I have never seen a discussion on this subject but I see it as reasonable to say that materialism/physicalism applies to our universe, a universe that we can describe using physics, that we can get evidence about by physical methods and try to bring order to using physical laws. That /what created our universe we have as far as I know no evidence about and therefore we can't apply physical methods. It seems to be outside the physical realm and discussions about it are metaphysical, at least currently.RickD wrote:Isn't that self-defeating?Nils wrote:
I have to clarify. A materialistic world-view should, to be coherent, be able to explain everything in the world. But it is not required that it explains how the world came into existence. That question is outside the scope of materialism and in that sense there is no need for an answer. But my world-view includes the existence question and therefore the question is important to me
If one who holds to a materialistic world-view admits that something is outside the scope of materialism, then how can materialism hold water?
Whatever you think of my discussion above I don't think it will influence the validity or consistence of a materialistic universe.
Nils