The Good Place

That you would post this is reflective of how unaware you are of your own methods. You said you were describe as the "posterchild" for someone who wouldn't get banned at JREF. Here, you are the posterchild for worthless discussions in semantics.

You constantly complain that people are misrepresenting your position when the vast, vast majority of the time that just isn't happening. I've said it to you in the past and it's worth saying again: that means that either you do a horrendous job of being clear in what you're posting, or you're just intentionally being obtuse. I tend to think that you probably just do an awful job of being clear, because it's impossible for so many intelligent people to so consistently not understand just what it is you're trying to say. I've also never accused you of of anything resembling mental illness. You constantly post things, to which people directly respond with a completely reasonable interpretation of what you wrote, and you come back, every time without fail, with "Oh no, that's not what I meant, you've misunderstood." If that's always the case, and you're actually trying to be genuine, maybe look in the mirror. 

In any event, I'm not going to waste time or any more space on this thread engaging with you over something that is so absurd. Silence said it's fair to infer from the poster's actual posts over time what their position is. If you don't consider that a fair thing to do, then you're not being reasonable.

With all due respect, how would you know whether you have understood or misunderstood, except through feedback from the person you are trying to understand? I've been a teacher for a long time. I can tell when somebody has understood me, and when they still don't get. 

I realize that I sometimes talk about complex subjects which people are unfamiliar with. But Steve001 said something earlier which I have definitely noticed. There is a great deal of difference between the response I got on the JREF forum when talking to other skeptics who were trying to understand the topic I was explaining, and the response I get from proponents who are trying to find fault with what I say.

I did start the journey with Skeptiko with the assumption that if I was being misunderstood, it was because I wasn't doing a good job of explaining myself. I worked harder and harder to make myself clear, to explain any and all technical terms, to provide lots of background information, etc. I eventually had to abandon the idea, as the evidence piled up that I was wrong about this.

I don't actually think that it's fair to infer what a poster's position is without asking for feedback, from that poster, whether or not you have characterized it correctly. If people made the effort to do this, almost all of the contentious discussion on this site (and the Skeptiko sites) would disappear. But where's the fun in that, I guess.

Linda

real things are by any definition physical.

That's a statement of opinion, not a statement of fact. You know many people here positively disagree with it, and many others have an open mind about it.

I know this is what you've been stating the whole time. The answer is insufficient though. You see Chris, the very process of describing something scientifically is by definition a description of real things and real things are by any definition physical.

Real emotions? Real past-life recall? Real thoughts? Real premonitions? ... ...

I think you are talking past each other. I suspect that you are thinking of immaterialism and materialism as opposites. But the way "immaterialism" is used, it is more of a subset of materialism. That is, in both cases, materialism and immaterialism make references to events and experiences (which makes something amenable to methodological naturalism) which is generally what we think of as matter, energy and interactions (materialism). But immaterialism also seems to be saying that when we get to the bottom, what we find won't resemble something we might call "matter" or "energy", like conscious awareness, for example.

Linda

I have imagined should there be a bottom whatever we find could be something no one has ever imagined, but it's still something.

Real emotions? Real past-life recall? Real thoughts? Real premonitions? ... ...

If those things are real then they exist. If they are not real they do not exist they are illusory.

I think you are talking past each other.

I thought we had an understanding that neither of us would refer to the other's posts. I understood that was your preference. By all means correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think so:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-l...6#pid17016
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-l...7#pid17017

That's a statement of opinion, not a statement of fact. You know many people here positively disagree with it, and many others have an open mind about it.

At the risk of sounding flippant that's quite a revelation.

Steve, come on. This is just not a true statement. You're trying to equate science/the scientific method with materialism and physicalism, which it is not. It's not related to either of those philosophical positions. I actually believe Linda has said as much in this thread (forgive me if I'm misremembering or misquoting). This is scientism at its apex.

Things that are real are physical and physical things are real. Meaning this, real things have properties, can be quantified and can interact with other real things such as you. You should hope those things you think are real. Of course science does not probe the immaterial world, well most science that is. You scoff at scientism, yet you allude to but offer no alternative for another ism which works half as well, as well or better describing how nature works?

From my reading, materialism in the old definition (there's only matter) may not be related to science. Physicalism certainly can. It includes matter and forces such as quarks, gravity, dark energy... . Physicalism was coined in the early 20th century in response to how the pursuit of science was revealing nature's secrets. As both isms are apparently interchangable today I would say science and those isms have much in common with the pursuit of scientific knowledge. They are if not sisters to science at least first cousins. With that said I'm not going to contend the point further even if you do.

I have imagined should there be a bottom whatever we find could be something no one has ever imagined, but it's still something.

I agree that from a methodological naturalism/materialism/physicalism perspective, it doesn’t really matter what it is, no matter how strange. There aren’t any particular constraints on what it looks like or whether it contradicts our intuitions. On the other hand, immaterialists are constrained to finding something that can still be regarded as “not material” in some way, which I’m guessing may depend upon an outdated concept of physical or material. I don’t know what it would take. Realism is already looking like it contradicts our intuitions (with respect to quantum mechanics).

Linda

Things that are real are physical and physical things are real. Meaning this, real things have properties, can be quantified and can interact with other real things such as you. You should hope those things you think are real. Of course science does not probe the immaterial world, well most science that is.

No steve, that's your own definition of what is real. Congratulations, you've created your own definition and stated it as if it was truth. As others have pointed out, that means nothing. It's your opinion and nothing more. 

Defining things that are "real" as things that "have properties, can be quantified and can interact with other real things" is a terrible start, unless your aim is to claim that something like emotion is not real/is imaginary. Certainly emotions cannot be said to have "properties", other than those terms that describe the emotions themselves. We can't quantify how happy or sad someone is. So, if you're going to attempt to argue that emotions and the like are not real and are illusory, then by all means, go for it. That's a different argument altogether. But if that's not your argument, then what you're saying isn't what you believe.

Science and the scientific method do not "do" anything. They are tools which are used by people. As with most people who don't actually understand science but worship it like a deity, you seem to lack the understanding that the people are the ones doing the work. The scientific method provides the tools by which to do that work. Science is entirely neutral as far as whether consciousness is reductive, immaterial, or whatever else. Science does not choose to study certain things and not others; people choose what to study using the scientific method. 

Sure, studying what you are describing as "physical" is simpler or more directly easy to study using the scientific method. That does not mean that the method or the principles behind it cannot be used to investigate claims pertaining to phenomena that may not have traditionally physical underpinnings as we currently understand those terms to mean. Are electrons physical? Is an electromagnetic field physical? You certainly would say that they're real, and by your definition they then must be physical. But that doesn't seem apparent from anyone who is actually familiar with those things. Once we get down to it, there are lots of things that science studies and deals with in theory that are really, really stretching a more traditional definition of "physical". So saying that "real is physical and physical is real" is really a vacuous statement that doesn't provide the amount of nuance that is due when discussing such a complex topic. You can think that all you want, but it's of course nowhere near that simple. Given your stated resentment of philosophy (and your implied resentment of any form of critical thought), I'm not surprised that you're not more nuanced about it.

You scoff at scientism, yet you allude to but offer no alternative for another ism which works half as well, as well or better describing how nature works?

And yet again, you are equating two things that are not the same, at all. Scientism, steve, is not science. They are not the same thing. They are not related. Science is the method by which people study things. Scientism is promissory materialism, and unending faith that science can and will answer every important question there is. The two are not equivalent. Science may or may not answer some of these questions in the future. But constantly falling back on the great, capital s "Science" as a way to answer literally any question is just a way to avoid discussion of an issue in greater depth or detail, a way to avoid engaging the problem. 

I'm not sure what alternative you'd expect me to offer to scientism, because it does not work at all. The scientific process works. Scientism does no work. It does not describe nature; it has not and never will. Scientists and researchers will undoubtedly continue to use the scientific method to probe the nature of reality as far as they can. No one, including those researchers, knows for sure whether there is a boundary at which science will not be able to dig any deeper, but it's a fair guess that such a boundary exists. And of course, we already know of many examples of questions which science just does not speak on. I'm sure you're unwilling to acknowledge that such things exist, and that's fine. But the one thing that is absolutely certain, is that scientism has not ever described anything about the nature of reality, discovered anything meaningful, or produced any new understandings of things. 

This is a good article about this discussion: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publicati...-scientism

From my reading, materialism in the old definition (there's only matter) may not be related to science. Physicalism certainly can. It includes matter and forces such as quarks, gravity, dark energy... . Physicalism was coined in the early 20th century in response to how the pursuit of science was revealing nature's secrets.

The issue, as has been addressed by me and others dozens of times that I've seen on this forum, is that calling something "physical" is a really slippery slope. It's a nebulous term in this sort of discussion, and could become more so in the future. What we now consider to be bizarre and nonphysical or immaterial could some day be considered "physical," but to "immaterialists" today it could be similar to what they were expecting. Simply broadening the term "physical" to include all future things discovered or discoverable by science really renders the word meaningless, at least in terms of the reductive sort of physical that is generally talked about in consciousness discussions. 

Linda stated "immaterialists are constrained to finding something that can still be regarded as 'not material' in some way, which I’m guessing may depend upon an outdated concept of physical or material." And unless I misunderstand her (which, apparently, is very likely), this at least relates to what I just said above. I don't think immaterialists are constrained to finding something "not material" unless you first assume that they literally never adjust as science adjusts, and as the concept of what is physical is broadened. Again, microscopic particles and fields likely would not have been described as "physical" a couple hundred years ago if one was to travel back in time and describe it to scientists and philosophers of that era. It's possible that in the future science could make some profound discovery regarding the nature of consciousness that goes far, far beyond what a reductive and materialistic view today would suggest. If that were to occur, it's also possible that people might describe whatever the discovery is, as "physical" because it was discovered by science. Surely, that "physical" would not be remotely similar to what we would call physical today. And that's the whole point. Immaterialists, if we're going to call them that, would not at all be constrained to finding something "non material" just for the sake of it. Their premonitions and reasoning would have turned out to be correct, even if people described such a new discovery as being "physical". The definition of physical has expanded before, and it's very possible that it will continue to do so as more discoveries are made. 

So, simply stating that something will turn out to be discovered by science does not actually tell us anything about the nature of its reality or who would be "more right" as of now. With such a broad definition of physical, "physical" in the future could be a lot closer to what modern day non-materialists are positing than what modern day materialists are.

As both isms are apparently interchangable today I would say science and those isms have much in common with the pursuit of scientific knowledge. They are if not sisters to science at least first cousins. With that said I'm not going to contend the point further even if you do.

I already addressed this to an extent, but no, physicalism and materialism having nothing to do with science. They're philosophical, a priori positions about what exists. Adhering to one of them defines the extent to which some person believes the scientific method can discover things, and nothing else. They have nothing in common with the "pursuit of scientific knowledge" unless you are someone who assumes that the only things that exist are reductive, material things as we currently understand those terms, and thus that science can only discover such things (because they are the only things there are to be discovered). 

They are absolutely, positively not related to science, And for all your claimed disdain of philosophy, it is fun to see you try to smuggle philosophical positions underneath the science umbrella.