Entanglement etc. Materialism vs. Idealism

[Eugene I]

In other words, there is no need to read or discuss any of the articles you've linked to because there is nothing of philosophical value in any of BK's arguments relating to QM and metaphysics.

As far as I can tell, BK only has three core arguments for his idealism. One is his interpretation of QM. Another is his psychedelics/transformative experience interpretation. That is more science and another view of his out of step with mainstream science. Finally, there is the convoluted logical argument in Idea of the World which I don't think I have ever seen discussed in this forum. That might make an interesting separate thread. However, if the argument is reduced to that, then likely we are reaching the end of the road where everyone will just agree that you can believe whatever you want but there is no way to prove or even make an intelligent guess about the nature of ultimate reality if such a thing even exists.

So, to summarize the QM argument:
- QM by itself is metaphysically inconclusive. As a scientific model apart from any metaphysical assumptions and interpretations, , it is also free from any paradoxes and problems and is very mathematically simple and self-consistent.
- However, materialism has serious compatibility and explanatory problems with QM, as I said in my above post. So far physicists only figured out a few interpretations of QM compatible with materialism, but they are still deeply problematic:
-- Copenhagen has the measurement (WF collapse) problem and the problem of violation of locality and causality in entanglement. The "matter" in Copenhagen interpretation has to be non-local and non-causal to be compatible with QM.
-- Pilot-wave interpretation resolves the measurement problem but still faces the locality and causality problems.
-- Many-world interpretation is free from all of the above problems, but by itself is extremely ugly and makes no sense

The "psychedelic" argument is a very weak one. IMO the strongest argument against materialism is the "hard problem of consciousness". To quote Chalmers (who is not idealist by the way, but still remains open to idealism as a possible ontology)

When I was in graduate school, I recall hearing “One starts as a materialist, then one becomes a dualist, then a panpsychist, and one ends up as an idealist”. I don’t know where this comes from, but I think the idea was something like this. First, one is impressed by the successes of science, endorsing materialism about everything and so about the mind. Second, one is moved by problem of consciousness to see a gap between physics and consciousness, thereby endorsing dualism, where both matter and consciousness are fundamental. Third, one is moved by the inscrutability of matter to realize that science reveals at most the structure of matter and not its underlying nature, and to speculate that this nature may involve consciousness, thereby endorsing panpsychism. Fourth, one comes to think that there is little reason to believe in anything beyond consciousness and that the physical world is wholly constituted by consciousness, thereby endorsing idealism.

[Mark Tetzner]

Jim, you are not right on this one in my opinion, BK has written so many books on this and I hardly think those flimsy arguments you just enumerated are what his ontology is based on, it is mainly based on comparing with with materialism and then coming to the conclusion (for extremely good reasons) that materialism is bullshit. His arguments against materialism are as claimed by him that we are making 2 mistakes.

1. replacing reality with a description of reality
2. taking the representations for the thing in itself.

And they are based on certain valued like emperical adequacy, etc.

And then he argues for it, you in turn, sadly are mentioning a convoluted argument but you are not even sharing what that argument is, can you please do that asap see we have a discussion.

Without a doubt this is the best convo BK has ever had with anyone.


I would think he is making an unbeatable case against materialism that can not be debunked by acting as if he has nothing to fall back on. We have more than just believing whatever we want, we can at least exclude certain positions. So I think you can believe whatever you want, but you are just cashing in on idealists inability to proove idealism, which of course we cant. This is what makes this so interesting, but it makes you look like a troll . That idealism is a great contender is fascinating enough to some people. And Bernardo has extremely great arguments, just being destructive is not enough, at least not for me. To me, you are declaring others as "value-less" and no value people, so I am personally done. At least you have taken the spot of the one constructive materialist you could have been (and that I was looking for) and at least when it came to my one wish, that a materialist with sharp arguments and knowledge about QM might come along, you have wrecked the idea of this thread alltogether. That person was now replaced by you. And the valueless-BK gets replaced by bigvalue-Jim, hm.

There seem to bequite a few people who have a problem with him or think they are so much smarter that he should seek counseling fromthem and are pissed that he doesnt, I am not surprised he doesnt hang here. I would run, too.

[Jim Cross]

Mark,

You're still beating the dead horse of materialism as is BK.

The argument is that science can't answer metaphysical questions.

So what can? Nothing. There is no argument or fact that can support or refute a metaphysical position. That includes materialism, physicalism, idealism, panpsychism, dualism,, etc. Al of the isms are self-contained, circular belief systems that only derive their conclusions from their assumptions.

[Eugene I]

The argument is that science can't answer metaphysical questions.

So what can? Nothing. There is no argument or fact that can support or refute a metaphysical position. That includes materialism, physicalism, idealism, panpsychism, dualism,, etc. Al of the isms are self-contained, circular belief systems that only derive their conclusions from their assumptions.

Correct.

But each metaphysical system has to be consistent with experimental scientific data, it has to account for and comply with scientific knowledge and observations, interpret them in certain ways and provide explanatory schemes for that. So far no metaphysics has been free from explanatory gaps (including idealism), but some metaphysical systems (such as materialism) have more severe and intractable explanatory gaps in complying with scientific and experimental data.

So, science can not answer metaphysical questions, but it can disqualify certain metaphysical systems that are in contradiction with scientific data or incapable of explaining it in principle.

[Jim Cross]

The argument is that science can't answer metaphysical questions.

So what can? Nothing. There is no argument or fact that can support or refute a metaphysical position. That includes materialism, physicalism, idealism, panpsychism, dualism,, etc. Al of the isms are self-contained, circular belief systems that only derive their conclusions from their assumptions.

Correct.

But each metaphysical system has to be consistent with experimental scientific data, it has to account for and comply with scientific knowledge and observations, interpret them in certain ways and provide explanatory schemes for that. So far no metaphysics has been free from explanatory gaps (including idealism), but some metaphysical systems (such as materialism) have more severe and intractable explanatory gaps in complying with scientific and experimental data.

So, science can not answer metaphysical questions, but it can disqualify certain metaphysical systems that are in contradiction with scientific data or incapable of explaining it in principle.

You write : "Correct."

But everything you say after still argues that science can be useful for resolving metaphysical questions. All the "isms" are circular. There aren't some with greater problems than others. Science is irrelevant to all of them. They are belief systems.

[Martin_]

There aren't some with greater problems than others.

How do you justify such a statement? Do you agree that different metaphysics struggle with different problems?
If so, what metric do you use to claim that these different problems in their totality (per metaphysic) are all of the same size?

[Jim Cross]

There aren't some with greater problems than others.

How do you justify such a statement? Do you agree that different metaphysics struggle with different problems?
If so, what metric do you use to claim that these different problems in their totality (per metaphysic) are all of the same size?

That's easy. They all are have fatal problems.

[Martin_]

There aren't some with greater problems than others.

How do you justify such a statement? Do you agree that different metaphysics struggle with different problems?
If so, what metric do you use to claim that these different problems in their totality (per metaphysic) are all of the same size?

That's easy. They all are have fatal problems.

Fair enough. Such as?

[Eugene I]

You write : "Correct."

But everything you say after still argues that science can be useful for resolving metaphysical questions. All the "isms" are circular. There aren't some with greater problems than others. Science is irrelevant to all of them. They are belief systems.

Yes, they are all belief systems. But that alone does not make them irrelevant.

One has a choice to be either an extreme agnostic and not to subscribe to any metaphysical belief system, or to choose (consciously or unconsciously) one of the belief systems that resonates more with his/her personal dispositions/biases. But I havens seen a single consistent agnostic in my life, such position is totally nonpractical. A consistent agnostic has be be a single-mind solipsist and can not even know if the external world and other people exist outside his own conscious experience. Existence of other minds is already an unprovable metaphysical assumption (= a belief). But even that simple belief is insufficient and people always adopt some metaphysical system (of assumptions/beliefs) to have some worldview that does not contradict with the data of experience and at least can provide some explanatory paths to make sense of the experience of the world. So, since choosing one or another system of beliefs is inevitable for 99.9999% of people, the question remains which belief system is better to choose. In the absence of any ways to prove or disprove any metaphysical system, the criteria for making the choice needs to based on some measures of merit, such as logical consistency, the absence of contradictions with the experimental data and scientific evidences (this is where science enters into the equation), and many pragmatic considerations such as impact on personal psychological and spiritual wellbeing, health and development, as well as wellbeing and development on the social scale. We have seen that some belief systems have been more beneficial for personal and societal wellbeing, and others have been harmful and even destructive. So, most people do need to choose a certain belief system, and it does matter which system they choose, both for them personally and for the society. Hence, the arguments pro and con for each of these belief systems and assessment of their overall merits are very relevant and important, and that is what philosophers do and we also do on this forum.

[Jim Cross]

You write : "Correct."

But everything you say after still argues that science can be useful for resolving metaphysical questions. All the "isms" are circular. There aren't some with greater problems than others. Science is irrelevant to all of them. They are belief systems.

Yes, they are all belief systems. But that alone does not make them irrelevant.

One has a choice to be either an extreme agnostic and not to subscribe to any metaphysical belief system, or to choose (consciously or unconsciously) one of the belief systems that resonates more with his/her personal dispositions/biases. But I havens seen a single consistent agnostic in my life, such position is totally nonpractical. A consistent agnostic has be be a single-mind solipsist and can not even know if the external world and other people exist outside his own conscious experience. Existence of other minds is already an unprovable metaphysical assumption (= a belief). But even that simple belief is insufficient and people always adopt some metaphysical system (of assumptions/beliefs) to have some worldview that does not contradict with the data of experience and at least can provide some explanatory paths to make sense of the experience of the world. So, since choosing one or another system of beliefs is inevitable for 99.9999% of people, the question remains which belief system is better to choose. In the absence of any ways to prove or disprove any metaphysical system, the criteria for making the choice needs to based on some measures of merit, such as logical consistency, the absence of contradictions with the experimental data and scientific evidences (this is where science enters into the equation), and many pragmatic considerations such as impact on personal psychological and spiritual wellbeing, health and development, as well as wellbeing and development on the social scale. We have seen that some belief systems have been more beneficial for personal and societal wellbeing, and others have been harmful and even destructive. So, most people do need to choose a certain belief system, and it does matter which system they choose, both for them personally and for the society. Hence, the arguments pro and con for each of these belief systems and assessment of their overall merits are very relevant and important, and that is what philosophers do and we also do on this forum.

My metaphysical belief system is anti-metaphysics. Similar to "none of the above".