June 23, 2014
Materialism is falsified when you think about it
Posted by Theosophical Ruminator under Apologetics, Epistemology, Logic, Mind, Naturalism, Philosophy, Thinking[43] Comments
Materialists will tell you they don’t believe anything other than the material world exists, but seem oblivious to the fact that propositions – such as the proposition that only the material world exists – are not material. That means materialism is falsified the moment you think about it. Pun intended.
Thinking to Believe 
June 23, 2014 at 9:37 am
Materialism doesn’t deny metaphysics, just superphysics. Abstracts don’t ontologically “exist” per se.
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June 23, 2014 at 9:40 am
Perhaps I need you to clarify, or perhaps my understanding needs to be clarified, but I would say that while your description may be true of atheism, it is not true of materialism. On materialism, only the physical is real.
Jason
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June 23, 2014 at 9:48 am
Right, but we can recognize patterns in the physical and call them things by means of abstraction. We can even imagine that they float about in some abstract world. Things like “two,” “justice,” “proposition,” and even “person” qualify. On materialism, only the physical exists, but we can still qualify the physical. That’s metaphysics. “Two” doesn’t actually “exist” in the ontological sense.
We Christians should be united with materialists on this; the philosophically inclined GENERALLY are. Our dispute with the materialists is that we believe there is really existent, ontological “stuff” beyond just the world of matter and energy (and the abstract imaginings of brains).
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June 23, 2014 at 11:47 am
In reality, as explained by the system called Quantum Physics, the entirety of mass and energy in existence is in fact non-physical. Every “thing” is made up of particles which are only individual energy fields, or ‘quanta’ on an extremely tiny scale which includes all of the basics energy ‘particles’ (forces) of the universe.
For example, an energy field can cause other energy fields to change their relationship in space to other masses. I’m speaking of the effect of the magnetic field of a lodestone exerting it’s influence upon a piece of iron.
That material which makes up the lodestone, or in fact, any other “solid object” on the Quantum scale, is not in reality physical as in the human being’s brain experience of the “physical.”
In fact, on the Quantum level of experience, the particles that make up the lodestone on this tiny level are closer to it’s emanating magnetic field, than the information that human touch delivers to the brain.
“Material” components, on this quantum scale, are nothing but energy “packets” in space.
This, in reality, is the physical universe that science discovers information about.
There can never be a “spiritual” system of existence until such a system gives the scientists of humanity viable, observable proof of it’s existence.
Until that day, “spiritual” resides only in the belief systems of the religious faithful…….nowhere else.
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June 23, 2014 at 2:02 pm
stanrock,
A thoroughgoing materialist would not allow for the existence of a Platonic realm, so you are right to say that they would affirm the number two does not exist in the ontological sense. Abstractions are just useful fictions. All that really exists is the material. But there are many non-material things that are not just fictions, such as propositions, which is why I say it falsifies materialism.
Jason
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June 23, 2014 at 2:05 pm
beingreal, don’t confuse “solid” with physical. The quantum world is a physical world. Energy is physical.
To say that one must have observable proof of a spiritual reality is like saying one must be able to see the invisible man in order to believe he is there. If he is there, one could never know it through optical observations. Such entities, if they exist, must be discovered through other non-empirical means.
Jason
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June 23, 2014 at 2:21 pm
False dichotomy: not all materialists believe in propositions and are true materialists. Some are, nihilistic in philosophy and materialistic in practice.
And the “some are” s can continue.
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June 23, 2014 at 2:49 pm
Nihilism pertains to meaning, not ontology. And what dichotomy are you referring to?
Jason
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June 23, 2014 at 5:00 pm
You can think that propositions float around in a Platonic realm, but Aristotle’s big “improvement” in metaphysics was that these things aren’t floating around an ideal realm. Rather, they’re vague conceptual tethers or schemas. “Two” and “proposition” are both abstractions, equally non-existent and equally “existent” (with air quotes). A “2”-shaped carving on a slab is “two” only insofar as a person observes it and imputes meaning into it. Same with propositions.
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June 23, 2014 at 5:21 pm
This thought of materialism has always vexed me. Many philosophers throughout history have dug into this void and none has really satisfied my inner self and thoughts—not that my thoughts are correct but only that no one seems to have considered such. Frankly, all of physics, science, philosophy and even theology “could” settle into this idea—with some compromise.
Why does “thing” have to be real? If there was no such concept of “thingness”, then asking: “why is there something rather than nothing? Would be settled. There is no thing. Things do not exist. Any word compounded with “thing” would be basically voided: something, everything, nothing, anything etc. At the atomic physics level there is more space in an atom than there is substance—upwards of 99.9999% empty space. If one Google’s “how much space is in an atom” they can find analogies that equate the nucleus of an atom as a bee buzzing around in a cathedral where the cathedral is the boundary of the electrons outer shell. That if a hydrogen atom where scaled-up so that its nucleus (the proton) where the size of a pea and it placed on the 50-yardline at the center of a football field then the electron would be the size of a period (10-font) at the end of this sentence and roam through both end-fields and equally above and below in a sphere-like (orbital); leaving much space (between the particles) to be wondered about.
Einstien’s famous formula E=MC^2 bluntly states that matter is (basically) equal to energy.
Information seems to be the responsibility of Intelligence whenever and wherever we are (uniquely) able to identify its existence (and why are we able to recognize such formulas like gravitational constants or E=MC^2…for neither has any Darwinian survival values). Could intelligence be a form of energy? If so why do we humans seem to be wrapped up in discovering as much of it as we can…we really are well adapted and insatiably curious for it—it’s a desire like no other; how bazar a (Darwinian?) bug we are!
Arthur Eddington (I hope you know who he was) stated in general that; “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine”. Yet Einstein stated that it is odd that we can comprehend the incomprehensible. We are uniquely able to figure this situation out but whatever the answer it is also “simple and beautiful” (another quote by Einstein, in relation to the construction of viable universal formulas). Theology comes along and states we are to seek knowledge and gain wisdom, ask and seek wisdom, test everything and seek truth, Isaiah states we are to, “come let us reason together” and in Jeremiah: “call on me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know”.
We are not physical beings (if any ‘thing’) we are spirits (intelligent energy) residing within an Earthsuit. And every high school student knows that energy cannot be created or destroyed. The Earthsuit is a projection (a holographic image on a holographic stage) subject to the ravages of energy dilution (entropy)…when we gain food our design (DNA) allows ‘us’ to energize our Earthsuit. We must be IN the earthsuit (world) even though we are not OF the world in order that we can relate to God’s creation in time. The spirit world is not limited by time, space, matter, or energy (holograpically)—God’s Heaven is a condition of Holiness; and His Holiness is a ‘place’ which our spirit longs to be part of. It is our spirit’s desire—its Home (“created, in His Image”).
We relish in abstract concepts (some hinted to in previous posts) such as: numbers (“two”), fairness, perfection, and time (we-inside-hate time). We are not meat robots but rather conscious observers and moral agents. We can sense hurt feelings and will offer or desire an apology to ‘fix’ relationships. If the Bible were to be summed up in one word (I would pick) it would be “Relationship”. God is BIG into this…all one need do is look to the Cross to see/understand to what unlimited love extremes He will go to OFFER us His love (not force us) and by His Grace return to Him in a condition of Holiness.
This is the incomprehensible world we are resident in…a journey in time in a foreign ‘land’ on a stage of challenges and tests and troubles and too beauty and opportunities, all of which we can make choices to do the right ‘thing’ or the wrong ‘thing’ with a in borne conscience as guide and by consequences know who we are and why we are and where we will ‘go’, when this earthsuit is unzipped and we graduate life through death…and time then ceases (we end up outside of time where it will have no effect on our spirit).
“Stranger than we can imagine?” Well, it all seems so simple and beautiful now! And yet my curiosity leaps with excitement and wonder…I just want more. Yet, if I leave here within the next 5 minutes…I’m good!
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June 23, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Dictionary definition
‘Materialism’ – the non material doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications as well as the abstract concept of materialism itself, oh and let’s not forget ‘time’ as well. And consciousness.
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June 24, 2014 at 5:42 am
Stanrock, personally, I fall into the non-realist camp when it comes to abstract entities. I hold to a fictionalist account of abstract objects. When it comes to the mind, I don’t think mental events are abstractions, though. Mental entities are real spiritual (i.e. non-material) entities, not abstractions like the number two or the equator.
Jason
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June 24, 2014 at 9:36 am
“To say that one must have observable proof of a spiritual reality is like saying one must be able to see the invisible man in order to believe he is there. If he is there, one could never know it through optical observations. Such entities, if they exist, must be discovered through other non-empirical means.”
I cannot see my thoughts but I can still see their effect. I see no effects of a spiritual reality, except upon those humans who refuse to temper their emotional bias with reason. Reason and Religion are two opposing characters. Religion must not use Reason, and Reason disallows the biased emotion of Religion.
When people of faith speak of another ‘Realm,’ the “Spiritual” realm, having no real, observable, tangible proof, they fill this natural void by invoking their overactive human emotion…..that fickle ‘feel-good-feel-bad’ portion of our brain.
We all know how precarious this quality of the brain is when the logical and reasonable portion of our brain is put aside and forgotten because of emotion’s effect.
Religious beliefs are fed by the installation of emotions above everything else our brain is capable of.
It usually identifies the person as veneer, and one-sided in thought. One who would allow a desirable bias for conjecture, but one who would also leave practical, reasonable, and personal questions unanswered.
To institutionalize emotional bias over Reason is one of the greatest detriments to the individuals of our civilization, in my honest opinion.
Religious beliefs must be biased and devoid of Reason and driven by human emotion to exist.
It is the nature of everything that is untrue. Falsehoods must live as parasites from energy that was reserved for truth.
Religious Beliefs are a charlatan that have replaced the gift of Human Reason. They’ve replaced the human being’s real work of self exploration, independent self knowledge, and determination, with a false sense of security.
As I see it, Religion, over the years, has only been proficient at creating robots by pushing authentic human experience into obscurity, and leaving humans wanting for something “glorious,” and different than their own individual reality.
Religion has been proficient at creating children who exist in adult bodies.
Had these children learned to realize that they, themselves, were really in charge of their destiny early on in life, instead of abdicating their own personal authority to some unseen ‘deity,’ the entirety of what is real would be at their disposal. Instead, they settle for existence in their now encumbered emotional “trance.”
“Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.”
Epictetus
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June 24, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Hmmmm?! (with only little thought of what the Bible states)…Isaiah 1:18 “Come let us reason together…”; 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Test everything hold on to that which is true and good…”;Proverbs 4:7 “Seek wisdom in your youth”. Religion is not the eliminator of common sense, science, or truth; rather it is our own pride and inability to see reason…and know truth. We like to complicate and make relationships difficult (relationships with people and too with the understanding and function of the material world…as much as it is NOT really material). Religion is not the problem–we are as much the problem as anything possible. You need to re-evaluate your statements if you wish to be taken seriously!
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June 24, 2014 at 4:48 pm
“Religion is not the eliminator of common sense, science, or truth; rather it is our own pride and inability to see reason…and know truth.”
Most people brought up in a religious household are never encouraged to go out on their own, without their religious beliefs to find out their own truth about their reality, without a religious “prop” to keep them secure.
Unless exposed to both sides of the Fence Of Life, how can any thinking individual know by personal experience what is his truth and what is not?
They are instead directed to follow the tenets laid down to them by dogma.
Religion tends to be the enemy of Reason. It extinguishes itself in the light of pure Reason.
“We like to complicate and make relationships difficult (relationships with people and too with the understanding and function of the material world…as much as it is NOT really material).”
Lets talk complication. Complication, any complication is fervently enhanced by religion. It can only create confusion in the individual who is told one thing in his church, but his experiences of life tell him another.
For just about any follower who has never been seriously unbiased about his belief in a “God,” religion mixed with a dose of reality will definitely cause confusion in him, until the dilemma is “rationalized” away by the leaders of that particular sect of religion.
“Religion is not the problem–we are as much the problem as anything possible.”
We are the problem if we never learn to think on our own without blindly following others who tell us what “is real” without any tangible, observable proofs. We unknowingly sentence our mind to a life of believing in imbecility.
Face it………the main energy that holds anyone in a religious belief system is a false sense of security. An authentically self-reliant and inner-secure person knows that there is no such thing as security….anytime or any place.
This reason goes hand-in-hand with the reasonable assumption that some humans want to gain control over others who aren’t aware of the possibility of gaining their own self-reliance, nor interested in it.
These, I believe, plus the added reasonable assertions that the majority of people are mostly children inside and prone to habit, are the main reasons that we believe in things that have no proof.
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June 24, 2014 at 6:34 pm
Well, then Beingreal, you are doomed to be stuck in your materialistic world of truth ONLY. You can have no grounds for fairness, or love or integrity or the number “two”. All these and many others are abstract concepts and have little if anything to do with a materialistic only existence (or the ability to be defined). Religion can be a hindrance; but it is we who make it that way. Religion clearly says we are to come and let us reason and it talks about seeking truth and wisdom/knowledge. Obviously you have refused to address this because of your limited ability to know anything other than a materialistic worldview…and your bias against religion. That is OK; that is your choice and that is your responsibility to be held to the consequences. Whether you like it or not you are not a meat robot–you did not put yourself here and the intelligence you hold is limited by your involvement in ONLY science. I am not limited to just science, and religion does not limit me even though some religious folks DO hold to it as if it is their Daddy. They are wrong to make religion limit themselves. Science can be just as inappropriately used as can religion or philosophy. And no religion can (or should try) to change another’s mind. It is your choice to find knowledge and wisdom and if you think you can find abstract definitions for concepts not answered in materialistic science then you’ll need divine ‘luck’. Your biggest enemy now is time…for you are running low on it.
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June 24, 2014 at 7:27 pm
“Well, then Beingreal, you are doomed to be stuck in your materialistic world of truth ONLY. You can have no grounds for fairness, or love or integrity or the number “two”.”
Doomed? It is certainly your business if you do not want to be in a world based on truth. As an Atheist, I am more in touch with the surrounding reality than I was as a fervent Christian believer for 50 some years.
All truth, in reality, is personal. All we know as a collective civilization is what we’ve researched, and experienced. If I need to lie to myself, telling myself that there is a “God” out there, or in there, I miss out on living an authentic life.
“No grounds for fairness?” Who told you that life was fair?? It is meant to be the way it is. Why do you think that people need to find their own way of living? For their own self-knowledge, of course!
A religion only causes unwitting folks to stagnate, then disintegrate into a false sense of security.
“Love, and integrity?” I didn’t state that I didn’t love people, or life! Now your assuming…and putting words into my mouth.
Being in integrity, means that I don’t fool myself like most of the faithful do when they refuse to challenge their beliefs with an unbiased search of what their truth really is.
I’ve lived under the sign of the cross for a very long time in my life. I’m going to spend the remainder of it following that which speaks truth to me.
“Religion clearly says we are to come and let us reason and it talks about seeking truth and wisdom/knowledge.”
No. Religion is a structure of dogmatic belief, intricately designed to satisfy humans just enough so that they don’t leave.
“Whether you like it or not you are not a meat robot–you did not put yourself here and the intelligence you hold is limited by your involvement in ONLY science.”
Right…..not a robot………anymore. Most people who are unaware of their circumstances believe what you believe along the religious lines. They love being catered to by an “unseen” ‘Father” in heaven. I liken them to being asleep.
They only lack the guts to challenge these religious beliefs against that which seems to falsify them.
“Science can be just as inappropriately used as can religion or philosophy.”
Science is only a structure of knowledge. Science will formulate a theory and cause it to be proven in other places by peers.
If the theory holds true, it is still challenged in the future by new information. If said theory fails, it is replaced by one that better explains the phenomena.
Religion, on the other hand, never changes any of it’s dogma. Right or dead wrong, it purports to follow that which is “truth.” Yet it’s truth is impossible to believe in. Apologies is all it offers mankind.
I’m embarrassed to have related to anyone that I was a victim of it’s malarkey for so long.
Science works rather well. The computer that you and I are writing on this minute has theories that are presently unknown, yet they work perfectly……..every time we turn on the machine.
“Your biggest enemy now is time…for you are running low on it.”
That is also your enemy, my friend. In the end, all of us end up in the same hole in the ground. The difference is I’ve discovered the error in my life and now I live a genuine life every day, reflecting on the wonders of the existence all around me.
I’ve come to the reality that life is finite……very finite. Very good! There are no ‘Gods’ to hold my “soul” when I die, which is fine with me. Learning how to die well is part of living a life as a human being.
Get used to it. No God will save you, or any living being from certain death.
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June 25, 2014 at 12:29 am
Except if propositions are mind states within a brain. Then these propositions have a direct physical existence.
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June 25, 2014 at 3:16 am
“same hole in the ground”?. That which is our ‘home’ in the material world returns to the dust of the periodic table that also made us physical but did not make us spiritual (have abstract thoughts and practices). You’ve made your mind up…I’m not here to change it…that is your job (or lack of ability to use it because you’re now too limited by only materialistic views – your worldview is limited to a materialistic view. You’ve said it as much, so that is your choice and that’s fine…with me!). I cannot accept your ability to experience or execute ANY abstract abilities (fairness. love, ‘two’ etc.) because you cannot use science to prove love or fairness or ‘two’ they are abstract (and infinite)concepts not testable material items. Unless of course your idea of love is just physical sex. I also am not going to banter this with you…it is not necessary or required; each of us wonders about the “big questions”: go look up at the night sky and if you go “Ho-hum” then you’re missing out. One should be doing both the ho-hum of a red-shifting expanding universe, the fact of the CMBR discovery, and too the amazing fact that the elements in us are produced in the stars (we are literally stardust)…this is all the cosmology–the science part. Along with this is the wonder of life and our ability to have abstract concepts–to imagine count, be fair, or love, or…be bad.
I cannot prove God to you (I do not have to) no more than I can prove to you that the ‘invisible man’ is real…(if I could he would not be invisible). Science can not prove deity but there is the difficulty of removing information from intelligence and/or intelligence from information. And if you can…than we (well, you) are just a fluke and mistake of undirected processes discovered by good ole Darwin. Darwin is not completely wrong…but he is also not totally correct….complete.
If you want I will no longer insult you by promoting you to conscious observer and moral agent but instead consider you but just another meat robot. Aaaah, oops; that’s a materialistic meat robot. And do not be concerned with this for there are many other meat robots out there in “materialistic land”…and I too am in this materialistic world each day I wake up to be in another bout of time; however there are some who know they are IN the world but are NOT of the world…it is those folks whom have science AND the abstract (currently) unknown world. We are not limited by JUST materialistic science!
Take care and good “luck” to you.
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June 25, 2014 at 5:37 am
For most ardently religious people their religious belief is the result of mental cruelty in suffered in early childhood.
The reason why religious indoctrination works (particularly against children) is that we are hard wired to fear of social ostracism. In tribal societies social ostracism basically means death, especially if you are young (or old). Most of the world’s population is still very much tribal, and thus steeped in religious dogma.
But in parts of the world where we have started to move beyond the ‘tribal age’ this is where we see religious dogma finally beginning to lose its hold over people.
When parents tell their children there definitely is an invisible man in the sky who is watching them (plus talking snakes, supernatural impregnation, coming back from the dead … yadda yadda) they are making claims of objective fact which have absolutely no basis in reason or evidence. Not only do they make these claims of objective fact, they insist the child goes along with these claims as if they really were objective fact (going to church to participate in symbolic blood drinking rituals, praying, learning the Bible etc).
Children are born with their rational minds undeveloped, but still intact and undamaged. To impose irrationality onto a perfectly rational child is mental cruelty, just as to impose foot binding onto a child with a perfectly normal skeleton is physical cruelty.
To impose the idea that “god is real” as an objective fact onto a child is the equivalent of giving a child an empty box and then insisting there is an ipad inside it, and then forcing the child to behave as if there really is an ipad in there, by insisting the child says “thank you for the ipad” and insisting the child ‘plays’ with the ipad every evening…. and on every Sunday making the child ‘carry’ the ipad to a special ceremony of ipad worship with other people also ‘holding’ their ipad with delight.
A rational child desperately wants to say “But there is no ipad mummy – it’s just an empty box!” But children know at a deeply subconscious level that to challenge and oppose your parents and your community (your tribe) is to risk social ostracism and death…. so instead of challenging their parents most children will eventually allow their rational minds to be broken and deformed (just like the bones of a foot which is bound) in order to meekly accept that there really is an ipad, and appease their parents and tribe.
From that moment on the child will start to ‘play’ with the non-existant ipad, and worship it and pray to it and sing songs praising it, and to fear it …… and eventually when the child is a parent they will force their own children to accept another empty box….
….. and on and on and on it goes. Broken minds, breaking the next generation so minds generation after generation…..century after century….
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June 25, 2014 at 8:33 am
“That which is our ‘home’ in the material world returns to the dust of the periodic table that also made us physical but did not make us spiritual (have abstract thoughts and practices).”
Of course we human beings have abstract thoughts. I have them, as well as you. The difference between us is someone else is dictating a lot of yours to you.
The only example that you, or any religious believer can give me of “Spiritual” is generated by your human emotions. Shooting from the hip always works, doesn’t it?
The next time you want to see another demonstration of your human emotions, think about what you ‘feel’ is your lucky number, drive to Las Vegas, go into a casino, find the roulette wheel and place all of your money down on that lucky number.
You could also pray for your number to come up.
“You’ve made your mind up…I’m not here to change it…that is your job (or lack of ability to use it because you’re now too limited by only materialistic views – your worldview is limited to a materialistic view.”
I’ve made up my mind only after a serious challenge of all of my past religious beliefs. I found their basis to be false and after fifty years it took a few years to finally de-program myself.
Have you ever made a serious, unbiased challenge of all of you religious beliefs? If you haven’t yet, don’t tell me how well your truth works. I’d probably laugh uncontrollably.
I still have religious friends whom I love, but sometimes when I’m around them, I feel like I’m in the movie “Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers.”
On the contrary, my worldview isn’t cluttered up with somebody else’s dogmatic hyperbole anymore. I made myself free of it, being readily available now for whatever shows up in reality, but only after ridding myself of the dogmatic portion of my life.
“I cannot accept your ability to experience or execute ANY abstract abilities (fairness. love, ‘two’ etc.) because you cannot use science to prove love or fairness or ‘two’ they are abstract (and infinite)concepts not testable material items.”
Again……science is only a structured system of knowledge. Science isn’t responsible for my life, but it can explain it’s processes, unlike religion.
Atheists love their friends as much or more than you believers. Science can explain the internal processes that the body undergoes when the brain feels any emotion.
Listen..would any thinking person ever marry someone that they fell deeply in love with, knowing that this person is also a murderer? Would you not also run that decision by your logical and reasonable thought processes before you married that person?
It is the same with choosing anything in your life. It is either a conscious choice, or an unconscious choice.
You just don’t know, having lived for so long only on one side of the fence.
If you bought a ticket to a ball game, why wouldn’t you want to see the entire game, instead of just the portion that you were told was the only part of the game that counted?
“Unless of course your idea of love is just physical sex.”
The ancient Greeks knew that there were different types of love. Eros love was the sexual type, Philios love was brotherly, or sisterly love, Pia love was the love of a parent for their child, and Agape love was the love for the undeserving.
Believe me when I tell you that I am aware of and capable of all these. You really know very little of Atheists, don’t you? Politically speaking, I am a staunch Conservative in most every way, except for the religion. I am strictly against abortion, also.
“each of us wonders about the “big questions”: go look up at the night sky and if you go “Ho-hum” then you’re missing out. One should be doing both the ho-hum of a red-shifting expanding universe, the fact of the CMBR discovery, and too the amazing fact that the elements in us are produced in the stars (we are literally stardust)…this is all the cosmology–the science part.”
I too am interested in the night sky. I just realize that some “Supreme Entity” didn’t build it.
By the way………who built your God?
“I cannot prove God to you (I do not have to) no more than I can prove to you that the ‘invisible man’ is real…(if I could he would not be invisible).”
No……..and its not your job to prove God to me. I’ve already accomplished that blunder a long time ago. I was young, highly impressionable, and inexperienced.
But I needed to go through that in order to discern the fact from the fiction in my life. The personal knowledge gained from my escapades in religion, along with the help of a great teacher in my life were my thrust-block.
Simply learning to challenge everything in my life was very freeing to me!
It cleared my mind by learning to discern ‘real’ from ‘phony’ and put me in charge of my experiences, opening it up for that which works. And it took serious hard work to get here.
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June 25, 2014 at 8:39 am
“For most ardently religious people their religious belief is the result of mental cruelty in suffered in early childhood.”
Agreed. Also the average child tends to follow in the footsteps of the parents in most ways.
Hopefully children and parents will learn to question everything, or be destined to live under the “yoke.”
Good post!
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June 26, 2014 at 1:02 pm
What is a “proposition” if not completely generated by a mind? What is a “mind” is not completely generated by a brain? What is a “brain” if not completely generated by the material world?
I’m not saying materialism or bust, but if you are going to assail materialism, you should be ready in the next breath to answer these difficult questions that many searchers of non-materialism (such as myself) have a hard time with.
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June 26, 2014 at 2:05 pm
“….What is a “proposition” if not completely generated by a mind? What is a “mind” is not completely generated by a brain? What is a “brain” if not completely generated by the material world?…”
Here is the logic on which the “brain = the mind” assumption is based.
1. you need a brain to have a mind
2. a damaged brain = impaired mind
3. a completely broken or dead brain = no mind
Conclusion: therefore the mind is the brain, and our minds are somehow ‘inside our heads’.
Using the exact same logic the whole internet must be ‘inside’ my computer, too.
1. you need a computer to have internet
2. a damaged computer = impaired web browsing
3. a completely broken or dead computer = no web at all
Actually, there is much evidence (obtained using the scientific method) to suggest the mind is not located inside our brains at all, and is not just merely a product of brain function. The evidence suggest the brain acts more like a receiver and information buffer – performing functions similar to wifi and a web browser, and the underlying OS linking the whole thing together.
People who conduct and publish ‘controversial’ research into the mind tend to get ostracised by the (materialism worshipping) scientific community, but at least they are not imprisoned or burnt at the stake. So that’s some progress.
Rupert Sheldrake – The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK
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June 26, 2014 at 4:22 pm
Phil, materialists think that the mind is generated by the brain (or identical to it), but I don’t. I think this notion is easily refutable. The mind is not identical to the brain because they have different properties (discernibility of identicals). And given the nature of propositions, they can’t be material anyway.
Jason
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June 26, 2014 at 5:42 pm
@Spinning – I liked that analolgy until I read it a second time.
“1. you need a computer to have internet” this is actually false. An internet, by definition, is a *network* of computers, and a network requires more than one.
When we rephrase your analogy correctly, then:
1. you need computers to have internet
2. damaged computers = impaired web browsing
2. all computers completely broken or dead = no web at all
then you see how it makes sense and supports my original logic.
I’ve been a materialist my whole life and now I have been trying my hardest to challenge materialism, in an effort to better understand existence. My best “guess” at getting away from materialism is to imagine the brain as being analogous to a radio – it receives a broadcast (like your brain receives your consciousness) and it can be tuned to various frequences (like different brains receive different consciousness) and even though a radio might be damaged, that says nothing about the transmission…
However, so far this “guess” is at best wishful thinking on my part. It would be cool if that’s how it worked, but I have no actual evidence to support it.
And so I am still left with materialism until I come to know more.
@jason I’m not convinced by either of your arguments. For one, things need not be identical to be dependent on one another. Feces are not identical to your digestive system, but that doesn’t mean that your digestive system can’t generate feces. (Excuse me for comparing mind to feces, but I hope it gets the point across)
An for two, like I said before, the nature of propositions seems to be generated by minds, and minds seem to be generated by brains, and brains seem to be completely material.
Again I’d love to be wrong but I have a hard time seeing how materialism is incorrect given all this.
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June 27, 2014 at 1:47 am
“….“1. you need a computer to have internet” this is actually false. An internet, by definition, is a *network* of computers, and a network requires more than one….”
Yes objectively speaking it is false – that’s kind of the whole point! Regardless of how the internet is actually configured, all you need to do to experience it is to switch on your own (single) computer and there it is …. ‘inside’ that computer.
The *whole point* is that a false conclusion is reached due to incomplete experimentation and poor deductive reasoning.
You can set rats a task which takes them 10 minutes to figure out. But once the’ve figured it out ALL rats will solve the problem much faster from then on – even rats in another lab. It’s called hundredth monkey syndrome.
Experiments measuring the general public’s psychic ability have consistently produced positive results.
The military have invested heavily in remote viewing programs.
Evidence for the non-local nature of the mind is there for all to see and explore, but the scientific establishment is simply not interested (at least not officially). They do not want the general population to realise their true nature and true potential. The current materialist world view keeps everybody reduced to little more than machines made out of meat ….. doing work ….. watching TV ….. and paying taxes.
Materialism is just the flip side of religion. The priestly elite claimed everything which is of a non-material (AKA ‘spiritual’) nature and put it out of reach of the ordinary person by defining it as ‘god’. The scientific elite took control of the material realm and the two realms have been kept apart ever since (a least in the public domain).
If you feel there is more to the universe than just working, watching TV and paying your taxes your are welcome to join a religion where they will accept that non-material realms exist, but they will tell you they are out of your reach and controlled by ‘god’. However you are welcome to sing, clap, wave your arms in the air…… and of course donate money….
The scientific establishment are just another religious order. Their priestly robes are white lab coats, that’s all.
As for the digestive analogy…. it’s a good analogy because the digestive system only *appears* to produce feces. If you conduct more rigorous experiments you realise it produces nothing, it simply processes incoming ‘data’ in the form of hamburgers and fries.
And the digestive system itself is literally created and nourished by the very food which it appears to ‘create’ and deliver to us in the form of feces.
Perhaps the mind is also created and nourished by the very consciousness which it appears to ‘create’ and deliver to us in the form of …. celebrity gossip, religious and scientific dogma and the notion of fighting wars for peace? 😉
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June 27, 2014 at 6:15 am
@Spinning your original analogy simply doesn’t fit, no matter how many times you repeat it. If your analogy is that you need a single computer to have access to the internet, that fits a completely different argument.
Basically, your analogy is trying to get to the conclusion that “if my computer dies the internet doesn’t die with it” as being analogous to “if my brain dies then consciousness doesn’t die with it”
But that doesn’t work because a SINGLE computer does not generate any internet at all. It can’t. Its physically impossible.
The completely different argument that your analogy fits goes something like this:
“if a single cell of my brain (this is analogous to your computer) dies then consciousness doesn’t die with it”. But this is clearly true, you don’t even need an analogy to see it. And I would never argue that something like this is false.
You can’t say that my original conclusion (that brains entirely generate minds) is incorrect “due to incomplete experimentation and poor deductive reasoning.” You can say that about your analogy, sure. But as we saw above, your analogy does not, and cannot be analogous to my original conclusion, because a single computer cannot, by definition, generate the internet.
Therefore my original conclusion still stands.
The rest of your post talks about things that a) have nothing to do with my original point and b) I largely agree with anyway; so I will ignore it for now.
Except for one thing: the idea that the food “creates” the digestive system. This is actually an interesting point, but again, it isn’t talking about my original analogy. We can agree that the brain generates the mind, just like the digestive system generates the poop. We can also observe that anti-poop (food) generates the digestive system (albeit over a much, much longer period of time). This can imply that there is some anti-mind that generates the brain, but, and this is a huge but: this still assumes materialism! (Because even if an anti-mind generates brains, nothing suggests that this anti-mind is immaterial. In our latest analogy, food is just as material as poop, and in fact a lot of food is indistinguishable from some poop out there)
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June 27, 2014 at 7:16 am
Yes, the fact that my analogy is flawed IS the whole point.
People who claim the mind is merely product of brain function (electrochemical reactions happening inside our head etc) defend their claim by pointing out how brain states (healthy/ damaged/ dead) dictate mind states (conscious/ impaired/ non existent).
While these observations are true they do not actually prove the mind is the product of brain function. At best they only prove that the brain is a vital component necessary for the mind to operate …..or for consciousness to condense to the point of becoming aware of itself (or some other variation along these lines).
I was just pointing out the inadequacy of this reasoning, by pointing out how you could make the exact same observations of a computer and then INCORRECTLY conclude that the internet must be ‘inside’ the computer, based on your experiments.
This (as we all know) is not true. But it ‘could’ be true judging by those three observations that I listed. If that’s the only information you had to work with.
You’ve pointed out that the conclusion is indeed wrong – the internet is in fact OUTSIDE the computer. But that is because you know more about the internet than just those three observations!
People who claim our minds are ‘inside’ our heads base their conclusion on the same basic three observations. There are other (repeatable and controlled) observations we can make which lead us towards a completely different conclusion (I listed some of those observations above) and these are generally IGNORED and DISMISSED and CENSORED by those scientists and academics who have an emotional/ financial/ political investment in the invalid (or at best incomplete) conclusion that the brain creates the mind.
The lesson to be learned is that jumping to a conclusion based on limited experiments often leads to the wrong conclusion. And if that conclusion becomes an accepted premise (a ‘law’ of nature taught in schools as THE TRUTH) on which all further science is conducted then no further knowledge will be possible until someone challenges that conclusion a few centuries down the line.
I gave examples of people who are already challenging the idea of brain = mind and they have hard evidence on their side. The reaction of the scientific community is to ostracise them and even censor them. This is how it’s always played out throughout history.
Deny, ridicule, censor new knowledge….. and a hundred years later finally accept it as true.
“…We can agree that the brain generates the mind…”
No. We do not know that. The brain might very well operate more like a radio or web browser, in which case it is ‘tuning in’ to consciousness rather than creating it from scratch. Currently the evidence is steering us towards this conclusion and away from the idea of the mind being entirely created by the brain.
That is the whole point!
You’ve lost me on the whole ‘anti-poop’ thing I have to say. Sorry!
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June 27, 2014 at 12:14 pm
I’m not saying I’ve proved anything.
I’m just saying so far, given all the evidence, given all my thought experiments, and given all my analogies, materialism remains the default position.
Because your analogy is flawed, we cannot use it to arrive at an understanding of what it is (erroneously) analogous to.
In other words: since you can INCORRECTLY conclude that the internet must be inside the computer based on a FLAWED analogy, you can also CORRECTLY conclude that the internet is inside ALL of the computers, and here “all of the computers” is analogous to a brain, and “the internet” is analogous to a mind.
So the corrected analogy proves my point.
That out of the way, can you please repeat what other basic observations are there that lead us away from materialism? Also, where is the hard evidence? I missed those.
Finally, just because the brain “might” operate like a radio, doesn’t mean it actually does. As much as that would relieve our existential fears, we first need evidence of the “consciousness/radio waves”, or maybe some evidence of some side-effects like maybe tuning a brain to receive a different consciousness, etc. Until we have that sort of evidence, or something similar, materialism remains the default position since it best explains what evidence we do have at the present moment.
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June 30, 2014 at 7:44 am
“Until we have that sort of evidence, or something similar, materialism remains the default position since it best explains what evidence we do have at the present moment.”
Phil, I understand where you’re coming from and I appreciate your honesty admitting that you haven’t proved anything and that your conclusions are based on the information you have.
I don’t think materialism best explains the evidence we have. This is why I think so :
1) Science has taught us how complex nature is and how everything seems to work like a computer program. Based on that observation, there must be intelligence behind how things work. It goes against my common sense to believe that the complexity we see in nature happens by chance. I can’t accept that as a thinking person.
2) I cannot conceive that the information necessary to create a living cell or make a plant to grow can come from the material itself. Intelligence, or what we call a mind, must have programmed the information that makes material processes behave the way they do. Information must come from intelligence.
3) Based on 1 and 2 above, there must be something greater than the material world that is not bound by the material world. By “scientific” reasoning I am comfortable intellectually to conclude that. Based on that, I believe the God of the bible is the best answer to this question.
Aside from my logical deductions, I realize there is an element of faith here to make my conclusions. However, with regards to the position of materialism, I would say that one must have even a greater amount of faith to believe and accept that the material world, that is, the universe, is basically a god of its own. I say a greater amount of faith because there is no mechanism for which to explain how the universe can self-exist. On the other hand, my limited mind can accept a God that can self-exist because I have already accepted that God is not limited by the material universe. Based on that, I can accept that God can intelligently create the material world because He is outside the material world.
Naz
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June 30, 2014 at 7:56 am
Naz, as always I remain eager to shrug off my materialism as soon as there is evidence to do so. Unfortunately, your post does not seem to contain evidence, but arguments; arguments which are not very convincing (much as I would like them to be convincing)
1) I agree, complexity by chance seems very lucky indeed, unless it was helped by an intelligent force. This argument actually resonates with me. But it is not convincing for one simple reason: What about the intelligent force?
The intelligent force (or whatever your explanation is) begs the question.
In other words, if it is our world’s complexity that points at an intelligence behind how things work, what about the intelligence behind how things work? Surely, that intelligence has complexity, and so we are left with the very same question – did this intelligence just arise by some lucky chance?
Either way, you are back at square one. You either have our intelligence/complexity/beauty/whatever, or you have the creator’s. Either one seems like a winning lottery ticket and neither gets us away from materialism (since the intelligence still has to somehow interact with matter, and any such interaction is by definition material)
2) This is basically (1) except we replace intelligence/complexity with information. Yes, the world contains much information. Even something like the report of a thunderstorm, which on the surface looks like a chaotic event, generates reams and reams of information – changes in atmospheric pressures, wind forecasts, circulatory systems, etc. (This is actually very analogous to DNA)
The point is, it doesn’t matter wether you see complexity in the world or information or whatever. That X-Factor applies to whatever creator you posit as well. The only difference is, we have evidence of reality, and no evidence of the god of the bible except flawed arguments
Simply put: if we think an intelligence is necessary to create our intelligence because our intelligence is complex – we shouldn’t forget that the initial intelligence was also complex; and so the question of where complex intelligence is created remains unanswered. If we think that the material world can’t exist on its own, *even though that is what we see*, it is illogical to posit something extra on top of what we do see, thinking that it explains the complexity of what we allready see. No, it doesn’t explain that complexity, and it makes matters worse by introducing its own (hypothetical) complexity.
Simpler yet: the universe is all that exists; we have more evidence for the universe than we have for God. If God created the universe, what created God? If God can be uncreated, why can’t the universe? After all, we have more evidence for the universe than we have for God.
Materialism remains.
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June 30, 2014 at 8:16 am
Phil, good response.
You are applying materialistic reasoning to God making Him like us and thus now we have to discover who or what created God ?
That’s the exact opposite of what I’m trying to say. What I’m saying is God is NOT material and is self-existent. We cannot apply our physical laws to Him or limit Him.
God was not created, He always was. He told Moses His name was “I AM”. In other words He always was. I know this is hard to accept but there really is no other explanation even though our finite minds cannot comprehend this.
By saying God created it all, that doesn’t push the problem back to “then what created God ?”, rather, it answers the questions and puts an end to our physiological turmoil we face as finite beings as in futility we try to understand and comprehend the mystery of our existence apart from God.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Rev 22:13)
God remains.
Cheers !
Naz
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June 30, 2014 at 8:23 am
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m applying materialistic reasoning to God.
I’m applying *reasoning* to *my understanding* of God.
If the fact that I am surrounded by material objects everywhere I go, if the fact that I myself am a material object, and my mind, so far as I can see, is generated by my material organs, and my perceptions, immaterial as they may seem when they exist as my thoughts, are nonetheless *generated* by my mind, which in turn is *generated* by my material brain, if all these facts conspire together to make my reasoning materialistic, then so be it.
That out of the way:
You say God was not created – of course. I grant you this. My question is simple: if god can be uncreated, why can’t the universe? Certainly creation happens within time (how else can you tell when something was created?) and certainly the universe contains within it the very concept of time, and if we take these two certainties as facts, it follows that the universe cannot be created (for there is no time within which it can be created, as it itself contains time)
You put all that together, and materialism remains in search of God.
Finally, I would love myself to be rid of the questions. I would love to put a stamp on it, and say something like “instead of asking what created God, assume that ‘God’ is the ultimate answer to every question”
The only problem is that I can’t do this. I can’t do this because I don’t know if God actually exists or not. God is a concept, in my mind, a hypothesis, a possibility. Just like faster-than-time travel, just like world peace. These are concepts on my mind, and they would be cool to have. I just don’t think we have them, much as I would like them.
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July 2, 2014 at 2:05 am
“…. Because your analogy is flawed, we cannot use it to arrive at an understanding of what it is (erroneously) analogous to….”
The hypothetical scientists probing the computer and concluding the internet is inside the computer are mistaken. Their methodology is flawed. Their experiments are too limited in scope. Their conclusion is over simplistic and ultimately wrong.
The real world scientists probing the brain and concluding the mind is the product of electro chemical activity in the brain are also mistaken. Their methodology is also flawed. Their experiments are also too limited in scope. Their conclusion is over simplistic and ultimately wrong.
Thus the two scenarios ARE analogous.
“… That out of the way, can you please repeat what other basic observations are there that lead us away from materialism? Also, where is the hard evidence? I missed those…”
Of course you did. The scientific establishment ignores, dismisses and even censors scientific research into this area. It is too ‘controversial’ for them because they have as much invested in materialism as Catholic priests have invested in the idea of god. Would you expect the Catholic church to welcome (or fund) research into the origins of religious superstition in childhood?
Throughout history the scientific establishment has ALWAYS resisted new theories, new data and new knowledge which upset the apple cart, regardless of how valid that information was.
Studies into telepathy/ pre cognition consistently give positive results. Studies with rats show how after they learn a new skill and perform a task other rats acquire that skill and can perform that task immediately – even if they are in a different lab (commonly known as the hundredth monkey syndrome). If you look for evidence of the ‘non-local mind’ or ‘non local consciousness’ you find it everywhere you look ….. if you don’t ever look you will never find it.
“… Finally, just because the brain “might” operate like a radio, doesn’t mean it actually does…..”
Of course. Just because individual computers “might” be able to contain the entire internet inside their chips does not mean they actually do.
And just because grey squidgy brain matter “might” be able to manifest consciousness out of nothing, doesn’t mean it actually does. Materialist science has concluded that matter is incapable of being conscious, and yet they insist the brain (which they define as just matter) is conscious.
*** Materialists have absolutely no idea what consciousness is, or how it works ***
“…. As much as that would relieve our existential fears, we first need evidence of the “consciousness/radio waves”, or maybe some evidence of some side-effects like maybe tuning a brain to receive a different consciousness, etc…..”
Oh, you mean like humans have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years (and documenting the results consistently across continents, cultures and millennia)?
The only people NOT exploring the mind in this way are materialist scientists and those born and raised to accept the materialist world view. Materialists do not care to explore the potential of the mind just as Catholics do not care to explore other religions, or the power of superstitious indoctrination. In both cases exploring has the potential to shatter their world view. Most people are heavily invested in their world view – materialists are no different in this respect.
“… Until we have that sort of evidence, or something similar, materialism remains the default position since it best explains what evidence we do have at the present moment…..”
The evidence is already there if you want to find it and to get more evidence all you have to do is fund it. But nobody in mainstream science wants to do either. They even CENSOR scientists who do research this area. Even TED were caught censoring those researchers. They eventually were forced to admit they had no valid grounds for censoring those lectures.
The idea of non-local consciousness – and the evidence which already exists for it – does not just upset the materialist apple cart, it upsets the foundation of the modern western civilisation. And this is a clue as to why there is so much resistance to the evidence of non-local consciousness.
Imagine trying to stir up profitable wars if everyone understands they essentially share the same mind … that we are all intimately linked to the same ocean of collective consciousness!
This is why the materialist world view dominates. It is quite simply the best world view for dividing humans and ruling them. If humans can be convinced they are no more than lumbering robots (as Dawkins calls us) then they can be convinced to work like robots, fight like robots and die like robots in service to the ruling classes.
All religions of control seek to DIS-empower the population by telling us we are rubbish. Believing we are unable to empower ourselves, it’s much easier to pursued us that power can only be achieved by throwing money at the church… or in the modern age at the government…. or even at consumer products.
Why do you think mind *enhancing* drugs are illegal, yet but mind *numbing* drugs (and devices like TV’s) are legal?
The idea of the human as no more than lumbering meat machine is a self fulfilling prophecy. Invest enough hours into flight research and you end up with a working plane. Invest enough hours into consciousness and you end up with an expanded consciousness. Lie on the floor every day declaring flight and expanded consciousness to be impossible and that will be true for you too.
Materialists would never consider actually using consciousness itself to explore consciousness! What an absurd idea! Only the brain is real, the mind is merely an illusion, right? It cannot be trusted, it cannot be measured… only brain activity can be trusted and measured.
How many materialist scientists have ever devoted even 50 hours to seriously exploring their own conscious mind? They don’t do it because they’ve already decided that any data gathered would not be real or valid anyway.
Materialists mapping consciousness are like explorers mapping continents who refuse to leave their own village because they’ve decided everywhere outside their own village is merely a hallucination. “The physical realm cannot be trusted!” they say.
So they draw a picture of their village and say “This is all here is”. And they prove it by never leaving their village their whole lives.
When all science is conducted exclusively using material apparatus which is lifeless and lacks consciousness – guess what? You end up with a view of the universe which is exclusively materialistic, lifeless and devoid of consciousness.
But materialists cannot deny consciousness exists altogether (although some have tried to) so they just say “Consciousness? Oh that’s just a by-product of electro chemical brain activity, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about it. It’s hardly worth dwelling on”
(“Oh fossils? They were put there by God when he made the earth 4000 years ago, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about them. They are hardly worth dwelling on”)
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July 2, 2014 at 7:05 am
They hypothetical scientists are mistaken. Anybody, scientist or not, who thinks the internet is contained in a single computer, IS MISTAKEN.
Therefore, there is no analogy to be had here, and your conclusion is unfounded.
Let me put it another way:
Here’s another clearly flawed analogy “the idea that the planets revolve around the sun is analogous to ketchup revolving around my french fries. And since we know that french fries don’t generate enough gravity to put ketchup into orbit, we can therefore by analogy say that the sun don’t generate enough gravity to put planets into orbit.”
Would you then say that this analogy proves that planets don’t orbit the sun?
Of course not. That’s not how analogies work. If what you are making an analogy to is clearly false (like “internet is generated by a single computer” or “french fries generate enough gravity to put ketchup into orbit”) then any conclusions you draw from that are similarly false, including the conclusion that “since if you break a single computer, you don’t break the internet, then obviously if you break the brain, you don’t break the consciousness” this is false, just like if you were to say “since french fries don’t generate enough gravity to put ketchup into orbit, then obviously the sun doesn’t generate enough gravity to put planets into orbit”.
Again: a single computer DOESN’T generate the internet, just like french fries DON’T generate enough gravity to put ketchup into orbit. What you are missing is that these two clearly false analogies Do Not substantiate the claim that a single brain doesn’t generate the mind (it seems like it does) or that the sun doesn’t generate enough gravity to put planets into orbit (it seems like it does)
Until you get this, any further discussion will be similarly warped by your misunderstanding, and it will be futile to continue.
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July 2, 2014 at 4:52 pm
“…The hypothetical scientists are mistaken. ..”
Yes that is the whole point. They have reached the wrong conclusion because they’ve not done enough research.
This is why they are analogous to materialists who claim the mind is merely the product of brain function and is inside our heads. Like the hypothetical scientists they also have not done enough research. They have jumped to the first seemingly logical conclusion about the mind after limited experimentation and turned that conclusion into a premise which then limits the scope of all future thought and/ or experimentation.
The fact that the internet is not just inside computers does not prove the mind more than just brain activity. It simply demonstrates how false conclusions can easily be reached if we only conduct a limited set of experiments and restrict our thinking to a narrow range of possibilities.
The evidence (some of which I mentioned earlier) for the mind / consciousness being more than merely brain activity and not just located inside our heads has absolutely nothing to do with the analogy. The analogy is just a ‘thought experiment’, if you will. A way of understanding how false conclusions can easily be reached.
The evidence for non local consciousness (and/ or non locally acting consciousness) exists separately to this or any other analogy.
I wasn’t using the analogy to prove that the mind is more than merely materialistic in nature. The evidence demonstrates that. The analogy just explains how we can be distracted away from the evidence by jumping to false conclusions.
I do not understand your ketchup / fries analogy analogy.
For your analogy of my analogy to work the people in your analogy would have to
(a) actually observe ketchup revolving around their fries (just as we observe the internet on our computer screens)
(b) conduct a few rudimentary experiments in an attempt to explain how the phenomenon works
(c) jump to the seemingly rational, but ultimately misguided and incorrect conclusion about why the ketchup is behaving that way based on their limited and misleading experiments.
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July 2, 2014 at 5:44 pm
You still don’t get it. Its not a matter of research. Its a matter of being wrong BY DEFINITION.
“The fact that the internet is not just inside computers does not prove the mind more than just brain activity. It simply demonstrates how false conclusions can easily be reached if we only conduct a limited set of experiments and restrict our thinking to a narrow range of possibilities.”
This paragraph betrays in you not only a compete misunderstanding of what I’m talking about, but also the entire discussion about analogies leading up to now. You now seem to be abandoning the analogy alltogether, and you are still erroneously thinking that internet is not just inside computers.
It is.
I’m sorry but if you can’t be as rigirous in this discussion as I’m trying to be, then we are wasting each others time.
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July 2, 2014 at 5:47 pm
If you wish to change the subject and discuss the evidence for mind being generated by something that is not material, I am all ears.
Let’s start with your best piece of evidence first.
Unless I missed it, so far you haven’t offered any evidence – you just stated that there is evidence, and then went off on a massive tangent about some global conspiracy where people are ignoring the evidence.
Forget all that. What is the best evidence that you have that the mind comes from something that is not material?
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July 2, 2014 at 11:54 pm
“….You now seem to be abandoning the analogy alltogether..”
1. The analogy was never intended to prove how the brain works. It just shows how we can be easily misled by limited observations and end up misunderstanding how the things function.
2. Experiments and observations of nature show that the mind is more than just electro chemical brain activity. The analogy’s only purpose is to illustrate how we can easily be misled if we don’t look or think beyond the surface.
3. On the surface the internet *appears* to be inside our computers. That is our immediate subjective experience. Old people often struggle to comprehend the difference between the documents they have written in Word and the emails they have written in their web based email service. Both *appear* to be inside the computer but while the Word documents are stored on their hard drive, their emails are stored hundreds of miles away on a server.
4. This is analogous to the workings of the brain/ mind. For example scientists still don’t understand where/ how memories are stored. Some memories appear to be stored outside of the brain. And we appear to be able to access a collective pool of information, as if we are all connected to a collective ‘ocean of consciousness’ (analogous to web servers).
5. For example…. if you teach rats to perform a task (or rather set them a task and let them figure it out) it might take a few hours. But once they’ve figured it out ALL rats (even rats in other labs) are then able to perform the task just as quickly as if they can access the knowledge directly without having to go through the process of learning by trial and error. This is just one example which seems to show there is a collective consciousness as well as individual consciousness.
6. This is analogous to uploading information to a blog. Once somebody has blogged “How to make the perfect Spaghetti Bolognese” everyone has access to this information.
7. There are many experiments and observations of nature which show that consciousness and the mind are far more complex than just a load of electro chemical brain activity inside our heads.
8. The materialist world view which insists our minds are no more than a byproduct of brain activity (and are therefore sealed inside our heads) cannot cope with this information. That is why materialists (who currently dominate the scientific community, and modern society as a whole) tend to ignore, dismiss and even censor this kind of information and any discussion of it (see previous comments or examples of this).
9. Another tactic of avoidance is to spin the conversation off onto nit-picky tangents until the conversation is completely derailed.
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September 14, 2014 at 4:49 pm
Would you care to provide evidence for the extremely strong claim that thoughts exist extraphysically? I myself prefer the far less complex explanation, in accordance with Occam’s Razor: that thoughts and concepts are patterns emerging from the interactions of neurons in the brain. We do not yet fully understand how this emergence occurs, of course, but to say that our lack of understanding implies that materialism is false is more or less “God of the gaps”.
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September 22, 2014 at 11:53 am
David, by default, I echo your sentiments. Recent study has, however, given me interest in a different path. The key for me was the following quote, make of it what you will. “The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine” -James Jeans
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December 2, 2015 at 9:17 pm
[…] A discussion of materialism and the existence of abstract and non-material entities in comment section here: […]
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