noretus

They are just trying to align everything that's being said to their previously held beliefs. People aren't typically all that aware of what their core beliefs are because an alternative, challenging core belief would have to breach all the way into it for it them to realize they have one. Without the salient contrast, they just don't notice it's there. It's just blue against a blue background, and unless a yellow comes along, they're not going to realize there's anything there. The materialistic worldview is so prevalent that a random online conversation isn't likely to get through, no matter how well argued. I've had similar discussions many times and sooner or later people just kind of "reset" and I find myself having to say the same things again and again because there's just this impenetrable thought loop going on. Logic doesn't breach it, it's just that they keep asking for all the different ways we can reach the number 42. If I tell them 41+1=42, they ask again and I have to try to explain how 40+2 is also 42, and so on ad nauseum. "Hahaa, but there's a 33-4347+132562+767368, I bet you can't do anything to get that to 42". That can be done all day. If the person isn't truly open for new ways to think (and few people in these type of settings are), as in they aren't actively looking for it with an open curiosity, it's not likely they'll realize much during that convo.

It's really, really, natural and normal. I just thought it was funny because OP is behaving the exact same way they're asking about in their initial post. They'll probably eventually figure it out.

You said that you don't know for sure if it's matter or consciousness that comes first but everything you're saying hinges on you very firmly believing that matter is prior.

If you had genuine uncertainty about it, you would be much more careful about how you go about asking for proof. If you weren't sure that matter is prior, it would occur to you to question what "objective" and "subjective" means. I could also ask you, can you step outside consciousness and objectively prove to me that your matter exists? If not, why do you value objective over subjective so much?

So to round back to your initial question: you can intellectually acknowledge the difficulty of proving matter vs. consciousness, yet if we probe it, clearly you hold a firm belief about it despite not being able to rationally prove your belief. So you can ask your initial question from yourself now. Despite your reasoning skill, why aren't you more skeptical about the materialist view AND it's implications?

Sure, many people do that kind of a dance or compartmentalization. But that only lasts as long as nothing severe comes to challenge it. Sudden death of a loved one is a cliche but commonly forces people to conclude something.

For me, I get that logic too is just models that predict things. Backwards or forwards. But it doesn't answer what anything is. You can only EXPERIENCE what something is, but you can never accurately represent it. Because the moment you try to represent an experience, it's not the experience itself, just a representation. So logical conclusion is that the only way to know something for sure, is to experience it as it is before any representation.

People with religious experiences may get to the ineffable truth but then they get enamored by their own attempts to represent it. They focus on the representation, instead of the experience, and they start to insist that their representation is the bestest and most correctest - because everything in their head aligns to it. Then it just becomes a matter of who has the most charismatic foghorns and the most appealing representation. Which has a very reasonable logic of it's own, as far as it goes.

You're wiggling a bit but let's go with that and get to your original question.

Based on your responses, you probably hold a core belief that matter comes before consciousness. You're smart enough to admit it's not a certainty but you've probably lived your whole life fairly assured it's the case. You speak English well so you have at least been exposed to western culture - which is very materialistic (religious or no, Christianity is also functionally materialistic), and so the core belief both serves you well, and is positively reinforced.

Any new information you get is subconsciously aligned to this core belief. Any decision you make is informed by it. You have a network of data in your head and it all connects to this and some other core beliefs. The same way a religious person can be highly logical but they hold a different core belief and so subtly, everything they know aligns to that belief. The more irrational the core belief, the more convoluted the links are of course but it makes sense to them - they just may not be able to represent it to you with the symbols that is language. And sometimes you'll just get them doing the loading screen face when they try to rationalize their views - then it just becomes a question of which core VALUE is deeper for them; rationality or their religious view.

If rationality is more valuable, it necessarily demolishes the religious view. It demolishes a core belief to which they have aligned all their knowledge about the world. Which is a hell of a trip, and can be very scary. Which is also why rationality often loses.

No but the latter is what science-minded people do. They insist that matter comes before consciousness without being able to prove it, though what's extremely obvious in everyone's direct experience is that consciousness is needed before anything else is said about the world. It's a false status quo.

Do you think Christianity and the western idea of God is the only religious idea in existence?

What if I were to propose to you that there's no way to prove that matter comes before consciousness? For all you know, everything exists inside consciousness but most people believe matter is the prior condition. This is pure logic. But when it's brought up to science minded people, they tend to get very uppity about it.

Beliefs be like that.

Here's hoping.

Also Summit. It was the first Android app i saw for it and I just went with it. No complains so far.

It's a bit exhausting. I use https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ to see biases and credibility of different websites. Anything that's not at least Center-X and High I pretty much dismiss. Rest I take with heaps of salt.

How do I know that site is trustworthy? I don't 🫠

You might have fun reading about non-duality and the Buddhist idea of no-self...

What is a you? Did you write this post, or did your past self write this post? Is your past self the same as your current self? Your current self probably says yes but would your past self agree? Etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnRuVmO9VfQ