/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19731783]

3000 years of philosophizing and we are still debating over materialism and idealism. It has moved to such a place that neither of these positions has any bearing on questions of ethics or epistemology. Science works because scientists are knowingly or unknowingly Pragmatists, ethics is whatever the Powerful deems good and advantageous. The debate does not seem to want to move the ball beyond our current social paradigm, it’s all meaningless and self flagellation, a boost of ego

[Anonymous No.19731784]

>>19731783
3000 years of sneedizing and we are still sneeding over sneedism and feedism.

[Anonymous No.19731790]

>>19731783
>Some complained that I didn’t include a question on consciousness in my list of big questions. My reason is that I can’t see how we will ever know more than we do now. There’s nothing to learn:

>Zombies are supposedly just like real people in having the same physical brains, which arose the through the same causal history. The only difference is that while real people really “feel”, zombies do not. But since this state of “feeling” is presumed to have zero causal influence on behavior, zombies act exactly like real people, including being passionate and articulate about claiming they are not zombies. People who think they can conceive of such zombies see a “hard question” regarding which physical systems that claim to feel and otherwise act as if they feel actually do feel. (And which other systems feel as well.)

>The one point I want to make is: if zombies are conceivable, then none of us will ever have any more relevant info than we do now about which systems actually feel. Which is pretty much zero info! You will never have any info about whether you ever really felt in the past, or will ever feel in the future. No one part of your brain ever gets any info from any other part of your brain about whether it really feels.

>These claims all follow from our very standard and well-established info theory. We get info about things by interacting with them, so that our states become correlated with the states of those things. But by assumption this hypothesized extra “feeling” state never interacts with anything. The actual reason why you feel compelled to assert very confidently that you really do feel has no causal connection with whether you actually do really feel. (More)

>Your brain is made out of quite ordinary physical materials, driven by ordinary physical processes that we understand very well at near-atomic levels of organization. It is only processes at higher levels of organization that we haven’t traced out in detail. We will eventually be able to trace in great detail and at all levels the causes of what makes you, or an em, or any variation on either, inclined to passionately claim, and believe, that you really do feel. And that will let us predict well what changes to you, or anything, might induce you, or it, to claim or believe something different.

>But if you insist that none of that can possibly verify that you, or an em, actually do feel, then it can’t add any info on that issue. Yes, maybe you have intuitions inside you that often tell you if you think something that you see in front of you really feels. But such intuitions are already available to you now. Just imagine various things you might see, note your intuitions about each, compare those to others’ intuitions, and then draw your conclusions about consciousness. After all, we already have a pretty good idea of all the things we will eventually be able to see.

Refute this.

[Anonymous No.19731796]

>>19731790
Forgot link:
https://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/11/we-will-never-learn-more-on-consciousness.html

[Anonymous No.19731799]

>>19731790
Refeed this
>>19731796
Forsneed link

[Anonymous No.19731805]

>>19731790
Mustn’t have understood the point of my thread; it doesn’t matter either way. If your dude is correct and I am a zombie, what bearing does that have on my morals and actions… none? Okey, then WHO CARES

At least back in the old age philosophers used to pack their philosophies with the implication of ethics, which translated into religions, cults or ways of life

Today it’s only about being right for the sake of being right, bunch of nerds

[Anonymous No.19731810]

>>19731805
Sneedly???

[Anonymous No.19731846]

>>19731796
It's interesting that when a Malcolm Gladwell-tier popsci book doesn't take off and achieve notable success midwits will start taking it for nonfiction simply because of its obscurity and sciency sounding talk.

[Anonymous No.19731862]

>>19731805
Are you retarded? How will you know how to be good without knowing what goodness is?

[Anonymous No.19731872]

>>19731862
How does your meta psychics tell you what goodness is when you have divorced it from everything that deals with religion, theology and revelation?

[Anonymous No.19733155]

Bump

[Anonymous No.19733190]

Want to know a secret, anon? Nobody knows anything. We all root for one side or the other, or act above it all. The world will keep turning and the sun will shine on the right and wrong.

[Anonymous No.19733348]

Materialism won decades ago

Haven't you heard the news? Hope was BTFO

[Anonymous No.19733398]

>>19731783
Honestly if you’re pissed that ethics was separated from metaphysics, blame Kant, who came up with the retarded idea that you could have a groundless ethics.

[Anonymous No.19733666]

>>19733398
But now that this is the case why even debate over materialism vs idealism when your meta psychics can be separate from your ethics? Meta psychics has been completely rendered useless

[Anonymous No.19733759]

>>19731784
fpbp

[Anonymous No.19733816]

>>19731783
>moved to such a place that neither of these positions has any bearing on questions of ethics or epistemology.
Sounds like you dont have a good understanding of either of these positions

[Anonymous No.19733822]

>>19731790
Advaitafag retroctively btfo

[Anonymous No.19733852]

>>19733816
Enlighten me: what ethical implications does modern notions of idealism and materialism have? I’m not talking about classical, pre-kantian understandings

You could take the philosophy of Schopenhauer and either end up a liberal utopian or fascist, either position fits

[Anonymous No.19733872]

>>19731790

[Anonymous No.19734370]

>>19733822
how does that paragraph have any relation to Advaita whatsoever?

[Anonymous No.19734378]

>>19733348
Is it possible that the Saint has not yet heard, that God is dead?

[Anonymous No.19734846]

>>19731783
>3000 years of philosophizing and we are still debating over materialism and idealism
We aren't. Philosophy completely lost its position in society, as has religion. The former not being taken serious by anyone but themselves, the latter still existing because it's intertwined in certain cultures.
Dualism is inherent to human thinking, but its clear that materialism (not explicitly monism, due to irrationality) has the upper hand.

[Anonymous No.19735209]

>>19734846
Most people dont care too about the philosophers of the past but they are still very much busy philosophizing on their own, and religion is seeing a resurgence, not organized religion but interest in private religiosity. Materialism will probably always have the upper hand because so few people actually make progress in coming to true wisdom and right understanding of reality.

[Anonymous No.19735210]

>>19734378
lol yeah and then he is confronted with it and decides to stay with his belief in god anyway.

[Anonymous No.19735289]

>>19733666
just because they can don't mean they have to.
Believing in either one of these metaphysical system may or may not have an effect on your ethical decisions.

But there are certainly no metaphysical constructs needed to put forth an argument for organic morality arising from systems of cooperation. It is much more important to study and describe the practical reality of ethical behaviour and it's implications than to base everything on theory.

Don't get me wrong you absolutely need both. You need the ethical concepts but also need experience in ethical problem-solving. But again you don't necessarily need metaphysics although it comes in handy and your soul propably yearns for it.
There is after all a desperate seeking of experiences of transcendence that is instinctive in its nature. Thus speculating about the forces that rule us from beyond the depth of the collective unconscious is an experience that cam broaden our horizon and inspire ethical fantasy.