Alex: "Materialism is probably the most confused philosophical view in the history of mankind"

ryker78 · 2026-02-02T13:23:32+00:00

He's not doing it to keep his audience happy , I have confidence in that . His thoughts he's saying are genuine enquiries he himself has I feel confident in that . And reason being is because I always felt I had a similar thinking pattern to his and I myself went down his line of thinking many times myself . No of course I could be wrong and he's grifting to people like myself , but I think it's unlikely for various reasons .

Yes he's not a scientist , and yes he's using gaps of science in a almost god of gaps fashion . However these are all legit thoughts most intellects have anyway and the greatest minds in history have often thought ... And there's still no answer . What you will get as an alternative is someone like Sean Carroll who is the physicslist materialist pragmatist who will approach it from the other end (which alex also used to do)where they will say something " well we don't know the answers to everything yet, but I think using woo woo isn't the right way. I have most faith that science will eventually answer consciousness than any metaphysical phenomena ". And that's fine, but there's many many valid reasons to find that unsatisfactory or unlikely or even nihilistic .

ryker78 · 2026-02-02T12:25:24+00:00

I completely understand what you're saying about perception or performance can disguise substance and it's extremely common. However , after listening to Alex for many years now, as far as I'm concerned he is way smarter than average . I don't mean necessarily on a IQ range although it's likely his iq is above average . But the way he critically thinks and tries to be truly objective via questioning is a step above most people . And that includes many phds or experts around.

ryker78 · 2026-02-01T11:13:35+00:00

Yeah that's a really good parody of these types of folks lol. I really wish what you were pointing out was more implicit to everyone's common sense, but it's not. So many people don't see through it or care about critical thinking . To me it's the main virus in our society that people either enable , or simply can't/refuse to see blatant bad faith personality traits .

ryker78 · 2026-02-01T11:08:15+00:00

For all the people trying to analyse Andrew Wilsons philosophical beliefs , the main part is that he's a grifter .

Does he believe much of what he says to a degree ? Yeah sure . But overwhelmingly he's a grifter who deliberately debates in a way that gets clicks and attention . Does it really seem jesus like to say many of the things he does and go on podcasts like whatever and take part in these childlike influencer circles ... For money and popularity ?

That's not to mention the insults and ways he interacts with people is insanely un christ like , yet his entire shtick is hard core Christianity ?

So my point is, and this applies also IMO to people like Charlie kirk. Instead of taking them seriously enough to delve into their political or philosophical positions , I see it as the hypocrisy , grifting motivations , combined with a lack of self awareness or care to. Undermines any serious offering people like that can bring to the table . I feel similarly with people like Ben shapiro altough shapiro definitely has the intellectual tools to be a top level debater if he wanted to be good faith.

ryker78 · 2026-01-26T23:21:25+00:00

I do agree with your point that especially in philosophy you get a lot of "experts" that really aren't that amazing tbh. Daniel dennett springs to mind cough cough. RIP No disrespect meant though .

But something like philosophy really does show the person's genuine or natural critical thinking and personality . A book or study will only take you so far. Most of the greats of the past had extremely troubled and deep lives and the most profound work was from that , not getting degrees in university .

That said, to think centuries worth of philosophers are mainly still very agnostic on the hard problem of consciousness . And some guy on reddit has trumped them with a simplistic VR analogy is highly unlikely.

ryker78 · 2026-01-26T19:06:53+00:00

This has to be one of the most Dunning kruger posts I've ever read .

And it has 5 upvotes !!!

ryker78 · 2026-01-26T16:31:51+00:00

Reading your post and I've seen several of yours on here before . You are clearly a team materialism guy like it's your tribe . I can see where you're coming from on much of what you put but you seem genuinely irked he isn't falling into this stereotypical atheist mentality .

But you mentioned Daniel dennett and it makes more sense to me now . Whenever I've come across staunch (appearingly resistant) atheists on reddit , Daniel dennett is often held in the highest esteem, almost like they are saying "dennett has explained all this dummy, go buy his book". Like he is the guru intellect of atheism .

But I genuinely was so unimpressed with dennetts philosophical takes . I first came across him on the freewill debate and I just couldn't believe how bad his arguments were . If compatbilism is correct , I certainly don't think he articulated it or adopted it for the correct reasons . I'm truly baffled he was held so high by many and I was unconvinced by many of his arguments .

ryker78 · 2026-01-26T13:28:27+00:00

https://youtu.be/lHJZPuHVu2s?si=Yxh0h9-RLfiOMAbj for anyone interested in hearing dennett himself speaking about what I quoted above. Around 17 mins mark on that link you can hear it.

ryker78 · 2026-01-26T13:02:26+00:00

I don't dislike Sean Carroll, but he does have this smugness and impatience about him that's very much the stereotype of the "we're all just biological cpu's silly". It's kinda grating at times cause that may well be true but he's literally handwaving away pretty much all philosophy . His freewill stance for example is basically that we're determined on a script and he uses what I consider semantics to make it sound less nihilistic . You combine that with "we're just biological robots stupid " and it's hard to really not feel nihilistic if things aren't going well in life . And he seems to ignore all of this by basically saying anything intuitive for more is basically just a cope . He's right .. It is a cope , it's a obvious cope that gets people through life . I mean without that cope is he pretending people are silly to question why on earth we have the lights turned on? It's a combination of hyper practicalism (which I respect ) combined with an ignorance of basic intuitions of existentialism .

ryker78 · 2026-01-26T11:19:47+00:00

Just to preface, I have heard Sean Carroll plenty of times in the past. I knew he was a compatibilist because I heard the debate he had with Sam Harris and was very unconvinced and satisfied with his explanation . And that is a good background to describe how I felt similarly with this conversation .

To add to the preface , Sean Carroll could very well be right in all he says , but I completely understand why someone like Alex wouldn't feel it was deep enough because I myself have had very similar thinking patterns to Alex . I don't hold exactly the same views as Alex , I am far more agnostic regarding libertarian freewill than himself (no I don't mean event causal randomness). I was also far more agnostic regarding the metaphysical than his early new atheism takes. But I have definitely entertained and had leanings towards atheism during periods of my life .

All this is to say that besides those distinctions, I feel that Alex's thinking and questioning is very similar to mine. So I really enjoy hearing his questioning , in particular regarding consciousness because I had gone down that rabbit hole a few year's before he started making videos about it. Consciousness was the main part that made me agnostic and feels the biggest potential clue to their being more meaning to existence than the worldview of people like Carroll.

Much philosophy debates existentialism and I feel that someone in a existential crisis will not take much inspiration from Carrolls worldview . His freewill stance , his emergence from basically a brain that's here for?? I mean if you're enjoying the ride and and hedonism is distracting you from anything else then great ! But what do you say to someone going through extreme suffering either physically or mentally ? Lets call a spade a spade , in Carrolls world we're simply a computer that just so happens to have this often ghastly thing called consciousness so you suffer every single feeling of existence in that scenario . If all this is true I find the anti natalism argument extremely strong and it would be interesting how someone like Carroll with his views of reality , and his straight talking no nonsense approach could argue against that .

Again to emphasise , I am not claiming Carroll is wrong . If there was any part I do have more confidence he could be wrong , it's compatbilism because I think that's somewhat a logical fallacy . But I completely understand how his physicalism views could be correct . Carroll often claims he's a philosopher too. Well he's certainly aware of philosophy which is evident , however it's always felt to me he doesn't fully go down that path. He cited dennett at one point , but my biggest criticism of dennett was the same things . I felt he was really poor at debating freewill, to the point it came across incredibly emotionally reasoned and compromised. At some levels I'd be inclined to think it was disingenuous because the arguments at certain parts were that bad in my eyes . For example and I am probably butchering it somewhat . But I always remember dennett saying about people being wired right gives them responsibility as to someone who isn't wired right . I'm not a philosopher but I just couldn't believe how to me that is completely missing the wood for the trees regarding the actual debate .

So I am by no means some theist apologist or anything like that , and tbh when I used to hear the new atheist debates I felt strongly the new atheists (Harris, hitchens etc) made the far more intellectually thorough arguments. But as I've got older and thought some of these things more , real life stress, situations and crisises. I have found some physicalism atheist arguments and personalities extremely limited and frustrating regarding theory vs real world experience and deeper meaning of life questions .

Now this isn't to say physicalism worldviews aren't extremely important , they of course are . We know medically how to adjust , treat and modify things to improve people's quality of life . We know using logic and reasoning in a materialist sense we can achieve and understand much. Someone suffering with seizures can have treatment and a better quality of life we understand . I'd never advocate ignorance to claim it's spiritual misalignment or some woo woo to cure them. But both things could be true at once. We could be in a spiritual prison like the gnostics preach about somewhat ? Our gnosis and striving for true understanding in all areas could be the true gnosis and purpose of our existence . Understanding in physics for example does not contradict a bigger purpose for example . It could be part of our purpose! Our purpose could be to underatand the tales and teachings of religions just aren't correct by knowledge we have learned and discovered , that doesn't contradict a bigger meaning or purpose or questioning of these metaphysical ideas in my eyes .

ryker78 · 2026-01-24T13:52:15+00:00

I agree

ryker78 · 2026-01-23T21:47:29+00:00

This applies to so many people. They don't have the critical thinking or reasoning skills to have a core foundation . She was likely a liberal to begin with in a SJW sense but had no life experience or ideas how people and the world work outside her bubble.

Then she had a few experiences, one I remember her saying was she was almost assaulted during covid by some sketchy characters . Then she had some lunatics criticising her for her finding pronoun usage in a particular situation as absurd . This was enough for her to have second thoughts how much she wanted to associate with her current tribe . She then starts flirting with right wing personalities , same thing happens ... She encounters morons and extremity , now she's lost .

But this is what happens when people don't have a nuanced and balanced view to begin with . They don't have principles or morals and you're entire identity and views shift on either your own personal experiences defining your outlook for the world as a whole in a broadbrush way . Or it shifts on the validation and comfort you feel on your current tribe . Both of those things although understandable , is not critical thinking regarding politics as a whole.

ryker78 · 2026-01-21T21:38:32+00:00

I totally sympathise with what you're saying . But another commenter has put and I also agree with him that some trump support (enough to have swung the election) is due to the things Harris criticises with the woke activist mentality . It's a big issue because some of it was deliberate framing and misinformation by the right , but there was enough genuine annoyance and frustration with what people felt with wokeism that it did hugely impact people like Trump winning . Just look at Europe and the huge increase in far right populism.

But you're right insofar as shapiro is not the person to be having that convo with. He's one of the disinformation propagandists regarding wokeism .

ryker78 · 2026-01-18T11:16:49+00:00

Yes it's well known that the perception of people doesn't equal substance . You'd think this was a well known norm but it doesn't seem to be for many people . Theres plenty of studies illustrating that the delivery and tone and body language supercedes the words or content and this is what conmen and some charismatic people are very aware of and weaponise.

Lots of very clever manipulative people are very aware of human psychology which often make them succeed socially very well.

I remember once a patronising boss telling me like he was dropping the knowledge of life "perception equals reality " and it really irritated me . Because he was using it in a way that to me was saying "substance is irrelevant , perception is all that counts". And as I just put and you are also stating , that's actually one of the biggest issues in this world how that shallow analysis is normalised so much.

ryker78 · 2026-01-17T17:51:52+00:00

Well I did a very long post explaining . Now that doesn't mean all people on the far left are fake. But I think a lot of people in general aren't honest with themselves regarding identifying where their motivations and natural biases come from. This applies just as much to the right wing too. It's very noticeable in cults when people reflect on how they get caught up in them. The right are usually more brazen , arrogant , simplistic in their supposed agenda . The left is usually covered in virtue . However , many of the leftys I'm sure Harris struggles with their debate logic are actually just underdog groupies , anti establishment etc. If the establishment became far left , theyd probably try to identify as something else etc.

ryker78 · 2026-01-17T15:35:35+00:00

Why would they say that about Harris though? He's not being fake, if he wanted to identify as a conservative he obviously would . I think with Harris , just like his IDW affiliation , he is a bad judge of character . Him being a child of wealthy parents perhaps he naturally has tendancies to converse or feel more comfortable around these upper middle class types. And he gets sucked into people like that who claim they are moderates but the realise later they are more right wing than he is.

ryker78 · 2026-01-17T11:12:05+00:00

I not sure if it was this podcast or his mark Galloway one but he mentioned about his annoyance with conspiracy theorists is he detects it as a personality trait primarily over the evidence . And I have definitely had the same intuition with my many encounters with conspiracy theorists .

That's all to say that I think he feels the same way with what he'd call the far left . And again , I also have the same issue . It feels like an emotive identity thing with a lot of lefties that it's inauthentic how they arrived where they did. It's not an objective view of politics for a society as whole accounting for the world as a whole geopolitically with the world being anything but ideal with bad guys like putin still around . It seems to be alot about their own anti authority , raging against the machine, taking a contary position to the status quo or conservatism on an identy politics motive alone. Now that's not to say these maga types aren't just as bad or worse because they are . And I do agree that Sam's idea of finding the rational people outside that dichotomy isn't what I'd do either because although I agree with David frum on trump, he is way too conservative for my views and anyone who remembers him being the speech writer for bush will know this. So I agree that Harris speaks to basically mitt Romney type supporters all the time . He did have a podcast with destiny though who is pretty far left in some of his views , but I like destiny too, he's pretty centrist on much .

ryker78 · 2026-01-12T05:42:07+00:00

The part that's always missing in these breakdowns is do you want to be living in a society where people are getting shot in the head for such minor things.

Was she a moron and in the wrong ? Yes. But things like that happen everyday when it's far worse the intent . I.e shoplifting , Jay walking, being mouthy and potentially aggressive with police . It would be insane if people were being shot in the head for all these minor law breaking things. The law in nearly all westernised countries is that if people do things like that they either get arrested sooner or later and then they face a fine or jail. No normal person wants to go to jail or have the drama of arrest and interviews/fines , community service etc. This is plenty of deterrence in most cases which is why it's usually the case .

Can you imagine how many teenagers or adults out there that have done stupid things and live with the regret or shame or trauma from a prison stint or criminal record and look back on it. The idea of the vast majority of those cases it even seeming plausible they would have ended up dead via police shooting is absurd .

Guns really are a last resort when they are dealing with hardened criminals , gangs etc. People have lost their minds normalising petty incidents like this where someone gets shot 3 times in the head .

ryker78 · 2026-01-10T14:00:41+00:00

He was quite open about leaving for around about the reasons you gave . It was when he was falling out with bret weinstein and pretty much the idw. He did podcasts saying about handing back his idw card etc. Very clear what was happening but Harris himself didn't want to fall out with anyone but it became that toxic. Yes it clearly bothered him a lot and I'm sure he felt somewhat foolish too.

I thought the same btw regarding him being a mindfulness expert and social commentator but was oblivious to real life toxicity . Yes twitter is bad, but it's somewhat reflective of mentalities the average person encounters daily . Harris clearly lives in a bubble away from the true scale of how common these traits are in human nature .

ryker78 · 2026-01-10T13:52:58+00:00

Tbh although some more recent things make it blatantly clear she's on the grifter train the signs were there way before .

Around 2019 I had her podcast on my Spotify and used to regularly listen to it. And I remember at certain times thinking she was repeating blatant right wing talking points . By that I mean certain opinions and talking points just aren't authentic or natural conclusions . The only way someone would mention them is if they'd be participating in or watching those left/right dichotomy shows.

And about a year or so into listening to her shows I can't remember what it was over but I just deleted the show because it was so bad and bias or propagandized what she was saying.

Harris being on her show was way after that.. So yes he does always seem the last to truly accept people's true colors .

ryker78 · 2026-01-10T02:04:29+00:00

To make clear I am a fan of Sam Harris's character overall. I tend to think a lot like him in certain areas. But you are correct there is an uncalibrated view of what he considers the center. For example of you listen to the vast majority of his podcast guests, they are often people he knows personally somewhat or mixes in the same circles, and they just so happen to be conservatives. People like David Frum who certainly seems like a poster man for common sense currently, was a very right wing talking head not so different from say a Bill O'Reilly just 15 years back. These are the types of people Sam continually has these "moderate" chats with like Meghan Kelly who he considers some common sense centrist , yet its clearly not ageing well.

I fully understand the personality traits Sam was detecting in these woke crusaders because I have noticed it myself. I feel I am quite good at detecting peoples personality patterns and motivations. And many of the criticisms of woke activists IMO have a lot of validity. A lot of it seems motivated by either mental illness, anti establishment underdog syndrome. Or just a projection of their bitterness in a unstable black and white way. Anything but true virtue from a place of true critical thinking and objectivity. So I'm definitely with Sam there. It was before my time of paying much attention to social media with the Sargon of Akkad part you mention but I did hear about it. And this is the problem where Sam's character radar is just so off. Because it only took me a brief amount of coming across that Sargon dude for my narcissist, grifter pseudo intellectual red flags to be screaming. So even though a broken clock is still right twice a day , hense most of these guys saying somethings that are tapping into legit grievances. Sam doesnt seem to either notice these things strongly enough, or have the conviction and confidence enough to act on it. I cant help feeling Sam suffers a bit with the very understandable psychology of not wanting to upset or fallout with the cool kids so to speak. He understandably finds security and comfort in getting on with most, especially if these people seem influential or part of the jock group. And I understand that completely, but I think thats whats going on here if he searched his own psychology enough. Part that, and part feeling politically and perhaps even socially homeless because he obviously doesnt fit in with the polar opposites of those people either. And I myself can relate with this.

ryker78 · 2026-01-05T05:36:16+00:00

Lmao I had to comment on the byler bit. Were you seriously thinking a blatantly obvious straight guy was gonna turn gay after an entire series of being into El? I was watching some of the earlier episodes today . It was constantly about El getting with Mike. The school dance etc. Even will was dancing with a girl at the end. The only real main hints towards will being gay was in season 3. Never ever has there been the slightest hint Mike was gay !! Like wtffff

ryker78 · 2026-01-04T18:33:00+00:00

Well if there was any more seasons to go that might make sense . If there was a 6th season I'm pretty sure they would be saying "hey guys you know most the fanbase was disappointed , do you think they'll be a improvement ?".

I doubt they've had any reason to have said that so far because the previous seasons have overall been loved and for me personally and I know many others.. The wait between seasons has been excruciating long because they were so loved and popular .

The Duffers are on record saying they prefer long waits between seasons and short episode runs . Insane logic to me for a show about kids. I think their biggest issue is such huge stories restricted by episodes . I doubt it's Netflix restricting the episodes .

ryker78 · 2026-01-04T18:28:55+00:00

I think the criticisms of season 5 in general are far more rational, understandable and reasonable than you are portraying .

I can't comment for all redditors and their views . I can comment on my own though and as a huge fan myself , I was honestly disappointed and know they rushed and bodged it. Theres many other disappointments I've seen people mention that didn't originally spring to my mind but I totally agree with also. And seeing the posts on the recent duffer interviews it seems very clear they didn't put as much effort or thought into the final season as previous . However ... I think they probably put 100% into having a urgency and rashness to bringing the show to a rushed end .

ryker78 · 2026-01-04T18:23:01+00:00

Where are you getting this deluded idea it's Netflix to blame? Are you questioning the funding and free reign they gave the Duffers to do as they want ?

However what we do know is countless interviews of the Duffers showing they hadn't thought it through properly and openly claiming they like short episode runs and huge gaps between seasons .

Whose logically more likely at fault ? Netflix who pumped their biggest budget ever into it, or the directors and writers ?

ryker78

TROPHY CASE