I entirely agree.

I don't think there's much point in debating this question, since there has never been a unified concept of "materialism." — SophistiCat

I think you're right here. When I finished my post and got a lot of feedback, I was wondering which well-known philosopher or even scientist could be considered a pure materialist. And no name came to mind.

This sounds very confused. A field is not a state of matter like solid or liquid. Fields in physics are mathematical models used to describe... physical stuff (let's not get hung up on what "matter" is), in whatever state it may be. Saying that a field is a state of matter is like saying that engineering is a type of car. — SophistiCat

Marc Lange's book is very readable and he tries to make it clear that physical fields must be real things or entities rather than merely a calculational device. At least there are discussions whether fields are something real:

https://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~bohmmech/Teaching/ontologyofphysics1415/classical_fields.pdf

I like the idea of a field as a form of matter. This avoids dualism in any case, provided fields are something ontologically real. A dualism would indeed endanger a materialism.

Here are some discussions on the ontology of fields:

Ontological categories for fields and waves
https://dl.gi.de/bitstream/handle/20.500.12116/20618/1866.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Waves and fields in bio-ontologies
http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-897/sessionJ-paper24.pdf

Looks like you pulled this quote out of context and misunderstood its meaning, which is precisely the opposite of the point you were trying to make. — SophistiCat

Well, fields can move particles, again provided that fields are real things, which I assume.

This is the context. I think you can leave the passage I quoted in isolation without the context.

"From the dynamics-first perspective, the fact that clock slowdown requires an inertial frame to define it doesn’t make it unreal: inertial frames are the basis of how we do physics, and it is only natural for dynamical explanations to be carried out in one frame or another. And in any such frame, when we say ‘a moving clock runs slow’—or, for that matter, ‘a moving rod shrinks’—we mean that the physical processes inside the rod—the interatomic bonds that hold the rod together and define its length, the periodic processes that count time inside the clock—are different for matter in motion than for the same matter when stationary. The electric field of a moving charge, for instance, shrinks in the direction of motion—according to the laws of electromagnetism—compared to the field of a stationary charge. Ordinary matter is held together by electric fields, so if those fields are altered by motion, then it is only to be expected that the shape of the matter will be altered. Despite this concrete electromagnetic example, we don’t actually have to study the detailed microphysics of our clocks and rods in order to predict time dilation and length contraction."

(Wallace, David. Philosophy of Physics: A Very Short Introduction)

If it is an emergent property, then how does it help explain Strawson's view given he does not think consciousness can be an emergent property? Or did you offer it as a counterexample to Strawson? Or did you not know what you were doing?

Your comment makes no sense.

Yes, a proper philosopher is here. Arrrgh, now the SEP regurgitations won't work - run for the hills, the nasty reasoning man has come to town. Science! Quantum fields!! Panty schism!! Language. Definitions. Sam Harris. Insults. Throw them at him and runnnn!!!

Wait, you asked me if I though liquidity was emergent. I said yes. In fact, I go so far as to say that it is radically emergent, that is, there is no conceivable way (to us) to understand how it could be that apparently non-liquid molecules could combine to create liquidity.

Strawson on the other hand, thinks these phenomena are emergent, but not radically so. On this "soft emergent" view, liquidity, experience and everything else arise out of the specific combination of physical stuff.

There is a reason as to why this is so, according to him: he says it doesn't make sense to think that experience could arise from something completely and utterly non-experiential, as matter appears to be, because it would be a miracle to have experience if at bottom physical stuff does not poses properties that can give rise to experience. So physical stuff must contain, among its properties, experiential stuff - potential for experience.

So to avoid radical emergence, he postulates that experience and everything else, is already inherent in the base stuff of reality.

The last three paragraphs are his view, not mine.

And I was addressing his view, not yours, and refuting it.

He has to hold that everything has conscious states. So my cupboard has them. And so do atoms. And so do what they're composed of. And so on.

Don't tell me again that he doesn't think this, for that would just be inconsistent of him or just him trying to disguise the absurdity of what he is proposing.

Don't- as you did - offer liquidity as an example of how it works, when that clearly cannot be how it works, given he doesn't think conscious properties are emergent.

I lack the capacity to communicate this to you, despite repeatedly trying my best.

So, I think this is as far as we'll go.

Communicate what, exactly?

I can only assume that you think Strawson is not committed to attributing conscious states to everything. Okay. Why not?

Again, consciousness can't emerge - Strawson doesn't think so. So it is not - not - like liquidity.

So consciousness must be present - fully present - in the building blocks. If it is not fully present in the building blocks, then we have something coming out that wasn't put it.

You accept that shape is a good analogy. Well, the building blocks of a shaped thing themselves have shapes. Not potential shapes. Actual shapes. (And the appeal to potential is misleading anyway, as there'd be no reason to suppose it resident potentially but not actualized).

THe building blocks are not 'a bit shaped'. They're shaped. They'd need to be othewise we'd have the emergence of shape, which would be an emergence every bit as radical as that of consciousness.

I can only assume that you think Strawson is not committed to attributing conscious states to everything. Okay. Why not? — Bartricks

Because consciousness only arises in quite specific circumstances, such as the configuration of brains found in human beings. And other creatures too, which we think are conscious: dogs, horses, etc.

In a table, matter is not so configured so as to lead to experience. Nor is it configured in this manner in rocks, rivers, dirt and so forth.

Again, consciousness can't emerge - Strawson doesn't think so. So it is not - not - like liquidity.

So consciousness must be present - fully present - in the building blocks. If it is not fully present in the building blocks, then we have something coming out that wasn't put it. — Bartricks

Strawson didn't say consciousness can't emerge, he says that it does. Rather he states that consciousness cannot radically emerge: there has to be something about matter that, when combined in a certain way leads to experience. Like you said, it's hard to make sense of the idea of experience arising out of a combination of non-conscious stuff.

Experience is a property of organized matter, so is liquidity. Both liquidity and experience are inherent in matter, they can emerge given certain specific configurations. There is something about matter that when so configured, we get experience or liquidity.

But if matter does not organize in this specific way, we won't get experience, even if the property of experience is already in matter. That his panpsychism in a nutshell.

there'd be no reason to suppose it resident potentially but not actualized — Bartricks

Fine.

I'm trying not to defend his views, but to articulate as best I can.

Sometimes I agree with him, so it's hard to keep it in check. In any case, that's his main argument.

Could you explain the reason for rejecting radical emergence?

The idea would be that there has to something about physical stuff that is inherently suited to give rise to consciousness in certain modified states.

If there is nothing about physical stuff that could possibly give rise to experience, then experience would be a miracle. That is, nothing about the nature of the physical could possibly lead to experience, hence in having experience as we have it, is completely inexplicable even to God - if such a being existed.

On this view, there would be no reason, or law, or tendency that could account for something emerging radically.

The example I've been talking about is consciousness, but it can apply to any emergent thing.

Of course, there are several ways to develop this argument. One option would be that there must be something about matter that is inherently suited to give rise to experience, but we have no idea what that something could be and we quite possibly may never be able to understand it. This view is held by Chomsky, for example.

The premise you've added to get to the conclusion is that there cannot be causation between different kinds of object. — Bartricks

You phrase it is as if I were saying bears and apples could not interact. I am saying that the material and immaterial; better, the physical and non physical, can not interact. This is a simple tautology: if the nonphysical interacted with the physical, then it would be a part of the physical description of the universe, and so be physical.

my mind does not appear to be material, yet does appear causally to interact with things quite dissimilar to it - a — Bartricks

Both of these "appears" may be in fact be mere appearances.

and even if it were true, the fact my mind appears immaterial not material would mean you should conclude that the sensible world is mental, not that the mental is material. — Bartricks

Why should I favor "the physical world is mental, and only appears physical" over "the mental world is physical, and only appears mental"?

Marc Lange's book is very readable and he tries to make it clear that physical fields must be real things or entities rather than merely a calculational device. — spirit-salamander

Sure. Whether fields are real in some sense is a debatable question, but it's not obviously wrong. What I took issue with is comparing fields with states of bulk matter, which I think is a category error. Bulk matter can be alternatively in a solid, liquid, gaseous or plasma state; it cannot be alternatively, and in the same sense, in a "field" state. Fields are used as mathematical models of continuously distributed physical quantities, but that probably isn't what Lange has in mind (although it can still be asked whether any or all such fields are real things). Perhaps he is talking about something like light, which we are told is an electromagnetic field: shouldn't we be committed to its existence? Isn't it a physical entity? Perhaps, but an electromagnetic field is not a bulk state. In fact, your next quote from Wallace indirectly makes that point where he says that "ordinary matter is held together by electric fields." (Indeed, at an even deeper level, ordinary matter - solids, liquids, etc. - is all quantum fields.)

Well, fields can move particles, again provided that fields are real things, which I assume. — spirit-salamander

If I were making an argument that fields are real things, I would put it the other way around: fields are real things because they have real effects.

This is the context. I think you can leave the passage I quoted in isolation without the context. — spirit-salamander

I see, he is talking about relativistic length contraction. That's not an example of fields moving matter; for that you could just refer to e.g. an electric field interacting with charged particles.

it's hard to make sense of the idea of experience arising out of a combination of non-conscious stuff. — Manuel

Or, to put it some other ways,

it's hard to make sense of the idea of consciousness arising out of a combination of non-experiential stuff.

it's hard to make sense of the idea of experience arising out of a combination of non-experiential stuff.

it's hard to make sense of the idea of consciousness arising out of a combination of non-conscious stuff.

Although it isn't. (See liquidity.)

If it is not emergent, then we can use it to model what Strawson is saying, yes? If it is emergent, then we can't and it would constitute a counterexample. Agree? — Bartricks

No serious panpsychist would ever assert that emergence in general is impossible. Of course all kind of properties are emergent, indeed the majority of them presumably. The problem is specifically with consciousness. And difficulties with the emergence of consciousness from severally and prior non-conscious entities and systems is one reason that people turn to panpsychism. This problem does not arise for the idealist of course, and I have some sympathy with that view. Some versions of idealism are also panpsychist. Sprigge was a panpsychist idealist.

Your comment makes no sense. — Bartricks

Would you like me to explain it more fully?

THe building blocks are not 'a bit shaped'. They're shaped. They'd need to be othewise we'd have the emergence of shape, which would be an emergence every bit as radical as that of consciousness. — Bartricks

I accept the force of this intuition. I do think that everything is conscious, and I do not think that the concept of consciousness admits of degree. Shape might be another good example of a property that does not admit of degree, I'm not sure.

Although it isn't. (See liquidity.) — bongo fury

That's weak emergence, right? Consciousness would be strong.

Strawson considers liquidity to be weak emergence, as do most other philosophers, I believe.

Chomsky is the exception. Probably McGinn too, but I am unsure.

Chomsky is the exception. — Manuel

He thinks liquidity is strong?

"A common objection today is that such ideas invoke an unacceptable form of "radical emergence," unlike the emergence of liquids from molecules, where the properties of the liquid can in some reasonable sense be regarded as inhering in the molecules. In Nagel's phrase, "we can see how liquidity is the logical result of the molecules 'rolling around on each other' at the microscopic level," though "nothing comparable is to be expected in the case of neurons" and consciousness. Also taking liquidity as a paradigm, Strawson argues extensively that the notion of emergence is intelligible only if we interpret it as "total dependence": if "some part or aspect of Y [hails] from somewhere else," then we cannot say that Y is "emergent from X." We can speak intelligibly about emergence of Y-phenomena from non-Y-phenomena only if the non-Y-phenomena at the very least are "somehow intrinsically suited to constituting" the X-phenomena; there must be ''something about X's nature in virtue of which" they are "so suited."....

...It should be noted that the molecule· liquid example, commonly used, is not a very telling one. We also cannot conceive of a liquid turning into two gases by electrolysis, and there is no intuitive sense in which the properties of water, bases, and acids inhere in hydrogen or oxygen or other atoms."

The point for him is that his materialism says that the nature of reality is physical, whatever its nature may ultimately be. — Manuel

This seems like an empty claim. Whatever its nature may ultimately be? Is he saying that all things are physical but also that he doesn't know what it means for a thing to be physical? Has he fallen victim to Hempel's dilemma?

For him, everything that exists, everything is physical. But he concludes by saying he is not bothered much by what labels he uses for himself, in this respect he is also happy calling himself a ?-ist.

The main point in this is simply to say that there is only one kind of stuff in the world: physical stuff. Or call it "immaterial stuff" or "natural stuff."

Idealism even, would not bother him. His only caveat with this is that if idealism is conceived as "consisting of ideas" and so everything is made of ideas, then there must be someone who is having the ideas.

Neutral monism, as he understands, is the view that the world is neither mental nor physical as we currently understand these terms. But he think it isn't true because in having experience, we are acquainted with - we know - certain fundamental aspects of reality in merely having experience. And since for him, experience is a physical phenomena, then neutral monism would be misleading, because we are not completely ignorant about the nature of the world, by virtue of being conscious.

The basic idea is to reject metaphysical dualism.

His "physical" has nothing to do with Dennett's ideas by the way. They're kind of the opposite.

The linguistic distinction between alive and dead could prove to be questionable. Things are rather neither alive nor dead. — spirit-salamander

I'm not sure this makes sense. The word "life" cleaves reality so that some things fall on one side, some things on another. And there are things where the cleaving is ambiguous such as viruses. But you can't say, "well in reality things are neither dead or alive". This misunderstands words, they do not and cannot point to the true nature of things. Rather they carve the world into sets.

To your second sentence: I think that panpsychism need not be associated with vitalism. It is only about the sober and neutral attribution of conscious experience to material entities. — spirit-salamander

I think the thinking which lead to vitalism is identical to panpsychism. In both cases, it is supposed to be inconceivable that life or consciousness emerges out of matter without presupposing an additional element: either vital force, or an elemental psychic quantum, or some such thing.

The word "life" cleaves reality so that some things fall on one side, some things on another. — hypericin

An ontological distinction - would you agree?

Why should I favor "the physical world is mental, and only appears physical" over "the mental world is physical, and only appears mental"? — hypericin

Because 'appears' requires a subject, i.e. an agent to whom something appears. Nothing appears to a rock.


---------------

The issue I see with ‘vitalism’ is actually caused by the impossibility of taking the ‘elan vital’ to be an object or an objectively real existent. There is no literal ‘vital substance’ in the sense that the term implies. An analogy might be looking at neural data for intelligence, or looking inside a computer for the information it contains. There's no literal substance. Intelligence is basically the ability to make distinctions - that goes for even very simple life-forms, but in humans, it is allied with the ability to abstract and remember. But what 'intelligence' is, we don't know, we only see it in its workings.

I wonder if there's an analogy with the way that some elements conduct electricity. That living organisms are 'intelligence conductors' - that they're configured in such a way as to conduct intelligence.

In my view Kant rejected materialism and chose idealism in or to protect religion, especially Lutheranism.

What you have described is radical emergence by another name.

I have not read Strawson on this, so I am relying on your characterisation of his position. But liquidity, you have said, is something Strawson accepts emerges, but he considers the emergence of a feature like this not to be radical. For an analogy, let's say that a rectangular object is, it turns out, made of lots of minute square objects. Well, the rectangularity has emerged for it really isn't present in any of the objects from which it is composed, but we do not have radical emergence here for this kind of property - shape - is not of a fundamentally different kind. Similarly, liquidity might be characterised as a texture or texture and behaviour combo. And although the objects from which a liquid is composed may not have that texture or exhibit that behaviour, nevertheless we do not have radical emergence here for we just have more of the same - that is, more texture and behaviour (even if the texture and behaviour are different).

But consciousness - on his view - is quite different. We're not talking about more of the same. And thus it cannot emerge. It must therefore be present all the way down. I don't see that you've said anything to block this.

pays to remember that whatever is irreducible is not composed of anything.