Ways to falsify "crude" materialism/physicalism or "crude" idealism

[Papanca]

Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

[Eugene I]

Not necessarily. For example, consider the simulation hypothesis: our perceived world is a VR simulation run by an advanced civilization existing in a "materialistic" base reality. In such VR simulation any veridical NDE/OBE and any other "supernatural" phenomena are still possible without any contradiction with the materialistic nature of the "base" reality where the VR simulation is running.

Similar argument can be applied with respect to idealism: nothing can falsify a hypothesis that the perceived reality is a "simulated" (imagined) reality unfolding in the mind of some super-powerful consciousness (God). In this scenario the perceived reality can seemingly be perfectly obeying natural laws with no veridical NDE/OBE or any other supernatural phenomena ever observed, and yet this would not falsify the idealistic nature of the "base" reality of consciousness where this simulated "secondary" reality is unfolding.

[AshvinP]

Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

It's easy to falsify physicalism as a philosophical or scientific position which asserts that "mindless matter existed prior to consciousness in the distant past" - just point out that there is no possible way to ever know that, in principle. If it cannot be known in principle, then it is neither philosophy nor science, just pure abstract speculation. We shouldn't stop with physicalism, though... many other modern philosophical conclusions are similarly pure speculation in that regard.

[Papanca]

Not necessarily. For example, consider the simulation hypothesis: our perceived world is a VR simulation run by an advanced civilization existing in a "materialistic" base reality. In such VR simulation any veridical NDE/OBE and any other "supernatural" phenomena are still possible without any contradiction with the materialistic nature of the "base" reality where the VR simulation is running.

Similar argument can be applied with respect to idealism: nothing can falsify a hypothesis that the perceived reality is a "simulated" (imagined) reality unfolding in the mind of some super-powerful consciousness (God). In this scenario the perceived reality can seemingly be perfectly obeying natural laws with no veridical NDE/OBE or any other supernatural phenomena ever observed, and yet this would not falsify the idealistic nature of the "base" reality of consciousness where this simulated "secondary" reality is unfolding.

I employed the "crude" qualifier for that reason.

My point is that the materialist paradigm isn't dominant because of the simulation argument or brain in a vat or whatever thought experiment, it's dominant for more down to earth reasons, and results like the one i described would completely shatter it.

In a simular fashion you can say "well, Santa existence isn't disproven, it could be that Santa is the one who convinces parents in their dreams to buy gift for their kids", but the children who believe in santa claus don't believe in it in that way. Materialism isn't popular because of some immortality-chasing new age futurogists, those who make the simulation argument.

[Eugene I]

Right, the "crude" version of materialism (the world that we directly perceive is the base material reality that exists independently of consciousness, while consciousness can only exist as a function of organized matter) can in principle be falsified by veridical NDE/OBE or other supernatural phenomena.

[Martin_]

Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

It's easy to falsify physicalism as a philosophical or scientific position which asserts that "mindless matter existed prior to consciousness in the distant past" - just point out that there is no possible way to ever know that, in principle. If it cannot be known in principle, then it is neither philosophy nor science, just pure abstract speculation. We shouldn't stop with physicalism, though... many other modern philosophical conclusions are similarly pure speculation in that regard.

Nonononono. That's not falsifying. Falsifying is showing that a theory cannot be true. Showing that it's impossible to falsify a theory is NOT the same ting as falsifying the theory.

[AshvinP]

Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

It's easy to falsify physicalism as a philosophical or scientific position which asserts that "mindless matter existed prior to consciousness in the distant past" - just point out that there is no possible way to ever know that, in principle. If it cannot be known in principle, then it is neither philosophy nor science, just pure abstract speculation. We shouldn't stop with physicalism, though... many other modern philosophical conclusions are similarly pure speculation in that regard.

Nonononono. That's not falsifying. Falsifying is showing that a theory cannot be true. Showing that it's impossible to falsify a theory is NOT the same ting as falsifying the theory.

I am not claiming it is impossible to falsify the theory, rather I am claiming there is no theory. A scientific theory must be built from a plausible, or at the very least possible, epistemic foundation, i.e. it must assume it is capable of attaining genuine knowledge of the phenomenon it is investigating. Physicalism cannot possibly do that. Therefore it is pure speculation, just like the assertion, "God created the Universe and then stood apart from it to let it unfold without his influence." Neither of those even rise to the level of philosophical argument or scientific theory.

[Jim Cross]

Ashvin,

Science isn't metaphysics. Materialism isn't science. You're confused and trying to apply science to metaphysics or metaphysics to science, I can't even tell which.

Papanca,

Regarding the secret code and NDEs. They have tried that and nobody has seen the code so far. Of course, we would also need to rule out some experimenter collaboration, deliberate or inadvertent, if somebody did claim to see the code.

However, if somebody actually did see the code, it could as easily be used as an argument for dualism rather than materialism or idealism.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Science isn't metaphysics. Materialism isn't science. You're confused and trying to apply science to metaphysics or metaphysics to science, I can't even tell which.

Please tell that to the materialists-physicalists, because they have not received the message yet. They confuse physicalist assumptions with the "proper" pursuit of science all the time. You actually did it in another recent thread, where you asserted Hoffman is not involved in scientific pursuit because his models don't "work" according to your own physicalist and dualist assumptions. So I suppose you have not received the message yet either. And I am going further to claim physicalism is not even metaphysics, since it speculates and relies on things like the "history of the Universe before consciousness" which are fundamentally impossible to know. Metaphysics deals with first principles which, IMO, must have some relation to our direct experience and capacity for true knowledge.

[Jim Cross]

Ashvin,

Science isn't metaphysics. Materialism isn't science. You're confused and trying to apply science to metaphysics or metaphysics to science, I can't even tell which.

Please tell that to the materialists-physicalists, because they have not received the message yet. They confuse physicalist assumptions with the "proper" pursuit of science all the time. You actually did it in another recent thread, where you asserted Hoffman is not involved in scientific pursuit because his models don't "work" according to your own physicalist and dualist assumptions. So I suppose you have not received the message yet either. And I am going further to claim physicalism is not even metaphysics, since it speculates and relies on things like the "history of the Universe before consciousness" which are fundamentally impossible to know. Metaphysics deals with first principles which, IMO, must have some relation to our direct experience and capacity for true knowledge.

So would it satisfy you if I acknowledge that Hoffman is doing science. It is just bad science that doesn't work. I'm speaking especially of his PDA loop which is far too simplistic for modeling how we perceive reality.