I think for the most part, you have answered your own questions/considerations here. For me, sense is more related to consciousness than a physical feeling. To sense, the ability to feel and be impacted must exist prior to the “touch” of physical reality. So yes, that which impacts will be sensed in someway, not necessarily in a physical way.
Neutrinos, regardless of their detection, impact some aspect of experience. In your examples, you are still attempting to separate what we refer as the immaterial and the material into two types of entities. I assume our distinctions are in an ultimate sense, trivial. They cannot be distinct substances, because the immaterial, per my understanding, is not a substance. In this way, we are still using physical language and understanding to understand that which is not physical.
If I may, I believe existence to be one thing. From our experiential perspective, this existence provides an inner and outer manifestation of itself. Each aspect of the inner and outer is entirely dependent upon itself for its existence. Nothing is separate and without the necessity of another thing. I apologize if this is not clear as I am a bit rushed at this moment, and am trying to write this on a smart phone with great difficulty. I would love to hear your thoughts concerning these ideas, and will have access to an actual computer hopefully by tonight.
Thanks for clearing that up… and I think I would be inclined to agree.
This certainly narrows down the meaning of ‘material’ and ‘immaterial’ - and answers many of the questions I said need to be answered. It tells me, for one thing, that we are rejecting Cartesian Dualism whereby the immaterial and the material (or mind and matter) are indeed treated as two distinct substances. For another thing, it also tells me that we are rejecting any brand of substance dualism, and adopting (perhaps) something more akin to Spinoza’s treatment of substance (i.e. that there can only be one).
For me, being clear like this is what’s important, for now I can be persuaded that your analysis is right on target and little remains for me to disagree on. Of course, if you’ve been following this thread throughout, you should be aware of the many ways of defining the ‘immaterial’, and that if I were to brand myself an immaterialist, I’d be partial to one according to which the material and the immaterial are two distinguishable forms or manifestations of one substance. Any form of dualism more radical than this, I deem untenable.
Well, my first thought is that I would like to hear how you flesh this last point out. It is a little unclear. For one thing, does the inner and outer distinction denote something like the 1st person subjective perspective versus the 3rd person objective one? And when you say that each of these is “dependent upon itself for its existence” does this not implicitely harken back to a form of dualism - as if the ‘inner’ had its own foundation for existence (and thus constitute its own substance) independently from the ‘outer’ which itself has its own foundation for existence (and thereby again consituting its own substance)?
My ideas are very similar to Spinoza’s, though I am a bit more metaphysically inclined to suggest substance as being only a referential provocation, and that it’s true nature is something a bit more akin to an ephemerally oriented reflective image of some sort. A hologram if you will.
I agree wholeheartedly. It seems in order for our minds to participate in this reality, dualistic thinking is an absolute necessity. The mind finds itself in the center of its existence, a mediator of all things presented. From its perspective, everything can be separated.
I apologize for the lack of clarity, and will likely insert more here as my ideas on this subject are a bit premature. Hopefully this explication will help to eradicate some of the obscurity for both of us though, eventually.
I initially would not have described the distinction between the inner and outer to be oppositional, but in fact, it appears that it is.
Because it appears that all experiences are subjective, I wouldn’t describe the inner and outer through the use of subjective/objective; though we could certainly use these terms, they are loaded and will inevitable become murky and cloud our differentiations. Both levels or dimensions (the inner and outer) contain objects, the connection between the two, is the subject. The differentiation comes about through what I understand to be a reflection/reflecting.
I hate to do this, but at this time it’s the only way I can show someone my thoughts as it pertains to this matter.
Picture a coordinate plane. If you can picture one with depth, all the better; if not, its definitely not necessary. Now, draw a perfect, 360 degree circle within the plane around the (0,0) coordinates. It doesn’t matter how many degrees out or how big the circle is, as long as (0,0) is the center. Now, this center, is the subject of experience. The circle, is the full possibility of experience for the subject. The coordinate in itself contains two aspects, the x and y axis’. These axes can be likened to the inner and outer I am attempting to describe. They always exist in reference to each other, and each is necessary to delineate the other. In this way, they can never be separate. You can never know one thing fully without the reference of another. This is why we encounter the “uncertainty” in the “Uncertainty Principle”. I like this visual because, even though these axes represent different dimensions, they are plotted together at every point. Two experiential aspects of the same thing. When you add depth, you get another aspect (though this is just the minds way of adding more depth to the issue here, and its not necessary. We could add infinite aspects). I like to keep it simple, so I just say the inner and outer. I think everyone can identify with the experience of an “inner world” full of inner objects, and likewise a different, yet equally compelling and impacting experience of an “outer world” full of outer objects.
It’s important not to get caught up on the distinction though, lest we begin to forget that once distinguished, we lose sight of the reference, and again give rise to “uncertainty” and arrive right back where we were. Of course though, the mind will play!
So, just for fun, make your coordinate plane infinite. The center can and will only exist for an individual subject, but now, let’s plot other subjects on the plane. Their centers will be in a different place in reference to your circle of experience, but from their perspective, they are actually the center of the infinite plane, and you are plotted somewhere else.
Their x axis can correspond with your y axis, and as such, it would seem their inner, corresponds with your outer. On the surface, this seems ludicrous, but play with the image.
Everything we consider to be our “relative” “outer”, is just as well as someone else’s inner when taken as a coordinate in space time (plotted on our plane; remember both the inner and outer are plotted points (they exist together everywhere on the plane)). More plainly, we experience both the inner and outer of other subjects, but this experience is and always will be in relation to our center. This experience of the inner and outer at each point, from our perspective relative to our center, is what we can term, the whole of our experience.
So actually, I am experiencing you as a point, both your inner and outer. Not as you experience it, because your center is in a different place relative to mine, but all the same I experience the whole “you” from my relative projection and center within my circle of experience. As Hermes (and this quote has been attributed to others as well) said, “God is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere”.
Also, for clarification, when I said “each aspect of the inner and outer is entirely dependent upon itself for its existence”, I mean taken together, as they are one thing. Nothing can be taken away on either experienced “side”, without something being affected somewhere else. Once again I apologize for the lack of lucidity.
So then inner and outer are like two aspects or “dimension” of how we (our minds) relate to the world. We could see a tree and think of it as an object in the world (outer) or a visual sensation produced in the mind (inner), but what you seem to be saying is that neither one can be considered without the other. The tree is both an outer object and an inner experience - each one being a different aspect or dimension of one thing. Is this what you mean?
You are interpreting the sensory input. That’s all you can do. The senses don’t interpret. The brain does not initiate thought from nothing – it does not create. Thoughts come from outside of you. The mind is outside of you. It is the mind outside of you (the world mind – an outside agency) that contains all the knowledge that feeds the intellect and forms you. You are making use of that (sphere of accumulating knowledge passed down through the generations) to create an identity, to assign a meaning to ’you’.
When thought is born, you are born. There is no entity ‘you’ that goes about creating objects. The subject cannot create the objects. The objects create the subject or rather the knowledge you project onto the objects creates you the subject. The important thing to realize is that the knowledge you are using to interpret the sensory input does not belong to you. It is not mine or yours. It is there in the sphere of world knowledge – all second hand stuff – and each of us picks and chooses from that. Sure it’s arbitrary, but we need it for purposes of communication and on that level only. To presume there are elements of reality there is to be exposed to self deception.
Yes, that is absolutely what I mean. Our distinctions are arbitrary when considering the unitary experience of the whole. The distinctions being a secondary inception, inevitably obscure the actual essence of the experience, hence our inability to fully explain it when we view it from such a perspective.
I almost agree, with a few caveats. The physical, for instance the brain and body, are just as much thought as they are physical. So not only are the thoughts coming from outside of you, they are you, physically. What we consider ourselves to be is both ‘physically’ and ‘mentally’ informed by what we experience to be outside and inside of us. They simply ‘show-up’ for us dualistically.
I believe furthermore, that yes, there is no entity that is ‘you’ or ‘me’, but “I” (the point in space referenced to this center of experience) do exist as a force, both creating and being created simultaneously, just as everything else is. It is a co-creation/arising that this existence is.
The thought we are talking about is created by the knowledge that is given to us. So the thought is a self-perpetuating mechanism. When I use the word self, I don’t use it in the sense used by philosophers and metaphysicians – like a self-starter, auto-perpetuating. The body is not interested in that at all. The actions of the body are responses to the stimuli, and it has no separate, independent existence of its own.
Without experience the self would not exist. Without the memory of certain experiences the self would and could be something or some one else. If the self is a self perpetuating thought then it is selecting certain events to remember and others to forget to further create itself. The experience happened only if it alters the self. The self decides. Or that is to say memory creates the self and self decides what to remember.
The burden of proof rests on positive proof, not negative. The question is therefore a little silly.
Prove there is no Santa!
A materialist has no need to prove the non-existence of anything. The claim of materialism is the quest to assert that the investigation of the material world leads to explanation of phenomena; and so it does.
Clearly this quest has grown to include matter and energy; that matter has various states of energy due to its position, charge and motion. So far it has done a great job, casting aside the superstitions and 'divine" or immaterial causes, replacing them with clearly demonstrable and even replicable explanations.
It remains to be seen if the residue of immaterial or spiritual causes claimed by others can be proven. As yet not a single non-material cause has been validated.
So on the one hand materialism continues to be useful in debunking all other methods, and the use of non-materialistic explanations has continued to fail.
The burden of proof rests on he who wants to convince another of his stance.
Then don’t take up the challenge… oh, wait, you’re about to:
The success of the material sciences as explanation for material phenomena is a closed system. Yes, material causes prove to be excellent explanations for material effects. But prove to me that an invisible ghost psychically communicating with another invisible ghost isn’t also a causal chain of events that goes on all the time in the midst of the visible material world.
Sometimes yes, for kids’s sake. In adult kids the distinction between de-facto and de-jure interpretations of burdens of proof, is noted by arbiters, and judges alike. This is not a real court, this is a court of public opinion. Even in the court of the scientific community, there is variance here.
Okay. So for example - what is it exactly that I am supposed to disprove? And what makes anyone think I have to disprove a thing to validate a position of materialism?
In the case of de facto, people are not in the habit of feeling obliged to have to disprove every fiction and fantasy that people can imagine.
If a black cat crosses my path and a person tells me it is bad luck, I’m not obligated in any way to refute or accept that, not even if i get run over by a car five minutes later. There is nothing that causally links the two events.
Human progress is not measured by people believing is superstitions, but by finding direct causative links that accord with and help build a picture of natural laws.
In the case of de jure,, I am not asking you to disprove that you did not pay someone to murder your neighbour. And law provides that you do not have to - and for very good reason. It is simply not possible to disprove a thing that did not happen. You can try to say, that you did not pay anyone anything, but once again there is always the possibility that you had some cash and met a someone. No one can account for every second of the day. Think it through.
The first think you ask,“how”, “when”, and “where” were you supposed to have done this thing? The burden of proof is not with you, but with the accuser to state the case.
Where there are specific claims of ghosts, and spiritualist mediums communicating with the dead, the number of successful de-bunkings are great. Not once has any claim to spirituality survived the simplest test to verify it. And for generations people have provided cash rewards for any inexplicable event. The Great Houdini’s cash offer was never taken, and Randi’s million dollar challenge is still in the bank.
On the other hand the claims of science are replicable, demonstrable and can be verified by anyone at anytime.
Take your choice!
Nope, but I feel no need to convince you otherwise.
No, but I can’t prove they aren’t real and neither can you (plus they’e material).
Oh, it’s not about validating materialism, it’s about falsifying immaterialism. What I disagree with is the all too common line (which I believe comes out of logical positivism) that goes: if the existence of X can’t be proved, X doesn’t exist. ← This is bullshit.
Even the results of particle accelerator experiments?
On top of that, de facto has actually further watered down to a lower threshold of by virtue of public policy. It dictates in certain narrow cases. For instance, no one argues about spirituality anymore, generally, but in some cases where the application of believes in spirituality is well warranted, it is otherwise. Such can be the case for the existence of God. It would be cruel and unusual punishment for people to present a counter proof predicates that, in those cases, God would imply a need to invent Him. A person brought up in a traditionally Muslim belief system, and is at death’s door, to point to the absurd notion of such belief, would counter indicated.
It does not create a burden , but it does imply the exercise of humanity and compassion.
Not so, just standing up to the challenge like I said I would… but you seem to be saying you’re not even taking up the challenge. I’m wondering what you’re doing here then. Is it just to point out how silly the question is?
Which is different from saying it can be proved not to exist.
According to the Wikipedia article on logical positivism, “only statements verifiable either logically or empirically would be cognitively meaningful.” So to say anything about an unverifiable (or unfalsifiable) entity, including that it exists, would be meaningless. Ergo, if it can’t be proven, it can’t be said to exist. Some take that line a step further and claim that if it can’t be said to exist, it can be said not to exist, which is what I’m calling bullshit if for no other reason than what LP claims is that nothing can be said of its existence or non-existence… but I’m not a logical positivist.
Hmm… well then maybe I’ll get my 5 year old daughter to take a jaunt over to our local particle accelerator and see if she can replicate the splitting of a proton into two up quarks and one down quark.
gib,
I’m not sure the word ‘exist’ can be defined in a way that makes the question non-trivial. You could define ‘exist’ in a way that it makes it true by definition that immaterial things don’t exist, and you could define it in another way that makes it trivially true that they do. Do you have a definition of ‘exist’ in mind such that the question you pose is controversial as opposed to solved by definition?