Failures of Materialism

>materialism = materialistic

Only on a highly subjective and localised level. A comforting but false idea in the mind of a dying grandma is harmless - not so much when it's in the mind of a government or military leader whose actions have far-reaching consequences that hinge on whether or not their perception of reality is actually accurate.

That which is actual, rather than ideal or speculative.

Numbers are based in the material. Just because sometimes the specific object isn't noted doesn't mean that numbers somehow exist in a separate reality. It's just handy to use numbers in the abstract because they can be used in so many contexts. It's a template.

Numbers are linked to the material though. Everything is.

Gospel of Luke: Chapter 12, verses 13-34

>don't plan for the future or look after yourself in this life, just believe what I say and you'll get super awesome rewards after you die! Promise! You can trust me, I'm a book!

>don't save for your future or think for yourself in this life, just buy what I say and you'll get super awesome satisfaction, then you die! Promise! You can trust me, I'm a businessman!

Isn't reality what we agree is real? We can agree that an apple is red but from your perspective it could be the color I perceive as blue and your perspective it's pink and another is black.

Numbers are just an account that is tied to matter, you geezer. The more fully real beings are concrete particular objects familiar to us by experience, and not abstract forms only grasped by higher intellectual inquiry.

>implying I trust businessmen

Philosophical materialism doesn't mean mindlessly buying shit. Even if it did, better for my money to go back into commerce than some kid-fucking pastor's legal fees.

>thinking of numbers first
Geometry comes before numbers you dingus.

We could agree that gravity doesn't exist and jump off a skyscraper expecting to fly. Reality would quickly correct us.

Red, blue and so on are labels we apply to subjective perceptions. But the fundamental nature of colour - the photons bouncing off the apple towards our eyes - is completely unaffected by what we choose to call it.

>implying I trust the church

And thats exactly what philosophical materialism means

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

>Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

Abstract objects are just patterns of material forms.

>wikipedia

Materialism also doesn't explain knowledge.
Not to mention its faulty basis resting upon empiricism.
>>implying abstraction means anything independent of a brain
It does actually, unless you account for the brain itself not existing and there being nothing beyond the mind.

It takes a lot of faith to be a materialist, a lot of presuppositions which must be made in order to come close to justifying it.
I don't see why we can't all be Kantians.
Literally the only thing which can be considered knowledge.
With that attitude who would expect anything different....
actually its correct.
You look at society and you find that secular has become synonymous with "of the times".
You'll never find a religion class which does anything other than explain away religion.

While there is a striking relationship, the inverse is far more concrete.
>A comforting but false idea in the mind of a dying grandma is harmless - not so much when it's in the mind of a government or military leader whose actions have far-reaching consequences that hinge on whether or not their perception of reality is actually accurate.
This is the reason philosophy is dead.
As soon as someone actually applies the ideas of any modern thought everyone all of sudden goes into backpeddaling where they return to the original position and their morals, ethics, and epistemic framework is much more solid.

It was like when all those existentialist atheists wanted to commit suicide because their great prophet Sartre destroyed his entire philosophy by signing the Algerian manifesto.
The idea that there is no meaning in life is an absurd and untrue one.
All evidence is to its contrary, everyday life is not lived as if this were the case.
The real issue is that modernism, materialism, secularism, and atheism, simply aren't workable or pragmatic philosophies.
Now I am a pragmatist and I like Nietzsche because his view is what works is true.

>Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
That just sounds like saying everything is something.
Its not really saying anything at all.
How could one prove or falsify this claim though??

>tldr
Because Religion works and Atheism (broad categories) doesn't, Religion must be true and Atheism untrue.

>inb4 contradictions
literally magic.
Prove me wrong.
If you ask me to prove me right, I'll ask you to prove yourself.

>everyday life is not lived as if this were the case
Why would I want to live as if all life was meaningless? And what does living everyday life as if it were meaningless even look like?

Works well enough to clarify how I'm using the term.

>Materialism also doesn't explain knowledge.
Only if you define knowledge as 100%, irrefutable certainty. Which I don't. Knowledge is what we call things that are overwhelmingly likely to be true based on the available evidence.

>That just sounds like saying everything is something.
Not quite - it means that everything is reducible to matter, rather than abstracts like thought, spirit, ideals, forms and so on. I take a slightly more tentative position - that matter is the only thing that we know we can reduce things to. If there are other fundamentals, they're beyond our current (perhaps possible) knowledge.

>matter, rather than abstracts like thought, spirit, ideals, forms
distinguish them entirely
Before we discovered that force was really matter disguised as a woman, force was "magical" that is to say inexplicable.
How can we know there aren't other forms of matter out there which are not yet detectable to our very young and stupid minds?

Not the wikipedia article and I know shit all about materialism, but how about you dispute the definition rather than bitching about the source?

>distinguish them entirely
Matter is the most fundamental element of reality that we currently know of.
Thought is what brains do.
Spirit is a vague term used to describe magical entities and forces.
Idealism holds that reality is mind-dependent, not the other way around.
Forms are what you get when an ancient greek thinks he gets to decide what 'true' things are.

>How can we know there aren't other forms of matter out there which are not yet detectable to our very young and stupid minds?
We can't. We have to admit ignorance and hope that new evidence arises to make our understanding more complete.