I'm A Materialist, Change My Mind

[AshvinP]

It may not demonstrate the "substance of reality", but it would certainly demonstrate materialism is false.

Anything that doesn't demonstrate whatever the "substance of reality" is cannot demonstrate idealism or materialism to be either true or false. That is why the entire debate is meaningless.

Sure it can. We falsify theories all the time without proving any specific theory to be True. Materialism simply cannot account for life after death in principle.

And claiming the debate is "meaningless" is like claiming a trial to determine someone's innocence or guilt of a crime is meaningless because we can never know with 100% certainty.

[Starbuck]

Surely one instance of precognition (in a dream or vision) undermines that entire premise?

That would depend the exact nature of the evidence and what theories arose from it. Retrocausation as an explanation for precognition could be compatible with materialism, for example. Survival of self after death or in a disembodied state in a Universal EM field could be an explanation for "life after death", NDE, or OBE and also compatible with materialism.

I would say that if a materialist adopts a position of retrocausation, it strongly limits the explanatory power gained from adopting the materialist stance in the first place.

I suppose this just leads us back to the old argument - Conceptual knowledge and reasoning VS direct Gnosis. If you are arguing for the limitations of concept then I agree. I like Bernardo's argument for 'the bouncer of the heart'. IMO that is the only reason for these discussions and they always lead to the same place - the questioning of our fixed views, making way for transcendent realisation/liberation.

[Jim Cross]

Materialism simply cannot account for life after death in principle.

I just showed in the previous comment how it could account for survival after death in a Universal EM field.

And claiming the debate is "meaningless" is like claiming a trial to determine someone's innocence or guilt of a crime is meaningless because we can never know with 100% certainty.

In criminal guilt there is something at stake - justice, the freedom of the accused. Nothing is at stake in the debate between idealism and materialism except egos.

[AshvinP]

Materialism simply cannot account for life after death in principle.

I just showed in the previous comment how it could account for survival after death in a Universal EM field.

A "universal EM field" is an abstract concept which does not necessarily have anything to do with materialism. If you are positing the EM field is fundamentally made out of non-conscious material 'stuff', then it cannot account for the experience of self before death, let alone survival of the self after death.

And claiming the debate is "meaningless" is like claiming a trial to determine someone's innocence or guilt of a crime is meaningless because we can never know with 100% certainty.

In criminal guilt there is something at stake - justice, the freedom of the accused. Nothing is at stake in the debate between idealism and materialism except egos.

That is simply your assertion and clearly there are a lot of people who disagree with your assertion, ranging from professional philosophers and scientists to other academics and laypeople like many of us on this forum. And frankly, the fact that you are also on this forum taking the time to convince us there is "nothing at stake" makes me think even you don't believe that assertion.

[Jim Cross]

I would say that if a materialist adopts a position of retrocausation, it strongly limits the explanatory power gained from adopting the materialist stance in the first place.

I can't predict what a materialist explanation for precognition might consist of but retrocausation, if it exists, would be an example of something that might explain it. The explanation might consist in something else. I'm only suggesting that it can't be assumed that proof of precognition would disprove materialism or that materialism could never explain survival of the self outside the body. Of course, there are no real solid data points for either of these phenomena so it is somewhat of a theoretical argument at this point.

[Josephhparkk]

Then what perceives the copy? (This is the old homunculus problem).

Ah I see, I think you got me there. I still have a few more questions to make sure I'm fully understanding though

It is there. It just is not made up of mindless matter. It is made up of perceptions.

So what exactly is there? By this do you mean it exists, it’s just generated inside my consciousness? I'm a little confused at this one

I trust my senses. I just don't add the assumption that there is something mindless that causes me to have the sense contents I have. Making that assumption creates either the intractable hard problem or the intractable interaction problem. Not doing so does not create any intractable problem. Those stories that idealists tell are conceivable solutions to the tractable problems of idealism. The intractable problems are intractable because they have no conceivable solutions. That is why I consider the idealist leap to be smaller than the materialist leap.

Thanks for your responses so far Scott, just help me understand this last piece a little better, because I can certainly see how it’s equally non-falsifiable to say that there is such a thing as mindless matter, a pure assumption that comes with a lot of problems to make it unlikely. However why Mind At Large specifically? It feels to me like I could just swap that with any other theory I want, so my question really is, how does this model of thinking separate itself from all the other theories about what reality might really be.

Can you elaborate on how it helps make the case for materialism?

Ashvin, the above paragrpah is all I was trying to say about how you mentioned the VR headset, I realize now it's not a case for Materialism, but I'm more just asking how do I know that I'm not actually just in a VR headset in some other universe? Why Idealism? Why Mind At Large? This is the problem I was trying to articulate.

Pure mathematics. Take Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe hypothesis (that all that is are mathematical objects), add a Mathematician that thinks up these objects (otherwise one is faced with the hard problem) and you have a version of idealism.

You learn about the world via interaction with it, even if it is actually all just Mathematics. How can a person who has never sensed the universe think about that which they've never experienced or interacted with? I would also ask, if someone is in a coma, are they conscious? I'd assume not?

The point of the above quote: You see that puff of logic there? That is in my experience not how a transition happens. @Joseph, if you expected that we'd be able to provide you with that singular piece or reasoning, that you were (perhaps) hoping for, so that you in "good conscience" could switch (once and for all) to a primarilly Idealist worldview, you might get disappointed. (I'm second guessing your motives here a bit, apologies if i'm wrong)

I appreciate the wisdom, I completely understand that changing your worlview is not as simple as a single piece of information, but it’s certainly something I’m willing to work towards if my current worldview is flawed, and I’m approaching with an open mind.

In criminal guilt there is something at stake - justice, the freedom of the accused. Nothing is at stake in the debate between idealism and materialism except egos.

Sure, but I’m arguing these points because I personally want to see how they stand against a more Idealist worlview, not because I want to change anyone’s mind. So I’m thankful to everyone engaging in debate, it's been very productive for me so far.

[ScottRoberts]

It is there. It just is not made up of mindless matter. It is made up of perceptions.

So what exactly is there? By this do you mean it exists, it’s just generated inside my consciousness? I'm a little confused at this one

Not surprising. Read Why Materialism is Baloney for an answer. Or you might like Donald Hoffman's "Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem" (PDF) for an interesting approach.

However why Mind At Large specifically?

I would take the phrase "Mind-at-Large" non-specifically, but just acknowledging that if idealism is true, then there is more conscious activity going on than is to be found in biological beings. As to the nature of this "more", one can only speculate, or look into religions and esoteric literature for possible answers.

It feels to me like I could just swap that with any other theory I want, so my question really is, how does this model of thinking separate itself from all the other theories about what reality might really be.

By evaluating the theories by the criteria of plausibility, parsimony, adequacy, and coherence, and see which you think scores highest.

Pure mathematics. Take Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe hypothesis (that all that is are mathematical objects), add a Mathematician that thinks up these objects (otherwise one is faced with the hard problem) and you have a version of idealism.

You learn about the world via interaction with it, even if it is actually all just Mathematics.
How can a person who has never sensed the universe think about that which they've never experienced or interacted with?

How can an artist create something no one has ever experienced until s/he creates it?

I would also ask, if someone is in a coma, are they conscious? I'd assume not?

Again, a question not readily answered. There have been discussions on this if you want to look through the archives of the old forum.

[The Heart Of Reality]

They dunno what consciousness is. They dunno what makes you, you. How do the soul and brain/body/world relate/interact. Yes, you could say they died. But "losing consciousness" is baselessly overstepping its epistmological and ontological bounds/grounds. Where do you begin and end? What scale of reality is soul embedded on, or as all? Lack of memory isn't evidence of unanythingness, only of narrative short/long term recording function inaccessible/unrecorded. Space and time lose meaning quantum mechanically also. What even is a piece of material reality (the brain or a tree) when unlooked at through the lens filterage-tailoring of human consciousness? Without mind, what even IS matter or could you ever say about what it is? Perception/perspective so entwined with the "external" environment that it becomes impossible to see where clear demarcation exists. As if there's two existential domains (physical and soul) that are infinitely disconnected/unequal, yet consciousness IS only the brain/cells/molecules/atoms/elementary particles/quantum waves/fields, so consciousness has all the properties ultimately contained such as nonlocality, conserved quantity, quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling, retrocausality, indistinguishable time arrow, effects preceding causes/acausality, etc. If such unconscious objective nothingness of stuff/physical quantity really existed, then why isn't that all that was eternally. Why not just have all this world/humans here, including me typing this right now, yet entirely autonomically going through the motions in the dark of myself absolutely. Why an extremely sensitive, precisely attuning, intimate, personalized qualitative reality as any lifeform experience and awareness required? If unconscious blindly interacting particles and forces is all that's needed, all that's actually going on, why do you know you feel and are? It's mistaking models/maps/schematics in their obivious incompleteness and up-for-revision status as realer than the living authentic undefinable experiential consciousness territory being underwent. Like a painter looking at a painting he painted of himself and calling that him, not the one undergoing himself, aware that anything is. This is overemphasis placed on our 21st century western consensus on the metaphysics of brain-soul-reality relationship/nature. Gives the notion that matter's existence as somehow there yet oblivious upon itself is the actual side of BS. Because you attempt to say matter has some standalone true existential value yet is unconscious of anything, but could never define the extent to which any consciousness here isn't just looking out at the entire summative potential for who and what it is as that material representation. You delineate stuff without knowing there are even fundamental edges and where relevant contextual partitions would be then. All infinity energetic potential is expressing itself through anything conscious anywhere (just like the quantum wavefunction, if you could hypothetically remove anything from the rest then everything would collapse into nothing - everything conspires to create anything else, in time and in space, interdependently, self-consistently adjusting), and ultimately you're everyone too one-at-a-time at times. Everyone is in everyone. Everything is in everything. The notion of a thing opposed to a who becomes less logically parsiminonous/equatable. Self-referentiality looping back upon itself recursively, as a closed circuit. That is an explanation for infinity, timelessness, eternity of us. The impersonal dreamer (you/anyone conscious, which is absolute inclusion/absolute nonexclusion) is the personal dream (society/life/brain/body/world/cosmos) it undergoes. Not anyone could have ever not existed, there's only one anyone ever that is always ever only there, as you and me and anyone else reading this

[Eugene I]

There are many variants of ontologies, most of them are not provable nor they are disprovable (except for the nonsensual ones). All of them have some explanatory blank spots and gaps, but some have more serious explanatory gaps and problems than others. Materialism is one of those very problematic ontologies with serious explanatory gaps, but you still may take a New Mysterianism position and continue to adhere to it disregarding all its explanatory gaps. Or you may want to drop materialism and switch to another ontology. Idealism is one of those available ontologies that arguably has the least amount of least serious explanatory gaps (although it still does have them). Or alternatively, you may chose to remain agnostic or take a "possibilian" position and say "I can't choose any ontological position at this point because there is no sufficient data or proofs or evidences to support one of them as opposed to the others, so I will remain agnostic and open-minded to them all until I see such evidences or proofs" (but most likely you will never get such evidences/proofs). People most often chose worldviews or ontological positions that fit them psychologically and make them more happy, adaptive or productive in their practical life.

[Starbuck]

People most often chose worldviews or ontological positions that fit them psychologically and make them more happy, adaptive or productive in their practical life.

I think that is what it boils down to. I often hear Bernardo say the the sole given of our experience is THAT we experience. I'm inclined to add a further axiom: The inherent drive for happiness, comfort, pleasure etc.

That's why the Buddha got it so right - he said that we could never come to know "the end of the world", meaning ultimate ontology. Instead he started his entire philosophy with the statement that life is suffering/unsatisfactory, which is just the via negativa of the drive for happiness. He then offered a 'solution' and invited you to 'come and see for yourself'.