The Metaphysics of Materialism

Great Debates
161

Sometimes, induction is all you can do. It’s better to use deduction, but sometimes, that luxury is unavailable. Just be sure you let people know that you are inducing instead of deducing.

Actually, I have little against sampling as long as it’s done correctly. For example, a doctor does not need to examine all of my blood to determine my blood type or see if I have a disease, he just needs to take a small sample.

As for taking polls, the wording of the questions often determines the outcome, so the wording must be done with great care. Ask people, “Do you believe there is a God?” and Christians, Jews and Muslims will answer, “Yes.” But a pagan would probably answer, “No.” Ask someone “Do you believe that any god exists?” and pagans, Jews, Muslims and Christians alike will answer “Yes.” Then you must ask them to describe their beliefs.

If no one ever says they have no beliefs that any god exists, it would not necessarily mean that there are no atheists; it would only mean that you never encountered any while conducting your poll. For this and similar reasons, you must acknowledge a margin of error.

Now, “them’s fightin’ words.” I have never maintained what I knew to be false. Never. Please do not ever accuse me of that again.

What is your definition of the word tautological?

You are ignoring what I said, that no one is trying, single-handedly, to perceive the entire universe because it’s beyond the capability of any human. It’s a team effort.

No one here has claimed to be able to perceive the entire universe, from sub-atomic particles to galactic clusters, at the same time. When will you cease attacking this straw-man?

One form of synaptic discharge happened automatically, without conscious effort. That’s the kind of “synaptic discharge” I was describing. You’re describing conscious thought, a differnt kind of synaptic activity. They happen in different parts of the brain.

[quote]
Your observation of the universe changes it, and therefore once you’ve observed it, it is no longer the same, and so your observation is obsolete. Indeed, it is subjective since what you observe is filtered through your own senses and interpreted by your own biases.
[/quote} And I accept that. MY point is that these miniscule changes are not worth arguing over. It’s like we’re both on the beach at sunset and I’m taking in the beauty of the scene and you’re complaining that a few grains of sand are out of place.

One last goddamn time: No one is trying to observe the whole of the universe all at once. We’re trying to observe it one piece at a time. THAT can be done objectively.

Post on the SDMB without using any kind of electronic device.

Fly to the Moon without using a spacecraft.

Stand naked on the surface of the Sun.

Hold your breath underwater for an hour. Tell us what it was like.

Have your head removed and live to tell about it.

Have yourself buried naked under ten feet of soil. There must be absolutely no means for you to get air. Stay there for a year and then claw your way out.

Don’t try to weasel your way around these challenges. simply do them and I will agree that nothing is impossible. (Unless I can think of other challenges.)

162

Who the hell is O’Hear?

Only you would use a computer, a device designed and built using principles that have withstood falsification time and again, to argue that falsification does not work!

163

http://www.friesian.com/ohear.htm

That link should reveal the identity of O’Hear while also debunking his debunking, so to speak. Yes, it comes from Friesians. I know Lib will love that. <grin>

Maybe Lib will become a Friesian. I’ve been thinking, is it normal for a Melancholy to focus on one thing while allowing lots of loose ends to dangle? I didn’t think it was and yet Lib seems to be doing that in this thread. I guess he’s too busy. He must be all frazzled by not being able to maintain order. Sorry Lib, and here I was feeling slighted by your ignoring me when that slight is probably bothering you more than it does me.

An excerpt of article:

Let me just add that, for me, extreme probability of something that makes sense to me anyway is proof enough when the option is extreme unlikelihood of something which defies all logic.

164

Jab, you’re right. The way I worded that, it sounded like I was saying you’re dishonest. And that’s definitely not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was that you will maintain a position that in some other context you know in that other context to be false but you aren’t seeing it in this context. I don’t believe for one second that you are intentionally dishonest. No siree.

However, you ignored my questions and attempted to change the subject. I’ll wait for the answers before continuing this dialog.

165

Orb, why do you keep refering to my ignoring you. I started this thread on account of you. Did I miss one of your questions or something?

With respect to Popper, I can find debunkings of your debunkings. Shall we go there? We can argue all day about the nuances of induction. And after we’ve done that, the definitive question remains. I still ask, how can the principle of falsifiability be sound when that very principle itself is not falsifiable?

166

The principle of falsification is tested whenever it’s used. In fact, that’s the only way it can be tested.

167

Well, since at least one person seems like he might be interested, I’ll work on writing up my perspective. A disclaimer now, though, for ambushed: it is indeed metaphysics that leads me there, I believe. It’s not that science informs us that there are things it could never study, but rather the consequences of what we believe we’ve learned that bother me. Hopefully, I’ll have some time tomorrow to start a new thread on this.

Carry on, guys. Fascinating stuff.

168

Then you’ve confirmed that falsifiability is nothing more than induction. (Consider the man who mixed water with three different liquors and concluded that water was making him drunk.) Worse, falsifiability accepts tests against empirical data only, data that we already have established is tautological.

In formal logic, a tautology is a statement that cannot be not true because it cannot be reconstructed as a false statement. More broadly, it is any redundancy, including its cousins, the circular argument and the begged question.

169

Lib --My point in debunking your debunk was that you had made it sound like your debunk was definitive and final. It’s not.

As far as you ignoring me, you’ve consistently ignored all my comments pointing out insulting things you have posted and I didn’t see you respond to the “them’s fighting words” comment of jab1. There were other things I was hoping, in vain, you’d comment on since I had specifically directed them at you. For instance, your definition of “tautological”, which I think you have somewhat different from myself and, judging by jab1’s post, I’m not the only one. I think “axiomatic” may be what you intend to say.

Here’s something else you, Lib, might comment on, or not. I’m trying to get a handle on exactly why we have to so rigorously debate this whole issue of induction. I understand the debate, but I don’t think it’s necessary to my philosophy of materialism. Is it that because my sensory perceptions are demonstrably fallable that using those perceptions to prove something is fallable also? Or, perhaps, you’re going to say that Christians use their perceptions in a similar way to detect God’s presence? I’d just like to get a handle on where we’re going with this. I think I’ve admitted that the path I took to my beliefs was not an infallable one, but I believe firmly nonetheless. I feel that, when probablilities get high enough, I may as well act as if it were fact. There was a bit in my cite about probabilities, which I thought was astute.

All possible conceptions of a benevolent God that my mind can come up with would include a way to definitively discover His presence by honest searching without a preconceived idea of God. It didn’t work. This, for me, is enough to toss out all religion. Once I got that far, Materialism was fairly obvious. WYSIWYG philosophy, sorta. A less benevolent higher power is harder to dismiss, and I certainly don’t wish to talk about a being with no way or desire to act upon our universe at all.

170

Orb,

I don’t know. Maybe you’re just missing the responses. For example, I addressed Jab’s fighting-words protest and the tautology definition both on this page just a coupla posts above yours! Just scroll up a bit. As to any perceived insults, didn’t I address these a page or two back? I didn’t mean to insult you. Why would I?

Now, on to the current stuff:

It might not be necessary to yours, but apparently, it is necessary to Jab’s. He claims to observe the universe objectively based on a tiny sample that he views through filters of subjective bias. It is an extraordinary claim. You can see a thing objectively only if you are an external element with respect to it, as in Jab’s blood-type example.

So, where I’m going is where we ended up after the Materialists began issuing their tautological definitions of material. Material, it turned out, was everything that could be conceived. That’s because agency didn’t matter. Therefore, there was nothing that is not material.

You never know what’s around the corner. It didn’t work for me, either, for twenty-some years. I don’t blame you for tossing out religion. I did that as a result of discovering God. (I’m not entirely comfortable with the term “discover”, but I’ll use it here so long as we can agree that it does not mean anthing was ever hidden: i.e., it’s a discovery like Columbus made, not a discovery like a lawyer makes.)

171

Did he test this conclusion by waiting till he was sober and then drinking pure water and seeing if that made him drunk again? No? Then he didn’t try to falsify his conclusion, did he?

Concrete facts cannot be tautological, only abstract statements can. It is a fact that the Earth receives heat and light from the Sun; how is that tautological?

172

For the absolute last time: I claim we have the potential to view ANY SMALL PART OF the universe objectively. I have NEVER claimed we are able to observe the entire universe at once. Only you have claimed that it is necessary to be able to view the entire universe at once to be able to truthfully claim objectivity.

Once again, you create a straw-man and then demolish it and then claim victory.

AH-HAH! You DO believe it is possible to view a part of the universe with objectivity!

No. A million times, no. (If a materialist said that, he was wrong. People make mistakes.) Material is anything concrete that can be observed, with or without aids. It needn’t be explained right away, though it must be explicable eventually. (Humans observed the Sun for a millon years or so before we figured out that it’s powered by nuclear fusion.)

You tossed out religion when you discovered God? I tossed it out when I decided there was no good evidence for God.

173

Not quite, Lib. Anything that can be concieved can be subjectively evaluated. Anything that exists materially can be both subjectively and objectively evaluated. Evaluation requires an agency, but existence does not.

Tris’ gausopheme can be artistically appreciated whether or not it ever exists materially. But if he ever builds it, not only can it be critiqued on purely subjective bases, it can be measured, its effects can be recorded and replicated, and therefore its existence can be objectively ascertained.

174

Lib I did miss you comments regarding the fighting words, largely because it took me a minute to decipher what you were saying about context in that post. English syntax doesn’t always lend itself to logical discussion. You tried to augment with italics, but it didn’t help. I wasn’t sure that it was the fighting words that you were addressing or some other point.

Your post defining tautology occurred while I was composing my last post. But I asked you that question back on page 2 and got no response. Felt that your “having your cake and eating it too” comment was belittling of my philosophy and tried to get a retraction or clarification or even a “I stand behind that comment” from you and got nothing.

I might have liked to continue talking about whether there was evidence that matter/energy has always existed. I say that there is significant evidence in the fact that matter/energy, by our current understanding, cannot be destroyed or created. Thus, if it exists, it always has.

I don’t feel like going back through and finding all the occasions where I was ignored or insulted.

After posting this I’m going to go back to your last post and respond to the part about material being everything that could be conceived. Let’s just take it from there.

175

Now I understand why you think Materialism is tautological. I don’t know where you got the idea that materialists think anything that can be conceived is material. The brain chemistry etc. that comprise the conception is material, but that doesn’t make the thing that is conceived material. For instance, many religions posit a non-material soul. There is a conception of a soul, but a soul is not material. Some would say that gravity is material, but I would say it is a property of material rather than material itself. Same goes for mass and size and laws of nature.

So, if you tell me soul is a combination of material and properties of material (e.g. saying that your brainwaves leave an energy imprint upon a piece of the universe when you die and that imprint can float around and somehow shape the brain energy patterns of a fetus and so reincarnation occurs) maybe that is a way to have reincarnation within materialism. But, if you say that there is no matter/energy involved but instead a soul which goes to a non-physical place and then somehow waits for a conception to occur wherupon it bonds somehow to the newly conceived person and bestows upon the newly conceived entity the spiritual debts of a long linear sequence of entities, well… that’s a whole nother thing.

I would define any concept of God as a religion. By my definition, discovering God would be discovering religion, even if it meant throwing out many specific religions, it would be the embracing of one specific religion.

176

ambushed, I don’t think you grasp perception enough! lol Amusing, I think, the dichotomy there.

As far as evolutionary psychology goes, that is my whole schick with perception of reality versus conception of reality.

g8rguy, I often fall into what can be lovingly called (but isn’t always lovingly called) quantum mysticism, so by all means start the thread. I would be happy to read and participate.

“Hail Eris!” (paraphrased HUP :p)

177

Orb,

I’m doing you first. Please accept my summary apology and acceptance of responsibility for any and all misunderstandings and negligences. I’ll try to do better.

I stand behind the comment, not as intending to belittle your philosophy, but as how I interpret the matter of there being no agency and yet there being predications that require agents. This is baffling to me. How on earth can we talk about something being observed without saying who is doing the observing? Merely using a passive voice doesn’t alleviate agency. If you say, “This book has been read,” I want to know, “read by whom?”

You’ll recall that I asked for the agencies of these various passive voice declarations many many times over before resigning myself to the notion that Materialists want to have predication with undefined agency, and thus having cake and eating it, too.

That all began, in fact, with Ambushed. I asked him to identify the agency in his initial assertion. He dove immediately into an Appeal to Pity, claiming that I, by holding him to his assertion as stated, was “smuggling”. Now, that’s belittling. I was blamed for his using his own words and thrashed at for asking him to clarify them.

As you can see, I’m going to have to go 'round on this with Xeno, who predicates existence on both subjective and objective evaluation. This is less wild than Tris’s “wild bunch” materialists who, for all the world, seem like solipsists to me. And it does help remove material from being defined as that which exists wherever two or more are gathered in its name. But the problem of nebulous agency remains. And I’ll deal with that in a post to Xeno.

With respect to souls (c.f., spirits), I don’t believe that they are material. But then, I suppose that I define material differently than the Materialists do.

178

Xeno,

I need first to know two things: (1) subjectively evaluated by whom, and why is the whom that you select both significant and not arbitrary; and (2) objectively evaluted by whom, and why is the whom that you select both significant and not arbitrary?

In addition, I need to know whether that material which one or more agents can evaluate must be evaluated by them before existing. And if not, how is there existence before evaluation any more than there is sound before hearing (as in Jab’s example of a tree falling in the woods and there being no sound)?

179

Jab,

Well, in all fairness to the poor man, how the devil does he know when to stop? Remember, the principle of falsifiability is itself not falsifiable.

“If neither Peter nor Paul can play the piano, then Peter cannot play the piano.” Concrete fact. Tautology.

and

But where we differ, so far as I can tell, is that you have faith in an induction principle that will allow you to extrapolate the minute particulars that you observe into general conclusions about the universe as a whole. I submit that you can know nothing about the universe as a whole without observing it as a whole. And that means all of it, both space and time, at once.

Observed by whom or what? And why is the whom or what that you select both significant and not arbitrary?

180

Lib, quite honestly I don’t know what you’re after. I’ve already told you evaluation is not a necessary part of material existence. It’s admittedly axiomatic that material things exist independently of evaluation (is that what you want to hear?). It follows then that material things are not created through observation or evaluation (although they can certainly be affected by the actions involved in evaluation).

The agency of observation is irrelevant except to the observer --and to the observed during such observation.

Anything which is conceived but for which we have no objective evidence may exist, but conception of a thing does not create the thing, merely the idea of the thing.

Objective evaluation is accomplished by subjective beings through the agency of nonsubjective (i.e. nonsentient) devices and through independent verification from other subjective beings using similar but different devices.