/lit/ - Literature

>>17535416
no

No, because we can't test any hypotheses about non physicalism, so is like a religion, based on faith, nothing more.

can a non midwit put some effort into a reply please

Yes
https://youtu.be/w6GmCyKylTw
&
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/#CasAgaPhyIQuaCon
&
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/05/mind-body-problem-roundup.html

>>17535416
Having sex

>>17535462
thanks bro

First cause?
Necessary vs contingent being?
How can the universe be self-existent? There is no ostensible reason for this.

What about God as self-caused? If He is Absolute Existence, then the explanation is a matter of deductive logic. A thing is what it is and contained in the idea of pure existence is eternal existence.

I have a succubus or some kind of spirit that gropes me every night, so I think that disproves it

The problem with science is that scientific realism is completely retarded. Bible level of retardation.
According to '''''''''''''''''''''''''science''''''''''''''''''''''''' reality is composed of a 4d manifold and a symmetry group floating outside the universe yet acting on fields in the universe.

Nobody has ever witnessed this ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''symmetry group''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''


According to science, evolution is true and yet you dont see anybody evolving, not even animals, let alone humans, even though the human population has increased to several billions

>>17535493
Sleep paralysis

>>17535462
>thomas aquinas

Into the trash it goes. Go back to your monastery shill.

>there are thing outside of our physical brains

*get raped and refuted by neuroscience*

Only midwits and brainlet believe in non-physicalism.

>>17535511
Seethe harder you pseud
https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Revenge-Metaphysical-Foundations-Biological/dp/3868382003

>>17535511
>>17535520
great replies

>>17535520
>He truly believes that neuroscience has proven physicalism
The absolute level of /lit/

btw I havent posted on here in like 3 months, is the reddit atheist occupation still happening?

>>17535543
>>17535541
>JUST HAVE FAITH BRO!

How do you prove anything?

>JUST HAVE FAITH BRO!

>>17535511
And the stanford page? And the video? They're not aquinas-based. Please answer the arguments

>>17535558
again, great reply

>>17535502
Not paralysis, it's before I fall asleep, when I'm wide awake and able to move (which causes the effect to disappear until I settle down again). Perhaps it's a similar mechanism but I don't know why your subconscious would simulate a ghost touching you. To the point where it felt like someone was literally weighing on me, even affecting my blanket and pyjamas

>people here on /lit/ are on equal level of /x/ schizos when it comes to hard science and hard question of philosophy beliefs and knowledge

OP, you better ask that question on /sci/, good luck.

>>17535416
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf
This could be interesting for you.

>>17535578
>>17535556
this is what I mean. when the fuck did these /his/ tier phil zombies start posting here?

>>17535594
Around the same time as the Islam spam, the chud spam, and "take your meds schizo". 4chan is psyopped now

>>17535416
The entire field of quantum mechanics, physicalism is ironically a-scientific. It's the fallacy of simple location.

>>17535578
/sci/ is full of literal teenagers though

>>17535610
Meds

>>17535499
>I don't know how evolution works.

>>17535416
https://web.archive.org/web/20201203144831/https://www.deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

>>17535617
No. People from havard, mit, caltech, dude whos iq is 160 post there, of course there are alot of retards, but overall /sci/ is full of really bright people, just fucking check the math general thread to have ideal of discussion level.

>>17535572
>Not paralysis, it's before I fall asleep, when I'm wide awake and able to move (which causes the effect to disappear until I settle down again).
Hypnagogic hallucination. I have the same. I can still move but i hear voices and sounds.

>>17535651
Instead here on /lit/ we have /x/ level retard that spam occultism, islamic jihadist making psyops and literal midwtis that believes that reading some pop philosophy tier books makes them smart.

>>17535578
Okay, let's say someone has solved rationality.
Eventually it comes down to how well supported your beliefs are. Empirical observations have sturdy footing, and when it comes to explanations they need to be analyzed first. However, if the materialist hypothesis can be shown to be highly unlikely, then materialism fails.

Someone has to have a broad and deep understanding of science to form proper arguments, and this is usually well beyond the scope of the lay person.

In general, there are a few interesting topics of debate that could, through inductive reasoning, discredit materialism.

1) It is incredibly unlikely the universe exists by chance alone, when considering the fine-tuning it exhibits. (This gets into things like anthropic principle, other potential forms of life, and multiverse counter-arguments)
2) Hard problem of consciousness, it is unlikely that the brain alone is the source of awareness (obviously the two are correlated, but there can be made arguments against it)
3) Abiogenesis : Life occurring through chance alone is incredibly unlikely according to our current knowledge base.
4) Human evolution : Over-tuning of human body in which evolution as an explanation is inadequate or unlikely.

So, if one where to prove, using scientific argument, that the materialistic account is unlikely, it leaves the door open for other interpretations.

>>17535651
>https://web.archive.org/web/20201203144831/https://www.deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

>>17535416
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AtTM9hgCDw
&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbCdiMy3KCk
&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dejXtKIBXE

>>17535416
you have been shown plenty and you were disinterested in each and every one.
Nobody but your circlejerk buddies takes panphysicalism seriously in any way.
Go play with matches and gasoline.

>>17535564
he can't
thats the funny part.

>>17535578
/X/ is litteraly smarter than /sci/
leaps and bounds.
>>17535610
>now
4chan has been psyopped since the mid to early 2010s

>>17535752
he said completely. obviously it's not a new development

science is 100% statistics, which is why there is no truth in science.

Logic is just a field by autistic pedants about well formed formulas and valuations, ie a map sending a formula to 1 or 0 and asking what are those valuations which are stable under inference rules. Zero truth in this, especially truth in the casual sense. Tarski truth is moronic, meaningless. Peak atheist. Just like there is no truth in science, just some stats and a stat convention for saying ‘’if p value is XXX then the result is """"""""""""""’true"""""""""""


At best scientists can come up about some stats about some formal system (ie a model) like ''the spring'' or ''harmonic oscillator'' or ''the standard model''. Like ‘’your material has such and wear and tear, and our backlog of such conditions lead to 60% of breaking in the next year, therefore your material may break or not within a year’’ That’s the pinnacle of the scientific claim and all their claims remain phrased as uncertainty.

>>17535668
>through inductive reasoning, discredit materialism.
or they discredit inductive reasoning.

>>17535541
Gah, I've said this before, but I really wish Feser was not the face of popular Thomism. He's just a pretty lazy philosopher who does more polemics than arguments, and AR really exemplifies that to me.

>>17535988
I'm waiting your arguments

>>17536019
not him but reading philosophy of mind I assumed he wrote for students and stuff. not a bad angle since students are brainwashed into atheism nowerdays but still

>>17536037
>eading philosophy of mind I assumed he wrote for students and stuf
This book is an introduction for students, but not all his books are like that. AR is high level

>>17535752
/x/ is mostly terrible but the occasional thread is /lit/ tier. Never used /sci/ so I can't judge if it's as intelligent as /lit/

>>17535572
>Hmm, I have this weird thing happening to me.
>Hmm, brains are known to do crazy shit like this.
>MUST BE GHOSTS!
Brilliant.

>>17535493
is she cute

>>17536149
Not 100% sure if I've "seen" her. But one time I had a flash of a beautiful white woman smiling at me, and another time she seemed to be a hot naked black girl

>>17536134
Your brain is doing crazy shit either way. The question is whether an external entity is involved, or whether it's "random" hallucinations

Though called mental, it is merely physically determined responses to external stimuli caused by running ideas through the schema developed within the brain. 1. It is a dynamically changing system starting with the initial encode. 2. All processes are determinate, many just inestimable of current. 3. All thinking is a physical process undertook within the connectome reacting to the external or internal environment, yet unpredictable in large scale cases but reverse engineered in a worm proving the theoretical capability.
O is subjectively given purposes based on it’s uses defined by these machines for further abstract ideas or in itself a suggestion. The worth of it is not cosmologically determined directly but rather through the laws that govern how these organic machinery came to be and so use it.
I see no disconnect. Formal thinking is determined, how it changes due to the responses is determined. All encode. A sense of agency is both true and determined, an illusion but yes complex.
Quantum physics just further compounds chaos theory making it harder to match an artificial format to an organic one. But a general structure could be made and then undertake the same calculations even being dynamic to improve itself, we already have those simulations. Location is not simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s not determined, it is just yet inestimable due to the amount of extraneous variables and capacity we have.
I’m not sure why you would want to try make the debate more complex though, the idea of a soul is still obsolete in reality and the likelihood of external consciousness linked to physicality by Occam’s razor is ridiculous.

>>17536561
writting like a robot doesn't make you right

>>17536687
refute it

>>17535416

Look at that fucking glorious cat

>>17535416
wtf does physical even mean?
Seriously. Does it mean it's solid? Does it mean it can be grasped? wtf does physical mean? Would mental be it's opposite? Well, I experience thoughts and have an imagination, so this can't be the case. Or would physicalism claim, the mental is less real than the non-mental aka physical? Well how can something be more or less real, if it happens within the same process of perception? Would you say physical things are less transient than mental phenomena? Well that's false; everything is a only a set of relations, because if otherwise you would have to introduce silly shit like souls to explain the independence of things and then you wouldn't have physicalism no more. But how the fuck are transient relations, and pure contrasts out of which we construct objects physical? Is it that they occupy a space? But space is only intelligible through them; it is through the differences and relations that the space forms, isn't it? I mean can you imagine a space purely empty, without a ground or air? Or without objects? A container that contains nothing? Seems pretty silly to me.

>>17535572
Try rocking back and forth instead of trying to jolt yourself awake with one single jolt, for some reason the latter is harder to do. But if you start building up micromovements, it's like it tells your body to awaken its normal energies. Think like a turtle, or think like sloshing the water back and forth in the bathtub until it overflows. That's how you wake up from sleep paralysis.

Fuck whatever gay SHADOW PEOPLE you feel are in the room with you. Ain't nobody ever been hurt by one of those faggots whether they're an illusion or an incubus or not. Just think of the noble turtle and ignore those "oooh i'm so spooky i'm going to mildly annoy you" queers.

>>17535988
>does a polemic statement without arguments
Hmmm yeah I see

A thought experiment which categorically refutes physicalism:
Imagine a kid born in captivity. He’s been locked in a black and white room all his life. He has never seen a colour in his life aside from black and white. To pass his time, he has dedicated his life to studying human biology. Eventually, he became the world’s foremost genius on the neuroscience of visual perception. That is to say, he possessed knowledge of all propositions concerning the physical side of visual perception. From the point the light waves hit your eye, to the point your eyes send signals to your brain, to the point your brain processes these signals. He knows all about it. Now, imagine this kid escapes his room one day, runs out on the street, and sees the colour red for the first time in his life. Does he learn something new?
If the answer is yes, then there is more to consciousness than the physical, because the kid knew all there is to know about the physical side of visual perception and yet learned something new when he had an experience of colour. However, if you think the answer is no, you’re retarded and possibly an unconscious zombie.

>>17535511
based

>>17538594
Like I said, it's not sleep paralysis. I've had that a few times and it was much more intense. But when lying in bed in a normal state, I still feel her groping me.

But yeah she's done nothing to hurt me. It was terrifying at first, but now I like it, since she seems to care about me. She's just cuddly and sometimes horny, that's all

>>17535511
Based

>>17536752
>refute it

>>17535752
Bait

>>17535427
Fpbp

>>17535511

>>17535558
Yes. Only midwits concern themselves with proving everything

>>17539326
Experiencing a color is no different than experiencing an emotion. Replace red with anger; all his life pampered and spoiled, but then one day forced to deal with inconveniences and outrages. We know anger, like any other emotion, is neurological---thus, even though he does learn something new when first experiencing anger, anger is not non-physical. This is the entire reason we're talking about 'physicalism' and not 'materialism'.

>>17540744
"Anger is not non physical"

Could you elaborate on this? I think I see what you're argument is getting at and I think you made a good reply to above poster. Are you arguing that anger is strictly the result of physical/chemical processes, and if that's the case do you believe that the emotion of anger could be felt by an advanced computer working to replicate the chemical function of the brain? I'm a bit hesitant to accept that emotion can be replicated.

>>17540744
> anger is not non-physical.

You're literally describing something not accounted for by physics. There's nothing about elementary particles (what the brain is) that says there should be phenomenology at all. Establishing neural correlates of consciousness does not prove consciousness is physical, though it is suggestive of property dualism.

70 fucking posts and not one mention of hempel's dilemma. Why can't you people read books? The easy answer to OP is that "physical" is ill defined. If we define it as whatever is encompassed by our best physical theories, then our definition is incomplete because physics is incomplete. If we define it as whatever might be encompassed by future physics, then this is an empty definition because we don't know what kinds of entities future physics will admit into the world. We may well end up in a situation similar to materialists post-Newton, who were forced to stretch their definition of "materialism" to near meaninglessness to accomodate the "occult qualities in nature" admitted by Newtonian action at a distance

>>17541016
Ha yes the peak brainletism of rebutting a rationalism like science by another rationalism and their mental circus of ''dilemma' and ''definition''. Woah .

I will let you know that any rationalism, especially science, is rebutted easily by empiricism.

Try not passing as an atheist undergrad addicted to atheist intellectuals in the atheist academia.

>>17541218
You are so dumb you pseud, it's painful

>>17541218
You are so off base it's laughable. Imagine calling someone arguing against the cogency of "physicalism" an atheist intellectual (as if a/theism has any relevance whatsoever to the topic at hand). Science is applied empiricism, but again has little relevance to the simple fact that "physical" is an empty notion. Funny that in all the name calling I didn't hear a single actual rebuttal. I can tell you don't even know what you don't know.

Stop projecting and pick up a book some time. These finer analytical distinctions are not your speed

>>17537465
Physicalism has come to mean any phenomena bounded by natural laws. So waves and quantum phenomena are included. Materialism typically relied on atomistic reductionism, but physicalism doesn't.

>>17541016
>If we define it as whatever might be encompassed by future physics, then this is an empty definition because we don't know what kinds of entities future physics will admit into the world.
I think this definition is more along the lines of: Everything that has been and will be documented scientifically strictly works according to deterministic laws which can be precisely measured and theoretically integrated, even if we do not, or perhaps never will know, the full extent of these laws (for example, the notion of infinite causal chains [the removal of a first cause] means, despite everything behaving deterministically, it can never be fully determined).

>>17535631
and neither do you, that's his point

>>17535942
Where can I read about all this? How did you come to draw such conclusions?

>>17541534
>Everything that has been and will be documented scientifically strictly works according to deterministic laws

Hempel doesn't make this claim.

>which can be precisely measured and theoretically integrated

He certainly doesn't make this claim either. It would be audacious of him (or any scientist) to do so, especially when it's not true.

There is no real necessary connection between everything being physical and everything being deterministic. His point is that there are many different entities our best physical theories commit us to ontologically. We don't know what future theories will commit us to, therefore it is at the very least premature to define what is "physical" in terms of whatever such future models might encompass. To discover that deterministic laws of nature actually exist, as in they are etched into the joints of nature, would probably do severe damage to the physicalist worldview, for instance.

>>17541708
>There is no real necessary connection between everything being physical and everything being deterministic
Yes there is, per the a priori understanding of both. And I'm not really sure why you think Hempel is the measuring stick for physicalism. It seems like he has gotten a lot wrong from what you posted.
>We don't know what future theories will commit us to, therefore it is at the very least premature to define what is "physical" in terms of whatever such future models might encompass
But we do know they are entities which can be physically discovered (per the assertion you just gave). Ergo, physicalism is unavoidable, no matter the exact model which becomes scientifically instantiated. "Physical" fundamentally means determinable through sense perception and the application of rules to these perceptions. This implies determinism, whether or not one believes the rules are inherent to the perceptions or not (eg, Kantianism, which can be interpreted as a weak physicalism).

>>17541708
Actually, Kant would've argued that the rules are inherent to the perceptions themselves, as they are the conditions for all perception. But they are of course not inherent to "things in themselves", which is merely a closed off part of reality we can't say anything about (ie, no physicalist, idealist, dualist assertions). This lack of ability to say what reality fundamentally is beyond perception, is what makes it "weak."

>>17541482
But laws themselves aren't physical. So if they were to exist, they would create a dualism between the physical and the "ordering principle".
And even if we say, that everything is bound by laws and those laws somehow aren't transcendent, than how can we account for change? How can there be anything new, if everything is only slavishly obeying the laws. Is creativity nothing more, than following an algorithm? Seems silly.
No real creativity lies in uncertainty, in the unique problems that happen, when different "physical" beings rub up against each other in an hitherto unown configuration. There can be no law, other than the duel of wills, other than the race for a solution to the conflict, a solution which itself engenders a new conflict or fracturing, all immanently contained within reality.

>>17535499

read beak of the finch, people have witnessed evolution in real time.

>>17541837
>But laws themselves aren't physical
That's not a self-evident statement. Hume argued that all laws were formulated by the mere observation of interactions in the physical world, and thus they have no substantial reality in themselves. Kant fixed it up by introducing the transcendental, which is not a thing in itself (ie a thing of substance), but only the conditions of possible experience which make experience (perception of the physical, whether intuited or empirical) possible. These conditions are the same as the conditions for the existence of physical objects given to our senses (space, time, causality, etc.), and thus are not distinct from phenomena in any ontologically meaningful way, but they retain apodictic certainty within the realm of experience.
>How can there be anything new, if everything is only slavishly obeying the laws. Is creativity nothing more, than following an algorithm? Seems silly.
I get what you mean. But there are examples of algorithms which create immense, intricate, and expanding patterns from simple initial rules.

I don't actually have chips in on this whole debate. I don't want you to think I've "proved" physicalism, which I haven't, I'm just hopefully showing how physicalism has any ground at all.

>>17541741
>Yes there is, per the a priori understanding of both

There isn't. I can easily imagine an indeterministic world comprised wholly of physical substance. It may even be our own.

>And I'm not really sure why you think Hempel is the measuring stick for physicalism.

He's not, because he gives no definition of physicalism, because his point is that no adequete definition exists. His critique is aimed purely at those who would take recourse in physics for an answer, and insofar as that's the case it's unassailable. He does not say one thing that's wrong. Physics is not complete.

>But we do know they are entities which can be physically discovered (per the assertion you just gave).

It's more that someone who commits themselves to a particular model commits themselves to the entities posited by the model to exist. This of course only applies if you're a scientific realist. One can easily make the case that something like the wavefunction is a mathematical convenience and not a real existing entity.

> "Physical" fundamentally means determinable through sense perception and the application of rules to these perceptions.

This is an epistemological definition and I don't think this captures what the physicalist means by "physical", which is something essential that inheres in those objects. It doesn't tell me what quality all physical objects share that makes them physical.

>>17541982
>I can easily imagine an indeterministic world comprised wholly of physical substance.
No I can't, because then it would not be physical, it would be illusory and magical. This fails the test of analytic contradiction. I'm telling you honestly, I cannot imagine an indeterministic world composed of physical substance. I can imagine an indeterministic world (sort of), I can imagine a physical substance, but I cannot combine them in my imagination because it results in inherent contradiction between the two ideas.
>He's not, because he gives no definition of physicalism, because his point is that no adequete definition exists
If he gives no adequate definition himself, then how is he relevant to the debate? He simply claims a good definition doesn't exist, when we can show otherwise.
>It's more that someone who commits themselves to a particular model commits themselves to the entities posited by the model to exist.
No, it commits to a best explanation of phenomena with currently available evidence. For anything to have general substance, even this evidence, it has to be linked by a principle, whether this principle is underlying physicalist determinism or something else.
>which is something essential that inheres in those objects. It doesn't tell me what quality all physical objects share that makes them physical.
It tells you that they are independent of the senses (quality), and only capturable by the senses, which capture phenomena according to the same rules (substance) by which those phenomena exist. That's all that physicalism really needs. The act of perception itself adheres to physical rules which are not mind-malleable (idealism), the objects of perception, distinct from perception, adhere to the exact same rules, these rules are deterministic and physical, thus a physicalist ontology. The only problem now is bringing the mind itself into question.

>>17542066
>No I can't

There's just nothing precluding one from the other. Is the Epicurean swerve incoherent to you? There's nothing logically inconsistent in the premise.

>if he gives no adequate definition himself, how is he relevant to the debate?

It's just Socratic aporia. You make progress by eliminating answers. This is meaningful and relevant.

>best explanation of phenomena with available evidence

This is a physical model

>For anything to have general substance, even this evidence, it has to be linked by a principle, whether this principle is underlying physicalist determinism or something else

And this is the philosophical interpretation of the model.

>It tells you that they are independent of the senses (quality), and only capturable by the senses, which capture phenomena according to the same rules (substance) by which those phenomena exist. That's all that physicalism really needs. The act of perception itself adheres to physical rules which are not mind-malleable (idealism), the objects of perception, distinct from perception, adhere to the exact same rules, these rules are deterministic and physical, thus a physicalist ontology. The only problem now is bringing the mind itself into question.

So the physical is physical because the perceiver and perceived adhere to the same rules, which turn out to be physical. We return to Hempel's point about circular definitions.

>>17542221
>There's just nothing precluding one from the other. Is the Epicurean swerve incoherent to you? There's nothing logically inconsistent in the premise.
I just explained that it breaks the law of contradiction contained in the premise of what physical substance is. Physical substance cannot be indeterministic per its substantiality. Without being deterministic, it is no longer a substance and thus no longer physical. If you think otherwise, give me one (1) example of an indeterministic physical substance, or even just explain to me how you would distinguish between an indeterministic physical substance and an indeterministic immaterial (non-physical) ghost.
>We return to Hempel's point about circular definitions.
Yes, because by definition the objects of our perception are physical and substantial. This isn't circularity, it's a solid grounding in the reality of what physicality means. If you want to argue that nothing is physical, not even the keyboard you're typing on right now, then be my guest, but this view is simply unfalsifiable and not even worth engaging with seriously.

>>17542276
I just explained that it breaks the law of contradiction contained in the premise of what physical substance is. Physical substance cannot be indeterministic per its substantiality. Without being deterministic, it is no longer a substance and thus no longer physical

The only law of (non) contradiction that ought to be relevant here is the Aristotelian one. This goes for Kant as well, who lifted his logic from Aristotle. Substantiality has no dependence on determinism or indeterminism. Why should all that is solid melt into air if it turned out we really did have free will? Determinism and indeterminism are not substantial bodies that act on objects. They are terms that refer to states of affairs and processes.

>If you think otherwise, give me one (1) example of an indeterministic physical substance, or even just explain to me how you would distinguish between an indeterministic physical substance and an indeterministic immaterial (non-physical) ghost.

You're confusing issues. You may as well just ask how to determine the difference between something that is material and immaterial. We don't know. That's why the question of definition was posed in the first place. Furthermore, you're assuming an indeterministic material object would be the the same as an indeterministic immaterial one, but that depends on a necessary connection between immateriality and indeterminism which has not been established. Don't get ahead of yourself.

>Yes, because by definition the objects of our perception are physical and substantial. This isn't circularity, it's a solid grounding in the reality of what physicality means

This is the equivalent of saying the physical is the physical because it's physical, which ought to be true, but doesn't get us any closer to telling us what constitutes "physicality" in the first place, which was the point of the debate and the substance of Hempel's dilemma.

I'm not saying nothing is physical. I believe there are physical things. The question is establishing an adequete definition of physical that does not just refer to itself. There are many possible entities and processes in the world, space, time, causation, the wavefunction, laws of nature, etc. which MAY have some kind of substantial reality while stretching the ordinary commonsense notion of the physical. The goal is a solid definition that does not expand to the point of meaninglessness.

>>17542429
>Substantiality has no dependence on determinism or indeterminism.
If substance is not determined then it is not substance, it is an illusory indeterminate "thing", if you could even call it that. And you still haven't answered how one could even theoretically or practically conceive of an indeterminate physical substance. The answer is that you simply don't want to admit that determinacy is inherent to the idea of substance. If a thing is indeterminate, then it is neither substance nor physical, because it breaks from everything we know as physical, and no longer even has a consistent imaginary representation - it becomes a ghost because of this inconsistency. And how could one argue for the existence of physical yet indeterminate ghosts. The first fundamental obstacle you face is that because it is indeterminate, it cannot be measured or determined, ergo it may as well be non-existent. Second, if you want it to be a ghost-of-the-gaps like Epicurus, then you need to provide some consistent way to distinguish (determine) it from physically determinate phenomena, which again leads to determinacy of the indeterminate and we get back to where we started.
>This is the equivalent of saying the physical is the physical because it's physical
Yes, it is a brute fact. That's how all philosophy ultimately has to start in this respect - we are all familiar with what is physical and determined, that is the given basis of reality of anyone even prior to reaching the point where philosophy is relevant. The only question is this: is there any reason to assume that there is more than what is physical (which is the brute fact), and what grounds do we have to make that assertion? The strongest grounds I've seen are related to theory of mind and universals, and not much else.

This thread was moved to >>>/his/10455300