So I’m day drinking on a Sunday and the thought occurred to me for to present these questions for materialist or naturalism or anyone following a similar ideology to discuss with me. I will be standing for the side acknowledging a belief in the metaphysical and its corresponding implications of belief. that there is something more beyond only this material reality. Questions veering into theism are welcome but would prefer to try to keep it more a secular view.

1. Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.

2. Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself? The human mind notoriously works against itself by filling people with negativity. I understand fear and doubt are useful for survival but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here. Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?

Respectable replies only jackasses will be ignored as you should

1. Man had dreamed

>1. Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.
That's easy to answer. Religion, ideology, community, teleology, these are things that unite men and encourage them to work together for causes bigger than themselves, thus giving them a competitive advantage over those who live for only selfish pursuits. This is why throughout history things like atheism and nihilism only happen in short, isolated bursts; they simply have less staying power.

>2. Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself? The human mind notoriously works against itself by filling people with negativity. I understand fear and doubt are useful for survival but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here. Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but most anxiety comes from uncertainty in stressful situations. Your hormones are running to get you to do something, but your mind isn't sure what the right course of action is. I don't think that's contradictory per se, because uncertainty is just a fact of life and there's always an advantage in considering multiple options.

>>24567534
Excellent post, it was exactly the kind I had hoped for. For the record I have no ill will towards materialists I simply believe it’s important for a contradictory view every now and then to cultivate true knowledge.

1. I could not make a concrete refutation of your point as I agree. I will post what I believe here to make things a little easier
Reality exist along a wide band of frequencies. Our material realm is only one such frequency and our lives are guided by higher frequencies projecting down into us. Can man truly create something new? Can you make something that you have no prior conception of? You can only make things that are an amalgamation of things you know. The Human mind can only use familiar ingredients. Man could not have created god unless nature had given him the idea first. They are there because I believe nature deemed it necessary. There is the unity factor you brought up and it is sound logic but it didn’t have to be god and religion nature could have used more grounded things. Instead it clearly wishes us to look up and beyond in our search for truth.

2.there is a chemical aspect yes I agree. I believe that old saying as above so below lol. Chemical is the physical symptom of a spiritual cause I guess is my view here.
But what about deeply disturbing intrusive thoughts? What is their purpose? Doesn’t make much sense to randomly fill a persons head with evil imagery they don’t want to see at, evil thoughts they don’t want to hear. At what point is the mind just trying to figure out the situation or tormenting the host? For what purpose? What would be your thoughts on this?


Also man the point here is not a I’m right your wrong argument. I’d like us to broaden our knowledge base and an expansion of knowledge for all involved.

>>24567448 (OP)
Hello kind day drinker. Please be kind. I am drunk too.

>1. Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.
"Nature never does anything unnecessarily" is a difficult thing to say. One would probably need to define unnecessary but I would think that you mean that everything from the evolution always makes so kind of "sense". If this is what you mean I would disagree here. Evolution (the Darwin one) has mutation, natural selection and time as a base, so it works at random. Time is a given. But if there would be some kind of mutation that causes, f.e. a sheep to become pretty intelligent (IQ is influenced by genetics) and the sheep would still survive, that would mean that that one sheep could be pretty intelligent. If there are other sheep that have the same conditions and they mate and stuff, they would become established. And because intelligent sheep would be able to come up with logical conclusions they would start to notice causal chains more than stupid ones. Apple falls from tree and maybe a tree will grow out of it in a few months/years. So the sheep that can't deduce event A happening from event B, they will be naturally selected. So the sheep will get good at deducing causal chains. This leads to sheep counting everything they can't really explain how it happened to unit it under "thing X" to happen. And maybe every sheep with the minimum intelligence would be able to come up with the same conclusion. "thing X" would be some form of god.

>2. Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself? The human mind notoriously works against itself by filling people with negativity. I understand fear and doubt are useful for survival but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here. Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?
Like the first answer. They are certain parts in animals (rudimentum in latin. I am not sure about the English translation. Maybe just rudiment too) that don't really make any sense but just exist. so maybe there isn't any good reason this "working against itself" exists. Its just a function that works against itself, but the humans survived not because of it but somehow despite it. Another example of an organism working against itself would be that one pig that kills itself because of its long horns. Just googled it it is the "babirusa". Its horns can easily can get so long that they penetrate their own skull. Apparently the Antechinus gets so horny that it can die form internal bleeding or so.

How do I go about follow materialism? (I don't believe in ghosts)

>>24567654
Hell yeah brother lol.

You’re right here I had overlooked that evolution sometimes produces failures. Though here is my thoughts I believe nature to be a show. I’m reluctant to go full God did everything mode but he left signs for man or at least beings in higher realms did but they left signs and are administrators of the earth. They use natural things to teach man. The processes of nature reflect the processes of man’s mind. The big animals eats the small ones and rules while the powerful thoughts eat the small ones and rule. The anninal that gets fed gets storng annd rules just like thoughts. it is a a constant state of striving toward some goal known only in the deep recess of the mind. Man too like nature in his search for truth constantly finds things combines things, dissolves thing, fails, succeeds etc. Nature is presented as a show and lesson for man how he controls nature is so how he too should control his mind. Whatever the implications that should be. I do not believe to be simple chance. Because the energy that constituents our world had some intelligence definite it’s properties. I find difficult to believe that these chemicals which have defined and concrete reactions to eachother due to their specific attributes could have brought themselves into existence and then chose their own attributes. That would imply intelligent design behind it. If you believe they could can you put up a theory on how that works?

Evolution is constantly adapting and succeedihn and failing as you have said but where was that incompetence when the physical laws were decided? It seem far fetch for nature to get the laws that govern right first try and then spend its life span just fumbling around in the dark unless that constant change that process of seeing what works and what doesn’t teaches man about his internal struggle to ascend. Which I put forth as man’s meaning in life. I guess my main point is higher realms guide the earth for man’s benefit of development and this is not a cold and unconcerned random world.

Thoughts? And what you sippin on haha

>>24567448 (OP)
>risk is an inherent and inevitable aspect in the pursuit of knowledge

>every animal but man lives it's life with no conception of the inevitable. Man's use of reason gives him the ability to contemplate death at any time and it still isn't something that can be known beyond it will happen. A suitable rejection of rationality on this topic will ensure you're a male and may help your chances.

>what is luck? Nothing you need concern yourself with.

>>24567448 (OP)
"Materialism" gets things completely wrong altogether from the get-go because everyone's misusing terms introduced by Aristotle without understanding anything. Matter, classically understood, is the principle of individuation, differentiation, and decomposition. It does not exist without a form, a configuration, without being 'informed' by information, where form is the principle of unity, intelligibility, of integration, what makes a whole a whole. The simplest subatomic particles that constitute "matter" themselves must have a form or else they don't exist, i.e., they must have a spin, a mass, etc. With this division, you immediately have that form, information, configuration, is essentially immaterial, precisely because it is not matter in the classical sense. Everything sensible is a composition of matter and form, where matter is the limiting principle of form that's unbounded. What can we know about unbounded immaterial form? Very little outside of sense experience, but we already know that it is far beyond anything we can conceive.

>>24567709
Hell yeah brother!

> big bloody evolution battlefield
I actually belief that evolution is just a constant battlefield without any goal. This reminds be of the quote from Dawkins I believe. That sums of my pessimistic view of that thang:
"Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no minds eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."

>natural laws too perfect
To be honest I don't have any clue. One could make Voltaires watchmaker analogy or Mainländers Death of god. They are probably the same. I don't remember. That could make sense. But it could also be that there is some 1 law all other laws expand/come from. And that law was an accident too. But I think the only thing that can be "explained" with currently is theology. We are lacking enough scientific knowledge to know if the natural laws are really as perfect as we know. But honestly the thing I would currently believe is that it only seems perfect because everything only has the perfect conditions under which we could come into existence according to evolution. If something would be different it might be possible to exist but not for us to exist with it.

>to teach man
Yeah as I mentioned above I think that maybe earth was creating according to Voltaires watchmaker analogy or according to some laws we haven't discovered yet. After that creation we are alone in this universe. Just bloody Darwinism happening.
But would you have an explanation why higher beings would need some evolution to teach us? If they are that powerful why not just give es the knowledge. Why create us in the first place?

>What drink?
Currently drinking some Mead (Honey-wine). Locally produced and it tasted pretty fire. Just tastes too good.
What you sippin my boy?

>>24567797

For the first I think you may be right here. I was thinking that nature must have a goal because everything in nature only performs an action with some goal in mind. Why would nature itself be different Even if they are just resting or playing that’s still a goal. I can’t think of any animals or even a plant that performs actions with no goal pointlessly. All animatic expenditures of energy have a purpose behind them.

However I then thought what if your right in that nature does not have a goal, nature really just does because that’s it’s nature. Nature just natures because that’s its nature hahah it doesn’t need a goal because what it does is just its nature. Thank you for help on the realization dude exactly what the thread was intended for.

Ahh so you think the earth was created and the left to its devices then we are in agreement. To answer to your question if you will entertain my ramblings, they cannot directly because of a cosmic free will law. They can only communicate through signs and dreams and other things of that nature. The man is then left to interprete on his own or with others. A cosmic free will law that states we must be allowed to experience our earthly lives as earth intended and not be given things that would throw our entire conscious into disarray without our having searched or worked and made worthy for.

You have given me things to think over and reevaluate my world view I thank you again. I still believe there is a metaphysical blueprint for this world and that our life experiences are brought unto us to in our first half of life to produce seals on our souls which must be overcome in adulthood to become complete and whole and ascend. After he seals are broken we bring about the apocalypse on our selves. Apocalypses real etymological meaning is the uncover or reveal. But what doing i know ima. Lonely drunk with a bunch of shit in my head I want to tell to someone hahah

And I got the classic gin and ginger beer haha

>>24567855
>nature just natures
Yeah that is what I think. I mean obviously all living beings want to reproduce and to survive. Thats important for evolution. So there is more or less a "blind goal" for the individuals in evolution but not for the evolution itself.

>cosmic free will law
I still don't really understand what you mean by that.
But I think that from the beginning of time everything was determined. If we f.e. believe in the Big Bang (which is a theological argument and thus maybe compatible with your thought system) everything there makes a causal chain from there into the future. And because our brain functions on a physical level our thoughts are obviously determined too. So we have no "freedom of thought".

>signs and dreams
There may be times when something seems like some sign by a higher being. F.e. when my a family member of mine laid dying in her bed, one of my family members wanted to drive away quickly to get something for her. But as he grabbed to door handle to leave he says he had some deep feeling that as soon as he leaves he wouldn't see my dying family member again. So he decided to stay and the family member died like 10 min later. He says that this was a divine symbol wanting him to watch her die.
My only explanation for something like that happening is our intuition. The millions of years of evolution shaped our "gut feeling". We instinctively know stuff, even though we never experiences such a thing, because our ancestors passed these information down to us. The reason for that is obviously again evolution with all its advantages to have such an internal felling. It may be the same with dreams and stuff. Our ancestors passed down so much information that we often have the feeling to know what is going to happen. Maybe the signs you think of is just our intuition.

>last paragraph
Ok I don't know where these seals came from.

>lonely drinking
I feel you brother. This is a decent place to spout such random thought shit.
I never tried gin or ginger beer. Ginger beer sounds wild but I have never seen it here in Germany. If I do strange stuff with beer I am probably getting punched.
Enjoy your stuff if you have still something left.

>>24567665
Like IFLS on facebook and migrate to >>>/reddit/

>>24567448 (OP)
1. I would say because man wants to feel he's part of something greater than himself, through the union with others.

2. Man will do anything to achieve certain goals even if it hurts him in the long run. Its probably because we're all trying to work towards the same goal and come into conflict with those who also want it. Girard explains something similar.

>>24568009
I should add the Freudian also explains behavior as well

BEGONE FOUL SPIRIT

>>24567448 (OP)
1. Nature does plenty of things "unnecessarily"; many animals end up with traits that are maladaptive, but not maladaptive enough that they result in the extinction of the animal. In the case of humans, the cognitive abilities that allow us to perceive or think we perceive supernatural entities such as Gods or spirits are likely part and parcel with our overall capacity for abstract thought. Even if our cognitive abilities did not evolve for that specific purpose, they have evolved to the point where we can make abstract theories regarding Gods, spirits, the afterlife, metaphysics etc.
2) Piggybacking off of 1, our advanced cognitive abilities allow us to make judgments and decisions based on relatively abstract mental criteria rather than purely instinctual decisions. To put it more simply, someone can have a thought and then make a decision based on that thought. Someone can decide to be celibate based on their beliefs about what Christ or the Buddha or the Communist Party want them to do. They can choose to make a maladaptive choice. This is damning for materialism even if Christ or the Buddha isn't real, because our actions and the thoughts behind them cannot be explained in purely physical or biological terms.
Or to put it another way, if a monk chooses celibacy, what is the best explanation? A) In choosing celibacy he is "really" trying to maximize his reproductive fitness in some insanely convoluted way, and his beliefs about why he chooses celibacy are a very complex rationalization for this, or B) He chooses celibacy because he has certain beliefs about the world (whether those beliefs are true or false).

>>24567448 (OP)
>Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily.

What makes you think these are unnecessary. I'd rather have most plebs believe in the metaphysical even if I don't do it myself.

>but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here.

That's nature telling you, you shouldn't reproduce

You would find Spinoza interesting OP.

>1. Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.
>2. Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself? The human mind notoriously works against itself by filling people with negativity. I understand fear and doubt are useful for survival but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here. Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?

Philosophy is not for everyone. You are not intelligent enough to have the native skills for it, which means that trying to study it will just give you more material to be confused about. Give up and happily recognise that everyone has their own talents.

>>24567448 (OP)
im not a materialist but these arguments are flawed
>Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.
we can imagine many things that dont exist, next
>Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself? The human mind notoriously works against itself by filling people with negativity. I understand fear and doubt are useful for survival but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here. Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?
yes many, next

>>24569130

We can imagine many things that don’t exist yes but why and what purpose would they serve in a a purely material world. That was my point obviously we can imagine many things but in a purely material world imaginings of false things with serve no purpose and gives no explanation to the ideas and blueprint inherent already in man’s mind .

2.any examples of this so called many then? That one guy provided an example of a beast that had its horn kill itself but this seemed to be a freak mutation that happened to one individual while humanities contradictory thoughts and emotions seem to be a feature and no human is exempt from tormenting thoughts. These self antagonizing thoughts a natural to humanity while animals only have freak accidents work against them.

>>24569125
Philosophy is just for fun buddy. It doesn’t lead to any meaningful conclusions. Only the various opinions of the people who dreamed it up and the fools they could grift into believing them. Philosophy has provided to no benefit to anyone and exists purely for entertainments sake haha. Just something for pseudo to pretend they are smart and argue for eternity over nothing. Philosophy is fun and debating is fun but taking it seriously is a fools errands.

1. Why do you have two kidneys, two lungs and an appendix? Nature operates through redundancies that often are wasteful on the level of the individual organism, and that very often aren't harmful but are useless (the religious instinct, the aesthetic instinct, etc).

2. Prey animals in the absence of predators will eat themselves into famine.

>>24569222
Well if you really think that way you should live in a place where there are no laws and people dance to bring about rainfall. I heard Africa is a good place for that.

>>24567448 (OP)
Not a materialist.
1. The primitive form of the idea of gods is simply a result of the human brain having evolved to model other people so when thinking about other things it's effective to anthropomorphize. Some of the more advanced Christian idea and the similar Greek ones that can't be refuted were reached through reason not biological evolution.
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCsHuoVABgI
When adaptations work against the organism it means the adaptation evolved to deal with a different environment. Humans come from social apes with hierarchies where you need to be anxious about how more higher ranking apes will react. If you aren't anxious enough to be sneaky about mating, a stronger male might just kill you.

>>24569241
"We are thus prepared to find that primitive man transposed the structural conditions of his own mind into the external world" Freud
Great response to both. What are you referring to with the end of point 1?

>>24567448 (OP)
>Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material?
It's good for turning useless idiots into useful idiots.

>Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself?
A lot actually.

>Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?
>endeavour to daydrink, shitpost on 4chan and sit on your ass
>be 100% supported in doing so by your instincts and self-reflection
>spend your rntire life that way
>fail to reproduce
>evolutionary dead end

>endeavour to daydrink, shitpost on 4chan and sit on your ass
>be deeply anxious about it
> above 1% chance to actually go outside and maybe meet a girl

>>24567448 (OP)
>Nature never does anything unnecessarily.
Nature has no purpose, everything it does is unnecessary. If the universe was just a cold dark void it would be equally as purposeful. I can you of the opposite: why would man deem it necessary to seek the meaning of life if such meaning existed? Why don't men know it? Why do men disagree on it? If there was more to life than atoms bumping and chemical bonds and electric charges, there would be no need to seek anything, the ideals of life would be lain bare.
>Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself?
Whales beach themselves and die, cats eat their children, if you even owned a hamster you'd know these fuckers want nothing more in life than to die in a silly way. Like I said, nature is purposeless, why would it care if your mind evolves to be supportive of anything?

>>24569221
Notions of purpose and "serving a function" is a human creation, a consciousness creation. Also various animals deal with emotional torment. I dont see where you are going with this

>>24569230
I’ve spent years reading essentially all the main philosophers and came to the conclusion none them had the answers to jackshit. They just posited their world view which was their opinion. If they themselves admit to not having the concrete definite answers then my personal worldview is just as valid.

The only thing Philosophers do is make up a word view and then hone their rhetoric skills to debate and uphold that view. Modern philosophy and by extension debating and is nothing more than a rhetoric competition. It used to be about seeking truth.

You could argue that philosophy develops truth seeking skills but even that implies it only helps and provides no concrete answers. The individual is still left to his devices to interpret or incorporate those ideas into his own which is good and beneficial but the problem comes when people take a philosophers opinion and make themselves adherents to it and follow another man’s words at the expense of his own.

Philosophy is a litmus test of who is a master and who is a slave.

I respect no man who calls himself a “ist” or follows an “ism” of any kind. Unless he developed his own. And If he can secure followers I respect him more but not the followers.

>>24569267

But what if the purpose is to seek it and not have the mystery laid bare right away? All men save very primitive ones since the beginning have developed systems of metaphysical thought and belief. Why would man look around and say gods did this? Why would they not just attribute it to natural earth processes and leave gods and heaven out of it unless there was inherent to man’s subconscious a blueprint of Gods and heavens things that seeks expression? A purely material world would deem that unnecessary and would have mans mind
More focused and present on the earth instead like an animal. Animals do not dream of heaven. And see only the earth. Only man has the faculties to see beyond. What you may claim to be fanciful imaginingsin reality deeper meaning that screams for man to live and express it out and intrinsic knowledge that demands remembering.


Some cats eat their kids for survival purposes and only some whales beach themselves. Meanwhile all humans face antagonizing thoughts the ones who don’t are the exception and I’ve never known one.

>>24569317
So when a lion hunts thats not serving a purpose? Does the lion himself not know the purpose of his own action. When he moves to hunt does he not understand that this energy expenditure is for the purpose of hunting?

Animals face mental torment from facing abuse. Humanity seems to have evil thoughts as a key feature of existence.

Can you provide a purely material explanation for why deeply intrusive thoughts that disturb the man’s mind and soul would be extant in man’s experience? A person holds a newborn baby a relatives baby and the person has thoughts about doing something messed up like “what if I threw him at the wall or something” you may call me a psychopath for this but all humans have encountered similar phenomena. If not that specific example then something like it. You know it to be true that such phenomena are common to the human experience.

What would be the purely material explanation in your opinion? Doesn’t seem very beneficial for survival to imagine harming your relatives baby.

>>24568607
You bring up very strong points.

You argue that the gods come as a result of man capacity for abstract thought. It’s a very good point. From a material view point your logic here is waterproof however That is your opinion and here is mine, man’s ability for abstract thought has its genesis in the higher realms of reality. Beasts have no abstract thought or a very very rudimentary one. Man was given his immense imagintory capacities because it serves as a link from earth to the higher realm because man has the ability to ascend and so was given an elementary form of the creation mechanic. In heavenly realms the souls will manifests its desires instantaneously. However on earth the souls will is hampered severely by the density of matter and so man’s will and desires take time and effort to bear fruit. I am reluctant to use or imply the Christian idea of heaven. My heaven as I understand is a realm of higher frequency where there is little matter so there is little density so the soul is free to move or create as it pleases with little to no resistance from matter.

I don’t believe gods to exist as we know them or imagine them. I do not believe that what we have imagined to be literal. But rather forms of energy that pervade into our consciousness, frequencies that carry the signature of knowledge of higher realms but man can only perceive these frequencies through the lens of his personal knowledge so he creates men in the sky and eternal heavens because his mind can only process those higher frequencies carrying the signature of higher knowledge through the lens of his own earthly life ingredients. None the less, energy of higher knowledge as tormented and inspired man since time began and all civilizations make genuine attempts at understanding this.

>>24569761
That's really cool. Too bad I don't care about you or anyone else's opinions.

>>24569915
That’s the spirit buddy now you’re learning something. I hope you said that from your own volition though and not as a reaction to my comment about masters and slaves haha.


And a last point for everyone I didn’t make this thread to persuade or be persuaded but as an exchange of ideas and knowledge so the participants can refine their own knowledge. I find there to be immense value in facing contradictory views, keeps you humble and grounded and allows growth where as a single viewpoint taken to extreme will inevitably lead to stagnation.

However my issue with materialism is this. There can be no benefit to a world view that instills a sense of smallness and insignificance. Mans growth I believe lies beyond and our experiences here promote that. You can scramble up a quick explanation that satisfies enough but does it truly satisfy? A finite world implies finite knowledge. There is still much earthly knowledge to learn but then what? That internal cry for understanding I spoke of has yet by any system to recieve satisfaction. Whether materialism or god worship neither seem to provide a truly satisfying conclusion or explanation only ones that people will latch onto just because it’s “good enough” you can recite what other learned men have explanined for you but are you really satisfied? While materialsim is valuable in its grounded nature it will ultimately lead to stagnation as it inhibits man’s growth after a certain point. As does organized religion. At one point man will learn all the earth and will have no choice but to look to his dreams and mind and understand or stagnant and perish.

An ideology of a cold indifferent world where you are small and insignificant seems to me more of a mass psychological warfare to create a self deprecated population that is afraid and believes itself to be small and of no importance. Especially if you believe that mind creates reality. There would be great benefit for a malevolent institution to promote such an ideology.

Man should not ignore his internal world. Or deride his imaginings as just that but should recognize their far reaching signifiance. In a knowledge vacuum as we find ourselves where we do not have the definitive answer it would be better to have a mind that looks up and open instead of down and closed.

I believe materialism is useful now but would become poisonous

>>24569794
Strange how the metaphysics and belief systems expressed by humans always suspiciously correlate to their understanding of the natural world. When people didn't know what fire and lightning are, they thought those were demons and gods. Nowadays nobody attributes metaphysical importance to lightning, we know its just an electrical discharge. A cynical man might say its all just the god of gaps.

>Meanwhile all humans face antagonizing thoughts
Yeah I'm sure Tyrone and Becky spend their afternoons pondering the Being and Becoming, they just act like p-zombies during daytime.

>>24569985
>There can be no benefit to a world view that instills a sense of smallness and insignificance.
And there's the problem with "philosophers". Conflating epistemology with psychology. Genuine philosophical inquiry and psychological well-being are entirely different subjects.
Either try to rigorously investigate and justify what you think is try, OR comment on how certain ideas affect people. Doing both at the same time doesn't seem to be possible; you get the worst of both worlds. Armchair philosophy and armchair psychology.

>>24567448 (OP)
shit just happens. meaning is in your head

>>24569990
How did man create demons and gods without a corresponding blueprint? Without an essence or primordial form of that idea already there? Can he really create a truly new thing? All of man’s creations are amalgamation of things he already has.

It’s reasonable to say this is just god of the gaps but that electrical discharge do you have definitive proof that phenomena is purely physical and had no metaphysical eternal essence or form of “electricity” and the essence of “movement”? As they one poster says material things imply immaterial. The form and essence of lightning and its movement existed before the physical manifestation.

The second one is a result of decades long psychological warfare. But but not all people in their current lives have the capacity for higher thought but will eventually. None left behind so to speak there just may be several eons in between haha.

>>24570025

While I tend to not like philosophy these days I will say this.

Isn’t philosophical inquiry for the purpose of psychological well being? Aren’t they one and the same? You seek truth to find peace and understanding right? Don’t philosophers seek answers to reduce man’s suffering? Hell the desire for philosophy in the first place came a from a place of needing to ease the suffering and confusion in men’s heart. So I disagree I think they are complementary. Though not necessary. As cold clinical philosophy will do the job as well but that’s no fun

>1. Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.
The physicalist answer would be the same answer as in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and Max Muller's lectures on religion and many others, as well as Auguste Comte's positivism, Levy-Bruhl's and Malinowski's anthropology, etc.: humans start out with bad, approximate ideas of causation, and resort to anthropomorphism and animism. Over time, they get more abstract conceptions and end up de-mystifying their world via rational metaphysics. Then they de-metaphysicize it and become scientists.

I don't think this is a sufficient answer, at least to a more subtle phrasing of the question. But it's the basic physicalist approach. We are messy, evolved bundles of algorithms (Hume --> Dennett) for processing complex environments based on a small set of conditions: find food, procreate. Gene-level selection (Dawkins) only "creates" organisms fit for this over time, messily, and leaves a lot of phenotypical weirdness in the pot.

Of course, there were still rationalist utopian residues in stuff like Comtean positivism: they thought that greater knowledge tended toward the perfection and completion of knowledge, and that the human mind was born and built to know. A 20th century reader of Dennett is more likely to think that humans were born and built to eat and fuck, and developed language and symbolic abstraction etc. as byproducts of this, and so we're still saddled with plenty of monkeybrain shit that seems vestigial. Nothing is "built for" anything, in the worldview of modern physicalist scientism. That would be teleological thinking which is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo and forbidden.

>2. Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself?
Cancer, vestigial organs causing problems, "design flaws" that are only flaws from the perspective of an organism that has broken from the state of nature and tried to extend its lifespan with science and medicine. Even cancer is a non-issue if we stayed hominids, since we'd eat, fuck, and die early enough not to notice it. Many aspects of our evolutionary niche (our "design") presuppose that we should live fast and hard, with our joints worn out or dying in combat for control of the caveman harem by 28. The physicalist looks at all this and says "what a miracle we monkeys can operate a centrifuge despite being basically still monkeys with evolved meat bodies that get cancer." Cancer isn't even "bad," it's just an informational system run amok FROM the perspective of another informational system.

All this is retarded. The real assault on physicalist reductionism is that it's just as metaphysical and involves just as many assumptions (if not more) that aren't available via induction as any "metaphysical" system, and it involves illicit and childish use of Ockham's razor.

I don't know that naturalism is true, I just know that I really really prefer naturalistic explanations
Thinking about it, anything I can recall having ever been explained, have been explained by naturalistic explanation. I don't think I've ever had a supernatural explanation explain anything to me

>>24568964
Not today, Satan

>>24569985
I actually didn't learn anything. Good day and you will be hearing from very Jewish lawyer on this matter.

Thank you for the good thread gentlemen.

I think that’s good for now. My last statement for t he materialists here is this, you were right in your beliefs that our thoughts and emotions can be defined and understood through chemical processes. But if they really were just chemicals as you say then why do you let them get to you so bad?

Don’t worry so much about what others tell you is true. If you play another’s game you will lose it’s their game they win by default, the only way to win is to play your own game. Follow your own path friends and those chemicals you should not allow them to torment you any further. As man has mastered his natural surroundings so you should endeavor to master your internal nature and conquer those chemicals since they are just chemicals and physical things can be overcome isn’t that right? This of course is horrendously sentimental, saccharine and cringe, but you that’s fine. You must conquer the cringe and then you may win. Good luck to you gentlemen

Also if you look back you will see that in contrary to typical 4chan fashion this thread had only respectable replies and not a single insult or derogatory remark. It was blessed from the start.

>>24570135
>You seek truth to find peace and understanding right?
No. If you do that then you will be inclined towards rejecting negative conclusions; this is why there is so much closet-nihilism in the form of grandiose but arbitrary superstition.
If you seek truth for the sake of truth, and understanding for the sake of understanding, then you will only be inclined to reject something if you cannot justify it to yourself with reason.

This is also why the average "philosopher's" critical thinking ability is inversely proportional to how miserable the claim would make them feel if it turned out to be true.

>>24567534
>Why would nature deem it necessary
How come so many theologins argue from ignorance? It's 2025 you have no excuse for believing natural selection only selects whats "necessary" not even fucking darwin thought that...

>>24567602
Not everything has a purpose. Some things exist because they weren't detrimental enough to be selected out of the population.

>>24570521
What is a negative? Define negative. What does that mean? Is it real or did you dream that up hahah

There can be no wisdom or understanding if you reject anything. When you perform the action of rejection internally no one hears that but you and then you deny yourself.

Rejection and acceptance that’s just like and dislike. And that’s just your opinion mate.

>>24567797
>"Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no minds eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."
Atheists eat up this nihilistic crap and wonder why they're all suicidal.

>>24570661
>"I would kill myself instantly if I looked into the abyss; you have to squint and you see a lovely warm pattern!"

>>24570564
Excuse me? You writing a shit poem?

JAW2K

>>24570661
What else should I do?
I mean I did read the quote in the book 'Occult of the Unborn'. Its main focus in antinatalism and it is not really pro suicide. A quote form the book:
"Every so often, however, something goes haywire, and another innocent soul gets yanked into this meat-grinder, a new player joins the game - an appaling, unfair game in which the reward does not meet the cost. It is true that self-annihilation is an option, but now that we are alive, we are subject to the life-preserving instincts intrinsic to every organism. "

But the only reason I have to believe this crap is because I haven't come across some thought-system that dismantles this or offers a more logical explanation. I try reading across various things and now I am in realm of Evola. Maybe he can push some magic up my ass that makes me happy. I hope so at least.

If you have some more logical philosophy I would be glad to hear about them with some book recommendations :)

>>24570661
This is funny, because humans plan for the future and survive, and those that plan for the future better survive more, and those that have a purpose survive and thrive more. There are contextual levels being misaligned and equivocated here, to disastrous consequences.

>>24570459
>just chemicals as you say then why do you let them get to you so bad?
The word "just" doing literally ALL the work here, and you're a mental midget for not realizing that.

>>24570736
>This is funny, because humans plan for the future and survive
The irony if that you take Richard Dawkins at his word, these are all adaptive fantasies rather than a fine-tuning process, and therefore morality (which is teleological) is actually flat out impossible.

>>24570745
not him but
retard awards bronze medal post

>>24570760
Are you mad, jew?

>>24570745
such is what happens when people no longer understand that final causality is the same thing as being actualized, and what is prior in time is posterior in completion, meaning that the final cause isn't some platonic ideal, but the gradual realization and completion of a form in reality, and _all_ of it is purposeful (because all of it is actual, and is actualized continously).

>>24570792
Based Aristotelian.
Randomness/incoherence is merely an error in perception and understanding. You can't state evolution is arbitrary while upholding natural laws as fundamental. The former is beholden to the latter, not the reverse.

>>24567448 (OP)
>1. Why would nature deem it necessary to put the idea of gods and heavens into man’s mind if our minds were purely material? Nature never does anything unnecessarily. It would never waste energy in vain.
Conflates causal and teleological necessity. And even then nature isn't even causally necessary either because of probabilistic elements.
>2. Can you provide another example of an organism working against itself? The human mind notoriously works against itself by filling people with negativity. I understand fear and doubt are useful for survival but getting anxiety while trying to find a mate when you want nothing more than to mate seems like a contradictory force at play here. Why would my mind not be 100% supportive in all endeavors?
There is nothing contradictory about it. Anxiety is an evolved way to protect yourself from seemingly dangerous things, in this case the destruction of your social status by you making a fool out of yourself by approaching someone out of your league.

>>24570745
>morality (which is teleological) is actually flat out impossible.
You are correct. You can't have morality™ without the special sauce.
Unfortunately the sauce doesn't exist, and there is no thing such as morality™. Too bad, so sad.

>>24570743
Be careful friend don’t you know that if you say things internally nobody hears that but you and nobody will believe it but yourself.

Also the just use was clearly semi sacarstic tongue in cheek haha

>>24571077
You are correct. If materialism is true, what's doing the worrying will be a material brain, and not an immaterial soul.
I don't understand why that means we should care less.