Why I am not a Physicalist – Peter Sjöstedt-H

'Why I am not a Physicalist: Four Reasons for Rejecting the Faith'
Written and spoken by Peter Sjöstedt-H
©2018/2019

[konberner]

Superb analysis.

My reason is simple: 1) We have no complete theory of everything that is proven to be true, 2) therefore we do not know enough about the basis of reality to draw conclusions about it, 3) therefore "physicalism" (whatever that is) cannot be said to be the basis of reality, and what is the basis is inconclusive.

Your deeper ruminations here are useful to combat the "but all that we can prove is physical, so considering sprinkling extra pixie dust on what we know is presumptuous" sorts of arguments. Being agnostic about an unknown state of affairs is no kind of presumption. Also the "but the most likely theory for the facts that we do have is physicalism" kind of angle. Which, again, is no reason to have an intellectual commitment considering the extent of what is still unknown. And you gave an excellent short list on the extent of our ignorance.

I loved your final point. Indeed, jumping to conclusions and closing off possibilities about unknowns is neither rational, nor scientific, nor intellectually honest.

[spencerwinston]

Peter, your description of mental "power/forces" alongside electromagnetism, the strong and weak forces, etc. is leading edge, pioneering work. You make a crisp, compelling logical promotion of mental forces that is next level in its implications. Only a philosophical master could be so proficient in crystallizing the essence of the physicalist argument, and then crumbling the argument like a sand castle crumbles before the full tide ocean onslaught. If you were a Hawaii big wave surf instructor, surfers would know that like your leading edge big wave philosophical immense insights, the waves you teach to ride are skyscraper high like in the movie Interstellar out on the edge of the universe. Thank you for sharing your vast expertise on Nietzsche in particular. Hawaii big wave suffers would call you by the merited name of the big kahuna. Regards, and greatly relish your mile high Interstellar wave like insights into Nietzsche in Noumenautics.

[infinitesimotel]

The best way you can cripple people, it to train them that there is nothing beyond the physical, and the physical is just stuff randomly clanking about, with no order, reason or purpose.

[kentheengineer]

What matters to me is what is practically working now and how practically changes

[kentheengineer]

Truth and How Truth Changes relative to the means of methology or means of thinking

[MEGABLAMP]

seems interesting that we can only seem to couch terms in physical terms. And just state the degrees of freedom or how many standard deviations there are in the form of metaphor, similie or pataphor

[UnconsciousQualms]

Personally, I am very skeptical of all these grandiose metaphysical assertions regarding the "nature of reality". We know that things in the world with known constituents are all made up of one kind of stuff, and there are other things like logic, mathematics, and the mental which we don't understand what they are made up of. And that's the only accurate way of representing the known, based on our current knowledge of the world. Anything beyond that is an speculative assertion that can only be accepted or rejected as an article of faith

[bboschboi]

Terence Deacon would have a lot to say in response to this. Especially 2., 3. & 4.

[kentheengineer]

Does perception have a nature that can be known discovered found
Or interact
of course i suppose one may have to be able to experience things that or

[juanverde]

Is there a written version of this? I´d like to translate it to spanish, if that´s ok. It´s a superb exposition, cristal clear arguments!

[havenbastion]

I'm going to stop here. Two out of four of these arguments I have already shown to be misunderstandings of fundamental ideas about how the parts of the problems fit together. If anyone wants a complete rebuttal along with detailed explanation of each point, contact me.

[ObsidianTeen]

Do you think Galen Strawson's panpsychist materialism is a materialism in name only?

Do you believe in existential passage, that awareness continues after death even though you won't be the same person/have the same memoria? (I do.)

[havenbastion]

The description of concepts that do not have physically describable properties does not indicate their unreality. Facts can be known second-hand, as indeed all facts are if you start it willy-nilly from scope to scope. My favorite I've cream can be known with reasonable certainty without being able to put physical properties to it, that doesn't mean ice cream or preferences are imaginary.

[lucashondros]

This is a great video! I personally found the 3rd point the strongest.

[havenbastion]

b) Current physical properties cannot describe or explain mentality.

That's because we haven't traced the entire trail of causality from the simplest to the most complex phenomenon in our scope of the universe (called consilience). That's no evidence of anything but that or scientific progress is as-of -yet incomplete. Not news, not meaningful.

Reality must be more than physicalism Currently predicts but that does not mean it's in any particular sense incompatible with what is currently known. We didn't throw out Newton just because we got Einstein.

[kentheengineer]

Philosophy Finding What is useful and useless and by what means

[threestars]

Still no proof of anything beyond the natural.

[citizenschallengeYT]

Can someone explain why philosophers always try to make things as complicated as possible? What about the simple notion that we live within a physical reality, we are a product of evolution, that Evolution is the product of physical entities, atoms and molecules and the laws of nature, moving through time. All the quantum magic inside a quark or blackhole are irrelevant to this Earth and the geological/biological experiment that unfolded here. If we don't fully understand every crevice, so it is. Blame ourselves and the universe.
All the rest of this is bellybutton gazing, where's it really get us, but detached from our biosphere so much so, that we are running towards our own self-destruction just as fast as industry will allow.
Philosophy, so much fun, but what's it good for, if it remains so blind to our self-destructive habits, in favor of embracing the unknowable.