Theophage

In case you haven't seen the post in the feedback forum, Thinker left a message there proclaiming that materialism is dead. More interestingly, he says:

Now there's a deceptive statment if I've ever seen one. What he means is that he posted his proof to the boards over at JREF, and I think one other poster (I didn't dig through the entire set of threads) agreed with him. Ther other poster is not a materialist anyway, I'm assuming.

Everyone else seems to think that this amazing proof is flawed, but Thinker/Undercover Elephant will hear none of it. He also said:

Heh, he couldn't handle ciriticsm here, so he thought he would get less critcism at the JREF boards? Oh yes, I forgot; his proof was "ACCEPTED" there...

For anyone interested, here is his amazing proof:

Thus materialism is false.

Needless to say, the biggest complaint is over (5). I didn't dig through the threads there (there's a couple of them, but one main one) to see how well (5) was supported, but here is a website link where the argument originally came from:

<a href="http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm" target="_blank">http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm</a>

In fact, is it my imagination, or would this proof be exactly the same stated as:

P1) If materialism is true, then every phenomena including the human mind must be describable in materialist terms

P2) The human mind cannot be described in materialist terms.

C1) Therefore materialism is false.

It seems that P2 here is equivalent to (5) above, and just as shaky. In fact, doesn't a materialist flat out deny P2/(5) is true? Why would they accept such a premis as being true without convincing evidence?

Anyway, I figured I'd give you all a heads up, but it's probably old news rehashed...

Daniel "Theophage" Clark

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: Theophage ]</p>

tronvillain

I have dug through the entire set of threads, and rarely have I seen someone take such a sever beating and remain totally oblivious.

Theophage

Yes folks, I think we have spotted that oft conjectured but rarely seen "Fundy Atheist" :^)

excreationist

Where did thinker post this?

Anyway,
On his <a href="http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm" target="_blank">mind/body page</a> it says the following are mental kinds of things:
pain
euphoria
desire
purpose
belief
kindness

These fall into two categories I think - goals/desires and beliefs.

In the brains of higher animals (and maybe also some others, such as bees), they develop an internal representation of the world. This lets them navigate and anticipate future events. These are "beliefs" since they can be mistaken. They could have over generalized the reasoning or their senses could have been corrupted (hallucinations, etc).

The goals/desires are what motivates the animal brain to do anything at all. The emotional system tells the brain if something is good and should be repeated (pleasure) or bad and should be avoided (pain) at varying intensities. Then the brain follows this. Sometimes the goals of a reasoning system can be hard-wired - like a chess computer - and other times the goals are just associated with more fundamental desires, like in the case of higher animals. I believe that humans have several kinds of pleasure - connectedness/security, newness/thrills, relief/relaxation, etc and several kinds of pain - injury/hunger/thirst and frustration.

Kindness is a synonym for altruism I think, and I think altruism is motivated by the human "connectedness" pleasure.

Purpose is just a synonym for goal.

Theophage

The Feedback Forum, but it was apparently removed. I'm sure Don will inform us if it was moved or deleted.

Bookman

It was likely deleted as it contained off-site URL's, a no-no in our feedback forum.

tronvillain

Originally posted by thinker:

Don, did send me my 'thinker' handle back but I tried making my case here before and I got shouted down and abused.
SO I went somewhere else, and I made my case.

I have now PROVED that materialism is false, I have defeated all the remaining materialists.

If you do not beleive me or you want to see the proof come to the religion forum and we'll have a chat.

I'm not doing it here because materialist dogma is ten times harder to remove than Christian dogma.

You are wrong. Materialism is logically false, and can be demonstrated as being so.

THIS PROOF HAS BEEN ACCEPTED ON <a href="http://WWW.RANDI.ORG" target="_blank">WWW.RANDI.ORG</a>

Please come and discuss it with me.

First, I suggest you prepare yourselves for a surprise.

Materialism is dead.

Welcome to the New Age.

----------

The forum :

<a href="http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=4" target="_blank">http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=4</a>

The mind body problem restated :

<a href="http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm" target="_blank">http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm</a>

The thread that killed materialism :

<a href="http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000287" target="_blank">http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000287</a>

And the clincher.....

Thinkers solution to the mind-body problem which not only PROVES that materialism if false, but also disproves all other known forms of dualism except for one.

This one :

<a href="http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000306" target="_blank">http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000306</a>

---------------

Welcome to the dawn of a new era.




[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Little War

Materialism is dead?

I believe Historical and dialectical materialism.

Now I don't agree with materialism in the classic sense, but more in the sense of the Marxist philosophy of it being related to the dialectical process of history connected to the material world.

excreationist

thinker is only concerned about the one connected to the mind and body... not Marxism or whatever.

Edwin

By "THIS PROOF HAS BEEN ACCEPTED ON <a href="http://WWW.RANDI.ORG"" target="_blank">WWW.RANDI.ORG"</a> he means "I have repeated myself so often that most of the people arguing have more or less given up any hope of rational debate"