Ask HN atheists & agnostics: Are you strictly materialist?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=803188

by puredemo • 17 years ago

4 13 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Or do you believe there may be more going on within our day to day realities than meets the eye, or that science hasn't detected yet?

fburnaby• 17 years ago

I find scientific models of the world satisfying; I think our understanding of the world as being made of material and no more is capable of explaining everything we experience. The sketches of how this and that could be so that are written by this and that philosopher seem more plausible to me than any "supernatural" account. (Of course, if we discovered something "supernatural" to exist after all, then we would immediately start to consider it "natural".) So I say, with reasonable small amounts of doubt, that we've managed to hone onto the 'gist' of reality via the scientific method.

However, I'm more interested in trying to be right tomorrow than I am to defending any given position that I hold today, so I'm not strictly anything. I.e.: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

tdoggette• 17 years ago

The two aren't mutually exclusive. If something exists, it's part of material reality, whether or not we've detected or explained it.

puredemo2• 17 years ago

True. The gist of the question is whether you personally believe anything about the nature of reality that isn't flatly deductible by science.

radu_floricica• 17 years ago

Given how little we know about reality it's not practical to answer the question right now. Let's just say there's a lot we don't know and leave it at that. No use to speculate as to what science cannot solve.

What I am though is a rationalist - i.e. I believe we use our minds a lot less efficiently then we could. We're starting this century to learn a lot about how the brain really works, and how reality really works - not at the basic levels but as very complex systems. And with this we slowly get pieces of how to be better humans. Ironically enough some of what we found is that religion/spirituality is a pretty good thing.

m_eiman• 17 years ago

I'm quite sure that there is a lot going on that we haven't figured out yet. Key word: "yet".

Isn't there some proof that it's impossible to fully explain a system (e.g. the universe) from within?

puredemo2• 17 years ago

What sorts of things do you think might be going on that we don't understand yet?

billswift• 17 years ago

There is a clear inconsistency between general relativity and quantum mechanics; reconciling them is one of the things superstring theory has been attempting, so far with limited success.

varjag2• 17 years ago

Usually that refers to Goedel incompleteness theorem and its corollaries. It concerns however only with possibility of certain proofs in a particular class of formal systems (e.g. predicate logics of various orders).

It is beyond my humble skills to suggest if the necessary formal description of the Universe would be complex enough for the incompleteness theorem to kick in or not. But bear in mind that explaining is not the same as proving. For instance, that the God created everything is a flawless explanation (although lacking in predictive strength to be of any use in sciences).

djcjr• 17 years ago

It seems as foolish to declare there is no mystery at all as it does to identify with a particular belief system.

varjag2• 17 years ago

Can agnostic be ever strictly materialist?

olavk• 17 years ago

For each answer science provides it also discovers ten new questions. The world seems to have an infinite supply of mysteries. And history shows the answers of science always eventually turns out to be wrong or limited, as they are superseded by new discoveries and better theories.

pkulak• 17 years ago

Or, are there things that make up reality that I don't know about or understand? Or that no one knows about or understands? Of course. It's a bit odd to suggest that if people don't believe one thing, it's because they think they know everything.

arthole• 17 years ago

I am an atheist on most days. and I am not a materialist. If I have to self-classify, I am an idealist.

for tdoggette, you are wrong. There are many things that exist that are not part of material reality. My personal favorites are numbers. Particularly, the number two.

I used to think that letters also were not material, but then I saw a capital "I" on Sesame Street...

Ask HN atheists & agnostics: Are you strictly materialist?

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