I won't become a real Christian.

[RichardHresko]

Science, properly understood, is a methodology by which one can come to an understanding of objects and actions that are sensible (in the philosophical sense, that is, can be sensed). It has nothing, pro or con, to say about anything that is only intelligible (in the philosophical sense -- meaning perceivable by the mind alone). It is also descriptive rather than prescriptive -- that is, it will explain how to achieve a goal but can not, in itself, offer guidance as to what that goal should be.

To make the claim that materialism is somehow more real than another system because science has revealed nothing that isn't sensible in the philosophical sense is an error and derives from a misapprehension of what science does and how it does it.

One can mask (though not remove) one's error by labelling any questions that are either unanswerable in one's framework or assertions that there are needs not met by one's chosen model as irrational, based on fairy tales, or a misunderstanding of one's position. The holes still exist.

Radical Materialism, like any other faith-based position that lays claim to undisputed superiority in describing all of reality, ends up doing violence to reality since it has no choice but to eliminate what does not suit it. Those who insist on such positions are no different in kind from any other religious fundamentalist, and certainly have no greater claim to rationality.

The ultimate error is, in the final analysis, not in being materialist, atheist, monotheist, pantheist, or whatever, but in adopting the position that there is a single system that has all the answers (or even all the so-called 'relevant' answers).

[LMK]

I went to a Bible discussion today, where a group of people talked about topics related to Bible, and I was shocked to find that some people did commit themselves to God. They could even remember a particular passage in my Bible, which I bought lately. However I only went there to have people to talk to in English. I wonder how they've convinced themselves of God, Jesus, and everything that was realated in Bible, when nobody could have given a piece of evidence to what had happened thousands of years ago. It's really interesting to see how those people put their trust and energy in some sort of myth and take it as a guide to everything they do. As far as I am concerned, I will join some of these discussions gladly, but will not surrender my soul to any invisible power.

That is very interesting, because I met a woman from Russia a few months ago, who learned English in a similar manner, from the Bible and through Bible Study, but who is not nor will likely ever be Christian.

I just found that to be interesting that someone else found learning English that way to be useful...religious preferences aside.

[The Atheist]

The ultimate error is, in the final analysis, not in being materialist, atheist, monotheist, pantheist, or whatever, but in adopting the position that there is a single system that has all the answers (or even all the so-called 'relevant' answers).

Again, we can sit and disagree on this, and on several fronts as well.

Describing science as a "single system" is wrong, but I'll leave that for the more important meat.

The real problem is, your dismissal of materialism works on your own philosophy as well. You're taking a position that questions cannot be answered, which is a hell of a lot more faith-based than the materialists' "reality is real" position.

Why do you find it necessary to attempt to denigrate materialism by referring to it as "faith-based"?

It's drawing one of the longer bows I could ever imagine, given the overwhelming evidence for the material and none whatsoever for the non-material. It's back to Mt Everst and a molehill. You're welcome to call it faith based if it fulfils a need for you, but I find it ironic that alternative views always try to paint it in those colours. Cute semantic device, maybe, but completely and utterly incorrect. Any materialist would immediately embrace the irrational, invisible entities/forces/objects which may or may not exist - just as soon as they are shown to exist and have properties. That's the bit you fail to accept.

I'll leave it there, as I have no hopes of you accepting the facts of the matter, and I note that you haven't made any attempt to discuss the glaring errors I pointed out in your previous post.

[LMK]

People may have their own thoughts and opinions about...well...anything and the very fact that people have thoughts and opinions can lead one to intuit that there is something beyond the physical. There is the mind along with the brain.

Is it such as stretch then to think or believe that there is a spirit along with the physical of all things sentient?

~L

[RichardHresko]

There is no problem with adopting a stance that the only reality is material as long as one understands that:

1) Logically speaking, science can give no support for this position. This is because science neither claims to, nor can, make statements about non-material entities (even on the level of testing their existence). To say that there is more evidence for material reality than others is flawed on several levels. The most obvious is that the question of the existence of non-material entities is a qualitative rather a quantitative one. To invoke mountains and molehills of evidence is to betray a lack of understanding of something as basic as what the question is about.

2) Beliefs in non-material entities and material entities are certainly not mutually exclusive. Therefore it is pointless to cite science's success with material objects as in some way constituting a rejection of non-material ones. Further, understanding that science does not deal with the question of non-material objects shows that the invocation of science in this discussion is irrelevant.

3)Materialism is a position that can not be proven in the sense that the only reality is the material one, and is thus a matter of preference or faith, just as much as religion is. That certain matters of faith are obvious to a believer is a phenomenon with which most people are familiar. Equally familiar is the sense that a believer's insistence on the obviousness of the truth of the believer's belief is a sign of emotion and not reason.

4)'Faith' is not a pejorative term since it accurately describes trust in an unproven or unprovable assumption (such as God or radical materialism).

Once it is understood that radical materialism does not hold a privileged intellectual position compared to other metaphysics one can then move on to something that is worthwhile: what insights can a radical materialism offer in addressing particular problems?

To deal directly with LMK's question:

Radical materialism here can offer a model that gives a simplified view of apparent sentient behavior as being the admittedly complex physical and biochemical interactions in the being. That being the case, any perceived difficulties can be dealt with by addressing the underlying necessarily physical (including chemical) causes.

If such an approach is not considered acceptable a different model would need to be adopted.

[LMK]

I'm not sure I would phrase it 'apparent sentient behavior' because a behavior; an action, a gesture, even a vocalization might be considered material. Unless it is the behavior itself that you are referring to as apparent.

However the fact that a living thing is sentient can be beyond material, there might be no outword sign that a thought or a reasoning has taken place.

Now apply the brain/mind idea to the body/spirit. I can be seated in aan auditorium nothing is touching my body in any way from one minute to the next, but then the lights dim, a conductor begins the overture and I feel something in the music, it touches me beyond the reverberation of the sound waves that literally might hit my body, it is not a physical thing, although synaptic responses might well be occuring.

Love, anger, these might or might not begin as thoughts, they might begin by words that are read, or the sight of someone. The trigger might be beyond physiological, but may include it.

The High School pep-squad gets the fans who might otherwise just sit on the bleachers to get excited, to tap into that team 'spirit' and to feel something.

Yes, chemical responses that we might have no control over can account for a portion of emotions in a spectrum, but if we are breaking it down simply to the biology then would a word or a person that incites in one person certain feeling, not generate the same reation from all persons of similar physiology?

~L

[The Atheist]

...but if we are breaking it down simply to the biology then would a word or a person that incites in one person certain feeling, not generate the same reation from all persons of similar physiology?

~L

No.

Regardless of genetics, we are conditioned by our upbringing, so the responses will never be identical.

[RichardHresko]

I'm not sure I would phrase it 'apparent sentient behavior' because a behavior; an action, a gesture, even a vocalization might be considered material. Unless it is the behavior itself that you are referring to as apparent.

However the fact that a living thing is sentient can be beyond material, there might be no outword sign that a thought or a reasoning has taken place.

Now apply the brain/mind idea to the body/spirit. I can be seated in aan auditorium nothing is touching my body in any way from one minute to the next, but then the lights dim, a conductor begins the overture and I feel something in the music, it touches me beyond the reverberation of the sound waves that literally might hit my body, it is not a physical thing, although synaptic responses might well be occuring.

Love, anger, these might or might not begin as thoughts, they might begin by words that are read, or the sight of someone. The trigger might be beyond physiological, but may include it.

The High School pep-squad gets the fans who might otherwise just sit on the bleachers to get excited, to tap into that team 'spirit' and to feel something.

Yes, chemical responses that we might have no control over can account for a portion of emotions in a spectrum, but if we are breaking it down simply to the biology then would a word or a person that incites in one person certain feeling, not generate the same reation from all persons of similar physiology?

~L

Once again, a strict, or radical, materialist would by necessity have to argue that what appears to be sentience (the use of knowledge by the exercise of a free will) must actually be merely complicated sets of deterministic processes.

One can invoke chaos theory to explain differences in responses to the same stimulus, even if the two subjects are identical twins.

In considering these increasingly elaborate explanations one may well begin to feel that strict materialism would not survive the application of Ockham's razor.

[The Atheist]

In considering these increasingly elaborate explanations one may well begin to feel that strict materialism would not survive the application of Ockham's razor.

That's too funny for words. Materialism is the only thing which survives.

[LMK]

No.

Regardless of genetics, we are conditioned by our upbringing, so the responses will never be identical.

Does this response then state agreement that sentient beings are more than just material?

~L

[The Atheist]

Does this response then state agreement that sentient beings are more than just material?

~L

Not in any way at all. Learned behaviour conforms completely to materialism.

[LMK]

Once again, a strict, or radical, materialist would by necessity have to argue that what appears to be sentience (the use of knowledge by the exercise of a free will) must actually be merely complicated sets of deterministic processes.

My suggestion is that sentience may have no appearance. The simple fact that I can and do have thoughts that enter my brain, and that I can dismiss those thoughts or build upon without them or twist them or follow the bread crumbs back to something else if I choose of if I allow free association to work is the basis of this suggestion. There may, but also there may never be a product of this thought; no movement of any kind, no decision, no action, there may be nothing to prove it ever existed...it simply did (the thought).

It is the thought and the ability to reason that is sentience, not any outward appearance or physical manifestation. And it is sentience itself that I am referring to, that leads me to the hypothesis that there is not only my brain, but that there is my mind/my thought process (a tangible and intangible) beyond the fact that chemical reactions and nerve synapses are firing there is at some point a translation from material to incorporeal.


~L

[RichardHresko]

My suggestion is that sentience may have no appearance. The simple fact that I can and do have thoughts that enter my brain, and that I can dismiss those thoughts or build upon without them or twist them or follow the bread crumbs back to something else if I choose of if I allow free association to work is the basis of this suggestion. There may, but also there may never be a product of this thought; no movement of any kind, no decision, no action, there may be nothing to prove it ever existed...it simply did (the thought).

It is the thought and the ability to reason that is sentience, not any outward appearance or physical manifestation. And it is sentience itself that I am referring to, that leads me to the hypothesis that there is not only my brain, but that there is my mind/my thought process (a tangible and intangible) beyond the fact that chemical reactions and nerve synapses are firing there is at some point a translation from material to incorporeal.


~L

Which is exactly why the materialist position starts to resemble the Ptolemaic cosmology, requiring ever more elaborate epicycles to preserve its position.

However, if you are determined as an article of faith to deny the existence of anything that is not physical one is inevitably forced to these increasingly convoluted stop-gaps and the rejection of all experience that indicates that there is indeed a mind. Mere gainsaying on the part of a materialist that materialism avoids violating Ockham's Razor does not, obviously, change matters.

[The Atheist]

However, if you are determined as an article of faith to deny the existence of anything that is not physical ....

Gosh, Richard, do you misrepresent facts for a living?

I have repeatedly tried to explain that your statement bears no relation to real-world materialism, but you still fail to acknowledge it. There is a universe of difference between "no evidence for the non-material" and articles of faith & denial.

It disturbs me that you are deliberately making the same error time after time. It suggests that you are trying to push a particular agenda rather than wanting actual discussion.

[LMK]

I agree.

Not one time have I suggested that there is only or never either material or that which is not material, yet each response is the same.

I thought there was a dialogue to be had here, but I cannot seem to find it.

Maybe in another thread.

~L