Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Steve3007]

Suppose we consider everything in the Universe to be lumps of matter flying around, bouncing off each other and sometimes sticking together. A bit like little pieces of Lego. This would be a literal form of materialism as opposed to the wider understandings of materialism and physicalism.

The literal form of materialism seems to mean that nothing exists except matter and things that supervene on matter. The wider form, which seems to blend into physicalism, broadens it to thing which are the subject of scientific study. So this wider form confers the status of existence on anything that can be said to be objective, in the sense of being the proposed consistent cause of an arbitrarily large number of actual and potential subjective observations. According to this wider understanding, matter would be just one example of such existents.

According to the narrower more literal form of materialism, the world would be composed entirely of discrete objects, in the sense that the spatial boundary between "object" and "not object" would be discontinuous and instantaneous. So it would be a world of instantaneous, impulsive, perfectly elastic collisions and no other interactions. That would be the only way that these things could interact with each other because it would be a world in which nothing exists except those objects and the properties of those objects or of the relationships between them when they collide or are in contact. There could be no interactions between them when they are not in contact with each other because that would require something else to exist between them. For example, the process of seeing one of these objects would consist either of other material objects bouncing off it into our eyes or of chains of collisions between a kind of "ether" of objects floating in the space between the viewed object and the retina. In the former case, the outer layers of our eyes would be microscopic sieves, or colanders, with holes through which those little objects could pass. Phenomena such as gravity, electrostatic force and magnetism would have to be envisaged by some system of little objects acting a bit like the particles in "particle exchange" models of forces, impulsively pushing objects, with perfectly elastic collisions, in the direction in which the force is said to act.

Is this kind of description of the way that the world is inevitable if we adopt a literally materialist view or is it mistaken? If so, what are the problems with this hypothesis? If it doesn't fit what we observe about the world, is that a problem? If it contains abstract concepts such as instantaneous (impulsive) forces, is that a problem?

[Terrapin Station]

I'm a "literal materialist" and I'd say that other sorts of materialism/physicalism don't make much sense.

But sure, it would be a problem if it didn't fit with observations . . . I just don't know how that could be the case, because we can't observe something other than material/relations (of material)/processes (of material).

Literal materialism wouldn't contain real (extramental) abstract objects or it wouldn't be literal materialism. And of course, we're not about to observe real abstract objects somehow.

[Marvin_Edwards]

If it were not so common that we took it for granted, gravity would be an example of "spooky action at a distance". The notion that some string of particles like "gravitons" (or rather strings of strings) doesn't solve the problem to my mind, because there must still be some "force" holding those pieces together. The metaphor for gravity is a string between our hand and a ball that we swing in a circle around ourselves. But gravity is invisible except in its effects. So, we have the notion of an invisible "force" between two objects, that keeps the earth in orbit around the sun and the moon in orbit around the earth.

Yet the force seems directly related to the mass of the two objects. It is not a free-floating force that goes around randomly connecting things. So, the origin of the force is centered in the two masses, and would not exist independently from those two masses.

So, I don't think it is possible to describe the world without the notion of forces existing between objects that keep them connected or holds them together. However, these forces do not exist independently of the objects, as they are inherent to the material.

[Pattern-chaser]

Is this kind of description of the way that the world is inevitable if we adopt a literally materialist view or is it mistaken? If so, what are the problems with this hypothesis? If it doesn't fit what we observe about the world, is that a problem? If it contains abstract concepts such as instantaneous (impulsive) forces, is that a problem?

For me, one basic problem is this.

According to the narrower more literal form of materialism, the world would be composed entirely of discrete objects...

I realise that you are simply describing a theory that already exists, and is fairly well known. But for me, it falls down right at the start. What is the justification for sub-dividing the universe (or "world", as you say) into component parts? Is the universe not just one thing? I think it is. We sub-divide it for practicality and human convenience, not out of logical or philosophical necessity. So I would say that this literal materialism falls before the first fence, as it were.

But if this isn't the direction you wanted to go here, feel free to ignore this.

[Terrapin Station]

Is this kind of description of the way that the world is inevitable if we adopt a literally materialist view or is it mistaken? If so, what are the problems with this hypothesis? If it doesn't fit what we observe about the world, is that a problem? If it contains abstract concepts such as instantaneous (impulsive) forces, is that a problem?

For me, one basic problem is this.

According to the narrower more literal form of materialism, the world would be composed entirely of discrete objects...

I realise that you are simply describing a theory that already exists, and is fairly well known. But for me, it falls down right at the start. What is the justification for sub-dividing the universe (or "world", as you say) into component parts? Is the universe not just one thing? I think it is. We sub-divide it for practicality and human convenience, not out of logical or philosophical necessity. So I would say that this literal materialism falls before the first fence, as it were.

But if this isn't the direction you wanted to go here, feel free to ignore this.

With comments like yours--I'm not picking on yours, it's just an example of a common comment--it's always ambiguous to me whether (a) folks are claiming that the world is not actually "lumpy," or (b) whether they have some sort of materialist(/physicalist) straw man in mind where they're thinking that materialists(/physicalists) are positing that parts are more or less "isolated from each other by a vacuum" so that they can't even interact with each other.

If folks are not thinking (b), which is a straw man, then the only way comments like yours make sense to me is if they're thinking (a), but it seems very odd to me that anyone would think (a), because how would they make any distinctions at all then (to name anything, for example, to talk about this and that, etc.)?

[Terrapin Station]

Re gravity, there aren't really any options that aren't counterintuitive at this point, because either we posit something like gravitons, which we haven't discovered yet and which seem like it would be a weird way for gravity to work, or we say that gravity bends spacetime, where we treat spacetime as if it's a "thing in itself," where it winds up basically being a substitute of sorts for an aether--it's making spacetime a plenum of sorts, or we posit something like a field, which is in between an aether and particle interaction like gravitons.

[Terrapin Station]

Oops, that should have read, "We say that gravity is a bending or 'distortion' of spacetime"

[Marvin_Edwards]

Re gravity, there aren't really any options that aren't counterintuitive at this point, because either we posit something like gravitons, which we haven't discovered yet and which seem like it would be a weird way for gravity to work, or we say that gravity bends spacetime, where we treat spacetime as if it's a "thing in itself," where it winds up basically being a substitute of sorts for an aether--it's making spacetime a plenum of sorts, or we posit something like a field, which is in between an aether and particle interaction like gravitons.

Yeah, I agree that gravitons seems a bit unnecessary if we presume that forces exist between objects. I like the notion of forces better.

I don't think that space or time actually bend. I think the forces produce phenomena that are metaphorically expressed as bent space and time, but I don't think we need space and time to be actually bending. On the other hand, if a mathematician finds the metaphor useful in solving her formulas then by all means go with it. But at some point it needs to be translated into a stable space and stable time matrix.

[Gertie]

Suppose we consider everything in the Universe to be lumps of matter flying around, bouncing off each other and sometimes sticking together. A bit like little pieces of Lego. This would be a literal form of materialism as opposed to the wider understandings of materialism and physicalism.

The literal form of materialism seems to mean that nothing exists except matter and things that supervene on matter. The wider form, which seems to blend into physicalism, broadens it to thing which are the subject of scientific study. So this wider form confers the status of existence on anything that can be said to be objective, in the sense of being the proposed consistent cause of an arbitrarily large number of actual and potential subjective observations. According to this wider understanding, matter would be just one example of such existents.

According to the narrower more literal form of materialism, the world would be composed entirely of discrete objects, in the sense that the spatial boundary between "object" and "not object" would be discontinuous and instantaneous. So it would be a world of instantaneous, impulsive, perfectly elastic collisions and no other interactions. That would be the only way that these things could interact with each other because it would be a world in which nothing exists except those objects and the properties of those objects or of the relationships between them when they collide or are in contact. There could be no interactions between them when they are not in contact with each other because that would require something else to exist between them. For example, the process of seeing one of these objects would consist either of other material objects bouncing off it into our eyes or of chains of collisions between a kind of "ether" of objects floating in the space between the viewed object and the retina. In the former case, the outer layers of our eyes would be microscopic sieves, or colanders, with holes through which those little objects could pass. Phenomena such as gravity, electrostatic force and magnetism would have to be envisaged by some system of little objects acting a bit like the particles in "particle exchange" models of forces, impulsively pushing objects, with perfectly elastic collisions, in the direction in which the force is said to act.

Is this kind of description of the way that the world is inevitable if we adopt a literally materialist view or is it mistaken? If so, what are the problems with this hypothesis? If it doesn't fit what we observe about the world, is that a problem? If it contains abstract concepts such as instantaneous (impulsive) forces, is that a problem?

I'm a scientific ignoramus. I dropped all science subjects in school as soon as I could because it was taught so brain numbingly boringly. And now I am interested, I don't have the basics to get to the interesting bits.

I like the idea of a universe of tiny billiard balls, I understand billiard balls! I can get from a solid table to tiny billiard balls somehow causally interacting in space because of mysterious things called forces. But then I'm done.

Time - well that's just about the fact things change really. I think. I watched a Sean Carroll video on it once - none the wiser lol.

Space - I used to think it was the gaps between and outside stuff, but now I dunno. Gaps can't bend. Space-Time, block universe ... I just don't get it.


Quantum spookiness, collapsing fields of somethingness, probabilities not causation - I can't concretise in my mind to make sense of, but presumably specialists know what they're doing. So I'll just nod along and say let me know when you've sorted it.

So that's my uninformed wobbly model of the material world, which'll do for me.



Consciousness tho, isn't in any of these pictures. Isn't predicted by the 'rules' implied by these models. That's where materialism meets its match, for now at least.

[Pattern-chaser]

For me, one basic problem is this.



I realise that you are simply describing a theory that already exists, and is fairly well known. But for me, it falls down right at the start. What is the justification for sub-dividing the universe (or "world", as you say) into component parts? Is the universe not just one thing? I think it is. We sub-divide it for practicality and human convenience, not out of logical or philosophical necessity. So I would say that this literal materialism falls before the first fence, as it were.

But if this isn't the direction you wanted to go here, feel free to ignore this.

With comments like yours--I'm not picking on yours, it's just an example of a common comment--it's always ambiguous to me whether (a) folks are claiming that the world is not actually "lumpy," or (b) whether they have some sort of materialist(/physicalist) straw man in mind where they're thinking that materialists(/physicalists) are positing that parts are more or less "isolated from each other by a vacuum" so that they can't even interact with each other.

If folks are not thinking (b), which is a straw man, then the only way comments like yours make sense to me is if they're thinking (a), but it seems very odd to me that anyone would think (a), because how would they make any distinctions at all then (to name anything, for example, to talk about this and that, etc.)?

I wasn't getting that involved. That matter is not evenly distributed thoughout the universe is an empirically-verifiable facxt, I believe. But why does this - or some other observation? - justify the conclusion that the universe comprises many separate parts?

[Gee]

Suppose we consider everything in the Universe to be lumps of matter flying around, bouncing off each other and sometimes sticking together. A bit like little pieces of Lego. This would be a literal form of materialism as opposed to the wider understandings of materialism and physicalism.

OK. What defines the "lumps"? How would there be parameters of the lumps, rather than them all melding into one lump? What are they flying around in?

The literal form of materialism seems to mean that nothing exists except matter and things that supervene on matter.

When you define something (matter), you define what it is and what it is not -- so what is the "not" part?

The wider form, which seems to blend into physicalism, broadens it to thing which are the subject of scientific study.

This looks like the original premise is based on a love of science, which might very well bias the premise.

So this wider form confers the status of existence on anything that can be said to be objective, in the sense of being the proposed consistent cause of an arbitrarily large number of actual and potential subjective observations. According to this wider understanding, matter would be just one example of such existents.

Since objectivity is based upon a consensus of subjective opinions, it appears that objectivity is dependent upon subjectivity as is existents in your above explanation. Are you looking at some kind of idealism? No?

According to the narrower more literal form of materialism, the world would be composed entirely of discrete objects, in the sense that the spatial boundary between "object" and "not object" would be discontinuous and instantaneous. So it would be a world of instantaneous, impulsive, perfectly elastic collisions and no other interactions. That would be the only way that these things could interact with each other because it would be a world in which nothing exists except those objects and the properties of those objects or of the relationships between them when they collide or are in contact. There could be no interactions between them when they are not in contact with each other because that would require something else to exist between them. For example, the process of seeing one of these objects would consist either of other material objects bouncing off it into our eyes or of chains of collisions between a kind of "ether" of objects floating in the space between the viewed object and the retina. In the former case, the outer layers of our eyes would be microscopic sieves, or colanders, with holes through which those little objects could pass. Phenomena such as gravity, electrostatic force and magnetism would have to be envisaged by some system of little objects acting a bit like the particles in "particle exchange" models of forces, impulsively pushing objects, with perfectly elastic collisions, in the direction in which the force is said to act.

Is this kind of description of the way that the world is inevitable if we adopt a literally materialist view or is it mistaken? If so, what are the problems with this hypothesis? If it doesn't fit what we observe about the world, is that a problem? If it contains abstract concepts such as instantaneous (impulsive) forces, is that a problem?

My biggest problem with this idea is "Where is the plug?". When people argue that computers are conscious, I always remind them that computers use electricity to activate. So with materialism, if these Lego's are bouncing and floating and doing all sorts of things, then where do they get the energy? Is there a big plug that plugs in the universe? Or how does materialism work?

Gee

[Gee]

If it were not so common that we took it for granted, gravity would be an example of "spooky action at a distance". The notion that some string of particles like "gravitons" (or rather strings of strings) doesn't solve the problem to my mind, because there must still be some "force" holding those pieces together. The metaphor for gravity is a string between our hand and a ball that we swing in a circle around ourselves. But gravity is invisible except in its effects. So, we have the notion of an invisible "force" between two objects, that keeps the earth in orbit around the sun and the moon in orbit around the earth.

Yet the force seems directly related to the mass of the two objects. It is not a free-floating force that goes around randomly connecting things. So, the origin of the force is centered in the two masses, and would not exist independently from those two masses.

So, I don't think it is possible to describe the world without the notion of forces existing between objects that keep them connected or holds them together. However, these forces do not exist independently of the objects, as they are inherent to the material.

This comment is a little off topic, but I just had to state that your last two paragraphs are a wonderful explanation for Jung's collective communal unconscious. If you changed the word "mass" to life forms, the above would be a valid understanding of my thoughts on the unconscious and how it works between life forms.

Gee

[Terrapin Station]

I wasn't getting that involved. That matter is not evenly distributed thoughout the universe is an empirically-verifiable facxt, I believe. But why does this - or some other observation? - justify the conclusion that the universe comprises many separate parts?

The lumps--the uneven bits--are the parts. It's just a way of denoting a lack of homogeneity and talking about how the lumps/the non-homogeneous bits interact in dynamic relations.

[Steve3007]

Literal materialism wouldn't contain real (extramental) abstract objects or it wouldn't be literal materialism. And of course, we're not about to observe real abstract objects somehow.

In the literally materialist world that I attempted to partially describe in the third paragraph of the OP, I stated that the only interactions between objects would have to be perfectly elastic, instantaneous (i.e. impulsive) collisions. The reason I stated this was that this is the only way to preserve the idea that the only existent is matter and the properties of matter. As you've stated before, according to this worldview, kinetic energy exists insofar as it is a property only of matter; of its movement relative to other matter. But potential energy does not exist because it is a property of the relative positions of matter within fields. And according to literal materialism (as I understand it) fields don't exist so potential energy doesn't exist. Any non-instantaneous collision between two objects requires the kinetic energy of those objects to be temporarily converted to potential energy during the collision process. There is a non-zero period of time during which their relative movement (their relative kinetic energy) reduces to zero and kinetic energy is converted to potential energy. In an instantaneous collision there isn't. So this is the only kind of interaction that literal materialism allows.

Do you agree with this analysis so far?

But gravity is invisible except in its effects.

Isn't everything?

Yet the force seems directly related to the mass of the two objects. It is not a free-floating force that goes around randomly connecting things. So, the origin of the force is centered in the two masses, and would not exist independently from those two masses.

So, I don't think it is possible to describe the world without the notion of forces existing between objects that keep them connected or holds them together. However, these forces do not exist independently of the objects, as they are inherent to the material.

So, does this mean that you regard the notion of a force existing (being real) as compatible with literal materialism because you regard forces as inalienable properties of matter, just as other properties like their relative motion are?

...But for me, it falls down right at the start. What is the justification for sub-dividing the universe (or "world", as you say) into component parts? Is the universe not just one thing? I think it is. We sub-divide it for practicality and human convenience, not out of logical or philosophical necessity. So I would say that this literal materialism falls before the first fence, as it were.

What is the justification for regarding the universe as just one thing? What is the justification for any system of division and classification? There are an infinite number of possible classification systems in which you could divide the universe into parts, including the one in which you stick to just one part (and call it the universe). On what basis might you regard one of these systems as representing the way things really are to a greater extent than the other systems do? You seem to arbitrarily pick the "it's just one part" system as representing reality. Why that one?

[Steve3007]

And now I am interested, I don't have the basics to get to the interesting bits.

I think you're still more insightful than many in at least recognizing that you need the basics in order to properly understand what the interesting bits are saying. Jumping straight to the interesting bits is more fun than first wading through the basics. But if we're going to do that we have to keep in mind that if we find something that we find surprising or strange, we shouldn't immediately dismiss it as nonsense. I've often used the analogy in the past of building a house. The basics are the foundations and walls. The interesting bits are the roof. A lot of people look straight at the roof and declare that it seems to be floating, unsupported, in the air. They often then declare it to be nonsense.

I like the idea of a universe of tiny billiard balls, I understand billiard balls!

Yes, as a general rule we tend to feel more comfortable extrapolating from things with which we have a lifetime of directly interacting. We tend to think that this allows us to intuit the truth of things with which we haven't directly interacted and maybe things which we will never be able to directly interact with.