Steven Carr

In a non-materialistic world, how does one account for a belief being true versus false?

Can a bunch of ectoplasm know something?

sotzo

Dear AtlanticCitySlave:
It needs to be shown it doesn't exist because it seems so obvious it does. Even determinists go through their lives as if they are freely choosing their own destinies, and it is a perfectly rational stance to believe something that seems obvious until shown otherwise. While I cannot prove "free-will" exists or give a definition that would make everyone happy (or where it may be located in the mind/brain or what not), I will gladly go through life believing I have a choice about things until it is shown, to a high degree, otherwise. Many of the theories of science are certainly in question in modern life, and the understanding of the brain/mind at this point is like poking with sticks.

While you may go through life believing that you make "choices", what I am arguing is that the logical conclusion of materialism is that you are actually "choiceless".

Again, my question in this thread is not "do we appear to make choices?" or "does debate over determinism result in solopsism?" - rather I am asking if materialism can escape a determinism that would render even this discussion meaningless.

Thus far, the answer has been "no".

cheers,

jkb

sotzo

Hi Steven!

You wrote:

If you think the state of the Universe (state A) includes non-material entities, this does not alter the fact that either one state can follow from state A, or more than one state can follow from state A.

I agree. But I would argue that materialism demands that "B necessarily follows A" whereas non-materialism does not. The former renders it impossible to distinguish between competing truth claims, whereas the latter does not.

cheers,
jkb

madmax2976

Why?? Simply because non-materialism is defined that way? Is this just an unsupported assumption? Please provide the evidence that under non-materialism, B would not necessarily follow A.

I submit that unless determinism is largely true, the concept of making choices would be impossible or even meaningless. We would not be able to predict outcomes with any reliability. I could hold a loaded gun to someone's head and pull the trigger and it might or might not kill or severely injure them.

If the non-materialistic realm (assuming there is such a thing) exists and and was not largely determinstic, things would be random. Thoughts would just pop into our head for no reason. Actions would have no predictable outcomes. This would seem to be completely incompatible with any sense of making choices or having "free will".

So materialism would seem to be irrelevant to determinism, thus making your question a misguided one. The question really should be: Can we demonstrate under either view, materialism or non-materialism, that choice is really possible?

[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

sotzo

Hi MadMax!

Since natural laws don't exist as entities unto themselves, they don't "cause" anything to happen. This is just a popular metaphor we use to describe how things work. Our laws are descriptions of how we observe certain things function under certain conditions.

This view results in,for instance, the law of non-contradiction being contingent on material. I disagree since one would have to simultaneously hold that the law of non-con. could be true or false, depending on the circumstances.

If determinism just means something was caused by some preceding event, then determinism would seem to be true whether materialism is true or not. (I'm assuming events would still occur and cause things even under immaterialism) Thus determinism wouldn't be dependent upon materialism in any way and the question is moot.

But it's not just that it is caused by a preceding event under a materialist regime, but that it is caused by a preceding event under which we as thinking beings have no control over. This renders discussion over truth falsehood meaningless since truth/falsehood presupposes an external standard by which evaluation is possible. I agree that causation still occurs within an immaterialist view, but causation under that regime does not by logical inference need be due to biocehmical phenomenon alone.

This would seem to be the fallacy of composition. If all bricks are 6 inches wide and 3 inches thick, then a wall made of bricks is 6 inches wide and 3 inches thick. If metal, wires and plastic don't have the property of flight, then obviously planes can't fly. And...If our thoughts are caused by biochemical reactions in our brains, then we can't have consciousness and/or the ability to choose our actions.

Yeah, I agree I could have stated this better, but I don't think my argument (ie, that without an immaterial governing will, there is no justified true belief) suffers the fallacy you cite. As you have said in your last sentence above (unless you made that sentence assuming the truth of my position for the sake of argument), we are not choosing beings if it all reduces to biochemistry. And in that case, I don't see how we can even be evaluating the truth of the issue under discussion since that would presuppose a standard to which we are choosing to apply our thinking/beliefs.

cheers,

jkb

Steven Carr

Always nice to see somebody ignoring the logic I posted.

But I am pleased that you think your beliefs are not determined by rational thought - as you think that your beliefs are not determined - period.

Could you tell us why your beliefs being random, rather than determined, makes them any more likely to be correct?

Steven Carr

But we *do* have control over our actions.

In fact, even very deterministic things like computers can control other things.

If we have a plane controlled by a computer, and the plane crashes because of a bug in the computers program, most sane people (and the TV news anchorman) would say that the plane 'went out of control'.

And most viewers of the TV news would know what he meant and would say that the plane was being controlled by the computer before it went out of control and crashed?


Why then, do you not want to speak the same English language that the rest of us use?

Steven Carr

The more I think about this the more baffling it is. It is possible for me to say that certain statements about World War 2 are true or false, without me having to be able to control what happened in a World War that finished 12 years before I was born.

So my beliefs about WW2 are caused by events over which I had no control. I don't lose any sleep over it - worrying whether or not I am right to believe that WW2 happened.

Detached9

First off, I don't understand how a materialist informed on the subject of determinism can deny it and still be a materialist.

I do have a question though. Is determinism more parsimonious than free will? I would say yes.

excreationist

sotzo:
I've replied to your first post and pointed out to you errors in what AtlanticCitySlave posted. Basically what I've said is this:

No, because there could be some uncaused fluctuations of matter/energy or state changes within a materialistic framework.

Will involves having a plan. Even if our plans are a deterministic result of our memories, environment, etc, we still have plans. So I am disagreeing with you again.

So I've disagreed with you twice (in this repeated post)... are you going to defend what you've posted?