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From: portegys@ihuxv.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: problems with materialistic view
Message-ID: <474@ihuxv.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jun-83 03:21:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxv.474
Posted: Fri Jun 10 03:21:54 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jun-83 06:56:03 EDT
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 27

This is a follow-up to fairly recent articles by D. Radin and
Saumya Debray.

Anti-materialists say that it is intolerable to them to classify people 
as entirely existing in the world of material "things".  To them this 
is unacceptable, for it implies that the special properties of people, 
such as emotional and subjective experiences, are being dragged down 
literally into the dirt.  It also has a bearing on the free will
question.  If we are clockwork mechanisms, then what is the point of
living?

My point is: why are material things so far below us?  Why not accept
things as simply different, not lesser?  I think this ties into the 
human addiction for mysteries, which I commented on in an earlier article. 
If something can't be touched or understood, it somehow acquires an aura 
of awe.  It's too bad, really.  I wish I could strip away at will the
wrappings of experience and see things as a child.  As I dimly recall, 
(sometimes triggered by scent, such as the smell of my old grade school, 
or oranges conjuring up Christmases memories), there were times when "I" 
and the outside of me were not on such formal terms.  If there is anything
to despair about, I think it is this loss.  

As to the notion that materialism somehow implies determinism, well,
that is a separate question.  I personally think that the answer to
this cannot be discovered (yeah, OK, I guess it's a mystery).

             Tom Portegys, BTL IH, ...ihuxv!portegys