Comment by shric | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shric | Hacker News Reader

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I'm an extreme materialist, I don't believe in gods or spirits or anything of the sort. I don't even believe in the magic some people call "free will".

I first tried LSD about 10 years ago and have taken various forms of psychedelics once or twice a year since. Some of them were, without a doubt, the most profound experiences of my life. You're right about the vague transcendentalist nonsense. The problem is there are no words to describe it adequately.

Despite only having pleasant experiences myself, I would never encourage any friend or stranger to try them. That is something only they can decide with their own research and risk appetite. There are absolutely serious potential consequences.

I think the worst consequence for me is that I have started to like weird music like psytrance even when sober.

As a materialist, do you believe in laws of physics?

I believe they're our current best approximation to how the universe behaves based on our empirical observations.

But that the universe behaves according to some laws?

I don't know.

The universe does not know or care about our laws and they are incomplete.

For example, we have no idea how consciousness works, so at this point we stop at "I don't know", rather than inventing explanations.

I don't know if consciousness is computable -- I suspect it isn't.

If it is not computable then we cannot come up with laws to explain it.

Or maybe the whole universe is computable but its kolmogorov complexity is larger than its information capacity.

I believe we know, based on any definition of knowing - I.e. assuming we can know anything at all, and realizing that any definitions of knowing are all circular to an extent, that the electron follows some laws.

I agree that the universe doesn't care how we approximate these laws, but only that they clearly exist.

If these laws exist, they are certainly not material, unless you redefine material, and that is why I am no longer a materialist :)

You're technically correct (the best kind of correct)!

However, I don't think any materialist would deny laws of physics exist. We might say that how materials interact with each other is an intrinsic property of material itself, just as an electron behaves as though it has a certain mass.

What definition of material would you use that separates it from its laws?

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