Reddit mentions of A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

It is quite likely I will regret biting, but you have made some points worth responding to.

>I could easily post a good half a dozen or more serious problems with materialism.

Do it, it will be appreciated I think (that is if they are not just already dealt with smoke screens). The SEP article on Physicalism has a good summary of some standard objections.

>This objection seems to rest on the idea that we've figured out everything that's happening in the brain.

Someone making the argument might assume that, but I and many other physicalists don't assume this. We update our probability estimate on propositions such as "the mind is physical" when we examine the evidence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence when your prediction expects there to be evidence. If for example some form of dualism predicts that we should see physical effects in the brain with no antecedent physical cause, then not finding effects in the brain with antecedent physical cause should (if you are behaving rationally) cause you to lower your confidence in the proposition that predicts the effects.

"There is a dragon in my garage" me "Looks for dragon in garage… Hmm doesn't look like it"

It is good for you that I have high confidence that "the mind is physical" because any evidence to the contrary will cause a change in belief proportional to the high expectation from my hypothesis. My hypothesis predicts that there will be no effects in brain that when fully investigated have no physical causes (aside from what you have in the situation of quantum decoherence). And when we find evidence that contradicts this prediction I will update my beliefs, both on the truth of physicalism and also one the propositions that predict the evidence.

I understand that this might be a tangent, because you may not think dualism makes such predictions but maybe you could let me know some of the predictions that your form of dualism makes?

>I wouldn't be surprised if, in a few decades, it's found that much less is happening in the brain than there should be... juuust at the moment when our way of life, with its huge scientific foundation and influence, has fallen apart. It'd make for a great conclusion to the story of the Western world!

I would, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if our understanding of the brain and consciousness has changed significantly by then. Of course I will update my beliefs either way it goes. I am not attached to physicalism.

>Regardless, the only options aren't materialism and the idea that there is "something more" than the physical brain that completes the mind. I think that everything is mind and that, for example, our planet is merely a more solid type of imagination.

Maybe you will be interested in this video.

>What does it even mean to be "material?" At first we conceived of fundamental matter as being basically very tiny billiard balls. Then quantum physics and a host of other advances blew up that idea, but it seems that "materialism" hasn't changed.

Come on. No modern treatment of physicalism/materialism espouses such a view. Many physicalists freely admit that we don't yet have (and may never have) a complete view of the physical laws, but they still believe that despite this physicalism is the most probable hypothesis. If you haven't already read it I recommend reading Andrew Melnyk - A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism.

The hard problem of consciousness alludes to the fact that we don't know how the brain produces consciousness, but we already know that it does. Physical and material aren't vacuous terms at all. Somebodies' say so doesn't make it so. You should check out the argument from authority fallacy in good times, since your pretentious and pompous drivel is always chock full of it. I could also cite tons of philosophers who subscribe to physicalism, many of whom have actually done real work in that regard instead of scholastic mental masturbation. For example. And you'd run out of fringe cranks to cite much quicker than I'd run out of good philosophers to cite, because the majority of professional philosophers subscribes to naturalism. Also: material is usually understood to be space, time, fundamental particles, fields, energy, laws of nature.

>> There has never been a counterexample to the fundamental pillar of mind physicalism: a change in mental states cannot occur without a change in physical brain states.

> Are you kidding me? There's so many theories of mind out there

A theory is not an example. Can you actually provide a counterexample? Because nobody can.

> what you call 'mind' in these experiments also causally effect brain structures

What the hell. Prove that and collect your Nobel Prize.

> David Chalmers, the guy noted for detailing the hard problem of consciousness is an atheist.

More argument from authority. Chalmers' arguments are so dumb that they actually lead even more philosophers towards mind physicalism. Pigliucci calls his views The Chalmers Delusion.

> But if physicalism is true then mind doesn't even exist or at best is just an effect or byproduct of the brain so it would have no causal powers, yet the mind does have causal powers.

The mind doesn't have causal powers. The only causal effects so far discovered are force interactions in physics. The list of causal forces goes gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, weak force. It does not go gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, weak force, minds. If you could demonstrate any causal power besides the four known, again multiple Nobel Prizes would be yours.

You've also just unintentionally revealed a trick. You (non physicalists) love to define minds and consciousness as something which doesn't actually exist, and then ask the question how the physical brain can produce that. Well it couldn't and it doesn't. What you imagine as minds or consciousness simply doesn't exist and has nothing to do with real minds and real consciousness, which is just what brains do.

> To identify God's essence with anything at all is nonsensical

Of course. Exactly like in the case of all other fictional characters.