Hey Sky...



Funny enough, I am on the same side of this as you are, sort of.



Good to 'see' ya.





Jeremy,

My claim...

*Non physical things exist*

You wrote...



I agree completely with this, but it does not follow from the premise below... that is all I am having trouble with logically.

>>>>>>> to be physical is to interact. <<<<<<<

Non-physical things do exist, and are known to exist through the results of interaction.

This does not invoke 'spirit', so you are drawing unneccessary conclusions which do not follow from this fact. The realism facet which you are pursuing will lead you to nowhere...
and has. I am attempting to save you the trouble which comes from what you have stated below.



Truth is not real. It is not 'out there' to be found! It is a property(or not) of a statement. A statement is necessarily dependent upon language(as it is commonly understood) for it's very existence. Language is completely man-made. Therefore truth is also completely man-made.

There is yet another problem contained within how your argument has been constructed. Following this strain of thought...'Real' necessitates true, which is a mistake in thought.

Illusions are real, in the sense that they can be shown to exist through their interaction with reality, but, in actuality, they are in no way... true.

An illusion is not physical, therefore, this axiom is flawed because it does not follow from the premise - which is inadequate in it's construct to begin with.



This holds, and I see no problem with it(all by itself)...



Here, again there is no consistency in the argument. Illusions exist, and can be detected through the interactions, yet they are not 'real', nor physical.

So the underlined below is also necessarily flawed because it does not follow from the first part of the claim, and can be(has been) shown to be inconsistent with what is already known.



Illusion is on no way physical - in the sense that it has it's own set of physical traits - yet it does interact, and it is not 'real' in the sense that it is true, yet illusion does exist.

While, I agree with your overall meaning(I think), the argument itself is full of holes, because if we follow it an illusion must be physical, real, and true.

Do you see what I mean? Illusions are real things, in the sense that they do physically affect the brain and body, but they are not in any way true nor physical, in and of themselves.

The same can be said of ideas.

So with this...



I agree, take away the possibility for existence, and we cannot measure a things existence. However, if we take away the physical -

Nothing exists.

How does that show anything other than the fact that all measurement of interaction requires physical affects? It does not prove the non-existence of immaterial things, such as ideas or illusions. It also does not prove that they are 'real' or 'true', only that there existence depends upon the prior existenec of physical things...

Which I completely agree with.

Infinity can only fit within the continuum.

So then it must be the continuum that is held up by the elephants...?

I just realized what Jeromy's scientific agenda is. LOL

He attempts to prove that Spirit or God does not exist.






And here he makes the assertion that "the mind" and "the brain" are the same thing and claims that it has 'been proven.'


Okay so he thinks its been proven that the mind and the brain are the same thing, and no he seems to want to take that further and prove to himself and others that Spirit or God does not exist, and consciousness comes from the brain.

People who do not accept his logic risk being referred to and 'ignorant' or dumb.'

Many people speak of "Body, Mind, and soul." These three things are what make up the reality or our existence. Jeromy asserts that there are not three things that make up reality, only one.

That one thing is "Body." That one thing is all things physical. He asserts that nothing else exists but physical things and all that exists is physical; therefor he MUST combine "Mind" with "Brain" and make "MIND" a physical thing, and "SPIRIT" a fantasy.

There is no proof that the mind is a product of the brain nor is there any proof that the mind is not a product of the brain. (Well with what James posted, maybe there is mathematical proof.)

There is also no proof that Spirit exists or God exist, and there is no proof that it does NOT exist either.

The holographic reality

Regarding dualism...

The 'mind' suffers along with the brain. That is known to be true. If the 'mind' was not dependent on a brain, then it would not suffer along with it.

There is no 'mind' in the sense that it is separate from the brain.

That leaves body and spirit. Spirit being non-material existence, body being material existence.

Spirit cannot be shown to exist as can an illusion or an idea, unless spirit is just that.

That is what makes logical sense to me, and does nothing to support the idea of spirit as is commomly attempted in dualistic type arguments.




Regarding realism...

If one can conceive of a thing, then that thing exists... at least as an idea/illusion - which can and often does have a measurable effect upon the physical body.

Therefore, if one believes in spirit and this belief affects their thinking and emotion, then the idea of spirit exists. That does not make the content of the idea true, in the sense that it is an accurate correlation of reality(what actually exists independently of us in the world), only real in the sense that it has measurable affects on thinking, and effects on the body itself through the brain.

Spirit, mind, idea, thought, illusion...

They all have the same source...

Our brain.

So really the only distinction that needs to be made here is between that which can be known and that which is either non extant, or cannot be known but it extant.

That is it, that is all that there is . . .

We can ignore that which does not exist when discussing reality. I hope we can all agree on that.

So what we are really talking about is the phenomena of reality. Phenomena being Lets include any state or process that CAN be KNOWN via any method, technology, spiritualism, senses, logic ect.

Those things that interact and create discernible phenomena. If a given phenomena is not immediately discernible, to say it can never be discernible without due logic is itself an argument from ignorance and can be ignored for the purposes of this discussion.


Materialism simple condenses the kinds of things into a single category, the physical: that which is made of matter/energy.

Materialism does not characterize matter. It leaves open such characterizations. All expressions of interaction or structure are material in nature.

This means if psychics exist, then it is natural and can be explained via structure and, or interactions. Same for spirit. Same for anything . . . .

Materialism prohibits the supernatural and metaphysical by definition. Not becuase materialism classifies what is matter, and thus excludes phenomena normally attributed to spirit, but becuase it is a monism and claims all phenomena fall under a single overarching classification as a byproduct it does not assume things are unknowable. This is why it is a natural extension from naturalism . . .

The attribute of knowledge is also something that materialist do not need to define. Knowledge interacts with things that are characterizable via structure and interaction and thus also fall under the definition.

If the single definition of what is physical is allowed to be that which interacts, then materialism wins, it is unassailable, the only argument that can be expressed against it is one from ignorance.

We can say well there may be phenomena that do not interact and are not reliant on structure and yet exist. We can never know and they will never effect any facet of existence due to non interaction but this is a fallacy in the truest sense if you cannot see why . . . then I suggests reading more into dualism.

There have been no arguments in this thread that have touched this concept. NONE.




The only way to even try to touch this is to say that what is physical is that which has structure, and what is something else is that which interacts.

The problem here is that structure is in every known example directly responsible for how something interacts.

We may find some interaction and not understand the various structures and forces involved, then later come to realize the structure and forces involved.

We may think something has no structure becuase it confuses us, becuase we cannot detect anything except its interaction, but every time we have assumed that . . . later we have found we where wrong.

All that exists fits within a relationship of structure and interactions that cannot be separated into non overlapping majesteria.

Okay, but only if the people doing the discussing of reality agree on what is real.

Jeremy,

Being rather uneducated on 'materialism', I want to ask...

What happens to the materialist position when considering the fact that one can know that drinking water quenches their thirst, through that experience alone, without having a means, nor the need, to express this information?

Where does that knowledge fit into a 'materialistic' point of view?

Its an association created by a brain, I see no need to treat it special.

Perhaps I am a materialist... unknowingly.

All we would need to agree on is that some kind of interaction occurred not on the details of the interaction just that one occurred.

I think the most strident desire to dismiss materialism is that its assumed it denies the concepts of spirituality.

It does not, in fact the only thing materialism does is to toss dualism into the trash can. If a thing that we call spirituality exists, and we label particular phenomena spiritual then those interactions are physical and based on some kind of structure that makes it unique, or related to that label(s).

It consolidates all phenomena into a single overarching category. It unifies reality. After all it makes very little sense to try to say there are two or more kinds of reality in which one kind can sometimes effect the other kind but has no structure to define its uniqueness of interaction.

Real is real. Real is to interact. Real is to influence and to have uniqueness that defines those interactions.

Modern materialism is based on methodological naturalism, which is the precept of scientific inquiry. We do not make assumptions about things, we allow the interactions and the relationships of a things "parts" to do the defining.

Materialism itself has been around a long time, and so like many philosophies it has many branches that have been pruned over time, and has baggage becuase of it, its usually mischaracterized based on this baggage.

And actually this topic has really helped me to hone my own understanding of relationships of interaction I think I will use these posts to create a new video and properly discuss materialism specifically, I really do not think upon looking back I did such a good job in the last video.

Well Jeromy, I'm glad you have it figured out. I feel that my understanding of your semantics (word meanings) are too different so I don't get your point, but I'm glad you do.

I think the only thing you have to ask yourself for all of this to make sense is . . . what does it mean to exist.

Start there.

Define the criteria of existence.

That is a good place to start. Existence as a formless awareness cannot be acknowledge by anything, even if it did exist, and knew it existed, if it could not be seen. felt, or known, there is no point in existence.

Manifestation that can interact with other things is existence.

To be acknowledged, seen, experienced, noticed, interacted with... proves existence to the one who exists and to the one who perceives that existence.

Imagine a point of awareness, a point of view, that cannot be seen, and cannot see anything but still knows it exists. It must manifest itself into existence.... or go insane.

But if to exist in any form simply means to interact with any other form, then you are right that to exist is to interact.

BUT that does not mean this thing is to be considered PHYSICAL.

Physical is a specific type of existence but it is not the only type of existence in my opinion.

If things in dreams are real and 'exist' this does not qualify them as "physical" because the things in dreams cannot interact with physical things. They are perceived in the mind of the dreamer. The dreamer does not interact with them in a physical sense. If he did, then when someone dreamed of being shot, he would wake up with a bullet in his body or an injury of a bullet.

Solid is one descriptor for physical. What does solid mean? It means different things from different perspectives. Is water solid? Well not when you are swimming through it, but what about when you hit it going 200 MPH?

A piece of paper seems flat and seamless, yet under magnification it has holes in it that if you where the size of a bacteria you could probably drive a bacteria sized bus through. So paper is not solid at bacteria sizes, but is at human sizes, or is it really solid at all at any size?

Physical is the same thing, its easy for us to limit what is physical based on our everyday experiences and our everyday perception.

Physical at its root can only be defined as that which interacts. Other wise all we have done is filter the definition through our own perceptions.

_________

You know what ignore that line of reasoning for the moment, and answer me this single question. A little Socratic method perhaps for a change.

Assuming that non physical things exit.

-- How does something that is non physical interact with something that is physical? (in your own understanding of the word, not my root definition that supports materialism)

By physical, I don't really mean 'solid' because on the quantum level nothing is solid. Then of course you have liquids and gases that are also physical.

A non physical thing (like a ghost or a dream or an hallucination) interact (are known or experienced) with a person or observer or object by way of different levels of conscious awareness. This involves vibration and frequency.

I believe if you could somehow change the frequency of objects that you manifest within your dreams with your mind, that you could cross them over into to physical reality. (Something from nothing)

I believe: These things are not going to become physical until you do change their frequency. Until then, they exist only inside of your mind, which is an electro magnetic field which surrounds your body. It is not inside of your gray matter you call a brain.

I also believe that physical matter can be made to disappear and go into a different place or time by changing its frequency.

These two words are physical descriptors. Vibration can only occur when something exists within a space to vibrate. Frequency describes this motions of vibration within a time system.

These words are meaningless without physical interactions.

Whatever the phenomena you describe, you are describing a physical interaction.