How can you justify a strictly materialistic universe when the laws of physics them-self are not material?
>>403588
Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos
>>403588
Materialism is the notion that our minds are constituted by something outside of our minds. The notion that the laws of physics, which are concepts inside our minds, should be able to encompass the universe outside of our minds, is in itself non-materialistic.
"The laws of physics" aren't things. They're descriptions of how things behave. It's just that grammatically, "the laws of physics" is a noun phrase so it's easy to get confused and treat them as things.
>>403615
Ask /sci/, but I don't think that's been resolved yet.
I don't know why things happen, why some objects are different to others, and why events occur in a predictable manner, but there's no reason to come up with some kind of completely unknown (and, depending on how you define material, possibly unknowable) things to explain them just because admitting you're not onmiscient makes you uncomfortable.
>>403615
>What is the materialistic basis for gravity
what
that question has no meaning.
materialists are so fucking pathetic desu. Just go back to /sci/ or reddit or whatever y'all came from.
>>403588
laws of physics are things people wrote down and agreed on after observation and measurment and a fuckton of mathemathics
they are not a thing in existence they are a description, a set of logical conclusions
>>403673
So that means a strictly materialistic basis isn't workable because laws of physics fall under idealism?
>>403591
Where the fuck do anyone of them even discuss this? They're philosophers of science and often studied in that order but you're just shitposting m8.
>>403720
Different anon here, materialism cannot be the basis of empirical science in the first place, as it is the one metaphysical position that prohibits putting science on a metaphysical basis.
>>403720
well if you measure something and determine its 10cm long, 10cm wide and 10 decagrams weight, youre still using semantics and sets of concepts, you could of used inches or pounds, but technicaly you measured the thing, within that framewirk of those ideas, such as lenght, width, heaviness, measurement etc... nothing is lost or gained if you call it idealism, you cant do anything, then, without running the risk of it being called idealist, since anything you do youll be using sets of ideas and concepts
>>403731
The laws of physics are things made by people, existing in a cultural context. They are not external reality.
All of them discuss this point.
OP would do well to read them and start asking useful questions.
Just a throw away post. Denunciations of materialism are generally premised on a highly tendentious concept of matter that is of the order of a straw man. The moment you hear terms such as “mechanism” or “reductionism” thrown about, you know you’re before a 17th century corpuscular concept of matter (basically the theory of Democritus and Lucretius) understood as indivisible particles that enter into various combinations. This ignores work done in the sciences over the last three hundred year; and, in particular, the fluid and energetic nature of matter. The concept of matter is unique in philosophy insofar as we don’t begin, in advance, with a concept of matter. It’s not an a priori concept. To be sure, there’s a root intuition– matter is “stuff” or “physical” –but what that might be is an open question: processes, relations between forces, energy? The being or nature of matter is something to be discovered, it is a knowledge to come. It is not something we have already. It is a concept on the way.
>>403790
Of course, the interesting question here is why materialism seems to evoke so much hostility within the humanities? Materialism seems unique in raising ire among those of us who work in fields like philosophy and literary theory. What is the source of this ire? Does it arise from unconscious religious commitments about the nature of self or the soul? Is it that there’s a strong tendency towards idealism within the humanities, towards the mind mastering and conditioning and even forming all that is, that gives rise to this hostility? After all, matter is that which resists thought, that prevents concept from swallowing thing (as Adorno well recognized in his concept of a negative dialectics). Given how successful materialism has been in accounting for various phenomena– though it still has a long way to go –hostility towards materialism doesn’t seem to arise simply from inadequacies in the ontology (inadequacies, incidentally, that have a history of being overcome in response to criticism). This is an indication that materialism touches on the real, on that which is other than a correlation.
>>403588
That is literally like saying the food offered on a menu is not a material thing because the descriptions of them on the menu aren't themselves the material they describe.
Do you understand what reference is anon?
Once man would say that the foundation of the universe was God, then we said it was matter. Instead of matter I could say that the 'true' basis of all things is energy or information but all I've done is substitute one metaphor for another. We could go on forever refining our descriptions. The thing-in-itself cannot be apprehended directly with language guys, we can only reference it. Even though that's the case let's not get confused about what we're doing here and throw out the baby with the bathwater and say silly things like matter doesn't exist since we can't say "what" it is.
>>403794
>why materialism seems to evoke so much hostility within the humanities
The hostility isn't directed against materialism, but against naturalism or physicalism, which, as you should be aware given that you mention Adorno, not properly materialistic, since they do not accept that anything resists thought in their zeal to subsume everything under the conceptual scheme of the natural sciences. That being said, most of the hostility will not be motivated by a proper understanding of materialism, but by tribal instincts against people trying to take over your clay.
>>403603
>>403673
>>403814
>>403615
no one knows why or how space can be warped or why the strong or weak force is there. It just is, and as far as some are concerned, the mind could be something like that that comes from specific structures running information in a certain way.
>>403615
>What is the materialistic basis for that?
When you have a lot of matter, it tends to get lumped together. Why? Because that's what matter does when you have a lot of it.
>>406641
Are you suggesting that gravity is a tautological action of matter?
>>406661
>tautological action
How can an action be tautological?
If you need me to get philosophical about it, say gravity relies on material cause. Like electromagnetism. It's simply inherent to the substances.
>>406641
Yeah no shit sherlock, why does it do that
>>406802
>gravity, a property of large masses of stuff, is a property of large masses of stuff
Cmon
>>406824
His electromagnetism example is worse since we know the particles that carry the electromagnetic force. We don't know force carriers for gravity, but that doesn't mean gravitational attraction is inherently in matter. People who talk about philosophy of science all too often know enough about philosophy but not about science.
>>403794
>Given how successful materialism has been in accounting for various phenomena
example please
note that materialism really has nothing to do with the scientific process. science works just the same in a subjective idealist universe
to posit matter in accounting for something within the framework of a predictive theory is not the same question as whether the matter really really exists
>>406844
along the same lines we posit dinosaurs existing in a waaaay distant past in order to account for fossils, diversity etc - things we observe with our senses
but it is an altogether separate issue to ask whether dinosaurs actually existed, and the past actually had the form like it does in our geologic theories etc
so before the concept of dinosaurs were formed, did dinosaurs exist? a concep can exist before it's own conception? or you're saying it's what the concept refers to that existed? you mean to tell me that the word dinsaur somehow flies into the past and forms a sign,signified relationshup with beasts which have ceased to exist? where does this magic come from?
what materialists often do (not all) is they confuse these questions. they think that to posit atoms within the framework of a predictive altogether human ideal theory is to posit that atoms metaphysically exist distinct from human experience - or perhaps even causing or is one and the same as human experience like we see in this retarded strands of reductionism in neuroscience, etc
"the brain is the material cause of consious experience"
this is the worst sort of retardation there is. you find out about brains through sensory experience, likewise your sensory organs, so, your sensory organs/nervous system are the cause of their own existence? your brain caused it's own existence? no? oh you mean the separate noumenal brain, the one we don't experience and have no knowlege of? how stupid of me not to know. so you're saying an objective wheich we can't grasp causes our experience of a representation of itself and this representation is in some sense veridical otherwise how could we be justified calling it a brain? oh I get it, I am a small man in a phenomenal world, an onboard self-model within the noumenal brain of a material body within the actual physical world which I perpeually mistake as not being an onboard representation but the real thing?
I mean at this point, just give it up
>>406844
I'm not that guy, and I don't know if he is sufficiently aware of this, but he seems to subscribe to the marxian account of materialism, which doesn't use the concept of matter in the physical sense, but in the sense of that which has mind-independent existence. Anyway, you're right kn asserting that it doesn't contribute to the natural sciences, as it is really a way to make sense of their findings, not enable them in the first place.
You are basically asking to answer the old "scientifically justify the scientific method" question aren't you?
Yeah that usually makes ultra materialists very buttmad, but only the most extremist ones.
>>406886
Materialism btfo
>>406945
Positivists are not proper materialists though, as the primacy of the object cannot be established by the scientific method.
>>406969
Well they aren't proper anything, really, since they discard metaphysical questions.
>>406886
nice post
>>406998
Fair enough, but you could say the same thing about post-hegelian materialism, just that it uses metaphysics to break it, by immanent critique if you will. You know, instead of just calling every sentence that isn't empirically verifyable senseless out of hand.
>>406886
>Concepts can't exist before we conceive of them
Dude what's even real lmao
>>407030
In a strictly materilistic sense, no they can't exist before we conceive them. That's his point, pure materialism is retarded. The universe is both idealistic and materialistic.
>>406840
Ugh. Do we have to go into the details?
Gravity is a property of mass. More mass = more gravity.
Going into electromagnetism would take more time, but let's say that it is the product of differentials of charge.
Magnetism - two objects with different polarities are attracted to each other; this effect is greater according to how great the differential is (more difference in charge = more magnetic attraction).
As for electricity, somethingsomething electrons flow from where there are more of them to somewhere there is less of them, assuming that there is a conductor between, until the difference is gone.
Satisfied?
The point is that the laws are constructs that describe the behavior of materia. Materia rules itself by itself, not according to something that is beyond it. If you make laws that describe the behavior of materia better than the ones we currently have, by all means let us know: these are just inventions that help us predict and explain phenomenon, not phenomenons by their own right.
>>407077
>The universe is both idealistic and materialistic.
So, the mind is ontologically prior to matter, and matter is ontologically prior to the mind? Do you have some super smart way of making that plausible, or do you just not understand what those words mean?
>>406886
>or you're saying it's what the concept refers to that existed?
Yes. We have concepts now that described something concrete that occurred in the past.
>you mean to tell me that the word dinsaur somehow flies into the past and forms a sign,signified relationshup with beasts which have ceased to exist? where does this magic come from?
Where the hell are you getting this from? The word "dinosaur" is a(n arguably) useful term for organizing a set of animals that existed at one point. They lived, we study them, by their leftovers and reconstruct what must have occurred based on the evidence. Where is the magic there?
>>407114
Why do they behave this way. What created or formed these behaviors
You're legitimately autistic.
>>407115
Ideas are part of the universe. The point is that ideas are not just a way of perceiving things but actually creating entirely new things. For instance dinosaurs. The universe is not static, new things may pop into existence.
>>403588
Deepak please, you've been like this for days, I know you want to be right about universal consciousness and it's a beautiful, poetic concept, but you have no proof, you can only stand there and accuse scientists of being ideologues
>>407129
Postmodernist detected
>>407127
>What created or formed these behaviors
Why do they need to be "created" or "formed" at all?
>>407138
Why not?
>>407133
Get that autism checked friendo
>>407129
First of all, you didn't answer my question, which is quite telling. Second, ideas are concepts within our minds, they do not change the reality we perceive, unless they are in fact prior to it, which would be idealism, and not materialism. You can have agnosticism a la Hume lr Kant, but you can't have both.
>>407129
If a bunch of people discovering bones spontaneously generated animals that didn't exist prior, then why haven't the collective examinations of weebs and otaku spontaneously generated waifus that didn't exist prior? Why didn't the medieval men who believed in one-legged giants and trees of wool manage to generate them? Where is an example of these ideas outranking physical reality?
>>407151
Come on Deepak, you're better than that, whatever happened to you trolling Richard Dawkins live on stage successfully?
>>407114
Laws are constructs I won't argue that, but you clearly don't know what you're talking about when it comes to the physics to the point where it harms your argument. Instead of saying gravity is a property of mass say we don't know how gravity works. Instead of giving a description of electromagnetism that an undergrad in a freshman level e&m class could tear to shreds, admit that you don't know how electromagnetism works. It's that simple. I'm sure you get upset when stemlords act like they know everything about philosophy based on their limited worldview. You're doing the exact same thing.
>>407138
They don't have to be, but one of the interactions you described has a deeper cause, and that led us to make assumptions about the other. The answer would be obvious if you knew science as well as you knew philosophy.
>>403602
>The notion that the laws of physics, which are concepts inside our minds
>>407114
/sci/ here, we have empirical data on WHY magnetism works,but we don't know WHY gravity does. We know correlations and have a few theories, but we seriously don't know. The best ones currently available are Quantum Field Theory and Special Relativy. They are mutually exclusive, and we haven't yet decided on which one is most accurate. Your explanation is extremely superficial and doesn't accurately answer his question.
>>407178
Are there even people who disagree with that? Concepts are our tools for understanding reality, and no matter how good one such tool is at that, no matter how well it predicts, it will obviously always be something a human has come up with, and formulated in a human language to pass it on to other humans. I mean, fuck, is this actually complicated or mysterious, and I'm not aware of that somehow?
>>407186
>who created god huh Christ fags?
>at some point were gonna have to accept matter is matter
Get a grip
>>406886
>along the same lines we posit dinosaurs existing in a waaaay distant past in order to account for fossils, diversity etc - things we observe with our senses
>but it is an altogether separate issue to ask whether dinosaurs actually existed, and the past actually had the form like it does in our geologic theories etc
The past doesn't physically exist. We can attempt to mentally reconstruct prior states, still.
>or you're saying it's what the concept refers to that existed?
Yes.
you mean to tell me that the word dinsaur somehow flies into the past and forms a sign,signified relationshup with beasts which have ceased to exist? where does this magic come from?
No, the relationship only exists in your mind.
>what materialists often do (not all) is they confuse these questions. they think that to posit atoms within the framework of a predictive altogether human ideal theory is to posit that atoms metaphysically exist distinct from human experience - or perhaps even causing or is one and the same as human experience like we see in this retarded strands of reductionism in neuroscience, etc
No. When a representionalist says that a solid plane, that is short-hand for saying that he perceives a solid plane and, while solid planes as we perceive them don't exist in the concrete sense (there is no continuous surface when you get down to more fundamental levels), trust that there is some degree of similarity between the object that is responsible for the stimuli you derive your perception of a solid plane from and
other objects that would likewise cause you to perceive a solid plane. Was this clear?
>"the brain is the material cause of consious experience"
>this is the worst sort of retardation there is. you find out about brains through sensory experience, likewise your sensory organs, so, your sensory organs/nervous system are the cause of their own existence?
Yes.
cont
>>406886
>>407223
>your brain caused it's own existence? no? oh you mean the separate noumenal brain, the one we don't experience and have no knowlege of? how stupid of me not to know. so you're saying an objective wheich we can't grasp causes our experience of a representation of itself and this representation is in some sense veridical otherwise how could we be justified calling it a brain? oh I get it, I am a small man in a phenomenal world, an onboard self-model within the noumenal brain of a material body within the actual physical world which I perpeually mistake as not being an onboard representation but the real thing?
Yes, you make that mistake. You are just a physical brain that thinks itself something apart of the physical world because the brain is the only part of your body that isn't part of your body map (in your brain). You can link pain, warmth, cold and other sensations to some body parts but a lot of sensations can't be linked to your brain, so you are inclined to think all these sensations are taking place somewhere besides your body, and the physical universe in general.
>>407153
Idea may be prio relative to the indviual. For instance, the concept of dinosaur predates you.
And yes ideas are originally made as concepts in our mind but they can exist outside the mind. For instance this post contains ideas.
>>407158
Let's start with your first example of the medievil men coming up with the idea of monsters and fantastical ideas. Well if one of these medevil people were to see a particularly unusual animal it would be called a monster. Later on the sciences would classify the monster as a type of animal, of course the classification of animal kindoms have have chanced since it was first invented and has even changed recently. For instance fungus used to be considered a type of plant and now they are not.
So the same creature in the woods has changed identity. At least relative to human perception (which is the perception we care most about), as far as the animal is concerned it hasn't changed at all.
Than let's go to the idea of waifus. It is something that was brought into existence. The idea of specifically designing a cartoon girl to serve as an imaginary girlfriend is a new concept. Such an idea did not exist in same Warner Brothers shorts. The weebus have indeed given birth to an entirely new type of cartoon character.
Now onto the last example of discovering bones. Let's say that a scientist discovers bones and we have a brand new species. From the perspective of the scientist this has always existed and it is studied as such. Than a few years later we learn the discovery was a forgery. Thus the creature went through 3 steps. First it was unknown, than it always existed, than it only existed in the form of a hoax.
In other words exactly what something "is" depends on the observer and the observer's idea can change. Thus a thing can be more than 2 things at once since there can be more than 1 observer.
>>407223
>When a representionalist says that a solid plane, that is short-hand for saying that he perceives a solid plane and * trust that there is some degree of similarity between the object that is responsible for the stimuli you derive your perception of a solid plane from and other objects that would likewise cause you to perceive a solid plane. Was this clear?
This should be clearer.
*while solid planes as we perceive them don't exist in the concrete sense (there is no continuous surface when you get down to more fundamental levels)
>>407226
Either subjective experience affects behavior or it doesn't. Either we are machines obeying non rational laws or consciousness is more than just a physical property of matter.
If subjective states do not influence physical behaviors and we have about as much control over ourselves as a rock in an avalanche, then it is absurd that consciousness, being the product of non rational laws, could be so rational in itaelf. There is no way for evolution to have selected for highly evolved consciousnesses because if subjective states could not influence behavior, then there would be no guarantee the surviving and evolving members of a species had evolved minds since the quality of their cognition would be arbitrary and could not possibly be selected for.
If subjective states do not influence physical behaviors then we have no reason to believe our thoughts about anything, including materialism, rendering it absurd.
>>407222
>At least relative to human perception (which is the perception we care most about), as far as the animal is concerned it hasn't changed at all.
Okay, great. Human perception of the animal has changed, but the animal itself was unchanged. People thought there were trees made of wool, when in reality it was just bushes of cotton all along. In other words, the ideas were simply flawed attempts at describing physical reality, but did not actually manage to change physical reality in any real sense. Glad we agree.
The other examples are similar language games with the word "exists." None of them justify someone coming up with the word "dinosaur" and that having any effect on animals that existed millions of years prior.
>>407229
>Idea may be prio relative to the indviual. For instance, the concept of dinosaur predates you.
Yes, but it doesn't predate dinosaurs, as in, the objects to which the concept apllies, now does it?
>And yes ideas are originally made as concepts in our mind but they can exist outside the mind. For instance this post contains ideas
This post only contains ideas because this post is communication between humans. Since this happens, and has to happen, on a material basis, i.e. a basis not made up of ideas, but in this case computers, you have so far not shown how the universe is idealistic in any way.
>>407258
>Either subjective experience affects behavior or it doesn't.
Indirectly. You act according to your representations, so it is convenient that they correspond to some degree with concrete reality. (This takes care of the second and third paragraphs too.) Through your actions, your fantasies can become somewhat closer to reality. ^_^
>Either we are machines obeying non rational laws or consciousness is more than just a physical property of matter.
We are machines. We abstract universal laws from observations of multiple individual phenomenon; the laws are more or less products of our reasoning processes, though the physical processes they describe occur independently from our beliefs of how they occur.
>>407314
>your actions
So subjective affects the objective then? Matter can be beholden to something other than a domino effect of physical reactions, namely my conscious decision to pick up an apple and eat it whenever I feel like it, right? All righty then
>>407336
>Matter can be beholden to something other than a domino effect of physical reactions, namely my conscious decision to pick up an apple and eat it whenever I feel like it, right?
You didn't describe anything non-physical here.
>>407280
Yes, but it doesn't predate dinosaurs, as in, the objects to which the concept apllies, now does it?
Also, you are thinking about time incorrectly. The "past" as a prio state only exists as a concept. There is only one eternal present. The past in a material sense doesn't even exist. The only way we can construct the concept is through ideas.
>>407346
The concept of "the past" is a useful simplification of a set of presents that existed prior to the current instant. Concepts are separate from reality, but they still describe, rather than define, it.
>>407345
I must be, if it's all just dominos why did my desire to eat an apple correspond with the physical behavior? Again, how can rational, ordered thinking possibly be a product of blind, non rational law? Especially if it cannot be selected? You have to grant your thinking is rational and trustworthy for there even to be a discussion about this in the first place.
>>407336
Your mental states themselves are sort of representations of physical reactions occurring within your brain, though.
>>407385
>I must be, if it's all just dominos why did my desire to eat an apple correspond with the physical behavior?
You wanted to eat the apple so you did it? I don't understand the issue here.
Again, how can rational, ordered thinking possibly be a product of blind, non rational law? Especially if it cannot be selected? You have to grant your thinking is rational and trustworthy for there even to be a discussion about this in the first place.
It can and was selected. Things like induction and pattern-matching aren't just useful for philosophical musings you know. My thinking is rational and trustworthy up to a point. My representations aren't perfect, no.
>>407385
>if it's all just dominos why did my desire to eat an apple correspond with the physical behavior?
Because one dominoed from the other. Some sum of action potentials tipped the balance allowing some neuron to fire, which dominoed to causing other neurons to fire, which went on to cause other ones to fire and so on until your hand reached for the apple and it was consumed.
>how can rational, ordered thinking possibly be a product of blind, non rational law?
Because as particles of matter follow laws (as much as laws can be said to "exist," anyway, if you'd like we can say as matter and energy interact in way characteristic of each) in constant, predictable ways, you get order.
>Especially if it cannot be selected?
We weren't selected for rationality necessarily, we were selected for "pretty good" heuristics, which is a bit like rationality but faster and less accurate. Our brains are rational enough to hunt boars and create tools to a high degree of accuracy, but make mistakes fairly constantly. The whole reason discussion and eventually the scientific method exists is to remove as much irrationality as possible from the process. Besides, selecting for one trait doesn't mean others won't emerge. For example, when domesticating foxes, researchers selected exclusively for friendliness, but that had a cascade effect that produced many new fur coat colours and forms.
>>407404
If my volitional consciousness is just a physical property, there's no reason why my body's physiological need for "desire" for an apple would have lined up with the thought 'I want an apple'. Even if my mental state is a by product representation, it does not explain how my perception of these states is still remarkably coherent and rational. It must be the case that subjective experience affects materiality and that physic a Liam is therefore false
>>407346
>Also, you are thinking about time incorrectly.
Also? You didn't say anything before that.
>The "past" as a prio state only exists as a concept. There is only one eternal present.
I'd be more careful with assertions of existence. Seriously, this is quite outrageously speculative and metaphysical.
>The past in a material sense doesn't even exist.
Now you're confused about words, of course the past DOES not exist, as the term designates that hich once DID exist, but NOT ANYMORE. So your statement amounts to "That which does not exist anymore does not exist.". To which I can only reply within reason, no shit.
>The only way we can construct the concept is through ideas.
Ideas, based on concrete experience, used to understand it.
>>407426
The thought "I want an apple" is the product (or perhaps the actual experience of, it's unclear) of your body's physiological need for nourishment, which is later processed by neurons balancing that against its recorded history (how much hunger is there, what is available that will satisfy that amount of hunger) and outputing that "apple" is the correct answer. Thus, the desire for an apple.
>>407444
A ridiculous claim, since my consciousness is not JUST a representation of physical states, or if it was, the coherency of cognition can't be explained by the random intake of stimuli.
>>407444
This is a gross oversimplification that made me picture gears inside my head and made me want to go for an apple right now.
>>407470
Well yes, when I say something like "balancing against" I am glossing over most of modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience that is figuring out exactly how all that happens. But taken as the most bird's-eye view of bird's-eye views, it's ions and neurotransmitters moving around in a really complex, entirely physical way.
>>407468
For one thing, your cognition isn't anywhere near as coherent as you think it is (and I don't mean this as a personal attack, mine isn't actually as coherent as I subjectively feel that it is even knowing it's prone to errors, we're all human and it applies to everyone). But what do you mean by the random intake of stimuli?
>>407505
I mean if my mind is just a representation of physical states then it should not be as coherent as it is. Why is it that if I'm cold my train of thought isn't a constant blaring of 'GET WARM'? How can I not only acknowledge this physical state but continue to think about it, and have thoughts far more complex than a simple recognition of body temperature? What physical state could possibly produce these thoughts? Must it not be the case then that I possess a consciousness that is not beholden to blind law?
>>407553
>Why is it that if I'm cold my train of thought isn't a constant blaring of 'GET WARM'
It is though. It's just been regulated to your subconscious.
Your falling into the old trap of thinking that 'you' are only your surface thoughts. There's a deep ocean of subconsious thoughts that you are swimming in. you're just used to the water.
Without your sensations and your subconscious you can't even have a concept of hot and cold.
I'm going to sleep now. You guys will keep at it? Hope this thread is still alive tomorrow.
Good night.
>>407553
>Why is it that if I'm cold my train of thought isn't a constant blaring of 'GET WARM'?
Because you're equating "representation of physical states" with "simple." Like >>407470 pointed out, the reality of how neurons and gilial cells interact with each other and the rest of the body is actually incredibly complex. When you're cold, the response can be as simple as an unconscious change in blood vessel widths or metabolism rates, or as complex as changing clothes, going to the thermostat, or having the subjective experience of the thought "I sure am cold." But depending on your life history and experience, other thoughts might emerge, and as long as you are not actively seconds from death, they can prevail. If you want to catch that arctic rabbit, after all, you'll need to tolerate some icy temperatures without succumbing to them. At their core, though, all of these are formed by patterns of neural firing that are ultimately physical.
>>407611
Then our thoughts are arbitrary and cannot be trusted because they are representations of physical states that cannot themselves influence those physical states. Or else they can, so consciousness can affect matter, and materialism is false.
>>407646
>Then our thoughts are arbitrary and cannot be trusted
Depends on what you mean by "trust." Brains are very easy to trick, and you see it all the time with optical illusions and magic shows. Discourse and the scientific method are intended to remove this tendency towards individual irrationality as much as possible, though obviously neither is perfect. Instead of perfect, they are some degree of accurate suitable for a number of purposes.
>because they are representations of physical states that cannot themselves influence those physical states. Or else they can, so consciousness can affect matter, and materialism is false.
Depends on what you mean by "consciousness can affect matter." You can decide to eat the apple, for example, and that causes a physical and chemical change both in the apple and in your body. But you can't imagine an apple really hard and will an apple into being, and inventing the word dinosaur millions of years after the fact did not affect the live dinosaur animals in any way (it did affect the positions of their skeletons because we looked/dug for them preferentially, but not the live animals themselves. Besides, consciousness is material under materialism.
>>407691
My friend, if I decide to eat an apple when I'm not really hungry, I am obeying an emotional (boredom) and not a physiological, and by extension, physically-determined directive. That is an example of a subjective perception influencing the objective, material world. You cannot have this be the case and eat your materialism cake too.
Oh, but boredom is a physiological state, an under-excitation of neurons. What chooses to change this condition, then? Does boredom threaten an organism's survival?
Again, even granting it's all a very elaborate magic show, the evolutionary pressure to develop such a faculty would have been entirely random and could not explain the rapid rise of consciousness as easily as "consciousness developed exponentially as those who were smarter and had more complex thoughts had a better chance of suvival"
>>407767
>emotional
What do you think emotions are made of? Why do anti-depressants have an effect on them? Or drugs? Do they somehow affect this non-physical mind? Or does it seem emotions are the result of physical phenomena also?
>Does boredom threaten an organism's survival?
It doesn't have to threaten an organism's survival directly. Maintaining homeostasis seems to be important in all cells, and the brain is no exception. Dreams, for example, seem to be in part caused by the brain's need for semi-constant stimulation.
>the evolutionary pressure to develop such a faculty would have been entirely random and could not explain the rapid rise of consciousness as easily as "consciousness developed exponentially as those who were smarter and had more complex thoughts had a better chance of suvival"
Why not? A niche existed to be exploited, some group of relatively intelligent apes exploited it and over time developed into tool-and-language using humans. It's not random, it's directed by pressure.
>>403588
The universe is, we are alive... let it all be.
>>407844
>What do you think emotions are made of? Why do anti-depressants have an effect on them? Or drugs? Do they somehow affect this non-physical mind? Or does it seem emotions are the result of physical phenomena also?
Then matter can not only be affected by laws, but also by conscious bits of itself. Then materialism is false.
>Why not? A niche existed to be exploited, some group of relatively intelligent apes exploited it and over time developed into tool-and-language using humans. It's not random, it's directed by pressure.
You're not getting it. If subjective experience cannot affect physical behavior - if materialism is true - then organisms that survived and evolved could not have possibly been selected for the development of their brains, since their burgeoning minds were ultimately not responsible for their actions. A being that physically reacts to poison as a dangerous substance would say nothing about its correspondent mental life, and thus the chances of it developing a mind as complex as ours is close to nil.
Or, it's the much more likely and reasonable case that consciousness does affect the real world, and the smart monkeys flourished because they put their brains to good use, thus rendering materialism false.
>>407188
Do you even into Wittgenstein?
>>406886
>>407903
consciousness is material
>>403588
Plato was right on this one.
Also thats why I don't discard "God", maybe he is inmaterial.
