No free will = giving up?

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Scientism isn't to be equated with the scientific method though, or even with 'science': it is a purely philosophical paradigm upon which many who like to call themselves 'atheists' and/or 'materialists' base all of their other beliefs upon, including the ones they think were arrived at scientifically. Science itself has many assumptions built within it - for example, that there is an objective reality 'out there' somewhere, that the past is real, that solipsism is false, that 'science' can ultimately explain everything there is worth knowing about (which is what you believe, I believe).

No 'Thinkingpictures', science does NOT tell us "that material reality is all there is", because it CANNOT. That's not what it's for. It has its limitations which, by the way, specifically preclude it from being used in such a manner (i.e. in the investigation of purely philosophical questions). By definition it has to confine itself to the examination of physical reality, but some (actually many, like yourself) seem to believe that this tool (for that is what it in fact is - a tool, a method of enquiry) can be used for anything and everything. As the saying goes, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything will look like a nail".

I've known a number of Thelemites who make a clear distinction between free will and True Will. That came to mind when Harris spoke about self-observation. Roggin didn't pick up on that part, which I felt deserved more attention.

I apologize, but I have to say it - this is really naive and I think I'm starting to understand Lintar's criticism of Newtonian mechanism or why he'd bring it up.

As of right now science is cognitively stuck on materialism for political reasons that have a lot to do with the abuse it's faced at the hands of organized religion since its inception. They're ignoring the implications of entanglement - that the space between entangled particles is a sign that the spatial realities we put together, in the absolute sense, are a fiction. They've also jumped up and down on the random number generator studies, the Ganzfeld studies where even the Edinburough Koestler school of parapsychology, Susan Blackmore's alma mater, where people who'd swear up and down that NDE's are carbon dioxide effecting the brain even indicate that there's something odd enough about the Ganzfeld results - ie. a persistent deviation of 5 or 6%, that they believe its worth looking into. Heck, Sam Harris has brought these studies up on his podcasts, really both issues, and while he's fully in agreemwnt with James Randi's criticisms of Uri Geller and reminds his podcast listeners that it has no relationship to people bending spoons with their minds it is the kind of data that sober people would consider notable.

The other problem with physicalism as it's suggested by guys like Sean Carroll - there's no place for consciousness to come from. We either have to explain it away as a hallucination or imply a miracle - that it springs into being when enough neurons come together when there's no fundamental property of the universe for consciousness to come from since we know, with 100% certainty, that it's nothing but dead non-mental stuff.

Physicalism only looks persuasive if you keep reading the same stuff day in and day out.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 19 May 2017, 9:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Nope, sorry, but this isn't "logical" at all. Far from it. As I pointed out in my previous post, 'scientism' is a philosophy, not the end result of a chain of logical reasoning based upon scientific evidence. As such it is only as good as the axioms that sustain and underlie it, and as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to this specific philosophy it is a case of "garbage in, garbage out".

How could you, or anyone else for that matter, possibly KNOW that material reality is all there is? Why does anyone believe this? It's patently not true. What about first-person perspectival experience? Qualia? Are they just to be dismissed because they cannot be accounted for via a rather limited (and therefore often useless) philosophical approach?

God yes, absolutely hilarious stuff Such naivete

It just so happens that NDE's, unlike other forms of altered state, are coherent, life-changing, extremely vivid and real (many even say they are more real than what we loosely refer to as 'reality'), many are veridicial (which means the event reported by the one undergoing the NDE report events they could not possibly have known about, and these events are confirmed), and the popular 'explanations' for them (ex. anoxia) laughably inadequate.

Ah, but thinkinginpictures only listens to objective and sober people, hence I had to supply him a list of serious and sober evidence against physicalism from objective and sober people. You have to speak to people where they're at.

I have to post this again I think. Below is a lecture from Mike Silberstein, a philosopher of science and not a woo-peddler in the slightest, putting on his steel-toed boots regarding both panpsychism and strong emergence.

We are much, much more than just the sum of our 'parts', as anyone who knows anything at all about people will be able to tell you. The reductionistic approach doesn't work for everything, it is a hopelessly simplistic and naive way of approaching subjects of such complexity.

In other words, he only listens to people who already agree with him.

Last edited by Lintar on 19 May 2017, 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Whenever I come across usage of the word "woo" I know that I am in the presence of someone who is committed, for purely emotional reasons, to the blind faith of materialism. As for the video, I'll have to look at it later, because I am now at work and it wouldn't look good if I were spotted wearing earphones.

What he's saying though is too pervasively believed and it's believed whole-heartedly by a lot of people who've had some introduction to science in college but who really aren't keeping track of what's happening in the scientific community and are usually ignoring both philosophy and philosophy of science to boot. The number of people who actually have the time or interest to do all that reading and listening are really few and far between.

It sounds like my posts so far in this thread have been completely unreadable (which by now I perhaps have to accept myself as a freak of nature).

You may or may not like the video, I wouldn't make any promises. I posted it more for thinkinginpictures than for you though.

Sorry, yes, maybe I did misinterpret something you wrote here. I haven't actually watched the video yet. I'm on 'Wrong Planet' because there are at this time no tourists coming through the door (I work as a volunteer at the local tourism information centre). I get to use their computers for free

Find me two Thelemites who agree on much of anything though. They've got two things that are incredibly difficult to explain to outsiders as well - Knowledge and Conversation, which Crowley pounded in the importance of as much as Tibetan Buddhists pound in Bodhicitta, and then they have Crowley himself to explain which is even more difficult (ie. Andy Kaufman could hardly hold a candle to the complexity of his jokes and trolling - although I'm sure he could have if he'd dove into gematria).

Well, on one hand I strongly disagree with free will and on the other I think materialism/physicalism is nearing its end - an end which is increasingly clear to its own in-group.

Let's say that the billiard balls become self aware, and recognize that they are on the table, being stricken by the cue.

Are they unintelligent, just because they are moved by outside sources?