anon_ryqe received

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 1y ago with 45 replies received

Going to bat for "ha received

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... 1y ago received

One obvious alternat received

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... 1y ago received

That video was rambl received

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... 1y ago received

yes.jpg. There are n received

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... 1y ago received

Take the ideal of th received

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... 1y ago received

Our account of reali received

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 ... 1y ago received

Ok fair enough. This received

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? 1y ago received

I like this idea and received

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?... 1y ago received

I deny a significant received

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.... 1y ago received

Well I look forward received

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... 1y ago received

We have different ty received

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... 1y ago received

It still feels like received

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. 1y ago received

This is a sloppy and received

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.... 1y ago received

Of course our theori received

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... 1y ago received

The OP is perhaps an received

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... 1y ago received

Here I'm not making received

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... 1y ago received

You'll have to say m received

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?... 1y ago received

I agree there is a v received