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Scientific materialism is reductionist - it implies we are random bags noise. You can't have life, love, sorrow, consciousness, wisdom etc. from a bunch of atom

by jariel 7y ago

Scientific materialism is reductionist - it implies we are random bags noise. You can't have life, love, sorrow, consciousness, wisdom etc. from a bunch of atomic lego blocks working together according to some rules. The very assumption that the universe must be made up of 'laws that act on matter/energy' literally rules out our own existence as sentient beings, because it implies we are just randomness. It's a paradox because most people who use materialism as their default perspective (most of us do, daily), also believe in their own life, will, consciousness. The OP did exactly this: he's describing the objective universe has 'having no meaning' because it's just a bag of noise, but then implying that it does have value 'to us'. Well, 'us' the 'observer' is obviously not accounted for in the materialist, reductionist view, and yet it's there and we all know it. I believe that scientific materialism for this reason, represents a nihilist philosophy, or at least they are closely related.

boomboomsubban 7y ago
>You can't have life, love, sorrow, consciousness, wisdom etc. from a bunch of atomic lego blocks working together according to some rules. All of those are ways we have developed to explain the sensations we have experienced according to those rules. We act as though we have free will and consciousness because they are the terms we have developed to describe how we think we act. They can not be described by physics because they were theories developed with very poor data available, not truths that need to be described. >Well, 'us' the 'observer' is obviously not accounted for in the materialist, reductionist view, and yet it's there and we all know it. "Us" is not an independent observer, we are a part of the universe. The universe can give itself as much meaning as it wants, that doesn't create an external meaning to the universe.

by jariel 7y ago

boomboomsubban 7y ago

>You can't have life, love, sorrow, consciousness, wisdom etc. from a bunch of atomic lego blocks working together according to some rules. All of those are ways we have developed to explain the sensations we have experienced according to those rules. We act as though we have free will and consciousness because they are the terms we have developed to describe how we think we act. They can not be described by physics because they were theories developed with very poor data available, not truths that need to be described. >Well, 'us' the 'observer' is obviously not accounted for in the materialist, reductionist view, and yet it's there and we all know it. "Us" is not an independent observer, we are a part of the universe. The universe can give itself as much meaning as it wants, that doesn't create an external meaning to the universe.