Physicalism or materialism. The idea that everything there is arises from physical matter. If true would mean there is no God or Free Will, no immortal soul either.
Seems to be what most of academia bases their world view on and the frame work in which most Science is done.
Often challenged by Dualism and Idealism but only by a loud fringe minority.
I’ve heard pan-psychicism is proving quite the challenge, but I hear that from people who believe crystals can cure autism
I hear that “Oh actually the science is moving away from materialism” as well, but that seems to be more crystal talk as well.
So lemme ask science instead of google.
Any reason to doubt physicalism? Is there anything in science that says “Huh well that seems to not have any basis in the physical at all and yet it exists”
Edit: I have heard of the Essentia Foundation and Bernado Kastrup but since it’s endorsed by Deepak Chopra I’m not sure I can trust it
If it had no basis in the physical, then what would it mean to say that it “exists?” How you define “existence” is a very big philosophical question. Excuse me while I nerd the fuck out about something.
Physics tells us that the observable universe is 93 billion light years in diameter. However, we can sometimes observe objects leaving the observable universe. This is because of complicated physics reasons:
Physical space is expanding with time. Everything is getting farther apart from everything else, and the more distance there is between two points, the faster the space in between them is expanding. At a sufficiently large distance, the rate at which the distance between the two points is increasing, is faster than the speed of light. Neither point is actually moving faster than the speed of light, it’s only the space between them that is expanding. This might be hard to understand, but think of it as if you drew two dots on a balloon and then inflated it.
Once an object gets far enough away from us that the space between is expanding faster than the speed of light, it becomes impossible for us to make any further observations about that thing. This is actually what defines the bounds of “the observable universe.”
So, what happens to objects that leave the observable universe? Strictly speaking, it’s impossible to say. Intuitively, we would expect that they’re still there doing their thing and obeying the same physical laws as when we could observe them. But, if you told me that the stars simply vanish, or that they magically transform into butterflies as soon as they leave, there’s no evidence that anyone could ever produce that would falsify that belief, because, by definition, there is no way to observe what happens outside of the observable universe. If we are defining what exists based on what is physically observable, then it follows that things outside the observable universe do not exist, even if it really seems like they should.
My conclusion from this line of thought is that existence is a relational property. I am not prepared to reject the idea that a thing has to be in some way observable in order to exist, but in that case, nothing can exist in isolation. Because for a thing to be observable means that there must exist a being which could observe it. This could be said to contradict physicalism, because physicalism would say that the material world exists regardless of our senses. I would say that the physical world only exists so long as there are beings capable of sensing it, and, should all sentient beings ever become extinct, the physical world would no longer exist in any meaningful sense.
I think the main problem with this sort of logic is that it presumes that what we see is reality. This isn’t necessarily true.
Evolution has shaped us to see that which is most important for our survival. If seeing things as they truly are would interfere with our evolutionary fitness, then our brains would filther that out. In fact, this seems very likely, evidence being the many illusions that can be used to fool our senses.
If this was the case, then physical objects may not exsist at all, they would just be an artifact of this filtering effect. Roland Hoffmann is a great resource for understanding this sort of theory.
https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY
What could possibly be considered more “real” than that which we can observe and experience?
How about the spheres in this image? Which colors do you observe? And which colors are they really?
I’m not trying to be condescending, it’s just an example of how our senses do not necessarily display reality.
I think people are completely misunderstanding me. I am fully aware that optical illusions exist, I don’t see how that has any relevance to what I’m actually saying.
How do you know what colors they really are? You know by making more detailed observations than you might at first glance, for example, by zooming in. What exactly is that meant to demonstrate?
If a whole bunch of different people are all misunderstanding you in the same way at the same time then the obvious explanation is that you’re failing to communicate clearly
I encourage you to go to a honky tonk and try to explain Marxism to people and see if you still feel that way afterwards.
Refer to anything that I actually said and show how you could logically draw the conclusions you made about my positions from that.
I could absolutely explain Marxism to people at a honky tonk, wouldn’t be any harder than explaining Marxism to people in any other location. Already did that once, keep up
I don’t think either of us is getting anything out of this conversation. Let’s just leave it, ok?
Not sure what the point of this was then.
Finally, something we agree on.
I haven’t seen anything we disagree on.
We observe solid matter to not be composed mostly of empty space, that observation is verifiably incorrect. Our senses evolved to help us survive in our natural environment, being able to perceive empty space between/within atoms would do fuck all to help us survive seeing as how we can’t meaningfully interact with that empty space on our own. We invented devices to compensate for the limits of our senses and discovered that reality often differs drastically from our experience. To answer your question, it’s what we can prove.
Of course, our observations can show that other observations are incorrect. But that’s still relying on senses and observation. That doesn’t change the fact that reality consists of that which can be observed.
No, there are actually a lot of things we can measure and study that are unobservable with our senses, and a shitload of verifiable ways in which our senses either misinterpret reality or completely fail to perceive it
The way we measure things is by making them observable to our senses. I can’t see radiation, but I can read a Geiger counter. Radiation is, therefore, capable of being observed.
Again, everyone seems to be reading this as, “Actually, senses are perfect and incapable of being fooled.” Which I never said anything remotely similar to. No shit they can be fooled. This has zero relevance to the discussion.
Let me explain this again.
Stars that leave the observable universe, by definition, cannot be observed. There is no way to verify or falsify any claims that are made about them.
Physicalism states that matter continues to exist regardless of our ability to make observations about it.
Therefore, physicalism claims that stars that leave the universe continue to exist, even though there is no way to verify or falsify this claim.
Therefore, either physicalism is wrong, or verificationism, the idea that our claims need to be supported by evidence and be falsifiable, must be false.
I resolve this contradiction by sacrificing physicalism and saying that matter must be observable. That does not mean observable by the naked eye, or that our senses are somehow infallible, both of which are strawmen that have nothing whatsoever to anything I’ve said.
This argument is more of a philosophical argument than a scientific one. It reminds me of the classic “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, then does it make a sound?”. The purpose of this statement is to question whether the observer is a requirement for something to be real.
Ultimately, I think science doesn’t have a solid answer to this question. Quantum mechanics might suggest the answer to be “no”, since matter exists as a probability function until something measures (observes) it. This would suggest that a lack of observer would leave matter in an exotic state which would not allow such a definite process as falling in the woods. On the other hand, general relativity would suggest that the tree would make a sound because all matter affects the spacetime continuum whether an observer is there or not. This would suggest that the tree’s existence is independent of an observer.
Of course, the big issue in science right now is that we have failed to disprove both quantum mechanics and general relativity; but these two primary theories of science are incompatible with eachother. Ultimately, this means that this question regarding physicalism is presently unanswerable by science.
A Geiger counter doesn’t make radiation physically observable, it just gives you information about it, your senses are still 100% incapable of detecting it. You chose the exact words “What could possibly be considered more real than that which we can observe and experience?” and I responded by accurately pointing out that our senses are imperfect and our experiences frequently fail to accurately represent reality. You should leave the explaining to people who are better at it.
That’s not what “observable” means, dumbass. You don’t have to be able to physically detect radiation with your eyes like some comic book for radiation to be an observable phenomenon.
To be clear, the observable universe is centered on Earth (technically, on you). For a being that is closer to the object that leaves your observable universe before it leaves theirs. It can still be observed by them. There is no objective point at which something becomes unobservable by the expansion of space.
Excepting maybe the big rip.
Yes, but this is assuming an objective, universal frame of reference, and that’s not really a thing. For example, things like time dilution mean that there is no universal “clock.” There is an objective point at which things become unobservable to my (Earth’s) frame of reference.
It’s true that there could be some alien halfway across the observable universe that could observe the stars that have exited our observable universe. But, we could not observe the alien observing them, because information still can’t travel faster than the speed of light.
Not really. Nothing I said has any dependence on a universal clock.
Right and this is my point. Any philosophical theory that has anything to do with the observable universe is inherently self-centered. Not even Earth centered. Not even conscious-being centered. Literally self-centered. The observable universe is subjective. And so that puts it in the class of philosophies that insist that the universe arises from your own consciousness.
Which is not to invalidate it, but it’s not objective, and it has nothing to do with science.