I hope you do know what materialism means don't you? How do computers prove that our mind (say consciousness) fully works on materialistic principles? I, as most other biologists today, think and believe it does, but we all do it without any evidence and with only moderate hope (no proof) that we'll ever have one (I mean evidence - not mind...).
I was going to leave this, as there are plenty of materialism versus (insert some metaphysical concept here) threads already in R&P. But I figured I might as well put something in that will only be ignored.
In all of my years of studying HPS, I've never come across the term 'materialism' outside of discussions that have to do with alternatives, such as idealism or dualism. In other words, I've never come across a scientist who has taken the a priori position of materialism in the context that idealists seem to claim. I can only conclude it is a strawman, in which case.
What science does is arrange observations into some sort of a system of cause and effect, according to rules. It cannot and does not propose the ultimate foundations for those rules. It does not state it is set into a matrix of a mind, a computer, a butterfly's dream...it simply states 'it is'. Observations are descriptions afforded by our senses and nothing more.
Science cannot and does not state particles exist as solid little lumps of stuff outside of our experience. It states that all observations appear to be governed by consistent laws that we can describe through a methodology. That's all it does. No claim is made on whether it really is or isn't like this - we can only ever say it appears to be so. That was the whole damn point of the Vienna Circle's manifesto, to prevent such claims from being seen as scientific.
THAT is materialism, at least from the perspective of science. It stops at the laws and makes no attempt to weave them into anything deeper. Why? Because such a thing is impossible, and useless. Unless there is something to observe to differentiate laws that arise from a single mind from laws that arise from a universal computer (ala The Matrix) from a butterfly's dream, they are all equal conjectures that contribute nothing to our understanding of those very laws. Hence science ignores the concept until it has something to grasp.
Yet idealists don't do this. They insinuate that this very claim of laws IS a foundation in its own right, and therefore feel satisfied that they can present a compatible theory of their own on equal terms. Thus the word 'materialism' is born, and the strawman of it being the basis of science. A pseudoargument springs up out of this, appearing to be between scientists who claim the universe is more than it appears and those whose agenda it is to make sure idealism isn't left out of the discussion.
Nobody is stopping anybody from having their pet views. If it helps you to sleep at night to believe that the laws are arranged by fairies, are all in your head, arise from an eternal computer, are the dreams of a sleeping god...go for it.
For my money, I have absolutely no idea what the ultimate prote hyle is, and cannot even begin to guess. I have no problem with ignoring the question for now. I even suspect it's an impossible question to answer. Just don't misrepresent science as thinking it has done so.
Athon
