Ted:
>Periodically, I'm mystified why you make this strange distinction
> between materialists and non-materialists. God, free will,
> consciousness, information, purpose can all be studied by
> materialists, their conclusions so far are that these phenomena
>can be explained with natural laws.
Bertvan:
Surely you aren't suggesting God can be explained with natural laws. I
should have included "design" on the list. Can that be explained by natural
laws? And Purpose? Free will, consciousness and information might be
defined materialistically, but I'm not sure how completely they can be
explained by natural laws. (At the moment, anyway.)
Ted:
> If I understand his arguments correctly, even Michael Denton
>uses entirely materalistic assumptions to explain life.
Bertvan:
Perhaps Denton is arguing that his ideas can be acceptable to both
materialists and non materialists.
Maybe he considers himself a materialist. Being a materialist doesn't
preclude anyone from having good ideas. I have a fabulous son who considered
himself a materialist a few years ago. He recently remarked he's not certain
about much of anything so I suppose he's modified his position somewhat.
(Materialists tend to know things with absolute certainty.)
Ted:
> Could you define this word "materialism" that comes up so often
>in your posts and explain why and how it really differs from
>non-materialism?
> (BTW, is there any important distinction between materialism
>and naturalism?)
Bertvan:
Defining materialism would be a good project, Ted, but I doubt any two people
would agree completely.
Most people don't have any trouble deciding which they are, but I suppose
some could feel ambiguous
A materialist believes the "real world" consists of matter and energy, and
forces which can be measured and manipulated. Many materialists don't even
believe in the existence of free will; they believe choices are really the
inevitable result of molecules and neural connections in our brain. Most
materialists believe consciousness can be completely explained by those
molecules and neural connections in the brain. .A materialist would be
unlikely to regard mind, consciousness, or free will capable of interacting
with the "real world" of molecules and energy, but would probably regard them
as belonging to that Cartesian "other realm". A materialist would be
optimistic about abiogenesis; a non materialist would be skeptical that life
consists of nothing more than something chance and chemical reactions could
produce. A materialist would not be likely to consider the possible existence
of design or teleology in nature, but could regard the universe to be the
result of chance - random processes without plan, purpose, meaning or design.
A materialist could entertain the possibility of a TOE. (theory of
everything) A non materialist would not. I doubt there is much difference
between materialism and naturalism as the words are used today in biology. A
non materialist might regard methodological naturalism as a limited attempt
of science to describe reality. A materialist would be inclined to believe
naturalism sufficient to describe all of reality.
Bertvan
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