Mediancat

Thanks for the answers, folks; the discussion in question was actually a couple of months back but in case it ever comes up again (it's inevitable; we tend to rehash topics every year or so) I'll see if any of this helps me convince my conversation partner.

Rob aka Mediancat

sotzo

Naive readings like this do no justice to your intellect, Sotzo.

Maybe I'm just naive! Really though, I don't think I am reading you wrong at all. Let's look at your repsonse:

Nowhere do selection processes preclude moral judgements

In a purely materialistic world there is nothing but matter. Anything that occurs in such a system, including the moral decisions of humans, is just the result of matter acting and/or reacting. Selection processes, therefore, not only precule moral judgements, they reduce moral judgements to not being judgements at all since the very term "judgement" presupposes a standard....and a standard cannnot be had in a materialistic world.

Can you explain how a standard can come about through selection processes?

; indeed, as evolutionary psychology has shown, they created them.

Exactly, and evolutionary psychology has no room for anything such as a moral standard either.

Materalism just implies that no transcendent moral principle underlies human moral judgements.

It's worse than that. Materialism implies there are no standards at all. But how can materialism be expected to provide standards?
It's just matter in motion.

Should we expect that shaking up a can of soda would lead to standards? No. Then why should we think that more developed forms of matter in motion would lead to standards? We shouldn't.

cheers,
jkb

Marz Blak

Wrong. Materialism implies that there are no intrinsic/transendent standards, not that we might not have, for example, arrived at intersubjective standards--through the very processes of evolution you denigrate.

If we suspected a can of soda had consciousness and cognitive ability, we might indeed expect it to have formed some opinion about whether or not it ought to be shaken.

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Marz Blak ]

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

sotzo

Wrong. Materialism implies that there are no intrinsic/transendent standards, not that we might not have, for example, arrived at intersubjective standards--through the very processes of evolution you denigrate.

I'm not deingrating evolution. I'm carrying the implications of a materialist view of the world to its logical conclusion. Further, your assertion that materialism allows intersubjective standards fails because material cannot give rise to anything other than material. Therefore, all a materialist can say is that due to biochecmical reactions he supposes that child abuse is wrong, but that it is possible if the biochemical reactions were different that child abuse would be fine.

Whether it is intersubjective, intrasubjective, or whatever, if it is a standard, materialism cannot account for it. The best thing you could do is to argue against this by showing how materialism can give rise to a standard, but then I would ask you how you know that the biochemcial reactions that gave rise to such a statement were actually "correct" chemical reactions that lead to the statement being true!!

If we suspected a can of soda had consciousness and cognitive ability, we might indeed expect it to have formed some opinion about whether or not it ought to be shaken.

How does "consciousness" and "cognitive ability" all of a sudden get a special status among all the other chemical reactions in the universe? This is arbitrary and inconsistent on your part. "Consciousness" and "cognitive ability" involve things like perception and awareness of one's own existence. Please explain how matter can develop the ability to perceive and be aware of its own existence.

It's not evolution per se that is the problem. It's evolution in the context of a materialist view of the world.

By the way, do you happen to work in the medical device industry? (I saw your info on you being in reg affairs and was curious.)

jkb

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

Philosoft

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

Is this another "logical conclusion" of materialism?

This is an incredibly simplistic view of the interconnectedness of these "reactions." They don't operate independent of one another. Even so, how is this any less satisfying an explanation than "God sez so"?

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.

You have yet to show there is a metaphysical framework for how things should be. Saying that theisms account for this is question begging, because you have yet to show there is anything to account for.

This is rich. 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! How do these "rules" get "special status" without proof of their existence?

I have no idea. Now please explain how materialism precludes such things. Better yet, explain how a supernatural explanation is anything more than guesswork.

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

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

Marz Blak

Sotzo--

I would have replied to you in greater detail, but Philosoft did a much better job than I would've in saying pretty much the same things.

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Having said that, I will add only the following:

You asked,



My only answer is that they aren't neccessarily "special" in the sense I believe you mean them (or, maybe, believe I mean them )--in the sense of giving entities possessed of them any intrinsically greater "worth" or any such thing (and please correct me if I misapprehended your thinking here).

They are special, and of particular relevance for this discussion (for any discussion?) only because our possession of them is what enables us to ponder these very weighty matters!

So to the extent that the fact we have consciousness and cognition is a foundation for our very ability to have this (or any) discussion, my singling them out among any number of arbitrary properties we as objects might have which is certainly not arbitrary.

Indeed, one can hardly imagine what one might mean by suggesting that the discussion of philosophical ideas, necessitating abstraction, is not contingent on the ability of the parties engaged in the discussion to cognate.

Or are you suggesting that cognition simply cannot arise out of material objects? If so, what do you think with, if not your brain?

[Edited for syntax, and to add the following:]

As a matter of fact, I am in the med device industry.

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

Philosoft

Didn't mean to steal your thunder, Marz. I owe you one.

sandlewood

Sotzo, it seems to me that you are saying that we all agree that the laws of logic are true but that the materialist cannot explain how those laws can exist. Therefore, materialism is false. I don’t think you are saying that the materialist must have faith about the laws as much as you’re saying he is simply wrong.

For the sake of argument, the materialist may be wrong—the laws of logic may not be derivable from materialism. But it’s still true that the laws of logic are necessary. Where they came from—materialism or immaterialism—does not matter. Is your intention to use the existence of the laws of logic to prove immaterialism? Can’t one be an immaterialist and still not believe in God? It would seem that materialism vs. immaterialism is a different discussion. I think the point Mediancat’s friend was making was that neither the materialist nor the immaterialist can prove that the basic laws of logic are true. So they are taken on faith by everyone.

But I think he is wrong. One can easily adopt a position that God does not exist and one can still go on living, thinking, and functioning. But one cannot adopt a position that the laws of logic are incorrect and continue to live and function without a contradiction. This is why faith in God is much less justified. Theists like to attempt to put all degrees of believe on equal ground and then say “well, since you can’t be absolutely sure about anything, I am justified in believing anything I want. So I believe God exists.”

Hobbs

Why can't matter give rise to anything other than matter, such as mind? Can you show that there are some sort of limits to matter such that it can't give rise to mind?

Remember, in providing evidence for such a limit, that you must counter all the evidence demonstrating that minds are functions of brains. If you know much about neurology, psychiatry, all the cognitive sciences, it should be quite obvious that matter (in the form of brains) can give rise to minds, and you should know something about how this sort of thing can occur.

'Mind' isn't a thing, an object. It's not a noun. It's a verb, an activity. Mind is something that a brain does. Thinking, thought, perception, these are activities.

Are you trying to claim that material stuff can't do anything? I think that would be a rather absurd claim. But if it can do some activities, why couldn't mind be one of the activities that matter could be capable of doing?

It seems pretty obvious to me that minds can develop in a material universe as functions of some of that matter. Then, being able to perceive such things as what actions tend to benefit or harm oneself and the society our own well-being and the well-being of others we care for depends on, we can come up with rules and standards for how to act such that we can promote human flourishing. And there doesn't have to be anything cosmically significant about the flourishing of humans; all it has to be is significant for us for it to be, well, significant for us.

Besides all that, why can't I turn your challenge around back at you? Suppose mind is what fundamentally exists. How could mind give rise to matter? Have you ever seen an instance of matter being created by a mind? We know matter can create minds (brains do it all the time). Where's your evidence that a mind can create matter? If God doesn't have a brain, how can he possibly think? If God doesn't have a body, how can he possibly do anything?

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

Hobbs

Yea, and some of us use our faith to take the evidence a little beyond where it goes but at least in the same direction in which it points, whereas others use their faith to go completely contrary to where the evidence points.