Another Perspective On Materialism

[Serge]

So here I am watching Leo's last video "Why Brains Do Not Exist" and the idea strikes me "what does is it mean for something to be material/physical?".

So I look up into the good ol' dictionary the word "matter" (because material = made of matter). And, it says:

"matter - the substance or substances of which any physical object consists".

After reading that I immediately felt the exact thing that I experienced whtn Leo was talking about "before Big Bang, before God, where does the brain exist?". Because what is matter made of ? And, as you probably expect, what is the thing out of which matter is made of made of ? We can go on forever. There's the assumption in the scientific world that "the matter just exists" out of which the scientific paradigm is created. It's just one way out of the many more (probably infinite) ways to look at the world.

So the short version of my insight would be "If reality is made of matter, what is matter made of?".

That was one of my takeaways of the today's video, so I thought it might be interesting for someone.

[Shin]

I'm sorry but elephants still don't exist.

[vizual]

But science is trying to figure that out, what matter is made of. Trying to dig deeper and deeper until they reach some kind of 'core' substance, at least that is what they think. Something that somehow explains and can predict the nature of reality.

But what Leo is getting at is that the fixation at matter is not fruitful, and eventually we'll hit a wall.  And that we need to turn the question around. In stead of focussing on what matter fundamentally is, we should focus more on the presumptions we have that there actually is such a thing as matter. 

I think this is very hard for the scientific community to come to terms with since the scientific method is built upon the presumption there is an 'objective' world, a world full of independent objects. But in reality, no one can prove there is an objective world outside of subject. In experience there is only subject. And thus we settle on a inter-subjective paradigm called objectivity. This paradigm is very powerful because it has a strong social element to it. And humans are social creatures. A person with strong sense of "objectivity" can become a crafty manipulator of its social environment. And the person question objectivity immediately gets shunned and cast out by society. A lot of examples in history for that.

 

[Serge]

@vizual I get you, but the point is that you can ask the question "What is X made of?" forever.

Even if the scientists discover that "core", nothing stops you from asking "what is that core made of?". Eventually, you'll have to stumble to the idea that everything that exists - just exists.

[vizual]

1 minute ago, Serge said:

@vizual I get you, but the point is that you can ask the question "What is X made of?" forever.

Even if the scientists discover that "core", nothing stops you from asking "what is that core made of?". Eventually, you'll have to stumble to the idea that everything that exists - just exists.

Yeah, the universe is infinitely small and infinitely large at the same time. There isn't a bottom, nor a ceiling. You can go on and on.

But to deepen that realization to actual experience. Just intellectually realizing this is not going to bring peace and satisfaction to the mind. Just saying, "Oh everything just exists, so whatever" is not the truth and certainly not enlightenment(I'm not saying you say this but just to be clear). That will end up as nihilism if taken as an intellectual paradigm. The intellectual understanding that matter is not fundamental is just a step towards total understanding.

[Shin]

What if the big bang is just the birth of a cell in a organism, which itself is part of a universe that is also a cell of an another organism (to infinity) ?
You could turn the question the other way around.
Now add the multiverse.

This is 0.0000000000*infinity of what life is.

I wish you goodluck fellow scientists.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Shin

[Serge]

@vizual Yeah, taking this idea as an intelectual paradigm would be just the same as taking materialism as one.

I think that one purpose of this realization would be to tell you : "Be conscious that there's an infinite amount of paradigms out there, and the one you're locked in isn't the only one.".

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@Serge That is exactly right.

BTW, science has gotten to the bottom of matter over 100 years ago. What is matter? Science says it is nothing. Just go look at quantum mechanics. It says that matter doesn't exist. Everything is made of "fields". And what are fields? Infinite scalars, made of nothing but raw mathematical values. And what are values made out of? Nothing.

[SOUL]

These are all interesting thoughts to entertain in the mind but don't allow it to distract you so step into traffic, then you will quickly learn what "matters".

[Pierre]

@SOUL Ha ha, excellent, a bit of good ol' down-to-earth materialism is just what we need here!

[SOUL]

@Pierre  Well I prefer not to label it with another ism, it's really about accepting what is as it is.  if I were to call it something it's more of an isness  but why call it anything.

[Pierre]

@SOUL Yeah, you know, when we get too ethereal a good slap is precious.

[SOUL]

@Pierre Or a hug but yeah savoring life for the fulfilling delicacies of experience it is can often be neglected and even resisted by those that  want to deny it.

[Nahm]

@Serge The game is hide & seek. I found the best hiding spot ever, I hid in forgetting that I hid. 

[Lauritz]

21 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Serge The game is hide & seek. I found the best hiding spot ever, I hid in forgetting that I hid. 

Imagine you were playing it even so well that you forgot that you hid, forever.

You did it so well, maybe you just cannot find yourself ever again. What a mindfuck that is 

 

[Joseph Maynor]

Materialism is a belief.  When does a pink blob become a brain?  Do you see how the Mind is augmenting what is actually seen by pasting a conceptual rubric on top of reality?

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, SOUL said:

These are all interesting thoughts to entertain in the mind but don't allow it to distract you so step into traffic, then you will quickly learn what "matters".

Actually, if you nearly get run over by a bus (a near death experience) you will quickly awaken to the fact that materialism doesn't matter.

The busyness of "everyday life" cements the zombified stupor of unconsciousness.

[Nahm]

When I was 13, I was in a non moving car, which was rear ended by a car going 70 miles per hour. The impact was so that our car collided into the van in front of us, bounced off and spun half way around into the air, into the car behind us which hit us in the first place. All windows were blown, all doors were folded, the back bumper of the car, a station wagon, was pushed up against the back of the front seats. If anyone was in the back seat, they would have been crushed. It  happened at night, and a helicopter with a spotlight illuminated the area so the ems could use the jaws of life device to take a door off and carry us out in stretchers. I didn’t have a scratch on me and I never saw anything the same again. Sometimes, I am sure I died in that accident. Quantum erasure is a personal little mindfucker for me. 

[Will Bigger]

8 hours ago, Serge said:

 

So the short version of my insight would be "If reality is made of matter, what is matter made of?".

 

also, given that we now know, for a fact, that space is material- it displays physical properties -i.e. general relativity-.... well then where the fuck is space itself???

[RichardY]

 

The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena — the videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore television is reality, and reality is less than television.

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Determinist/Materialist(?) - From "A Clockwork Orange resucked":  

I do not think so because, by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and
evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange – meaning that he has the appearance of an
organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is
increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is
moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding
opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we
find evil rather attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create. We like to have the pants scared off us by
visions of cosmic destruction. To sit down in a dull room and compose the Missa solemnis or The Anatomy of Melancholy does
not make headlines or news flashes. Unfortunately my little squib of a book was found attractive to many because it was as
odorous as a crateful of bad eggs with the miasma of original sin

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Not sure how a person can reconcile Materialism(or physicalism) with Freewill, even though people act as though they have freewill in general. So if freewill(as in the concept of actual choice) is to be accepted as true, then it would be theism(as in a personal God) or some kind of psychological fluke, perhaps being evolutionary advantageous in the conveyance of communicable "moral concepts"(or agreements), though in the latter case not genuine freewill.

Determinism & Spirtuality(?) In contrast to actually know Determinism(not just speculate in terms of causality), one would have to be non-human and Freewill (would be in the concept of creation).  

It's a Kind a Magic - Queen

Changes - David Bowie. "Turn to face the strange".

Near Death or Actual Death Experiences: Would be interesting to know what actual effects are caused to an individual. Though there are many many recurrent themes in pop-culture and Mythology referencing changes in personalities and eerie intuitive abilities or noticed affects, coincidences.