they all seem the result of material processes
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Does anything exist?
- Thread starter Scorpion
- Start date
they all seem the result of material processes
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
Sorry, why would you ask? Do you then think these are material things in the world? And how would you then propose natural science should study them? Or are they simply irrelevant or unreal? To my mind they are not material, though theoretically reducible to averages of various bodies and brain states (universally or mostly or totally in the past).
Hmm, a good question: as a concept, a rule, it's obviously immaterial, but it can be reduced to matter pretty straightforwardly. Is the concept of absolute monarchy in the 17th century Europe a material thing?
Yes or no.
"We have the very best hammers, hammers that have accomplished wonders of construction and repair our ancestors couldn't have dreamed of. This justifies our complete confidence that everything that exists is nails."
Yep, this came to my mind too... There are many things that the natural science (as it presently is) is really not the best tool to examine and analyze.
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Belz...
Fiend God
Because It's such a stupid question that my brain can't accept that it wasn't asked in jest.
Gods, you're serious!
They are real in the sense that they exist as part of material systems: for instance an idea exists in the sense that it only has reality when in the brains of people, or written down on a physical medium. That's so bloody obvious.
Belz...
Fiend God
No one said science is the only tool. But it's the only one that actually bears fruits when looking for factual answers.
Yeah, so, should these things, ideas and concepts, be researched, studied? And if, then, how? And, is it really fruitful to think that a mathematical formula or a logical axiom only exists in the various people's brains? Would that be a fruitful angle to think about them? Or, from my own discipline, the concept of the absolute monarchy in the 17th century Europe. Should such a concept be studied and if, then how? Starting from the various (and ever so unfortunately past) brain states? Or maybe using some other methods and approaches?
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Belz...
Fiend God
What do you mean "should"? If you want to understand them, then study them.
Science is still your best bet to understand how they actually work.
Just because you think the rigorous study of something robs it of its "mystique" or isn't very glamorous, doesn't mean it's not accurate.
Again: are you joking? Neurology might indeed help to understand certain concepts and ideas, but as a general rule I don't think it would be required. You seem confused about what science is and how it works.
You know, I don't think I am, at all - natural science is the ideal way to study the material world and it's processes. After literature I think it's the best thing that our sorry primate species can show for itself: theoretical physics especially being one of the absolute craziest wonders of the world. But there are other things, more abstract, less reducible to matter, relating to various human experiences and endeavours that the natural science just is not so useful and productive tool to analyze and study and understand. Surely any reasonable and rational person would agree?
If it turns out that one bit of information at room temperature is, say, 3.19 x 10 -38 kg, is the problem settled?
ETA: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019AIPA....9i5206V/abstract
ETA: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019AIPA....9i5206V/abstract
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Belz...
Fiend God
*its.
You keep adding the word "material" as if it matters, confirming my suspicion.
Science is a group of methodologies designed to approximate the workings of reality into useable theories. Matter or whatever, doesn't really, well, matter. The point is to discover how reality works, and that includes everything that is in principle detectable/observable. If you want to define "material" as "what is observable", then fine, science is by definition limited to the material. However don't make the mistake of thinking that emergent properties of material systems are not material.
BEFORE literature, I should think. But AFTER pizza.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
Sorry here, and apologies if I find myself looking like Joe the slayer of philosopers, but I think this is a non-issue pretending to be profound. The universe may be made of matter, but it exists in space and time. Things relate to each other, and events occur. You can go on and on about just what those events are and what they mean, and even perhaps jump in with the radical empiricists and declare that relations are the only thing that's truly real; but I think it's crazy either to look for some existential loophole whereby they can be declared matter, or for some existential extension where things that happen achieve parity with the things they happen to.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
If there were somehow no matter at all, the weak nuclear force would not cease to exist.
So no.
It is not a concept or a rule. Your continued existence depends upon it as does everyone elses.
Not you or I or anyone can pretend it isn't there. Well, OK. There is probably some internet denizen who would, but that is flat earth territory.
Well, that's just to demarcate against the very crude materialism that is not totally absent on this forum... To my mind it seems that both the world and the way we experience it (as there is that extra step of the senses and the brain separating us from any immediate reality) are quite dynamic and not static, mechanical and Newtonian at all. And natural science, the miracle as it and its (sic) achievements are, is not enough in itself to encompass and explain this wild experience.
Well, I think it's also a concept, formulated by modern physics, there is an actual formula for it - but yep, it's totally reducible to matter. And why would I deny its existance? I'm not in the habit of denying anything natural science has established. Of course there might be cases like when Newtonian physics were subsumed as a special case under the general theory of relativity etc. But as I'm not an expert, the best available understanding of the nature of the material world is the current scientific consensus.
So, what about the concept of the absolute monarchy in the 17th century Europe? Yes or no...
Belz...
Fiend God
What does that even mean? Is that yet another attempt to inject some "magic" or "wonder" into the world? Does the fact that you're no more than a well-arranged pile of meat and bones bother you so much?
So I see I was correct in my assessment above. It's not that science doesn't do what it's (<- see, that's where you use the apostrophe) supposed to do. It's that the answer isn't exciting enough for you.
You're wrong. It does encompass that experience. But not the "extra" stuff you're trying to stuff in there.
I don't think it's profound either. It's actually pretty self-evident - but sometimes on this forum it kind of seems that pretty much everyone and their cousin are hard materialists that simply spit on humanities and philosophy... Sorry for the blatant exaggeration
