# What's the point of Materialism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898 "2010-11-08T13:25:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/21 "2010-11-08T20:38:01Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > An unbiased observer would conclude that Diogenes the Cynic freely chose to cynically reply to the above with the caveat that Diogenes the Cynic is a person. Cite that such a person would be correct? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/22 "2010-11-08T20:42:39Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Free will is purely a religious belief, and not a very coherent one at that. It’s a logical impossibility. I don’t think it’s a logical impossibility in itself, but you’re surely right that it’s not very coherent and inconsistent when used to excuse an all-powerful deity from responsibility (which is the original reason for the concept in the first place). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/23 "2010-11-08T20:42:52Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > The “We” is the spiritual “connectedness”, but it requires an increasingly existential lifestyle to experience it. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what “existential” means. “Existential” means focusing attention on existence (i.e. material reality) over essence (i.e. invisible universals). The end result of “an increasingly existential lifestyle” is … materialism! ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/24 "2010-11-08T20:49:58Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > “Materialism” is a word I mainly see used by woosters to try to make it sound like basic common sense is a belief system. For me it’s pretty simple, I assume that nothing exists until its proven to exist, and I assume that the impossible is impossible until proven otherwise. I don’t know why that’s so offensive to some people. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Cite that people have “free choice?” This seems a bit contradictory to me. I can understand and appreciate your idea of not believing in something until it is proven as with, for instance, non-materialism or religious belief. Free will, however, seems different to me in that, while cannot observe non-physical things or the super natural, most of us experience something that we describe as free will. Of course, it may be nothing more than an illusion, but as this flies in the face of our everyday experience, it would seem to me that it makes more sense as a default position, in holding with what I understand to be the spirit of that position. Or maybe I’m missing some subtleties. More at the OP, I do tend to agree with this view of Materialism. It seems to add unnecessary complexity to what is, or should be, the default view. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/25 "2010-11-08T20:51:04Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > This is pretty much the exact opposite of what “existential” means. “Existential” means focusing attention on existence (i.e. material reality) over essence (i.e. invisible universals). The end result of “an increasingly existential lifestyle” is … materialism! “Existential” means focusing attention on experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/26 "2010-11-08T20:54:54Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Free will is purely a religious belief, and not a very coherent one at that. It’s a logical impossibility. Bah, okay, I missed this, and by the time I respond I won’t be able to edit anyway. Wouldn’t believing free will not to exist require belief in a deterministic or at least a causal link for every action? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/27 "2010-11-08T21:04:01Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > “Existential” means focusing attention on experiences. Ok then, please define “spiritual” as well. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/28 "2010-11-08T21:05:14Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > Bah, okay, I missed this, and by the time I respond I won’t be able to edit anyway. Wouldn’t believing free will not to exist require belief in a deterministic or at least a causal link for every action? There’s quite a bit of research that casts serious doubt on what I’d roughly call our rational and emotional freedom of action and belief. ETA: and non-determinism or even break downs of causality do not automatically give us “free will” in the typical sense either. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/29 "2010-11-08T21:21:16Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > There’s quite a bit of research that casts serious doubt on what I’d roughly call our rational and emotional freedom of action and belief. Got a cite? ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/30 "2010-11-08T21:22:15Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > Ok then, please define “spiritual” as well. Well of course your spiritual part is that amount by which you are greater than the sum of your individual material parts. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/31 "2010-11-08T21:25:05Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > “Existential” means focusing attention on experiences. Wouldn’t that be “experiential”? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/32 "2010-11-08T21:26:20Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > Well of course your spiritual part is that amount by which you are greater than the sum of your individual material parts. Aha … by “spiritual” you mean [“emergent behavior”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence). I like it when AI’s in videogames are spiritual. It makes them much more interesting to play against. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/33 "2010-11-08T21:26:43Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > It is the point marking “What you are))” as you proceed to experience “((what you could be))”. Hey, look! Superfluous parentheses! ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/34 "2010-11-08T21:40:31Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > Bah, okay, I missed this, and by the time I respond I won’t be able to edit anyway. Wouldn’t believing free will not to exist require belief in a deterministic or at least a causal link for every action? I think the problem that the idea of “free will” runs into, is that you can’t even define it coherently. People have this gut feeling that they have it, but as soon as they try to define what it is exactly that they think they have, it’s nonsensical. That’s why we can say that we don’t think it exists, in spite of not having evidence of its non-existence. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/35 "2010-11-08T21:40:39Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Got a cite? I’m grabbing some stuff from “The Moral Landscape” by Sam Harris: 1. It’s quite obvious that physical damage (tumors, wounds) to, or chemical alterations (certain drugs, recreational or medicinal) of the brain can cause very clear changes in our behavior and thought. And these changes are not “voluntary” in the usual sense. 2. [TIME OF CONSCIOUS INTENTION TO ACT IN RELATION TO ONSET OF CEREBRAL ACTIVITY](http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/106/3/623.short): “The recordable cerebral activity (readiness-potential, RP) that precedes a freely voluntary, fully endogenous motor act was directly compared with the reportable time (W) for appearance of the subjective experience of ‘wanting’ or intending to act. The onset of cerebral activity clearly preceded by at least **several hundred milliseconds** the reported time of conscious intention to act.” 3. [Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain](http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/abs/nn.2112.html): “There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively ‘free’ decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex **up to 10 s** before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.” [note: these “control areas” are areas that encode physical acting on the decision] [emphases mine]. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/36 "2010-11-08T21:42:40Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > Oh, I see. So if I wave to my neighbor, that’s a spiritual connection. If you want to diminish the term, go ahead. The term spiritual now has dimensions to diminish which give to it breadth and width, a certain reality beyond the material. Just as that river you mentioned and even for the matter of a Mayonnaise jar lid. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/37 "2010-11-08T21:44:37Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > This seems a bit contradictory to me. I can understand and appreciate your idea of not believing in something until it is proven as with, for instance, non-materialism or religious belief. Free will, however, seems different to me in that, while cannot observe non-physical things or the super natural, most of us experience something that we describe as free will. Of course, it may be nothing more than an illusion, but as this flies in the face of our everyday experience, it would seem to me that it makes more sense as a default position, in holding with what I understand to be the spirit of that position. Or maybe I’m missing some subtleties. It might _feel_ like we have free will, but the concept, when fully examined, does not make sense. Something has to cause the will. The will can’t cause itself, that leads to an infinite regression of “deciders.” The will therefore has to either be externally determined or random. Either way it’s not free. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/38 "2010-11-08T21:46:18Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > There’s quite a bit of research that casts serious doubt on what I’d roughly call our rational and emotional freedom of action and belief. > > ETA: and non-determinism or even break downs of causality do not automatically give us “free will” in the typical sense either. Yes, well put. It annoys me to hear things like “Since the universe is deterministic, we have no free will” because what is free will and how would the situation be different in an indeterministic universe? It also annoys me when people confuse determinism and fatalism, as often happens in discussions of free will. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/39 "2010-11-08T21:47:14Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > Bah, okay, I missed this, and by the time I respond I won’t be able to edit anyway. Wouldn’t believing free will not to exist require belief in a deterministic or at least a causal link for every action? No, a random generator would work as well, but it’s not a belief anyway, it’s a necessary logical conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898/40 "2010-11-08T21:48:56Z")
> [@focusonz](#): > > Well of course your spiritual part is that amount by which you are greater than the sum of your individual material parts. Cite that any such thing exists? I say we are exactly the sum of our physical parts. What is your evidence that there is anything more? Incidentally, a river is just a river too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-materialism/559898.md?page=3)