Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

[_mikwut]

Hi EAllusion,

The fact that conscious thinking impacts brain constitution is not contradictory to physicalism unless you can show that this isn't just brain states impacting other brain states. It isn't even a hard observation for physicalism to contend with. Something going on in some areas of the brain having downstream impacts on other areas isn't surprising or confusing.

That many sorts of decisions people make can be shown to precede the conscious experience of them corresponding to preceding brain changes doesn't refute idealism per se, but it does seem to be a problem for the naïve version on display here.

I want to focus on your use of "not contradictory". The issue isn't am I falsifying physicalism. The issue is we have two competing ultimate ontological primitives. There are implications that follow from both and get eliminated from both. All I need to demonstrate is that idealism is consistent with the evidence we have, not that physicalism is falsified. Although I personally find physicalism waning and idealism simpler and more encompassing of all our experience. But, be that as it may my question is not can physicalism offer a possible ontology, surely it can, but SHOULD it if it cannot be verified but remains in a competing position? And why should we postulate an entire world "out there" that can already be demonstrated to us through dreams and other states of consciousness that our brain can create if we don't have to? Idealism does not require all that, it is simpler and without empirical verification simplicity is appropriate.

As well the studies I provided are consistent with an idealist worldview.

mikwut

[_EAllusion]

I want to focus on your use of "not contradictory". The issue isn't am I falsifying physicalism. The issue is we have two competing ultimate ontological primitives. There are implications that follow from both and get eliminated from both. All I need to demonstrate is that idealism is consistent with the evidence we have, not that physicalism is falsified. Although I personally find physicalism waning and idealism simpler and more encompassing of all our experience. But, be that as it may my question is not can physicalism offer a possible ontology, surely it can, but SHOULD it if it cannot be verified but remains in a competing position? And why should we postulate an entire world "out there" that can already be demonstrated to us through dreams and other states of consciousness that our brain can create if we don't have to? Idealism does not require all that, it is simpler and without empirical verification simplicity is appropriate.

As well the studies I provided are consistent with an idealist worldview.

The study in question, which was oddly cited to support the rather banal observation that thinking causes measureable and potentially lasting changes in the brain, was in the service of the argument that this supports idealism, but provides some tension for physicalism. But it doesn't. On either account. The argument seemed to be that if brain states precede thoughts, then why is it that thoughts were shaping the brain? Idealists think mind is responsible for the perception of physical states (?!), egro point, idealism. In this revision of the argument, citing it doesn't even make any sense. It'd be like citing NASA to prove the oceans look blue, then saying this is consistent with idealism. Uh, ok? Unless you think that conscious thoughts being preceded by brains states (an established fact) refute idealism, which you don't and it doesn't, this is pointless.

Instead, here you are arguing that metaphysical parsimony favors idealism. That's a separate argument. First, I'd clarify what you mean by "idealism" here as there are a variety of idealist theories. Some essentially are "woo," others are much more respectable, but different idealist positions can mean entirely different things. The varying idealist positions are in many cases mutually exclusive and hostile to one another. To me, it looks like you're throwing what you can against the wall and seeing if it sticks.

[_SteelHead]

Well, I could be wrong, but I see this whole argument by mikwut as trying to carve out space in the universe for god. The problem, an argument no matter how consistent , still does not serve as evidence.

[_Chap]

Why is the brain in a materialist perspective active at all while asleep?

Well, I suppose it might be doing boring stuff like keeping you breathing, making sure your heart continues to beat - you know, boring stuff like that. Stuff that we share with sleeping rats. Plus, as seems likely, sorting through your memories, taking out the trash of the day, and so on.

Why should we think that all or even most of what the brain does is about maintaining our consciousness? We share all kinds of basic brain structures with creatures who do not necessarily have a consciousness such as we experience.

[_Maksutov]

Hi Maksutov,

The mind is a product of the brain and nervous system.

Possibly.

The end

Hardly. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Why try to stop thinking? I don't get it. I don't want to type it twice so I refer to my response to spotlight.

There is no need to dream up all sorts of universal consciousness and other woo-isms

I see. The vast majority of our greatest philosophers to have ever existed (this isn't intended as an argument of authority that they have to be right) were all talking "woo-isms" when they argued for idealism. Eugene Wigner was just talking woo-ism, the great debate between Einstein and Bohr was wooism? Oh boy. The video in the OP was woo-ism, uh-huh, and the Randi Challenge that I linked is woo-ism?

when there is no demand for it in the problems to be solved,

I keep answering this. What problems to be solved are you talking about? How on earth does idealism interfere with any "problems to be solved"?

no evidence for it,

Good grief man, think! This is a basic philosophical ontological debate. I addressed some of the evidence for it above. If you believe there is no evidence for it than go to the link I gave DrW respecting the QM Randi Challenge and win yourself a nobel prize. This isn't ghosts in the attic and debunking clanking sounds for heavens sake.

and no explanation for how it possibly might work.

A couple pages into a thread on a discussion board and "no explanation for how it might work" gets thrown out, invest in a little dialogue and expand your thought - man the heavy thinking lifting is overwhelming! Have you read a serious book on idealism?

Appeals to woo share more with mysticism than with science

What woo?? And why the need for just throwing out slogans? I have attached peer reviewed articles to everything I have stated? This is so knee jerk and unthinking you really should think about why you have such a knee jerk to it.

and should be classed with theological speculations and conspiracy theories.

Holy s***! If you can prove realism there is a Randi Challenge waiting for you to do so but idealism is analogous to conspiracy theories. I think you are so use to current babble of debunking spoon bending and goblins in the closet type stuff your intellectual balance has become a hammer that only sees nails - that's dangerous man.

If you want to be spiritual, pray for the universities and Congress to improve their budgetary priorities in favor of benign and productive empirical science.

Oh dear God, the budget has nothing to do with idealism or physicalism.

If we were to set up mikwut as an example to follow, we should give Franktalk a department chair and publish on the university websites a list of the spirit guides in the faculty and include their channeled texts in every syllabus.

Wierd. Just wierd. Read Bernard D'Espagnat http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Philosoph ... +despagnat and then tell me if were talking spirit guides and stuff.

Are you interested in an interesting discussion or does your debunking hammer sees only nails everywhere?

Have you any evidential support for physicalism as the video presented or further to add to the discussion. Are you threatened by idealism or something? Did you read my posts above, I am an empiricist - Kant was an empiricist, Berkeley was an empiricist, Liebniz was an empiricist - this isn't a battle with empiricism and science it is about an ultimate ontology.

mikwut

Mikwut,

Philosophers don't impress me. They have defended every possible interpretation of everything humans could conceive of since beginning of time. I'm glad that you read them. But don't confuse them with science unless you want to dwell on the fringes and pretend that everything is happening there. Uh, no.

I don't have to defend physicalism any more than I have to defend physics. You're trying to shift the burden onto people who have vast bodies of confirmed knowledge already. You're arguing for spiritualism and mysticism. You can't demonstrate consciousness outside of the brain. You don't have evidence. If you had evidence, everything in science and medicine would be transformed. But you don't. What you have is a "new" description of an old paradigm. You're asking us to accept transcendentalisms. No. We already have all the work that we can handle in gathering data using empirical, verifiable and falsifiable, science. You have endless permutations of pseudoscience and mysticism. What you are calling evidence is just a restatement of how things are. You can't see past the anthropic fallacy.

We are exploring the brain, the mind, the emotions, human behavior in general, in greater breadth and depth than ever, but it is not due to arguments over idealism and materialism. It's because the people, instruments and methods that are in place are successful. Our knowledge is growing. The knowledge from "inner journeys", from assumptions of "universal consciousness", pales by comparison. Sorry if that bursts your bubble. Get a better bubble.

[_EAllusion]

Physicalism is a philosophical position Mak. To the extent you think it or defend it, you are doing philosophy.

[_Maksutov]

Why is the brain in a materialist perspective active at all while asleep?

Well, I suppose it might be doing boring stuff like keeping you breathing, making sure your heart continues to beat - you know, boring stuff like that. Stuff that we share with sleeping rats. Plus, as seems likely, sorting through your memories, taking out the trash of the day, and so on.

Why should we think that all or even most of what the brain does is about maintaining our consciousness? We share all kinds of basic brain structures with creatures who do not necessarily have a consciousness such as we experience.

Perhaps if mikwut would deprive his "material" brain of a certain "material" called Oxygen for a few minutes, the importance of The Material would become "evident".

I'm sorry, I have little patience with this Philosophy 101 stuff, it often turns into solipsism and you might as well just hand them a copy of Samuel Beckett's works with a "good luck".

[_Maksutov]

Physicalism is a philosophical position Mak. To the extent you think it or defend it, you are doing philosophy.

It's not how I define myself or my thought. To me it's about as relevant as "trinitarian". I'm an empiricist. I don't need to make or explore distinctions that don't help me. It becomes an exercise in adopting alien modes of thought and interaction. If I'm going to stop everything and do that, there are far too many thought/belief systems than I can explore fairly in one lifetime. So I am limiting myself to the demonstrable, regardless of how that is interpreted in the frameworks of others. If I *don't* think about the trinity, am I doing theology?

[_Chap]

Physicalism is a philosophical position Mak. To the extent you think it or defend it, you are doing philosophy.

So? Could you give me an example of a statement about the world that is not capable of being regarded as a 'philosophical position'?

And, like I said, so? Is not believing in fairies open to the same observation? If it is, should I treat my lack of belief in fairies as somehow more negotiable than before it became a philosophical position?

[_EAllusion]

Perhaps if mikwut would deprive his "material" brain of a certain "material" called Oxygen for a few minutes, the importance of The Material would become "evident".

I'm sorry, I have little patience with this Philosophy 101 stuff, it often turns into solipsism and you might as well just hand them a copy of Samuel Beckett's works with a "good luck".

Obviously the brain can be performing functions unrelated to conscious experience while a person is sleeping. The idea that this is a mystery is an insult to the science of sleep. With that said, I think you misunderstand why philosophy is necessary here to have any position. Materialism/physicalism isn't some default that is being attacked by philosophers. It's a philosophical position that can only be held for philosophical reasons.

I don't think Mikwut is giving idealist traditions a good showing here. He's all over the map. But you can read up on idealist thinking through the ages because he is correct that it has been a popular position for a long time. The first step is understanding what idealism is. It's not, as you seem to imagine, thinking that you create the world with your thoughts or that wishing makes things so.