Barry Loewer - Metaphysics vs Materialism? (Part 2)

Metaphysics asks the most profound questions, then uses sophisticated philosophical analysis to seek the deepest truths. What happens when metaphysics trains its analytical guns on 'materialism', the claim that only the physical is real? What are the metaphysical arguments for and against materialism?

[spencerchamp]

Interesting material, and beautifully shot.

[claytonthomas]

Hope they do interviews with NDE researchers since it is a fascinating subject

[theophilus]

_Who_ actually reasoned: humans are important, therefore they must be at the centre of the universe?

[hawzhinblanca]

Barry has an incredible mind, the more you listen to it, the more you know how smart he is.

[davidfield]

This is what physicist Tom Campbell says as well, but with more focus on the implications of reality being fundamentally an information-based probability distribution.

[belespastaicindugunegidena]

Could you please add subtitles to the videos. I am not that good at english(not just me, most of the Turkish people) so it would be a great help to add english subtitles. I don't want to misunderstand these great videos of yours. PLEASE!!!

[konnektlive]

Say all you want, and I can get absolutely technical as a theoretical physicist myself and bring about *tetragazillion* amount of data that proves otherwise. In fact, when Barry talks about *time*, it seems that he is talking about an object (with no objectivity) so then he gets his overly positivist and oversimplified conclusion that time SHOULD by definition be either directional or non-directional; it SHOULD be either explained by so-called metaphysics or by so-called physicalism...
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However, the problem is that both approaches are incredibly narrow minded and sadly out-dated as well both scientifically speaking and philosophically probing the question. The problem is in the very anthropomorphic view of us about *that* which we call "the external world". The real issue is the fact that in almost all scientific communities all around the globe, most scientists and philosophers tend to be either dualist or physicalist; while in reality neither can fully grasp and represent the reality AS IT IS, not as what WE WANT IT TO BE. Obviously I don't have all the answers, but after all these years in the academia I can surely say that the nature of reality whatever it may be, is neither dualistic nor phaysicalistic; it is beyond both and yet THAT which stands beyond both somehow is also immanent in all the experiences that we are having from the world. In other words, the very notion of infinity (not as a number because it is NOT a number) shows the very edge of the limitations of the reductionist approach and even the very limitation of the objective thinking as we define it.

...Again, infinity cannot be pointed at, or it would become yet something finite. Infinity cannot be defined, or it would be something after infinity. Infinity cannot be measured, or it would be yet another finite object in time and space continuum. Infinity cannot be reduced to a big or small numbers simply because infinity is not just an "indefinite" set of numbers or and endless chain of objects. Actual Infinity cannot be subjectively experienced, simply because imagine you can live for 2 billion years, and imagine for all those 2 billion years you try to travel in all directions in space, by the end of 2 billion years you still have not experienced infinity... The very moment one claims to know/experienced or observe infinity, THAT will be rendered as yet another finite object, period.

For these simple reasons, the seemingly physical world we seem to be living in, is neither fully non-physical/non-material nor it is fully physical. The nature of the external world and our anthropomorphic experience of it should be of some ineffable nature that stands beyond both and yet is immanent in all that comes after it... In other words, what we consider physical and also what we consider non-physical both have roots in some no-thing (not from the world of things/objects and even subjects!) that is neither physical nor metaphysical and yet includes both; hence CANNOT be intellectually understood by those who are limited to the prior categories.

[tnvol]

Bernardo Kastrup answers the question.

[hypermap]

Going back to fundamentals we need to remember we're only apes and as apes we only need to sense and understand aspects of reality enough to have baby apes that can survive to sexual maturity to have baby apes etc etc [Everyone of each of our direct ancestors (parents, parent's parents etc etc) [and of indeed every single individual life form be it a blade of grass or a sea cucumber's direct ancestors] (millions of them) lived to sexual maturity.]

Given this why do we think we sense anymore than say a millionth or a trillionth of reality - may be we are simply utterly blind to most of the nature of reality and wouldn't have the cognitive faculties to remotely process what we perceived even if we could perceive reality more directly - much as no sea cucumber that ever lives is ever going to get very far regarding the mathematics behind quantum mechanics (may be I'm underestimating sea cucumbers :) ).

The human brain senses part of reality (which IMHO as far as I can see is just energy) and puts on an internal show of consciousness that is enough to get us through the day / years till we reach sexual maturity (otherwise we'd all fail to have any children and we the human race would be all gone within 120 years or so max).

So really we do not have to understand or detect much of reality, no more than a sea cucumber needs to understand much to get it through the day.. what we understand does not remotely have to reflect reality - reality is quite possibly something hugely hugely weird way way beyond the limits of our collective comprehension via the scientific method etc and way way beyond our cognitive faculties.

This is not to deny that humans have made huge advances over the last 300 years in their understanding of reality using the faculties we have - it just that we're possibly getting carried away with ourselves when we start to think we getting some sort of grip on the nature of the totality of reality - like a community of sea cucumbers starting to get some extra ordinary success in understanding their environment but then beginning to 'think' they're close to fully comprehending and sensing it all - maybe we are but just may be we need to consider than perhaps we're merely massively deluded that we are.

[steeneugenpoulsen]

Earth is the center of the Universe as far as we can tell, since we can only see light that can travel to us and that is a circle around us. Only thing we can say for sure is that we aren't in the center of time, we can predict how old the universe is and how old it can get, so we know we are in the early age of the universe, nowhere near the center.

[Ojack]

Barry implies the Aristitelian view of earth as the center of the universe was as an exalted place since humans were considered important. This is incorrect. The Aristitelian view saw Earth as a sort of sink-hole that all the muck would figuratively flow into. The opposite of an exalted place. Thats an important difference.

[uremove]

I’m a bit puzzled how the ‘arrow of time’ problem supposedly supports a physicalist view of reality!? I would have thought it raises more problems, such as how do we explain the ‘Past Hypothesis’ - is it just a brute fact that our Universe was originally so highly ordered and therefore highly improbable!? Creationists might see that as evidence for a non-physical Creator, not an argument for Physicalism! I think sometimes scientists just ignore what they can’t explain, and then discount it.

[krisc]

Is it just me, or are there other people who think time doesn't flow or passes? To me there is only motion in 1 steady eternal moment: now. Now stands still, everything in it moves. The earth around its axis, in an orbit around the sun, etc. We have put an artificial grid on it (seconds, hours, to years and centuries), so it's merely an illusion that time passes. You don't age because of time, you age because of constant motion (of your atoms). The past is not distant, it's here and now (in your mind) just like futur is a projection (now in your head).

[mariachlin]

How about the mind? Is it material or something else?

[Pariahmachina]

No views???? :o oh wait it was uploaded today nevermind EDIT guess I'm first

[kerryburns]

We chase sub-microscopic particles into ever deepening levels of obscurity, yet retain the idea that these things constitute "solid" matter.
Planck realised in the first half of the 20th century that matter was derivative of consciousness.
Reductionist, materialistic science is a dead end.

[lewiswoolf]

bro interviewer doesnt seem to know what hes talking about

[MidiwaveProductions]

The interviewer: "Is the material world all there is..?" Translation: "If we decide to assume that Consciousness and qualia are made of "matter". And if we decide to ignore the fact that "matter" experientially and empirically is non-existent --- Is the material world all there is..?"

[henrirauhala]

Materialism is an "archaic" word? Stop being silly. What is really archaic, is the agnostic perception of Loewer that "matter may turn out not to be material exactly". He calls himself a physicalist, referring to a branch of science that is supposedly above all other sciences. This is unjustified reductionism, considering the fact that even all branches within physics cannot be reduced to some "basic" level. Physicalism is, in fact, an incohesive form of materialism, plagued with idealism and metaphysics, as we see here. If matter is not "material exactly", what is it? Are particles some ghosts moving through space and time? Is Mr. Loewer a ghost? Matter is the common basis of objective reality, which all scientists have to recognize, whether consciously or not. If there was no objective reality, their research would amount to nothing, they'd indeed be chasing ghosts.