I cited Qur’an just as you cited Ithaka: not as an argument. It was expiation for my subsequent dark ethical questions on the Pleasure Principle..
Citing peer literature wasn’t a precondition of debate. This would be APPEAL TO AUTHORITY - arbitrary enforcement of other people’s views in closed debate
MY SAYING “MATERIALISM IS IMMEDIATE DEATH, DITHERING IS ILLOGICAL”:
Life is finite, you will die. Hence the Absurdists. They, however, reject nihilism / suicide and embrace passion, rebellion. This works in affluent society but the poor know the horrors of passion & rebellion (psychopathic crackhead gangs etc).
If you will die eventually, then why not die now?
Your answers seem to be:
Honour (Virtue, nomoi)
Helping others (Moral acts)
Pleasure
Specifically “good pleasure”
But:
- The goodness in those is mere sentiment, without material basis, perception without objective reality. ← SENTIMENT-AS-COGNITION IS SUBJECTIVE - effectively APPEAL TO EMOTION FALLACY if imposed on others, because emotions are subjective in lieu of objective logic.
- Perceptions themselves cannot be shown to arise from matter. ← SENTIMENT-FROM-MATTER IS THUS WEAK ARGUMENT. (REIFICATION FALLACY is to ascribe consciousness to a concept, e.g. saying Evolution wants us to survive - isn’t ascribing life to a material process Reification Fallacy?)
A stronger argument is: Suicide.
- It’s more elegant (not an oversimplification fallacy, natural death is objectively the end)
- Prolonging life = Appeal to Emotion (= arguing from sentiment) + Reification (= arguing a material basis for sentiment) fallacies. Sentimental reason to delay death = Fancy, romance. Sentiment is nullified by death and so Suicide is a reasonable step to reach the inevitable without dithering, dithering being unnecessary, sentimental.
- Also see #3, below - sentiment is nullified by death, hard cash becomes paramount.
Please explain where l was arbitary?
Further:
#1: YOU SAY: Which materialistic philosopher makes a claim that life becomes romance?
MY ANSWER: I have reasoned it.
#1: You dislike me saying pleasure is a bad pivot for life
MY ANSWER: I have given two very bad cases of the Pleasure Principle, it’s daily news
#2: YOU SAY: Every pleasure in overdose turns eventually to pain, citing examples of drug use.
You then state: Logic dictates no pleasure in large amounts remains pleasure
MY ANSWER: Drug overdose is a subset of drug use. Heavy drug use doesn’t have to become any greater pain than anything else in life.
Also, it seems NON SEQUITUR that pleasure must fade when in large quantity.
#3: You correctly state nothing will stop the executioner. Not Epicurus, not religion.
MY ANSWER: IF A MEXICAN CARTEL EXECUTIONER WERE ABOUT TO BEHEAD YOU, WHICH WOULD YOU OFFER?
- An Epicurean tract memorised
- A verse of the Qur’an memorised
- Tell him God is 3 in 1
- Money
Surely (4). The rest is sentiment, without material basis. In this moment of absolute physical peril to physical existence, you WILL offer physical money to ransom your life.
Thus: sentiment is nullified by death.
YOU SAY: You’re a subjectivist.
I SAY: You acknowledge there is no objective Criterion.
Schizophrenic: kills a schoolboy because aliens Soros triumvirate Kallergyi Plan
Psychiatrist: Recommends whole life hospitalisation.
Schizophrenic: Psychiatrists are tools of elites
^^^ Moral subjectivism.
YOU SAY: Regarding my inferring “consciousness arose from brain activity”: you actually meant “Without brain activity there are no sensations.”
I SAY: You correct what was actually a good argument. Maybe you meant the same thing? Sensations = consciousness? However, a braindead person can have sensations if you refer to physical reactions i.e. unconscious sensation, nociception.
YOU SAY: Regarding my saying at death everything’s in place, so why does life end? You say: “The process of death is well described in biology”
I SAY: Wrong, l think. Death seems poorly understood. Otherwise we could prevent it. We know what happens after death, not at the precise moment of death (?).
#5: I SAY: You see no proof either way of consciousness post mortem.
I SAY: Tacitly it makes a materialist theory of consciousness unfalsifiable and thus fiat. (Religion too, but beyond this debate)
#6: I SAY: I don’t understand your response. Maybe you just admitted that you cannot show consciousness can arise from matter. I am talking about biological matter by the way.
This admission would make a materialist theory of consciousness baseless, because matter must be its base.
#7: YOU ADMIT there’s no material basis of consciousness because good or evil pleasure lack physical correlates. BUT you earlier argued sentiment has basis in biological matter, thus the difference between good and evil must be rooted in matter. Instead, you categorically reject that good and evil can be matter-based. You have contradicted yourself and reaffirmed that materialist morality is subjective, seemingly arbitrary.
#8: I SAY: Consciousness miraculously appeared. You rightly say l’m jumping to conclusions, but then do the same: You admit you cannot show consciousness arose from matter. Yet you have faith that it does.
Calling it a miracle OR natural is unfalsifiable.
Choosing either unfalsifiable option ill befits a materialist, you must be rooted in hard data even if you feel the outcome of consciousness (moral deeds done by a subjective individual) is subjective.
You even categorically state: “everything is physical.”, but you’ve not evidenced this, only something about brain death, which you explained incorrectly (saying: brain death means “no sensations”).
YOU CONCLUDE: My arguments are faith not logic
I SAY: List which? The one about consciousness being miraculous was bait, the ripened argument is given in Question #8 above and it’s reasoned.
I’ve demonstrated, by logic, reason, or as statement of fact:
(I) There is no objective morality
(II) Sentiment has no basis in matter
(III) Good and evil have no corresponding material form, let alone a dimorphism
(IV) Your views on consciousness / sentiment arising from matter, are unfalisifiable, thus a matter of faith
(V) The finality of death trumps all these deniable uncertainties and subjective views - death is undeniable.
You agree with (I)
For (II & III) You have self-contradicted by saying sentiment has basis in matter; cognition of good and evil are sentiment - but you reject that they have physical correlates in matter.
For (IV) You implicitly have faith in consciousness arising from matter.