I THANK YOU for this comment. It’s the discussion I wanted from LW. I’m terribly sorry for replying so late as I missed it!
You start off by saying there is no life, according to physicalism, and then go on to say that there is but it is merely emergent, which isn’t good enough...because?
I’m saying physicalism posits the universe as an inherently lifeless sandbox – that by default, it is not alive, and just churns matter and energy around. Never said it’s not good enough.
Yep. And physicalism is such a framework. If you think it is the wrong framework, you need to say why, not just note that it is a framework.
But that is exactly the point!
No, physicalism doesn’t imply determinism… And determinism doesn’t imply hard determinism.
You are right! I used the wrong word, I meant to use implicates – anyway, at that point I didn’t have all the pieces about determinism/physicalism crystallized but now I have the arguments laid out in my newest article.
So the only “special place” physicalism holds among philosophical views is that it introduces the least amount of “extra assumptions.” But that says nothing about its ultimate plausibility.
Yes, it does. There is a proof in probabilistic logic that the hypotheses with the fewest assumptions are more plausible.
This I see as the crux of all of this. Yes, we can invoke probabilistic logic and say physicalism, among all other interpretations, has a higher probability of being the correct one, because it has fewest extra assumptions. But the logical fallacy that I point to, is that this does not mean we should operate as it is the most likely explanation. As you say, there are many other arguments, interpretations, etc. – so what I’m saying is let’s not get stuck within a small physicalist-like space of possibility.
The way how this translates to practice is again best put in my new post here.
I THANK YOU for this comment. It’s the discussion I wanted from LW. I’m terribly sorry for replying so late as I missed it!
I’m saying physicalism posits the universe as an inherently lifeless sandbox – that by default, it is not alive, and just churns matter and energy around. Never said it’s not good enough.
But that is exactly the point!
You are right! I used the wrong word, I meant to use implicates – anyway, at that point I didn’t have all the pieces about determinism/physicalism crystallized but now I have the arguments laid out in my newest article.
This I see as the crux of all of this. Yes, we can invoke probabilistic logic and say physicalism, among all other interpretations, has a higher probability of being the correct one, because it has fewest extra assumptions. But the logical fallacy that I point to, is that this does not mean we should operate as it is the most likely explanation. As you say, there are many other arguments, interpretations, etc. – so what I’m saying is let’s not get stuck within a small physicalist-like space of possibility.
The way how this translates to practice is again best put in my new post here.