anon_ryqe

Going to bat for "hard materialism"
The saying goes that any discussion eventually becomes about Hitler, but over in the blood and soil thread, it's become about metaphysics. Specifically the valuation of a quantitative worldview, or even "hard materialism", relative to a more holistic quali... posted 14mo ago with 45 replies metaphysics rationality

Going to bat for "ha

One obvious alternative is a simple agnosticism. Just deny the first claim, that you find this plausible or useful. Proceed through the world normally without strongly systematized views on what's going on with "reality" and how its apparent parts are rela... 14mo ago

One obvious alternat

That video was rambling but I take it the argument is that "some people built a statue because of the war, which is why that copper atom is there" is a better practical explanation than "muh big bang. muh physical laws". Indeed. The claim of hard materiali... 14mo ago

That video was rambl

yes.jpg. There are no metaphysically determined objectively correct value judgements. However, you may find that the kind of being you are and/or want to be demands certain aesthetic and moral judgements or acts of will. You may find that Gnon smashes cert... 14mo ago

yes.jpg. There are n

Take the ideal of the aristocratic man, the lion, the wolf, the giant tree, the eagle. Take his relationship to the rest of nature, his relationship to God, and his relationship to the masses, and purify it. Push it even further beyond. That is higher life... 14mo ago

Take the ideal of th

Our account of reality need not tell us directly who we are and what we should want. That is a separate task. The purpose of our account of reality is to tell us what is real and connect our understandings to each other in a common language of real existen... 14mo ago

Our account of reali

Ok fair enough. This feels like a semantic disagreement. Who would define matter in a way that doesn't include its capacity to be formed and the forms it gets put into? The point about data without instructions is good, but matter without form seems to me ... 14mo ago

Ok fair enough. This

I like this idea and would like to see it developed further. I don't think it contradicts OP but it would be a useful refinement if fleshed out into a first class theory. Write a new thread about it? 14mo ago

I like this idea and

I deny a significant distinction between a matter+form view and a physicalist/materialist view. Identities don't contradict, and aren't valued differently. Why prefer 2+2 instead of 4?... 14mo ago

I deny a significant

Well I look forward to your exposition of the significance of form, because I don't understand the distinction you're making. I really mean that, too. This is the only objection I've heard to the OP ideas that doesn't just seem like thought-stopping FUD.... 14mo ago

Well I look forward

We have different types of matter with different properties like charge and spin and weak/strong interaction and whatnot. Matter can't be characterized just by mass, and its interactions and behaviors depend on what forms it takes. The higher level forms l... 13mo ago

We have different ty

It still feels like this is just a word-choice issue. I take it you think "materialism" over-emphasizes "matter" at the expense of form. I see what you mean but it feels more like a clarity issue than a correctness issue. What word would you use to call th... 13mo ago

It still feels like

This is a sloppy and over-extended statement of it. I'll start a new thread with a tighter statement of what I mean when I work out a bit more of it. 13mo ago

This is a sloppy and

Of course our theories are subjective, being artifacts of how we relate to the world. But within that way of relating, there are different ways to relate the concepts to each other and to what we speculate may exist "out there" beyond our own subjectivity.... 13mo ago

Of course our theori

The OP is perhaps an overstatement of what we can do in practice, but this is just classic chaos theory and computational irreducibility. We can demonstrate these exact same epistemic issues in systems that are known with certainty to be reducible in the s... 13mo ago

The OP is perhaps an

Here I'm not making claims about current gen silicon as a substrate for minds. You are correct this has not been demonstrated. Largely this is just the absence of your first requirement which is a scientific theory of mind. We simply aren't there yet and t... 13mo ago

Here I'm not making

You'll have to say more about why you think b) is wrong and what's the difference to a). In both cases we're looking at man as an engineered artifact (with the engineer being Gnon), and asking what it would take to reverse engineer him and replicate or imp... 13mo ago

You'll have to say m

I agree there is a vast chasm, especially right now. In particular, biolife is actually existing self-replicating self-repairing adaptive nanotechnology, and industrial computers are not. What properties are you referring to?... 13mo ago

I agree there is a v