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I think Materialism is the Flat Earth model of our era. I think everyone intuitively knows that consciousness can't come from material things, but we convince

I think Materialism is the Flat Earth model of our era. I think everyone intuitively knows that consciousness can't come from material things, but we convince ourselves otherwise. Even science (e.g. with the observer effects of quantum physics) demonstrates this, but we try to find other ways it can't be true. An awesome book that does a great job logically explaining how consciousness may be fundamental is "Biocentrism" by Robert Lanza

maxerickson 11y ago
Your characterization of the observer effect begs the question.
ThomPete 11y ago
Agree but thats also because the we don't have the mental tools to deal with many of the consequences of this realization. Punishment, guilt, crime just to name a few. Over time we will find new ways to explain it so that it makes sense. But my guess is that it will be aided mostly be technology.
- nhaehnle 11y ago
  Why would an answer to this philosophical debate change anything about how we deal with crime?
jjaredsimpson 11y ago
Materialism explains the world however. Flat earth model clearly doesn't and was obviously false even in antiquity. What model does dualism provide and how can I use it to make predictions about how consciousness is embodied in physical beings. Why is it useful to presuppose the existence of a complete separate substance to explain consciousness. To be brief dualism is woo woo. >I think everyone intuitively knows that consciousness can't come from material things, but we convince ourselves otherwise. Ok, I'll make a sweeping unsupported statement too. Dualists have limited imagination and flawed understanding of the nature of information and computation as well as a penchant for magical thinking.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Flat earth was right enough to get someone from village a to b it just wasn't good enough to get us to the end of the world or into space. Also it mostly a wrong idea that flat earth was a popular theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth
  - jjaredsimpson 11y ago
    Yes flat earth is more like a first approximation to a better theory. Materialism isn't like that imo. I believe materialism to be correct.
    - ThomPete 11y ago
      Materialism is also just an approximation IMO.
- ca98am79 11y ago
  My comment wasn't about dualism, it was just about the idea that matter doesn't create consciousness. Consciousness can create matter, and that is not dualism. And what is more magical thinking than the idea that consciousness can come from a ball of matter? To me, that is much more the crazier idea
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nhaehnle 11y ago
    Precedents for surprising meta-structures arising from the interaction of a huge number of smaller objects with complex interactions are playing an increasing role in science (think Wolfram's book, biology and the understanding of the genome, and material science for example). Discoveries of completely unknown fundamental laws of physics that have a significant in-your-face and obvious impact on our everyday lives are playing a decreasing role in science (depending on where you draw the line, one might even argue that the last such discovery was made by Newton). What you call crazy has become increasingly normal :)
woodchuck64 11y ago
Are you contrasting Materialism with Physicalism? If so, yes.
Florin_Andrei 11y ago
You know, it's hard to argue against current scientific consensus. Except for one thing: taken to its logical end, materialism is bound to conclude that consciousness is an illusion, as it did already - see Dan Dennett. That is the strangest thing I've ever heard. Everything else may or may not be an illusion, this table, this computer, the walls around me, and the whole world. But the fact that I exist and am aware is the only true given. If awareness is an illusion, now you can ask 'who is having that illusion' and it's just turtles all the way down from there. Still, even this does not refute any of the scientific facts so far determined. What has been measured and deduced correctly, must be correct. Everything we know about neuroscience must be true. It's just the last step that seems very, very problematic.
- jjaredsimpson 11y ago
  Materialism doesn't imply that consciousness is an illusion. It only states that the world is made of one substance. There is no second substance that creates mind, spirit, soul, etc. Subjective personal experience is a side effect of an long running information process located inside a meat computer. Why is occurs and what is "really is" are scientific questions that are incompatible with materialism. Presupposing a second substance is magical thinking.
  - ca98am79 11y ago
    Magical thinking is believing a ball of meat can create something as profound as consciousness. You don't need a "second substance" to think this way - consciousness could be the fundamental "substance" of the universe
    - vectorpush 11y ago
      >Magical thinking is believing a ball of meat can create something as profound as consciousness. Reducing the complexities of the brain to "a ball of meat" is absurd. That's like saying it's magical thinking to suggest that a fragment of silicon can predict the weather. Further, there isn't any reason to believe that consciousness is any more profound or fundamentally distinct from any other physical phenomenon in the universe, especially because consciousness is a prerequisite to the consideration of its own nature; such reasoning is akin to thinking that the universe must have been carefully designed because it's so perfectly tuned to the temperament of complex life, when there's literally no other possibility if life actually exists to wonder about why it's here.
cryoshon 11y ago
Why can't consciousness come from material things? We only have evidence of one kind of substance, which is material substance.
- ca98am79 11y ago
  I think consciousness is too profound. Matter has never created anything like it because there isn't anything like it. Also it answers a lot of unresolved questions when you just say that consciousness is the fundamental substance that creates everything else. As one example (of many) - how is it that all sentient beings experience now at the same time? There is no logical reason why this should be the case and no easy answer to the question
  - Kalium 11y ago
    Friend, I fear you've strayed from science into philosophy.
    - chadzawistowski 11y ago
      To debate materialism is to do philosophy rather than science. I think we started there. :)
- ca98am79 11y ago
  and what about other things, like gravity and electromagnetism? These are not created by matter
  - jjaredsimpson 11y ago
    Electromagnetism is a the effect of a physical field that permeates all of space. Fields are real things, not just useful calculators. Some of Max Tegmark's writing as well as Lawrence Krauss' have describe gravity as the "cost" or the thing that is balanced by the expansion of space. The expansion of space having been driven by another as yet undescribed field. All things are physical. Consciousness is a side effect of information processing. Seems like we just have fundamentally different assumptions about what can be a valid belief. I don't just disagree with you. I think your belief about consciousness isn't even well formed. I don't even think there could exist evidence to support a belief like "consciousness creates matter".
return0 11y ago
> I think everyone intuitively knows. Confusing intuition with the truth there.
vectorpush 11y ago
The observer effect has nothing to do with consciousness.
WalterSear 11y ago
You don't understand our current understanding of the quantum observer effect.

maxerickson 11y ago

Your characterization of the observer effect begs the question.

ThomPete 11y ago

Agree but thats also because the we don't have the mental tools to deal with many of the consequences of this realization. Punishment, guilt, crime just to name a few. Over time we will find new ways to explain it so that it makes sense. But my guess is that it will be aided mostly be technology.

nhaehnle 11y ago
Why would an answer to this philosophical debate change anything about how we deal with crime?

jjaredsimpson 11y ago

Materialism explains the world however. Flat earth model clearly doesn't and was obviously false even in antiquity. What model does dualism provide and how can I use it to make predictions about how consciousness is embodied in physical beings. Why is it useful to presuppose the existence of a complete separate substance to explain consciousness. To be brief dualism is woo woo. >I think everyone intuitively knows that consciousness can't come from material things, but we convince ourselves otherwise. Ok, I'll make a sweeping unsupported statement too. Dualists have limited imagination and flawed understanding of the nature of information and computation as well as a penchant for magical thinking.

ThomPete 11y ago
Flat earth was right enough to get someone from village a to b it just wasn't good enough to get us to the end of the world or into space. Also it mostly a wrong idea that flat earth was a popular theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth
- jjaredsimpson 11y ago
  Yes flat earth is more like a first approximation to a better theory. Materialism isn't like that imo. I believe materialism to be correct.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Materialism is also just an approximation IMO.
ca98am79 11y ago
My comment wasn't about dualism, it was just about the idea that matter doesn't create consciousness. Consciousness can create matter, and that is not dualism. And what is more magical thinking than the idea that consciousness can come from a ball of matter? To me, that is much more the crazier idea
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nhaehnle 11y ago
  Precedents for surprising meta-structures arising from the interaction of a huge number of smaller objects with complex interactions are playing an increasing role in science (think Wolfram's book, biology and the understanding of the genome, and material science for example). Discoveries of completely unknown fundamental laws of physics that have a significant in-your-face and obvious impact on our everyday lives are playing a decreasing role in science (depending on where you draw the line, one might even argue that the last such discovery was made by Newton). What you call crazy has become increasingly normal :)

woodchuck64 11y ago

Are you contrasting Materialism with Physicalism? If so, yes.

Florin_Andrei 11y ago

You know, it's hard to argue against current scientific consensus. Except for one thing: taken to its logical end, materialism is bound to conclude that consciousness is an illusion, as it did already - see Dan Dennett. That is the strangest thing I've ever heard. Everything else may or may not be an illusion, this table, this computer, the walls around me, and the whole world. But the fact that I exist and am aware is the only true given. If awareness is an illusion, now you can ask 'who is having that illusion' and it's just turtles all the way down from there. Still, even this does not refute any of the scientific facts so far determined. What has been measured and deduced correctly, must be correct. Everything we know about neuroscience must be true. It's just the last step that seems very, very problematic.

jjaredsimpson 11y ago
Materialism doesn't imply that consciousness is an illusion. It only states that the world is made of one substance. There is no second substance that creates mind, spirit, soul, etc. Subjective personal experience is a side effect of an long running information process located inside a meat computer. Why is occurs and what is "really is" are scientific questions that are incompatible with materialism. Presupposing a second substance is magical thinking.
- ca98am79 11y ago
  Magical thinking is believing a ball of meat can create something as profound as consciousness. You don't need a "second substance" to think this way - consciousness could be the fundamental "substance" of the universe
  - vectorpush 11y ago
    >Magical thinking is believing a ball of meat can create something as profound as consciousness. Reducing the complexities of the brain to "a ball of meat" is absurd. That's like saying it's magical thinking to suggest that a fragment of silicon can predict the weather. Further, there isn't any reason to believe that consciousness is any more profound or fundamentally distinct from any other physical phenomenon in the universe, especially because consciousness is a prerequisite to the consideration of its own nature; such reasoning is akin to thinking that the universe must have been carefully designed because it's so perfectly tuned to the temperament of complex life, when there's literally no other possibility if life actually exists to wonder about why it's here.

cryoshon 11y ago

Why can't consciousness come from material things? We only have evidence of one kind of substance, which is material substance.

ca98am79 11y ago
I think consciousness is too profound. Matter has never created anything like it because there isn't anything like it. Also it answers a lot of unresolved questions when you just say that consciousness is the fundamental substance that creates everything else. As one example (of many) - how is it that all sentient beings experience now at the same time? There is no logical reason why this should be the case and no easy answer to the question
- Kalium 11y ago
  Friend, I fear you've strayed from science into philosophy.
  - chadzawistowski 11y ago
    To debate materialism is to do philosophy rather than science. I think we started there. :)
ca98am79 11y ago
and what about other things, like gravity and electromagnetism? These are not created by matter
- jjaredsimpson 11y ago
  Electromagnetism is a the effect of a physical field that permeates all of space. Fields are real things, not just useful calculators. Some of Max Tegmark's writing as well as Lawrence Krauss' have describe gravity as the "cost" or the thing that is balanced by the expansion of space. The expansion of space having been driven by another as yet undescribed field. All things are physical. Consciousness is a side effect of information processing. Seems like we just have fundamentally different assumptions about what can be a valid belief. I don't just disagree with you. I think your belief about consciousness isn't even well formed. I don't even think there could exist evidence to support a belief like "consciousness creates matter".

return0 11y ago

> I think everyone intuitively knows. Confusing intuition with the truth there.

vectorpush 11y ago

The observer effect has nothing to do with consciousness.

WalterSear 11y ago

You don't understand our current understanding of the quantum observer effect.