Why there is no Meaning if Materialism is True

_{Barry Arrington

August 12, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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In my last post I linked to an article in which several atheists discuss how they deal with the lack of meaning in the universe. In response Seversky asks:

What is meant by “meaning” in this context? To me, it sounds like a purpose conceived in the mind of an intelligent being, in this case God.

So what you are saying is that unless another intelligent being has a purpose in mind for you, your existence is worthless and meaningless?

So, a question, why should you only have value or worth or meaning if it exists in the mind of another intelligence. What is wrong with finding a meaning or purpose for yourself? After all, if God has a purpose, why can’t you?

Seversky, let us assume for the moment that atheistic materialism is correct. If that is the case, then certain facts follow as a matter of logic, including the following:

The sun is an average star and only one of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of the billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in that vast immensity but space, time, particles and energy.

At first only the light elements existed. But eventually clouds of hydrogen and helium collapsed into stars, and the heavier elements were formed in the nuclear furnaces inside those stars. All of the heavier elements we observe are remnants of burned out stars.

Some of the remnants of those burned out stars eventually coalesced into a planet we call Earth, and eventually a tiny subset of those particles spontaneously turned themselves into simple self-replicators.

Through the process of evolution those simple self-replicators became more and more complex until at last the most complex self-replicators of all, human beings, arose.

Fundamentally, however, humans are nothing but insignificant amalgamations of burned out star stuff on an insignificant rock orbiting an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy in an incomprehensibly vast universe.

A rock does not owe moral duties to another rock. The very notion is absurd. A rock is nothing but an amalgamation of burned out star stuff, and it is literally meaningless to say that one amalgamation of burned out star stuff owes a moral duty to another amalgamation of burned out star stuff.

Nothing about that analysis changes if the amalgamation of burned out star stuff is called a human. Thus, the idea that humans owe moral duties to one another is ultimately meaningless. In a universe in which nothing exists but particles in motion, there is no good. There is no evil.

It follows that everything we do is ultimately pointless. The amalgamation of burned out star stuff we call “Hitler” did certain things. The amalgamation of burned out star stuff we call “Mother Teresa” did certain other things. And what Hitler did and what Mother Teresa did are equal in the sense that they are equally pointless.

That, Seversky, is the universe you, as an atheist materialist, imagine you live in. So let us answer your questions:

What is meant by “meaning” in this context?

By “meaning” we mean “significance within a broader context.” There is no meaning in your universe, because nothing we do has any significance within a broader context as my Hitler/Mother Teresa example demonstrates.

So what you are saying is that unless another intelligent being has a purpose in mind for you, your existence is worthless and meaningless?

I am simply asking you to have the courage to acknowledge the logical consequences of your metaphysical assumptions. I understand that you are terrified of those consequences and want to avert your gaze from them at all costs, including very often the cost of descending into logical absurdity. But there they are nevertheless.

So, a question, why should you only have value or worth or meaning if it exists in the mind of another intelligence.

For there to be meaning good and evil must exist in an objective sense. It must really be the case that what Hitler did was “evil” and that what Mother Teresa did was “good” where the words “evil” and “good” mean something beyond “that which I do not prefer” and “that which I do prefer.”

What is wrong with finding a meaning or purpose for yourself?

Because a transcendent moral code cannot be grounded in the being of an amalgamation of burned out star stuff. Such a code can be grounded only in God’s being. Go back and look at all of the atheist blitherings in that article I linked in my last post. Every single one of them amounts to one of two things: (1) I try not to think about it; or (2) I distract myself with things that amuse me. That is not finding meaning or purpose and only a fool believes it is.

After all, if God has a purpose, why can’t you?

Because only God can impose meaning – through the objective transcendent moral code grounded in his being – on an otherwise meaningless universe.

Comments

Materialists banging their little cymbals together on the internet like it means something. Must be an illusion of the mind. Andrewasauber_{August 13, 2015
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PVT
I think Sean S. has a good objection to that point, that the ontological question has to precede the epistemological question.
Not quite. The ontological question precedes the epistemological question in the order of being; the epistemological question precedes the ontological question in the order of knowing.StephenB_{August 13, 2015
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eigenstate
1. Barry’s usage is self-serving and contrived.
Incorrect. Meaning and value can be either objective or subjective. Objective meaning and value are conferred or endowed; subjective meaning and value are assigned or attributed. Barry is describing objective meaning or value. You are mistakenly trying to deny its existence. Air and water have objective value.
2. My meaning (ascribed) is, contra Barry’s usage, real and practical meaning, describing the relationship between subjects and objects, as ascribed by subjects. Barry proves the practical use and reality of subjective ascription every time he uses Visa card, or enters into any financial dealings with others.
Irrelevant. No one here denies the subjective aspect of value and meaning. The problem is that you deny the objective aspect of meaning and value.
3. Barry’s own parochial understanding of objective meaning is just another example of his subjective assignment of meaning. It must be so, as ” objective meaning” is a non-starter, meaning is a concept, a feature of a mind, there for, by definition, subjective. It can’t be otherwise.
Incorrect. Objective value is more than a mere "feature of mind." Air and water are objectively valuable, period--even if that value is not recognized. Air and water also have objective meaning. Air is meant for breathing; water is meant for drinking. Humans do not simply assign value to them. They are, in fact, meaningful and valuable. Let's review: Subjective meaning and value can simply be assigned to things by humans. Objective meaning and value must be conferred by an outside agent. Thus, materialism, which rules out an outside agent, cannot confer objective meaning.StephenB_{August 13, 2015
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StephenB, Eigenstate,
StephenB:
Eigenstate: We can use our minds-as-active-physical-brains to imagine disembodied, non-physical minds, just as we can imagine what a unicorn or centaur might look like.
We? Where did you get the “We?” It can’t be the mind or the brain because you just said that they are the things being used by the we.
I also would like to know how Eigenstate gets to “We”. The (self-contradictory) dual role of “We” can also be observed in the writings of atheist philosopher A.Rosenberg:
FOR SOLID EVOLUTIONARY REASONS, WE’VE BEEN tricked into looking at life from the inside. Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV (OMG, you don’t know what a POV is?—a “point of view”). The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind. Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. [A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide To Reality, Ch. 9]
“We” have been tricked in having the illusion of “We”… “We” are convinced by science that there is no “We”, but “We” continue to stick with “We”.
THE ILLUSION THAT THERE IS SOMEONE INSIDE that has thoughts about stuff is certainly as old as the illusion that there are thoughts about stuff. [A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide To Reality, Ch. 10]
A non-existent “I” is having the illusion of its own existence and the illusion that its thoughts are about stuff …Box_{August 13, 2015
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I do not think the question of objective meaning can be analyzed/assessed individually, but collectively. There has not been a single word mentioned in this discussion about collective meaning, it's IMHO the Achilles heal of subjectivists. I think people such as eigenstate (materialists) have a routine tendency to miss the bigger picture, or at least fail to acknowledge that possibility.computerist_{August 12, 2015
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Didn't realize this laptop was logged in as PHV--same person as Learned Hand / Colin, obviously.Learned Hand_{August 12, 2015
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Not even close to what I said. I will give you another chance though. If you want to engage in a true exchange of views instead of just spout your talking points, take another run at it. I think perhaps you misunderstood my statement, although it’s certainly possible I misunderstood yours. You said that if “good” doesn’t have an objective meaning, then Hitler was doing good by his own lights. As I said, all that’s doing is stating a truism: [if good has no objective value,] and Hitler believed what he was doing was good, then Hitler believed what he was doing was good. Which is obviously true, as truisms are. Your broader point seems to be that this is unacceptable, because of course Hitler was objectively wrong. Please remember that everyone you’re talking to believes that what Hitler did was wrong. No one on this thread thinks that the fact that he disagreed makes his actions acceptable or right by any relevant standard. Materialism and/or subjectivism, insofar as they’re linked, only means that there’s no objective standard by which to judge, not that we can’t agree on a standard with which to judge. Which leads into your next angry rejoinder: Whether objective moral truth exists is an ontological issue. Our capacity to understand and apply it is an epistemological issue. Before I go further, do you understand the difference or should I explain it to you? I think I understand the difference, but maybe I don’t. I’ll rephrase what I think is your point so that we can tell. You seem to be saying that whether OMT exists is a distinct question from whether it’s accessible to us; to go a bit further out on a limb, the former is a question of whether the fundamental truth is real, the latter is a question of whether we’re entitled to assume that it is. I think Sean S. has a good objection to that point, that the ontological question has to precede the epistemological question. My objection is different. I think the accessibility of OMT precludes any resolution of the ontological question. That is, it’s not relevant whether OMT exists if we can never reliably access it. And it appears to me that we cannot reliably access anything like it. Well-meaning people disagree about abortion, capital punishment, even slavery. Short of assuming that anyone who disagrees with me is just lying or insane, I don’t know how to reconcile those evident disagreements with some universally accessible OMT. (Also, I think it’s hard to square universally-accessible OMT with the fact that people almost without exception come to believe that the OMT happens to be just what they were taught as kids and/or what their peers believe. That seems much more consistent with subjectivism than an OMT.) Would I be wasting my time if I asked you respond civilly? You seem to enjoy pouring contempt on other people; I don’t particularly enjoy receiving it. I’d appreciate it you’d assume good faith for the purposes of this conversation. I promise you I’m not mentally retarded or evil. I just disagree.Pro Hac Vice_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate
It seems you’ve not read the comments up thread. Do you believe money has value? If so, why? If not, do you use money to transact?
Do you think that air has value? Do you think that water has value?StephenB_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate
We can use our minds-as-active-physical-brains to imagine disembodied, non-physical minds, just as we can imagine what a unicorn or centaur might look like.
We? Where did you get the "We?" It can't be the mind or the brain because you just said that they are the things being used by the we.StephenB_{August 12, 2015
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Despite the false bravado, the problem for materialists is that they can't construct a physical system to provide meaning without having meaning required in its structure. Its a real problem, just give it a try.Upright BiPed_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate @ 45 keeps going on about how morality is like value. What we value is good simply because we value it. And what we don't value is evil simply because we don't value it. A Zimbabwean dollar once had value; now it has no value. Killing Jews, homosexuals and the disabled is evil now because we don't value those practices. If we did value those practices, according to eigenstate that would make them good. You are an evil little fascist turd eigenstate. Thank you for continuing to show us the road where materialism leads -- might makes right; the heel of a boot in our face forever. You disgust me. Barry Arrington_{August 12, 2015
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If materialism is true, we are nothing more than glorified monkeys. There is no meaning behind anything you do. You are simply a product of an accident that began billions of years ago. We're not even glorified. We're just apes with relatlively little hair. Some even less than others.
I think they live in denial about it because they understand it. Why do anything good if there is no such thing as good in the first place? These folks are the freeloaders of religion.
It seems you've not read the comments up thread. Do you believe money has value? If so, why? If not, do you use money to transact? Careful that's a trick question.
Why discover new drugs to cure cancer and malaria? Why help the poor and needy? Why was the holocaust wrong?
Why because we have a natural desire to survive and thrive, and living has subjective value and meaning for us, just like money has subjective value for us. It's meaningful and valuable because we say so, which is the only way anything gets valued or loaded with meaning in the first place.
Is there any difference between a stripper dancing in vegas and a doctor serving in west Africa? If materialism is true, there is no difference at all.
That can only be true if you believe money cannot have any value, since there is nothing "objectively valuable"about it. If you use money to transact and understand the ascription of subjective value, you have falsified your own claim here in so doing.eigenstate_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate @ 39: "meaning is a feature of a mind" eigenstate @ 41: "The mind is the activity of the brain." Combining we get: "meaning is a feature of the activity of the brain" Which is absolutely correct given materialist premises. And that, of course, is what I said in the OP. There is no significance within a wider context to a feature of the activity of a brain. Thanks for making my point in spite of yourself E.Barry Arrington_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate, Try again. You are in denial about what your worldview leads to so you spew psychobabble and think you are some kind of a genius. Here is a simple question: Why is child molestation wrong? If it is not wrong, explain clearly why it is not wrong. Evil in a materialistic brain is simply an illusion.cornucopian_{August 12, 2015
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If materialism is true, we are nothing more than glorified monkeys. There is no meaning behind anything you do. You are simply a product of an accident that began billions of years ago. I think they live in denial about it because they understand it. Why do anything good if there is no such thing as good in the first place? These folks are the freeloaders of religion. Why discover new drugs to cure cancer and malaria? Why help the poor and needy? Why was the holocaust wrong? Is there any difference between a stripper dancing in vegas and a doctor serving in west Africa? If materialism is true, there is no difference at all.cornucopian_{August 12, 2015
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Barry, The mind is the activity of the brain. There's nothing problematic about this at all from a materialist standpoint. We can use our minds-as-active-physical-brains to imagine disembodied, non-physical minds, just as we can imagine what a unicorn or centaur might look like. So, our minds-as-active-physical-brains can "meta-represent" fictions, like YHWH, and self-contradictory concepts like " objective meaning".eigenstate_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate @ 39: "meaning is a concept, a feature of a mind . . ." In one post eigenstate tells us he is an eliminative materialist who does not believe in the existence of a "mind." In the next post he's going on about the features of a mind. He can't keep the crap he shovels sorted out. It is kind of amusing really.Barry Arrington_{August 12, 2015
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That isn’t the way “meaning” is being used in the OP. Barry defines it as “significance in a broader context.” That kind of meaning must be conferred or endowed by an outside agent. You are talking about the kind of meaning that is assigned or attributed to things or people. That is an entirely different thing.
The points to make are: 1. Barry's usage is self-serving and contrived. 2. My meaning (ascribed) is, contra Barry's usage, real and practical meaning, describing the relationship between subjects and objects, as ascribed by subjects. Barry proves the practical use and reality of subjective ascription every time he uses Visa card, or enters into any financial dealings with others. 3. Barry's own parochial understanding of objective meaning is just another example of his subjective assignment of meaning. It must be so, as " objective meaning" is a non-starter, meaning is a concept, a feature of a mind, there for, by definition, subjective. It can't be otherwise.eigenstate_{August 12, 2015
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eigenstate
Meaning is meaningful and in a directly demonstrable way, just as value is meaningful in a very practical way, and all the while being wholly grounded in our subjective judgments.
That isn't the way "meaning" is being used in the OP. Barry defines it as "significance in a broader context." That kind of meaning must be conferred or endowed by an outside agent. You are talking about the kind of meaning that is assigned or attributed to things or people. That is an entirely different thing. You can assign meaning to anything you like, but you cannot have meaning unless God confers it on you, that is, unless God creates you for something.StephenB_{August 12, 2015
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podcast - “Freeloading” from Religion: Nancy Pearcey on Materialism and Human Rights http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2015/08/freeloading-from-religion-nancy-pearcey-on-materialism-and-human-rights/bornagain77_{August 12, 2015
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sean
materialism can easily provide meaningful definitions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ which are far beyond mere preferences.
That is an interesting claim. Show me how you can get meaningful definitions of good and evil from matter and energy.StephenB_{August 12, 2015
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Daniel King @ 33 gets the award for "Most Inane Blithering of the Night." Find ultimate meaning in the universe in fluffy white clouds and cuddly kittens. It's fun!Barry Arrington_{August 12, 2015
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There is a fairly simple way to see "Why there is no Meaning if Materialism is True". That 'simple way' is to go to the foundational claim of Intelligent Design against neo-Darwinism and against materialism in general. Specifically, the claim of Intelligent Design against neo-Darwinism, and against materialism in general, is that undirected material processes cannot generate any non-trivial functional information and that information only originates from a mind or personal agent:
"Our experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source -- from a mind or personal agent." (Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239 (2004).) The Origin of Information: How to Solve It - Perry Marshall (Shannon Channel Capacity) Where did the information in DNA come from? This is one of the most important and valuable questions in the history of science. Cosmic Fingerprints has issued a challenge to the scientific community: “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.” “Information” is defined as digital communication between an encoder and a decoder, using agreed upon symbols. To date, no one has shown an example of a naturally occurring encoding / decoding system, i.e. one that has demonstrably come into existence without a designer. A private equity investment group is offering a technology prize for this discovery. We will financially reward and publicize the first person who can solve this;,,, To solve this problem is far more than an object of abstract religious or philosophical discussion. It would demonstrate a mechanism for producing coding systems, thus opening up new channels of scientific discovery. Such a find would have sweeping implications for Artificial Intelligence research. http://cosmicfingerprints.com/solve/ On the preceding site, Perry Marshall directly compares Claude Shannon’s communication model and Hubert Yockey’s DNA communication channel model. Notice that Yockey’s model contains the exact same components as Shannon’s – the two systems are isomorphic. "A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor). It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required. ,,,there is no known law of nature and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter. Werner Gitt 1997 In The Beginning Was Information pp. 64-67, 79, 107." (The retired Dr Gitt was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig), the Head of the Department of Information Technology.)
In other words, the only known source for information is when a mind intentionally assigns 'meaning' in order to create it.
"A code is a unique mapping of something in space 'a' to something is space 'b'. ,, Where the word coffee does not mean goat. It means coffee. A beverage that you drink. ,,, The word stop means stop. The word stop does not mean go. The word go means go. The word go does not mean stop.,," - Perry Marshall
In other words, the ability to assign meaning MUST exist before information can be brought into existence. Thus, since life is now found to be 'information theoretic' in its foundational basis, and since the ability to assign 'meaning' must exist prior to information being created in life, then it follows that life must have some meaning of some sort. Moreover, since it is impossible for unguided material processes to create information, since unguided material processes obviously lack the ability to assign meaning in the first place, then it follows that there can not possibly be any real meaning for our lives if materialism is true. Moreover, this line of argumentation can be extended to argue for the Christian belief that humans are made 'in the image of God' to have a intimate, loving, relationship with God. The argument goes like this: Among all creatures on earth, humans uniquely the possess to ability to understand and create information:
Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Ian Tattersall, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: “Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html
Moreover, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet, as mentioned previously, it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer - video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU John Lennox - Semiotic Information - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6rd4HEdffw
As well, as if that was not 'spooky enough', information, not material, is now found to be foundational to physical reality:
"it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: per metanexus.net Quantum physics just got less complicated - Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,",,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html
Of note: Since our prayers are basically just information going up to God, then I would hold that our prayers are far more effectual than many people may believe. Moreover, it is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made 'in the image of God' than finding that both the universe and life itself are both 'information theoretic' in their basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information. I guess a more convincing proof could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He alone was God. But who has ever heard of such a convincing proof as that?
Turin Shroud Quantum Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' on a solid oval object - video http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=J21MECNU Solid Oval Object Under The Beard http://shroud3d.com/findings/solid-oval-object-under-the-beard
Verses and Music:
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men. Casting Crowns - The Word Is Alive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9itgOBAxSc
bornagain77_{August 12, 2015
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People derive meaning in life in a variety of ways. Some think that life has no meaning if obedience to a transcendant being and promises of eternal bliss do not apply. Some focus on love for parents, siblings, spouses and children. Some follow social and political aspirations, such as respect for others in daily interactions and in working to achieve justice. Life is a buffet. You can't avoid a choice. Choose what suits you, but bear in mind that you will be judged by somebody, certainly here, but possibly in the hereafter. The idea that "It's my [Barry's] way or the highway," is easily ignored. Peace, DanielDaniel King_{August 12, 2015
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Sean:
We are much more than just the stuff of our bodies.
Not according to materialism, which you don’t seem to understand.
What we are composed of is irrelevant to the question of whether we owe moral duties or not. What we are capable of is what matters.
But as SB said, what we are composed of determines what we are capable of. A materialist says nothing exists but space, time, particles and energy. Thus, our bodies are nothing but particles in motion in space through time. Particles in motion lack the capacity to make moral choices for the simple reason that they have no free will. News flash Sean. Materialism excludes libertarian free will. If a particular amalgamation of burned out star stuff could not have done other than what it did, it makes no sense to say it is capable of making a moral choice. In other words, one has to be able to make a choice of any kind before one can make a choice of a particular kind.
In a universe composed only of space, time, matter, and energy, the existence of good and evil are not excluded.
Of course they are, for the reasons I gave. Your response is mere assertion. When you have an argument let me know.
They mean things different from what a supernatural universe might imply, but they are not excluded.
Mere assertion. When you have an argument let me know.
It is not any universe a reasonable person (materialist or not) would accept as reasonable under materialism.
What an odd statement. Whether a person “would accept” the conclusions compelled by materialist premises is quite irrelevant.
Materialism does not exclude all “broader context”,
Of course it does, for the reasons I’ve explained. Notably lacking in your response is any argument. Mere contradiction might be funny in a Monty Python skit. But it really is not an argument. When you are ready to give us an argument, let us know.
Materialism can easily provide meaningful definitions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ which are far beyond mere preferences.
Yet after centuries of striving no one has gotten past Hume’s Is/Ought problem. If it is so easy why has no one been able to do it?
We have no need of a transcendent moral code
You do if you ever want to get past the “sez who” problem.
The goal is to FIND meaning, not have it IMPOSED.
The goal is to find truth. There is meaning in the universe because God exists and the transcendent moral code is grounded in his being – or there is not. Your personal aversion to authority has no bearing on the issue; though you seem to think that if you stamp your foot hard enough it will make a difference. Here’s a clue. It does not.
God can impose meaning “through the objective transcendent moral code grounded in his being” ONLY IF GOD TELLS YOU SO FACE-TO-FACE.
Mere assertion. When you have an argument let me know.Barry Arrington_{August 12, 2015
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sean samis
The phrase “nothing but” comes heavily laden with implications. Certainly we appear to be composed of nothing but matter created in stars, but is there nothing to us but the material we are made of?
Bad logic. You are trying to have it both ways. You either agree that we are nothing but material stuff or you do not. Which position do you take?
If it’s absurd to think that rocks have moral duties, what a moral duty is should be explained.
Nonsense. Everyone knows what "moral duty" means.
What we are composed of is irrelevant to the question of whether we owe moral duties or not.
Error, in fact. The stuff of which we are made determines our capacity to recognize moral duties and make moral choices.
Why should anyone have to acknowledge the false consequences of your contrived metaphysical assumptions about a philosophy you don’t even understand? No reason at all.
Error, in fact. Barry understands materialism. You do not. Barry
Whether objective moral truth exists is an ontological issue. Our capacity to understand and apply it is an epistemological issue. Before I go further, do you understand the difference or should I explain it to you?
sean
This is a difference without a distinction. One cannot understand and apply objective moral truth if it does not exist. Until the ontological issue is settled, the epistemological effort is uncertain, which means it cannot be objective.
First, you claim the distinction doesn't matter. Then, you appeal to that same distinction to make your point. The sentence that follows is unintelligible. Try to rephrase it.StephenB_{August 12, 2015
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@Barry,
Eigenstate says Morality is like the value we place on commodities. We value some commodities and not others. And with respect to any given commodity, we might value it today and not tomorrow, depending on whether we subjectively deem it valuable for whatever pragmatic reason we may have.
Which is sufficient to demonstrate the problem with the point you are trying to make in your OP. If that happens -- if we ascribe meaning to symbols and concepts and other referents, just as we ascribe economic or currency value to objects, we have falsified your claim. Meaning is meaningful and in a directly demonstrable way, just as value is meaningful in a very practical way, and all the while being wholly grounded in our subjective judgments. When you put your Visa card into the machine at the Gas Station, you are discrediting your own post here. For money can't have any objective value anymore than your life can have objective meaning, and yet your actions prove the practical merits and essential benefits for us in ascribing meaning and value subjectively. I'll even buy you a tank of gas as a token of my appreciation in your understanding this point! ;-)
Yes, as I said, on materialist premises that is exactly correct. Today most of us do not value killing Jews, homosexuals and disabled people. And because we don’t value those practices we call them “evil.” But just as the price of gold rises and falls depending on our subjective assessment of its value, if tomorrow we decide that killing Jews, homosexuals and disabled people is valuable, then those practices will be considered “good.”
To invoke a software quip, that's a feature, not a bug. Look, your YHWH character is doomed forever as an anti-homosexual, to give credence to Biblical accounts (and making the huge leap that such an entity exists at all in the first place). Christian theology is as doomed as Islamic theology or any number of other absolutist theologies, trapped by the very thing that gave it credence or claims to power in the first place: claims of immutable, unchanging authority. Human morals and ethic are wholly subjective, but that is not to say they are random or arbitrary. That's a common misconception around here -- "subjective" and "arbitrary" not synonyms. Human values reflect the objective facts of the history of human evolution, and human culture along with biological development. Our impulse to value selfish greed and also selfish acts of altruism and charity are both grounded in our evolved nature, and serve(d) useful ends in the process. That evolvability makes us morally superior to YHWH, not just on being more decent toward humans, but in adapting to changing environment. Some day your grandchildren will lament your anti-homosexualism, patriarchialism and cruel laissez-fair capitalism the way I lament my late grandfather's hatred of black people. Or would toward that it will be, at least. YHWH, he's stuck, dragging his cosmic knuckles through the bronze age dirt, poor chap.
Eigenstate’s summary of the materialist worldview is spot on. That his nihilism is also itself self-evidently evil should give him pause. It does not. He is proud of it. Believing there was no ultimately difference between Hitler and Mother Teresa makes him feel all grown up and sophisticated. Not like us childish Christians, who naively believe in things like justice. He really is a disgusting little maggot. But he’s our disgusting little maggot, and I am glad we have him to serve as a bad example from time to time. Thanks E.
Well, we need to create a "Self Evident Bingo" board for this blog. "Self-Evident" doesn't mean what you think it does, Barry, it's manifest in dozens of your posts know that you confuse this with "It occurs to Barry that X is true, so it must be true". Evil is real, but it's a subjective, human construct, just like the value of money. That doesn't diminish it, but rather reifies it in a way Christian theology cannot, any more than it can reify its YHWH (and for the same reasons). Whining that it's not "ultimately meaningful" is as persuasive as complaining that its pointless to buy a house, or use your Visa card, or enter into a service contract because our money and our money system are not grounded in any "objective value", but only grounded in what we humans agree is valuable and in what way.eigenstate_{August 12, 2015
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If you believe that you are a random cosmic accident that nothingness spewed without free will or purpose it demands proof, every atheist i asked couldn't bring proof about Randomness,Nothingness and Luck. If you are a random cosmic accident then by definition you don't have any meaning, the meaning that you will create doesn't come from you but from a collection of random unconscious processes in the brain, there is no "you" to give meaning, meaningless processes can't create meaning. But enough with all these stupid assumptions, they are all wrong. There was intention for the Universe to be here from the simple fact that there is something instead of nothing, since nothing can't create something the Universe was intended to be created. That alone destroys any argument from the atheist side since you can't say that the Universe is purposless from the simple fact that it was created and since the Universe was created we were created as well and that moves the meaning prior to the Universe, to the Creator of the Universe. P.S When you are alive you have goals NOT purpose, purpose goes AFTER DEATH, purpose is like a home construction, you have a house after you have built it, you have a purpose after your life has finished.JimFit_{August 12, 2015
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Barry @15; To Pro Hac Vice you wrote,
Whether objective moral truth exists is an ontological issue. Our capacity to understand and apply it is an epistemological issue. Before I go further, do you understand the difference or should I explain it to you?
This is a difference without a distinction. One cannot understand and apply objective moral truth if it does not exist. Until the ontological issue is settled, the epistemological effort is uncertain, which means it cannot be objective. sean s.sean samis_{August 12, 2015
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Barry; a longer look at your OP: Looking at your 9 points, I have no comment on numbers 1 and 3, and minor quibbles with 2, 4, and 5 which I'll leave out. All those are minor points compared to what follows.
6. Fundamentally, however, humans are nothing but insignificant amalgamations of burned out star stuff on an insignificant rock orbiting an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy in an incomprehensibly vast universe.
Problems actually start in this one. The phrase “nothing but” comes heavily laden with implications. Certainly we appear to be composed of nothing but matter created in stars, but is there nothing to us but the material we are made of? That’s a larger question that the “nothing but” carries implications for. We are amalgamations of matter with consciousness, memory, and a vast repertoire of mental states and concepts. Even if we are composed entirely of ordinary matter, those activities are themselves considerable things. We are much more than just the stuff of our bodies.
7. A rock does not owe moral duties to another rock. The very notion is absurd. A rock is nothing but an amalgamation of burned out star stuff, and it is literally meaningless to say that one amalgamation of burned out star stuff owes a moral duty to another amalgamation of burned out star stuff.
The term “moral duties” is introduced here without any explanation. If it’s absurd to think that rocks have moral duties, what a moral duty is should be explained. I think we agree that rocks owe no moral duties, but for different reasons because we have different ideas about what a “moral duty” is. Rocks owe no moral duty to anything else because rocks are incapable of performing moral or immoral acts; they are inanimate and insentient. That a rock is “an amalgamation of burned out star stuff” is irrelevant. What we are composed of is irrelevant to the question of whether we owe moral duties or not. What we are capable of is what matters.
8. Nothing about that analysis changes if the amalgamation of burned out star stuff is called a human. Thus, the idea that humans owe moral duties to one another is ultimately meaningless. In a universe in which nothing exists but particles in motion, there is no good. There is no evil.
Here is where the “nothing but” of #6 comes back to bite us. What we are composed of is irrelevant to the question of whether we owe moral duties or not. What we are capable of is what matters. We are not rocks, we are conscious, animate, sentient beings. We are categorically different from rocks. In a universe composed only of space, time, matter, and energy, the existence of good and evil are not excluded. They mean things different from what a supernatural universe might imply, but they are not excluded. Since #6 was flawed and numbers 7 & 8 are broken, #9 is ultimately pointless.
That, Seversky, is the universe you, as an atheist materialist, imagine you live in.
No, that’s the universe you imagine he imagines. The universe you describe is nothing but your imagination and fear run wild. It is not any universe a reasonable person (materialist or not) would accept as reasonable under materialism. You’ve propped up a straw man, nothing more. You should really get out of the habit of thinking you understand what materialists believe.
By “meaning” we mean “significance within a broader context.” There is no meaning in your universe, because nothing we do has any significance within a broader context as my Hitler/Mother Teresa example demonstrates.
So first you exclude all broader context and then wonder where significance within a broader context went?! If you get rid of all the water, you can declare “swimming” to be imaginary, but only by your purposeful contrivance. Materialism does not exclude all “broader context”, much less dismissing all significance within them. It does not exclude meaning, it just makes it different from what you think.
I am simply asking you to have the courage to acknowledge the logical consequences of your metaphysical assumptions.
Why should anyone have to acknowledge the false consequences of your contrived metaphysical assumptions about a philosophy you don’t even understand? No reason at all.
...there to be meaning good and evil must exist in an objective sense. It must really be the case that what Hitler did was “evil” and that what Mother Teresa did was “good” where the words “evil” and “good” mean something beyond “that which I do not prefer” and “that which I do prefer.”
Since we don’t know that good or evil exist in any objective sense, this requirement is contrived. Good and evil must be reasonable and rational, but objectivity is a red herring. UNLESS YOUR DEITY SPEAKS TO YOU FACE-TO-FACE, you cannot know what your Deity thinks is objectively true. Materialism can easily provide meaningful definitions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ which are far beyond mere preferences. I’ve done it here on this site before.
...a transcendent moral code cannot be grounded in the being of an amalgamation of burned out star stuff.
A moral code can be. We have no need of a transcendent moral code, we need a moral code we can make sense of and use. Let the ivory tower types fuss over minutia; the rest of us can live our lives quite well without all that noise.
...only God can impose meaning – through the objective transcendent moral code grounded in his being – on an otherwise meaningless universe.
The goal is to FIND meaning, not have it IMPOSED. And God can impose meaning “through the objective transcendent moral code grounded in his being” ONLY IF GOD TELLS YOU SO FACE-TO-FACE. If all you hear comes from some people claiming to speak for their God, then meaning is being imposed on you by other mere humans. Probably in their self-interest and not yours. So the summary is obvious; you need us to believe in your God so that you can impose your morality on us in your God’s name. Forgive me if I don’t sign-up for that. sean s.sean samis_{August 12, 2015
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