Mod+ 248. BERNARDO KASTRUP SAYS MATERIALISM IS BALONEY

Michael Larkin said:
I'm not with you: how does "mind and matter being two sides of the same coin" explain consciousness? Could you elaborate?

As far as I can see, consciousness has no explanation: it just is. All manifestation arises out of it; all apparent distinctions, such as between mind and matter, are the result of having a restricted or localised viewpoint of the totality of consciousness.

To say that consciousness can't have effects on its many apparently different manifestations is a dualistic assumption. In fact, language is inherently dualistic, which is why we talk in terms of different ontological realms: by doing so, I think we're reifying conceptual distinctions. That's what makes it so hard to talk about Idealism: we simply don't have a form of language suited to it, and having the kind of language we do is what creates our confusions. I'm by no means immune to this myself, by the way.
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It posits that consciousness is fundamental and that mind and matter cannot exist without the other. In essence, everything is consciousness.
 
Jim_Smith said:
More materialism. Psi will be accepted as an extension of materialism long before survival after death will be accepted.
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agreed. materialists have a lot of escape hatches :)


Parsimony is a rule for interpreting data, it is not a law of nature.
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I do worry we can take the "one mind" thing too far. I think life's meaning is close to what it seems... at least what it seems at my best moments. It's about love and connection. it's about being part of something greater. it's not about "parsimony" :)
 
Jim_Smith said:
The physical universe is "like" a simulation running in the mind of God. (My previous post explains this in more detail).

Your consciousness is not part of that "simulation", only your brain is part of that simulation. You, your consciousness, is not physical, you would still exist if the simulation ended.
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maybe, but do you really think this captures it? aren't all subject/object kind of explanations going to fall short... I think so. I'm not sure any of these "metaphysical speculations" are that important once we step into the realm of expanded consciousness. it's like explaining linear equations to dogs.
 
alex.tsakiris said:
maybe, but do you really think this captures it? aren't all subject/object kind of explanations going to fall short... I think so. I'm not sure any of these "metaphysical speculations" are that important once we step into the realm of expanded consciousness. it's like explaining linear equations to dogs.
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No it doesn't capture it at all. That is what I am trying to say. It's why I put "like" and "simulation" in quotes.. Trying to explain consciousness with math is like a primitive tribesman who tries to explain an airplane as a big bird. He can only conceive of what he knows.
 
Oh joy, what a nice episode! Just finished listening. Delightful :)

Well of course Bernardo is talking about the largest perspective and in so doing we seem so far away from any of the things we talk about here.
I suppose that from the perspective of a NDEr the fact that in the end there's only mind or vibrating strings or virtual particles would not make much difference. But their experience is rich and meaningful, they are not just swimming in the big stream of the One Mind. I loved how Alex pushed Bernardo on these topic, otherwise we are just swapping one fundamental element with another one and we're left with the same huge questions.

For me the path has been to investigate phenomena that contradicted our main stream view of reality first, and then look for those philosophical positions that would support those new elements. Materialism certainly falls very short on that.

Before that phase I was already making the mistake to take materialism for granted and filter out anything else that wouldn't fit. In general I wouldn't want to embrace any specific philosophical position if empirical evidence doesn't support it.

In any case, the title of the book is "Why materialism is baloney" and it does an excellent job at showing the major shortcomings of our current metaphysics. I enjoyed reading it and I was looking forward to this interview.

Cheers

p.s. btw, "baloney" is our Italian "mortadella" :) I have no idea why it means "nonsense" in English... mortadella makes a lot of sense! :D
 
In other breaking news . . . lol.:D

But . . WTF? He doesn't even seem to know what materialism is! :eek: In fact, what he speaks of in his description of materialism is oppositional to materialism. It's more like phenomenalism.

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, the theory claims that our reality consists entirely of physical matter that is the sole cause of every possible occurrence, including human thought, feeling, and action.
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Saiko said:
In other breaking news . . . lol.:D

But . . WTF? He doesn't even seem to know what materialism is! :eek: In fact, what he speaks of in his description of materialism is oppositional to materialism. It's more like phenomenalism.
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He is talking of emergent or non-reductive materialism.

Are you thinking, instead, of eliminative materialism? Saiko: explain what you think materialism is!
 
Jim_Smith said:
No it doesn't capture it at all. That is what I am trying to say. It's why I put "like" and "simulation" in quotes.. Trying to explain consciousness with math is like a primitive tribesman who tries to explain an airplane as a big bird. He can only conceive of what he knows.
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right, I get what you mean now.
 
Bucky said:
p.s. btw, "baloney" is our Italian "mortadella" :) I have no idea why it means "nonsense" in English... mortadella makes a lot of sense! :D
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http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=baloney&searchmode=none
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=baloney&searchmode=none
baloney (n.)

1894, variant of bologna sausage (q.v.). As slang for "nonsense," 1922, American English (popularized 1930s by N.Y. Gov. Alfred E. Smith; in this sense sometimes said to have been one of the coinages of legendary "Variety" staffer Jack Conway), from earlier sense of "idiot" (by 1915), perhaps influenced by blarney, but usually regarded as being from the sausage, as a type traditionally made from odds and ends. It also was ring slang early 20c. for an inferior fighter.
​
The aristocratic Kid's first brawl for sugar was had in Sandusky, Odryo, with a boloney entitled Young Du Fresne. He gave the green and nervous Kid a proper pastin' for six rounds and the disgusted Dummy sold me his find for a hundred bucks, leavin' the clubhouse just in time to miss seein' the boy get stung, get mad, and win by a knockout. [H.C. Witwer, "The Leather Pushers," "Colliers," Oct. 16, 1920]

Doug
 
radicalpolitik said:
You are entitled to that viewpoint, but I see us as the universe becoming aware of itself and looking at itself.
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How? Consciousness cannot be created from spin, charge, mass, etc; och I borrowed that from Kastrup, There is something special about individual cells, some wonderful even magical. I'm telling you that the phospholipid membranes are creating a potential energy that is keeping something in. Not just cytoplasm and organelles, but something else. I might be willing to believe that even the lowly amoeba has some consciousness. Maybe it shrieks in fear when it's being pursued by a predator. But that's as far as I go. Couches and rugs don't watch each other.
 
Maybe we need not a news paradigm but rather an old one: Neoscholasticism. Descartes created the false dichotomy between physical and mental properties. A useful fiction that no longer applies. That which is known entails a knowing subject and a knowing subject entails something known. Final cause is getting rolled back into causality as dispositional properties. Without all four Aristotelian causes were stuck with Parmenides materialism or Zeno idealism
 
ChadWooters said:
Maybe we need not a new paradigm but rather an old one: Neoscholasticism. Descartes created the false dichotomy between physical and mental properties. A useful fiction that no longer applies. That which is known entails a knowing subject and a knowing subject entails something known. Final cause is getting rolled back into causality as dispositional properties. Without all four Aristotelian causes were stuck with Parmenides materialism or Zeno idealism
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I am curious, if there is a "false dichotomy between physical and mental properties", how we do not end up with panpsychism where physical and mental properties are essentially the same. Evidence from psi and survival suggests that the world is more complicated than this. Maybe something like discrete degrees of existence.
 
ChadWooters said:
Maybe we need not a news paradigm but rather an old one: Neoscholasticism. Descartes created the false dichotomy between physical and mental properties. A useful fiction that no longer applies. That which is known entails a knowing subject and a knowing subject entails something known. Final cause is getting rolled back into causality as dispositional properties. Without all four Aristotelian causes were stuck with Parmenides materialism or Zeno idealism
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Can you quickly go over those four causes again?

I do think the ideas of potency and teleology are important, though hylomorphism is something that I'm not sure about.

That said discovering the philosophy of Neoscholasticism was a boon. After all one can find a solid case for immaterialism in works like Clifton's Empirical Case Against Materialism, and then follow that up with the various Psi studies that are further suggestive of immaterialism, but it's hard to know where to go once you're standing at the shore...

Which is probably why 'Where Did the Road Go?' made that question their title. :-)
 
radicalpolitik said:
Our bodies are made out of elements, that means our brains are too. The universe is made of elements as well, ergo, we are the universe becoming aware of itself.
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Then why don't zombies exist, in the Hollywood sense? You basically have all the chemicals that you need in a dead brain. Why doesn't a dead brain have consciousness?

I can't tell you the answer because it's so simple and intuitive that you won't like it.
 
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Very Alex enjoyable, thanks!

two thoughts.

Now I understand the origins of the pinned thread on Bernardo's forum. Let me very humbly give you my spin on what I think Bernardo is trying to get across to you. Its essentially this;' Regardless of whatever detailed beliefs you layer on top of base reality, base reality is EITHER materialist or idealist. Either Matter generates Mind or Mind generates Matter. This is not to say that the ontological details you fill in on top don't matter, (this is me talking) but that they have to come from personal, subjective spiritual journeying. Science isn't going to provide them which leads me to..

I fundamentally disagree with your comment in here that Science has lost its way because it is not focusing on why questions. Why are we here? for example. If anything seeing scientists as anything other than a combination catalogers/engineering researchers is THE reason Dawkins and Hawking, etc.. think they can pontificate on philosophical questions.They actually believe at a level below even having to be conscience of it, that they now fill the roles of priests and philosophers in society. They have grown up in a paradigm that has evolved to the point where they think it is their DUTY to do this. They think, because we all have come to think that they are not just glorified engineers and librarians but The Keepers of All Reality. And this is where your statement that I'm addressing this paragraph at, comes from. If you want to check the spread of materialism you have to reinvigorate the earlier, healthier, and correct idea that Science has not replaced Theism or philosophy, it is a completely different realm of inquiry.

Bob
 
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