How do you justify being a materialist?
>The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/mar/17/templeton-quantum-entanglement
And don't tell me "Occam's Razor", because: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
>>791980
>journalists in charge of understanding quantum mechanics
This is fucking babby tier. No, reality doesn't depend on human consciousness. Boltzmann brains have nothing to do with that.
>>791980
>the guardian
why don't you post a reputable news organization?
>>791986
>Bernard d'Espagnat
>journalist
>how do i justify understanding the world in terms of how i experience it
with relative ease
>>791990
It's by Bernard d'Espagnat
>>791996
If you think reality is defined by how you experience it, then you are, by definition, not a materialist, but an idealist.
>>791980
There's nothing really wrong in the article in regards to interpretive matters. People get jumpy when you mention quantum mechanics and consciousness in the same sentence, but he wasn't talking about idealism or anything.
>>792003
Thanks for the psychoanalysis Freud.
>>791980
Boltzmann brain makes an untenable assumption of randomness. (in the wiki,
>If our current level of organization, having many self-aware entities, is a result of a random fluctuation
) Our current level of organization is not random, but instead results from self-organization dynamics that are not very well understood today, much less in Boltzmann's time. Jeremy England's work seems promising.
>>792010
Ah, yes he was.
>>792003
are empiricists idealists
>>792014
How is that psychoanalysis? That's just clearing up definitions that you're evidently a bit foggy on.
>>792032
Who is George Berkeley
>>792030
no he wasn't. He was saying the appearances are deceiving when it comes to the microscopic, everyone knows that.
>>792042
No, he was saying, "The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."
>>792048
Not once in the article does he say that
>>792065
But he has said that, which I think clarifies his position.
>>792039
some bishop i think
>>792084
A major empiricist philosopher who was enormously influential on Hume. Also an extreme idealist.
>>791980
who is the semen demon
>>791980
Sauce
>>791980
Dude noumena lmao
>>791980
>it's the Schrodinger's cat implies consciousness-dependent reality meme
>>791980
>The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment.
This is just not true. QM has nothing to do with consciousness. When a conscious observer observes a particle in a quantum state, its wavefunction collapses to 1 point in space. This is not because the observer is conscious, but because to observe stuff, you have to bounce a photon off it. An unconscious machine designed to automate a QM experiment will get the same results as a conscious human experimenter. QM is ENTIRELY consistent with particles existing independent of human consciousness.
>Occam's razor isn't a valid defence of materialism because boltzmann brains
Boltzmann brains require that quantum fluctuations are real events, rather than just a consequence of our measurement devices being out of equilibrium with their surroundings. This assumption is not justifiable under Occam's razor.
>>793415
>Boltzmann brains require that quantum fluctuations are real events
Not really, you could just assume the brain always existed.
>>793428
Boltzmann brains are only likely because of thermodynamics and the fact that the early universe had lower entropy than a brain.
It's just as likely a low entropy universe has 'always existed' as a boltzmann brain has 'always existed.' Thermodynamics doesn't apply when there's no time.
>>793442
No, even without all that, solipsism is a much simpler explanation for reality than the materialist model.
>>793447
Occam's razor only applies when you have multiple models with the SAME predictive power.
The model ' I-am-an-agent-interacting-with-an-external-reality-which-obeys-the-laws-of-physics' model has a much better track record at predicting stimuli I will experience in the future than the 'solipsism' model.
>>791990
You must be joking or retarded. It has an annoying lefty stance but the Guardian is pretty much the definition of a reliable news source.
>>793499
You act as if the models would have to function differently. Just because something is all in your mind doesn't mean it doesn't follow particular laws and patterns.
>>793502
But the laws of nature(which have the best predictive power) can only be derived with the assumption of an external reality. They cannot be derived from the assumption that the self is the only thing that exists.
>>791980
Well that article didn't really say anything new. Yeah some properties of particles can't be determined fully, but that doesn't mean causality is violated or that space and time don't exist. There is no special place for human observers in QM. Any big interacting system will perform measurements on other systems and sync up to a common reality.
>>793518
That's quite wrong. What if the laws of nature are in your head? It would just mean you have an extremely consistent imagination. Everyone else you encounter is actually you, you just aren't conscious of it. Similarly, each person you run into a dream is in fact equally you, they only seem like different persons.
>>793557
So the laws of nature are being simulated in your head. That has equal predictive power to 'the laws of nature are. a feature of external reality' but it is more complex. If system A (solipisist mind)can simulate system B (reality), then system A must be more complex than system B. Since it is more complex, it is less likely under Occam's razor.
>>793575
No, it's not more complex at all, unless you are going to say the imagining of something is more complex than the thing's actual occurrence in the material world.
>>791980
By faith.
