Is there any response to the argument that thoughts and perception and consciousness are just the result of necessary...

Is there any response to the argument that thoughts and perception and consciousness are just the result of necessary chemical reactions in the brain? I hear this used to refute ideas about morality, about ideas and understanding and consciousness being at the core of existence, and in pretty much every atheist vs. theist conversation.

Nope. That's just how it is, sorry m8.

If all your thoughts are just the result of chemical processes, why trust those chemical processes to tell you they are mere chemical processes?

Fragmentalist cucks think consciousness is just some tag for information integration in the brain. Usually going on about association areas and shit.

Don't believe those cucks, the cosmos is 'organic'. All the parts cohere with the whole. If conscious experience exists, that condition of existence ipso facto means something in the grander scheme of things.

Just because my tv screen is made up of pixels doesn't mean the movie playing on it isn't real.

the soul does most of the thinking. Including consciousness. The brain and is chemicals affect it, but its most important use is to make remembering (forgetting) easier and tanking fat hits of acid and heroin/.

All descriptions of humanity on a strictly material basis rely on mathematical ideas, i.e. directly intuitive and rationally indefensible ones, which return us to faith, which is exactly the thing materialists seek to avoid. If you inquire heavily enough of their worldview, you will find a scientific *principle* at its base. Look no further for an example of this than the four forces. On the other hand, if we suppose mind to be the entire explanation (i.e. dogmatic idealism), we are obliged to have recourse to some form of matter in order to define it. That is, either an idealist takes some stock of the material world (e.g. in the brain), or becomes completely dogmatic, and opens him/herself to the charge of solipsism.

Yes, OP, that position has been btfo and unviable since the days of the Twin Philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Not everything can be reduced to physical entities, and clapping your hands and saying "abstraction!" doesn't change that.

Basically, lmao at materialists trying to accept forms while still pretending to be materialists.

why can't everything be reduced to physical entities?

>chemicals can think beyond themeselfs

Ok dude.

Yes, why not, please tell us about this magical system where non-physical entities are physical. I can't wait to hear someone say "abstraction" 200 times, with no explanation of what "abstraction" consists of, and no account of numbers, logic, change, concepts, and any other non-physical entity that comes to mind.

Materialists are an embarrassment. It's like watching a toddler trying to walk, but he just hasn't gotten the hang of it yet. But now he's 40+ years old, still shitting his pants, and basically it would probably be better just to put him down at this point (after all, where's the harm in rearranging some material, there's no morality because lmao there's only physical objects)

Reminder that people thought the same shit about life itself (vitalism and what not) and then got BTFO by molecular biology. Gaps in science doesn't justify filling them with immaterialism.

What are you talking about, "gaps in science", lmao. There is no gap, this has no relation to whatever "vitalism" is; a complete metaphysical account has been presented by one side, and an embarrassing and incomplete mess has been presented by the other. The materialists should have just said "the dog ate my homework" and left it at that.

>a complete metaphysical account

That can't prove itself true in any empirical sense. Something being consistent doesn't mean it's true.

>an embarrassing and incomplete mess has been presented by the other.

Aside from completely explaining the properties of matter (and thus reality as we perceive) and closing the causal gap between our thoughts, actions, and their effects.

>he doesn't know what vitalism

Go brush up on your basic history of philosophy. The process of life springing from non-living objects was once considered an unanswerable problem of science that philosophers stepped in to fix, they were wrong and are now a laughing stock.

>empirical
Literally a semantic argument, because you're using a term that you will define to exclude ANYTHING that isn't physical.

We can perceive the forms through use of our mind, and if you want to go a step further then you can observe the physical results and interactions. But literally your argument is strictly semantic and not made in good faith.

>Completeness of the materialist account

Again,

>Vitalism

Why would I bush up on vitalism when (A) it has no bearing on our metaphysical discussion, (C) there's nobody here arguing in favour of such a position, and (B) it looks like a bad faith argument of "well a different person was wrong about a different subject, so maybe you're wrong about this subject" to go along with the new bad faith semantic argument you just raised.

If you want to be honest, just say "Human understanding of reality is incomplete, therefore you might be wrong for some unknown reason" and move on. It applies equally to materialists, however materialists also suffer from the fact that they still wet the bed every night.

*
>Completeness of the materialist account

I forgot to go back and address this, was too busy laughing at your second bad faith argument and snarky response re: vitalism.

Materialists haven't given a complete account, as repeatedly indicated in this very thread and elsewhere. The best they can do is "well, abstraction!" with no account of how abstraction works. They want to have their cake and eat it to.

At the heart of every honest materialist position is a Platonist waiting to burst forth. Literally the only way to keep that little Platonist under wraps is to nervously respond, "well, uh, we're getting real close and maybe we'll close the gap real soon when we discover something new, just adopt my laughable beliefs in the meantime okay, trust me".

>Literally a semantic argument, because you're using a term that you will define to exclude ANYTHING that isn't physical.

No, it will exclude anything that isn't real, you bloody mong.

>We can perceive the forms through use of our mind

The hallucinating experience many things with their minds, that doesn't make those things real.

>Why would I bush up on vitalism

Because it's an example of a similar philosophical claim that was entirely a product of a gap in our scientific understanding. Much like your current position is. If you have to hide your position in gaps, it probably doesn't exist.

>If you want to be honest, just say "Human understanding of reality is incomplete, therefore you might be wrong for some unknown reason" and move on. It applies equally to materialists, however materialists also suffer from the fact that they still wet the bed every night.

The difference of course is that materialists aren't constructing anything to fill in those gaps. They're accepting the gaps and filling them in as information becomes available to do so.

>Materialists haven't given a complete account,

Of all known forms of matter, they absolutely have. Consciousness is just something that eludes us, but the hard problem is something that gets frequently rejected by scientists that actually deal with the brain and mind.

>as repeatedly indicated in this very thread and elsewhere. The best they can do is "well, abstraction!" with no account of how abstraction works. They want to have their cake and eat it to.

I have seen no evidence of this. Prove it.

>At the heart of every honest materialist position is a Platonist waiting to burst forth.

Yeah OK. And at the heart of every Platonist is a very scared materialist who isn't ready to accept that everything he thinks is just chemicals and electricity.

Reminder: every time we thought something was magic, it turned out to be not magic.

Also the forms have been getting blown out since Antisthenes and Diogenes. "I see a horse, but no horseness that precedes it." Have you perceived the emptiness in that cup yet?

That doesn't blow out the metaphysical foundation, but rather the specifics of it. You can see a horse, and question how particularised the forms become, but you do not yet question that the monad gave birth to the dyad.

Also, you don't have any texts from Antisthenes or Diogenes, but rather know these issues because of good faith efforts of Platonists who presented and discussed them in works like the Parmenides and Metaphysics. Your knowledge of people like Diogenes is meme-tier Stoic mythology.

Actually, fragments of Antisthenes works still survive, and the preservation of Diogenes' arguments against them through the Stoics is completely legitimate.

Also anything that doesn't exist in reality can't be considered a good, let alone perfect, example of anything.

>"it will exclude anything that isn't real"
Lmao, and by your semantic game, if it isn't physical it isn't real.

You have divorced yourself from the substance of the discussion, and now use semantics to try to shut down any objection to your incomplete, illogical account of reality.

>hallucinations
Sort of like the hallucinations where you keep saying "abstractions" over and over again to pretend that non-physical entities are physical. You're the one who literally wants to see things that aren't visible.

>Materialists aren't constructing anything to fill in the gaps.

If only that were true, then you'd come forward and admit your full of shit and have no complete account of reality, and cannot account for non-physical entities.

However, materialists instead say "abstractions" over and over again, and insist that everything is physical.

The Platonists are not inventing anything! They're referencing non-physical entities and using reason to explain things further. There are literally talking about reality.

You are the one saying "okay, these things exist, but they're totally like physical abstractions. but I can't tell you what abstraction means. Just trust me everything is physical despite not being physical, also you're wrong by definition and there's gaps in human knowledge so you're doubly wrong. But I'm not wrong because it's all abstract."


>Materalists have given a complete account of all known forms of matter.

The absolute state of Materialism! "We've given a complete account of everything that we've given a complete account of (but no account of the rest of reality). This is below meme tier philosophy and brainlet semantics, just come out and say it: You haven't given a complete account of metaphysics, there's a tonne of shit you refuse to tackle, and all you can do is hide behind semantic games and say "human knowledge is incomplete, therefore I am right" over and over again until the cows come home.

Hit the word limit, but just lmao

Yes there are fragments, but again, the arguments being raised against the Platonists are those preserved by the Platonists in their texts and discussed in detail. To assign our modern perspective on them to Antisthenes and Diogenes is just false; we're relying on Stoics from centuries later who were versed in the Platonists and largely adopted the metaphysical foundation laid out by Plato and Aristotle.

Also, just lol at this:

"anything that doesn't exist in reality can be considered..."

If it exists, it's part of reality. Being is the sum total, or are you some degenerate neo-platonist clinging to Plontinus and hallucinating about "beyond-being" and other nonsense?

Damn I wish I was educated enough in the field of philosophy to understand what are you guys talking about