Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[MRC_Hans]

I came out of philosophical retirement (!) and re-started this drama to protest the way homeopathy, for one, is currently being demonised by scientists in the media.

Anytime you wanna discuss homeopathy, start a thread for it. I'm game.


Hans

 

[Fudbucker]

Right. The brain is not equal to the mind. The brain produces the mind. If the brain stops working, it is still there, but the mind is not.

Note: All according to the materialistic POV, obviously, but since no evidence has so far been forthcoming for any other thesis, this must be the logical default position.




OTOH, neither is much use without the other.

Hans

I'm more sympathetic to this view (that mental states are caused by brain states), but it commits you to dualism: mental states are ontologically different than brain states. Materialism can easily explain how a brain state exists (neurons, chemicals, electrical activity), but if mental states aren't brain states (are merely caused by them), then how do mental states exist?

 

[tsig]

I'm saying the significance of scientific method collapses under materialism. I'm not saying the behaviour of undertaking science changes.

Objectivity requires a firm sense of subject-object boundaries or otherwise everything that's happening is just, well, behaviour. Yes, you can use scientific method to investigate and formulate laws and predict how to change systems. Specifically to help fulfil evolutionary imperatives. But if none of this is happening to anyone, and materialism asserts that it isn't, then scientific method has no firm basis on which to state that it is any more valid than anything else that is perceived to work.

I came out of philosophical retirement (!) and re-started this drama to protest the way homeopathy, for one, is currently being demonised by scientists in the media. The basis for this is that there's no scientific proof for it and no scientifically valid method of action. What materialism actually asserts here is that THIS DOESN'T MATTER!

That's my point. Materialism must assert a selfless universe and one upshot of this is that anything which people perceive as working for them must have equal validity.

I talked to Materialism the other day and he told be he does not assert this.

 

[Fudbucker]

I'd be willing to entertain even for a moment all these "Reality doesn't exist! Science is wrong!" threads if once, just once, it wasn't shown that the people starting them didn't have some pet Woo they are pissed off science proved wrong.

I think it's quite probable we live in a simulation. What woo am I peddling?

 

[tsig]

Can you explain how testing homoeopathy using controlled trials is invalid?

Since there's no 'you' there is no one to test it or to test it on.

 

[Myriad]

I'm more sympathetic to this view (that mental states are caused by brain states), but it commits you to dualism: mental states are ontologically different than brain states. Materialism can easily explain how a brain state exists (neurons, chemicals, electrical activity), but if mental states aren't brain states (are merely caused by them), then how do mental states exist?

If running isn't the same thing as legs (is merely caused by them), then how does running exist?

Is it dualism to assert that legs exist, and running also exists?

Mental states and brain states are ontologically different because mental states are brain processes. Consider: if your brain were suddenly put into suspended animation, preserving its present material state, what would you be thinking? What mental state would you be in? None, of course; all perception, introspection, remembering, and so forth would have stopped. Unless you consider coma a mental state.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Only in philosophy do we have this sort of meaningless hand wringing over where a process goes when it ends.

If a candle goes out you don't have a crisis of faith over where the fire went.

Our mental functioning is no different.

 

[Dancing David]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

Nice, so you admit there is no devastation of the scientific method, great!

 

[Dancing David]

If the brain is the mind, why doesn't the brain disappear when the mind shuts down?

The mind is a perception, it does not exist absent a brain.

 

[Dancing David]

Joe and Hans,

FACT - we don't know how consciousness emerges from brain processing. We have some level of neural correlation, see Dehaene, but that's just raw activity. Nowhere near enough to even make statements like "consciousness is happening inside the brain."

Epistemic hunger - not really your thing, I guess

Fact, there is no consciousness absent a brain, burden to you

 

[Dancing David]

You are the same person. That's materialism.

No materialism posits that you have an identical copy at a different location, that does not mean they are same. One is translated in position and time

 

[MRC_Hans]

I'm more sympathetic to this view (that mental states are caused by brain states), but it commits you to dualism: mental states are ontologically different than brain states. Materialism can easily explain how a brain state exists (neurons, chemicals, electrical activity), but if mental states aren't brain states (are merely caused by them), then how do mental states exist?

Define mental states as opposed to brain states.

Hans

 

[Mojo]

Since there's no 'you' there is no one to test it or to test it on.

Nick227's claim that "anything which people perceive as working for them must have equal validity" is a bit pointless if there's nobody around to do the perceiving.

 

[Dancing David]

I'm saying the significance of scientific method collapses under materialism. I'm not saying the behaviour of undertaking science changes.

Moving the goals posts again?
seriously, the significance of the scientific method is that it is way of evaluating models...

Objectivity requires a firm sense of subject-object boundaries or otherwise everything that's happening is just, well, behaviour.

Not is doesn't, everything is just behavior. behavior of energy...

Yes, you can use scientific method to investigate and formulate laws and predict how to change systems. Specifically to help fulfil evolutionary imperatives.

False correlation

But if none of this is happening to anyone, and materialism asserts that it isn't, then scientific method has no firm basis on which to state that it is any more valid than anything else that is perceived to work.

fallacy of construction revisited.
Same error as at the start, different words still not correct.

the behavior in a brain uses the behavior in a body to create behaviors in the world and other behaviors to record the data, still 'anyone' is not needed.

All behaviors, so what is the hang up?

You presume your conclusion and then just assert it.

I came out of philosophical retirement (!) and re-started this drama to protest the way homeopathy, for one, is currently being demonised by scientists in the media. The basis for this is that there's no scientific proof for it and no scientifically valid method of action. What materialism actually asserts here is that THIS DOESN'T MATTER!

More straw, was there a sale?

That's my point. Materialism must assert a selfless universe and one upshot of this is that anything which people perceive as working for them must have equal validity.

A selfless universe doesn't mean that the 'validity' of the 'statement' 'homeopathy is effective' can't be 'evaluated'

You just keep asserting the same conclusion

 

[LarryS]

Nice, so you admit there is no devastation of the scientific method, great!

Materialism is also changing - it's no longer trying to explain everything with discreet particles bouncing around, but now (the current rage) is information being implemented in various squirrelly material substrates - ie a "baseball bat" is implemented in wood, and wood implemented in molecules, and etc. Information is not exactly matter and matter is not exactly information. Materialism has its share of fairy dust as well.

 

[Mojo]

A selfless universe doesn't mean that the 'validity' of the 'statement' 'homeopathy is effective' can't be 'evaluated'

I think his claim is not that it can't be evaluated but that it shouldn't be evaluated, because that unfairly privileges the narrative in which it doesn't work over other narratives.

 

[Mojo]

That's my point. Materialism must assert a selfless universe and one upshot of this is that anything which people perceive as working for them must have equal validity.

Does that include pyramid schemes?

 

[kmortis]

Keep it civil. Keep it on topic. The other posters are not the topic.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: kmortis

 

[Nick227]

If who just observes it?

Is there an observing self, or not?

Myriad,

It's just language. You start out observing and after a while realise there is just observation, not happening to anyone.

 

[Nick227]

I was referencing your comment, where you said, "...anything which people perceive as working for them must have equal validity."

So, the observers in question would be the "them" in your statement.

Marplots,

You have to understand the importance of the situation here, usage basically. The observer is utterly valid in a host of social and related situations. Trouble comes when you think it's real at an ontological level. It's not. Good for communication, not good for making assertions about the relative efficacy of treatments.

If someone says "I feel bad and I want to feel better" - they're using language in a way that is absolutely compatible with what it was created for.

If someone else says "You should take this medication, and not that remedy, because it has been objectively validated and therefore better" - they're crossing a line.