Materialist Roll Call...

[( ∞ )]

Almost all of the posts I have read here in the Philosophy and Religion forums come from people who are spiritualists or dualists. Are physicalists/materialists an endangered species here?

[Sebbi]

Appears so.


Then again we Hippies tend to view materialism as a product of Capitalism (the Nemisis of peace and love).

So what's your view on it?

Blessings

Sebbi

[humandraydel]

I think he means materialist as in...believing that everything stems from some ultimate physical matter. If something is hot, it just means molecules are vibrating more rapidly; color of light is just the frequency of the wavelength of photon; all sensations and emotions are just chemical reactions in the brain, etc.

Or did you mean something else infinity? Feel free to elaborate on your viewpoint. I'm interested in hearing it.

[Sebbi]

Ah I see. Right now it makes sense.

I'm not sure what I think of materialism. I think if you're a physicist then fair enough but if you're a biologist then you're more likely to believe in ideologism.

I have always been very good at finding ways of reconciling two opposing philosophies and that is very simple, they don't neccesarily have to make logical sense together. I am both a materialist and a spiritualist.

I believe that the material universe can exist completely independantly of anything else, it's just that the other bits make it a whole lot more beautiful.

Blessings

Sebbi

[BlackBillBlake]

Appears so.


Then again we Hippies tend to view materialism as a product of Capitalism (the Nemisis of peace and love).

So what's your view on it?

Blessings

Sebbi
Yet it is Karl Marx who is often thought of as the originator of 'historical materialism' in philosophy/sociology.
Then again, Marx was arguably a product of capitalism himself.

[I'minmyunderwear]

it's really hard to tell, but i guess i'm leaning toward a materialistic viewpoint right now

[herbskindessence]

Scientific Pantheists could be included as materialists, and so could people who follow Gurdjieff's Fourth Way...and so could Jainists (possibly the worlds oldest religion), if I am not mistaken.

[BlackBillBlake]

Scientific Pantheists could be included as materialists, and so could people who follow Gurdjieff's Fourth Way...and so could Jainists (possibly the worlds oldest religion), if I am not mistaken.
I don't know where you're info on Gurdjieff comes from, but it is clear enough to anyone who has read either 'Beelzebub's Tales' , 'Meetings with Remarkable Men' or the works of either Ouspensky or Bennett that Gurdjieff was certainly not a materialist.
For one thing, he told Ouspensky that he would teach people 'how to become Christians'. But In Beelzebub's Tales, the whole universe is quite obviously created by 'Our common Father Endlessness'. Ie God.
Also, Gurdjieff is extremely critical of modern scientific theories. 'Wise-acring' I believe is the term he uses.
And further - in Beelzebub's tales, the general planetary disaster is traced back to the actions of certain 'higher beings' who were forced, due to their own lack of foresight to install in human beings the famous 'organ kunderbuffer', the 'crystalized consequences' of which represent all the disfunction and difficulties of the human race.

[Bhaskar]

Jains (not jainists) are not materialists at all, they the exact opposite, nondualists, practioners of the same vedanta philosophy that drives hinduism and buddhism also.

[Defence_mechanism]

humandraydel: he means materialist as in...believing that everything stems from some ultimate physical matter.
sebbi: I am both a materialist and a spiritualist... I believe that the material universe can exist completely independantly of anything else, it's just that the other bits make it a whole lot more beautiful.

sebbi, materialists belive that the physical world is all there is. so depending on what your definition of spiritualism is, i don't know that it's possible to be both.
having said that, i believe that spirituality is the embracement of beauty. it's just that most people believe that spirituality includes non-materialistic things such as karma, god, feng shui, etc. thus, i define myself as a spiritual atheist, something that im sure would normally be refuted.

I have always been very good at finding ways of reconciling two opposing philosophies
sebbi, i intended to refute your claim that you could be both materialist and spiritualist, but having just admitted to be a 'spiritual atheist' im not sure i can without being hypocritical!

peace out.

[Common Sense]

Why don't we start we phenomenalist role call too?

Here.

Anyone else?

[Defence_mechanism]

is that not the same as materialism?

[Common Sense]

Not quite.


As far as I know, the first phenomenalist was Locke, who said that substance is something he "knows not what." So why can't we know what substance, or matter, is? Well, substance is the thing in which all qualities inhere. So, then substance has to be qualitiless. An atom, for example, is not substance in that it is not an atom in the way Democritus used the term. Everyone knows now that atoms, in fact, are divisible. Some phenomenalists will argue that things like atoms, force, etc. are just abstractions. But I think its downright ignorant to ignore the findings of natural scientists. The atom may not be the smallest possible particle, but its not an abstraction. At the very least, its a representation, and representations can still correspond with the state of affairs. But the bottom line, I think, is that we will never be able to find out exactly what substance is because it lacks qualities, so it can never be perceived by the senses.

[Defence_mechanism]

by what do you mean by "substance"? i can't quite pick it up from your context. do you mean 'the thing that makes up all other matter', or 'the thing that is contained inside all matter'?

[Common Sense]

by what do you mean by "substance"? i can't quite pick it up from your context. do you mean 'the thing that makes up all other matter', or 'the thing that is contained inside all matter'?
To say that substance is matter is slightly inaccurate, since substance isn't necessarily material. It could be, for example, psychical as Berkeley or Hegel would argue. To say that substance is contained in matter is also inaccurate because, to materialists, matter is substance. To anyone else, that statement would be false, to a materialist, it's just redundant.

After thinking about it for a bit, the best way I can define substance is as follows: "Substance is a thing that, if it were not there, none of the qualities of every-day objects, such as tables and chairs, would be there, either.

It's an obvious statement really, something like, "if the table didn't have substance, it wouldn't be here, and neither would it be hard, brown, or anything else usually associated with tables." But it tells us a few important things about substance: 1) Substance is a thing, not a quality. 2) Substance is the cause of all qualities. 3) Substance is the thing in which all qualities inhere.

[Peace]

To say that substance is matter is slightly inaccurate, since substance isn't necessarily material. It could be, for example, psychical as Berkeley or Hegel would argue. To say that substance is contained in matter is also inaccurate because, to materialists, matter is substance. To anyone else, that statement would be false, to a materialist, it's just redundant.

After thinking about it for a bit, the best way I can define substance is as follows: "Substance is a thing that, if it were not there, none of the qualities of every-day objects, such as tables and chairs, would be there, either.

It's an obvious statement really, something like, "if the table didn't have substance, it wouldn't be here, and neither would it be hard, brown, or anything else usually associated with tables." But it tells us a few important things about substance: 1) Substance is a thing, not a quality. 2) Substance is the cause of all qualities. 3) Substance is the thing in which all qualities inhere.
So you're saying the table is merely an idea and the substance is all that there is, an illusion of product?

[Common Sense]

So you're saying the table is merely an idea and the substance is all that there is, an illusion of product?
Absolutely not, although idealism is one way you can go. It's the way Berkeley went, but it just so happens to be the wrong way. Philosophers have dug themselves into a deep pit with metaphysics. It's a mess. It's not analytic, it's not verifiable, and it's not falsifiable. Metaphysics doesn't deal with anything that's knowable. The principles of metaphysics should be re-examined, one by one, to see if they are transferrable or not to physics, the theories of which are verifiable and falsifiable. Those metaphysical priciples that do not meet the standards of verifiability or falsifiability or common sense should be thrown out. I'm writing a paper on it right now.

[Defence_mechanism]

so you're saying that the precise definition of what 'substance' is, depends on your ideology? so:
to a materialist, substance is matter;
to a spiritualist, substance is beyond matter;
to a religious person, substance is god; etc.

but essentially, substance is what makes up everything else. something that, if it didnt exist, neither would anything else.

this what you're saying?

[Common Sense]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Bhaskar]

the sine quo non of the universe.

[BlackBillBlake]

But what if there is no substance - or anything we can identify as such?

What if everything is energy, and substance and form are just flawed modes of human perception?

[humandraydel]

The principles of metaphysics should be re-examined, one by one, to see if they are transferrable or not to physics, the theories of which are verifiable and falsifiable. Those metaphysical priciples that do not meet the standards of verifiability or falsifiability or common sense should be thrown out.
I agree with you that metaphysics is quite a mess. But, IMHO, you are limiting yourself in both the questions you can pose, as well as the answers you can provide, if you require all metaphysical ideas to mesh with those of physics. Part of the goal of metaphysics is to pose questions and give answers that physics may not be able to. Again, just my opinion. Obviously I'm not completely a materialist.

I'd be interested in reading your paper, btw.

[Common Sense]

But what if there is no substance - or anything we can identify as such?
There isn't. That's my point. Nothing that can be known meets the criteria for being called "substance." If it can't be known, then it's of no use. So, a useful metaphysics would be one that deals with things that can be known. But a metaphysics that deals with things that can be known isn't really a metaphysics at all, it's just physics. So, we have to turn metaphysics into physics. That's what I've said so far.

I agree with you that metaphysics is quite a mess. But, IMHO, you are limiting yourself in both the questions you can pose, as well as the answers you can provide, if you require all metaphysical ideas to mesh with those of physics.
Yes, I certainly am. But that seems desirable to me.

Part of the goal of metaphysics is to pose questions and give answers that physics may not be able to. Again, just my opinion. Obviously I'm not completely a materialist.
I'm not either. I think an electron is a good example of something that is probably not material. The mind, in the way cognitive scientists look at it anyway, is also probably immaterial, I think. The real difference between us is that I don't think metaphysical questions can be answered, even if the questions posed are meaningful. You seem to believe that they can be answered for some reason.

I'd be interested in reading your paper, btw.
Maybe I'll post it when it's done. I'll have to wait a little while after that even in case they decide to check it for plagarism. But yeah, I can post it. It won't be great. I've written better.

[herbskindessence]

Re: my reference to Gurdjeif: I remember from reading his teachings that he once said, at length, that there is no such thing as immaterial spirit, or a state that transcends matter. He said that all is matter, and that the states and beings (including Higher Beings, Angels, etc, BlackBillBlake) we consider "spiritual" are simply finer, more subtle states of matter that our broken bodymindsoul machinery cannot relate to with accurate perception nor appropriate communication...cuz again, we are broken machines.
I see the spiritual language also as coded; a man that much ahead of his time needs to "speak in parables", because the framework of his ideas has not been sufficiently developed scientifically. There was no Computational Theory of Mind in 1920, but look at old G go with the hints....broken machines, indeed! G's use of terms like "many changing 'I's" calls to mind the Minsky book Society of Mind.

Wikipedia:
In a step-by-step process, Minsky constructs a thesis for a way in which human intelligence in all its complexity can be built up, layer by layer, from the interactions of simple parts called agents (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agent), who are themselves mindless. He describes the postulated interactions (/wiki/Interaction) as constituting a "Society of Mind", hence the title.

Re: my Jainist inclusion: I will simply and easily defer to a more knowledgable opinion such as Bhaskar's , cuz I do not know much at all about Jainism, but I was under the impression that their practical everyday stance is to entirely ignore metaphysics as basically meaningless to a life well lived in a physical world of cause and effect. That to me, no matter the traditional-philosophical underpinnings, describes a basically material focus.

[elephantking]

Personally, I am first a naturalist. From that comes my materialism (which is naturally correct, as it seems to me), and anarchist philosophy, and from those come my atheism.

:)