Philosophy Discussion Forums

Terrapin Station wrote:Again, I'm not saying anything about definitions. I'm simply trying to communicate with you. I have to give you an idea of what I'm talking about So that you can understand why the idea is incoherent or inconceivable on my view.

I'm not making points about definitions either. I'm explaining why I don't think that energy in the absence of mass is incoherent. But to talk about that we have to use words and to use words we must have at least some idea of what those words mean. They don't necessarily have to mean the same thing to you as they do to me, but we do have to have some idea what they mean to each other. I presume that's why you said "'thing' here in the object/matter/'stuff' sense". You wanted to let me know how, in this context, you're using the word "thing", by telling me some approximate synonyms for it.

at any rate, re physics, "mass" is defined quantitatively, and it's about inertia. I wasn't saying anything about quantities or inertia.

Are you saying you'd rather use the word "matter" instead of "mass" because you regard mass as being defined quantitatively, and you don't regard matter as such? Ok.

So how do you define "matter" other than simply by stating some approximate synonyms for the word? What is matter, onotologically, to you?

I'm saying something about the world independent of us. Of course, I need to use words to do this, but it's like when we're pointing at the moon. We're trying to get someone to look at the moon. If they can only look at our fingers, we have a problem. But of course we can't point at the moon without using fingers.

So am I. I'm saying something about energy, not about the word "energy". You regard energy as the movement of matter - i.e. a property of matter. In other words, the only energy whose ontological existence you recognize is the kinetic energy of matter. (I was going to say "of massive objects" - objects with mass - but since you don't like that word because you consider it too quantitative I'm happy to say "matter".)

I disagree. I regard energy as a thing, like matter.

How would we go about resolving that difference? Is it possible to resolve it? Is one of us objectively right and the other objectively wrong?

I would start by talking about observations, but from past conversations I suspect you wouldn't like that and would say that we're not discussing what is observed; we're discussing what is?

Atla wrote: ↑May 17th, 2020, 2:14 amMaterialism is the view that reality (the world) consists of matter.

(Earlier it was more like the view that the reality-separate-from-the-mind consists of matter, but since then this kind of objective/subjective dichotomy was scientifically refuted, much to the horror of some scientist. Nowadays fewer and fewer remain in denial about this.)

So reality consists of matter, "mere stuff." (Energy/information/etc. can also be seen as a form of matter under this definition of matter.) One small problem with this is that matter itself doesn't actually exist. Matter is yet another ancient concept that got reified. Again, such reifications are extremely useful, even kinda necessary, except when it comes to fundamental ontology.

So for a long time physicists tried to figure out what matter actually is, without success, and many of them eventually gave up. They even stopped asking the question. Now matter is usually just values we plug into equations.

There is no matter, yet direct experience undeniably exists, the world undeniably exists. We use the concept of matter to describe what happens in this direct existence, or in the noumenal world represented in our direct experience.

Now what are you, your neuroscientists, and many philosophers trying to accomplish?

They try to solve how matter, which is a description based on direct experience, creates direct experience. Some have commented that this is the definiton of insanity.

Personally I think it's just very misguided, it only qualifies as insane when, once they inevitably fail to solve the problem, as a result therefore they in some way dismiss the existence of direct experience. Thus denying that there is any problem at all.

So no, contrary to popular belief, "some day neuroscience/physics will figure it out" may not even be an existing option.

No, it certainly is an "existing option"!

For the record: I reject eliminative materialism about phenomenal consciousness aka subjective experience!

As I said, the noun "matter" has more than one meaning; but if it refers to the totality of bodies, the entirety of all simple corpuscles (particles) and all objects or materials composed of them, then there is a huge amount of physical (or chemical) knowledge about matter. The physical standard model is a model of matter!

From the perspective of physical realism, matter is a concrete reality rather than just an abstract factor in mathematical equations that corresponds to nothing concretely and mind-independently real in space and time. Note that "matter" in the sense of "physical matter" is not synonymous with "matter" in the sense of "subject matter of physics" or "whatever physics is about and deals with"!

Moreover, the equivalence of energy and mass is not to be misunderstood as the (nonexistent) identity of energy and matter: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equi ... cAbouEoMc2

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2020, 2:51 pm

Terrapin Station wrote:Again, I'm not saying anything about definitions. I'm simply trying to communicate with you. I have to give you an idea of what I'm talking about So that you can understand why the idea is incoherent or inconceivable on my view.

I'm not making points about definitions either. I'm explaining why I don't think that energy in the absence of mass is incoherent. But to talk about that we have to use words and to use words we must have at least some idea of what those words mean. They don't necessarily have to mean the same thing to you as they do to me, but we do have to have some idea what they mean to each other. I presume that's why you said "'thing' here in the object/matter/'stuff' sense". You wanted to let me know how, in this context, you're using the word "thing", by telling me some approximate synonyms for it.

at any rate, re physics, "mass" is defined quantitatively, and it's about inertia. I wasn't saying anything about quantities or inertia.

Are you saying you'd rather use the word "matter" instead of "mass" because you regard mass as being defined quantitatively, and you don't regard matter as such? Ok.

So how do you define "matter" other than simply by stating some approximate synonyms for the word? What is matter, onotologically, to you?

I'm saying something about the world independent of us. Of course, I need to use words to do this, but it's like when we're pointing at the moon. We're trying to get someone to look at the moon. If they can only look at our fingers, we have a problem. But of course we can't point at the moon without using fingers.

So am I. I'm saying something about energy, not about the word "energy". You regard energy as the movement of matter - i.e. a property of matter. In other words, the only energy whose ontological existence you recognize is the kinetic energy of matter. (I was going to say "of massive objects" - objects with mass - but since you don't like that word because you consider it too quantitative I'm happy to say "matter".)

I disagree. I regard energy as a thing, like matter.

How would we go about resolving that difference? Is it possible to resolve it? Is one of us objectively right and the other objectively wrong?

I would start by talking about observations, but from past conversations I suspect you wouldn't like that and would say that we're not discussing what is observed; we're discussing what is?

Again, so the problem is that I simply can't conceive how energy could exist apart from matter.

It's not a definitional issue. It's an issue of whether I can make the slightest bit of sense of something.

Can't you just explain how we'd have energy sans matter? What would you say it is (aside from just saying "energy")? What would be observed (in the scientific sense of "observe")? Etc. Just any way that you could try to describe it so that it makes any sense.

Terrapin Station wrote:Can't you just explain how we'd have energy sans matter? What would you say it is (aside from just saying "energy")? What would be observed (in the scientific sense of "observe")? Etc. Just any way that you could try to describe it so that it makes any sense.

So you're okay with me talking about what things exist in terms of how they are observed. Good. I'm glad about that because, in my view, it's the only possible way to decide what things exist.

Relating back to the start of this conversation: One of the things that would be observed is a suntan. I propose that the reason I get a suntan is that a thing travels from the sun to my skin. I call that thing energy. Another would be everything else. I propose that the reason I see anything at all is that a thing is either emitted or reflected into my eyes. I call that thing energy.

So, what would you say would be observed which indicates that matter exists? If you look at a table, what, in your view, is happening? Is some matter bouncing off the table and entering your eyes?

Terrapin Station wrote:Again, so the problem is that I simply can't conceive how energy could exist apart from matter.

Again, I say that the reason you can't conceive how energy could exist apart from matter is that you define energy as a property of matter, don't you?

By the way, the conversation is now roughly at the stage that this conversation was at:
viewtopic.php?p=346294#p346294

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2020, 2:51 pmI disagree. I regard energy as a thing, like matter.

I think it's a category mistake to regard energy as a kind of thing or stuff.

QUOTE>
"Energy is not a stuff. ...[E]nergy is a real, quantitative property.... Not every property of an object consists of the object's possessing some sort of stuff. For example, to be happy is not to be filled with a large quantity of a special kind of stuff: 'happiness'. A body's velocity does not measure the amount of a stuff that it possesses. Likewise, neither a body's kinetic energy nor a field's energy is stuff. ...Since energy is a property, any energy (like velocity) cannot exist without something possessing it. Thus, field energy requires a field."

(Lange, Marc. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics: Locality, Fields, Energy, and Mass. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. p. 152)
<QUOTE

Remark: I think fields aren't physical substances, physical things or stuffs either. They are things only if "thing" is used synonymously with "entity" in the broadest ontological sense of the term, but not if "thing" means "object" or "substance" in the narrow ontological sense of the term. In my understanding, physical fields are nonsubstantial spatiotemporal collections or distributions of physical attributes, of determinate physical quantities belonging to some determinable physical quantity (such as energy), whose substantial substratum is spacetime or matter.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2020, 3:14 pm Relating back to the start of this conversation: One of the things that would be observed is a suntan.

If you're observing a suntan, you're observing skin changing color. To observe energy sans matter, you have to actually observe that. So are you observing that?

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2020, 3:17 pm

Terrapin Station wrote:Again, so the problem is that I simply can't conceive how energy could exist apart from matter.

Again, I say that the reason you can't conceive how energy could exist apart from matter is that you define energy as a property of matter, don't you?

No. It has nothing whatsoever to do with defining anything in any manner. I don't know how to express that so you can understand it.

The idea that it would have anything to do with defining things is absurd in my view.

Terrapin Station wrote:No. It has nothing whatsoever to do with defining anything in any manner. I don't know how to express that so you can understand it.

The idea that it would have anything to do with defining things is absurd in my view.

The trouble is, you fixate on things. You're now fixated on "defining". Let me put it another way.

Do you think energy is a property of matter?

Do I think energy is a property of matter?

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2020, 3:35 pm

Terrapin Station wrote:No. It has nothing whatsoever to do with defining anything in any manner. I don't know how to express that so you can understand it.

The idea that it would have anything to do with defining things is absurd in my view.

The trouble is, you fixate on things. You're now fixated on "defining". Let me put it another way.

Do you think energy is a property of matter?

Do I think energy is a property of matter?

I think that energy is a property of dynamic relations of matter. That's different than it just being a property of matter. But the matter is necessary.

The reason I think this has nothing at all to do with definitions. It has to do with the fact that I find alternatives incoherent. The notion of energy apart from matter doesn't make any sense. If sense could be made of it, then maybe I'd not think that energy only makes sense as dynamic relations of matter.

You don't think that energy requires matter. The challenge is to explain how energy could exist apart from dynamic relations of matter so that we can make any sense of that idea.

Consul wrote:I think it's a category mistake to regard energy as a kind of thing or stuff.

Then, on that specific issue, you agree with Terrapin Station. Fair enough. So do you agree with him that it is a property of matter?

Terrapin Station wrote:I think that energy is a property of dynamic relations of matter. That's different than it just being a property of matter. But the matter is necessary.

Whatever. The point is that this is the reason why you consider it incoherent to propose the existence of energy without matter.

Terrapin Station wrote:You don't think that energy requires matter. The challenge is to explain how energy could exist apart from dynamic relations of matter so that we can make any sense of that idea.

Okay. If I were to say: "One form of energy is a thing which travels from one piece of matter to another" would you regard that as stating that energy is a dynamic relation of matter? I think probably not. Would you regard it as incoherent?

Note: I'm not asking if you think it's wrong. I'm asking if you think it's incoherent. If incoherent, why?

Terrapin Station wrote:If sense could be made of it, then maybe I'd not think that energy only makes sense as dynamic relations of matter.

This is the wrong way around. The reason why you can't make sense of it is because you regard energy as as dynamic relations of matter.