Fundamentals of Marx: Idealism vs. Materialism

[@ghostfire4623]

"We are living in a material world and I am a material girl" -Karl Marx

[@prophet_master]

@Hugh Mungis Cope

[@obiwanian2774]

@Hugh Mungis materialism is important for society dont have christian belief. They simply have no meaning of life, budhism is just twisted fate of no ending, the middle east is keep changing their "belief", and the Jew still waiting for the Messiah (pretty weird)

[@AG-el6vt]

@Hugh Mungis OK Tinfoil Hat.

[@pad9x]

linen, it's all just linen and coats linen, it's all just linen and coats linen, it's all just linen and coats....

[@dhiraj6727]

lol lol

[@joshuas.986]

I spent so much time trying to understand this, thanks for making it so accessible.

[@commwave5820]

materialism intensifies. You should also do a explanation of historical materialism. Great video by the way.

[@themarxistproject]

Thank you! And yup, gonna release that video in the coming weeks! I'll do a dialectics video first, and then hismat.

[@corridortv7144]

Nice

[@anduinxbym6633]

I would like to see a more accurate depiction of idealism as a whole. Only the most insane forms of solipsism take the position that everything blinks out of existence when you are not looking. There are forms of monistic idealism that imply that the world around us is mental in nature, and that those mental processes still carry on when you are not looking. The video seems to touch on metaphysics, but then diverges and talks about nature versus nurture. However, nothing about idealism requires favoring nature - nor does materialism inherently favor nurture. For example, idealism is compatible with the idea that an evolved human brain is required for us to have our uniquely human experience of separation from the rest of mind. The practical predictions that such a view would make about the correlations between brain states and conscious experience largely overlap with materialism and can favor either nature or nurture. The practical predictions of the two views only really diverge under special circumstances like altered states of mind, brain damage, and death. For example, if you take a mind-altering psychedelic that reduces your brain activity, most materialists would predict that this would result in less energetic and intense experiences, but idealism allows for the opposite. As the dissociative boundary between your mind and the rest of mind-at-large dissolves, you may have more intense mind-blowing experiences. Anyway, this has little relevance to the nature versus nurture argument. Materialism offers no advantage when it comes to science either. Observing, testing, and understanding the behaviors of the world around us can be done just as easily under the view that the world around us is mental in nature as it can under the view that the world is physical in nature.

[@invidusspectator3920]

@@anduinxbym6633 I agree with this, I think that at the science section he kind of mixed up idealism vs. materialism with rationalism vs. empiricism, which were both actually synthesized into German idealism, which also led to the forming of materialism through former Hegelians, if I'm not mistaken, one of whom was Marx.

[@numbersix8919]

​@@anduinxbym6633 You sure produced a wide range of examples! I tend toward evolutionary psychology, which at once gives a materialist basis for human nature but also some limitations that might be taken for immutability -- ascribed in this video to idealism. I hope that modern Marxists can accept that as social animal, the unit of selection in human evolution may well have been at the society level from the time we began to live in bands as our cousin apes do. Various personality traits and types now occur with specific incidences across human societies. There are hereditary followers, leaders, homosexuals, loners, freeloaders, psychopaths, geniuses. There are. But it's nothing to be alarmed about! The balance is correct for a cooperative society ruled by legitimate and democratic authority, with a basic political unit (voting block) of between 250 and 450 individuals. We are adapted for this. It is a gift. It is our birthright.

[@AllHaiLKINGTIsHeRe3]

I've just discovered this channel and I just want to say that this is one of the best channels I've ever come across. These videos provide excellent explanation for things, both helping to reinforce things I already know, as well as to teach new concepts or to phrase them in a new way. This channel will be extremely useful for a lot of people if you guys keep it up. Perhaps creating some more generic videos with more generic titles (ie. basics of Marxism for beginners) or something might provide the views you need to grow. The video making quality as well as the content are already the cream of the crop :)

[@breadtheory]

Great video! Loved how you explained materialism. Can't wait for the next video in the series!

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

One minute into this video and I can see the need for Lee's Elucidation: A finite number of words must be made to represent an infinite number of things and possibilities.

[@leam1978]

the first time i heard of the idealism vs materialism was when a supposed fellow marxist was weaponizing the false choice to split me off from the community due to "idealist" interests. i appreciate this basic intro, which gives me language to understand what this person was doing at the time.

[@karigrandii]

Idealism, individualism, hedonism and an atomistic world view are the biggest problems of modern society.

[@umut967]

Hedonism, individualism, egoism are the greatest truths of human existence. But yes, it is harmful when we consider it as a society apart from the individual.

[@johannjohannes8265]

@@umut967 God is the greatest truth of human existence.

[@thegoldensealion9463]

@@umut967 idealist nonsense

[@studentshdhhdhd1849]

@@johannjohannes8265 human existence is physical god is imaginary lmao, how can some make such comment under a Materialist video

[@johannjohannes8265]

@@studentshdhhdhd1849 God transcends existence, how can you make such an unqualified comment

[@redtsika]

what is great about DM is that it can be applied to analyze everything in your life, which makes it universal, but it's purest form is understanding change between and within things. great thing to learn to use if you're looking to change power dynamics in society.

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

Perhaps it could be used as some kind of social analysis after all indeed. But there's nothing of it (nor from a dichotomy of so-called idealism vs materialism) that could make it true in metaphysical terms at all. The best answer is just "we don't know." We may only describe societal structures and analyze them, but there's no need to get into consciousness territory and try to dig for the truth in metaphysical debates to do that. We can only see social phenomenons and perhaps analyze and critique them. A diagnostic can be made without digging into an "idealism vs materialism" debate that tries to dig deeper into "truth" but seems like a false proposition to me.

[@ludlowaloysius]

Bro… how do you type this shit out and not realse DM is pure idealism is beyond me. whats great about christianity is that is can also be applied to everything thing in life. - thats you! You realize that Physics can literally explain all the physical processes of reality but is still NOT universal because no ideas can be universal. Only Irrational beliefs can be universalized.

[@KamikazethecatII]

Ideas reshape material conditions and material conditions shape ideas, neither is a primary driving force over the other then. If they are in a relationship where they directly affect and change each other then you have a historical idealism-materialism, not one or the other. You have a chain of ideal responses to material conditions and material conditions being changed by ideas going back all throughout human history.

[@sherohavaty2020]

Its basically that materialism says then they talk about ideas wont affect materia cose ideas effected by materials condition that are already sets in world that was couses of diffrent ideas of diffrent peoples effecte by diffrent materials and so on so on. Or just starts to loosing my mind covering this topic who knows

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

Ideas don't even exist as some separate substance alongside the material. There is _just_ the material. What we call "ideas" are complex processes distributed throughout the social structure (not even entirely isolated to our physical brains).

[@presadhereno]

le sanae

[@palatonian9618]

I am new to socialism, but this video and these ideas really hit hard for me. This might be a bit of a false parallel, but my whole childhood and most of my early adulthood was dominated by religious (idealistic?) abstractions completely divorced from the way my mind actually worked and the realities of my circumstances. I found freedom as I engaged with the world as I found it, rather than the way I was taught it "should be".

[@justinli9654]

I really like all the Marxist Leninist theories you put out, but it somewhat puts me in pain on how philosophy as a whole is characterized by this video and many Marxists. The materialist vs idealist divide is useful when you're criticizing political thoughts that are not built on historical material conditions, political thoughts that are driven by ideas in vacuums. But the way you framed how "science proves materialism" makes it sound like that the physicalist conception of mind is the consensus among those that study it, that noticing one's epistemological limit have anything to do with observing and applying scientific principles, that science itself isn't built in a useful vacuum (goodluck proving science without using scientific methods of proof). Philosophical problems are much more complicated than they appear, and philosophers of science are till this day working out how we can reason about uncertainties and causality, how we can understand the nature sensual experiencss we can't capture in their original form, whether science is steadily progressing or restarts with a more accurate but still imperfect model after each scientific revolution. What I'm trying to say is, I think marxists should know the limits of what they know in philosophy, that the abstract ideas of materialism and science didn't "complete" the development of philosophy outside of Marxism. I believe Marxists are better off leaving the philosophy outside of political and moral philosophy untempered, unless in situations where academic subjects are weaponized like what churches and Nazis did.

[@themarxistproject]

That's a fair point, and for what it's worth, I do agree with you that Marxists should be cautious with philosophy. Lenin was pretty staunchly "anti-philosophy" and wrote about it only in times when it became a political obstacle. To my best knowledge there isn't much effort on Marx's part either to engage in philosophical debate. Actually, I think Althusser's "Lenin and Philosophy" deals with Marxism and philosophy in a very intriguing way. If I understand Althusser correctly, he is suggesting that Marxism, and more specifically historical materialism, is actually a completely new "continent," separate from philosophy.

[@nickbarabolak8885]

I also think that it is unjustified to say that Marxism is somehow overstepping itself when it tacks philosophy head-on. While it is true that Lenin did not indulge in the philosophy underpinning Dialectical Materialism, many Marxists did--notably Mao. While he was not necessarily the best at doing so, and certainly wasn't the only, he deeply engaged with Philosophy of Science through his understanding of Dialectical Materialism, giving a brief but sophisticated commentary on the Idealism/Materialism split in the history of philosophy in his works "On Practice" and "On Contradiction". I see you alluded to Kuhn's notion of scientific revolutions, however, it should be noted that this 'relatively' pessimistic outlook on the progress of science is not the standard either--in fact, I believe at this point in the philosophy of science, one would be just as justified to say that a Kuhnian perspective which flirts with an anti-realist or post-modern (I say post-modern because of its historically discontinuous conception of the history of science) is at the very least no MORE justified a perspective in the conversation of the philosophy of science than is a Dialectical Materialism perspective: indeed, then, (and maybe I'm overstepping here somewhat for rhetoric effect) perhaps anti-realist/post-modern Kuhnians and New Humians sorts, not Marxists, are better off leaving the philosophy of science untampered.

[@antrim7008]

@@themarxistproject Lenin read Hegel though and was actually very interested in his attack against Kant’s subjectivism and the “Absolute Idea” chapter from Science of Logic. Althusser wrote about this. I feel like Hegel is often neglected by Marxists today even though there is a lot to gain from reading him through a materialist lens (through a proletarian class view-point). I’m paraphrasing Althusser so I’d suggest you read his work on this.

[@VocalBear213]

Justin, I see your point. I have only one wordy question to you. If this "materialist vs idealist divide is useful when criticizing political thoughts that are not built on historical material conditions" why can't it (the divide) be applied to everything? if some thing manifests itself in the observable objective reality (in Matter) - it exists.The person who says otherwise is an idealist (pluralist, solipsist ) of some kind. it's quite universal. I'm not an atheist, I don't "BELIEVE" that there's no god. God just doesn't manifest himself in the objective reality. He isn't a physical being, not real. BUT, god is material only in the sense of being a part of social matter - he exists in people's heads,books, shrines, churches - things made by humans. and you can "divide" any category. philosophers can be characterized by this category. there's nothing immaterial in that sense. Matter is everything that exists. it's easy as that. Being a coherent materialist it would be stupid (idealist) of me to deny god or any other thing if it's scientifically proven. for example, a being moves a mountain with a chant\prayer and it's experimentally verifiable. Materialists wouldn't be able to deny the actual change in matter. Believing has nothing to do with it. I guess, you get my point. we don't argue that the philosophy is completed with marxism, but it's totally fallacious worldview you say that "the earth is flat" or "market economy is wholesome for the majority of population" whereas the matter itself contradicts the statement, people just fail to see, to look at(due to pre-installed ideology or obscurity) , or deny the objective truth. hence materialism vs idealism.

[@philippafhelmstrm6219]

Now I'm not very knowledgeable about Idealist philosophy, like that of Hegel Fichte or Schelling, but from what I believe to have gathered, Idealism is not at all related to 'Ideas' in the way we commonly use this term. It is more aligned with the conviction that Ideas (=Forms which structure our apprehension of the world) shape our access to the world in a systematic manner. And that to understand (our apprehension of) the world, we must first understand the Forms which make the world appear to us in the ways in which it does. That the world is not an object independent of that subject perceiving it, but rather always an object in relation to a subject which cannot be negated from our perception of that object.

[@t.m.2415]

I'm a vulgar Materialist, but still a Marxist. I believe that my and anybody else's ideas are nothing more then electrochemical reactions within our respective brains, but these, very much so material reactions, of course still have the capacity to shape the matter around them.

[@ludlowaloysius]

You’re still an idealist. Marxists pull a sleight of hand to trick people into thinking that “the marxist understanding” of materialism opposes traditional materialism but this is a fake binary. Marxists definion of materialism is just another form of idealism. Marxists must reject Materialism because if it turns out that Human Societies cannot be sustained without exploitation then… what?

[@vaxrvaxr]

"There are natural leaders and natural followers" is actually a materialist argument, given that those are in large part attributed to genetics.

[@RayLRhodes]

3:51 The notion of being in tune with nature is also idealistic. Environmental arguments should be made on materialist grounds, focusing on its impacts on humans, not some abstract duty to the ecosphere.

[@tv-pp]

You could argue either side of the com/cap debate with both idealist or materialist views

[@DankeyKang]

Thanks for this great video!

[@Love-Eat-Live]

Great video. on 3:25 you mentioned that the fight ended quite while ago. Well, it would be great if you could do a breakdown of Dr. Joe Dispenza's findings and teachings. Science is starting to provide findings that idealism is real and that we should have a second look at things in a different way.

[@bladdnun3016]

Quackery and pseudo-science detected.

[@Ara-wo5ho]

So is it vulgar materialism to say that the ideas of people are only the consequence of material reality?

[@邓梓薇]

The definitions of material in this video is too limited...Materials could refer to many stuff and they are not necessarily scientific entities but even our feelings they are materials even though they may not appear

[@justaguywithaturban6773]

How are our feelings material ?

[@邓梓薇]

@@justaguywithaturban6773 because they exist😆

[@justaguywithaturban6773]

@@邓梓薇 But that doesn’t make them material

[@邓梓薇]

@@justaguywithaturban6773 if no material what are they? Non-material? Is that a thing? all those words are invented to confuse people, marking them believe there is difference when in fact they are not

[@justaguywithaturban6773]

@@邓梓薇 They're made out of something which you’re currently not able to comprehend if you depend on modern science, but I’m trying my best to explain in modern science language and I’ll call them immaterial. Emotions are spiritual and the language of spirit realm cannot be translated in human man made language. But the nearest thing to describe, the spirit "language" can be felt.

[@patrickdelarosa7743]

You need to read Bernardo Kastrup to understand and separate metaphysical claims with social/political claims, is materialism that says the world out there is all in your head, that experience only arises in your brain and that is why the hard problem of consciousness is unsolved, I’m a marxist in the political spectrum but an idealist in the metaphysical.

[@MiCajaDelIdiota]

Excellent: "[In] Marxist theory, materialism... refers to a philosophy or world outlook that treats reality as independent of human thought. It places emphasis on the very matter this world is made out of."

[@BruceBanner-tn1ug]

Great job

[@prpUniverse]

Thank you so much for creating this content.

[@Renegen1]

How does materialism reconcile with epistemological realism?

[@Fire2000Ml]

Idealism doesn't say that nothing exists outside of the mind, that's solipsism. idealism suggests the world as it appears to be is shaped by and an appearance in our minds and that our minds are apart of broader median of Mind. things existing outside of the mind and in other minds is entirely compatible with idealism, but just not as they appear to be.

[@mementomori2285]

I don't think the mind-dependent reality v. mind-independent reality distinction distinguishes idealism from materialism. You can hold that reality is mind-dependent and be a materialist because if the mind is matter than of course it is reality and affects other parts of reality. The mind-dependent parts of reality are easily demonstrated where watching a photon literally makes that photon behave differently (as a particle instead of as a wave). Similarly idealists can hold that all reality is mind-independent. I don't know of any that do (although mind-body property dualism gets close) but it is logically possible. Instead I think materialism is the claim that all reality is reducable to thing extended in space-time and the properties which affect them. Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity is a good read for those interested in analytic philosophy

[@thepsychocyborg9278]

2:29 This is true, as ideas are material phenomena in & of themselves, & material interacts with & subsequently alters material. There exists nothing above material existence, as material existence is all there is (I.E. if it exists, then it is in some way material &/or altered by material; which includes ideas, thoughts, memories, & all other psychological & neural phenomena.)

[@refraf8030]

So my definition of both Materialism- everything in the world is made up of matter, consciousness included. Idealism- our thoughts and beliefs are our reality. Which makes it independent of the material world.

[@dialecticalveganegoist1721]

Great video ♥️✊

[@dexorne9753]

Came here thinking I'm fairly idealist(having no information of the subject other than interpretation of the words), but I was just wrong lol, thanks for letting me know

[@kwillie999]

It's worth noting there are visions of idealism that do acknowledge the world exists independent of human mind, but the human mind is a subset of that broader mind. The objection here is probably more into the philosophy of naturalism - which is that form emerges from below, rather than being puppeteered from above. Idealists tend toward the latter, and to the extent they don't, you can then point out they're just getting into wordplay about what 'material' is.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

Objective idealism is sophistry. It claims there can be an "absolute point of view" that is somehow more special than any other point of view and exists outside of it. Michel Bitbol already ripped this to shreds. It is not possible to even conceive of some sort of point of view outside of any perspective. A third-person perspective is not some sort of "absolute" perspective, it is still a perspective from the point of view of that third person. Objective idealism tries to posit some sort of special objective point of view within some "divine mind," but it only leads to an infinite regress, because it is a point of view from a subject which itself could only exist from another point of view. Nothing can be point-of-view independent.

[@zekec6088]

I couldn't pinpoint why I felt the term 'natural leader' to be so particularly grating (...it was used in a published article to describe a neighbor of mine, who made my life a living hell for years, along with those people with much greater systemic power who condoned his sense of entitlement despite his antisemitism, queerphobia, and misogyny... and has been ricocheting around my mind ever since...) until you exposed the underpinning assumptions inherent in the phrase with this explanation, so big thanks.

[@Tata-ps4gy]

I think you mixed metaphysical and sociological claims under the same term. Metaphysically, materialism means that only matter exists and that ideas, mathematics, morality, logic, etc are all mental constructs with no objective existence. When it comes to sociology, as you defined it, there is a spectrum, or rather, a triangle of giving importance to material conditions and ideas (materialism and idealism respectively).

[@meowwwww6350]

This video is amazing

[@pierreproudhon9008]

Reminds me of the woo woo, namely, the “quantum buddhism” and the “quantum idealism” and so on that I came across. My interpretation is there’s no reason to think that consciousness plays a part in fixing electrons into the classic reality we’re familiar with, when it is entirely possible that _disturbances_ we can’t avoid when trying to detect electrons snap them out of the quantum reality we’re unfamiliar with. Anyway, I’m just a jerk that only knows the basics, people that know the details feel free to elaborate. On another note, I’m not kidding when I say I’ve also seen people proclaiming marxists should abandon the theory of relativity. Because supposedly it is idealistic. Their rationale being relativity is I think we move, therefore we move. That was just hilarious!

[@Hhjhfu247]

So atheistic

[@anonymousinfinido2540]

​@@Hhjhfu247what happened?

[@mavrospanayiotis]

I think is most about the material conditions you must face to get food, as example. You will always need a wage to buy it in a system that, otherwise, doesn't allow you to eat. You can clearly go for hunt but without a wider group and a big land of your ownership average results risk to be very low and you'll be compelled to re-enter the system you fled for survival. So the problem is about what materially shapes our opportunities.

[@daPawlak]

Great video, but i find examples of materialistic vs idealistic thinking line up with ideological left-right divide too neatly. Like one could get from it that simply, we are materialistic and they are idealistic. With is not very helpful distincion if you want to distinguish dialectically materialistic leftism from other types.

[@daytonmargramarnsom1641]

Is this music from the FTL soundtrack?

[@Joleyn-Joy]

As far as I know (and I must confess it isn't that much, but enough for what I'm gonna say), the fact that science has materialist premises doesn't really touch idealism at heart. Also the fact that scientists don't adhere to idealism doesn't justify materialism, it would just be circular reasoning. Also, idealism just says that everything is ultimately a mental event, it doesn't say that your mind will, with all certainty, possess any power over reality or that is impossible that this very reality might shape your personality.

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

Both seem to be authoritarian in their own conclusions and yet there also seems to be this sense of false dichotomy (even present in this video). A better position would be "we don't know." And yet that doesn't mean we can't make a social analysis without clinging onto these two concepts as if they were a sacred text.

[@arthurvmyhill6603]

Read Bernardo kastrup - idealism is back baby

[@Fire2000Ml]

I love this man. I find it hard to argue with what he says

[@vasanthkalal3075]

Detailed information, thanks lot

[@VocalBear213]

Hey, comrade! Here is some critical approach: you haven't covered objective idealism at all, which is harder to debunk with logic. This "the world exists in my mind through electric signals in brain" is subjective idealism. My explanation for this topic (while in Bear propaganda mode😉) is that any construct in one's head (idea, opinion, thought, muh unique perception) that creates a world inside, but doesn't really reflect the real world, therefore perception is like a broken mirror, makes one unable to see a full picture Also more general categories like monism and dualism are also worth mentioning IMO. Thanks for the simplicity of explanation and for building a basis for healthy class consciousness of the viewer. Without understanding idealism people can't overcome what their minds are being fed.

[@themarxistproject]

I totally agree with you, and I'll be sure to do more videos on idealism in the future! There's definitely more to be said, especially with regards to objective idealism as you point out. Спасибо, товарищ!)

[@VocalBear213]

@@themarxistproject sorry for abruption of the comment.

[@garibanibizzeka]

Amazing video! -love from a trot

[@Kumar-cs4uz]

Great video!

[@sad-qy7jz]

Hey great video! This is a great summary regarding the context of Marxist/general socialism and sociopolitical discourse in general. I do want to note (I saw a similar comment but not quite my point) that idealism snd materialism are not specific to socialism, politics, and can be applied to a variety of philosophical contexts. As mentioned, with the exception of a few extreme beliefs, they generally both apply to reality in different ways. The really crucial aspect in this regard is the fact that systems, culture, geography, conditions, and material antecedents tend to be much more relevant to the way society has evolved, and the development of an individual or group. This can be as simple as “racism is learned and internalized and not something we’re born with” or the complex history of hierarchies, power, and economics. However, we are sentiment, out psychology exists and even if the material influenced it, the mind and our perceptions can be very powerful. I’m a social worker, and I practice as a therapist. Social work is extremely tied to dialectal materialism, and our goals and ethics focus largely on broader society and organizing material change- we favor wholism and understand the limits of personal responsibility. However as a therapist, I cannot change the material conditions that tend to be the root cause of my client’s psychological instability and pain and struggle. I can help them navigate their development and psychosocial contingencies.. as well as understand the nature of how systems and societal barriers exist specific to them- but ultimately, my goal is still to help them flourish and develop the tools and mindset necessary to be as stable, happy, empowered, and adjusted as possible. It can be really empowering to understand your trauma and unfair life wasn’t your fault, understand what things ought to change and how to get involved if you wish, but ultimately feel that you deserve to live a full snd meaningful life and make sense of things despite barriers that may not go away in your life time. Material conditions can lead to idealistic distortions as well such as prejudice, depression, self hatred, denial, entitlement etc which can be addressed. This is one example, but it specifically is what I consider a pro-socialist snd utilitarian snd humanist way to still make sense of idealism.

[@PremierMatthew]

I tried making a brief explanation of Materialism on my channel, did you see that?

[@themarxistproject]

I did, and I really enjoyed it! I also loved your discussion of diamat and hismat. I'm actually planing to make videos on that soon lol.

[@PremierMatthew]

@@themarxistproject So basically, we're the same person.

[@themarxistproject]

Haha it would appear so!

[@PremierMatthew]

@@themarxistproject Friend, I'm currently writing a very long script on the DPRK, do you yourself have any links to anything I can read which would further push my point on the DPRK being a deeply democratic and Socialist country?

[@nodrive]

@@PremierMatthew Check out Juche Gang or hit up Shane Lawrence Pick on FB

[@rb8119]

The video fundamentally misunderstands idealism. It treats all forms of idealism as if they were subjective idealism, a specific type of philosophy akin to sollipsism and essentially represented by Berkeley. This mistake excludes a lot philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, who would all be considered idealists but not subjective idealists. They believed in the existence of reality beyond individual perception Ontological idealism proposes that the fundamental nature of existence is shaped by non-material rational principles to which matter is subjugated. These rational principles would provide the order to the world we experience. Epistemological idealism would entail that cognition is fundamentally shaped by rational principles within the mind that organize perception into understanding (Meaning things like causality, space, time, being... are the tools of the mind to paint it's canvas of the world). Political idealism I guess would posit that ideal principles guide social, political, historical... events and relations. By giving a flawed account of this the video misinforms the audience, it does not address the topic of marxist materialism VS idealism, and it's later jump towards the (insufficient and intellectually disingenuous) definition of political idealism and arguments that could be categorized as such, seems as non-sequitur.

[@Red_Anon]

How exactly is the thought that thoughts are ultimately reducible to material processes "vulgar materialism"? I'd have thought that this was a given lol

[@themarxistproject]

Well it's more the notion that thoughts/ideas don't have a special role in the world, that they're no different from the material. Obviously they are based in material processes, but there is a certain qualitative aspect to them and they do possess the ability to shape the world around us. I don't think vulgar materialism is strictly incompatible with Marxism, but Marx and others did draw a distinction between their interpretation of materialism and some of the more uncompromising positions, which they referred to as vulgar.

[@Red_Anon]

Thanks for the clarification, your channel is great.

[@xenoblad]

You enter into weird territory when you only believe matter and energy are all that exists. How can something "new" come into existence if new matter and energy can't be created? If it doesn't, are you implying you always existed or that you never existed? Is the category of one's own identity a nominalist constructed falsehood?

[@anduinxbym6633]

The idea that thoughts are directly reducible to material processes is far from a given. *There are three main competing materialist positions:* 1. At the most basic level, matter is not conscious. Conscious experience is directly reducible to the non-conscious. 2. At the most basic level, matter is not conscious. Conscious experience emerges from "complexity" in non-conscious systems. 3. At the most basic level, matter has some form of primitive consciousness. In complex systems, these primitive conscious perspectives combine into a greater conscious perspectives. The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of how we get subjective experience from non-conscious bits of matter. If, on the most basic level, nothing but non-conscious bits of matter exist, then how is consciousness explained? The first position that I stated is a ridiculous form of reductionism that offers no answer to the hard problem. It holds that ultimately only non-conscious bits of matter exist, and it simply calls certain arrangements of matter "consciousness". It's nothing more than a semantic game to disguise the fact that its proponents are claiming that 1=0. The second position proposes strong emergence as an answer to the hard problem. To say that conscious experience "arises from complexity" sounds respectable, but it's just a fancy way of dressing up a ridiculous idea in nice sounding words. They are proposing an irreducible property called consciousness that magically pops into existence when non-conscious bits of matter are arranged in juuuust the right way. What's more, this property cannot be deduced from its components. The final position is a form of panpsychism that gets around the hard problem by proposing that consciousness exists on the most basic scales. Under panpsychism, consciousness doesn't magically pop into existence. This is probably the strongest materialist position, but it has its own problems - namely the combination problem. It has to explain why smaller perspectives unify into larger more complex perspectives in complex systems. Modern idealism is far stronger than this video seems to make it out to be. In fact, it's probably the strongest position that there is, as it's compatible with everything that we can observe and it has Occam's Razor on its side. It also lacks the logical problems that come with materialism. I highly recommend looking into the work of Bernardo Kastrup.

[@anduinxbym6633]

​@Random User Materialism doesn't necessarily imply that the primary physical world is unconscious, as panpsychism is considered a materialist position. Granted, panpsychism is not the mainstream position. I oversimplified some of those positions for the reader, but the point remains. Regardless of whether you consider matter at the most basic level to be irreducible or unchanging, mainstream materialism still explains consciousness in terms of the activities of non-conscious matter. It still runs into the hard problem of explaining how we get subjective experience from physical things that supposedly have none of the qualities of subjective experience. Reductionists like Daniel Dennett have no answer to that problem, rendering their position untenable. The other popular position is to suggest that consciousness just pops into existence because of "complexity".

[@damiendp8804]

I don't understand why Materialism (a sociological theory) is pitted against Idealism (a metaphysical theory) and "Vulgar" Materialism (another metaphysical theory). They don't seem like they are even in the same categories. I mean Idealism and "Vulgar" Materialism seem to be better compared to Hylomorphism or Dualism, or Neutral Monism rather than a sociological theory about how societies tend to develop from interactions in the Base of society rather than the Superstructure.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

It is precisely because dialectical materialism is antimetaphysics. There are many antimetaphysical philosophies: dialectical materialism, contextual realism, empirio-criticism, and centrism to name a few off the top of my head. The similarity between all these is that they are antimetaphysics. They do not posit anything _a priori_ about reality, reality just, as Benoist would put it, _is what it is._ Even our conception of matter is not _a priori_ in materialist philosophy, it is _a posteriori._ Idealism is metaphysical precisely because they insist "consciousness" and "the self" and the "subjective 'I'" are all _a priori_ truths. Idealists believe that everything is questionable _but the self,_ which they view as really existing in exactly as how they imagine it to be. An antimetaphysicalist views even the self as something that can be questioned. Engels' rejections of things-in-itself can be turned inward to reject the self-in-itself. There is no hard-and-fast line between the subjective "I" and the rest of nature. Something idealists will not accept because they insist the metaphysical self is an _a priori_ truth.

[@damiendp8804]

@@QuantumPolyhedron if this is the case, then Materialism isn't what should be used to dispute metaphysics and argue for antimetaphysics because it doesn't directly deal with questions of metaphysics A good example for why this comparison is flawed is that one can be a historical materialist and be pro-metaphysics. There's nothing explicitly in historical materialism that necessitates that someone should be antimetaphysics.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

​@@damiendp8804 Historical materialism is an _a posteriori_ conception about the world. Categorically the same as any other _a posteriori_ conception, such as, the claim we live on a spinning ball orbiting a star. Metaphysical materialists would uphold that claim as well. Historical materialism is not a criticism of metaphysics. _Dialectical_ materialism is. Historical materialism is a necessary component if you do not want descend into postmodernism. The rejection of metaphysics can lead you down a rabbit hole of rejecting everything and thus having no ultimate reason to believe anything captures reality at all. Historical materialism provides a grounding, it explains that our social consciousness is heavily derivative of the industrial base, which is directly in connection to the natural world, and so it gives justification to believe that over time human societies really (as a very long term tendency and not a law) are coming closer to grasp the natural world *in some abstract and approximate sense* (not in an absolute sense as there are a lot of asterisks to this). Without historical materialism, rejecting metaphysics leads you to postmodernism. You would reject all concepts as _a priori_ and thus everything would be up for questioning, but you would then have no grounding for anything, you would have no reason to believe the ideas of civilization today are any closer to an understanding of the natural world than the ideas of human societies a thousand years ago. You would have no reason to believe that the schools teaching you that lightning is a high voltage discharge from the clouds to the ground is any more true than the school teaching you Zeus throws lightening bolts. The idea of any possibility to move towards a better understanding of nature would be entirely unclear and unjustified. Historical materialism is not itself a criticism of metaphysics. That's what dialectical materialism is about. Historical materialism is an attempt to explain "history" (the progression of human ideas, in Hegelian terms, the movement away from ignorance to the "kingdom of reason") from a materialist lens, how is it that people today can actually know more about the natural world than people a thousand years ago, to avoid what would later become postmodernism.

[@winterwalsh5601]

ok this one was way easier to understand as i think this way al5ready, in the case of materialism, and totally get the meanings of both, but one of your other parts i understood but know for a fact manyb others will be stuck trying to understand, the dialectics ones, could you possibly elaborate more on those?

[@5thdisciple940]

Your prelude to Idealist thought is a misrepresentation of it. Idealism doesn't presuppose an object independent world as nonexistent. The 'thing-in-itself" is a noumenon that claims the existence of an object is devoid of conscious causality. The noumenon is one of the most important elements of Kant's transcendental method. Furthermore, the realization that a book exists independent of us, but our consciousness pertains to it, isn't materialist in nature, but Idealist. I admire your attempts to explain the predicates of Marxist thinking, but as a constructive criticism, I postulate that you understand the basics of metaphysics before engaging in discourse or having commentary about metaphysical questions. It is partially not your fault given that the thinkers you adhere to didn't understand epistemology or ontology very well either.

[@themarxistproject]

Thanks for your comment. I've actually done a good bit more reading on this subject and definitely see the need for some major revisions. It'll probably be a while before I can revisit this but it's on the to-do list. Not sure it's accurate to suggest that Marx didn't understand epistemology or ontology though.

[@5thdisciple940]

@@themarxistproject Marx understood epistemology & ontology, but only superficially. His & Engels objections to idealism were never very good & often involved strawmanning. Some of what they say is right, but they would often overlook the nature of what they spoke about (on a philosophical level, I cannot speak for economics due to my own ignorance).

[@sanjayramesh5510]

Thank you

[@apansinghal]

Human genes and cultural programming of our brain does not just exist in imagination. It is very real. Materialism and idealism are not in contradiction. All idealism as you describe is speculation on how the material world actually behaves and materialism is how it actually does. What you are describing is theory versus empiricism.

[@xenoblad]

How do Vulgar materialists deal with emergence and the problem of identity?

[@themarxistproject]

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on vulgar materialism, but my assumption is that everything is reduced to interaction between matter. Even identity could be categorized as a consistent cognitive process, resulting from particular neural pathways created and reinforced by lived experience.

[@xenoblad]

@@themarxistproject So do clones or copies in theory share the same identity, or could a singular identity have multiple bodies? Cause it sounds like only a person's specific construction or a person's brain's construction determines a person's identity. The problem of emergence is also still there unless we deny one of two premises; that matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, and that at some point in the past you did not exist.

[@themarxistproject]

Again, I'm definitely not qualified to say anything definitively on this, but I think clones would have different identities since neural pathways are formed through experiences and cognitive development occurs in the context of the environment of the individual. Yes, that's true. Perhaps that would be explained as the need to cross a certain threshold in development? After a certain point of exposure to the outside world, identity begins to take rudimentary shape (in a very physical sense in the brain) and continues to develop for the rest of someone's life. That would be consistent with the first premise since the formation of neural connections does not require new neurons (though it does require certain other elements). And the second premise would hold too, since it takes some certain amount of biological development before one could count as "existing." Maybe someone out there has a more informed understanding of this than me, though I honestly cannot even think of anyone who clings to closely to vulgar materialism.

[@niparukaiyat9773]

It would be Very helpful if you had added subtitle

[@solobcil2094]

thank you. a lot of help is in this video

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

In my mind materialism and physicalism are the same thing. There are things such as thoughts, that are not per se material, but these things have their basis in some form of materialism.

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

​@@novinceinhosic3531 What materials are being created in the brain? Or is thought a chemical--electrical pattern, active pattern. A pattern could be a construct. A construct could be considered to be a material thing. So, maybe you are right.

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

@@novinceinhosic3531 Would you say quantitative change leading to qualitative change is an example of emergence? A car is a certain configuration of parts. The parts may not be incoherent to a mechanic. To say a stack of car parts is nothing but a bunch of atoms is incoherent is to see it from the point of view of a bad mechanic. To see that stack form the point of view of, say a metalergist, maybe not. The car parts themselves are the result of multiple levels of emergence and processing. You seem to be saying that physicalists are saying nothing emerges from quarks. You say 'predestined'. Is that a fudge word for 'preconceived'?

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

@@novinceinhosic3531 Nature as potentiality--actuality, which 'actuality' is itself a potentiality--actuality. This may be the phrase I've been looking for, if only for myself. This combined with creative destruction as potentiality--actuality. Entropy as the man behind the curtain directing biological evolution in the game of actuality--potentiality/ end of one actuality--beginning of new potentiality. I consider 'Existence exists' as a self-actualizing, self justifying premise. I regard it as the premise of premises. I have to think more about 'place holders'.

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

@@novinceinhosic3531 I'm a retired factory worker with a two foot high stack of notebooks I've filled up. I take a special interest in General Semantics, the center of which I believe to be Lee's Elucidation: A finite number of words must be made to represent an infinite number of things and possibilities.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

I would argue it's not. Materialism upholds the philosophical category of "matter" which Engels borrows the same definition from Hegel, referring to some sort of fundamental entities that are abstracted from observable forms, and so by definition as an abstraction of our observation it necessarily, logically, has to take on particular observable expressions. The point here is that matter is inherently observable as part of its definition. Different kinds of particles, _beables_ if you will to borrow a term from John Bell, are associated directly with observable properties as part of their definition. Physicalism, on the other hand, arose with the discovery of fields. Many physicists chose to interpret fields as their own fundamental entities, yet fields are not directly associated with observable properties. It's sort of like, a wave on the ocean is only observable because it is _made up of_ observable water molecules, but the _wave itself,_ as some separate entity _besides_ the water molecules, is not observable, and so a materialist would reject that such a _wave itself_ even exists. Physicalists, on the other hand, do apply this kind of thinking to fields. If you sprinkle some metallic dust around a magnetic, it will form to a particular shape. What you are seeing is the behavior of the particles, not some separate entities, but a physicalist would argue there is indeed a separate entity there which _causes_ the particles to conform to that particular shape. It would make more sense in a materialist framework to say that the particles have the _disposition_ to conform to that shape. The mathematics of fields describe the _behavior of particles._ Particles conform to that shape because it is in their nature, not that a separate unobservable entity _causes_ that conformity. Most people don't make this distinction between materialism and physicalism, but I think it really matters, because physicalists then proceed to apply this thinking everywhere and their ideology becomes incredibly confusing. They claim gravitational fields are literally like a fabric which curves, but fabrics are always _made up of_ something, so it then raises the question of what the fabric of spacetime is made up of, but the fabric of spacetime doesn't seem to be made up of anything. They argue that the universe is expanding literally like a balloon, but the balloon expands into surrounding space, so this then raises the question of "what is the universe expanding into?" which then doesn't seem to have any clear answer. Neither of these questions come up if you just state that the fields in general relativity describe the disposition of particles to curve their path in the presence of massive objects, and that the universe's expansion really is just the disposition of particles to be repelled from one another according to Hubble's law. There is no literal fabric or expansion, these are really just analogies or visualizations, but in reality they are just properties of the behavior of particles and not _caused_ by some sort of additional entity. The worst case of this is in quantum mechanics. Both Einstein and Blokhintsev pointed out that waves in quantum mechanics are like waves on water: they are only visible in the form of large collections of water molecules, but there simply is no visible wave if you zoom in on a single water molecule. It's an observable property of how many behave together, not a property of a single particle in isolation. Physicalists claim that wave functions represent real physical entities that are associated with even a single particle, but these entities are fundamentally not observable. They then argue that there is some sort of "collapse" that causes the fundamentally unobservable wave to transform itself into an observable particle. You then end up with an _explanatory gap_ of how a natural world based on fundamentally unobservable entities could somehow, upon the very moment of observation, produce an observable world. This explanatory gap, the _measurement problem,_ directly parallels Kant's mind-body problem. The noumenon is fundamentally unobservable physical reality that somehow, upon observation, gives rise to the observable phenomenon, and there is no explanation of how this could possible occur, nor any obvious method by which such an answer can be found, because everything we observe is in the phenomenon and not the noumenon, and so no observation could show us how the noumenon gives rise to the phenomenon. The only way out of this is to never abandon the connection between observability and material reality. Material reality does not "give rise to" observable reality. Material reality _is observable by definition_ at every step of the way and there's never a break. This requires interpreting wave functions as descriptions of the disposition of the behavior of particles and not as literal autonomous entities, as if there are floating waves out there that "collapse" upon measurement. Most physicalists, if you ask them, they will admit the "hard problem" is indeed a _hard_ problem which they have no solution for. They end up reproducing this problem a second time in quantum mechanics as well and again have no solution for it. Yet, the hard problem, which is really just a reformulation of the mind-body problem, has been viewed as closed in materialist philosophy since the 19th century. This also allows the closure of the measurement problem as well, since they are parallel problems in structure.

[@TheADDFiles-yk4dc]

Quantum Mechanics is rapidly relegating Materialism to the dustbin of history. It is consciousness and observation which precedes and creates what we perceive as the physical world.

[@ozjuanpa]

Nah, that is merely one of the many interpretations of it.

[@Th3EnterNal]

Is belief in free will idealist?

[@luisarmenta2619]

I think a materialist would say that it does not exist because everything can be reduced to chemical process in your body telling you to do things. So yes I think that it is idealist. Concepts such as the perfect person or the perfect circle which come from the forms by Plato are idealist in nature. They are not based on anything material that exists around, but we still have the concepts of them thanks to Idealism. Although it is entirely possible to be a mix of materialistic and idealistic like this video explains so an idealist can still reject free will

[@Th3EnterNal]

@@luisarmenta2619 You are idealist bc a materialist says so.thats circular logic m8.It has to be why i would universaly be an idealist... Anyway, this type of thinking could lead to some scenarios as totalitarianism, brainwashing and castrating people with high chance of psychopathy, and high chance of being criminals. And practicing of eugenics in general. Since, its just going to be better for everyone in the end. Removing traits associated with criminals and the scum of society, since there is no reason to believe they can change brainwashing in this sense too.And im talking about a communis(or socialist) society here, since external negative factors are mostly removed.

[@lugus9261]

Nah

[@Th3EnterNal]

@@lugus9261 It is accordinh to the vid tho

[@lugus9261]

@@Th3EnterNal no its not Marxism doesn't rule out "free will", it rules out the idealist version of it. Humans create all the time, that is the true essence of free will

[@DMK5506]

Change it for the better or change it for the worse?

[@arcticwind1368]

Idealism: Ideas pre exist.And matter comes from the ideas. Materialism: Ideas don't pre exist.And the ideas come from matter Materialism is the correct theory

[@pranavm.d457]

Neither the idea nor the matter really exists.. That you who interpreting it exists forever

[@arcticwind1368]

@@pranavm.d457 matter only exists.And since we are made of matter ,we also exist.Idead are something we create.

[@pranavm.d457]

@@arcticwind1368 so as per your view, Matter is inert or tend to change?? If it changes into idea then matter won't exists.. What is that motivating moving factor that changes matter into world??

[@arcticwind1368]

@@pranavm.d457 Matter always changes. And because matter changes ,new ideas are born

[@europason2293]

Quantum mechanics casts doubt on ontological materialism. The idea of “matter” is more or less an imposition of the mind.

[@metawakening6233]

What about quantum physicists? Id say they're far more open to idealism. Double slit experiment anyone?

[@Fire2000Ml]

yeah the double slit experiment more or less debunks materialism to be blunt

[@Froggo9000]

​@@Fire2000MlHow so? All it suggests is that material is probabilistic, and the observer effect is not really understood to require conscious observation at all

[@Fire2000Ml]

@@Froggo9000 what materialism suggests is that material or matter exists independently of consciousness and consciousness is a movement of it. I don't see how the particles being observed could behave differently under materialism as the experiment shows consciousness and observation affects the behaviour of the particles. to me it seems like the opposite is true.

[@Froggo9000]

@@Fire2000Ml Observation = measurement = interaction. Observing the system requires we interact with it because we are launching a photon or something else to view it, thus changing the outcome

[@paz9963]

GREAT FUCKING CHANNEL! Concise explanations of ML is exactly what I’ve been looking for to radicalize my friends. Keep doing the lord’s work

[@Larry21924]

I'm deeply impressed by this. I came across similar material, and it was truly remarkable. "The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Living Guide" by Matthew Cove

[@thesuperdragonrelic9739]

Materialism or idealism? They say our surroundings shape who we are. I belive this is true up until the point you reach a previously unnatained level of consciousness. This is when for instance you realize that nothing truly matters outside our brains. That there is no good or bad rather actions and consequences. Once you reach this state of consciousness you can choose which emotions to feel, how to react to things, how to self reflect in levels you previously couldn’t. The belief that both idealism and materialism hold some degree of truth is often referred to as dual-aspect monism or dual-aspect theory. I think material conditions shape who we are until we reach a specific level of self awareness. An unnatained level of intelligence and curiosity. as individuals reach higher levels of consciousness and self-awareness, they may transcend mere environmental conditioning, gaining the ability to critically assess and interpret their surroundings. This heightened awareness that is referring to allows for a more deliberate choice in emotional responses, behaviors, and self-reflection.

[@LAFC.]

"Materialists believe that our ideas and thoughts are shaped by the environment that we exist in" Why didn't you just say THAT. Damn...

[@arosalesmusic]

At this point with all the evidence for Concsciousness as being fundamental and spacetime emergent, Dawkins should be having fits. 🤣 "Materialism is untenable for several reasons. One of them is the internal contradiction: it defines matter as something that is independent and alien to consciousness and has no inherent qualities, and then it tries to explain the qualities of experience in terms of something that was defined as having nothing to do with experience. And that failed to do that and then we wonder why it failed." Bernardo Kastrup.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

That's just an incredibly lazy straw man. Matter (as a philosophical category) is defined in terms of abstractions made from our observations. They are the most abstract, and thus in some sense, the most "fundamental" entities which, being something derived from observation, are directly identifiable by their observational properties. There is no break between materialism and observability. Kastrup is too lazy to actually criticize materialism, so he just makes up ridiculous straw men arguments that materialists believe in some sort of reality that is fundamentally unobservable. He makes materialist philosophy seem ridiculous so he can knock down the straw man without having to actually address our beliefs, and then his sheep followers who never open a book on materialist philosophy in their lives assume his misrepresentation is accurate.

[@arosalesmusic]

Materialism does not explain the hard problem of consciousness, as Dr Hoffman points out, spacetime as a concept is not fundamental, it is emergent from consciousness. Here is Dr Michael Egnor on the subject kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKKro6N4hcmnias @@QuantumPolyhedron

[@orb3796]

@@arosalesmusic Spacetime literally cannot exist without matter. Matter is the principle thing every other thing is secondary to, including consciousness einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/a11332.html

[@arosalesmusic]

@@QuantumPolyhedron Analytic Idealism, as articulated by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, appears to present a more parsimonious and coherent framework for understanding reality compared to Physicalism or Materialism. This argument can be distilled into several key points that emphasize the shortcomings of Physicalism, particularly in light of the hard problem of consciousness, while simultaneously highlighting the explanatory power and coherence of Analytic Idealism. 1. Primacy of Experience Kastrup posits that all we truly possess is our conscious experience, which forms the basis of knowledge regarding the external world. He asserts that "experience is primary; it is all there is". In contrast, Physicalism posits that conscious experiences are byproducts of physical processes in the brain, which remains largely unsubstantiated when accounting for the subjective quality of experiences5. 2. The Hard Problem of Consciousness One of the central critiques against Physicalism is its inability to adequately address the hard problem of consciousness-how subjective experiences arise from brain activity. Kastrup points out that attempts by Physicalists to explain this connection are fundamentally insufficient and suggest a misunderstanding of the relationship between mind and matter4. In contrast, Analytic Idealism bypasses this problem by asserting that reality is fundamentally mental. Kastrup contends that instead of the brain producing consciousness, consciousness is the primary reality, and brains are merely manifestations of this more fundamental consciousness. 3. Parsimony and Ockham's Razor Kastrup utilizes the principle of Occam's Razor to argue that Physicalism is unnecessarily complex, as it combines two ontological categories-mind and matter-while his framework posits that only one (mind) is necessary. This approach aligns with the principle of parsimony, suggesting that the simplest explanation-namely, that all is consciousness-is preferred when both theories can explain the same facts. 4. Critique of Materialism Dr. Kastrup can draw upon the ancient philosophical critiques of materialism that view it as an inadequate and increasingly irrelevant explanation for phenomena observed in nature. He argues that "materialism has led to a culture marked by dehumanization and mechanization, stripping away the profound nature of consciousness". Moreover, he suggests that the perception of a purely physical world fails to explain the richness of human experience or the phenomena related to consciousness, like those observed in psychedelic experiences that contradict the assumptions of increased brain function leading to enriched experiences1. 5. Aggregation of Experiences Kastrup's model of a "universal consciousness" with dissociated alters (akin to various personalities in an individual with Dissociative Identity Disorder) serves to explain the diversity of experiences without the convolutions found in dualistic or physicalist frameworks. Each individual perceives only a fragment of this universal consciousness while having access to the shared experiential world. This conceptual model provides clarity on how subjective experiences emerge and allows for the integration of varying perspectives. 6. Alignment with Observational Evidence Analytic Idealism not only offers a coherent philosophical framework but also finds its validation through empirical observations, such as those from neuroscience that show altered brain states (e.g., during psychedelic experiences) producing enriched conscious states5. Kastrup argues that these correlations can be better explained when we accept consciousness as the fundamental basis and not as a byproduct of brain activity. Conclusion In summary, Analytic Idealism, as developed by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, provides a more parsimonious and coherent model for understanding reality than Physicalism or Materialism. It asserts the primacy of consciousness, directly addresses the hard problem of consciousness, and utilizes principled parsimony to forge a compelling argument against dualistic and materialist explanations of experience. The framework presents not only a robust philosophical alternative but also aligns with emergent empirical findings in neuroscience, illustrating a need to rethink the foundational ontological assumptions underlying our understanding of consciousness and reality.

[@scottyslearningcorner6080]

THANK YOU HOORAY so informative

[@kustin4208]

great video

[@hansfrankfurter2903]

As someone who has done the rounds in philosophy, I’m not sure Marxists understand what these terms really mean outside of Marxist usage. When Marxists say material or materialist they mean contextualized by real life and pragmatic considerations, basically economics. Idealist just means what is removed from that context. But in philosophy these terms mean completely different things, they concern whether ideas or perception come first in ontology. I guess Marxists will claim its all nonsense that won’t change the world. My point is that you can’t change the world without understanding it. The Marxist interpretation of history and philosophy seems a bit too reductionist for me. The whole base super structure , not sure what is the point if that if not to suggest that economics matters more than culture and ideas. Its still a very powerful and insightful approach that I try to incorporate. I don’t think we need to discard philosophy and religion and claim its all class struggle and economics in order to build socialism or go post capitalism. Just my thoughts tho

[@hansfrankfurter2903]

@@novinceinhosic3531 Can you explain to me what "materialist" means in Marxist parlance ? and what it means outside of it? Maybe you'll understand what I was getting at.

[@hansfrankfurter2903]

Ok, you just repeated in so many words, what I was saying. Materialism for Marx is just the practical conditions of our current existence. 1- that's a completely empty statement, because the given conditions of our existence include ideas, religion, culture, language...etc that may not necessarily reflect anything in reality. So when he says he's a "materialist" as opposed to an "idealist" its a completely empty statement. If you want to reduce "materialism" to just economics and relations/forces of production ..etc you're back to reductionism. So either he was tautological and vacuous or reductionist. Telling us we have to start with what we have is not a particularly insightful statement, everyone knows this. Telling us that economics is the "true" driver of history is a reductionist statement that needs justification. That we have free will or "self determination" to change the world, is also nothing new that we didn't know before. 2- When ppl hear "materialism" their mind will jump to matter and substance. The masses can't be bothered to spend years studying 11 Thesis on Feuerbach and these other obscure texts and pointless debates about the nature of "materialism". If you want to reach the masses or the global working class as you claim, you must speak with a plain language that everyone can understand. @@novinceinhosic3531 You can intellectually try to defend Marx's works all day, what I'm interested in, is what relevance does this have to the world 2023 ? what use is it?

[@hansfrankfurter2903]

At this point I wonder if you're reading what I'm writing or having a discussion with yourself? I'll do you the courtesy of repeating myself, but I suspect I'm wasting my time with an ideologue! I didn't say "ideas are unrelated to reality", I'm saying the opposite. What I said is that the concept of "materialism" you just attributed to Marx is either vacuous because "the conditions of life" include everything from food to language and ideas (which can't be separated) OR reductionist if you want to demarcate it to just economic related categories. Was that clear enough? Let me give it another shot, there is no such a thing as human life without language, without culture, ideas, religion, ideology and so on. And since every situation given to us as a starting point includes all or most of these things by anthropological necessity, what's the point in calling all of that "materialism" ? And if you want to say that materialism just concerns the economic "base" of life then you're being reductionist. Did it land? The other point, is that neither I nor the 9 billion "working class" on this earth have enough time to waste on these boring masturbatory discussions on the nature of "materialism" or what Marx really meant. Esp when the terms you use redefine concepts that have established meanings. Capice? "people need food to philosophize" yeah no shit Sherlock! @@novinceinhosic3531

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

No, Marxists understand it very well. You say that idealists mean things removed from context, but Marxists reject the existence of things outside of context. There is quite a lot of parallels in Engels' _Dialectics of Nature_ and Benoist's _Toward a Contextual Realism._ Both uphold the notion that objects do not really have decontextualized "autonomous" existence as _things-in-themselves._ There are _only_ things _in context,_ that is to say, _in relation to other things._ It's odd to call Marxism reductionist when it is inherently at odds with reductionism. Reductionism is not compatible with any antimetaphysical philosophy because whatever you identify a cause to be is just _according to a particular contextual point of view_ and cannot be transformed into a universal claim. What you are engaging in is actually reductionism, talking about "culture and ideas" as if they are autonomous entities reducible to themselves, when they are overdetermined by material reality and are not separable from it.

[@hansfrankfurter2903]

"ut Marxists reject the existence of things outside of context." What do you mean by that? Do you mean the tautology that nothing exists outside of its contextual tethers to reality? well duh! Or do you mean that ideas which fail to take such context themselves don't exist? "There is quite a lot of parallels in Engels' Dialectics of Nat...t really have decontextualized "autonomous" existence as things-in-themselves." I agree with that, but that's consistent with Hegel and with "idealist" ontologies as well. You don't need to be a dialectical materialist to believe that. " It's odd to call Marxism reductionist when it is inherently at odds with reductionism." That part isn't, but there's another part that claims history is driven *mostly* by "material" factors. Material here doesn't mean solid matter, but the production and reproduction of life, or modes of production and relations of production. That's definitly reductionist. There's also Marxists, and some claim Marx/Engels themselves who make this kind of theory of history into an all encompassing metaphysics or ontology and try to impose it on physics, biology, psychology...etc. Engels definitely can fit that bill. "What you are eng...lves, when they are overdetermined by material reality and are not separable from it." I simply made a distinction, which Marx and Engle's themselves made. Between ideas and "material conditions". Making distinctions doesn't mean you think one matters more than the other, or one reduces to the other. Marx admitted that both the "base" and "superstructure" influence each other, but he claims that the base is what matters the most, to the point where he thought you could safely ignore the superstructure in his analysis almost entirely. So my question to you then would be, how do you prove that "material conditions" or "material reality" ...etc matters more in the movement/causation of history than ideas/culture? No Marxist has been able to answer this question for me without assuming it as an article of faith. @@QuantumPolyhedron

[@wayhuncho6599]

This is soo true when i learned that a black slave that got freed became a slave owner themselves and enslaved othet black people

[@fotppd1475]

As I watched through this I had my own thoughts and for the most part agreed with materialism but the idea that all in the world is matter is of course WAY to extreme. (and somewhat unrealistic considering that without ideas there is no creation or creativity.) To see that Marx has more or less a similar view is quite refreshing.

[@kennethhwang3425]

What ontological materialism seeks to emphasize is not the denial of ideas. Materialism underlines that ideas are reflections of the existing reality. In the same way that we aren't able to just "let" the "light" to just be there by a thought and have to lit a candle by the matchstick, both independently existing outside of our desire to not be in the dark, we also cannot generate an existence from ideas without preexisting matters.

[@Humanistic_]

Carl Sagan taught me materialism. And that materialism led me to Marxism

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

I mistook your channel with another rpg gamer also called NeverKnowsBest (all together). I saw him reviewing Disco Elysium and thought it was you but changed your pfp.

[@ashoka9306]

i think it's natural that natural sciences would tend to a philosophy that deals mainly with the natural world and not the mind. idealism seems to be a thing in social scienes and history because those things study the human culture, where ideas do influence our individual actions.

[@JulianH-co7qg]

There is no evidence "materials" exist outside of qualia (experience) your consciousness creates reality infact it is reality. If materialism were true, nothing you do or say has any meaning because it is nothing more than substances creating a chain of phenomena out of randomness. You feeling exploited doesn't matter.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

Why would material reality exist "outside of" observation? Matter (as a philosophical category) is defined in terms of abstractions made from our observations. They are the most abstract, and thus in some sense, the most "fundamental" entities which, being something derived from observation, are directly identifiable by their observational properties. There is no break between materialism and observability. I think you watch too much Kastrup and have a lot of straw men arguments in your head. There is also no such thing as "phenomena" or "noumena." There is just reality and our _a posteriori_ conceptions of it.

[@JulianH-co7qg]

@@QuantumPolyhedron In my head? My head must be over 1,000 pounds if all my ideas are in there.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

@@JulianH-co7qg Ideas don't exist, at least not in the metaphysical sense.

[@JulianH-co7qg]

@QuantumPolyhedron All ideas are metaphysical. it's not like we can measure an idea in a lab. So is this really what you believe?

[@50iraqidinar]

From any given individuals' perspective, there is no evidence that anyone besides that individual has qualia or consciousness.

[@endTHEhegemony_Today]

Thank you!

[@marimus7453]

I was today years old when I learned that you can drag subtitles around with your mouse

[@whatabouttheearth]

He's defining philosophical materialism as if materialists actually think that it is only the external physical world that effects things and not the mind of beings, which is absurd because the mind is a function of the brain and the brain is a part of the body. Your thoughts are material because they are part of the activity of your brain. He misdefined materialism to promote that stupid duality. Materialism asserts that EVERYTHING in existance is matter or a product of matter. What Marx was trying to do was distinguish from Hegel woo and Adam Smiths woo (i.e. "invisible hand").

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

Ideas themselves do not even exist. This was something shown much more clearly by Wittgenstein than Marx. Our belief that there are ideas floating around in our head is an illusion. Even if you have an infinite amount of time and access to the best science possible, you could not peer into someone's head and find metaphysical concepts there. Does not matter if you think the world is made of ideas or made of material, Wittgenstein's argument applies to both: the rule-following problem shows that it is just impossible that we literally have concepts in our heads. The actual metaphysical ideas are dispersed throughout the whole material basis of the social structure, and it is illusory to think they are really autonomous entities floating around in our skulls.

[@kittenmastermind660]

I really don't see how idealism and materialism is exclusive to each other.

[@thieph]

There is dualism between, but i mean ofc they are exclusive of each other cause they are exactly the opposite, lol

[@NRWTx]

why is trying to define a human nature idealistic? if I try to define it with impulses like freud, why is it idealism? impulses are the result of material phenomenons within us

[@dad_bot_3924]

I think that idealism would mean that despite changing the material environment and phenomenons around us, human nature would stay the same

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

Human nature is idealistic because it stems from the theological belief that humans have a "soul" which is fundamentally irreducible to material reality. This "soul" would thus have a logic of its own: its own set of "laws" which would be separate from and fundamentally irreducible to any sort of physical laws, and would not change or being affected by material circumstances. This was the analysis Hegel worked with, he believed the subjective ideas of the human spirit were spontaneous and then subject to laws in how they interacted which were irreducible to anything else, and the laws governing their interactions would drive the development of the objective Idea and the course of "history." This same mindset was then adopted into neoclassical economics beginning with Alfred Marshall. Marshall believed that you can reduce the human spirit down to a set of its own internal laws from which the whole economy could be derived from. There is no reverse-causation of the material institutions of society upon those laws of the human spirit, they are treated as fundamental and unchanging. This was then became a cornerstone of marginal utility theory, its very foundations known as "consumer preference theory," which is a whole list of claims about how the fundamental unchanging laws governing the cognition of the "rational consumer." None of these laws, mind you, were ever demonstrated in psychology or neuroscience. They were just all invented in someone's armchair one day. I don't really get how people take marginal utility theory that seriously, but it is what it is.

[@comrademartinofrappuccino]

Dialectical materialism is not a buzzword bescause it is neither trivia or vague compared to actual buzzwords. You do not be able to apply dialectics that well here. Bescause of our restrictive educational systems, it is very hard to start with material change once you trying to presuade students to join radical groups. So you rather focus on showing them a framework of why education currently is in contradiction with even capalist reality. So those who understand can together with the other students apply those ideas to create student groups who question education, which is material in some sense.

[@whatabouttheearth]

So your telling me that Alex Jones misinterprets Dialectical Materialism? Shocking 😏

[@tofolcano9639]

The way I see it both idealists and vulgar materialists are right. Deterministic physics dictates everything in the material world, including our brains. Meaning that everything we think and feel depend exclusively on the chemical and electrical reactions that unavoidably have to happen, because not doing so would break the laws of physics. You had no option but to read this comment because 10 seconds ago a bunch of chemical and electrical reactions happened in your brain that made you scroll down and start reading. Those molecules had no option but to react, for they can't do anything but follow the laws of physics. That is vulgar materialism. On the other hand there is the thought that what we experience as reality is but a watered down interpretation or our brain's simulation of actual physical reality, which is also true. I believe that physical reality isn't any more real than perceptive reality because both inevitably obey the laws of physics and have different outcomes also based on the initial conditions of the physical reality. Then it is true that ideas can change both perceived reality and physical reality, but those ideas can only form in a physical brain, meaning that all ideas ultimately come from physical reality. Whatever that perceived reality is, the ideas depend exclusively on the physical reality that created them. So ultimately ideas are material, so therefore only the material reality can affect the material reality. And everything, including perceived reality and ideas, are in fact also just physical reality. Then dialectical materialism is actually just the matter in the brain and some of the other matter in the world interacting with each other according to their deterministic path.

[@Lettermark]

Awesome!

[@kirklazenby1]

Unfortunately; this inversion of the Hegelian dialectic is what causes Marxism's dogmatic determinism (Religiosity).. Hegel was very clear, that the dialectic can only be applied as a retrospective method "The owl of Minerva spreads her wings at dusk" and not as a method of predicting the future. Marx's prediction, that socialism would be the necessary synthesis of feudalism and capitalism, not only stands in contradiction to Hegel's teachings, but now the owl has spread its wings at dusk, we can see it was a false supposition also.......Hegel believed; that through the lens of pure ontological idealism; sublation (negation) of the negative-rational, will eventually produce an ultimate fixity, which the social zeitgeist will arrive at ORGANICALLY... Marx's battlecry "Workers of the world unite" is an attempt to force the dialectic... Although both the Hegelian dialectic and Marx's dialectical materialism are deterministic and unfalsifiable (therefore NOT a science, neither STEM or a social science) its Marx's dialectical materialism which is the most nonsensical. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics, and metaphysics cannot be proved, because it is by definition conceptual. Marx's attempt to infer a dialogue between ontological idealism and materialism, is literally (Yes literally) the equivalent of tarot card reading, or astrology..Incidentally, Hegel was an alchemist, and to presuppose that qualitative change (revolutionary) can arrive from quantitive change, has as much unfalsifiable credibility, as believing base metals can be transformed into gold.

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

Marxism is actually not an inversion of the Hegelian dialectic, this is just some poetic language used by Marx which is taken a bit too seriously but is not literally true. I'd recommend Althusser's book _For Marx._ He discusses this in a lot of detail specifically on how Marxism is just not a simple inversion of the Hegelian dialectic. Your understanding of Marx is just wrong.

[@kirklazenby1]

The inversion occurred once Marx predicated the dialectical progression of human history on economics. (Ontological materialism) because Hegel's dialectical presuppositions are predicated on ontological idealism. I'm an Hegelian. Yours and Marx's understanding of Hegel is just wrong (Read Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. The Frankfurt school salvaged the Hegelian dialectic from ashes of Marxism, and "stood it back on its feet" Adorno's Frankfurt school realigned and rebranded the Hegelian dialectic as Critical Theory (Negative dialectics) @@QuantumPolyhedron

[@kirklazenby1]

Marxism in not just Hegelian. Marxism is just: 1) German philosophy 2) French politics 3) British economics That is Marxism in its entirety. @@QuantumPolyhedron

[@QuantumPolyhedron]

@@kirklazenby1 I don't really care what you think about my "understanding of Hegel," I'm not a Hegelian and Marxism is not a inversion of Hegel.

[@kirklazenby1]

@@QuantumPolyhedron You keep making assertions such as: "Is not" and: "You're just wrong" as if that somehow negates anything I've said? As a student; Marx belonged to a social activist movement in Germany, known as "The Young Hegelians" This movement mainly focused on applying Hegelian dialectics to religion, by way of praxis (activism) Applied as a means to sublate the status quo (Christian Church) This mechanism for social change is key to both Hegel and Marx's presuppositions; It explains the process of qualitative change (revolutionary) resolving from quantitive changes (contradictions between opposites resolving through organic problematisation over time) The fundamental difference between Marx's dialectic of materialism, and Hegel's AND THE VERY REASON MARX HIMSELF STATES THAT HE HAS "TAKEN HEGEL AND STOOD HIM ON HIS HEAD" Is that Marx took a philosophical method, which is necessarily constrained to idealism, and Transcendental idealism, as a way of explaining how consciousness interacts with the world as a sensory experience Hegel used this to explain how objective reality can be found in the subject, by retroactive affirmation of the posited presupposition (Affirmation-Negation- Negation of the negation- Affirmation) Hegel believed this solved Kant's transcendental problem, which posits; that the true objective nature of reality (the thing in itself) cannot be known Marx took this 'mind-dependant' subject, and placed it in the external "mind-independent" objective world To be frank; , Marx didn't simply tweak Hegel by inverting his philosophy Marx had a fucking abortion

[@SuperResnick]

Basically read book 1 of Godwin’s Political Justice

[@g.boychev9355]

"Idealists believe that human thought comes first, that the world exists in our minds." "Most of the time idealism is used to suggest that ideas are the driving force of nature and history." Which philosopher advocated that? You certainly won't find anything like this in the Phenomenology of Spirit or the Science of Logic. Kant before him explicitly rejected that. "...arguments like: there are natural leaders and natural followers" How is that an idealistic argument? It's pretty firmly empirical - either you find some aspect of the human organism that makes people into leaders or followers, or you don't. If you don't find such an aspect, you seek other explanations for explaining why there are leaders and followers, like the circumstances they live in.

[@justbob7828]

Exactly, that is in no way a serious account on the well respected positions on idealism that are out there, at best, his comment only encompasses radical idealisms like the dream like visionary idealism of Berkeley, but essentially Kant got rid of that by establishing his transcendental or critical idealism, as he calls it, which is what Hegel based his thought on as you clearly pointed out.

[@Tobi-oi3uf]

Both material and ideas exist.

[@SK-le1gm]

Materialism is Bureaucracy. Cf Weber.

[@jerrymdanowski9825]

It means order out of chaos…

[@adsffdaaf4170]

Heisenberg was an idealist, most of the workings of quantum mechanics suggest idealism. I can't help but say that the idea that pre-colonial indigenous Americans were not destructive is completely a false notion (somewhat idealistic). Destructiveness is part of human nature. We did not see that materialism in action improved the human condition whatsoever. The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history, and a large part of that was due to Marxism and Capitalism.

[@Ricky-Spanish]

I tend to view materialism the same way as I view Newtonian physics. It's possible that any form of materialism, vulgar, dialectical or otherwise does not in fact explain the ultimate, fundamental nature of reality. Perhaps we are all just aspects of a single mind or God or something and all phenomena and experiences of separateness, subjectivity, etc. are illusions a la eastern philosophical notions of non-duality. Even if that were the case, we experience the world subjectivity and can make (essentially) objective, empirical observations of it. We know that Newtonian physics breaks down at a certain level, and yet it still works. We can still use it to make concrete observations and apply it to create all kinds of things. Similarly, materialism works in explaining complex phenomena in the world as we experience it and can be proved out sufficiently in a way that we can utilize it. To me, Marx didn't seem interested in metaphysical claims and more or less deliberately side steps that debate in favor of embracing a methodological approach that can be independently tested, measured, verified and applied, i.e. science.

[@anduinxbym6633]

You appear to be uninformed about the implications of modern day idealism. I would urge you to seriously look into the work of Bernardo Kastrup to get up to speed. As far as scientific progress is concerned, materialism offers no advantage over idealism. To say that the world around us is mental in nature does not imply that predictable regularities do not exist. It does not hinder our ability to explain one thing in terms of another thing. It does not stop us from making observations, testing the world around us, and doing science in general. Logically, idealism actually comes out ahead of materialism, as Occam's Razor sides with the idealist!

[@y9oooo6149]

Only the bourgeois can afford idealism

[@williamblake5289]

thanks

[@libbil9943]

Quantum physics.

[@Josytt]

Apparently a lot of flat earther’s are materialists, makes sense

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

It doesn't. But the proposition of the video seems like an assumption anyway. The best position IMO is "we don't know."

[@colonelweird]

If materialism simply means a rejection of idealism, then even Christian theism is a form of materialism, since theism typically asserts the objective reality of god.

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

Many branches of Abrahamic religions kinda make more sense with Materialism than Idealism. Though it may be in line with non-Monism and both. Calvinists and Pre-Destination believers really seem to have more in common with Materialists than with Idealists and other Non-Materialists.

[@OneBriteStar]

I can describe materialism with a single word: insanity.

[@orb3796]

Who are you describing it to, then, if none of us really exist according to idealism?

[@thieph]

​@@orb3796lol, what?

[@Mathfinance.]

Materialism is an Ideology, drawn from the epistemological assumption that ideas are caused by matter. The converse is Idealism. Each position is used to justify social relations and natural reality. Dilectical materialism or historical materialism is the assumption that all historical sociopolitical phenomena are the result of underlying economic system.

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

"Each position is used to justify social relations" Therein lies the problem. Social relations should be dictated by an analysis of people's will and what they can do about their circumstances. Why would they dig into metaphysics to do that? And more importantly, this really does seem like a false dichotomy.

[@Mathfinance.]

@@amerikanfascisminSyria We agree that the resultant social relations is characterized by an Ideological error. However, as I said, this state of social relations is justified on pragmatic grounds. There is no alternative as argued by David Hawks.(see David Hawks Ideology second edition chp.1). Moreover, the Morality of this state of affair is subject to a vast literature which I think is beyond my capacity to lay bare. Thank you for your analysis.

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

@@Mathfinance. We'll see. I really don't see how engaging in this futile debate of Idealism vs Materialism dictates whether Socialism or Capitalism should be chosen but I'll give David Hawks a try.

[@Mathfinance.]

@@amerikanfascisminSyria In his work "Democracy and Capitalism" Gabriel Almonds from Stanford University put forward the thesis that the economy and polity are the main problem solving mechanisms of modern society. How would you answer the question of how society should work and what means to be used for its attainment?

[@amerikanfascisminSyria]

@@Mathfinance. I believe in orthodox Marxism, so the answers are right there. There have been so many intricacies ever since Marxism was defined and elucidated from its classical form but there have been so many contributions by many people that can add to Marxism as well. The question is whether people are willing to cooperate or not. I personally don't think they ever will, so yeah, I'm a pessimist. Due to the chaotic nature of population dynamics (even within a small region within a country) and their conflicts of interest we are indeed bound for an apocalypse, and then a post-apocalyptic world. The only ones that will endure and prevail will be small populations (relatively speaking) that have cohesion and cooperate very well compared to capitalist society such as the Zapatistas. They are the ones that will inherit the world.