Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

For those who despair of convincing atheists of God's existence, let God do the heavy lifting! If He won't, there must be a reason… No?

You mean you struggle with the idea of immateriality? If it doesn't exist, then what is it you are struggling with? When you struggle with it, then it more likely exists rather than not. You wouldn't be struggling with something non-existent, right?

Most involved physicists hold that the photon is mass-less.

Quote from: Jimbro3738 on 2013-12-26, 14:45:25

Most involved physicists hold that the photon is mass-less.

I'm fairly sure we can safely read those words material and immaterial as physical and unphysical. Otherwise a physicist like Krauss could hardly be accused of being a materialist.

The other synonyms are relatively recent trend words, designed to obfuscate the fact that physicists have philosophical presuppositions, namely the tendency to believe in the primacy of matter.

Or: not to believe in the primacy of anything else.

But surely describing physicists as people with a tendency to believe in the "primacy" of that which is physical is much closer to being accurate than speaking of matter. There was no matter until a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

What do you make of the fact that Big Bang itself has been around only since fifties or sixties? This is what I mean by trend word.

I am not disputing anything what you say about "physical", but refusal to acknowledge the normal common-sense meaning of the word "matter" is a bad sign. Random contextless re-definitions of common concepts won't help physicists nor anyone else.

A physicist does not have to be a physicalist or a materialist. But surely describing physicists as people with a tendency to believe in the "primacy" of that which is physical is much closer to being accurate than speaking of matter. There was no matter until a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

Quote from: ersi on 2013-12-26, 17:21:39

I am not disputing anything what you say about "physical", but refusal to acknowledge the normal common-sense meaning of the word "matter" is a bad sign. Random contextless re-definitions of common concepts won't help physicists nor anyone else.

If something with mass and volume isn't the "normal" definition of matter, what is?

"If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail."

Already just for the reasons of clarity I am all for proper definitions. In this case, the problem is your statement "There was no matter until a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang". Now it looks like you were saying there was no mass or volume until a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

For example psychology and sociology clearly call for a different presupposition. To assume primacy of physics is, for most purposes in our lives, out of place. Shouldn't this make one honestly question materialism/physicalism for a moment?

Heck, I don't even know what your obsession with primacy is all about. Energy probably came first, then matter, then at some point us. So what?

The answer as per atheism: So what?

Quote from: ersi on 2013-12-26, 20:38:48

The answer as per atheism: So what?

No, the answer is I don't know and you most certainly don't know either.

Imagine there is an ultimate cause, and that to presuppose such a thing is not just a meaningless combination of words. What difference does it make? To me, not particularly more or less than to discover that epigenetics plays a very important role in the heritability of traits. It's all extremely interesting, yet it doesn't affect my life at all.

My rigor consists precisely of not pretending to know the answer when I don't, or that a question is meaningful just because I can ask it. My rigor consists of always trying to accept the facts for what they are rather than making the facts fit my preconceived notions.

I refuse to repeat your mistakes. Something that exists independently outside your mind is the best working definition of reality I dare give. You accuse it of being fluid and malleable, which is a very intentional feature, not a bug.

A question that starts with a WH-word and ends in a question mark may look like a question, but there are presuppositions and implications at the core of the question that may not make sense at all. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the ultimate cause? I think you need to demonstrate the necessity of why and what. Simply put, the universe is not an object inside the universe.

But surely describing physicists as people with a tendency to believe in the "primacy" of that which is physical is much closer to being accurate than speaking of matter. There was no matter until a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

If something with mass and volume isn't the "normal" definition of matter, what is?

Simply put, the universe is not an object inside the universe.

To presuppose philosophical materialism in physics is "successful" because physics studies matter and this is all it does. ("If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.") Study anything else and materialism becomes highly problematic. For example psychology and sociology clearly call for a different presupposition. To assume primacy of physics is, for most purposes in our lives, out of place. Shouldn't this make one honestly question materialism/physicalism for a moment?

My definition of matter.

Today I was able to identify at least this preconceived notion of yours: "If I don't know, then nobody else knows either. (At least ersi doesn't!)" Are the facts in your life in accordance with this notion?

Besides other problems with this definition, the root philosophical issue here is that it came from your mind. The definition is not independent from your mind and thus, alas, it's unreal as per your own definition. So much for rigour.

As for my mistakes, feel free to point them out. I am very much into learning, even from you, and certainly from my own mistakes.

Awesome. Congrats to you for this bit. Already earlier I was very close to get to the concept of subject (the logical opposite of object) which is directly relevant to what you say here, but I suspected you would denounce this as yet another meaningless word. In case you confirm that subject is a relevant concept now, I will proceed. But confirm it, please.

Social or human sciences (or whatever they are called in English) don't have anything in common with "the transcendent" - and, in fact, don't need it.

Quote from: Josh on 2013-12-27, 06:41:52

My definition of matter.

Frans was talking about the "normal" definition of matter.

Matter is a poorly defined term in science (see definitions below).

If you do know, you're doing a pretty good job pretending you don't by creating straw men out of e.g. physicists [....] You might have overlooked something, whether it's a fact about nature or an illogical leap in your reasoning.

The latter [an illogical leap in reasoning] might be detectable through reason alone, but the former [a fact of nature] unfortunately is not.

When I say a sky-scraper-sized pink elephant that concept is also real, yet somehow it doesn't refer to anything real. It's quite simple at the basics. Of course you could greatly complicate matters by speaking of e.g. simulacra and the hyperreal because nothing is ever quite that simple.

Proposing that our universe is some sort of simulacrum goes back at least to Plato. One might counter-propose that such concepts as God are themselves baseless simulacra that conceal no truth at all—a point made in some form by Baudrillard himself, if I recall correctly.

You said, "I don't like unanswered questions. In the end, I have found no question unanswerable." This seems to exemplify what I mean when I say that an answer isn't necessarily better than none.

[Concerning the concept of subject:] Probably not. You sound rather Platonic and Cartesian in your outlooks, while I lean more in the direction of Spinoza's liberationism or the more recent enactivism. Although I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with the universe, unless you're proposing that the universe itself has some kind of Dasein.

Quote from: Barulheira on 2013-12-27, 10:50:51

Quote from: Josh on 2013-12-27, 06:41:52

My definition of matter.

Frans was talking about the "normal" definition of matter.

There is no normal definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

Quote

Matter is a poorly defined term in science (see definitions below).

You may accuse me of shifting meanings, but if the alternative is to accept something poorly defined and elusive as the basis from which to derive everything else, then sorry, I prefer to stick with meanings - with relevant distinctions.

The problem with atheism is to deny or forget the subject.