If materialism is true, it's impossible for evidence to determine what ssmeone believes. What someone believes is determined by the basic forces of physics. Evidence is not a basic force of physics, so it cannot really cause belief if materialism is true. People who believe in materialism based on evidence exist only if maeriaalism is false.
7 comments:
1. If materialism is true, it's impossible for evidence to determine what someone believes.
---False, but let's continue.
2.What someone believes is determined by the basic forces of physics.
---Beliefs are the aggregate of the progressions of simples, yes.
3.Evidence is not a basic force of physics
---Evidence is an aggregate of the progressions of simples.
4.so it cannot really cause belief if materialism is true.
---What we call evidence is a shorthand notation for sorts of arrangements of simples. In the somewhat awkward parlance of reductionism, evidence a name for simples arranged evidencewise.
5.People who believe in materialism based on evidence exist only if materialism is false.
---Non-sequitur. You switched from the subject of evidence on materialism to the existence of the people who believe in materialism.
It seems you did not think your argument through very carefully. The conclusion does not follow from the premises and is not even in the same category that the premises address.
My existence or non-existence is in no way dependent on my analysis of evidence. I simply do exist
Victor,
1.If materialism is true then all our perceived causes are the aggregate progressions of simples.
2.What someone believes is determined by basic forces of physics between simples, in the aggregate.
3.Evidence is a name we give to identifiable sorts of aggregates of simples.
4.Reductionist materialism is entirely consistent with basic forces of physics between simples and our names for sorts of aggregates of simples such as beliefs and evidence.
5.People exist as aggregates of simples.
Simples progress by basic forces of physics.
Evidence is a name we give certain sorts of aggregates of simples.
Belief is a name we give to certain sorts of aggregates of simples.
The aggregate of simples called evidence influences the aggregate of simples called belief as abstracted subsystems in the aggregate of simples called self.
Evidence is just an aggregation? No, it invokes a fundamntally different principle of causation. You can't just attribute any property or any causal principle to an aggregate unless the simples add up to it. If the "simples" are foot-high bricks, then you can add six simples up and get a wall that is six feet tall. If you have a set of particles that don't act for reasons, then it doesn't add up to say that the aggregate acts for reasons. The explanation for the simples is sufficient to explain where the particles go, and introducting reasons at this point violates Ockham's razon.
It's impossible for the shape of my front door key to determine whether it unlocks the door. For whether it unlocks the door is determined by the basic forces of physics. My key's shape is not a basic force of physics, so it cannot really unlock the door.
What's wrong with this argument?
There has been a lot of arguments on whether the AFR applies to theological causal determinism. I have my doubts. What is your take?
TD might have the opposive problem. If that's true, and God determines all our thoughts, why do we ever make mistake?
Victor,
"Evidence is just an aggregation? No, it invokes a fundamentally different principle of causation."
Ad hoc. You are just making up apparent forces. You might just as well say that the wind blows because of a fundamentally different principle of causation, the the wind blower force.
"If the "simples" are foot-high bricks, then you can add six simples up and get a wall that is six feet tall."
The arrangement of the bricks is part of the aggregation, as is the properties of the bricks themselves.
I prefer "aggregate" to "emergent". "Emergent" is a more popular term but it sounds to spooky to me, as though some blob of special stuff emerged out of nowhere.
Some people say the whole is the sum of the parts, but "sum" seems a bit simplistic. One cannot simply somehow add 6 bricks that are laying around any old which way and always get a wall.
Another way of putting it might be to say that the wall is composed of 6 bricks "arranged wallwise".
Our language faculties evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment. Our ability to discuss the fundamental structure and causal nature of submicroscopic reality is a spandrel of that evolutionary process, so, it is not surprising we, as a species, are continually struggling to find effective means of communication.
"If you have a set of particles that don't act for reasons,"
Strawman. Particles do have properties, or what ancient philosophers called essences. The electron has what we call charge, mass, spin, etc. Those sorts of "essences" are part of the aggregate.
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