I hope this comment is actually readable, because someone, totally ignoring HN guidelines on flagging, keeps downvoting and flagging my comments seemingly just

I hope this comment is actually readable, because someone, totally ignoring HN guidelines on flagging, keeps downvoting and flagging my comments seemingly just because they disagree. I'd prefer if they engaged in the debate instead of simply shutting it down so that none of us can learn anything. I'm not saying it's impossible to know anything about the world, I'm making an internal critique of your worldview. I'm saying that in your worldview, which seems to be pure materialism, it is impossible to justify epistemic claims about the world. To reduce thousands of years of philosophy to "stoned conversations at 3am" is disingenuous and, forgive me, points to a lack of understanding of the history of philosophy on your part. These aren't just points I'm pulling out of thin air, I'm simply rehashing dialogues and arguments made by the likes of Aristotle and David Hume - arguments which have not been refuted since, at least in the public domain. I urge you to read about Hume's theory of Induction, and the Is/Ought distinction. You could also do well to read Aristotle's dialogue with the sophists. >While that's great for stoned conversations at 3am, it's not very useful. What is "useful" in a purely materialist worldview? How can the objective "usefulness" of something be ascertained in a world where nothing objective exists, since universals and objectivity are in the domain of metaphysics? > If I don't make such assumptions -- if I just conclude that I can never know anything about the world, not even provisionally -- then what's the point in doing anything? Exactly! You've hit the nail on the head. In a purely material universe, where to know anything is impossible without "pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps" (so to speak) in terms of metaphysics, there is absolutely no reason to do anything. The universe becomes totally without meaning, aka "Disteleological". But then this creates a paradox - if everything is meaningless, even the claim that everything is meaningless becomes, itself, meaningless. This is an impossible position to hold, and is self refuting. So the only other position we can hold is that there are metaphysical concepts, and that they do hold ontological status (they exist) and relate to our universe. To suggest that consciousness, which is as invisible and untouchable as logic, yet has a similar effect on the physical world, isn't one among these metaphysical concepts is absurd.