Calling all materialists and non-materialists (page 3)

GromitSK

I never really understood the "I live on through my children" idea. It doesn't make much sense to me.

As one who both accepts the statement as true and not true at the same time, it’s hard to answer. If I accepted it as fully true it would not affect me in any significant way because I would either commit suicide or just get on with things until the inevitable end. I would get a laugh along the way at the way atheists and theists would be arguing all the time through the respective points of view as though it mattered at all. I would also have to accept the corollary to the statement as well that good and bad have no meaning or point either. From Hitler to Ghandi both are just as dead forever being ultimately equals in achieving nothing of value or shame. Even my own thoughts on anything are as good as nothing. I certainly would not entertain the values of humanism as an alternative to faith or religion as that to would have to be considered meaningless and pointless also. Its attempt to create purpose relative to itself falls by the observation that it itself has no purpose in the face of the infinite nothingness about to engulf it. It is just religion under a different name in spinning purpose out of a web of gossamer.

I think I would prefer a toxic spiritual environment over nothingness because at least hope springs eternal. It’s like the choice and question between freedom or no freedom? A middle ground seems better than the other fullness of the other two extremes.

KateWild

To be honest I can't really get my head around the OP.....

But I would say this MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING, BUT WHAT IT'S NOT IT CAN SURELY BUY. - Kate xx

bohm

Hi Seraphim23, I would like to ask you the same question as I asked Will but he didn't answer. Can you give a concrete example of something that make your life worth living (ie. prevent the negative thoughts you described in your post which you associate with a meterialistic outlook) and explain what, exactly, in your world-view (contrasted to the world-view of Bertrand Russell) that allow it matter?

To answer the question myself, I can give an example from my POW: my girldfriend matter. why? I love her. I dont see a logical reason how the truth of the ideas described by Russell should affect that conclusion either way.

Seraphim23

Well a pure materialism view of love is that is it a chemical reaction only for procreation or evolution relative purposes that will come to an end along with evolution. In fact its end will be infinite and certainly outweigh the time it existed if indeed anything can exist and come to an end to an infinite degree. Or, can something that is infinitely non-existing ever have a history? To put it another way!

My view is that things that exist don’t come to a complete end, in that some part of them always has to exist thus avoiding this logical paradox. It’s like the idea of a soul that seems to be applied to people or sometimes animals, but being applied to everything. As if the universe and everything in it has a soul. I guess I think it’s a bit like mathematics. All numbers have their negative counterparts. 1 has -1 and so on. No one ever saw a minus physical object though, despite the fact that the universe is most accurately described by mathematics than anything else. There seems to be a nonphysical counterpart to the universe that that gives it cohesion yet both are parts of each other and when one goes the other continues. In practical terms and if I am right, there is room for hope and for love to not die.

bohm

Seraphim23:

Im not sure I understand your answer to my question. For instance:

Well a pure materialism view of love is that is it a chemical reaction only for procreation or evolution relative purposes that will come to an end along with evolution.

This is not really saying what on your world-view make love a thing that give your life value, but rather why you believe that my world-view should inform me that love has no value. Clearly I think you are half-correct. You are correct in asserting love is a chemical reaction, but I dont think you are correct in asserting it is only for procreation; to say love is "for" anything require some sort of intelligence, in the case of love that intelligence is me and, well, to me love is obviously not only for procreation.

But I digress, the issue is what on YOUR world-view make (for instance) love something that give your life value. I undertand you to say this has to do with your belief some part of you will always exist. Can you explain more concretely what that part of you is and how that give the love you experience now value?

What I am getting at is I dont think the answer "because my love will always exist" is really meaningful. Does it mean that for love to have meaning, you need to love the same things in 100 billions years as you do now, or that you need to be able to remember in 100 billion years how and what you loved today for it to have any meaning?

Does it mean that if you continue living for 100 billion years your love now will continue to have meaning, but if you die in 100 billion years the love you felt now will then all of a sudden be rendered moot and meaningless retroactively?

jgnat

Hey, Gromit, I think it comes down to giving up the idea of eternity. If this life is all there is, how can who we are, what we've learned and accomplished, live on? We will live on in the memories of our loved-ones, which takes us perhaps to another generation. Then nothing.

Other ways people attempt to grasp eternity is by building monuments, or writing books.

The great pharaoh Kufu accomplished a sort of immortality. You'll remember him. He was interred in the Great Pyramid.

metatron

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_29yvYpf4w

Russell is advocating Nihilism, almost by definition. On that score, I find the wisdom of the Big Lebowski preferable

metatron

gorgia2

Soft Determinism is at least a little comforting, however I don't know which is right - materialism/non-materialism. Its all very interesting reading though. Have you read W.T. Stace? If I really believed Hard Determinism I'd feel depressed too.

gorgia

cofty

Reality has no interest in our wishes.

Calling all materialists and non-materialists

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