How can an experiment "disprove" materialism? Wouldn't the very things one would need to test, in order to "prove" some sort of supernatural "realm", not be possilbe to "test"? Isn't a scientific "test", by its very nature, "materialistic"?

athena wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics

Keith, Quantum mechanics is figured with math, and is unlike the physics of matter. The proof is in the math.

Yes, but often, the mathematical calculations necessary to make the equations balance, have nothing to do with reality...

Meleagar wrote:Well, I don't know about you, but the only thing can observe is my experience. I might interpret that experience to mean there is a material world, or I might not.

Then, sans a "material world", what is this "I" of which "you" speak?!

I don't.

Sounds like a personal problem...

Meleagar wrote:Well, if you say so, then John Wheeler, Niels Bohr (Nobel Prize Winner) and Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize Winner) must certainly be wrong.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time a physcist turned out to have been mistaken...

...and, using their names (as if these "esteemed gentleman" could't possibly have been wrong) is just another version of the argument from authority.

Meleagar wrote:It's only a logical fallacy if the authorities in question are not actually authorities (experts) on the subject being argued.

No, it's a logcial fallacy in any case.

Those guys weren't right (or wrong) because they were named Bohr, Heisenberg, or Wheeler. If they were right, they were right because they discovered evidence to support their positions.

Avoid the fallacy by doing the same.

Stick to evidence; names don't matter.

Meleagar wrote:Also, since I don't base my beliefs on evidence--

Wow. It's been a while since someone admitted to me (in no uncertain terms) that they were irrational; I always enjoy such admissions, but I certainly wasn't expecting it.

You should check out yesterday's broadcast of Science Friday on NPR. Some of the scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider were interviewed, and they talked about the first "test run" of the machine, what they found, and the energy levels that were achieved.

athena wrote:http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/08/lhc.collider/index.html This is a very old article and I am disappointed this was the best I could find. It is an attempt to recreate the conditions of the big bang. It is my understanding they have had recent success and unleashed a lot of energy by colliding two protons, but without a recent article to check what I think I heard, I can not be sure the news was about what was done last week, or is still at the level of what they hope to do. If they have achieved their goal, we might be able to resolve the world's energy problem, and increase the standard of living around the world, besides having a better understanding of the universe.

Atomic explosions release energy, so I think we can say matter is energy?

Of course it is! E (energy) equals M (matter) times the speed of light (C) squared...

Meleagar wrote:

Jester Gren wrote:What necessarily is so immaterial about it? Up to this point our observations have led us to think of what material is, and now a contradictory observation leads us to question whether it is material? Maybe the definition of material has simply undergone a working.

Perhaps you should re-read the O.P. and the quotes and check out some of the references.

The only thing in the OP that gives a clue to what "immaterialism" means, in this context, is this:
"...the notion that ‘the physical environment’ is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind."

I still think all the psuedo-scientific nonsense is just a way to try to rationalize the irrational, to try to justify "faith": the desire to believe, without evidence.

This seems to suggest that "materialism" is the idea that there is a reality independent of human consciousness.

If reality, external to human consciousness, is not "material", could human consciousness then be the "material"? (Or, do you reject that notion as well?)

Meleagar:
What I object to are equivocated, apologetic notions of "materialism" patched together to semantically salvage the idea.

What is the point of insisting on "materialism" when, as an idea, it was juxtaposed against mind-primary idealism, and then when science clearly proves our experience of the physical world to be mind-primary—

Science hasn't “proved” any such thing--first, because science doesn't deal in proofs. Scientific theories are accepted--contingently--until they are disproved.

Also, speaking for myself, I don’t “insist” on materialism—semantically. I have defined “materialism” as opposed to “spiritualism”, “solipsism”, or “idealism”—-but if you have a problem with that particular word, we can certainly use another.

--try to claim the mind as "material"? At what point does one give up the long-dead ghost of materialism, if to salvage it one must coopt the very idea it was diametrically opposed to?

In what way is the mind not material? (Again, I have to ask, “If the mind is not “material”, what do you claim that it is?”

Materialism as a philosophy meant more than "experience is constructed of something"; it meant that experience is constructed of material. Not "energy" (which was later coopted into materialistic definition), not "potential", not "information", not "mind". IOW materialism meant that mind was not generating any fundamental aspect of what we experienced as physical reality, and we know precisely the opposite is true—

What do you mean by “mind”? You aren’t talking about a specific human mind (are you)? Do you mean some sort of collective mind—as in a collective human consciousness?

Or, do you mean a more “transcendent” mind, such as the “mind of God”?

Second, “we don’t know precisely the opposite is true”, not at all. This is nothing but an utterly unsupported claim. You keep repeating it, hoping that the rest of us will simply accept it (as if that would change anything...)

—mind generates everything we recognize as physical reality, because without mind—

Without which “mind”? (And, if this “mind” is not made of a “material” substance, what is it made of?

--not only does physical reality not exist, it never would have existed, and cannot ever have existed unless the observation of a mind collapsed quantum potential into physical experience.

You wish. First, you say that "not only does physical reality not exist", but then you say that it does, but only because this "mind" is generating it. Well, which is it? Does physical reality exist, generated by "mind", or does it not exist at all--mind or no mind?

Second, if there is a "transcendent mind" generating all this, then all the potential (potential what?) should be collapsed into actual (actual what?), at all times, already.

Our tiny little human "minds" shouldn't cause something to collapse into an actuality, if the "transcendent mind" that generates everything, wasn't powerful enough to do it!

Again, unsupported claims and wishful thinking.

Meleagar wrote:

Keith Russell wrote:
Science hasn't “proved” any such thing--first, because science doesn't deal in proofs. Scientific theories are accepted--contingently--until they are disproved.

I mean, of course, in the same sense that science "proves" anything which - as you say - is always conditional.

I really wish you'd addressed this:
"...if there is a "transcendent mind" generating all this, then all the potential (potential what?) should be collapsed into actual (actual what?), at all times, already.

Our tiny little human "minds" shouldn't cause something to collapse into an actuality, if the "transcendent mind" that generates everything, wasn't powerful enough to do it!"

Meleagar wrote:

Keith Russell wrote:I really wish you'd addressed this:
"...if there is a "transcendent mind" generating all this, then all the potential (potential what?) should be collapsed into actual (actual what?), at all times, already.

Our tiny little human "minds" shouldn't cause something to collapse into an actuality, if the "transcendent mind" that generates everything, wasn't powerful enough to do it!"

Human mind = transcendent mind. The creation of the universe (collapsing of potential experience into actual experience) is what the observing, transcendent human mind is doing.

And the fact that the universe is older than humanity doesn't bother you in the least? Nor does the question, "If the "human mind" is creating the universe, what is creating the "human mind"? How can any thing "create" existence? (To do so, the "thing" would have to be--first--outside of existence, meaning it would not exist...)

Meleagar wrote:Via the delayed choice experiment and work I've already referred to like that done by John Wheeler, history is also created by the mind. IOW, the history of the universe only exists as a manifested perspective of an individuated consciousness and exists in relation to (supportive of) that conscious existence. The human mind generates all cause-and-effect historical sequences.

This is, hands-down, the creepiest thing I've ever read (if you're serious about it, of course.)

Lewis Black described neo-conservatives as "folks who have seen The Matrix and think it's real."

Thinking about the implications of what people might do, who truly believed that existence is nothing more than a mass-hallucination, is more than a bit terrifying...

And you still haven't addressed the problem of how individual minds could "affect" reality, if reality is already being created and sustained by a "transcendent mind"; how can there be any "uncollapsed" potentialities?

Meleagar wrote:Human mind (with free will) = transcendent mind. The human mind is the ongoing process of the transcendent mind exploring (creating) all potential (as seen from a time-linear perspective).

This is no sort of argument, let alone any sort of explanation, at all...

Meleagar wrote:

Jester Gren wrote:Actually, Jester Green was quoting me:
This is no sort of argument, let alone any sort of explanation, at all...

Have you never heard the "brains in vats" theory? It is one and the same; with the exception that it is possible for us to control what we think. However, how would we know it is truly our own free will? I suppose it doesn't matter if it feels the same.

Yes, of course I've heard of the brains in vats theory, the "Evil Mad Scientist", and the Allegory of the Cave. I think they're all examples of Philosophy 101 mental masturbation.

I still think you've seen The Matrix a few times too many. Do you have any family? Have you ever lost something, or someone, precious to you? Have you really, truly, though about what it means--to you--to truly, fully believe that existence is an illusion?

Neo was asked to be ready to kill anyone, anytime--because they were still "plugged in" to "the system", and thus were truly pawns of that "system". (Is that how you see everyone on earth, save you?)

Again, I don't think you've truly considered all the ramifications of what you are here, claiming to believe...and if you have, as I already said, it's far creepier...

Meleagar:

First, thank you for your reply. This gives me a much better understanding of your ideas, than I’ve had before. While I still do not agree with you, at least now I feel that I am beginning to have a much clearer understanding as to why.

Meleagar wrote:

Keith Russell wrote: Have you really, truly, though about what it means--to you--to truly, fully believe that existence is an illusion?

I never said I believed existence was an illusion. Whether or not something is an "illusion" depends on the context of what one considers to be "real" in comparison to the "illusion". Since I consider experience to be what reality "is", then all experience is real. There's actually no such thing as an "illusion" in my philosophy; there are only poorly worded statements of experience.

This is a semantic argument. Of course an illusion is “real”; we call a thing an “illusion” when it appears to be something else; there might be a real optical effect, but it only appears like a pool of water in the desert, to us.

If you really don’t like the word “illusion”, we can find another.

For an experientialist like myself, "I see an oasis" isn't a statement that the oasis exists in and of itself, but is rather only a statement about my experience of seeing.

The same should be true of anyone making a similar statement.

Whether or not my other senses ever experience the oasis doesn't change the fact of seeing an oasis.

Well, here I must disagree. You’re seeing an optical effect; you think you’re seeing a pool of water in the desert. You are seeing "something", but not what you think you're seeing. There really is an optical effect, that looks like a pool of water. An organism that didn’t sense light as we do, or that relies on infrared or sonar (for example) might not even perceive the optical effect, and would almost certainly not interpret that effect as an oasis.

The idea that there is a physical reality exterior to one's experience is a theory, and can't be anything other than a theory. It is a belief that cannot be evidenced other than via tautology.

But all true statements are tautological. Further, there are numerous “clues” that reality exists separate from the mind; the fact that physical injury to the CNS alters the mind, consciousness, and/or personality of a person (to cite only one example.)

Further, our memories don’t always work with a great degree of accuracy. If “reality” was created and/or generated by minds, then it should be impossible for me to ever misplace something. If I’m the only one who knows where I’ve put something, then if I truly thought I knew where it was, it should always be where I “think” it is…

Since I exist "as my mind", I know mind (whatever it is) exists; everything else is conjecture. I find it wise to base my reality structure on that which I know to exist, rather than that which I can never meaningfully argue or evidence exists - i.e., what lies outside Plato's Cave.

But there is an entire “range” of levels of rational belief, from what can be “known for certain”, to those things which are supported by very little evidence. I don’t think it’s wise to utterly eliminate all claims which are supported by verifiable evidence, even if they cannot be “proved” or “known for certain”—considering that most things cannot be “known” with close to one-hundred percent certainty.