Arguments against materialism - how to refute?

[Singularis]

All we can do is speculate...

 

[PIT2]

If you want quantification of the "feeling" of pain you need to go to a neurologist's study on pain.

They will ask u (the only person who can experience the pain) how the pain feels. Also, interaction between nervous system and pain only demonstrates interaction, nothing else. Similarly, posting on a forum doenst doesn't prove that ur a website (even though there is interaction between the u and the website).

Everyone is entitled to their opinion when it comes to designating "physical" or "non-physical" causes but, when the numbers are stacked against you its a good idea to keep your opinion to yourself.

Are we living in opposite universes because the majority of humans in mine do not believe they are entirely physical?

2. We keep babbling about it, refuting the claims of science, refuting everything and anything and be STUCK at where we are now (or if you suggested that earlier, then back at the stone-age).

Panpsychism doesn't refute any claims of science, and it accepts any of sciences experimental findings, just like physicalism does. Also, it does not destroy science or get it stuck, it simply opens up new areas of theorizing, and thus might slow down or speed up scientific progress. We may not be in the stone-age right now, but that doesn't mean were not in the physical-age.

 

[nannoh]

They will ask u (the only person who can experience the pain) how the pain feels. Also, interaction between nervous system and pain only demonstrates interaction, nothing else. Similarly, posting on a forum doenst doesn't prove that ur a website (even though there is interaction between the u and the website).
Are we living in opposite universes because the majority of humans in mine do not believe they are entirely physical?

Panpsychism doesn't refute any claims of science, and it accepts any of sciences experimental findings, just like physicalism does. Also, it does not destroy science or get it stuck, it simply opens up new areas of theorizing, and thus might slow down or speed up scientific progress. We may not be in the stone-age right now, but that doesn't mean were not in the physical-age.

Great answers. Basically the decision comes down to the individual and whether or not they perceive and react to their experiences as physical, non-physical or both.

The process of making the decision between experiencing life as a non-physical state or a physical state is cyclical and seems to rely on whether or not the observer has a nervous system. This doesn't necessarily hold true for all organisms with nervous systems.

If the decision relys on the presence of a neurological system wouldn't this prove the existence of a physical universe? Neurology studies the singular and combined firing of neurons. The study literally counts the number of neurons firing when presented stimulus. This is how pain is measured and its how we could measure the actual physical nature of this discussion.

 

[vanesch]

But still, the problem is separate in that we have explained a lot with science, but we still can't comprehend anything subjective, mental or anything related to consciousness.
What science is explaining is our representation of the world.

Amen to that

To give another twist to the "what is pain like" or better, "is there pain", consider the following gedanken experiment. Consider that there is a person, which is experiencing pain. Or at least, it's a normal person, you hit his feet with a hammer, and he tells you that it hurts. You can relate to that, and so it seems to be a reasonable assumption for you to assume that, indeed, he has pain.

Now, cut away more and more pieces of body of that person (its a *gedanken* experiment, all right ? ). Replace all functionally necessary parts of his body with machines. You start by replacing his foot, and you connect, to the nerves ending there, the right stimulus generator for them to be identical to what happens when you hit his foot with a hammer. You can consider him having each time you do that, pain.
In the end, you'll just have a big machine and a piece of brain left.
That brain is "having pain", although there's now for you no way to really know, given that the "person" has no means of expression anymore.
You can now even start to eliminate parts of the brain that are supposed not to have anything to do with feet or pain, and replace them with rudimentary processing power in order to keep the "rest of the brain functionning".
In the end you have a small piece of brain left, the "pain center" or whatever, and a machine around it. Is that small piece of brain tissue now "experiencing pain" ? Imagine you analyse its neurological structure and stimuli, and you find that yes, it is (of course, by construction) still stimulated, and reacting, exactly as it was inside of the brain of the person when he was still a "whole". You can now carefully remove more and more tissue, replacing it with more and more processors. In the end, there's nothing left, but a machine. Is it now the machine which has pain ?
Imagine you can model this on a computer. If you run this simulation program on a computer, does the computer now "have pain" ?
If you write the entire memory dump on a disk, during the entire simulation, is the disk now "having pain" ?

See, we can (in principle) model entirely the physical situation, with all physiology and input/output reactions and so on understand all that, know exactly how things are physically going to react... and you will not have found the slightest clue of what subjective experience has really been experienced - or not.

As I sometimes say, jokingly: how do you know that a stone, when you cut it, doesn't feel pain ?

 

[PIT2]

If the decision relys on the presence of a neurological system wouldn't this prove the existence of a physical universe?

Well the identification of a neurological system depends on the existence of an observer, so no it doesn't prove it. But i think there is a physical universe, only this doesn't explain what 'physical' really is. It isn't defined properly and if it were it would be changed the moment science discovered something new about it. There are now scientific theories which propose that matter is made out of spacetime, so what would this say about the physical?

 

[nannoh]

There are now scientific theories which propose that matter is made out of spacetime, so what would this say about the physical?

It wouldn't seem to matter much what "physical" is made of. The question is how to refute arguments against materialsim.

I would ask the person who argues against materialism

how they know about the material?

Where did they hear about it?

How did they hear about it if they don't have ears and a brain?

Are there mysterious ways to communicate without being material?

What are they?

If you communicate how do you communicate and with whom?

Is it another disembodied, immaterial entity?

If the physical is made of space/time then it would hold that space/time is physical/material.

 

[PIT2]

It wouldn't seem to matter much what "physical" is made of. The question is how to refute arguments against materialsim.

Then what do u mean with materialism here?

How did they hear about it if they don't have ears and a brain?

How would they know they have ears and brains without being conscious first?

Are there mysterious ways to communicate without being material?

We know for a fact that communication takes place in beings that cannot fully be described physically. Does that make humans mysterious, or does it make materialism mysterious?

 

[Castlegate]

If the physical is made of space/time then it would hold that space/time is physical/material.

You are making an assumption of the physical. What if the physical is a possession of the mind. What if all things currently considered physical by us are nothing more than conceptuals. The result is the same, but the distinction is very important indeed. I am extremely doubtful that the color red will be explained by physical means, but conceptually it is doable.