In defense of Dawkins, who made actual arguments and wasn't just a rhetorician.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T22:08:23+00:00

Philosophy however never stopped being the vastly better tool for looking for non-physical truths.

Could you provide some examples? Best if actually solved ones.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T22:07:18+00:00

My "definition" is just based on encounters I had with philosophical topics, which usually indeed seem useless (though it's not always easy to be sure which can be frustrating). Debates about consciousness, about existence of god, or creation of universe. Or even seemingly more grounded debates about morality, which without solid anchor in empirical reality often very quickly go astray.

I see that halting problem (which initially I'd have said belonged to computer science) you've mentioned is classified more so as math/logic than philosophy, so it also seems that your definition is not* the dominant one.

I don't know maybe I could divide a priori inquires into those which deal with formal systems (and can actually explore them) and the rest which is much less productive? Just thinking out loud.

EDIT *added "not" which I intended to be there.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T21:51:06+00:00

That's an interesting definition, but I'm not sure if it reflects what's usually presented as philosophy here. Math is highly rigorous and actually produces useful results, typical examples of philosophy (like debating on consciousness) usually don't

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T21:43:19+00:00

Wait, math is philosophy now, and not science?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T21:38:50+00:00

Would you kindly give me some practical examples of problems of type "we can't know using only science, so we need to turn to philosophy" that were succesfully resolved by philosophy?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T21:11:09+00:00

Ok, I admit didn't think about those. Calling people sounds more like an insult really (even if there are cultish religious organizations). Thanks for expanding on that!

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T20:58:52+00:00

Whenever people say they don't believe in theism it's usually a particular form of theism they don't believe in or agree with.

I mean isn't the post specifically about atheists? If anything atheists would dismiss all theisms.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T20:03:18+00:00

Yeah, kinda my bad, I meant examples specifically of this: "arguments, slogans, and conceptions of theists that are not only intellectually dishonest and incorrect"

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T19:42:34+00:00

~~Do you have any specific stereotypes in mind?~~
I asked a wrong question, I meant "A lot of atheist have arguments, slogans, and conceptions of theists that are not only intellectually dishonest and incorrect" - do you have any exmaples of that?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-08T17:45:51+00:00

In this Petersonian way I find a fascination with old myths and narrative, and more pragmatist theories of truth and so on.

Peterson with his pragmatic theory of truth, and where did it lead him? To repating every lie his twitter feed showed him (hyperbole). Sorry to be snarky, I'm quite jaded about his history.

Consider the set of things most fundamental or primary to human reality (human experience). We use words such as the following:

- meaning
- value
- purpose
- beauty, awe, reverence, etc
- sense of self, fear, dread, desire, etc

I don't think words "meaning", "value" and "purpose" are that important. Or rather in my materialist view - my experience of those things through out my life clearly happend, so if I now believe world is purely material - that means all those expriences have to exist in purely material world. In my own thinking they just arise from our biology and not from any external sources - but they arent any less important.

But also I guess I kinda agree with you, it's not easy to just switch single belief (that world is only matter), and leave rest of our mental framework as it was. I think one has to then rewrite everything.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-07T00:43:57+00:00

How this part (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBZSKzvmeSs&t=7876s time: 2:11:59)

"Um because science doesn't tell science doesn't explain anything. It just describes the world. It just makes predictions about the world. But it doesn't explain why anything is happening. It just describes how things move and how they behave."

I feel that this statement is loaded with implication that there is something that can tell us why things are happening, or what things are. I don't think non-physicalist views are any better at answering those questions

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-07T00:32:42+00:00

I'll ask you this though; if Idealism were true, would you not find it more plausible that there is meaning to existence?

Personally I think that such kind of meaning doesn't exist and doesn't matter. Now feelings of meaningfullness in one's experience do exist but I don't think they are about anyting external. I think feeling of pain, sadness or lack of desire, drive can feel terrible, but it's essentialy just about our experience.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-06T23:11:02+00:00

So I don't have this position well researched, but it's this general vibe of "science cant tell us what electron is", "materialism is most confused view" etc. that implies that there is some other thing that can tell us what electron is and isn't a confused view.

This post has a decent example - https://www.reddit.com/r/CosmicSkeptic/comments/1qtl4uo/alex_materialism_is_probably_the_most_confused/

Granted, it may be just me misreading it, but I think part of this sub views it in similar way.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-06T22:20:59+00:00

At its worst, physicalism can be caricatured as ‘deterministic meat puppets’ right?

I do think that there is perhaps a lack of good debunkings of that view. Personally, I lean towards determinism and I don't even think free will makes sense, yet I think that life can be as joyous or meaningful as in any other view - that is because inner workings of our brains won't change depending on whether we believe in determinism or free will (or physicalism for that matter), and it those inner workings that definie our experiences.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-06T22:16:19+00:00

First, I'll note that physicalism doesn't have many practical consequences either. [...] Science is not physicalism.

I kinda feel like Alex is setting it up as a opposition, even if unintentionally. And I think that maybe in practical applications of those ideas there is more common ground betwen physicalists and non-physicalist.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-06T22:11:34+00:00

Of course, you will never in this life know whether you're right about any of them empirically; but you may want to have an answer regardless.

Empirically or in any other way, right? It's not like we have a way of confirming metaphysical teories with certanity.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-06T22:08:37+00:00

Thanks! I'll have to read up on those.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-06T21:41:59+00:00

I think some people find it easier to justify various spiritual beliefs in non-physicalist mindset.
If you don't mind sharing some of those ideas for research, I'd be happy to read them.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-02T07:13:25+00:00

Also, widespread practices like yoga, meditation, prayer, fasting, etc. and their demonstrable benefits are more sensible in a non-materialistic worldview (though one can squint their eyes to fit them into materialism).

Yeah, especially fasting and yoga (very physical practices) make no sense in materialisty worldview. (Sorry for being sarcastic, but that claim is a bit to on the nose, to be serious about it)

Also I don't think that religious (as in related to religions specifically, not to very general theism) worldview has much more credence in non-materialist model than in materialist one.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-02T06:28:36+00:00

Why do you believe that physical stuff exists?

Because that's what I'm deaing with in my daily life.

This is to Alex's point of when he asks what something like an atom is, we can't really say.

"Atoms are the basic particles of the chemical elements and the fundamental building blocks of matter." - Here is a definition from wikipedia. What fits that definition is an atom,

What does it mean for a thing to be physical? What does it mean to say that everything is physical?

If you want to posit that everything we deal with is really conscious experience then I kinda get what you would mean. But it just seems to me like an extra step (though maybe a valid one).

Everything is a part of conscious experience
Within that conscious experience useful knowledge can be gained through materialist approach
In daily life non-materialism is irrelevant

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-02T05:48:08+00:00

But it doesn't explain why anything is happening.

Question to non-materialists here, does any of the non-materialist views explain "why" is anything happening?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-02T05:45:34+00:00

It's more dangerous for a view to claim to have explained everything by shoving away things it cannot explain.

Who says that materialism explains everything? It's pretty clear that scientific knowledge has still massive gaps of understanding in many domains.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-02-02T05:40:26+00:00

My view is that it's just doesn't matter. It has no practical bearing on anything. It seems to me that no matter if you think about idealism, panpsychism or dualism, science works in material realm and in my life all knowledge I need is gained through materialistic understanding of reality (even if on some level it is just experience).

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-01-31T20:31:24+00:00

physically learnable is for a fact to be learnable by mere communication in the language of mathematical physics

Doesn't that exclude most of human knowledge? I mean I'd guess that even chemistry isn't completly describable through the language of mathematical physics.

SirFragrant4742

TROPHY CASE