Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Tamminen]

"Matter is one of the concepts that is useful to me for achieving my goals. Others are available."

Of course matter is a useful concept, and essential for thinking of any being whatsoever, including the being of consciousness.

[Steve3007]

It always comes to this, I am not as stupid as you think I am.

I don't think you're stupid. You referred to "many conversations" but were not more specific. This topic alone is 64 pages long. I looked back a bit at your conversation with Fooloso4 and others and tried as best I could to see if I could work out your position in a nutshell. Clearly I failed.

If you could summarize that position here, or point to a small number of your previous posts that summarize it, that would be useful.

[Steve3007]

Of course matter is a useful concept, and essential for thinking of any being whatsoever, including the being of consciousness.

Do you agree with all of the post from which this quote was taken or just that part?

[Tamminen]

If you could summarize that position here, or point to a small number of your previous posts that summarize it, that would be useful.

How about the post on the previous page starting with "The problem with materialism..."?

[Steve3007]

How about the post on the previous page starting with "The problem with materialism..."?

OK. I'll tackle that one. I looked at it previously but didn't think it represented the core of what you were saying. I didn't think what you were originally talking about was Materialism. That post looked like the end point of a conversation. I wanted to find the start.

The problem with materialism is that it makes unjustified assumptions and commitments. We cannot eliminate the being of the subject from the knowing of the world, but because we see matter everywhere, we draw the false conclusion that matter is everything there is, or at least everything can be reduced to matter, and that the being of matter does not depend on the being of the subject. This is an epistemic leap that has no rational justification.

I don't think I agree that that is problem with Materialism. I think it's this:

viewtopic.php?p=320192#p320192

[Tamminen]

Of course matter is a useful concept, and essential for thinking of any being whatsoever, including the being of consciousness.

Do you agree with all of the post from which this quote was taken or just that part?

There are surely many definitions of materialism, but the main point of our discussion is whether the being of the world is independent of the being of the subjective perspective to the world. If consciousness is an emergent property of matter or if the mind is identical with the brain does not change this basic ontological question.

[Steve3007]

I personally think that if there are indeed many different definitions of Materialism then we need to define which of those definitions we're using before trying to decide whether or not we agree with it.

[Tamminen]

I personally think that if there are indeed many different definitions of Materialism then we need to define which of those definitions we're using before trying to decide whether or not we agree with it.

Yes, I agree, but in this case I think all the versions of materialism I know of make the unjustified assumption that there is matter in itself, independent of the being of subjectivity, which to me is pure transcendence without immanence, and I cannot consistently conceive of something like that. It has been the question of the universe without subjects in many of our discussions, the dividing line between materialism and the sort of idealism or subjectivism that I represent.

[Steve3007]

The problem with materialism is that it makes unjustified assumptions and commitments. We cannot eliminate the being of the subject from the knowing of the world, but because we see matter everywhere, we draw the false conclusion that matter is everything there is, or at least everything can be reduced to matter, and that the being of matter does not depend on the being of the subject. This is an epistemic leap that has no rational justification.

I think the reason that the proposition "there is nothing but matter" cannot be justified is that the concept of matter is just one of the available concepts that we might find useful for describing and predicting our observations. Others are available. And we have no idea what others may become available in the future.

What materialism tries to say is that our own being can be explained by of the being of our objects, in the sense of noumena, which are independent of our knowledge of them, in the Kantian sense.

I think the proposition that objects exist independent of our direct observations of them can be useful if the proposed existence of those objects describes/predicts indirect observations.

Here we have two intuitions in conflict: the intuition of materialism that matter is everything, and the intuition that the being of the subject cannot be eliminated.

I try not to set too much store by intuition.

[Steve3007]

Yes, I agree, but in this case I think all the versions of materialism I know of make the unjustified assumption that there is matter in itself, independent of the being of subjectivity, which to me is pure transcendence without immanence, and I cannot consistently conceive of something like that. It has been the question of the universe without subjects in many of our discussions, the dividing line between materialism and the sort of idealism or subjectivism that I represent.

I personally think that the only really meaningful question is whether this worldview of yours actually makes you behave any differently from a person who subscribes to a version of Materialism. What difference does it make?

[Tamminen]

I think the reason that the proposition "there is nothing but matter" cannot be justified is that the concept of matter is just one of the available concepts that we might find useful for describing and predicting our observations. Others are available. And we have no idea what others may become available in the future.

Yes, this is another reason.

I think the proposition that objects exist independent of our direct observations of them can be useful if the proposed existence of those objects describes/predicts indirect observations.

Yes, that is true. And I have not said anywhere that objects do no exist independent of our direct observations of them. I have said that their being is not independent of the being of subjects. These are totally different things.

I try not to set too much store by intuition.

I think there are many implicit assumptions we are not aware of which are based on intuitions, and some of those intuitions may be too superficial, as though they were left half-way. One of those superficial intuitions is the possibility of the universe without subjects.

I personally think that the only really meaningful question is whether this worldview of yours actually makes you behave any differently from a person who subscribes to a version of Materialism. What difference does it make?

Not much in my everyday life, but as human beings we have those existential questions of being and non-being, finitude and eternity and so on. And as human beings we are amazingly curious about what this all is about. So am I. And philosophy, as I see it, tries to clarify these questions, and tries to find a language that can express something about them. Do you never meditate on these things?

[ThomasHobbes]

The Philosophical lexicon comprises of very precise terms.

It's just "comprises" not "comprises of".

You are WRONG.

I'm a Cambridge boy and an advanced thinker.. Is English a second language to you?

"The Oxford English Dictionary regards the construction "comprised of" as incorrect,[1] while Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Collins English Dictionary do not regard it as such, mentioning "comprised of" among the examples.[2][3]"

WIKI

[ThomasHobbes]

On what grounds?

I do not know if you have read my conversation with Fooloso4 above, but I suggest you read it so that we don't have to repeat the same arguments here again. If you draw the same conclusions as Fooloso4, that is fine with me, and if you have fruitful ideas on the matter, that is better still.

You are basically saying the same thing.
as '"The reality of experiential states is a fact that precedes any physical evolution of mental properties.""

[Tamminen]

You are basically saying the same thing.
as '"The reality of experiential states is a fact that precedes any physical evolution of mental properties.""

This sentence is a bit ambiguous and I am not sure what BigBango means by it. I would say that because the being of experiential states needs a material basis, the physical evolution precedes those experiential states in physical time, but what really happens is the evolution of consciousness, not matter in itself which would produce consciousness as a kind of side effect or accident.

[Consul]

It's just "comprises" not "comprises of".

You are WRONG.
I'm a Cambridge boy and an advanced thinker.. Is English a second language to you?
"The Oxford English Dictionary regards the construction "comprised of" as incorrect,[1] while Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Collins English Dictionary do not regard it as such, mentioning "comprised of" among the examples.[2][3]"

That "compriseD of" is correct doesn't mean that "compriseS of" is correct too.