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Has there ever been a viable alternative to the phsycialist model of the universe?
(sh.itjust.works)
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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It doesn't mean that there's no soul, god, or after life, just none that we can prove in any meaningful way.
If you're okay with an amoral God, that one's plausible but unfalsifiable, true. To have an afterlife you need a soul, though, and every part of the mind is right there in flesh for surgeons to watch break down.
I personally don't bother worrying too much about things we can't prove or disprove like that, but it's important to remember that just because we can't prove something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My philosophy is that if there is some sort of beyond that whatever is out there is similar enough to ours that they'd be able to empathize with the decisions I make and judge me accordingly, assuming there even would be some sort of judgement process. I'm at peace with it. I was raised evangelical, and lots of my friends were. One of my atheist friends used to have nightmares about an eternity in hell. I don't think anyone who loves us could do that. And if whatever is there is different enough that our decisions don't matter then it's arbitrary anyways and there's no sense worrying. It's not about "being okay with an amoral god." It's just an acknowledgement that the idea of a reality we can't prove further than our own could exist.
But anyone making definitive statements about something like that shouldn't be trusted. Which rules out pretty much all religions because many make claims like that.
I'm guessing you knew what I meant there, right? Why would a moral god make a planet where most people die in agony, usually as kids, for most of history? That's direct evidence against.
If we're talking about unprovable things literally anything is possible. Because it's unprovable.
Unprovable things can still be disprovable.
We can't disprove the the soul, god (ethical or not), or the afterlife if we're talking about unprovable things. Because we can't know that there isn't some incomprehensible reason why the best decision would be the current state of things and also somehow be ethical. But, like I've said, I don't really think it's worth debating the unprovable/undisprovable and anyone making definitive statements about what a reality beyond our own would look like while also claiming it can't be proved should be ignored as untrustworthy.
I guess, but if when you're getting to that point you have to ask what knowledge even is and if it's possible about anything.
But we cannot believe anything without evidence
You can believe without evidence, belief is an internal process, that can be justified by evidences (that are external) or by other internal processes.
You can have a religion, spiritual beliefs and etc. If that's make you comfortable and integrates you in a commununity, great! Even better if your community helps outsiders.
What you should not do is expect others to held your beliefs without evidence, or impose into others views that can not be validated by evidence.
Plenty of people do. Whether they should or shouldn't and whether they should claim it's objectively real is different. But plenty of people believe in those things without proof.
You spend all day believing things without evidence otherwise you would not be able to go about your daily life. The demand for evidence comes after disbelief or sketpicism and not before it.
No I don't, for example, I don't need evidence that my car works, because it just does.
If I interacted with ghosts regularly, then I'd already have proof that materialism doesn't exist.
If we did not regularly and readily believe things without evidence, we would not ever find ourselves incorrect, but we do, and many times in total. (If you believe yourself never incorrect you are very foolish and charlatans will have a field day with you.)
You are lying to yourself if you think that you do not take your daily life on trust and experience, not evidence. We are the product of evolution and usually spot patterns quickly rather than gather evidence and consider carefully. We make snap decisions all day every day on scant or no evidence. We would be paralysed by indecision if not. This is not wrong, it's not bad, it's just quick and necessary.
Your faith in your car is a case in point. You trust that it will work. You don't think to question it, because you're familiar with it. You similarly trust, without evidence, the vehicles of your friends and family and of taxi drivers, and any number of buses or trains that you use every day, but as soon as I'm selling you a car, you want proof, and expect documentation, full service history, government checks of whether the vehicle has been written off or stolen (if your country or state provides such things), test drives and warranties. The stakes are higher so you require evidence. You do no such thing before boarding a bus or taxi.
No, we reserve the demand for evidence for things about which we are already skeptical, or things that we doubt, or where we are unsure and feel we don't know. Not for the rest. Not at all. We just assume our conclusions based on hunches and experience. No one lives their daily normal life as a skeptic about everything they believe, and you would stand out as a very, very strange indeed if you did.
Your evidence is massively, powerfully and overwhelmingly outweighed by your beliefs. Even your beliefs about science are formed through social relationships and third hand "evidence" at best. This is not because you are foolish and credulous, but because you are sensible and pragmatic, and because you are primarily a functioning human animal for more hours a day than you are a lab-closeted scientist or logic-bound philosopher.
Again, the demand for evidence comes after disbelief, sketpicism, doubt or indecision, and not before it.
So... you're saying I already disbelieve the soul or... something?
I'm saying that this is untrue:
Because we all believe hundreds of things every day without evidence.
The demand for evidence comes after we have decided that we don't believe something or we're skeptical or unsure.
We accept things that fit with our mental model of the world without question. It's things that don't fit with our prior understanding that we question.
We are a product of our culture, upbringing and experiences, far more than we are the product of cold hard reason.
We are social creatures first and scientist mathematician philosopher lawyers second.
But neither can you discredit anything without evidence. The basis of science is falsifiability. That is, we have to be able to prove it wrong.
Hitchen's Razor says otherwise.