Hugh Johnson
Member
Peat is a materialist, and I have never actually found any real arguments for materialism. Every materialist has simply demanded that they be recognized as correct and has categorically refused to defend their views, often relying on aggression and censorship to maintain their view. However, I do believe that Ray is a fundamentally honest person, so I was hoping someone here could offer me solid argument for the independent existence of a material reality.
I have the idealist position, aka nondualism or Advaita Vedanta. This is the simple idea that there can only be one fundamental reality. If there are two apparent realities, such as matter and thought, or the computer and the internet, these two must the part of an underlying reality, otherwise they could not interact and we could not perceive them both. I argue that the common reality to all things is consciousness. Ideas, feelings, matter, concepts, energy etc. are all unified by consciousness. It is then the underlying reality. If we were to assume that the Matrix is a documentary, the only real thing would be consciousness. And to take this a step further, there is not reason to assume that if we were plugged into a simulation that the other world would function on the same rules as our's, including things like matter or gravity. However, that world would necessarily be in consciousness should we wake up from the Matrix.
Bernardo Kastrup argues for the nondual position here:
He also has debated many academic philosophers, and AFAIK so far they have not countered his arguments. Some of these debated can be found on the Internet.
Thought is unreliable of course. So I would like to move onto empirical evidence. I am going to make the argument that empirical evidence show that consciousness affects the apparent material reality. The response to this from honest materialists has often been to resort to panpsyschism and other ideas that retain the existence of a material reality, while adding psychic reality on top of it. I find this a fundamentally incoherent position, as it requires there to be two realities that interact with while denying that there is an underlying reality that includes both of them.
Here is a very long discussion on empirical evidence by big brain people:
I will link shorter experiments here.
Dog telepathy:
Phone telepathy:
And a huge collection of research papers:
On the CIA remote viewing program:
I have personal experience with these things, as do billions of people. It is quite easy to experience after a few years in tantra, meditation or certain martial arts. Of course, free will is primary so very few will experience thing that would contradict their views.
That is my position. I invite any materialists to provide counterarguments, and I do not expect you to read all the studies or whatever.
I have the idealist position, aka nondualism or Advaita Vedanta. This is the simple idea that there can only be one fundamental reality. If there are two apparent realities, such as matter and thought, or the computer and the internet, these two must the part of an underlying reality, otherwise they could not interact and we could not perceive them both. I argue that the common reality to all things is consciousness. Ideas, feelings, matter, concepts, energy etc. are all unified by consciousness. It is then the underlying reality. If we were to assume that the Matrix is a documentary, the only real thing would be consciousness. And to take this a step further, there is not reason to assume that if we were plugged into a simulation that the other world would function on the same rules as our's, including things like matter or gravity. However, that world would necessarily be in consciousness should we wake up from the Matrix.
Bernardo Kastrup argues for the nondual position here:
He also has debated many academic philosophers, and AFAIK so far they have not countered his arguments. Some of these debated can be found on the Internet.
Thought is unreliable of course. So I would like to move onto empirical evidence. I am going to make the argument that empirical evidence show that consciousness affects the apparent material reality. The response to this from honest materialists has often been to resort to panpsyschism and other ideas that retain the existence of a material reality, while adding psychic reality on top of it. I find this a fundamentally incoherent position, as it requires there to be two realities that interact with while denying that there is an underlying reality that includes both of them.
Here is a very long discussion on empirical evidence by big brain people:
I will link shorter experiments here.
Dog telepathy:
Phone telepathy:
And a huge collection of research papers:
On the CIA remote viewing program:
[PDF] CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute | Semantic Scholar
In July 1995 the CIA declassified, and approved for release, documents revealing its sponsorship in the 1970s of a program at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, to determine whether such phenomena , as remote viewing "might have any utility for intelligence collection".' Thus began...
www.semanticscholar.org
I have personal experience with these things, as do billions of people. It is quite easy to experience after a few years in tantra, meditation or certain martial arts. Of course, free will is primary so very few will experience thing that would contradict their views.
That is my position. I invite any materialists to provide counterarguments, and I do not expect you to read all the studies or whatever.