Argument Against Physicalism

[Chesterton]

Physics can't tell us what light an apple absorbs and reflects? I think maybe it can. Just because a certain detector cannot discern a wavelength doesn't mean it isn't there.

You think things can actually exist although certain human detectors can't detect them? That idea alone undermines physicalism.

 

[variant]

You think things can actually exist although certain human detectors can't detect them? That idea alone undermines physicalism.

The eye doesn't detect anything outside the visible spectrum, but that doesn't mean other wavelengths don't exist, can not be detected at all, or that those wavelengths aren't physical.

We know what color something should appear to be to a functioning eye, which is why we know the colorblind are not detecting something they should be.

The apple reflects a wavelength at around 650 nm wave length and it does so if you can see it or you can not, or even if you are blind, or even if we all were.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I had an uncle who was color blind. An apple looked red to me, it looked grey to him. I guess you'd say both statements were true? But that begs the question "what color is an apple really?". That could be a meaningless question; there may or may not be an answer, but if any case, physics can't tell us.

Those are both true statements, of course, because naive realism is false, and color is a relationship between an observer (with sight) and (in this case) the apple and current light conditions. The observer could, of course, be wrong in her guess of the wavelengths of light reflecting off of the apple.

Truth is also a relationship, and it depends on successful cognition (such as correctly concluding that 2+2=4) to be true instead of false.

We have to entertain such skepticism because it can't be ruled out

No, we actually don't have to do this at all, any more than we have to entertain the notion that we are living in the Matrix without some evidence that we actually are. There's no reason to rule such skepticism in.

Granted, such skepticism may be entertainment. But no more than this.

because physicalism dictates it. It's not paranoid to face reality, and I see no way around it: Evolution + physicalism = brain in a vat.

And if God wanted to taunt us by giving us faulty cognitive faculties, it would be the same situation. We'd be brains in God's vat. There's nothing about physicalism that should cause any more doubt than skepticism based on endless supernatural speculations. If anything, physicalism is preferable, because a non-sentient universe isn't some malicious trickster-entity that can set out to fool us.

Whether we are the creation of a God, or the product of evolution in a physical universe, we can reason, and without convincing evidence otherwise, there's no reason to doubt this. (And what would be the point of doubt if we can't reason well? We'd have to doubt our doubt. Complete non-starter!)

A rock is an ongoing event, as I think we agreed earlier.

Yes, so? I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[sandwiches]

The Bible is true, it's divinely inspired, and you check that the same way you check to see if physicalism is true, but I still don't get what this has to do with physicalism.

How would you check which conclusions about the Bible are true, again? The same way we verify that our conclusions about the physical universe, you say? You mean with verifiable, demonstrable evidence independent of belief?

 

[KCfromNC]

You must think some of your thoughts reliable, else you wouldn't be disputing my thoughts.

That's not what I asked.

My interpretation of the OP is that purely physical processes must share the attributes of purely physical processes, i.e., physical processes are irrational, or non-rational, however you want to say it. You can pile them up to high heaven but at no point can they magically become rational just because they're complex or because there's lots of them.

Yep, which is why I pointed out that by this logic it's impossible to have a pile of sand since none of the individual components are piles. By the same logic, a collect of non-rational components could never be rational. Unfortunately, we see piles of sand so the original idea must be wrong.

It's an illusion in that we don't think or feel or act as if it were. We couldn't live as we do if we did. I think it would be a bizarre evolutionary "misfiring" as Dawkins calls morality. But the burden is on physicalists to explain the misfiring.

First we need a reason to think there's something to explain. What is that again?