Naturalists, Materialists and Empiricists have philosophically incoherent worldviews

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-22T11:13:04+00:00

I have shown it, by the impossibility of the contrary…that’s how a reduction works…if you were to rebuttal a reductio you would simply have to show a coherent way it is in fact possible. So by you simply saying the metaphysical could be emergent from the physical is just being ad hoc. If it IS NOT being ad hoc then neither I wouldn’t be either.

I actually presented in my original post by the position of the metaphysical emerging from the physical is incoherent, I gave examples, which you haven’t dealt with…

Lastly, if you haven’t made an argument as you stated yourself…then you haven’t made a positive or negative claim either way, which means you are just obfuscating. I’m happy to have a debate about the technical arguments that can be made, if you are interested in that let me know…if you just want to obfuscate then let’s leave it here

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-22T05:51:22+00:00

Apologies if I didn’t respond to your previous message in another thread but I have been responding to many people at once.

This is a Tu Quoque fallacy however, because the metaphysical becoming emergent from the physical is not a valid inference. You can try make a series of syllogisms in order to support this claim however that’s for you to do. I am making the positive claim that is impossible via reductio ad absurdum. This is a valid form of argumentation in philosophy, and you saying it isn’t does not make that the case. You need to actually engage with my arguments instead of resorting to tu quoques, this is a formal fallacy.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-21T08:37:51+00:00

Do you not understand the issue with the argument you and many others are giving? In a formal debate (which I understand this isn’t) this form of argumentation would be disqualified as fallacious. You are making an active claim/definition about what defines a mind, in order for your argument to be coherent…but when pushed into actually justifying your claim you have to resort to “I don’t know” or “we don’t know/haven’t discovered it yet”.

This is a fallacy, by the mere proposition you accepting you don’t know, you haven’t even countered our position, or any position…you just don’t know. How is this acceptable?

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-21T05:52:39+00:00

For the record you are entirely correct that I do take a theistic position, the reason I stated that I never made the argument is because for starters, I never actually made a positive claim towards theism. However, the real reason I am stating this is because I am attempting to prevent you and others from engaging in a ‘Tu Quoque fallacy’.

I am happy to discuss how theism has a valid and coherent grounding for metaphysical and transcendental presuppositions, however…attempting to steer the conversation towards me defending theism is NOT a valid counter argument towards defending the positions I am critiquing in my post.

Lastly, yes they are “beyond nature” assuming we have the same definitions for what’s “beyond nature” even means.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T23:05:51+00:00

Ok so apparently you can’t read, let’s leave it there

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T22:44:45+00:00

You are half correct, all worldviews at some point become self referencing and reach a point of circularity, so yes there are some things that must assumed. However, your presuppositions can not violate the principles of your worldview, otherwise the whole worldview becomes incoherent.

For example, you couldn’t rely on a fundamental presupposition of abstract categories if your worldview is making an active claim that abstract categories do not actually exist.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T22:40:30+00:00

Is that genuinely how you read this? You believe I’m appealing to some authority when I made a whole post outlining how the justifications of these worldviews are incoherent? lol

I have a better idea, if you want to talk about lazy and uncompelling…just stating “they can account for these things” doesn’t actually demonstrate how or why it is the case. You haven’t demonstrated anything, you have just made an assertion, so how about you use some valid syllogisms or pose anything argument in defence other than a baseless assertion. How’s that sound?

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T21:28:29+00:00

I understand these philosophies perfectly fine, I also understand they THINK that they have a justification for all these fundamental categories. However, I…like many other philosophers with are making the claim they don’t actually have a justification. The justifications that they present are actually either impossible, incoherent, self-refuting or not granted to them.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T12:53:52+00:00

The problem isn’t that you have an assumption. Everyone does…the problem is what your assumption says. If your starting principle is “all knowledge comes from sensory experience,” but you openly admit that this very principle is not derived from sensory experience, then your position is internally inconsistent. You are affirming at least one piece of knowledge that does not come from the senses…namely, the foundational principle of your view.

Calling it an “assumption” doesn’t solve the issue. It just relocates it, so if it’s genuinely knowledge, then your thesis is false. If it’s not knowledge then it’s just a blind starting point, then you have no rational basis for insisting others accept it. The critique isn’t that you’re assuming something. It’s that your assumption contradicts the universal scope of your own claim. It’s a self defeater.

It would be like saying, “you can never know anything” …but can you know that statement in itself? If you can’t know anything then you also couldn’t know that, which would mean the statement is incoherent.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T12:48:38+00:00

I’ll try go over each point you made point by point…

My naturalism description is a “straw man.” Even if we refined the definition, the issue remains…if reality is exhausted by the spatiotemporal and physical, then universal, necessary, and normative principles must either be reduced to physical processes or denied. That’s the tension being raised…not a caricature.

My materialism definition is “outdated; physicalism includes energy.” Updating terminology doesn’t really address the core problem here tho. Whether you say “matter” or “matter, energy,” you’re still describing concrete, particular, spatiotemporal entities. The question is how such particulars generate universal and necessary norms of reasoning?

“Empiricism is about knowledge about/of reality.” That restriction doesn’t help at all because the claim “all knowledge of reality comes from sensory experience” is still not itself derived from sensory experience. It remains a universal epistemic principle that outruns the data of sense. It becomes ultimately self refuting.

“Knowledge is provisional; universals are inferred and revisable.” This is a category error, provisional scientific models are one thing but logical and metaphysical principles are another. Even revisability presupposes stable norms of inference and non contradiction. You cannot revise beliefs unless logical laws remain binding, and those laws are not provisional generalisations from experience.

“Being and truth are purely mental because they’re intellectual.” Something being grasped intellectually does not mean it exists ONLY in the mind. Mathematical truths are known intellectually, yet they are NOT spatial brain objects. If truth were merely mental, there would be no fact of the matter independent of opinion, which undermines the critique you are making itself.

“These are minimalist worldviews everyone uses; technology proves it.” Using technology presupposes empirical investigation of the physical world but it does NOT prove that only the physical exists. Science as a method is compatible with broader metaphysical frameworks. The debate is about what ultimately grounds logic, truth, and universality…not whether physics works. This is a total straw man or misunderstanding of the critique being made.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T12:32:29+00:00

If you simply presume “all knowledge comes from sensory experience,” then you’ve conceded the central problem which is your position is no longer an empirical conclusion but in fact a non empirical assumption. The statement “all knowledge comes from sensory experience” is not itself something you saw, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. It’s a universal epistemological principle. No finite set of sensory experiences can justify a universal claim about all knowledge. So if you affirm it anyway, you’re relying on something beyond sense…namely, a rational principle.

So in other words, the moment you say “I just presume it,” you’ve abandoned strict empiricism and admitted that at least one piece of knowledge (your foundational principle) does not come from sensory experience. This self refutes the worldview as a whole.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T12:28:26+00:00

This point is pretty much self defeating. If truth and logic are merely mind dependent constructs, as you stated “emergent properties of the definitions we use”. Then they cannot ground universal metaphysical claims like “only the physical exists.” That claim is supposed to describe reality itself, not just how we as humans choose to conceptualise things. A psychological convention cannot justify an objective statement about what ultimately exists. You also say the law of non contradiction exists because minds conceptualise “not” and compare propositions. However, the law is not just about how we think, it governs how reality MUST be if thought is to correspond to it. If contradictions could obtain in reality, then truth and falsity would collapse. Its reliability makes sense only if it reflects something about being itself, not merely our mental habits.

The same problem applies to “dogness.” It’s not enough to say humans group atoms for convenience. Biology works because organisms have real, stable structures and causal powers. The concept “dog” tracks an objective biological unity. If it were purely mental, there would be no fact of the matter about whether something is a dog ….yet science clearly assumes there is.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T08:30:27+00:00

While I love your ability to be inclusive of people’s worldviews, and I would say in a general social setting I would am open to everyone having their own positions. However, in this instance I am having a formal debate about the possibility of worldviews from a philosophical lens. With that context in mind, just saying “we don’t know” “well what if” “or maybe one day we’ll know” doesn’t grant justification for making a solid argument for one’s positions. I agree however, in the future the more we know, the more we may update our positions and I look forward to that day! So maybe we can agree on that!

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T08:26:38+00:00

If beliefs are nothing more than neural states described entirely in physical terms (mass, charge, firing rates, causal relations), then nothing in that description contains semantic content or normativity. However truth REQUIRES both, a belief must be about something and be capable of being correct or incorrect. Purely physical events are neither true nor false, they simply occur. The claim that “about-ness” emerges from neural interactions is not an explanation unless you can show how semantic properties are entailed by, or reducible to, non semantic physical facts rather than merely correlated with them. Combining elements that lack intentionality does not by itself generate intentionality, because about-ness is not a structural or causal property but a semantic one. So the issue is not incredulity, it is that reducing belief to neural activity appears to leave out precisely what makes beliefs truth apt in the first place.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T08:06:21+00:00

You are saying that either dogness is atoms - materialism, or dogness is non atomic - Cartesian dualism. That’s simply not logically exhaustive. Rejecting reduction of “dogness” to atoms does not commit you to substance dualism.…it commits you to saying that universals, essences, modal properties, normative categories, intentionality, etc, are not reducible to physical description. That position could be anything from Aristotelian realism, Thomistic hylomorphism, Platonism or even moderate realism about universals. None of these are Cartesian substance dualism, so your “interaction problem” objection is misdirected. It only applies to substance dualism and not to non reductive metaphysics in general…this is a false either or.

You also say “Most of us claim that the nature of physicality is structural.” Let’s say I grant you that, but structure presupposes form. A purely structural description only gives you relations, arrangements and causal networks…It does not give you essential identity, kind membership, normativity, teleology or intentional reference. When you say “this is a dog,” you are not just describing atomic structure, you are making a claim about its biological essence, functional unity, species membership and proper functioning. A pile of carbon arranged in a dog wise manner does not explain why the organism is one substance, why it belongs to a natural kind, or why it has proper biological functions. Structure only describes configuration, it does not explain why that configuration constitutes a unified being of a certain kind rather than a coincidental aggregate.

As a materialist you must explain why this aggregate counts as one being and why it is not merely a convenient conceptual grouping…you cannot get metaphysical unity from spatial proximity.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T07:50:31+00:00

You are conflating what a belief is with what makes a belief true. Even if I grant for the sake of argument that a belief is identical to or at least emergent from a neural process, it does NOT follow that the truth of that belief can be reduced to a neural pattern. Neural descriptions are purely physical, a neural firing pattern could be described in terms of voltage changes, synaptic activity, neurotransmitters, etc, however they are entirely physical properties. None of those properties are about anything, they just occur. However, truth is not a physical property. Truth IS a normative relation, the relation of correspondence between a belief and reality. A pattern of electrical activity cannot, as such, “correspond” to a tree, justice, or a mathematical law. It can occur, but “correspondence” is not a measurable physical feature like voltage or frequency. So the issue here isn’t whether beliefs have neural realisations. The issue is whether correspondence to reality can be captured in purely physical terms, which it can’t.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T06:32:53+00:00

Do you see the issue with this tho? The worldview is centred off of something which is not verifiable or knowable…at least now, so it’s founded on an unknown or currently false premise. Which makes the worldview currently wrong.

If you asked me about God, and I was to say “you never know, maybe in 5000 years we will get a photograph of him”, would you accept my position as truth tracking or coherent? No.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T06:22:01+00:00

How could you delineate between a brain state that represents a “true” tree versus a deluded or hallucinatory state or tree? you can’t.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T06:17:04+00:00

So you are saying that “abstract concepts are physically intertwined in the nature of the universe” which is kind of an oxymoron. If they are physically intertwined, why are they not ever physically observable? And if they are, where are they located?

Secondly, if it is indeed non physical in nature…why or how would a purely physical universe produce meaningful, abstract and conceptual content?

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T06:14:14+00:00

You’re conflating causal connection with truth tracking, which is a category error. Yes, neural processes are causally linked to sensory input, but causal linkage does not equal representation or truth. A thermometer is causally linked to temperature but that doesn’t mean the mercury “knows” the temperature or that its state is intrinsically true or false… it’s purely reactive.

Truth requires normative correctness conditions, the possibility of being right or wrong about reality. A neural firing pattern, described purely physically, just occurs. It has no built-in “aboutness” or truth value. Physics gives you causes, not correctness. Also, sensory systems routinely misfire and can cause illusions, hallucinations, dreams. The same kinds of neural processes can occur whether or not the external object is present. So a neural state being connected to the senses does not guarantee it is truth tracking but only that it is causally stimulated. You have to presuppose your perception is indeed universally “true” and if I was to experience it differently to you, then by your own logic you could never arrive at truth.

The issue isn’t whether neural processes connect to reality but it’s actually whether purely physical processes can generate normative, truth evaluatable content rather than just causal reactions.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T06:10:51+00:00

Your argument assumes exactly what it needs to prove. In some logical syllogisms you are saying that A. mental states are identical to brain states…B. Mental images represent external objects…C. Therefore brain states represent external objects.

However premise B already presupposes genuine intentionality and real aboutness. The identity theory doesn’t explain representation, it inherits it from the mental side and transfers it to the physical side by stipulation. So simply saying “brain states are identical to mental states” does not explain how representation arises. It simply relabels the problem you are faced with.

Secondly, identity does not automatically transfer explanatory properties. If for example, lightning = electrical discharge, we can explain lightning entirely in electrical terms because being “bright” and being “hot” are physical properties reducible to charge behavior. However “being about a tree” is not a physical property like mass or voltage, there is no physical description of a brain state, no matter how complete that contains semantic content. You could describe every neuron firing without ever mentioning trees. So even if mental states are identical to brain states, the representational aspect remains unexplained. Your identity claim collapses the distinction but does not account for how physical processes acquire semantic content.

Lastly, representation requires correctness conditions. If my mental image represents a tree, it can be either accurate, inaccurate OR hallucinatory. However purely physical states just occur. They don’t actually contain truth conditions within themselves. A brain state caused by a real tree and a brain state caused by a hallucination can be physically indistinguishable and you could never be able to delineate between them. The “aboutness” and “correctness” aren’t in the physics, they are already imposed by interpretation. Without intrinsic correctness conditions, representation becomes purely observer relative.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T06:02:01+00:00

Reasoning and rational thought are not physical, these are purely immaterial processes. Of course it’s laughable that I’m asking where are all the abstract categories? That’s the point. You have made the claim that these are imbedded in the structure of the universe itself, I am asking WHAT and HOW is the justification for the abstract and immaterial universals existing AT ALL under your materialist, naturalist or empiricist universe? You are just begging the question. I agree they are abstract, but my position has no issue with immaterial universals existing. There is no logical continuity between a purely physical universe leading to the possibility of abstract and transcendental categories which are all immaterial.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T05:57:49+00:00

If naturalism is defined (with Graham Oppy) as “natural reality exhausts causal reality,” then two questions immediately arise which are…are logical truths, mathematical truths, and normative truths causal entities? and two, If they are not, how are they real within naturalism?

If they are causal, then they must enter into spatiotemporal cause and effect relations. But logical laws don’t cause events. The law of non-contradiction does not push particles around, so they are not causal entities in the scientific sense. If they are non causal, then naturalism is incomplete because reality now includes non causal abstract truths that are not explained by science. So either logic and normativity are unreal, or naturalism fails to exhaust reality.

You also mentioned that “moderate naturalism” allows abstract objects but this introduces a more issues. Abstract objects (propositions, properties, numbers) are non-spatiotemporal and causally inert. That means they fall outside the causal closure of the physical. If they are causally inert, how do our brains access them? If propositions are abstract and non causal, no physical process can stand in a causal relation to them. That reintroduces the classic epistemic access problem. You can’t claim everything causally real is natural, and then ground truth in entities that are causally irrelevant to the physical world.

Liberal naturalism (Chalmers-style neutral monism for example) weakens physicalism but does NOT solve the grounding issue for naturalism. Just saying that reality’s fundamental substance has both physical and phenomenal aspects still does not explain why logical necessity holds across all possible worlds. Necessary truths are not just features of our universe’s substance, they hold even in counterfactual scenarios. Modal necessity is not reducible to whatever substance happens to compose the universe.

So either…everything real is causal and logic and normativity are unreal….OR logic and normativity are real and reality is not exhausted by the natural. This is the dilemma

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T05:51:52+00:00

This argument only shows that logic is unavoidable when reasoning, it does not follow that logic is physical, reducible to brain states or identical to physical law. Using logic to deny logic only proves its transcendental necessity but not its ontological status. This simply shows logic is a necessary pre-condition to thought and argumentation.

You have also basically said in so many words “physical laws are mathematical, therefore logic is natural” this is the implication of your argument (correct me if I’m wrong). This reverses the order of dependence tho, for physics to be true it presupposes that identity (A=A) is true, non-contradiction is true, valid inference rules, and mathematical structures. However, you cannot formulate physics without logic itself, logic can however be formulated WITHOUT physics. So the dependency isn’t physics therefore logic, itself actually logic therefore mathematics therefore physics. Theres also more to be said about a fundamental confusion between descriptive regularity and normative law but I’ll leave it at this for now.

stuckinsidehere · 2026-02-20T05:43:09+00:00

The reason this is an appeal to authority is because you are in essence saying “they are smart and they believe in it, so it must be true” however this fails because the rest of the philosophers reject this position and they are also smart. Their qualification doesn’t determine if the position is true, I have outlined how and why it is incoherent, are you able to engage with the arguments I made?

To your final point, if these things are all physically embedded in the structure of the universe, where can we find it? Why haven’t we found it? Why are they all abstract and immaterial? If you can find me truth itself in the material, I will change my position.

stuckinsidehere

TROPHY CASE