Materialism is a metaphysical standpoint. Metaphysics is not restricted to "concepts or principles that transcend the physical or empirical realm and are typically associated with supernatural aspects of reality". Also 'metaphysics' is not synonymous with 'supernatural'; the former term, in its "popular" sense may share some associations with 'supernatural', but not so in its philosophical sense. There is no 'philosophy of the supernatural'. — Janus

That may be true. But the pertinent point in this thread is that Materialism is presented as a natural fact, while alternative metaphysical notions are rejected as Super-natural fictions. It's like an old western showdown : there ain't no room in this town (Truth) for both tangible Matter and intangible Mind.

Some posters may imagine that Mind & Consciousness are ghostly spirits floating around in space. But in most of the dialogs I'm familiar with, Mental phenomena may be described as immaterial-but-natural Functions dependent on material substrates. We could debate about which came first -- Mind or Matter -- but that would be simply a contrast of personal opinions, not of objective Truths vs subjective Fictions. Even Objectivity is a subjective metaphysical concept, an Ideal to aspire to. :smile:

Mental states, if they are equivalent to brain states, may be material. Abstractions generally are not material (IE they are not objects of the senses) but concepts, not physical, but conceptual. Calling such things "immaterial" is tendentious, in my view.

@Gnomon :roll:

[E]xplain why, particularly in philosophy, you prioritize 'arguments with non-propositional premises' (re: mental-states (i.e. ideals)) over above 'arguments with propositional premises' (re: more-than-mental-states (i.e. concepts)). — 180 Proof

the pertinent point in this thread is that Materialism is presented as a natural fact, while alternative metaphysical notions are rejected as Super-natural fictions. It's like an old western showdown : there ain't no room in this town (Truth) for both tangible Matter and intangible Mind. — Gnomon

That's pertinent in many a thread. This is why I keep referring to Thomas Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, although it is often misconstrued as an apologetic for religion, which it isn't. What Nagel is saying, is that there are certain avenues of thought that are cut off because of their association with religious ideas. And it is very much relevant to the point you're making.

He starts with a passage from C S Peirce, which concludes:

The soul's deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will by slow percolation gradually reach the very core of one's being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

Nagel says that he finds Peirce's musings 'congenial', but also notes that they're 'quite out of keeping with present fashion.' He says 'the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable. The thought that the relation between mind and the world is something fundamental makes many people in this day and age nervous. I believe this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.'

There is then an often-quoted elaboration of the fear of religion which I won't reproduce again (you can find it here). But Nagel is not, as I said, preaching - he declares that he himself is an atheist. It's more that what he sees as the fear of religion has pernicious and generally unstated philosophical consequences. The argument then goes on to discuss 'the sovereignty of reason' and, in particular, whether reason can be understood as a consequence of evolutionary biology, without undermining it. (The tension between philosophical rationalism and naturalism is another very important theme in my opinion.)

He develops this argument in more detail in his 2012 Mind and Cosmos, where he argues that the materialist concept of mind is self-contradictory. According to the materialist neo-Darwinian view, consciousness and subjective experience are seen as byproducts of physical processes, understandable solely through the perspectives of evolutionary biology and neurobiology (which is the view expressed by Daniel Dennett and other scientific materialists).

Nagel argues that this perspective falls short in providing a comprehensive account of consciousness because it focuses solely on objective, third-person explanations rooted in physical processes and fails to address the subjective, first-person aspects of conscious experience. He argues that subjective experience, or what it is like to be a conscious being, cannot be reduced to any purely physical or functional explanations and that to depict it as a kind of accident is basically absurd (as many philosophers have said about Dennett's philosophy.)

Which is basically one of the main subjects of argument in this and any number of threads. I think the majority view maintains defensive or presumptive materialism - defensive, because questioning materialism seems to open the door to religious philosophy, or presumptive, because it is presumed in the absence of a defensible model of idealism, having first defined idealism in terms of the 'ghost in the machine' model of Cartesianism. In that context, the presumption of materialism, whilst itself not a religious view, is held for religious reasons, namely that to question it, is to open the door for what is not, in Nagel's terms, 'secularly comfortable'.

Nagel's argument that 'a philosophical construct like "subjectivity" – itself, at best, a secondary quality (re: Democritus, Galileo, Locke) – be accounted for by the natural sciences' proceeds from a category error as well as his profound misunderstanding of the epistemic status (i.e. probabilistic fallibilism via abduction) of scientific theories such as e.g. 'neo-Darwinian Evolution'.

↪Gnomon
Mental states, if they are equivalent to brain states, may be material. Abstractions generally are not material (IE they are not objects of the senses) but concepts, not physical, but conceptual. Calling such things "immaterial" is tendentious, in my view. — Janus

My use of "immaterial" is indeed "tendentious". It's intended to discriminate between tangible objects and intangible feelings. For example, Nagel's question "what is it like to be a bat?" is not inquiring about the stuff we can see or touch, but about the inner being : the sense of self. Even the terms "sense" & "feeling" may be biased (tendentious) toward materialism, in their literal reference to the five senses. That's why I sometimes refer to "Reason" as a sixth sense. It's a way of knowing that is not limited to physical sensations. By that, I don't mean that Reason is Extra Sensory Perception in the mystical meaning of that term. But merely that the brain can produce abstract concepts from concrete experience : by metaphorically removing the material flesh from the immaterial bones. Reason goes beyond the physics of matter (meta-physics). So, Materialism is literally irrational in that it excludes the immaterial function that we call "Reason".

As you said, Abstractions are not material objects. Which is why they can be described as immaterial. I don't mean that mental images are Spiritual, but merely that they are Ideas or Theories or Generalizations that have left behind their material substance, and exist in the Mind as imaginary Concepts, not sensory Percepts. Ghosts & Spirits are abstractions from real-world experience. But some people interpret those mental images as-if they are external objects in the real world, instead of internal ideas about the real world. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts", because ideas can't hurt my flesh.

Our matter-based vocabularies are problematic for philosophers, when we try to discuss anything that is not material. That may be why Aristotle made a distinction between "Substance" and "Essence". But some philosophers, such as Spinoza, used "substance" to refer to what Aristotle defined as "essence". In one sense, the essence of a thing is "what it's like" to be that thing. But in another sense, "essence" is the logical or ontological structure of a thing. Yet again, the word "structure" has a material bias, which makes it difficult to make sense of abstractions without sounding like non-sense. :smile:


PS__A Brain State is not a physical object but a functional property or quality of interrelated inter-operating neural elements. A neurosurgeon can't remove a specific brain state with his scalpel, It's not a physical organ. Brain states are excluded from literal Materialism.

To Abstract : existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.
Note -- In my vocabulary, Abstractions (ideas) are "immaterial". Thus, excluded from the Materialistic worldview.

I do not understand what you mean by using the word "ground". But no matter. Regarding deities their are many. The ultimate creator is of and resides on a spiritual plane which pre-dates and is above the created physical and lower spiritual universe. Stars, when mature and after they are designated by authority are the physical manifestations of lesser Gods. Our star, sol, is one of these so called sacred ones. A god really does inhabit our star. The responsibility of this god is to maintain, guide the entirety of our solar system.

The above is or was well known to the ancients who ruled this Earth long before the advent of both Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The idea of god is not so simple as we are led to believe... The ancients knew more than we, today, about the organization of the Earth's heavens.

As usual, Christianity is behind the curve. They are the last ones to be enlightened. One can only wonder why.

Our star, sol, is one of these so called sacred ones. A god really does inhabit our star. The responsibility of this god is to maintain, guide the entirety of our solar system. — Varnaj42

What would be the responsibility of a lesser god inhabiting a star with no solar system to maintain?

That's pertinent in many a thread. This is why I keep referring to Thomas Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, although it is often misconstrued as an apologetic for religion, which it isn't. What Nagel is saying, is that there are certain avenues of thought that are cut off because of their association with religious ideas. And it is very much relevant to the point you're making. — Wayfarer

Yes. The materialistic Enlightenment era not only categorically rejected all Religious doctrines, it also rejected all philosophical beliefs that "go beyond" actual/factual descriptions of the world based on the five senses (meta-physics). It's such a categorical exclusion that makes calm reasoned discussions almost impossible, for those who wish to discuss anything that exists mentally but not materially : such as Consciousness or Monism.

Back when I tried to justify my rejection of my youthful religion, I had to make clear that I was not debating personal beliefs, but merely that I had found the material Bible --- often carried around like an ancient idol --- to be an unreliable foundation for such beliefs. Now, I'm having to reverse that strategy; to provide specific material facts for my worldview. Today, my philosophical beliefs are often categorically characterized as New Age instead of Christian. That's because Materialism ( a metaphysical system of belief) leaves no other trash can to put ideas about ideals into. :smile:


Note -- In the old TV series Dragnet, no-nonsense detective Sgt. Joe Friday often cut-off his rambling witnesses with : Just the facts ma'am". Ironically, Philosophy doesn't deal with "facts". That's the job of science.

This is an answer I just posted in another thread to basically the same question:

Maybe the feeling, the seeing and the thinking are just physical processes, but not physical processes that we can understand in the "mechanical" way we understand some other physical processes. Perhaps it is our ability to understand some physical processes in a mechanical way that leads to the prejudice that all physical processes must be mechanical, and that therefore the experience of seeing, feeling and thinking cannot be physical because we cannot understand them in mechanical terms. — Janus

As you said, Abstractions are not material objects. Which is why they can be described as immaterial. I don't mean that mental images are Spiritual, but merely that they are Ideas or Theories or Generalizations that have left behind their material substance, and exist in the Mind as imaginary Concepts, not sensory Percepts. — Gnomon

From the fact that abstractions are not material objects it does not follow that they are immaterial. They may be material processes. Digestion is a material process which is not a material object.

Ideas, theories and generalizations only exist insofar as they are physically instantiated. Also, the idea of "material substance" is questionable; at the very least it is ambiguous. In ordinary usage it refers to tangibility, to some sensorially apprehensible aspect of the objects we see, hear, touch, and so on.

Digestion is a material process which is not a material object.

Ideas, theories and generalizations only exist insofar as they are physically instantiated. — Janus

:up: :up:

To my mind, simply put, material corresponds to instantiated (observable); physical corresponds to material system (configurable); and natural corresponds to physical structure (invariant).

The Enlightenment era not only categorically rejected all Religious doctrines, it also rejected all philosophical beliefs that "go beyond" actual/factual descriptions of the world based on the five senses (meta-physics). — Gnomon

Much of the fault lies with the ‘rule of fear’ of the Churches and disgust with the religious wars and power struggles.

The Enlightenment era not only categorically rejected all Religious doctrines, it also rejected all philosophical beliefs that "go beyond" actual/factual descriptions of the world based on the five senses (meta-physics). — Gnomon

Enlightenment philosophy may have demystified established doctrines of the era, but at the same time, initiated its own doctrines under religious, or at least theological, conditions, so the Enlightenment didn’t categorically reject all religious doctrines.

And the general Enlightenment philosophical arena certainly didn’t so much reject metaphysics altogether, but rather, merely created a new way of doing it, in which the a priori domain as subjects, rather than the five-senses descriptions of the world as objects, assumed primacy.

It isn’t so much what the Enlightenment rejected, but what it initiated; not which forces were diminished as much as which forces were empowered.

From the fact that abstractions are not material objects it does not follow that they are immaterial. They may be material processes. Digestion is a material process which is not a material object. — Janus

Since the prefix "im-" literally means "not", it follows that whatever is "not material" is literally "immaterial"*1. Yet apparently, those not-matter words have an unplatable implication for you. Perhaps, to you "immaterial" is equated with "unreal" or "spiritual", and "material" means "real" or "mundane". If so, your definition of "material" is even more metaphysical*2 than mine. Instead of those spooky notions though, I'm thinking in terms of reductive/pluralistic scientific categories, in which massive Matter is merely a condensed form of ethereal Energy (E=MC^2), or ultimately of elucidating Light.

In the metaphysics of Materialism, both tangible things and conceptual processes are included under the umbrella of Physicalism or Realism. Yet, physical scientists routinely make a distinction between Matter and processes affecting material objects. For example, Matter (mass) has inertia, and does not change position unless acted upon by some outside Force. But what substance is a force made of? For scientists, a Force is a type of Energy acting upon Matter*3. Ironically, The ancient philosophy of Materialism, led 18th century scientists to imagine Energy as a material substance : Phlogistion*4. But today, Energy (causation) is accepted as an immaterial & non-mechanical influence on matter (spooky action at a distance).

Materialism is a monistic doctrine*5, based on evidence of the physical senses. But my personal Enformationism worldview is also monistic, and based on the non-physical (immaterial) element of the real world that we know in various forms, such as Energy or Mind or Reason. According to Materialism, the Mind must be material. But that presumption leads to the philosophical Mind/Body Problem. Yet, if you assume that Generic Information is the basic element of the world, the "problem" vanishes as you look at it from a new perspective : Information Physics*6. I won't go into the details of that worldview here. I'll just mention that it's a novel form of Metaphysical Monism. :smile:


*1. A Prefix 'im' is used in the following two situations: Meaning not or no: when the prefix 'im' is used with some adjectives and nouns that begin with b, m, or p, it states the opposite meaning. For example immortal, immature, imperfect, etc.
https://theglobalmontessorinetwork.org/resource/elementary/prefixes-im-english/

*2. Metaphysical : referring to an idea, doctrine, or posited reality outside of human sense perception. In modern philosophical terminology, metaphysics refers to the studies of what cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality. ___Wiki

*3. In physics, a force is an influence that causes the motion of an object with mass to change its velocity i.e., to accelerate. ___Wiki
Note -- Influence comes in many immaterial forms, from physical forces to social influences.

*4. Phlogiston, in early chemical theory, hypothetical principle of fire, of which every combustible substance was in part composed. In this view, the phenomena of burning, now called oxidation, was caused by the liberation of phlogiston, with the dephlogisticated substance left as an ash or residue.
https://www.britannica.com/science/phlogiston

*5. Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. ___Wikipedia

*6. Information physics, which is based on understanding the ways in which we both quantify and process information about the world around us, is a fundamentally new approach to science.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.5161
Note -- 21st century scientists now posit Information as the fundamental element of reality.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-information-fundamental/

I mostly agree with you on non material and immaterial being the same. Or it could be a matter of different definitions being used.

Monism, materialism, physicalism and presentism all have the limitation of only existing in the physical present. So how do our brains perceive past and future which are physically non existent? An obvious answer is our brains are physically in the present but have the ability to hold the immaterial...our ability to think outside of the present time proves it. So what else do our brains hold that is immaterial? Basically all mental content...it appears me.

And since you referenced information physics I'll just say I don't think it's good science at all. A better view is that information simply exists in the form of physical brains holding immaterial content. This would be at the physical scale of complex neuron groups and not at quantum scales.

And since you referenced information physics I'll just say I don't think it's good science at all. — Mark Nyquist

We seem to be in agreement on the material vs non-material question. But not on the emerging concept of Generic Information as the fundamental element of reality. That still emerging "science" grew out of Information theory & Quantum physics since the early 20th century. And due to the subject non-matter, it is still more philosophy than empirical science. So, I'll have to agree with your assessment that it's not "good science"--- meaning productive of hard goods, like Atomic Bombs & Cell Phones.

However, since I am not a scientist, I am more interested in its philosophical implications, than in its material products. FWIW, the Santa Fe Institute views Information theory as essential to the emerging sciences of Systems & Complexity. So, maybe tangible results will eventually come from their studies of intangible Information.

Nevertheless, In my Enformationism thesis, I have made immaterial Information (power to create actual forms from unformed Potential) the foundation of my personal worldview --- regardless of any material toys that might result from understanding complex interacting systems as various manifestations of universal causal power : what I call EnFormAction --- conventionally known as Energy. :smile:



The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems. ___Wikipedia
https://www.santafe.edu/

To my mind, simply put, material corresponds to instantiated (observable); physical corresponds to material system (configurable); and natural corresponds to physical structure (invariant). — 180 Proof

That all makes sense to me. So, on those definitions if consciousness is observable via brain-scanning then it would qualify as physical. On the other hand, if we each know from experience that we are conscious, then it must also be observable in another sense, the difference being that this other kind of observation is not publicly confirmable.

Since the prefix "im-" literally means "not", it follows that whatever is "not material" is literally "immaterial"*1. Yet apparently, those not-matter words have an unplatable implication for you. Perhaps, to you "immaterial" is equated with "unreal" or "spiritual", and "material" means "real" or "mundane". If so, your definition of "material" is even more metaphysical*2 than mine. Instead of those spooky notions though, I'm thinking in terms of reductive/pluralistic scientific categories, in which massive Matter is merely a condensed form of ethereal Energy (E=MC^2), or ultimately of elucidating Light. — Gnomon

I don't know why you are trying to bring what you speculate are my personal reactions to the term "immaterial" into the conversation.

When something is said to be material a common meaning is, as @180 Proof outlined above, that it is observable (or detectable in some way), and when something is said to be immaterial there are two common meanings: either that it doesn't exist or is unimportant, or that it exists in some way other than the material. So, which of these meanings do you intend, and if the second, then what other way of existing than the material are you proposing, or if you intend some other meaning altogether, then what is it?

when something is said to be immaterial there are two common meanings: either that it doesn't exist or is unimportant, or that it exists in some way other than the material. — Janus

Small digression. Is there an example of an immaterial 'something' we can point to uncontroversially?

Small digression. Is there an example of an immaterial 'something' we can point to uncontroversially? — Tom Storm

Good question! Not to my knowledge.

Therein lies something of a problem. :wink: Where do you sit on the notion that maths is Platonic? As you know, some people maintain that logic and maths transcend physical reality. Would mathematical Platonism quality as immaterial?

Is there an example of an immaterial 'something' we can point to uncontroversially? — Tom Storm

Interest rates.

But what if you are not interested?

Then why bother asking? It's a serious example. 'Money', would be another. Especially now that all money is electronic. It exists only by fiat, as a set of agreements, has no material existence.

No, that was a joke based on 'interest rates' not on my interest in the subject.

But do such examples transcend physicalism?

Therein lies something of a problem. :wink: Where do you sit on the notion that maths is Platonic? As you know, some people maintain that logic and maths transcend physical reality. Would mathematical Platonism quality as immaterial? — Tom Storm

I don't know what it could mean to say that logic and maths transcend physical reality. Would it mean that they would still exist, even if nothing else existed?

It exists only by fiat, as a set of agreements, has no material existence. — Wayfarer

I don't think this is true. Money has a physical existence as gold, or paper, or electronic configurations. The agreements exist as written or electronic documents, or as enactions or as thoughts which only exist by virtue of neuronal activity.

When something is said to be material a common meaning is, as 180 Proof outlined above, that it is observable (or detectable in some way), and when something is said to be immaterial there are two common meanings: either that it doesn't exist or is unimportant, or that it exists in some way other than the material. — Janus

The point is that our rational grasp of things is constructed around abstractions, which are fundamental to language and therefore the basic operations of predication (is, is not, less than, same as, and so on.) None of those abstractions are materially existent but they're intrinsic to our ability to reason. That is one of the reasons that reason is unique to h. sapiens. We kind of straddle two worlds, the world of sensable objects, and the world of thought, from which we are able to envision and then realise possibilities - which is the ability that has provided the technology that we're using to mediate this discussion. Hence Wigner's 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics'.

I don't know what it could mean to say that logic and maths transcend physical reality. Would it mean that they would still exist, even if nothing else existed? — Janus

It would mean that at least some of the primitive terms of both of those would be the same in all possible worlds, that if intelligent life evolved elsewhere, it would still be obliged to recognise the law the excluded middle and the notion of 'equals', for instance. I think they precede existence, in the sense that they are associate with or constitutive of the natural order, from which life evolves in the first place.

I don't know either. Isn't Mathematical Platonism a common argument used to undermine physicalism (as opposed to QM speculations which we can leave for the time being)? As far as we know, the logical absolutes of identity, noncontradiction and excluded middle hold everywhere in the universe. What does this mean? Intrinsic to human consciousness, or part of the fabric of reality - assuming this can even be spoken of meaningfully outside of our experience.

On the other hand, if we each know from experience that we are conscious, then it must also be observable in another sense, the difference being that this other kind of observation is not publicly confirmable. — Janus

Human babies develop a 'theory of mind' that is strongly correlated to their "publicly confirmable" observations of others' behaviors. As for one's own "consciousness", or subjectivity, I think it is only assumed and not observed (any more than an eye sees itself seeing). My "publicly confirmable" behavior strongly correlates to others' 'theory of mind' as applied to me (and one another) and, on the basis of the persistent circumstantial evidence, I don't have any observational grounds to doubt or disbelieve that I am (at least, occasionally) "conscious". Do you? As far as I'm concerned, 'eliminativism' is only a research paradigm which treats "consciousness" as a counterintuitive "user-illusion" that deconstructs the incorrigible basis – "conscious" – of our folk psychology (i.e. practical woo) in order to publicly investigate (an) objective physical structure of subjective information processing (i.e. experience).

Our "rational grasp of things" as enacted or even as imagined, are neuronal processes as far as we know. What else could they be? It is true that what we experience, as such, is only observable by ourselves, but all of it seems to supervene on the physical. Are you suggesting that there could be experience, thought, feeling and desire without the physical?

It would mean that at least some of the primitive terms of both of those would be the same in all possible worlds, that if intelligent life evolved elsewhere, it would still be obliged to recognise the law the excluded middle and the notion of 'equals', for instance. — Wayfarer

I think it would only be the case that the law of the excluded middle and the notion of "equals" would need to be recognized in a world if its physical characteristics were such as to necessitate it. Perhaps it would be physically impossible for that not to be the case; fact is, we don't know and have no way of knowing such things. If our universe is a quantum universe where everything is entangled and ultimately one, then those kinds of laws and qualities might just be artifacts of the human embrained body, for all we know.



How do we know the logical absolutes of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle hold everywhere in the universe? Perhaps all we know is that we cannot imagine it being otherwise; we certainly have access only to a vanishingly small sample of the universe. And even if it were true that they obtain everywhere, that would speak to the physical constitution of things, because that is what our study of the universe is: a physical study. In any case, QM seems to contravene some of those principles, so maybe they are artefacts of our macro-minds.

Perhaps all we know is that we cannot imagine it being otherwise; we certainly have access only to a vanishingly small sample of the universe. — Janus

Indeed - I should have said, 'is purported to operate throughout... ' etc. I agree.