Nano-Passion said:
I understand what materialism is, but in my perspective, the way he said it sounded like "oh please, science is materialistic," as if to belittle its basis.
Your definition of science seems to be highly materialistic. If you want to argue materialism, then argue materialism.
Probably the reason I thought that way was that the universe is only made of things, which we are aware of. And everything else is the supernatural.
Look up...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)
Do circles and triangles exist? For that matter does money exist? Dollar bills are material objects, but dollars are not. Now you could argue that all concepts reduce to material objects, but there are some problems with those sorts of arguments. But the problems with those arguments have problems. People have been arguing about this stuff for hundreds of years.
One problem with materialism is that the question "how do you know that atoms and neurotransmitters exist?" I've never seen a neurotransmitter. People tell me that they exist, but there are other people that tell me that the world is 6000 years old. One way of doing philosophy is to flip things inside out and assert that only sensory experience is "real" and that everything else is merely an inference. That gets you into phenomenology.
Now you can *assert* that the universe is only made up of things, but then it seems really odd to assert that the universe is only made up of things, and get annoyed when someone points out that you are asserting that the universe consists only of things.
Again, I'm not arguing that I am right
Is there anything wrong with arguing that you are right? If you aren't arguing that you are right, then what's the point of arguing? Do you believe in scientific truth or don't you? Again it seems odd that on the one hand you say all these things about science as truth, but then you don't think that you should argue that you are right.
But simply laying down my perspective to let others pinch in their take on it. I'm a relativist at heart.
Which doesn't make any sense to me. One second you are arguing for "science as TRUTH" but the next second, you are arguing "relativism." Which is it? Those two points of view seem to be logically contradictory. Now you could argue that there is nothing wrong with logical contradictions, but that seems to blow away "science as TRUTH!"
Part of the problem with asking other people what they really think about your ideas is that they'll tell you.
What I stated was that in my view and perspective, it was much better than my peers along with being very good in terms of the standard of my class. I didn't argue that my paper was absolutely flawless.
But if you really are a relativist, then what is wrong with the professor assigning an "F"? Do you think that standards exist, or don't you? If you don't think that standards exist, then why shouldn't the professor just randomly assign grades to people? (These aren't rhetorical questions. I'm trying to get you to think.)
Also if it isn't clear now, even at the "tell me what you believe" level you aren't doing very well.
One final question, which is a deep philosophical one. What do you want?
If you are not that interested in philosophy and you just want a good grade to meet a course requirement that's different from if you want to please the professor or if you want to learn philosophy.
I'll rewrite it later, but for the time, I'll just say:
