Primal

Materialism to me seems the only tenable position. Why?

1) Materialism is parsimonous given what we know in science.

2) Idealism cannot explain why we have different ideas,why things change,where the "mind"comes from etc. If things only exist because they are percieved;where did the perciever come from?

3) Idealism is absurd in that all that exists is supposed to be ideas and perceptions; but then what is doing all the "thinking" and "observing"? The mind is obviously not thought of or observed so something must exist besides thoughts and perceptions alone. An observer must exist and this replaces the idealism with an even less coherent dualism. Monist materialism is less superfluous then dualism.

4) Idealists cannot explain how any given human can be ignorant of anything or unable to do certain acts given the mind is THE creator and controller of all things real. Many try to get out of this by presupposing other minds...but these minds cannot be percieved/thought all the time. This negates the original argument of thoughts being all we know and hence all we can say exists.

5) The phenomenon of negating beliefs, idealists cannot deal with this. Since thinking something makes it real, any nonidealist thoughts would have to be real.

6) What is the actual substance of idealist "entities" when percieved made of? How do we percieve the substance?

7) How do we percieve idealism or justify the belief in things like atoms?

By what mechanism(or group thereof) does this all operate? I cannot see these mechanisms that makes idealism work, so does that mean they do not exist?

8) With idealism it is difficult to explain why the same mental substance manifests itself in radically different ways(sight vs sound vs touch) via idealist mechanism of the mind. Why are we in fact limited to these senses and not others? Materialism though gives fairly simple and straight forward answers by the fact that the mind didn't create its own sensations.

9) A pluralist/dualist position is more superfluous then a monist one, whether idealist or materialist. Even if a monist explanation is possible it is more reasonable to adhere to, even if a pluralist position is just as possible.

10) Pluralists cannot state how it is two or more radical substances interact....making their theories somewhat incoherent.

11) Such pluralist interaction would violate the first law of thermodynamics.

12) Lastly materialism is less superfluous in the face of an external world then idealism. As idealism to establish an external world must posit third, very superfluous entities/super-minds like God. That is positing the substance for things seen and a special unseen force to control it. Which in a sense negates many original idealist arguments whereas materialism only has to substance to compose seen things.

All these points prove materialism to be true beyond a reasonable doubt via process of elmination.


Note: I am using reason and logic as my standards on this issue.
Irrational criticisms stemming from these schools of though:

1) Solipsism/mentalism. i.e. saying a position is true if you say so.

2) Constructivism/relativism/subjectivism. saying reason and logic do not work.

3) Irrelevancies: Bible quotes, claims to ESP,apeals to faith, etc.


Will simply not be taken seriously.

Of course I am relying on the standards such as objectivism,parsimony, correlation of senses via some background data.

AnthonyAdams45

Parsimony is equally supportive of idealism, or in fact of any monistic position. When you ask 'where [does] the "mind"comes from? One might ask "Where does matter come from?" I know of no scientific answer which does not begin from some initial posit from which matter arises, or else it is taken as primal. Mind could likewise be taken as primal.

You ask "If things only exist because they are percieved (sic) ;where did the perciever(sic) come from?", apparently indicting Berkeley, but Berkeley posited perceivers, saying not just that "To be is to be perceived" but added "or a seat of perception."

Do not conflate "All is mind" with "All is in my mind" or even "All is in our minds." The claim of the idealist is that I need appeal to no reality beyond that which experience dictates. The idealist then reminds us that experience does not take place in the external world, but rather in our minds. Subtract an experiencer, a mind, and experience disappears. What, then, is experienced? Our minds. Or at least mental stuff. Substance, material substance, is purely mental; created by inference (mental activity) and conscious observation (hence, mental).

Mental substance, pace Hume, is equally mentally observable. What are reflection and logic except the mind at work in the mind?

Recall that Berkeley, among the idealist, is an empiricist. He reaches the idea that all is mental by means of inference from scientific observation. His observation that blood was red to the naked eye, but not under the microscope, led to his conclusion that color was perspectival and so mental. Do not think the idealist eschew science. They embrace it, simply claiming that all properties investigated by scientists are mind-dependent properties, and hence not part of some separate non-mental reality.

Were it as easy as kicking a rock, Dr. Johnson would have put idealism to bed years ago.

Dominus Paradoxum

Okaaaay. I believe we have a wee bit of confusion here.


"Materialism to me seems the only tenable position. Why?

1) Materialism is parsimonous given what we know in science.

2) Idealism cannot explain why we have different ideas,why things change,where the "mind"comes from etc. If things only exist because they are percieved;where did the perciever come from?"

You seem to be thinking of subjective idealism. I am an Objective Idealist, and I certainly do not believe that existence equals perception, or any other such nonsense.

"3) Idealism is absurd in that all that exists is supposed to be ideas and perceptions; but then what is doing all the "thinking" and "observing"? The mind is obviously not thought of or observed so something must exist besides thoughts and perceptions alone. An observer must exist and this replaces the idealism with an even less coherent dualism. Monist materialism is less superfluous then dualism. "

Monist materialism, strictly construed, commits you to behaviorism. Unless you are willing to hold that parts of the brain are *literally* red or loud or sweet or sour, you cannot hold that conscious states are in any meaningful way "identical" to brain states. Thus you can either deny their existence, and a la Denett, say they are illusions of the brain, leading you to behaviorism; or else be commited to some form of epiphenomenalism (of which the so-called 'identity theory' is a covert sort.)

I wonder what your epistemology is. If you are a restrictivly commited materialist, then you must be obliged to believe some form of logical atomism. Can you account for the existence of the laws of nature, or the remarkable intelligible structure that science has revealed, and continues to reveal in the universe? No. It can be accounted for, and yes, without God, but certainly not by any "empiricist" philosophy. I suggest that in the future you challenge an actual position and not some watered down caricature of it.

Primal

Dominus: I criticize the latter towards the end. Though Objective idealism seems to lose the rationale on which idealism is found via reducing all existence to sensation and thus declaring materialism superfluous.

Actually behaviorism striclty speaking does not concern itself with mental states at all. And no I am not a behaviorist.

Yes, I do think parts of the brain literally translate to the experiences we have.

Actually I am more of a rationalist/foundationalist.

Yes. Actually, causality and identity. In any event, who says these things need to be accounted for?

Anthony: Matter can always exist. No statement is ever made by materialists that something only exists "if".

However idealists state that something only exists if thought or percieved which demands an explanation for the mind itself.

Now one can say there is only mind of course. Which would then get around this objection but not others to follow.

For example then one has perception and mind, two things whose interactions are just as puzzling as that between the mind and body of dualist metaphysics. How do perceptions interact with thought? How does the percieved interact with the perciever? It seems they are radically of different substance, which makes the idealism more of a dualism then a monism.

Idealists have to distinguish between the mind and its products, unless they are all mind. In which case, why do they appear distinct? Why do we see some things and hear others, shouldn't the same substance from the same source produce the same result? What causes the distinction to take place at all, how can we observe what causes this distinction? If we don't observe it; there should be no distinction, but it is here, by the unseen mechanism of which we are unware. But suppose we become aware of such mechanisms, lets say it is one belonging to thought. But how does thought do this? And if so the thought apear unconscious but what sense does it make to say unconscious mechanisms exist in a idealist universe?


Materialists can just propose matter.

But then you are proposing a dualism of perception and the seat of perception whereas I have merely to propose matter.

I don't even see the relevance of this statement. The very argument presupposes idealism. What if I say our minds are merely part of a material world?

Yet again though you are creating dualisms between inference and perception. Likewise you are failing to give explanations other then that of question begging, by what mechanism does the mind then infer? "By infering with the mind." is hardly an answer at all.

Likewise this misses the point. How do we say things like say atoms or germs exist on the basis of inference, when existence is limited to the observed? Do the things for example cease to exist when I do not look under a microscope? How can I say others are troubled by something which I can only see under one microscope? What is to make one inference and truer then another when truth or falsehood is equivalent to my very inference? To say this one has to presuppose that things can exist without one necessarily being percieved directly, and if one can do this in certain cases why not that for matter itself? One has already left strict idealism at this point.


This short of solving a problem with idealism begs another, who is observing the inner mind? How much more superfluous then positing material substance.

I suppose his standing as a Bishop and wish to be rid of atheism(which he saw as linked to materialism) did not enter into the picture?

Some may, but I certainly don't think Berkeley. In the end though it makes little sense to escew the external world or matter and then proclaim that one is being scientific.

One would have to throw out the history sciences,objective method and theories on matter at the very least. In fact many dire objections to evolution came from idealist philosophers.

Not necessarily, for then one could say the same about fundamentalist christianity which has endured longer still.

Dominus Paradoxum

"Actually behaviorism striclty speaking does not concern itself with mental states at all."

Yes, it does. It positively denies that they exist, or analyses them in terms of behavior and behavioral dispositions. But I was thinking of philosophical behaviorism, whereas you are probably thinking of psychological behaviorism.

"Yes, I do think parts of the brain literally translate to the experiences we have."

What do you mean by "translate"? Suppose I see an orange. You could mean either one of two things: That the electrical signals in my brain cause me to have an image of a homogenous orange disk, in which case you are an epiphenomenalist, or else you must suppose that there is a Russellian sense-datum lodged in my brain. Or you could simply deny both, in which case you deny the existence of mental states and thus *are* a behaviorist/analytic functionalist.


"Actually I am more of a rationalist/foundationalist. "


Usually rationalists are coherentists, and empiricists are foundationalists. How do you account for rational insight in your ontology? If you are a mathematical platonist, for example, then you are admitting more than "pure, monistic" materialism.


"Yes. Actually, causality and identity. In any event, who says these things need to be accounted for?"

Hume says they need to be accounted for. I think you'll have a hard time trying to deduce causality and the laws of nature from the law of non-contradiction. And if not, then you must give some account for their existence, which I think is far more than "monistic materialism" can do.

AnthonyAdams45

No, the conditional formulation is merely a convenience not a requirement for idealism. Materialism states all things are made of matter, or altenatively, if something exists, it is material.
Idealism might just as easily, all things that exist are mental. Any conditional sentence can be logically restated as a universal and any universal statement can be logically restated as a conditional.

And why does the claim that the mind has contents create any more requirement for explaining the existence of the mind than would the claim that all things are made of matter require any explanation of the existence of matter.


How does materialism explain why we don't smell color or taste texture? The phenomena of the world do not change for idealists; only the basic stuff does.



I would expect you to say that. I would you though, why not just stop at mind? Why posit the additional entity matter?

But not because evolution was intrinsically material.

The chief issue here is that to appearences, the world of the idealist is identical to the world of the materialist. When Dr. Johnson kicked that rock, the pain he felt was in his mind, just as the rock was. No physiological or geological analysis can show otherwise.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:


You seem to be arguing against solipcism here and calling it idealism. A perception is perceived, and a thought is thought. They are not the same thing. Keep in mind that the term "idealism" derives from Plato's theory of "ideas" or "forms". No one is claiming that the universe is made up of whatever ideals happen to pop into our heads.

The idealist makes no distinction between the perception and the substance. This question has no applicability to the idealist. It does, however, have direct applicability to materialism. What is the substance of matter? If the perception is not the substance then the substance "matter" is something other than the perception. It is therefore unknown. How then, do we know that matter exists at all?

Seeing is believing. We can believe in our observations. We can believe in the phenomena which we presently call atoms. I see no reason, however, in believing in the "indivisible, pointlike particles" which constituted the original atomic theory as it has not been supported by the data.

Where do you get the idea that idealism claims that the mind creates its own sensations? (The context suggests that you are referring to the individual mind). Again, you seem to be confusing idealism with solipsism. Idealism says that there is no reason to posit a metaphysical entity (called matter) that underlies the perception.

Idealism doesn't need to posit God, however, if it did need to posit God I don't see how one could then claim that such an entity was superfluous. Materialism needs to posit unknowable entities called matter. However, since materialism needs to posit such entities, they are not at all superfluous.

Hugo Holbling

I'd like to see an argument against relativism (not Primal's version, of course); unfortunately, anyone arguing from a position i don't like or using arguments i don't like will be ignored.

Primal

I wasn't aware of any difference between the two, this sounds a lot like eliminative materialism actually. However I do think mental states exist as purely material functions.


Are equivalent to. For example when I feel pain or have a memory it is literally just a bunch of neurons firing off.


Yes and no. I am not an epiphenomenalist because I do not think the mental states are somehow "nonmaterial" products of a material process. However I do think it is electrical signals/neural activity that leads to you seeing an orange. However I believe the process and consciouness itself to be completely material.


I don't even see how Russel's theory aplies to the make-up of consciouness. It is more about correlation. There is no reason to propose it.


Or I avoid the false trilemma altogether and simply go by the belief that your "mental states" are literally just neural activity.



Neural hardware establishing certain dispositions?? Exegenetic tendencies in our mode of thought? Though I am not sure. This is more a question for neurology then philosophy. My lack of knowledge as to the specific or technical factors of how I get knowledge are irrelevant in the field of jusifying knowledge or a given existential position. That's kind of like asking an empiricist about the physiological mechanisms of the eye.


I have no idea where this came from. I am not a mathematical platonist as I think any knowledge we have is still material. Thus I remain a monist.


"Yes. Actually, causality and identity. In any event, who says these things need to be accounted for?"

I admit that I cannot purely deduce causality from the law of noncontradiction/identity, though I never said I could. I more or less deduce causaliy from the law of identity and the fact of motion/change. And then deduce specific causality from background knowledge aplied to current experience, which of course relies on certain assumptions about correlation that I posit as self-evident.


Yes, you may think as much, but this is hardly a compelling case. Arguing that "you just don't think it may work" may be merely a result of a stubborn mind or ignorance as much as compelling argument.

Primal

I never said it was in every case but it is often times in the case.

However then they must mantain a) That the mental thus always existed, in which case how come I have no knowledge of this? And since the mental is something in my mind, that I am aware of or have knowledge of, how could I exist without having knowledge of my existence? How did I develope knowledge or awareness of myself in order to cause my own existence?

If I existed forever and merely forgot by unknown means, then why is it I perceieve or believe myself to be finite in my existence and in my mind? Are my perceptions wrong now even though they are themselves reality?
The paradox seems insoluble.


Yes but this does not remove problems associated with the original position.

Well one because matter can simply exist forever without us having to be aware of it and hence avoiding the question as to how we "forgot" about it.

Likewise materialism paints a fuller picture. Materialists have a lot of answers via science as to why perceptions change, how objects work, etc. Materialism does not suppose the mind as the ultimate arbiter for reality and hence does not have to explain why things work a certain way via reference to one mechanism or a mechanism within the mind but by "study" of a said objective world. For example why perceptions change...a materialist can answer by pointing to limitations in sight range, light waves, etc. A materialist can say "I no longer see that because the scenery around me changed and something is blocking my way." Idealists however cannot simply point to these things as the mind itself creates these things, hence the same barriers or limitations cannot be apealed to. For example, an idealist cannot say "I cannot see that anymore because an object is blocking my way" because he or she created the object in his or her mind. Thus the question is now, how and why did my mind create this object? A materialist can analyze matter and the properties of an object via the scientific method in order to study composition. An idealist cannot do this because such said "composition" would merely be mere idealist inventions leaving the question open of "what is the actual property of this mental substance?". This means very different types of explanations need to be proposed, explanations for which idealism is without.


Analyses of human anatomy and the brain. Mainly because the ear organ developed so as to pick up sound waves and the tongue to test chemistry. The question is very different when pointed at materialism because it does not proport that the mind made these differences but that these things came later on. This means certain limitations due to physical composition can be apealed to. It can merely be for example because of the way I developed as a fetus, the physical differences in my organs. The person had no real choice in this matter.

In the idealist viewpoint the mind itself created the divisions and it must be asked "why?". To this they can not apeal to anatomy,fetal development, genes or different organs needed to measure different aspects of the enviroment, because the idealist agent is itself the one that created these differences and the enviroment. For the idealist there are no "different aspects" in the enviroment because they are all essentially part of the same enviroment.

Thus the difference is in the materialist viewpoint consciousness is limited in a universe that acts on "blind" causality and thus can apeal to brute facts. Whereas the idealist viewpoint posits one that is "guided" and where consciousness is only limited by itself. Materialism merely posits that an object exists whether one is aware or not. Idealism posits an object exists and ceases when one is aware of them,begging the question of by what mechanisms one makes it so?

The materialist viewpoint is supposed to be limited as the mind is not the arbiter of all existence whereas in the idealist viewpoint the mind is the arbiter, thus anonamlies in the materialist viewpoint can be explained away as ignorance(human limitation). In an idealist viewpoint it seems absurd though to suppose that certain forces operate of which the mind is completely ignorant or unaware of. For if the mind was ignorant of them, they simply would not exist.

That would make them a pluralist, as idealism is a position concerning substance or "stuff".



For the reasons given above, mainly that idealism given its viewpoint suffers too many short coming and anomalies. Also this is a matter of interpretation of phenomenon as part of you, or positing yourself as part of an external world. Thus its not merely like one can stop at the mind and then be satisfied, as then one is positing an interpretation of the raw data based on a certain assumption "they are part of my mind" vs "they are not part of my mind". "They are made of mental substance vs they are made of material susbstance".

That means one cannot simply posit "idealism" as a more parsimonous position based on this argument due to the fact that it and materialism at this point are on equal ground in terms of parsimony. Both are positing that they are made of "something" the idealist merely says "my mind", the materialist "something not in my mind." The argument is then ull because the materialist is not positing extra entities but a given substance to make up the entities already experienced.


In a sense it was as it was positing that things existed before anyone became aware of them existing.

However for the materialist the explanation can stop with physiological and geological analyses whereas with the idealist they have to not only include physiological and geological analyses but the motivations and constructs of the mind itself which underlies and controls the entire process. Idealism is thus the one positing extra entities and mehcanisms and not the materialist. This is because the mind according to the materialist viewpoint is expected to have limitations for which it cannot control, as well as matter that behaves without underlying reasons, whereas the mind in the idealist viewpoint is not supposed to be limited and underly all behavior of entities.