The death of Robin Williams

Perhaps this has more to do with immaterialism's abject failure to propose any workable alternate paradigm?

Ignoring the fact that this has nothing to do with Sciborg's point ...

What you said, of course, is the usual western-centric worldview, which automatically assumes the results coming out of science today have to be interpreted under a materialistic paradigm, when that's not true at all. See how ingrained the materialistic paradigm can be? ;-)

A significant part of the world trends more towards an "immaterialist" view, while still incorporating modern-day scientific methods/results! Bernardo has spent considerable time arguing how ALL of science can be interpreted under Idealism, as well.
 
Ignoring the fact that this has nothing to do with Sciborg's point ...

What you said, of course, is the usual western-centric worldview, which automatically assumes the results coming out of science today have to be interpreted under a materialistic paradigm, when that's not true at all. See how ingrained the materialistic paradigm can be? ;-)

A significant part of the world trends more towards an "immaterialist" view, while still incorporating modern-day scientific methods/results! Bernardo has spent considerable time arguing how ALL of science can be interpreted under Idealism, as well.
So, you'd consider Bernardo's thought experiment to be an immaterial paradigm that isn't nihilistic?
 
Maybe start a new thread - I'm curious as to what you think the argument is? How one gets from "I don't believe in any deities" to "therefore everyone should commit suicide"?

Why do you assume the word "understand" means "agree with"? It's not a difficult subject matter to understand -- but it's hard to agree with as a holistically consistent narrative. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what ghost is alluding to, but I think he is speaking to supposed links between "satin worshipping" Illuminati groups and something called the "Saturn Death Cult" (ghost's alleged "atheists" I think). Do I think there are "secret societies" that many powerful people pay more allegiance to than their country? Of course (many transcend national allegiance through positions in transnational/international corporations/banks, while others transcend it through their "private clubs" and what not). That's human nature -- you collude most closely with your socio-economic bubble/echo chamber and lose sight of the "little guys". Assuming such a thing as "conspiracy theory" generally has some reality/historical weight behind it (even though many narratives go "too far" with a number of speculations), to attach any label like "atheist" or "religious" to any such esoteric fraternity is a major fallacy in my opinion. That is where I think ghost is going way off course. I'm sure you and I would disagree over much more, but that's not really what the thread is about, and I don't have the energy/desire to play intellectual dodge ball in another thread. So we'll leave it at that. All the best to you however.
 
So, you'd consider Bernardo's thought experiment to be an immaterial paradigm that isn't nihilistic?

What "thought experiment" are you referring to. If it's Idealism itself, Materialism is every bit a "thought experiment" as Idealism, perhaps more so (as Bernardo argues). Once again, to not recognize that, demonstrates the kind of western-centric thinking I talked about above. It's not like materialism was a "truth" that was discovered overnight like some new element of the periodic table. And, no bit of science proves the materialistic "thought experiment" is true. It's a way of viewing the world that developed over a long period time, mainly in the West where we "take it for granted". But, it's not the only way to view reality and much of the world doesn't.

As far as materialism vs immaterialism, I've stated many times on here that I don't buy into that polarized argument, which I view as ultimately self-limiting like all the other polarized debates we seem to fall in to here - it's easy to do, though. I think Idealism transcends that notion and it certainly isn't nihilistic, either.
 
Why do you assume the word "understand" means "agree with"? It's not a difficult subject matter to understand -- but it's hard to agree with as a holistically consistent narrative. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what ghost is alluding to, but I think he is speaking to supposed links between "satin worshipping" Illuminati groups and something called the "Saturn Death Cult" (ghost's alleged "atheists" I think). Do I think there are "secret societies" that many powerful people pay more allegiance to than their country? Of course (many transcend national allegiance through positions in transnational/international corporations/banks, while others transcend it through their "private clubs" and what not). That's human nature -- you collude most closely with your socio-economic bubble/echo chamber and lose sight of the "little guys". Assuming such a thing as "conspiracy theory" generally has some reality/historical weight behind it (even though many narratives go "too far" with a number of speculations), to attach any label like "atheist" or "religious" to any such esoteric fraternity is a major fallacy in my opinion. That is where I think ghost is going way off course. I'm sure you and I would disagree over much more, but that's not really what the thread is about, and I don't have the energy/desire to play intellectual dodge ball in another thread. So we'll leave it at that. All the best to you however.
I'm not talking about conspiracy theories; I've never believed in those. I for one wish there really were demons and bad ghosts who really could pick up atheists/skeptics and throw their skinny little little asses against the wall. It would give me significant hope that there is an afterlife. But for whatever reason, such phenomena is so rare that it cannot be verified. The result is that the afterlife cannot be verified. Skeptics and atheists are deliriously happy about this fact. I think that most people would find hope in knowing that there was an afterlife, that there was purpose to our lives, that this would not be our only chance at life. But skeptics and atheists are not about hope; they are about spreading hopelessness and nihilism. So I don't understand why they recoil at the accusation that they also want to spread a culture that promotes suicide. I know that Malf and others were mad that I reported pro-suicide conversation to the moderators.
 
What "thought experiment" are you referring to. If it's Idealism itself, Materialism is every bit a "thought experiment" as Idealism, perhaps more so (as Bernardo argues).

That's kinda my point, yet one side is claiming "meaning" over "nihilism".

I think Idealism transcends that notion and it certainly isn't nihilistic, either.

Ah, there we go.... How so? Because it might allow religion in?
 
Don't ya think studies like AWARE have the potential to change that at least a little?

I don't really see them having the potential to do that. I think what they *might* do is show that consciousness can continue a few minutes after arrest. But even IF consciousness melts into universal consciousness at death, I'm not sure how something like the aware study is going to manage to show that.
 
That's kinda my point, yet one side is claiming "meaning" over "nihilism".


Ah, there we go.... How so? Because it might allow religion in?

Malf. Are you acting dumb here? Bernardo's "idealism" is roughly equivelent to the line of hindu/buddhist thought existent for the last 2500 years. Does that tradition allow for meaning? Yes.

Does materialism/atheism allow for meaning? I don't know. I haven't given it much thought.
 
Malf. Are you acting dumb here? Bernardo's "idealism" is roughly equivelent to the line of hindu/buddhist thought existent for the last 2500 years. Does that tradition allow for meaning? Yes.

Does materialism/atheism allow for meaning? I don't know. I haven't given it much thought.

... Juicy?

Maybe sentences like "Bernardo's "idealism" is roughly equivelent (sic) to the line of hindu/buddhist thought existent for the last 2500 years." make me dumb. I have still no idea what "meaning" is implied... Interconnectedness? Maybe that's vague enough for us all to get on board with...
 
... Juicy?

Maybe sentences like "Bernardo's "idealism" is roughly equivelent (sic) to the line of hindu/buddhist thought existent for the last 2500 years." make me dumb. I have still no idea what "meaning" is implied... Interconnectedness? Maybe that's vague enough for us all to get on board with...

Then frankly you are pretty freaking dumb. No point in having this conversation.
 
Then frankly you are pretty freaking dumb. No point in having this conversation.

I'm not invested in a position. I'm here to be un-dumbed.... But everyone who talks about "materialism's nihilism" appears vague, coy or evasive over the alternatives.
 
I think there are probably a lot of reasons to be an atheist, or promote atheism - the second part of what you said above definitely qualifies, as I have had more than one admit that to me. I think all the reasons ultimaltey boil down to materialism, meant in the deeper sense of being cut-off from the spiritual, in that we can't "see" it, or experience it anymore. As far as the bigger issue and the ramifications mentioned in your first part, I suspect many are probably just shortsighted like you said. I think the majority of people following any worldview probably understand little as far as ramifications of that worldview - be it atheism, or even Idealism.

What I mean by shortsighted is that materialist evangelism is taken up because it supposedly shifts people from scriptural literalists into secular humanists. This seems very ill-considered, as it's not clear why the liberal/libertarian viewpoints espoused by skeptics is the natural end point. In fact, the recent issues of the skeptic movement - Atheism+, PZ Meyer's quitting the skeptic movement, Rosenberg advocating a "cheerful" nihilism* that Massimo worries will hurt skeptical evangelism - shows it's rather unclear where the supposed natural end point actually is.

This previously posted Benjamin Cain piece gets into this carelessness:

Pragmatism as a Dead End for New Atheism

Indeed, science becomes counterproductive, because it exposes modernists to the existential conundrum. As Nietzsche put it, the question is how we should live after the death of God. Reason frees us from theistic dogma, but it also deprives us of any conviction in some worthwhile purpose to motivate us to freely direct our talents toward one end rather than another. The more we apply reason to model some phenomenon, the more we break it down into impersonal mechanisms, and thus the more illusory becomes our naïve self-image, according to which life is full of meaning, purpose, and moral value. What is the utility of Enlightenment and Liberty if the objectifying rationality that enlightens and liberates us forces on us a vision of universal undeadness, entailing not just the absurdity of theistic faith but the superficiality of the very concepts of morality, happiness, and personhood?

The pragmatic slogan in question betrays the new atheist’s narrow-minded scientism. In the wider view, science doesn’t work at all. Arguably, the costs of science’s efficacy outweigh the benefits. Granted, if all you care about is the cognitive domain in which science has prevailed, you won’t be concerned with the social implications of naturalism. But scientism doesn’t end there, since the naturalist must then reduce the concept of caring to some neurological mechanism. Moreover, she must interpret all concepts and thus all alleged symbols in scientific theories as being perfectly meaningless, since there’s no room for such a personal quality as intentionality in this exclusive version of the naturalist’s ontology, which consists only of more and more complex arrangements of causal relations between particles. Scientistic naturalism is thus the proverbial serpent that eats its tail.

*Thankfully what Rosenberg actually shows is materialism's utter incoherence:

"Perhaps the most profound illusion introspection foists on us is the notion that our thoughts are actually recorded anywhere in the brain at all in the form introspection reports. This has to be the profoundest illusion of all, because neuroscience has been able to show that networks of human brain cells are no more capable of representing facts about the world the way conscious introspection reports than are the neural ganglia of sea slugs! The real challenge for neuroscience is to explain how the brain stores information when it can’t do so in anything like the way introspection tells us it does—in sentences made up in a language of thought."

Note this is actually in accordance with immaterialist/atheist/neurosurgeon Raymond Tallis's assertion that the brain can't hold memories:

..Making present something that is past as something past, that is to say, absent, hardly looks like a job that a piece of matter could perform, even a complex electrochemical process in a piece of matter such as a brain. But we need to specify more clearly why not. Material objects are what they are, not what they have been, any more than they are what they will be. Thus a changed synaptic connexion is its present state; it is not also the causes of its present state. Nor is the connection ‘about’ that which caused its changed state or its increased propensity to fire in response to cues. Even less is it about those causes located at a temporal distance from its present state. A paper published in Science last year by Itzhak Fried claiming to solve the problem of memory actually underlines this point. The author found that the same neurons were active in the same way when an individual remembered a scene (actually from The Simpsons) as when they watched it.

So how did people ever imagine that a ‘cerebral deposit’ (to use Henri Bergson’s sardonic phrase) could be about that which caused its altered state? Isn’t it because they smuggled consciousness into their idea of the relationship between the altered synapse and that which caused the alteration, so that they could then imagine that the one could be ‘about’ the other? Once you allow that, then the present state of anything can be a sign of the past events that brought about its present state, and the past can be present. For example, a broken cup can signify to me (a conscious being when I last checked) the unfortunate event that resulted in its unhappy state.

Of course, smuggling in consciousness like this is inadmissible, because the synapses are supposed to supply the consciousness that reaches back in time to the causes of the synapses’ present states. And there is another, more profound reason why the cerebral deposit does not deliver what some neurophysiologists want it to, which goes right to the heart of the nature of the material world and the physicist’s account of its reality – something that this article has been circling round. I am referring to the mystery of tensed time; the mystery of an explicit past, future and present...
 
I'm not invested in a position. I'm here to be un-dumbed.... But everyone who talks about "materialism's nihilism" appears vague, coy or evasive over the alternatives.
You're not here to be educated. You're here to troll. I don't see you asking questions.
 
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