5 ms·

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

by bkst 11y ago

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.

deleted 11y ago
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- joshuacc 11y ago
  George Berkeley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
super_mario 11y ago
This is so confused and ignorant of modern physics. Yet matter has precise definition in physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter 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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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.
      - super_mario 11y ago
        Entire quantum physics is a mathematical model of physical things by definition. Quantum wave function is a physical object as are all the other fundamental fields we know about. Photons behave in very physical ways, just not in classical ways like you would expect them based on experience with macroscopic objects we face every day. Likewise, bosons are physical objects that have physical and measurable/observable properties (but they don't have volume) etc. So now you are getting a bit confused here.
jerf 11y ago
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 11y ago
  >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.
ethnomusicolog 11y ago
At this point matter is almost a supersition and it's exciting.

by bkst 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

joshuacc 11y ago
George Berkeley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley

super_mario 11y ago

This is so confused and ignorant of modern physics. Yet matter has precise definition in physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter 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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
    - super_mario 11y ago
      Entire quantum physics is a mathematical model of physical things by definition. Quantum wave function is a physical object as are all the other fundamental fields we know about. Photons behave in very physical ways, just not in classical ways like you would expect them based on experience with macroscopic objects we face every day. Likewise, bosons are physical objects that have physical and measurable/observable properties (but they don't have volume) etc. So now you are getting a bit confused here.

jerf 11y ago

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 11y ago
>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.

ethnomusicolog 11y ago

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