Why is materialism so popular?

[eyesinthedark]

Maybe. Do you have any statistic? (Just curious a bit)

I heard Europe especially and many other parts of the western world are increasing in all forms of irreligiosity. Look at Russia and China, just a few years ago, they were entirely atheist, though I’m not sure about now. When/where else has this happend, in recorded history?

I know. I’ve read some (or more) of your posts and replied a few times, I guess.
As for volchok, he is here. So, you can read what he’s got to say.

If you want, you can read this thread, too.

He/she seems pretty hardnosed about materialism and absolutism/objectivism, which is fine, of course, something is nothing to nothing, being exists in interaction, it does not exist on it’s own, therefore, there is no in and of itself, no independence/isolation.

[eyesinthedark]

Well, so far, I’ve never found any definite/absolute/clear-cut separation.
I mean, I don’t know how to draw the line that separate me and the rest, even in the physical sense, for example.
The air inside my lungs, is it part of me or not? How about oxygen absorbed in the blood stream?
And I don’t think we can separate material from non-material.
I asked this to people here, but I don’t remember anyone answering this.

A dog is not me, a dog is a dog, or put it this way, a dog is less me than my nose (Analogue Dualism).

My preferred way of seeing things is what I call “awareness perspective”, and I take low-level awareness as the base for focusing, comparing focuses and evaluating things, thinking by taking different perspectives (sets of focuses) and analyzing opinions, etc.
Also, I consider pretty much anything as input or output “information” in the information processing system made of awareness and the field of awareness.
In this perspective, “material” is the strongly related to the sensory information and ideas/concepts connected to sensory information.
And I think it’s normal for us to take “material” for granted or to be reliable/persistent/etc, because sensory information is often very acute and attention grabbing, thus it makes stronger impression than other information and also doing it at the younger age before our reasoning part of information processing ability is awaken.
So, the reasoning part of information processing can be overridden/overpowered by the habit of taking material information for granted, very easily.
Also, it’s a comfortable source of certainty. God requires some sort of effort/maintenance to feel solid certainty, while material gives away certainty, effortlessly.
It’s easier to believe material (for many).

What I think you’re saying is, people are more extroverted than introverted, particularly in our formative years, our early stages of development, when our ideas about the world are formed, thus, in general, humans have a more external/material centered paradigm.

[eyesinthedark]

He/she seems pretty hardnosed about materialism and absolutism/objectivism, which is fine, of course, something is nothing to nothing, being exists in interaction, it does not exist on it’s own, therefore, there is no in and of itself, no independence/isolation.

…or at least no complete independence/isolation, perhaps a partial indie. I’m only a partial independentist. Perhaps being is temporarily fixed/one/absolute, but appears/interacts differently to/with different things, and similarly to/with similar things.

As for the dependency of awareness or thinking on material, we can have different theories. But all theories are there thanks to awareness/thinking.
Any valuing, meaning, moral, whatever the priority evaluation you want to make about material (or non-material) is done with awareness/thinking and it’s not going to be there without awareness/thinking.
So, for us, if we think of ourselves as awareness (or thinking, information processing system), material is just another information.

…but it’s impossible to think without the other, something to help distinguish/define the self… awareness requires content.

[Uccisore]

@Only_Humean

Also, Richard Dawkins is a very mediocre philosopher. He’s a good biologist, though.

A fair compromise. Anyway, yeah. Materialism isn’t actually that popular.

[eyesinthedark]

Not all scientists are dogmatic, though.
It depends on each person, just as anything else.
There are many philosophical person who is very dogmatic, too.
I don’t think it’s very easy to make general comparison, in this case.

Science pretty much forbids mentalism. When do you hear a psychiatrist/neurologist or even a psychologist talk about the mind as anything other than chemicals? It’s all chemicals with these people, and anybody who thinks differently is a witch, schizophrenic, stuperstitious. They need to be drugged and quarantined, so they can’t infect the rest of society with their, delusions. These are the people in control of our society, their paradigms are taught (or at least implied by the omision) in school, and mention of mentalism/the soul is forbidden/heresy.

[captaincrunk]

Materialism is popular because naturalism is popular and some people cannot conceive of a natural but non material entity.

[volchok]

@eyesinthedark

I’m not sure, it’s been said two minds are better than one. 10 minds = 10 times the experience of one. The audience is usually right on that show millionaire (for the record, I don’t normally watch that show).

At one point, almost everyone thought the earth was flat. it isn’t.
At one point, almost everyone thought slavery was moral and justified. Today very few agree.

I’d say a claim made by many is worth considering, investigating, analyzing… but it isn’t more credible due to its popularity. Just look at the history of the world.

[volchok]

@eyesinthedark

Science pretty much forbids mentalism. When do you hear a psychiatrist/neurologist or even a psychologist talk about the mind as anything other than chemicals? It’s all chemicals with these people, and anybody who thinks differently is a witch, schizophrenic, stuperstitious.

It’s not all chemicals with “these people”. That’s what the evidence shows.
Btw, a person who believes something in the face of evidence is not a witch, or schizophrenic or superstitious.
It’s irrational.
Granted most irrational people are superstitious.

[captaincrunk]

There is a false dichotomy between the natural and the nonphysical. There are plenty of things that can be explained without an appeal to the supernatural that are not physical.

[anon]

@eyesinthedark

Materialist theories typically claim that mind is no different than matter, while at the same time claiming that mind came from matter - a clear contradiction.

Houses (a form of matter) come from bricks (another form of matter), is that a contradiction?

Supervenience, eliminativism, reductionism… somehow, some way, matter has superior ontologically status - it came first, is more primary, etc. But why?

Because in some ways (but not necessarily in all ways) mind seems dependent on matter for it’s existence. Minds cannot be percieved apart from matter (animals), but matter can be percieved apart from minds (tables, rocks), that is, unless you’re an occultist (ghosts, angels).

“Matter” and “mind” are imputed designations. Given the materialist project of blending these useful distinctions (blending is also useful, don’t get me wrong), where does matter end and mind begin?

That’s a good question, as an analogue dualist (as opposed to a digital dualist), I believe it doesn’t begin/end at any precise point, just as red doesn’t begin/end at any precise point.

“My mind” regulates my heartrate. This is an unconscious activity of “my mind”. The physical aspect of this regulation probably takes place in “my brain”. So, in agreement with materialists everywhere, “my mind” and “my brain” go together. I am an intelligent, biological organism. But what of trees? What of rocks? Why can’t the materialist follow through and commit to his own supposedly nondual theory that mind and matter are identical? We might suspect that a tree is not conscious, but is a tree really this relatively inert thing fortunate enough to not be complex enough to be tricked into dualism? Does a tree not regulate its “heartrate”?

Because there’s different forms of matter, we can’t possibly use the same language to conceptualize/describe two vastly different material phenomenon, for example, astronomy and biology, or chemistry and physics, it helps to think of them differently.

We usefully split the world into objective/subjective, rational/emotional, matter/mind, determined/free etc. - a variety of imputed dichotomies that are like two sides of a coin. There’s the dark side of the moon and the bright side of the moon, but nobody would accuse another of “moon dualism” unless they stated that these two sides of the moon were substantially disconnected realities.

We can’t think without discriminating, without saying this is at least in part this and that that, nor does the world normally appear to us as a haze, a mish mash.

The entire universe is mind, just as the entire universe is matter. It’s just a matter of shifting perspectives. My house is also my home.

I am conscious, rocks are not.

Low on time, I’ll try to remember to respond later…

[north]

the reality is , is this

without the Earth , our planet , materialism , of which life needed , did take hold and grow , evolve

without the material of the Universe , galaxies , suns , planets , moons etc , there would be NO place for life to stand , to take hold and grow

simply put

[Nah]

@volchok

@Nah

I thought you understood (at least partially) that your beliefs on material are based on faith, in the thread we talked.
Don’t you remember?

Maybe we should talk about that again because I disagree.

If you want. We can restart where we stopped in the same thread, or you can restart/restate, too.

@Nah

I also posted that very funny video showing some evidence of human telephone-telepathy (and email/text-messaging telepathy…).
Check it out, and tell us how you are reconsidering your beliefs.
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi … 0#p2247900

Sorry but I don’t have the time to watch a +1 hour video these days. I’ll get to it eventually.

The video shows some evidence. Also the guy talks about Dawkins and Randi. Very funny (for my taste) and fun video to watch.
youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY

You can go to his web site and read research result, too, if you prefer.
sheldrake.org/homepage.html

He works with skeptic scientists, as well.
He seems to be a relaxed cool person.

[Nah]

@eyesinthedark

Maybe. Do you have any statistic? (Just curious a bit)

I heard Europe especially and many other parts of the western world are increasing in all forms of irreligiosity. Look at Russia and China, just a few years ago, they were entirely atheist, though I’m not sure about now. When/where else has this happend, in recorded history?

Europe is one thing because of long oppression by Christianity.
Probably it’s in the recovery/rehabilitation phase, in which tendencies swing left and right.

Russia was officially atheist, but they never really abolished orthodox church.
And the communism was very religious (God = Marx, JC=Lenin/Stalin/etc, Holy Book=communism books).

In China, they never gave up Confucian and other beliefs.
And again, God=Marx, JC=Mao, Holly Book=Mao’s small red book.
Now, they just believe in money. God=Money, JC=goods like cars, etc, Holly Book=stock exchange.

I don’t think they never really succeeded in giving away believing attitude.
They just changed what they believe, like a drug addict going from one drug to another.

A dog is not me, a dog is a dog, or put it this way, a dog is less me than my nose (Analogue Dualism).

What’s your “me”, then?
How you evaluate “me”-ness of each thing?
Is your “me” extend beyond your physical body?

What I think you’re saying is, people are more extroverted than introverted, particularly in our formative years, our early stages of development, when our ideas about the world are formed, thus, in general, humans have a more external/material centered paradigm.

Yup. And it looks like it’s not easy to think out of the paradigm.

…but it’s impossible to think without the other, something to help distinguish/define the self… awareness requires content.

As far as I could see, basic awareness doesn’t have to have any content (focus).
It’s a feedback loop like the yukky sound we hear when someone put a microphone to close to a speaker (or when volume level is too high, etc).
So, awareness can simply aware of awareness and vibrate on its own, so to say.
And this can bring pleasant beatific state.
Also, awareness can be aware of void. In this case, there is really nothing fancy.

@eyesinthedark

Not all scientists are dogmatic, though.
It depends on each person, just as anything else.
There are many philosophical person who is very dogmatic, too.
I don’t think it’s very easy to make general comparison, in this case.

Science pretty much forbids mentalism. When do you hear a psychiatrist/neurologist or even a psychologist talk about the mind as anything other than chemicals?

These days, there are people talking about mind and consciousness as “imagery”, “map”, etc and their complex interaction, which isn’t far from how I feel/think.

It’s all chemicals with these people, and anybody who thinks differently is a witch, schizophrenic, stuperstitious. They need to be drugged and quarantined, so they can’t infect the rest of society with their, delusions. These are the people in control of our society, their paradigms are taught (or at least implied by the omision) in school, and mention of mentalism/the soul is forbidden/heresy.

There seems to be some changes happening, slowly, to me.
Also, in Russia (and China, Japan ?) they have been more open to other possibilities.

[eyesinthedark]

Europe is one thing because of long oppression by Christianity.
Probably it’s in the recovery/rehabilitation phase, in which tendencies swing left and right.

Russia was officially atheist, but they never really abolished orthodox church.
And the communism was very religious (God = Marx, JC=Lenin/Stalin/etc, Holy Book=communism books).

In China, they never gave up Confucian and other beliefs.
And again, God=Marx, JC=Mao, Holly Book=Mao’s small red book.
Now, they just believe in money. God=Money, JC=goods like cars, etc, Holly Book=stock exchange.

I don’t think they never really succeeded in giving away believing attitude.
They just changed what they believe, like a drug addict going from one drug to another.

Science, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, atheism, agnosticism… materialism is certainly on the rise.

Communism was, in a sense, religious, but it was a physical/material not a mental/spiritual religion.

No one in the soviet union thought Marx, Lenin and Stalin were incorporeal/supernatural beings.

No, they never got rid of spiritual religions entirely, but they certainly weakened them.

[eyesinthedark]

What’s your “me”, then?
How you evaluate “me”-ness of each thing?
Is your “me” extend beyond your physical body?

You’re using the word your, so clearly you have a sense of identity to, it’s inescapable.

My Iness begins with my mind and ends more/less with my body.

Is one of my hair follicles that fell from my head me, in the strict sense, no, in the loose sense, perhaps.

[eyesinthedark]

As far as I could see, basic awareness doesn’t have to have any content (focus).
It’s a feedback loop like the yukky sound we hear when someone put a microphone to close to a speaker (or when volume level is too high, etc).
So, awareness can simply aware of awareness and vibrate on its own, so to say.
And this can bring pleasant beatific state.
Also, awareness can be aware of void. In this case, there is really nothing fancy.

Awareness means nothing without unawareness. In order to even be aware of your awareness, you have to be aware of someone elses awareness, or something elses unawareness. Reality is two opposites (positive/negative) interacting with each other, that is all. Without conflict/strife, there is no reality. Acceptance of this fact gives man a little, a little peace. Either there is nothing or two conflicting somethings, in this case, mind and matter.

Cooperation/love is monistic death, conflict/hate is dualistic/pluralistic life.

The lie is dualism or monistic dualism (Western Brahma/Shiva Republicans), the truth is monism or dialectical monism (Eastern Vishnu Democrats).

[eyesinthedark]

At one point, almost everyone thought the earth was flat. it isn’t.
At one point, almost everyone thought slavery was moral and justified. Today very few agree.

I’d say a claim made by many is worth considering, investigating, analyzing… but it isn’t more credible due to its popularity. Just look at the history of the world.

Everyone thinks China exists, and it does, everyone thinks dinosaurs are extinct, and they are.

If you had no idea what the answer is to a question, would you go with the herd, or with one dissenting voice?

I’m telling you, the herd means something, I’m not saying it means everything, but it means something.

Oh and the one dissenting voice is just another schmuck, not a philosopher or a scientists.

[eyesinthedark]

It’s not all chemicals with “these people”. That’s what the evidence shows.
Btw, a person who believes something in the face of evidence is not a witch, or schizophrenic or superstitious.
It’s irrational.
Granted most irrational people are superstitious.

Ok I was being a little melodramatic.

[volchok]

@eyesinthedark

Everyone thinks China exists, and it does, everyone thinks dinosaurs are extinct, and they are.

right…my point stands.

@eyesinthedark

If you had no idea what the answer is to a question, would you go with the herd, or with one dissenting voice?

Neither, I’d try to investigate and research on my own. There’s a little something that I like to use called critical thinking. Try it.

[uglypeoplefucking]

@captaincrunk

There is a false dichotomy between the natural and the nonphysical. There are plenty of things that can be explained without an appeal to the supernatural that are not physical.

such as . . . ?