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"Useful" were the things that have allowed us to create new technologies: from internet to medicine to rockets. Belief in idealism not only did not produce anyt

by chr1 2y ago

"Useful" were the things that have allowed us to create new technologies: from internet to medicine to rockets. Belief in idealism not only did not produce anything, it did not even make any measurable impact. Parts of the work of Aristotle that were based on idealism are the parts that have been discarded as hindering understanding of physics or plain wrong.

strogonoff 2y ago
> medicine Sciences that directly concern human flourishing (medicine, psychology, sociology, economy) are either largely stuck in the middle ages (we can barely make things work reliably, and when they occasionally do we are not quite sure why), or in fact invoke materialism-inconsistent ideas to various degrees (e.g., stress being recognised as a cause or contributing factor of numerous diseases). > Belief in idealism not only did not produce anything And what has belief in the materialism produced? Idealism, materialism, dualism, etc. concern theory of mind first and foremost, and would likely be irrelevant to “producing” whatever artefacts you were thinking of. > Parts of the work of Aristotle that were based on idealism are the parts that have been discarded as hindering understanding of physics or plain wrong. Let’s unpack this. 1. Artistotle’s takes on soul and so on are not based on idealism. (Check them out. They have much more in common with Cartesian dualism than with what we refer to idealism, but of course could be based on neither given both were fleshed out after his time.) 2. The parts you refer to were not discarded—on the contrary, they are believed by, probably, most people on the planet today (who follow some Abrahamic religion). 3. Many prominent Western scientists indirectly believe or believed in Aristotle’s takes, too—by being Christian. There is no conflict in a scientist holding that belief if you understand scientific method, its scope, its purpose, and lack of explanatory powers: natural sciences do not concern themselves with non-falsifiable questions such as “why things exist?”, “do I see things as they actually are?”, “what makes me myself?”, “why do I think?”, “does consciousness arise from atoms?”, and so on. In the framework of scientific method, questions like those cannot have a wrong answer—the questions themselves merely lie out of scope. Obviously, that does not make those questions unimportant—it only makes scientific method not a suitable tool for investigating them at this time.
- chr1 2y ago
  Why is stress contributing to diseases materialism-inconsistent? In all cases it has a physical mechanism through which the disease is caused. > Idealism, materialism, dualism, etc. concern theory of mind Idealism/dualism used to be about other things too. Stepping away from them allowed us to find physics. Now it is concerned with theory of mind only because the other things are explained by physics. > believed in Aristotle’s takes, too—by being Christian. I was talking about the actually measurable things he was saying about physics, his takes on soul being successful is irrelevant, since we still do not have any experiment proving that soul exists. > “does consciousness arise from atoms?” Science is concerned with the question "whether there exists a Turing machine, output of which is indistinguishable from behavior of a human". This is what most scientists and materialists mean when talking about conciousness. The other questions are specifically crafted in a way to not have answers, so that idealism/dualism etc. can pretend that they do something useful, while not doing anything.
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    You seem to insist on painting dualism/idealism/… as a contender to physics. This is a category error that can only be explained by implicitly treating physics as religion. It is not uncommon—many of us are from a generation that is freshly atheist after generations of religious adherence, so once you encounter physics it is tempting to use it as an outlet for all that bottled up religiosity—but is wrong. Physics is orthogonal to materialism and idealism. The core of any natural science (including physics)—empirical observation—implies the existence of the observer as ground truth, but that’s as far as it goes; beyond that is philosophy (or, indeed, religion). > In all cases it has a physical mechanism through which the disease is caused If the aforementioned stress is the root cause of the physical consequences, then that is materialism-inconsistent. > Idealism/dualism used to be about other things too. ? > Stepping away from them allowed us to find physics. This is incorrect. The fact that many (or most) natural scientists that outlined and progressed physics as we know it today, Faraday, Newton, Mendel, Euler, Maxwell, all the way back to Aristotle, were some form of dualist (mostly Christian) is well-documented. > I was talking about the actually measurable things he was saying about physics Such as? > since we still do not have any experiment proving that soul exists There is no experiment that can prove that materialism, idealism or dualism are correct. Those questions are not in scope of natural sciences for that exact reason ;) > Science is concerned with the question "whether there exists a Turing machine, output of which is indistinguishable from behavior of a human" That is not natural science, that is philosophy and theory of mind. See behaviourist or illusionist theories of consciousness—there are scientists who believe in them, too. Have you heard of the Chinese room thought experiment or the concept of philosophical zombies?

by chr1 2y ago

strogonoff 2y ago

> medicine Sciences that directly concern human flourishing (medicine, psychology, sociology, economy) are either largely stuck in the middle ages (we can barely make things work reliably, and when they occasionally do we are not quite sure why), or in fact invoke materialism-inconsistent ideas to various degrees (e.g., stress being recognised as a cause or contributing factor of numerous diseases). > Belief in idealism not only did not produce anything And what has belief in the materialism produced? Idealism, materialism, dualism, etc. concern theory of mind first and foremost, and would likely be irrelevant to “producing” whatever artefacts you were thinking of. > Parts of the work of Aristotle that were based on idealism are the parts that have been discarded as hindering understanding of physics or plain wrong. Let’s unpack this. 1. Artistotle’s takes on soul and so on are not based on idealism. (Check them out. They have much more in common with Cartesian dualism than with what we refer to idealism, but of course could be based on neither given both were fleshed out after his time.) 2. The parts you refer to were not discarded—on the contrary, they are believed by, probably, most people on the planet today (who follow some Abrahamic religion). 3. Many prominent Western scientists indirectly believe or believed in Aristotle’s takes, too—by being Christian. There is no conflict in a scientist holding that belief if you understand scientific method, its scope, its purpose, and lack of explanatory powers: natural sciences do not concern themselves with non-falsifiable questions such as “why things exist?”, “do I see things as they actually are?”, “what makes me myself?”, “why do I think?”, “does consciousness arise from atoms?”, and so on. In the framework of scientific method, questions like those cannot have a wrong answer—the questions themselves merely lie out of scope. Obviously, that does not make those questions unimportant—it only makes scientific method not a suitable tool for investigating them at this time.

chr1 2y ago
Why is stress contributing to diseases materialism-inconsistent? In all cases it has a physical mechanism through which the disease is caused. > Idealism, materialism, dualism, etc. concern theory of mind Idealism/dualism used to be about other things too. Stepping away from them allowed us to find physics. Now it is concerned with theory of mind only because the other things are explained by physics. > believed in Aristotle’s takes, too—by being Christian. I was talking about the actually measurable things he was saying about physics, his takes on soul being successful is irrelevant, since we still do not have any experiment proving that soul exists. > “does consciousness arise from atoms?” Science is concerned with the question "whether there exists a Turing machine, output of which is indistinguishable from behavior of a human". This is what most scientists and materialists mean when talking about conciousness. The other questions are specifically crafted in a way to not have answers, so that idealism/dualism etc. can pretend that they do something useful, while not doing anything.
- strogonoff 2y ago
  You seem to insist on painting dualism/idealism/… as a contender to physics. This is a category error that can only be explained by implicitly treating physics as religion. It is not uncommon—many of us are from a generation that is freshly atheist after generations of religious adherence, so once you encounter physics it is tempting to use it as an outlet for all that bottled up religiosity—but is wrong. Physics is orthogonal to materialism and idealism. The core of any natural science (including physics)—empirical observation—implies the existence of the observer as ground truth, but that’s as far as it goes; beyond that is philosophy (or, indeed, religion). > In all cases it has a physical mechanism through which the disease is caused If the aforementioned stress is the root cause of the physical consequences, then that is materialism-inconsistent. > Idealism/dualism used to be about other things too. ? > Stepping away from them allowed us to find physics. This is incorrect. The fact that many (or most) natural scientists that outlined and progressed physics as we know it today, Faraday, Newton, Mendel, Euler, Maxwell, all the way back to Aristotle, were some form of dualist (mostly Christian) is well-documented. > I was talking about the actually measurable things he was saying about physics Such as? > since we still do not have any experiment proving that soul exists There is no experiment that can prove that materialism, idealism or dualism are correct. Those questions are not in scope of natural sciences for that exact reason ;) > Science is concerned with the question "whether there exists a Turing machine, output of which is indistinguishable from behavior of a human" That is not natural science, that is philosophy and theory of mind. See behaviourist or illusionist theories of consciousness—there are scientists who believe in them, too. Have you heard of the Chinese room thought experiment or the concept of philosophical zombies?