Materialism as a religion

I gotta say man, I find it fascinating that with your exposure over the years to various proponent arguments, the evidence in Parapsychology etc that you still hold some of the opinions you hold above. Do you think all the Parapsychology evidence is just due to fraud, experimental errors, bias etc then?

I mean, it doesn’t take much to see it’s fundamentally flawed. For instance, he cleverly left out from the churches part that churches, up until relatively recently, were pretty much the only bastion of education  and science. We owe a lot of our fundamental scientific knowledge to various religious groups.

How can you both say the mind arises from physical processes, but morality and meaning are subjective? That makes absolutely no sense. If the mind is derived from physic processes, and meaning arises from the mind, then ipso facto meaning is objective. These are the kinds of things things that make physicalism a very flawed premise: you can’t maintain logical consistency with physicalism unless you deny the only thing you know or introduce an ontological inconsistency

I don’t think I’m following the argument here. Different physical processes in different people will give different notions of morality and meaning. Think different prior experiences/inputs.

I gotta say man, I find it fascinating that with your exposure over the years to various proponent arguments, the evidence in Parapsychology etc that you still hold some of the opinions you hold above. Do you think all the Parapsychology evidence is just due to fraud, experimental errors, bias etc then?

Heh. Let's just say that I was trying to give a more realistic representation of the "materialist" mindset than the Charles Tart Strawman version that nbtruthman presented. I had hoped that it was more palatable to proponents as I was trying not to rule anything out and including some space for magic and mystery. I don't hear many "real-life" skeptics using terms like "I affirm" and "I believe". If you meet a "materialist skeptic" who affirms anything, tell them malf told you to ignore them

I mean, it doesn’t take much to see it’s fundamentally flawed. For instance, he cleverly left out from the churches part that churches, up until relatively recently, were pretty much the only bastion of education  and science. We owe a lot of our fundamental scientific knowledge to various religious groups.

As I said above, I was trying to present a more flexible view of the materialist position, taking the Tart creed as a starting point. I couldn't include everything and tried to limit myself to the parameters he set. I'm still to be convinced that anything I wrote is fundamentally flawed.

As I said above, I was trying to present a more flexible view of the materialist position, taking the Tart creed as a starting point. I couldn't include everything and tried to limit myself to the parameters he set. I'm still to be convinced that anything I wrote is fundamentally flawed.

Of course you are still to be convinced. My guess is that no evidence, no philosophical argument, no personal experience will ever convince you. That's fine. Hang out with us and keep challenging our convictions: at least you are more fun than Linda and more interesting than Steve001.

Of course you are still to be convinced. My guess is that no evidence, no philosophical argument, no personal experience will ever convince you.

I'd be curious to hear Malf's response to this threshold question.

I feel like I sit somewhere on this continuum between Malf and those who feel confident/satisfied by the current "evidence" that physicalism/materialism is false.

I am unsatisfied with Malf's version of the creed.  I have no real rational basis to be unsatisfied with it.  Rather, I feel a strong need for there to be some grander meaning to "all this".  That said, I don't find Sheldrake's morphic field theories and research of dogs barking before their owners get home as compelling.

So, I'm sympathetic to Malf (and also to the more aggressive sceptics).

As I used to hope for when I was very young when watching the old 10 Commandment movies: "If only I'd been there to see the Red Sea part; I'd have been convinced by THAT!".

The Malf Creed

"I have no reason to believe I can interact with anything outside this physical universe, of which I appear to be a small part. The universe appears to have some predictable qualities that can be studied and modelled, but is at the same time utterly bizarre in a way my monkey brain is unable to fully grasp.

Sure, the universe could have a "prime mover" but see little evidence that it can be assigned an objective purpose or objective meaning or destiny. i doubt that the universe "cares" about anything.

I suspect, and see much evidence to support the notion that, all ideas about God or gods, supernatural beings, prophets and saviors, or other nonphysical beings or forces are superstitions and delusions. Life and consciousness are totally identical to physical processes, and arose from chance interactions of physical forces. That said, I suspect the physical is weirder and more magical than we generally credit. We are story telling creatures and construct purpose, meaning, and destiny to provide more palatable human stories.

I suspect that all judgments, values, and moralities, whether my own or others', are subjective, arising solely from biological determinants, personal history, and chance. Freewill maybe an illusion, but my choices feel free, and I still try and make good ones. Therefore, the most rational values I can personally live by must be based on my previous experiences, and not dictated by scripture or clerics. The criteria for forming friends are complex and certainly based on a myriad of reasons. 

I suspect that churches are useful for social support, and have contributed much incredible culture (literature, art and architecture etc) but, on balance, have causesd as much strife as joy in this world; I have not discovered a source of objective sins to commit or be forgiven for, but history suggests that everybody benefits from an equitable society if there is a social contract with the 'golden rule' at the heart of it. Virtue is not defined by religious scripture, but scripture has borrowed heavily from the history of human nature and culture.

I suspect that the death of the body is the death of the mind. There is little good evidence for an afterlife, and all hope for such is... well... hopeful"

How's that?

"Life and consciousness are totally identical to physical processes, and arose from chance interactions of physical forces."

"I suspect that the death of the body is the death of the mind."

"How's that?"

Plain wrong, sad even...nevertheless, I'm glad you told us, Malf.  At least I now fully understand why you present the most downright silly explanations for veridical OBE's after cardiac arrest.

I don’t think I’m following the argument here. Different physical processes in different people will give different notions of morality and meaning. Think different prior experiences/inputs.

But then morality and meaning are ipso facto real tangible things. Put it this way: a storm is caused by a combination of physical factors. The combination of those physical factors give rise to ephiphenomena like wind, which themselves can be independently measured and observed. What you’re saying then, isn’t internally consistent. You’re saying a set of physical processes can give rise to an intangible and immeasurable set of physical stuff. The only way to keep it consistent is by saying meaning is objective and independently accessible.

I'd be curious to hear Malf's response to this threshold question.

I feel like I sit somewhere on this continuum between Malf and those who feel confident/satisfied by the current "evidence" that physicalism/materialism is false.

I am unsatisfied with Malf's version of the creed.  I have no real rational basis to be unsatisfied with it.  Rather, I feel a strong need for there to be some grander meaning to "all this".  That said, I don't find Sheldrake's morphic field theories and research of dogs barking before their owners get home as compelling.

So, I'm sympathetic to Malf (and also to the more aggressive sceptics).

As I used to hope for when I was very young when watching the old 10 Commandment movies: "If only I'd been there to see the Red Sea part; I'd have been convinced by THAT!".

I understand the moronic resonance rejection, but what about Sheldrakes experiments don’t convince you something is going on?

I'd be curious to hear Malf's response to this threshold question.

I feel like I sit somewhere on this continuum between Malf and those who feel confident/satisfied by the current "evidence" that physicalism/materialism is false.

I am unsatisfied with Malf's version of the creed.  I have no real rational basis to be unsatisfied with it.  Rather, I feel a strong need for there to be some grander meaning to "all this".  That said, I don't find Sheldrake's morphic field theories and research of dogs barking before their owners get home as compelling.

So, I'm sympathetic to Malf (and also to the more aggressive sceptics).

As I used to hope for when I was very young when watching the old 10 Commandment movies: "If only I'd been there to see the Red Sea part; I'd have been convinced by THAT!".

I really don't think I'll ever be totally "convinced" of anything but who knows what the future has in store for me. 

My attempt at rephrasing Tart's creed was due to the fact that he had (deliberately) presented a version of "materialism" that was too easy to scoff at and dissemble. That is just lazy. Incidentally, these days I get equally annoyed by strawman critiques of "immaterialism" that do a similar thing, and ignore some of the compelling features of say, Idealism, Panpsychism, and the Simulation Hypothesis.

There have been several reasons why I've been posting less of late, but I have become less enthralled with nailing down the "nature of reality" and more interested in finding a philosophy to live by, independent of ephemeral underlying truths. Philosophically speaking I guess I would call myself a Stoic rather than a Materialist but labels are tricky in and of themselves I guess.