Thread: Atheists, are you materialists?

I clicked "No", before reading the question. XD

It turns out that I'm more "Yes", than "No", after knowing what I was answering.

I am not a materialist. I believe there are all kinds of metaphysical laws at the root of the existence of matter. A calculus equation, for example, can be true even if no material situation in reality coincides with it. The past is a reality, and so is the future. Neither exist in the material present. Matter is just one aspect of reality among many.

So is that a yes or a no?

I would say I think that materialism is correct. If there are things that aren't physical I don't know how they would react off of other stimuli...

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

Has anyone observed anything that wasn't made of matter or energy?

The experience of the colour red.

Is it an implication of materialism that any action can be justified?

Originally Posted by psychology student

Is it an implication of materialism that any action can be justified?

No.

Well for a start the original definition is rather vague. I would rather say 'real, physical phenomenon' rather than 'matter', because, for example, photons don't have mass and are hence by virtually all definitions not matter (irregardless of e=mc^2), yet obviously there would be no life without light.

Secondly, no, I don't think I do believe in materialism. I tried to explain it in the other thread as this: in a materialistic view of the world, there would still being intelligent beings doing exactly what we're doing. Our minds are made of physical neurons and so every thought has a basis in physical reality. Yet this does not mean we would be conscious (conscious meaning aware, and experiencing, as we all are); in other words everybody should just be philosophical zombies. Just because a reaction system is incredibly complex, materialism does not say that this should manifest awareness. Computers are incredibly complex and can be programmed to react intelligently to all sorts of inputs, yet they are not conscious.

So yes, I refute materialism on the basis of the existence of the phenomenon of consciousness.

Personally I hold a functionalist view and I think that consciousness arises due to the mathematical causal relationships between nodes in an advanced network; in other words, it is not relevant what the nodes are, they could be neurons, Chinese people, even virtual objects in a computer program. It is the maths that is important, not the matter.

Originally Posted by Omicron

The experience of the colour red.

Color comes from electromagnetic waves in the visable light spectrum, which is considered a physical property.

As long as I don't have a good enough definition of physical besides "Of or relating to the body as distinguished from the mind or spirit" then I cannot answer the question, ghosts could be made up of quarks or electrons, or anything else that scientists might learn to understand, seems to me the real question is, do you believe in something we cannot understand.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Matter is made of energy.

Matter is not made of energy.

I'd class myself as a weak atheist, and I voted no. We are more than the sum of our parts, and that is the essence of consciousness. There may yet be other forms of reality that modern science is not currently equipped to experience or examine.

Originally Posted by Identity X

Matter is not made of energy.

Matter is not made of energy, per say. But matter is another form of energy. This isn't some hokey New Age idea - it's physics. Energy is the 5th state of matter (after gas, liquid, solid and hot plasma). Where 'E' is equal to 'energy', 'm' is equal to 'mass' and 'c²' is equal to 'the speed of light squared'.

E=mc²

Energy and matter are interchangeable - we're just not very good at switching the two. If you're going to make a sweeping statement like that, you're also going to have to completely discount nuclear fusion and the first law of thermodynamics as well. Two hydrogen atoms fusing into helium doesn't weigh the same as two hydrogen atoms. Mass is lost in the form of energy.

Originally Posted by Alextanium

I beg to differ. This isn't some hokey New Age idea - it's science. Energy is the 5th state of matter (after gas, liquid, solid and hot plasma). Where 'E' is equal to 'energy', 'm' is equal to 'mass' and 'c²' is equal to 'the speed of light squared'.

E=mc²

If you're going to make a sweeping statement like that, you're also going to have to completely discount nuclear fusion and the first law of thermodynamics as well. Two hydrogen atoms fusing into helium doesn't weigh the same as two hydrogen atoms. Mass is lost in the form of energy.

I didn't like how he worded it. A few years back a few members had an idea that energy is matter and matter is energy. This is false. So I guess it was a kneejerk reaction to that.

I still hold true my comment, but I've a dissertation to proof read, so...

Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

Color comes from electromagnetic waves in the visable light spectrum, which is considered a physical property.

Yeah but the experience of the colour is not red.


Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. [...] What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

I voted no. Matter and energy, as interchangeable things, describe much of what we observe, but what is matter; what is energy? The whole of physics is based on descriptive, not absolute, definitions of what we observe, a point that quantum mechanics makes quite clearly. For a descriptive definition to be absolute, it must be perfect.

I tend to think more in terms of a universe whose ultimate foundation rests in mathematical logic, rather than the phenomena it describes. Taken to its logical conclusion, the idea suggests that the existence of a universe can be proven mathematically, leading to all of the phenomena we observe.

Originally Posted by Identity X

I didn't like how he worded it.

That's why I edited my post, guess I wasn't quick enough

Originally Posted by Omicron

Yeah but the experience of the colour is not red.


Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. [...] What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

I see what your getting at, kind of like color not being able to be explained from person to person, and the fact that no matter how much you study (in physical process) without seeing it you cannot learn it's experience, but I don't see how thats non physical, sure she was able to learn the process's but she couldn't actually experience that "physical" process in whole intill she saw it, but any experience just because you cannot understand the results of it being picked up by your own senses by looking at how it works physicaly doesn't mean it's nonphysical. seems like what you really mean is the conscious being non-physical when we experience senses, and I'd have to say that the conscious is just the very complex way the brain works, but still on a physical level. and you may have used color because we don't have many words to discribe the experience of color. But that just means it has to remain an on communicatable concept, which is what everything would be if there were no words for it. Either that or it's just a hole in are understanding as the humen race. If were arguing over the existence of conscious being measured somehow through it's make up then I again would go back to the dice analogy.

It may even be possible to see the color through looking at the patterns in the brain of someone who is seeing it, that is after all what scientists are aiming to do today, and they say it may be possible, that means that consciousness could possibly be explained by physical process's, but thats not the only thing, there is an infinite possiblity of things controlled by none measurable process's, but I think that is unlikily because everything has some kind of force acting on it, in that case I'd probably say I was leaning toword matterialism.

Good example though, it made me think .

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

So is that a yes or a no?

Yes

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

So are you saying it exists or it doesn't?

No matter how complex a system of actions and reactions is, it will still be bound by the same deterministic laws that rule a simple system and therefore "can't" originate consciousness.

It depends on what you mean by free will.

The experience of the colour red.

That's a great example actually.

I don't reckon materialism can answer questions about qualia, specifically why we experience some qualia for some things and not for others, for example, why we percieve red when we see red and not blue. Such things are also inherently ineffable; you can't try and work out if somebody experiences the same qualia as you.

Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

I see what your getting at, kind of like color not being able to be explained from person to person, and the fact that no matter how much you study (in physical process) without seeing it you cannot learn it's experience, but I don't see how thats non physical, sure she was able to learn the process's but she couldn't actually experience that "physical" process in whole intill she saw it, but any experience just because you cannot understand the results of it being picked up by your own senses by looking at how it works physicaly doesn't mean it's nonphysical. seems like what you really mean is the conscious being non-physical when we experience senses, and I'd have to say that the conscious is just the very complex way the brain works, but still on a physical level. and you may have used color because we don't have many words to discribe the experience of color. But that just means it has to remain an on communicatable concept, which is what everything would be if there were no words for it. Either that or it's just a hole in are understanding as the humen race. If were arguing over the existence of conscious being measured somehow through it's make up then I again would go back to the dice analogy.

It may even be possible to see the color through looking at the patterns in the brain of someone who is seeing it, that is after all what scientists are aiming to do today, and they say it may be possible, that means that consciousness could possibly be explained by physical process's, but thats not the only thing, there is an infinite possiblity of things controlled by none measurable process's, but I think that is unlikily because everything has some kind of force acting on it, in that case I'd probably say I was leaning toword matterialism.

Good example though, it made me think .

The point is, she has learnt all the physical points. When she experiences it she learns something new, the experience. She has already learnt everything physical, hence what is extra is not physical

Look qualia up on google, you'll see better explanations.

Originally Posted by Xei

That's a great example actually.

I don't reckon materialism can answer questions about qualia, specifically why we experience some qualia for some things and not for others, for example, why we percieve red when we see red and not blue. Such things are also inherently ineffable; you can't try and work out if somebody experiences the same qualia as you.

Our lack of understanding of qualia shouldn't put it automatically out of the realm of materialism.

Of course I don't limit materialism only to the known kind of energy, rather everything "physical".

Perhaps it is the case that qualia can be explained in terms of atoms and cells. It's just something I doubt out of gut feeling really. The fact that we can't possibly describe them does lead me to think that they have no physical basis though, aside from their stimulating wavelengths. But again... I can't see how materialism would predict the existence of qualia. The brain is an incredibly complex deterministic machine, but that just makes it clever, like a computer... from a materialistic point of view, I can't see why we're not all philosophical zombies. Which is clearly not the case.

I'm agnostic to materialism. (Assuming you meant energy too, and not just matter, cuz E=MC^2). It would be pretty hard for us, as beings made from matter and with senses calibrated to certain types of energy, to detect non-matter, non-energy things, right? So how can anybody possibly know? Seems kind of silly to say one way or the other, since no one can.