s addressed me personally for now - I should have some time this weekend to come back and look over everything else.
ObiWan: “Opinions cannot be seen” is a poor choice of phrase. It was a response to Libertarian’s earlier post about “seeing opinions by looking at graphs of brain waves”. The point I was trying to make was that though opinions have an abstract aspect to their existence it in no way undermines the philosophy of materialism, because the abstract aspect of opinions and thoughts must be predicated on a material existence in the first place (ultimately as brain activity). Though I think you and I are definitely on the same page in this regard.
Which sounds like fatalism to me without the “extra-physical” agent. On the basic physical level, I’d say yes - actions are pre-determined. Gravity will pull two bodies together, acids and bases will react when mixed, objects will melt or combust if enough heat is applied. But when it comes to human actions - and here I mean social interaction, not basic instinctual responses - they just aren’t pre-determined. Human society is an almost infinitely complex phenomenon and to say “this happened because the existence of human society made it bound to happen” is too simplistic.
But does god’s will have material origins? Show me the physical forces that give rise to the enaction of god’s will. Mankind has peered into the workings of the human brain as well as the microcosm of the atom and been able to say “Here; this is the force/object behind what we see.” Has that been accomplished on any level concerning even the existence of a supreme, omnipotent god, much less the existence of its will?
And materialism’s first premise is what, again?
I still say that comments like “the having cake and eating it too aspect” should be taken to the pit. I see nothing of the sort in anything I have said. And, nothing else in this paragraph that supports the comment.
This seems ok. “mis-en-scene”?
I don’t allow the existence of that reality except as an idea in your head. Because you observe it in your head, it has the same kind of reality that thoughts always have. You can think of a world where pigs fly but that won’t make it happen except in your imagination, or, if you’re a good story teller, the imagination of others. Where did validation come into this? We haven’t even spoken of validation as far as I remember. Are you using valid to mean real?
Until you can show me convincing evidence that non-material objects exist, I will believe that you are deluded. I’ll comment on your post about delusion in a sec. Delusion is not necessarily all bad. It can make you feel good, for example.
Here stands humanity, whose thoughts and goals are the most profound in the known universe. Just because “most profound” is petty compared to God doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean a lot to me and millions of other people. Deluded? hmmm… As I’ve said before, morals come largely from the need to benefit the community as well as the individual. So, they are not entirely without basis. I care about these morals. So, my struggles may be petty especially when compared to God, but since God does not exist, my struggles are actually among the most profound things in the universe on par with the struggles of every other human being. The only meaning of the universe is what we choose to give it. I choose to care about my life and the lives of others. Not so much a delusion as a conscious choice to place a meaning upon life.
I certainly see your point here. It’s like watching a football game where I don’t really care about either team. I always pick a team for some arbitrary reason and cheer for them. By choosing to care, I enjoy the game much more. This is self delusion. And what I am saying about choosing to care about life is very similar, except that my choice is not entirely arbitrary. It has roots in human history and in my surroundings. If you want an origin to morals, I can’t give you one except within the context of human existence, which is arbitrary. When I watch San Francisco play the Cowboys, I cheer for San Franciso because when the Colts left Baltimore I chose to cheer for a team that was very far away. I’ve been cheering for the Niners for quite a while now and sometimes I forget that I used to be a Colts fan. So, it is no longer arbitrary but the origins were arbitrary. Well, so be it. At this point, life has meaning for me. Deluded? I hope I am. I hope that a supreme being is exerting power to give my life infinitely more meaning than I think it has. Actually, I have no hope of that, I just couldn’t figure out how best to say that it would be nice to have that. I may as well wish for telekinesis while I’m at it.
Dang, you go out of town and the whole conversation explodes! 
Libertarian, I was wondering if you have ever read any of Kirkegaard’s works… he seems like a fellow you would appreciate. I was reading some of his stuff this week and couldn’t stop thinking of you, especially so with you “Spiritual Suffering” thread. If you’ve got the time, I’d check him out.
ambushed, I have recently had the distinct pleasure of buying a copy of Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” and have been powerfully moved by an apparent dichotomy between two specific lines of inquiry regarding the phenomenon of consciousness. I was hoping to hear your input on them.
Firstly, let us consider Sartre’s view on consciousness. It seems that he feels consciousness cannot view itself; that is, in the act of perceiving, consciousness is the negative space of perception. Even when we reflect on our own consciousness, we are only percieving some thing, but what is doing the perceiving? We cnanot say—it cannot be observed, it can only be inferred.
Now, as one who finds the philosophical definitions of human consciousness fascinating, I saw almost immediately the power of that idea. It is a very slippery affair, however, and one possible problem is that it doesn’t seem to be that consciousness has anything other than a definitional nature there. Admittedly, my readings of Sartre are, shall we say, sparse, but none-the-less I find the idea motivating.
Constrast this with Wittgenstein’s comments in TLP that:
The first comment stands directly in opposition with Sartre’s view; that is, one empirical “picture” cannot tell us anything about a different empirical “picture.” The second comment makes me leary about the first, especially with regards to consciousness, as it almost seems to support Sartre’s view of consciousness; that is, when we attempt to gain an empirical snap-shot (note my looseness of “picture” analogies… I hope you have some Wittgenstein to reference in order to compensate for my loose speech) of our own consciousness we find, unsuprisingly, our own consciousness. But if the picture is of the consciousness, it can only display it: we are still in the dark, as ever, about consciousness’s form. If we are to accept 2.062 at face value, and witness Sartre’s entrance in 2.172, it would seem to me that an empiricist following Wittgenstein’s language convention would find that the nature and form of human consciousness cannot be meaningfully discussed.
What do you think of that?
As well, if Sartre is correct with his phenomenological view of consciousness, it would seem that his ontological view of consciousness is synthetic a priori knowledge. If Wittgenstein is correct, then a materialist discussion of human consciousness is meaningless, or at least not well-formed, and we must, as he mentions, “pass over it in silence.”
Allow me first to express my respect and appreciation, Libertarian, for choosing to treat me as an equal (even though your thoughts were meant for all) and for your valuable contributions to these fora.
Before responding to the rest of your reply, I’d just like to take a moment out and say that to a materialist, sound is vibrations in a media and exists independent of a perceiver, as do photons, and perhaps even truth (i.e., correspondence).
Beauty and morality (as I attempted to show previously) are fully consistent with materialism. Beauty need not be some kind of Platonic ideal to exist and be every bit as inspiring and meaningful and rewarding. How might we tell the difference between materialistic beauty and idealistic beauty?
And does morality in your worldview not require an interpreter?
While the universe itself is probably without meaning, why does that imply to you that our lives are without meaning? We are each able to give our own lives meaning! I’d quote Nietzsche again, but I suspect you are well familiar with his thought.
Lib, I doubt you claim to know (in the strict meaning of that word) that this universe is not completely materialistic. If we assume for the purposes of discussion that you are living in a strictly materialistic universe, would you lose your love of beauty and your capacity for recognizing it? Would morality and moral thoughts and actions vanish? Would your life really become meaningless?
I submit that you would be unable to tell the difference. And that is the meaning of materialism.
I read Wittgenstein 25 years ago and my recollection is not at all robust or complete. I found Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to be unnecessarily terse and dense and too open to multiple interpretations to allow us to draw reliable conclusions; W himself claimed his own words were meaningless. With respect, I have little interest in debating the topic of this thread in the context of Wittgenstein or Sartre or even consciousness. I don’t find them relevant.
That may well be – Wittgenstein himself, as I reported above, claimed his entire Tractatus was meaningless by his own definitions. He wrote: “Those who understand my propositions correctly will surmount them like a ladder, and then throw them away.” That is one of the main reasons why I don’t see any merit to discussing the matter in Wittgenstein’s context.
Consciousness is more suitably a subject of science rather than linguistic philosophy. I find Wittgenstein’s and Sartre’s and other non-contemporary philosophical examinations of consciousness to have only historical interest. Evolutionary psychology and neuroanatomy and related sciences are the proper front for studying consciousness today.
Ambushed,
I’m going to give this one more go (but only one) in the hopes that you and I might come to some sort of mutual understanding and stop being a distraction to others in these debates.
You need to be aware of what you did to put me off. I’ll present it to you, and then you can decide whether you will accept my misgivings as understandable or whether you will rationalize them away. From your decision will our future relations here flow. I’m giving you my point of view. Granted, my inferences might not have been what you intended, but here they are. These are events as I saw them unfold:
(1) I opened a thread about Materialism, with the encouragement of others, as a means to avoid hijacking another thread with a tangential topic.
(2) I selected a well-known Materialist and the best-known of his arguments as a starting point.
(3) You came in. Your post so impressed me that I followed it with “Wonderful! You’ve left positively no doubt as to where you stand. I think we can begin the debate.” Wonderful is a signal of approval and respect, as was acknowledgment that I recognized from you the first beginnings of real debate.
(4) I then asked you a simple and straightforward question with respect to the agencies of explication which you yourself had cited as inextricably tied to defining what is real. You said: “Nothing is real except for that which is finally explicable as either a material entity or as a form or function or action of a material entity.” I asked: “Explicable by what or whom, and why is the what or whom that you select both significant and nonarbitrary?”
(5) Immediately, you began the first of your bizarre rhetorical dances: “Explicable by what or whom, you ask?” This restatement seemed condescending to say the least. But you didn’t stop there. You continued: “How can it matter?”. Well, I’d say that if I had not thought it mattered, I would not have asked the question. But you didn’t even stop there. You pressed on: “Your question seems to me to be a bit of syllogistic smuggling, if you follow my meaning.” Smuggling? Excuse me? Ambushed, did you honestly expect that anything good would follow from this? It impressed me as an exercise in self-admiration. The condescending rhetoric, the dismissal of my question, and the accusation of syllogistic smuggling left me exactly how you should have known it would leave me — wondering who the hell you are, and why the hell you’re such a jackass.
(6) But I gave leeway to a newbie. I reminded you that you were the one who tied explication to reality. I explained: “If you assign an ability, you must identify the capable agent.”
(7) Your reply? Not an answer to my question, but more of the same bullshit dodging: “You are setting up and attacking a straw man based on nothing more substantive than my mere choice of words.”
Now, that’s where you and I began, and it went downhill from there. I don’t know whether I’m the first to make you aware of this, but somebody needs to, namely, if you want respect, you have to be willing to give it. And I don’t mean platitudinous backhanded crap, either, like, “I respect you, but you’re an idiot”. I mean the real thing.
Your decision. Your call. We’ll see.
Lib Do you yet understand why it doesn’t matter who the explaining agent is, only that there could be one?
I think ambushed doesn’t recognize how insulting some of his early posts are and Lib doesn’t realize how insulting some of his are. I have pointed out some of Lib’s insults, which he has not commented on, because I thought they were directed at me. I tried, in one post, to explain how insulting his comments were by reversing them on him, but I think that is the only insults that I have posted. If there are others, make me aware of them and I will either explain or retract.
The point of this thread was, I thought, for materialists to explain there philosophy and to give Chrisitians a chance to question them about it until they understood it. Lib, in my opinion, still does not understand that calling something explicable doesn’t necessarily require an agent of explication. I think this was the initial misunderstanding and it seems to persist.
Orb,
I never meant to insult you, and wouldn’t knowingly do it. I apologize nevertheless, because I value you as a person and a debator, and I care about your feelings. For what it’s worth, whatever insults you might have returned, they flew right over my head, meaning that I’m quite dense about such things.
I’m sorry, but I cannot dismiss the agency of explication. There is absolutely nothing that is not explicable somehow generally in some fashion; therefore, you would have to concede that every conception exists. I think it’s only fair that you consent to the rigors of inquiry, even when that inquiry might cause your own beliefs to shift (or at least coalesce). It’s happened to me here many times. Spiritus, Gaudere, Glitch, and others have changed my mind on many things, from atheist morality to spiritual suffering, all because they made inquiries that I received as genuine and valid, and searched myself for the answers. Whenever I found that their questions left me without answers, I knew that I was wrong.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. But I am saying that the question I’ve asked about agency is no less valid simply for standing unanswered. You can’t have a predication without agency. And if you want to say that the agency doesn’t matter (i.e., it can be anything) then every perception of reality is equally valid, and I just don’t think that’s what the classical Materialists intended.
Eris,
I’ve not read any of his works directly, except for pieces of Either-Or. But of course, he, and his basic theme, is familiar to me. From what I know, he was the Melancholy’s Melancholy. And based on your suggestion, the next time I take a notion to read philosophy, I’ll make it a point to read Soren. (For what it’s worth, I have read a lot of Camus, who seemed greatly influenced in general by the relation between dread and freedom.)
You should go back and read through some of my posts where I specifically point out that things you said were insulting and unfounded.
You only confirn that you misunderstand what we’re talking about. We are not saying that someone does explain only that there could be. And the explanation would be logical, correct, and backed with evidence. Not everything can be explained in this manner. For instance, I don’t believe a soul can be explained in this manner.
Actually, I thought that you would be satisfied with my statement that the agent of explication was a sentient mind that may or may not ever exist but who could exist within the physical laws of the universe. Perception is fine, but logical and supported explication is another thing altogether.
Your post confirms my theory that you misunderstand what we are trying to say by ‘explicable’. Essentially, we are trying to define what is material and what is not. Because it seems to me that you probably have a decent idea of the difference between the material and spiritual, your continuing misunderstanding is frustrating and makes me wonder if you’re just trying to get under our skin.
I think that you have some idea that maybe souls could someday be shown to be made of some strange persistent massless physical particles that somehow get around certain laws of nature by their lack of mass. Therefore making materialism somehow redundant. Is that where you’re going with this? Or something similar? Can you insert some examples into your posts so that I don’t have to work so hard trying to figure out exactly what you’re trying to say? Until we can define material it’s pointless to try to talk about the implications of materialism. Waht do you mean when you say material?
The materialist premise of reality is NOT predicated on explicability.
Materialists assert that nothing real exists which is not either a material entity or a form, function or action of a material entity, and that nothing real happens except through such actions, forms and functions. Only in the philosophical implications of this premise is explicability important, and then only insofar as ideas are judged to be epistemologically sound from a materialist standpoint.
The agency of explication is not important to materialists; only the means of explication are important.
Again, nothing in the universe needs to be explicable to be real. However, our knowledge of any hypothetical thing can only be gained through measurement of the thing or of its actions and effects on other measurable real things. If such measurement cannot be done, then we cannot know the hypothetical to be “real”. —The hypothesis itself, OTOH, being the real function or action of the mind which conceived it and of the minds to which it is communicated can be evaluated as subjectively as we like; it is a manifestly measurable thing. In this sense, we can judge Tris’ gausopheme to be practicable and believe its functions to be measurable while at the same time we can variously consider it to be anywhere from pointless to aesthetically significant without ever contradicting the materialist worldview.
Okay, Xeno, thanks. That I can wrap my feeble brain around. Back once again to the universe being meaningless and all meaning being arbitrary. Including, of course, any and all speculations — inspections, measurements, what have you — of it.
Orb, I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I can’t convince you that I am sincere about what I’m saying, so no meaningful debate can possibly arise.
Thanks xeno for explaining better than I have. I was trying to use ‘explicable’ to define material and now realize that I shouldn’t have. Can you define ‘material’ for me now? I think that it needs a more careful definition than what I see in dictionaries. I’ve been looking through my philosophical links but can’t find a good definition of this. This best I can do is to use the word ‘matter’, which seems circular. So, I look at definitions of matter and only find stuff about having mass. Maybe a combination of the definitions of ‘matter’ and ‘energy’? Something like that anyway. Who’d got a good definition of ‘material’?
Sorry to step back in, Orb, but there’s no point in defining material. (Speaking Materialistically, here.) Whatever it is, it exists independently of any of your thoughts, observations, or definitions. It’s almost like Schrodinger’s cat: once you’ve defined material, it takes on your subjective bias.