/his/ — /phg/ - Physicalism General

So what's the point of making this thread? Because you're a faggot that hates life, beauty, and goodness?

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>>18527950 (OP)
>no immaterial souls, no platonic phantasms, no supernatural events like zombie prophets, flying prophets, flying-horse riding prophets, and so on.
All of these things are physical, yes even the immaterial soul. That just says it isn't matter not that it can't be anything else physical

>>18527957
>All of these things are physical
That can't be true since they're missing from the physics textbooks.

>>18527962
before any physics textbooks were written physical things existed

>>18527993
Ok, and? Those ideas have been around for some centuries and failed to make it into the physics books.

>>18527955
>accidentally admitting that denial of physicalism is just an exercise in wishful thinking
Nice.

>>18528013
>if you don't let me spill barrels of sewage into your garden, then that means you didn't believe the garden was worth preserving to begin with!

>>18528018
>once again admitting his denial of physicalism is rooted in what he'd like to be true
Nice.

>>18528022
Go spread more counterfactuals, demonic retard.

>>18528026
You don't even know what a counterfactual is lol.

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>this entire thread
Imagine making it/replying to it unironically.

>>18528030
You invented a conditional scenario by claiming I am against atheism because I wouldn't like it to be true, because that's the only scenario you can fathom someone pointing out your malevolent intentions for making this thread.

>>18528038
That's not a counterfactual. A counterfactual looks at the implications of some different possible state of affairs than the actual state of affairs. Simply presenting a different state of affairs than the actual state of affairs is in principle not a counterfactual because it doesn't follow he "if-then" form. Plus you are actually denying physicalism because you don't like the implications.
Beyond that, nobody itt mentioned atheism other than you just now lol.

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>>18527998
Let's take a look at your silly argument.
>If P (X is physical), then Q (X is included in physics textbooks)
>Not Q (X is not included in physics textbooks)
>Therefore, not P (X is not physical)
You might think this is brilliant because you have made X to be the things you have listed in the OP. But X was also the world before the very first physics textbook was ever written, therefore you believe before the very first physics textbook was written the world was not physical and that invalidates Physicalism as a necessary conclusion of modus tollens. You can fix your error by admitting things in the OP could exist in physics textbooks which is by making Q to be "discoverable and capable of being written in future physics textbooks" or something to that effect. However at that point I don't think you will ever find anyone denying that could be possible and so your argument no longer has any real teeth. In addition you also have to make assumptions you cannot prove. Good luck!

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>>18527993
There are different models of phyisalism, but usuallly they would phrase it as if it could be in principle be found in a physics textbook. Physicalism is a claim in metaphysics.
Here is a recent documentary where philosophers and neuroscientists defend physicalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYAdtfRFI3M&t=62s

>>18528300
Too bad for you 'the world before the first physics book was written' is included in the physics books. It's called big bang cosmology. That's why, if you want to understand physicalism, you're supposed to spend more time reading physics books instead of making up dumb Aristotelian syllogisms as some sort of gotcha.

>>18527950 (OP)
Debunked by Mary's room

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>>18528300
Physicalists are not necessarily committed to scientism. Physicalism is a claim about metaphysics while scientism is really more a folk claim about epistemology. With that said, it does look like phyiscalism would rule out a lot of models of theism. It does not in itself rule out theism, much less religions. Some religions like Buddhism pic related may more reductive than physicalism broadly construed. Even if you believe in angels, demons or devas etc, the issue for the physcialists is can you in princniple explain them in total using physics. This is called physical closure.

>>18528313
>Mary's room
Debunked by the guy who invented it, and others too.

>>18527950 (OP)
This has got to be one of the most retarded generals I've seen on here in a while. Why do you keep making these?

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Most people think in terms of physicalist reductionism but it is not necessarily the case that physicalist have to be reductionists. They can emergentists or many other things. What they do have to say though is that the mental is not some other essential layer that exists outthere in some way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLtjQrQvuD4&t=895s

>>18528319
This is the first time I've made this general. Someone else did it the two previous times I've seen it.

>>18528312
That doesn't address the error of your argument in the slightest. In fact many people who believe in the things you have falsely listed in the OP as being non-physical also believe in big bang cosmology so they aren't even mutually exclusive but anyway that is irrelevant.

>>18528322
It addresses the error in your argument, not mine (which is error-free)
>but anyway that is irrelevant.
So why did you feel the need to say it?

>>18528314
>With that said, it does look like phyiscalism would rule out a lot of models of theism.
I just don't see how. There is nothing necessitating that "angels, demons or devas etc" cannot be explained physically in total using physics in the major religions. Unless of course you appeal to some concept of eternal mystery

>>18528320
>it is not necessarily the case that physicalist have to be reductionists.
Given that physics is always a moving target, physicalism means little more than reductionism to begin with. Take that away and you're left with some vague monist feeling you associate with Physics(tm) - Current Year Edition.

>They can emergentists
That's still reductionism unless you start slapping scientifically unnecessary ontological claims about actual extra entities coming into existence.

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>>18528326
You are the one who felt the need to bring in the big bang. A theist (who believes in the stuff you've mentioned in the OP) proposed theory that atheists initially rejected because it resembled genesis lol. Notice though how you aren't even attempting to fix the flaw you have made and that's because you're dishonest and dogmatic about your false religious beliefs

>>18528336
>You are the one who felt the need to bring in the big bang.
Yes, as a refutation of your really mentally retarded claim that physics books don't describe what the world was like before physics books existed. You then started rambling about the connections of the big bang with religious fairytales for no discernable reason.

>A theist proposed theory
The theory was already developed by Friedmann before Lemaitre, but Friedmann died before he could see Hubble's observations. And in any case, the theory is based on general relativity, which was developed by a guy whom you called a "prophet of scientism".

>>18528329
Believing in angels in so on is one thing. Believing in an essence that has aseity and grounds metaphysical reality, the key part of classical theism and some variant of which exists in personalist theism is another. The big issue is that most accounts of theism don't simply say there is a being who plays by the laws of physics but rather said being make, sustain and can exist outside of said laws.

>>18528333
You can be holis and physicalist as well. The general idea is that an emergentist holds that new kinds of things come about in existence based on laws or law like probalbities in physics. They would not say new kinds of entities though. They are not reductionists because said enities cannot be said to reduce to said laws in a mechanical way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R5wT1rBLS0

>>18528336
You could in priniciple beliieve in all sorts of cosmologies and be a physicalist or non-physicalist. Maybe many of the reasons why a person would accept such models might be rooted in your metaphysics but that is not really a good reason to believe in a cosmology. However, it does look like certain views in metaphysics like metaphysical founationalism of a theistic varienty for example has to believe in a specific model if they want to believe God is a creator. Squaring that with other cosmologies might be difficult. The big issue is not the big bang but actually the nature of inflation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhbULagUKhA

>>18528357
>new kinds of things come about in existence
That's a metaphysical invention, not a physically informed one.

>>18528357
One way to think about it is that when you posit theisms in which God is a creator or doing some explanatory work you start leaving the physicalist metaphysical position unless you can prove that either being is explained via physics. That explanatoin part is ok for some religions like Buddhism for example, hence their non theistic label, but would go against other religions like Islam, where God necessarily wills every single thing to exist and actively wills things to happen via qadar or divine destiny. This is besides the epistemological challegnes of any such account as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_cNONhhKI

>>18528353
>physics books don't describe what the world was like before physics books existed
That is not my claim at all, you cannot even understand your own argument that's impressive. It just seems like you feel your religion is shaken by the bullshit argument you have spewed. So you resorted to saint big bang in deep worship to help save you from this humiliation.
>And in any case...
...people like you rejected it because it resembled religious claims. sounds familiar

>>18528363
Not necessarily. Although, people make a big deal of conciousness or something like that. For a philosopher of physics and physcists this has more to do with interpretations of various equations and which interpretations are more parsimonious. This would only apply to weak emergentism. They would absolutely reject strong emergentism. This talks about the difference and provides some exampels of what non-reductive physicalism looks like. A civil engineer for example studying why traffic jam happens appeals to non-reductive emergentism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlnaS83CwB8

>>18528368
>God necessarily wills every single thing to exist and actively wills things to happen
How does this even go against physicalism? Nothing is saying this process can never be explained by the laws of physics.

>>18528375
>Not necessarily.
Yes, necessarily, because the Standard Model doesn't require or imply any "holistic" extra entities, it just supports different levels of description, even if it all reduces to particle interactions. Be consistent and don't be shy about your implicit mereological nihilism.

>>18528382
OK I'm a physicalist and reductionist. Let's see your cope now and how I'm wrong and why your made up bullshit is more true than reality itself

>>18528370
>...people like you rejected it because it resembled religious claims
Weinberg, and many others, was initially unconvinced of the theory because the data of just the Hubble redshifts wasn't conclusive and could also fit other models such as the steady state model. The really strong evidence for the big bang came with the uniformity of the CMB. Naturally, like any good scientist, he changed his mind and he even wrote a popsci book on the big bang theory. Only a dumb fairytale believer can liken this to the behavior of his own cult.

>>18528357
>The big issue is that most accounts of theism don't simply say there is a being who plays by the laws of physics but rather said being make, sustain and can exist outside of said laws.
Those are not contradictory claims. There are no magical laws of physics floating somewhere in nothingness that can be exited and entered as if they were a box. Nor is the concept of them being generated/sustained by reality an irreconcilable framing that excludes reality from having to abide by them in any sense

>>18528389
>OK I'm a physicalist and reductionist
Ok. But really, you're just a reductionist because "physicalism" has no other intellectual substance, what with it having no ideas of its own about what it means to be physical and being dependent on the evolving physics.

>>18528394
You keep seething and saying it has no substance but what's even your point?
Sure, saying "reality is what we should focus on" seems self evident and has seemingly no substance, but you say that to explicitly reject "made up bullshit xyz".

>>18528376
Because physics doesn't explain anything ever in theological voluntarism. God's will, a mental state does. You simply mistake whatever physical law for God's will, technically the apperance of it . This is why educated theists toss out any account of theological detemrinism epistemically unless their theology forces them to accep it. This is besides breaking God's attribtues.

>>18528382
You could hold for example that there superstructural laws that make our law like regulariies appear as they do and those regularities are the particle reactions. This would be a type of neo-Spinozist view for example.

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>>18528392
>just ignore his own words bro
Everyone looks for evidence for their religious beliefs. His just so happened to be particularly antagonistic towards genesis so he did everything possible to look for errors and discredit anything resembling it. For people like him their religious bias dictates the way he views the world

>>18528395
>what's even your point?
I literally just spelled it out for you: "physicalism" tells me nothing about what it means for reality to be physical. To an 18th century "physicalist", quantum fields are no more physical than souls, but far more offensive, because the basic premises of QM would seem to undermine the rational structure of nature (at least to the learned minds of that age). And yet you have a ton in common with those people philosophically because most of what you attribute to "physicalism" is sufficiently accounted for by reductionism.

>>18527950 (OP)
This seems like it should be on /lit/ or /sci/

>>18528393
The issue with that especially for the personalist theist is that suddenly your God is not so special. You can define God in such a way but really, he is just as limited as you are and there is nothing categorically saying you can't acquire his powers if the physical causes obtain. This is sometimes called the "limited God". Below is a debate about this view. This is espeicaly problematic if you have a process metaphysics, or some type of metaphysical anti-foundatoinalist like loop quantum gravity suggests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8AzS4kmMts

>>18528400
>you could make up metaphysical shit that has nothing to do with the empirical science of physics
Ok, and I'll even grant you that you'd still be a perfectly good "physicalist" while you're doing it, reflecting physicalism's inherent lack of substance.

>>18528400
>Because physics doesn't explain anything ever in theological voluntarism.
Great! But there is no inherent issue with God's will being physical laws and vice versa in fact that's how they are often described

The big bang disproves Genesis, I don't know why people refer to the big bang as though it helps support the bible.

>>18528401
>so he did everything possible to look for errors and discredit
AKA applying it to scientific criticism like you should in the scientific method. Why does this trigger the religious mentality? Is it because religious beliefs fall apart at the slightest scrutiny?

>>18528417
God's will being physical laws breaks God as a concept. You also don't have an explanation. In otherwords, you don't appeal to God's will ever to understand something and can't measure that. You don't have anything that can be disconfirmed like a real science and can't have law like predication and it is worthless. You run into problems of measurement as well and will break any theology unless you don't mind a Spinozist God or Azathathoth from Lovecraft. This is a being who is simply being, that is a metaphysical predication, who does not think, feel, will or anything else, have any moral attributes or anything. Below explains it a bit more. Even if you did say that was ok the big problem then is why processes exist and actually explaining things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_cNONhhKI

>>18528412
>You can define God in such a way but really, he is just as limited as you are and there is nothing categorically saying you can't acquire his powers if the physical causes obtain.
That's just another way of saying there's nothing stopping you from being God other than the ability to become God. Anyway in Abrahamic religions at least his power is described in relation to the rest of the beings in a superlative manner. I have no idea how this in any way implies him being limited, unless you assume things that are impossible to achieve because they are nonsensical to be limits.

Should be law like prediction.

>>18528426
Why would it be triggering to see atheistic religious beliefs fail so spectacularly once you actually take a look at reality? There's nothing stopping you from applying scientific criticism based on anything else other than your dogma

>>18528431
If you have a limited God this means the explanation for his being lies in physics itself. You can basically make another one if the causes obtain. It breaks the metaphysical assumptions behind creator Gods in general and breaks both personalist and classical theists. You might be able to have an panentheist God, a god that is in eveyrhting but also beyond eveyrthing but in this case God is not a thinking thing but something like a part of everything and even maybe how everything holds togehter like the Stoic Logos. It would be without feeling or moral attributes.

>>18528431
One thing to keep in mind is that in classical theism ultimately the nature of God is rooted a prori rationalitst reasoning. The justification for that idea behind seen that it is some type of necessary and universal truth of reality itself. Disconfirmation goes aganist that. This also means you have to be capable of saying God can cease to be God permanently.

>>18528433
Which atheistic beliefs fell apart because of the big bang, exactly? You think the big bang validates the mentally defunct religious theory of the skydaddy making a skygarden and creating the ribwoman from the man?

>>18528404
>ackchually physicalists were the ones who hindered science lately!!!
Lmao
Now let's look at reality:
>muh quantum opposes physicalism
The quantum field is LITERALLY the direct descendant of exactly the kind of entity an 18th-century natural philosopher already accepted without embarrassment: imperceptible to the senses but inferred from precise, repeatable, measurable effects
>quantum fundamentally rejects le physicalism by being le abstract!!!
Gravity is literally action at a distance my little brainlet. are you trying to claim physicalists of the 18th century tried to refute newton?

>>18528445
Ok, I can see you've devolved into incoherent psychotic rage. I have no idea what you're screeching about or what it has to do with my post.

>>18528434
>If you have a limited God this means the explanation for his being lies in physics itself.
And vice versa, just like how the universe is an account of physical laws. This is not an issue
>You can basically make another one if the causes obtain
Which isn't saying much because the physical laws might dictate that to be impossible to achieve and therefore just impossible
>beyond eveyrthing
that is meaningless everything includes God
>It would be without feeling or moral attributes
Why?