sotzo

Whatever you think materialism is, materialists do not deny emergent properties of matter.

I'm not denying that they do not deny them. I'm asking for how they explain them as a result of materialism. How they accouont for them.

Is this another "logical conclusion" of materialism?

Yes.

This is an incredibly simplistic view of the interconnectedness of these "reactions."

Simple or complex, they are chemical reactions nonetheless. And I have yet to hear how a checmical reaction or series of reactions or mega multi grandiose checmical reaction can result in something such as a moral standard.

They don't operate independent of one another.

Independence nor dependence matters per above.

Even so, how is this any less satisfying an explanation than "God sez so"?

Moving out of the internal critique of materialism for a second, I'll tell you...the difference is that an immaterial being (God) provides the possibility that something such as a moral standard or law of logic exists. Materialism does not.

That's why the word "materialism" describes a philosophy held by a person, and not some pre-existing, immutable framework that people plug into as you seem to think it is.

I'm not asking for immutable. I'm asking for it to account for something as basic and fundamental as the law of non-contradiction. Is that too much to ask?

You have yet to show there is a metaphysical framework for how things should be.

Sure I have and it is one that you and I both agree to - A cannot be non-A. Materialism cannot account for that metaphysical reality.

Saying that theisms account for this is question begging, because you have yet to show there is anything to account for.

How about accounting for the law of non-contradiction?

This is rich.

Thanks.

You're the one asserting the very existence of intangible, immutable "rules" written somewhere in the cosmos and then asking for a material explanation for things that don't physically exist!

That's the whole point!! And you've made it quite clearly!! A materialist universe cannot give an account of things that do not physically exist, but we know they exist nonetheless! I don't have to assert they exist, for as we've seen they unavoidablly exist (ie, the law of non-contradiction). The law of non-contradiction is not just an idea or a tool that we've devised in order to make sense of things. Rather it precedes thinking itself! It exists!

How do these "rules" get "special status" without proof of their existence?

The law of non-contradiction gets special status without proof because it is the precondition of proof itself.

As for moral standards, they get special status without proof because they are unavoidable as well. All a materialist has to do here to convince me otherwise is to be consistent and say that 9/11 was merely the result of one social group's brain chemistry acting on another social group's brain chemistry.

I have no idea.

Okay, then we can agree that materialism has no answer (actually cannot provide an answer) for how something such as perception comes about...yet, the original poster is justified in telling the theist that he as an atheist has no faith???!
Is this sort of thinking my option to being a theist?

Now please explain how materialism precludes such things.

Materialism precludes such things because matter cannot give rise to consciousness, immaterial laws of logic, or moral standards...all of which we agree exists. Unless you'd like to argue that they don't exist and that they are just conventional ideas.

Better yet, explain how a supernatural explanation is anything more than guesswork.

At the very least, a supernatural explanation of any sort allows the possibility of something to exist such as an immaterial law, consciousness, etc. Materialism cannot account for those things. So on the most basic of foundations, theism is a better hypothesis.

The problem is you, the non-materialist, telling the alleged materialist things his worldview can and cannot include.

The materialist includes the law of logic in his worldview...yes. Yet that worldview cannot account for the law of logic. This means that the materialist lives practically as a supernaturalist while arguing against supernaturalism using supernaturalism. Sounds schizophrenic to me!

When I asked above for an explanation of how materialism can give rise to concious thought, you replied "I have no idea." So you have even said it yourself. Materialism has no explanation for the precondition of even making your statements in this dialogue. In other words, given materialism, you're not even able to know for sure you are conscious.

No wonder Camus and Sarte wrote so much about suicide.

cheers,

jkb

RogerLeeCooke

The fact that we all agree to use these rules proves absolutely nothing. We may all be mistaken. I still don't get why you think we can't proceed unless we have some absolute guarantee IN ADVANCE that we will never turn out to be mistaken.

Vorkosigan

Simple or complex, they are chemical reactions nonetheless. And I have yet to hear how a checmical reaction or series of reactions or mega multi grandiose checmical reaction can result in something such as a moral standard.

Sotzo, you have already been apprised of the existence of evolutionary psychology. This field has already shown that morals can evolve. A <a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html" target="_blank"> Primer on Evolutionary Psychology</a> is available here. Please do not claim again that you have not heard how materialism can give rise to moral and social behavior.

Vorkosigan

RogerLeeCooke

My guess is that Sotzo is not thinking of moral behavior (but of course he/she can speak for him/herself on that account), but rather asking how moral truth can be explained by evolution. Since I don't think there is such a thing as "moral truth," I'd be talking at cross purposes if I offered an answer.

In both ethics and epistemology, it is very difficult to get the absolutists to understand that they are assuming what they are trying to prove. They don't seem to grasp the idea of a "working hypothesis." All of logic is a working hypothesis as far as I'm concerned. I use it, and I regard people who reject it as lunatics; but that's not the same thing as saying it is absolutely correct. I don't need absolute assurance of any luminous first principles in order to proceed.

I posted essentially this above, and got a reply showing no understanding of what I had said. The author simply assumed yet again that we have to be reassured from the beginning that our logic is correct, and if we don't have such an assurance, we have to regard every statement as just as true as every other statement. When people reason that illogically, it does, I confess, make you wonder if logic is truly the basis of anything at all.

Feather

I submit that you--nor any other rational person--accepts logic by necessity (which is indeed the same as simply accepting it on faith, in my opinion). Rather, we accept that logic "works" based on the observables.

If, somehow, it could be shown that logic does not "work" for a given system, then I would toss logic in a heartbeat and struggle to find some other means of understanding the way things are.

I don't accept that logic is a valid world view on face value. I accept that it is valid because every single time I use it (correctly) rationalizing my observations, I get a noncontradictory, sensible, and more importantly repeatable result.

Marz Blak

There was a thread entitled "Worldviews that belong to atheists," in which Kent Symanzik, beginning
<a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000567&p=3" target="_blank">here</a>, began to make similar sorts of assertions regarding the inadequacy of materialism as an ontological/epistemic foundation (his argument was somewhat different and much more specifically assertive of his particular Christian theology as the answer, but still, if you look you'll see the similarities. (Warning, though: it is a very long and, to me, ultimately frustrating thread.))

There were several posters, myself included, who spent considerable time arguing (well, I wouldn't really call it arguing, really, read the thread and you'll understand what I mean) with him and it was as if he simply couldn't understand the words we were saying, both the substance of our arguments and our critiques of his as being little more than repetitive recitations of circularities with no real underpinning.

It would seem to me that there are certain people for whom worldviews with some sort of absolutist basis are necessities. And I mean that in the ordinary, not the philosophical, sense of the word. And as RogerLeeCooke said of absolutists in this thread, it is sometimes impossible to get these people to see the faults in their philosophical structures.

As in this case, when sotzo continues to assert baldly that evolutionary psychology simply cannot account for the formation of moralities, even while being forced to retreat in his position to the point at which he now seems to ready to assert that cognition and consciousness themselves cannot be accounted for physiologically!

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Marz Blak ]</p>

Marz Blak

No, I meant what I said. You said almost exactly what I would've said, but I have no doubt but that I wouldn't have said it anywhere near as well. I would say I owe you one.

Marz Blak

sotzo said,

Quote:

...All a materialist has to do here to convince me otherwise is to be consistent and say that 9/11 was merely the result of one social group's brain chemistry acting on another social group's brain chemistry....

In fact, given that as far as I know all cognition is neurchemistry/neurological electronic acitivity, this is in a sense certainly an accurate, if simplistic, description of the events of that day, or at least the internal brain processes that led to the actions of that day.

But I think that you are trying to make a larger point than this, regarding the rightness or wrongness of what the terrorists did. I assume you think what they did was abhorrently wrong, as do I; but, on the other hand, it is certainly unarguable that at least a significant portion, worldwide, of those holding an opinion on the matter disagree with you and me and think the terrorists were completely justified in their behavior.

Two things about this juxtaposition strike me as odd in light of the overall thrust of your statements here:

1. Doesn't it seem odd, in a world constrained by moral absolutes, that people could come to such diametrically opposed moral positions on such a momentous act?

2. Isn't it interesting that many if not most of those who hold opposing positions from you are most probably moral absolutists as well?

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Marz Blak ]</p>

RogerLeeCooke

Excellent points, Marz! May I add that in between the extremes represented by opposites there is a whole spectrum of views, all held as absolutes. Take the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). These people strike me as being absolutely certain that they are proclaiming a universal moral law in saying that every animal should have the right to live its life in a natural way. Even though the human race has kept domesticated animals for thousands of years, they want us to stop doing it, stop eating omelets and wearing wool. Until such time as we do, they want us to treat the animals as *employees*! Seriously, I've heard them talk about the terrible injustice of slaughtering a cow that has faithfully given milk for years. Apparently they want retirement homes for aged chickens, with Medicare benefits. Ridiculous as this seems to me, I recognize that it is just a difference between the kind of world they want to live in and the kind of world I want to live in. Contrary to what the moral absolutists seem to think, that recognition doesn't cause me to equivocate and say, "Well, we're equally right, so it doesn't matter which of us prevails." It matters a great deal to me.

AtlanticCitySlave

One problem here is that it's being assumed certain things, like the law of non-contradiction, exists as an independent entity, if you will, separate from human mental activity or something of that nature, i.e. in some platonic realm. To assume this is question begging, since the materialist (perhaps not all) would say there is no distinct realm of things like this (i.e. laws of logic), so for it to be constantly asserted there is, without any argument, is question begging.

The underlying point attempting to be made here is that the materialist relies on faith. This is different than what seemed to have been originally sought, i.e. the atheist relies on faith, or we all rely on faith. An atheist, obviously, isn't necessarily a materialist, so even if it was shown that materialism is based on faith, it wouldn't thus show that atheism is.

I personally don't see the problem here. It seems this is just a small "gaps" argument, since obviously no one can give a satisfying account of consciousness, mental activity, how consciousness emerges, etc. If we could, there wouldn't be thouands of philosophers publishing stuff on the philosophy of mind. After all, as Chalmers says all the time, the "hard problem" of consciousness is accounting for how it emerges and how we feel or experience anything. To expect some detailed analysis from the materialist concerning things like this, and thus accounting for the laws of logic (since one must be conscious to comprehend them in the sense that has been discussed), is sort of odd.

Many materialists will admit we don't have a satisfying answer to such questions, but that doesn't mean believing certain things is based on faith. After all, we OBSERVE logic to hold in the material world, and we observe that all of our experience is made up of material things (in one way or another), we observe that as time goes on the mind seems dependent on the brain (brain trama, scans, etc.). In other words, all roads point to materialism at this point, although, sure, there are obvious problems.

Faith is, by definition, belief without reason, and the materialist has good reason to believe that the mind evolves from matter (the mind IS matter to the materialist) and everything else. They don't need a complete drawn up proof to be excused from "see, you have faith".

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: AtlanticCitySlave ]</p>