[bkst]

The interactionist problem was solved by Berkeley when he proved, without refutation, that matter is the fiction while mind is the obvious empirical fact.

Quantum mechanics came along and re-confirmed what he already proved.

"Matter"--something solid, mechanical, deterministic--is nothing but an ancient Greek myth. There is nothing in nature that has the properties of matter, therefore nothing is matter, therefore matter doesn't exist.

Quantum randomness is not deterministic. Bosons refute materialism. The wave-function itself refutes materialism.

Materialism is an ancient greek faith-based religion. Berkeley killed it a long time ago but people were so shocked they still haven't accepted that their God is Dead.

[jqm]

Nonsense.

Anyone who believes the state of consciousness exists independent of matter should put their theory to test with a bottle of vodka.

[bkst]

It's not that consciousness exists independent of matter, it is that what materialists keep calling matter... does... not... exist...

Matter just doesn't exist. In what way is the quantum wavefunction material? It's not deterministic, it's random. It's not solid, you can have two bosons in the same place at once. It doesn't have precise position or momentum but exists as a kind of smudge. It doesn't even move through time in the way that matter is defined as moving.

"Matter" has mass, yet photons don't even have mass. Massless particles take up no space. Matter takes up space. Therefore massless particles are not matter. Massless particles underpin all of reality, yet people want to say reality is made up of matter.

Wavefunctions are not matter. Photons are not matter. Electrons are not matter--they behave like waves and the properties of waves are incompatible with matter.

So where is this matter? It's just a fiction. Berkeley already called it in 1830. There is no way you can be an empiricist materialist these days, without being ignorant.

[super_mario]

This is so confused and ignorant of modern physics. Yet matter has precise definition in physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

Of course physical fields or bosons aren't matter, no one said they were (this is a strawman, if I ever saw one). By the way, electrons do have mass and charge and occupy space (i.e. have volume).

[bkst]

You can't resolve the interactionist problem by just fuzzing the definition of matter.

Materialism is the philosophy that all things are matter.

Quantum physics refutes the philosophy of materialism because it's incompatible with the philosophy of materialism.

If photons are not matter, then something is not matter, and if something is not matter, then materialism is wrong.

From that Wikipedia page:

'there is no single universally agreed scientific meaning of the word "matter". Scientifically, the term "mass" is well-defined, but "matter" is not. Sometimes in the field of physics "matter" is simply equated with particles that exhibit rest mass (i.e., that cannot travel at the speed of light), such as quarks and leptons. However, in both physics and chemistry, matter exhibits both wave-like and particle-like properties, the so-called wave–particle duality.'

Modern physics does not actually define matter. Matter was once synonymous with mass, but redefining mass to include properties that are incompatible with matter/materialism does not bolster matter/materialism's existence.

If mass is defined in such a way that it is incompatible with matter, then either mass or matter have lost their meaning. In fact, it is the word "mass" that has lost its meaning, while the word "matter" has been dropped by science.

It's not me that is confused, it is the materialists who are confused.

Quantum physicists and popularizers of science go around claiming to be materialists when quantum physics is completely incompatible with materialism and nothing in quantum physics behaves like matter. Feynman 'sum over histories' applies to all things, both macro and micro, and anything that behaves in that way is incompatible with the properties of matter. Since all things behave like quantum wave-particles, all things have properties that are incompatible with the properties of matter. If all things have properties that are incompatible with the necessary properties of matter, then no things can have sufficient properties for those things to be matter. If no things can have the properties of matter, then no things can be matter. If no things can be matter, then no things are matter. If no things are matter, then matter doesn't exist. If matter doesn't exist, then materialism is wholly refuted.

The logic against materialism is bullet proof from every angle. People just keep it up out of inertia.

[super_mario]

I think you are getting to hang up on technicalities of definition of matter.

Is your thesis that there are things that are non-physical? If so what evidence is there for that thesis?

[bkst]

The technicalities are the entire point!

If the fundamental nature of reality can't be analyzed technically, what can be?

The evidence that things are non-physical is quantum physics experiments showing that the fundamental components of existence lack the properties of physical things.

The two slit experiment shows that photons behave in non-physical ways.

The indeterministic wave function shows that reality does not depend on strict physical laws but on randomness, and randomness is not mechanisitic. Materialism is based on mechanics but quantum strangeness violates mechanics, therefore mechanics is empirically wrong.

The Schrodinger's cat situation shows that reality is dependent on observers--but matter is said to exist without regard to observers at all. The physical moon still exists when you aren't looking at it. The Schrodinger's moon does not--just as Berkeley claimed in 1713.

Bosons show that two objects can take up the same space at the same time.... but physical things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This is like saying that you can drive a bulldozer into a house but the bulldozer and house don't have to destroy each other, that they have the option of happily occupying the same space. The materialism hypothesis would say this is impossible. "Physical" things do not behave like bosons, therefore bosons aren't physical things.

The evidence that the materialism hypothesis is wrong is quantum physics, where things don't behave in the ways that the materialism hypothesis claims they should. Therefore the materialism hypothesis has been falsified and refuted and is wrong.

[sebastianconcpt]

Well science has to be technically precise so fuzzying definitions doesn't exactly make a point.

I don't think that there are non-physical things, but I'm sure the are lots of non-material things: time, space, a magnetic field, gravity ... many things and I wouldn't discard Consciousness as one of them.

[jerf]

You're repeating a classic human error.

    1. Hmm, there seems to be a phenomenon here. Let's call it X.
    2. Hmm, I think I must be caused by Y.
    3. Ah, here's some proof that Y is not the cause of X.
    4. X DOESN'T EXIST!

I do not understand the appeal of the argument, it's completely illogical, but it's very popular. But, what you proved is that your old conception of matter is wrong. You have not proved that there is no such thing as matter. The rational answer is to update your understanding of X and move on, not get stuck on your first thought and never move on ever again.

Still, you are in good company. This is a staggeringly common logic failure in the philosophical arena.

What I call matter does exist, to within the limits of our observation... you see, I've updated my understanding in the light of the evidence. So all the arguments you have marshaled against the old definition don't affect me at all, and trying to convince me that I really mean some other definition so that you can salvage your arguments is a waste of time. I tell you what my definitions are, not the other way around. Update your arguments, which, in this case, probably consists of discarding them.

[bkst]

>I tell you what my definitions are, not the other way around. Update your arguments, which, in this case, probably consists of discarding them.

I've never spoken to you in my life.

The definition of materialism has been established since 450 BC. It has nothing to do with you.

You can't say that 1=0 just because you define it that way. You have to actually prove that they're the same.

Using your tactic I can prove unicorns exist by redefining unicorns to not have horns. Under my new definition of unicorns, unicorns exist, and I'm going to go around shouting from the rooftop that unicorns exist and I've proved they exist. Anyone who tells me that unicorns don't exist is guilty of failing to recognize my private definition of unicorns. But this argument is absurd, just as your argument that matter exists because you have redefined matter in a new way that is incompatible with the previous definition of matter is absurd.

If your new definition of matter is incompatible with your old definition of matter, then why are you using the same word? It's not matter. It's something else. So use a new word. It's not a unicorn, it's a horse--something that has already been claimed to exist by the philosophers of horses.

You can't say that you've refuted the philosophy of horses and proved that only unicorns exist by redefining unicorns to not have any horns and then pointing at horses as proof of your unicorn theory. This is how crazy materialists sound. Completely illogical.

Materialists in 2015 are going to barns and pointing at horses to prove that unicorns exist, because they've redefined unicorns to now be without a horn. It would be funny if it wasn't so popular.

Berkeley didn't refute Jerf-Materialism. I was arguing against normal materialism, which holds that all things are matter, and that matter is a deterministic, solid, stable, extended substance that has mass, takes up space, is made up of smaller bits of matter, has an exclusion principle with the space that it takes up, interacts with neighboring matter through contact, and so on. This is still what most people think of as matter. Even the people who discovered the empirical evidence that refutes the existence of matter still claim to believe in matter, it's just odd.

Guess what guys! If it doesn't walk like a duck, doesn't talk like a duck, doesn't quack like a duck... it's NOT a duck!

And your private language is not relevant to this discussion.

[alexhill]

I'm not the parent but I'll stop considering myself a "materialist" then. I'm not wedded to the term. What should I call myself? A physicalist?

I'll try to describe the position that I (and I think most of the people you're debating with here) hold, without leaving too many terms undefined.

There exist reliably measurable external, non-mental, things. Ok, the physicalist says, consciousness does not arise from little material billiard balls bumping into one another. We have a more complex picture now of the composition of the external world, and so consciousness arises from that. This position does not rely on determinism; it can comfortably coexist with the kind of structured randomness seen in quantum physics.

It also doesn't logically exclude dualism, but as far as we know, only permits a kind of one-way dualism where some conscious substance exists as a consequent but not a cause of physical processes. Put another way, I don't believe we have discovered anything about the external world that requires the kind of explanation that consciousness can provide.

I understand your annoyance – I feel the same way about people who say they aren't "atheist", then go on to describe their textbook atheist beliefs. Though I end up doing it more than I'd like, it doesn't help to reprimand those people for what I see as a misuse of words, any more than you calling people "completely illogical" helps here. Arriving at different conclusions based on different definitions of terms is entirely logical. It's more constructive to find common ground in what people mean than to argue about definitions.

[bkst]

Most human beings don't consider themselves logical. 80%+ of people consider their most meaningful and important beliefs to be faith based.

So I have no problem with those people claiming to believe in matter. It's the materialists who also claim to be rational that make no sense.

It's nice that you aren't wedded to the ancient and refuted superstition that is tied to the word "materialism". But you are mistaken if you think your peers aren't... most self-proclaimed materialists, if asked to describe their beliefs, will describe them inline with the classic Newtonian or Cartesian formulation of matter. They will say the world is deterministic, stable, extended, takes up space, etc.

Most self-proclaimed atheists claim to be materialists and profess a belief in this old type of materialism. Very few of them will say they aren't wedded to the word like you do. I completely respect your rejection of the word--it shows me that you are a logical person who has developed a more sophisticated worldview than the simple materialism that most non-theists still claim is true.

[jerf]

"And your private language is not relevant to this discussion."

Since you've been trying to claim the right to define matter for all of us, and then philosophically force conclusions based on those definitions down our throats over our objections about how those aren't our definitions, it rather is.

Tu quoque. Your post is its own refutation. You can't insist on being the only person allowed to play definition games, and that everyone else is doing it wrong if they try because you know the definitions they are secretly using... or, rather, you can, but don't expect me to take you seriously as a result. Your thinking here is so solipsistic you appear to be just barely aware that there are other opinions, but you are not capable of engaging with them, only shouting at them to "shut up!" and then get back to the point you're trying to make regardless.

[bkst]

I'm not solipsistic at all... I'm using the socially established definition. I'm engaging in the 2500 year old tradition and usage of the word. I'm using the word in the same way it was used by Thales, Democritus, Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Locke, and all scientists before the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and most scientists still today.

I'm using the word in the same way that most non-physicists still use it--where for instance biologists in crafting their theories assume that lifeforms obey classical materialist principles despite the findings of quantum physics that those principles are wrong.

You can't claim that I invented the definition of materialism anymore than you can claim that I invented 1+1=2.

[ethnomusicolog]

At this point matter is almost a supersition and it's exciting.

[sebastianconcpt]

That would explain mind as dependent on matter (and I agree on that) but that would not say anything about Consciousness.

Are you an automaton? If not, why Qualia? Why Consciousness exists? In a material Universe it doesn't make absolutely any sense and, in such Universe, it is not even needed.

And yet I know that I can experience red and sounds, etc. in ways that are beyond just receptors and neurotransmitters. Does that happen to you too?

Why? Why Qualia?!

[wyager]

Oh dear. More quantum mumbo jumbo and obvious fallacy.

1. Quantum mechanics tells us that matter obeys the Schrodinger equation and has wave properties. Therefore, the classical definition of matter is slightly wrong. This in no way implies that matter doesn't exist.

You're right that "matter" as imagined by many classical scientists doesn't exist (because they didn't fully understand it), but you're ignoring the fact that it obviously still exists independently of how classical scientists imagined it to work.

Quantum (in)determinism is still up in the air. We don't know exactly how it works. Anyone who uses it for philosophical arguments is probably not making a good argument.

In what way do bosons refute materialism? Is helium-4 immaterial? Obviously not. I can hold it in a bottle. I can feel it on my skin. I can fill my lungs with this boson and talk in a squeaky voice.

[bkst]

>Oh dear. More quantum mumbo jumbo and obvious fallacy.

If you were a philosopher you could actually refute my so-called fallacies with logic rather than insults :\

>1. Quantum mechanics tells us that matter obeys the Schrodinger equation and has wave properties. Therefore, the classical definition of matter is slightly wrong. This in no way implies that matter doesn't exist.

It's not "slightly wrong"... it's TOTALLY wrong. Schrodinger's cat is completely incompatible with classical materialism. You can't just be "slightly wrong" at this.

>You're right that "matter" as imagined by many classical scientists doesn't exist (because they didn't fully understand it), but you're ignoring the fact that it obviously still exists independently of how classical scientists imagined it to work.

It doesn't exist but it obviously exists???

It either exists or it doesn't, or we don't know either way. "Matter" is no longer treated by science, the concept has been dropped by physics. Science has "mass" but this mass behaves nothing like "matter."

>Quantum (in)determinism is still up in the air. We don't know exactly how it works. Anyone who uses it for philosophical arguments is probably not making a good argument.

Tell that to every physicists who speaks in public then. All of them try to reason about quantum physics and this is a major area of interest. I agree that it is "up in the air" but... philosophy has ALWAYS been about stuff that is up in the air. So to say that quantum physics is somehow off-limits to philosophical argument is just absurd.

>In what way do bosons refute materialism? Is helium-4 immaterial? Obviously not. I can hold it in a bottle. I can feel it on my skin. I can fill my lungs with this boson and talk in a squeaky voice.

Well you are just flat out not familiar with the standard philosophical canon, because none of those empirical phenomena depend on matter to be explained. They can all be explained by, for instance, empiricist idealists like Berkeley. No empiricist is claiming that sense perceptions don't exist. We are claiming that sense perceptions are not underpinned or explained by matter, that is to say, we are saying that materialism does not actually explain those things at all and that materialism can't be right. Materialism being a 2500 year old philosophy that everything is deterministic, solid, extended, based on atoms, etc etc.

The fact that we (the empiricist idealists) made these arguments before quantum mechanics proved us right is just grist for the comedy mill. When all of reality is shown to be underpinned by substances that have none of the classical properties of matter/materialism, then that philosophy is debunked.

But for some reason people still cling to the word and want to then redefine the word to mean its 180 degree opposite.

Shrug

[wfn]

Just a note to some people replying to 'bkst: what Berkeley developed was a kind of monistic (not dualistic) system. Some may be committing a kind of false dychotomy by thinking "huh someone is saying consciousness is separate from matter, must be a dualist" (or if they're not aware of the history of Cartesian etc thought, automatically assign some kind of vague "theist" property to that person); when in fact Berkeley wanted to do away with the concept of matter altogether (in a manner of speaking - at the very least to diffuse the ontological charge normally associated with that term.) Just a (possibly confusing) clarification re. Berkeley and dualism.