(2017-11-06, 05:42 PM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]I don’t think there is anything new here. We have a Christian philosopher cherry picking the evidence he likes and ignoring the weight of the contrary. His own spin is put on other ‘evidence’. He has a predictably narrow view of ‘the physical’.
(2017-11-06, 06:48 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]Oh dear, Malf, you disappoint me. I said when I posted this in the other (materialism thread) that I expected an ad hom response and here it is immediately. He makes no case from faith or religion in his presentation yet you can't resist using his Christianity against him. So I can just as easily say that you are bound to support materialism because of your atheism. The cherry picking argument is lazy too - I think he was pretty thorough in outlining the main challenges to materialism although, as has mentioned, he probably didn't go far enough in not including empirical evidence. I have no doubt that if he had included that evidence (psi, etc.) he would have been condemned by skeptics for peddling woo.
So either admit that you are just offended by the fact that someone challenges your ideology of be more specific in your counter argument.
Sorry, I just don't see the ad hom here.
All of his challenges appear to be the same ones we pull apart on here, and previously at the other place. I didn't see any new ones but may have had my attention diverted whilst I was viewing.
The fact that he interprets QM to be outside of the material realm might be a clue that he is setting up an easy target to shoot down. I simply don't encounter physicalists who deny QM exists.
(2017-11-07, 01:38 AM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry, I just don't see the ad hom here.
All of his challenges appear to be the same ones we pull apart on here, and previously at the other place. I didn't see any new ones but may have had my attention diverted whilst I was viewing.
The fact that he interprets QM to be outside of the material realm might be a clue that he is setting up an easy target to shoot down. I simply don't encounter physicalists who deny QM exists.
What’s the limit though? Where is the line drawn where people say ‘That’s not physical, that’s non physical?’. When you don’t define a limit to what you can define as physical, physicalism is just always bound to be correct and utterly useless at the same time. You’re never wrong, you just define something as physical and fold it into your metaphysic. It’s why materialism was actually a proper, yet failed metaphysic and physicalism is so utterly useless as a metaphysic that it’s also failed.
Why would any metaphysic assume that what we know now is all that we would ever know? I’m sure the notion of physicalism has yet more room to expand, and rightly so. Whether one calls that ‘useless’ or ‘sensible’ may depend on how badly you want to throw stones at it.
At the risk of introducing another thinker/expert/scientist without a prior background check to make sure he has no weird fetish hiding in his philosophical cupboard, I'll offer this article on the subject at hand. This time it is professor of astronomy, Adam Frank (an actual scientist this time, not a philosopher) writing in Aeon magazine.
https://aeon.co/essays/materialism-alone...sciousness
Quote:In the very public version of the debate over consciousness, those who advocate that understanding the mind might require something other than a ‘nothing but matter’ position are often painted as victims of wishful thinking, imprecise reasoning or, worst of all, an adherence to a mystical ‘woo’.
It’s hard not to feel the intuitional weight of today’s metaphysical sobriety. Like Pickett’s Charge up the hill at Gettysburg, who wants to argue with the superior position of those armed with ever more precise fMRIs, EEGs and the other material artefacts of the materialist position? There is, however, a significant weakness hiding in the imposing-looking materialist redoubt. It is as simple as it is undeniable: after more than a century of profound explorations into the subatomic world, our best theory for how matter behaves still tells us very little about what matter is. Materialists appeal to physics to explain the mind, but in modern physics the particles that make up a brain remain, in many ways, as mysterious as consciousness itself.
He then goes into a description of applied quantum physics and continues ...
Quote:You can see how this throws a monkey wrench into a simple, physics-based view of an objective materialist world. How can there be one mathematical rule for the external objective world before a measurement is made, and another that jumps in after the measurement occurs? For a hundred years now, physicists and philosophers have been beating the crap out of each other (and themselves) trying to figure out how to interpret the wave function and its associated measurement problem. What exactly is quantum mechanics telling us about the world? What does the wave function describe? What really happens when a measurement occurs? Above all, what is matter?
And he asks ...
Quote:Given these difficulties, one must ask why certain weird alternatives suggested by quantum interpretations are widely preferred over others within the research community. Why does the infinity of parallel universes in the many-worlds interpretation get associated with the sober, hard-nosed position, while including the perceiving subject gets condemned as crossing over to the shores of anti-science at best, or mysticism at worst?
...
Some consciousness researchers might think that they are being hard-nosed and concrete when they appeal to the authority of physics. When pressed on this issue, though, we physicists are often left looking at our feet, smiling sheepishly and mumbling something about ‘it’s complicated’.
(2017-11-07, 05:24 PM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]Why would any metaphysic assume that what we know now is all that we would ever know? I’m sure the notion of physicalism has yet more room to expand, and rightly so. Whether one calls that ‘useless’ or ‘sensible’ may depend on how badly you want to throw stones at it.
Because that is the purpose of a metaphysic. A metaphysic is supposed to encompass the reason and structure behind the physical universe.
(2017-11-07, 11:46 PM)Iyace Wrote: [ -> ]Because that is the purpose of a metaphysic. A metaphysic is supposed to encompass the reason and structure behind the physical universe.
I think that is debatable. Perhaps a metaphysic takes a broader view, without giving up the flexibility to adapt to new data.
If we take a rigid view we will continue to find all of them somewhat unsatisfactory. Problem-free metaphysics seem thin on the ground... perhaps Max has the right idea in leaving all -isms behind, and concentrating on discovering and modelling what we can.
(2017-11-07, 08:11 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]At the risk of introducing another thinker/expert/scientist without a prior background check to make sure he has no weird fetish hiding in his philosophical cupboard, I'll offer this article on the subject at hand. This time it is professor of astronomy, Adam Frank (an actual scientist this time, not a philosopher) writing in Aeon magazine.
https://aeon.co/essays/materialism-alone...sciousness
He then goes into a description of applied quantum physics and continues ...
And he asks ...
I like this piece. It keeps alive the magic and mystery of matter. I've been banging a similar drum (in that he may be approaching the "monkey -brain limit" problem). This guy is just more erudite and eloquent than me.
(2017-11-07, 08:11 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]At the risk of introducing another thinker/expert/scientist without a prior background check to make sure he has no weird fetish hiding in his philosophical cupboard,
Is that an acceptance that ad-hominen attacks are admissible rather than the fallacy which they are usually considered to be? I'm not sure I like the direction this forum is taking.
(2017-11-08, 05:35 AM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]Is that an acceptance that ad-hominen attacks are admissible rather than the fallacy which they are usually considered to be? I'm not sure I like the direction this forum is taking.
No, it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek because I was taken to task for posting something from someone who turned out to have strange ideas about other matters - including sexual behaviour. I was also criticised for suggesting that bringing up those other matters as a way of discrediting his views on materialism might constitute an ad hom.
I've since learned that Koons' lecture was a summary of
his book which, in turn, is a collection of essays from 23 philosophers on the "Waning of Materialism". And no, I have not gone to the trouble of checking the sexual predilections of those 23.
Quote:Twenty-three philosophers examine the doctrine of materialism find it wanting. The case against materialism comprises arguments from conscious experience, from the unity and identity of the person, from intentionality, mental causation, and knowledge. The contributors include leaders in the fields of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, who respond ably to the most recent versions and defenses of materialism.
