What difference will continuity make? — Luke

Kinematics assumes a continuum. If an atom at one instant does not exist any preceding or succeeding instant, it's kinematic velocity is undefined.

The eternalist view of the atom is that its entire history exists. If you do not assume continuity, even over a tiny interval of time, the eternalist view is different to the picture I've been referring to: the atom has no history to exist. It would appear as a single point in the block, not a path.

Hold on. You said the atom was "part of a 4D object", not a 4D object. It depends on Presentism or Eternalism whether this remains the same object at different times. — Luke

Oh, you are going that route. Explain? Continuity is assumed in kinematics.

You missed the whole point of that post. Kings are classical objects. Yet “the present king of France is bald” and “the present king of France is non-bald” are both false. That might superficially seem to violate the law of the excluded middle, but they technically don’t, because there is no present king of France. — Pfhorrest

No I got the point. I was going to mention that the reason why the proposition must be "No" for the king of France is because he doesn't exist. The atom, in my thought experiment, does exist. But I focused on the meat.

Superposition is not analogous to non-existence. Yes, you can say "the classical state doesn't exist yet/anymore", but a classical state is not necessary to ask meaningful questions. A classical electron must go through the left slit or right slit, a superposed electron must not. Truth is not postponed until a classical state exists: even then, the fact of superposition between emission and collapse is evidenced. Likewise for radioactive decay.

As I said, limiting propositions to classical states, i.e. to ones that may obey the law, is the same thing as observing that the law of the excluded middle does not apply to systems in a quantum superposition. We, even if you do not, are still able make reasonable propositions (has the atom decayed?) and answer (63% yes, 37% no).

But I do think you miss my point. The point is not interpretation of QM. The point is: there exist people for whom non-binary truth values of reasonable propositions are valid. Even if they were wrong and the "real" truth value is binary and unanswerable or assumed false until measurement (your interpretation of QM), the way they think about truth values is non-binary. They are comfortable with it.

Where is that idea? Out there arguing with the law of the excluded middle? Or in the heads of those comfortable with it?

Do you agree that even a part of a 4D object, such as an atom in the window of a car, has different spatial positions at different times?
— Kenosha Kid

I get the sense this could be a trick question, but yes, I think so. — Luke

Fine fine fine. Not a trick at all. We only need consider an atom. This is also kinematic motion: different spatial positions at different times, i.e. time-dependent positions.

I actually thought you were going to say, "No, the atom at one time is not the same atom as the atom at another time" or something. Fortunately:

I didn't claim that it wasn't the same mountain. — Luke

:up:

So in eternalism, the entire history of the atom is all laid out, right? The whole 4D object is the entire history atom. This describes a path in the block, such as the path of the Moon in Huw Price's image. At different times, the atom may be in different positions, i.e. the path of the atom in the block may be wiggly. This wiggliness is identically motion: time-dependent position. You don't need to look any further than wiggles (or slants).

That is my argument.

Similarly, there is no classical state of the particle until observation, so the answer to whether it has decayed or not is “no”; but not in a way that means it is definitely classically undecayed, simply in a way that means it is not classically anything because it’s not in a classical state, it’s in a superposition. — Pfhorrest

Limiting the question only to times when systems are in classical states is the same as limiting oneself to the sorts of everyday propositions where the law of the excluded middle applies. We know that outcomes of quantum experiment depend on the fact of superposition, not on some pending classical state. In other words, nature itself does not exclude middles.

But that wasn't really my point, which was that there are some of us quite happy with non-binary answers to propositions. It is unusual, because the experience of dealing with QM is unusual. It is usual to see that the law of the excluded middle holds, because it does so in usual experience.

:up:

And 1 - 0.999... = 0.000... = 0 (sanity check)

I have no qualms with saying that different parts of the 4D object have different spatial positions at different times. I disagree that the 4D object as a whole has different spatial positions at different times. — Luke

Do you agree that even a part of a 4D object, such as an atom in the window of a car, has different spatial positions at different times?

There is the kinematic definition of motion
— Kenosha Kid

Following your reasoning above, this would imply that the 4D object as a whole moves. — Luke

No, it does not. A body at a spatial coordinate (x,y,z) at time t may have a different spatial coordinate (x',y',z') at time t' (a path). This does not mean that the body at coordinate (x,y,z,t) moves. That is not shown, nor is it sensible.

Is this different for Presentism? — Luke

Yes, it holds whether the past and future are real or not.

However, if what you mean by "exist in more than one position" is to have a part of the mountain existing at one spatial position and another part of the mountain existing at another spatial position, then I agree that different parts of the mountain "exist in more than one position". — Luke

:up: Then you understand perfectly well what is meant by "existing at more than one point in time". In 4D, it is the same thing. Time is not special in this respect.

Proceeding hierarchically, stop me when I presume incorrectly:

If you are happy that a 4D object exists at more than one time to the extent that it exists in more than one position (i.e. has length), you are presumably happy with the concept of duration in 4D, which is a length of time between two points in time.

And if you're happy with time intervals in 4D, and you are happy that the spatial position at one end of the interval may be different to that over the othet end, the you are presumably happy that a 4D object's position changes with with respect to time, i.e. it's position at one time (x, y, z, t) maybe different at another.

There is the kinematic definition of motion. Nothing needs to be bolted on or derived further if you stick to that definition of motion, other than the assumption of continuity. There is no version of the above that can be held and motion not pop out gratis.

On a relational view, since an interaction occurs at the slit, collapse occurs in both the electron and apparatus reference frames.
— Andrew M

No, the electron is in a fixed state in its frame, that's the point of the paper I linked to — Kenosha Kid

Sorry, yes, just got what you meant. We are more or less on the same page.

On a relational view, since an interaction occurs at the slit, collapse occurs in both the electron and apparatus reference frames. — Andrew M

No, the electron is in a fixed state in its frame, that's the point of the paper I linked to. The transformation takes us from a frame in which the lab is in a well-defined position and the electron in superposition to one in which the lab is in superposition and the electron has a well-defined position. It is the lab that undergoes collapse.

However, no reason not to consider an intermediate frame in which both are in superposition. But the wording of the OP, an electron-sized person's point of view, suggested specifically the frame in which the electron's position is defined.

So collapse is reference frame-dependent. — Andrew M

:up:

This is analogous to a Wigner's Friend experiment where a definite measurement event occurs in the friend's reference frame but remains in superposition in Wigner's reference frame. — Andrew M

In the Wigner's friend experiment, collapse is observer-dependent even with a given frame, e.g. the lab frame, and there's some evidence that this is correct (it is experimentally verifiable). However there's a nice symmetry here, you're right, insofar as both Wigner and his friend are well-defined wrt themselves and superposed wrt each other. It might not be a coincidence that the experimental verification of Wigner and the paper on frame transformation roughly coincided... perhaps QM is coming of age. :)

What comes before and after the "i.e" is not equivalent. Motion is not defined as merely having a spatiotemporal position. — Luke

The passage you quoted did not state that motion is defined merely as having a spatiotemporal position, making yours an overtly fallacious argument. It states that the spatial part of the spatiotemporal position depends on the temporal part, that is: for each time, the object has a position. Assuming continuity.

Did you have questions? I thought you were just telling me what's what. — Luke

I have asked you lots of questions, yes. Here's one I'd really like an answer to if you're sure of your position:

What is it then that changes spatial position?
— Kenosha Kid

In Eternalism? Nothing. That's what I'm arguing. Nothing moves; nothing changes.
— Luke

No. What is it that changes position at all? Forget eternalism. Just a mountain at a given moment in time, an aerial photograph if you will. The summit is in one place. The foot is far away from it. It exists in more than one position. By your argument, radius is impossible because what changes spatial position? — Kenosha Kid

You will recall that your response was yet again evasive:

I'm not going to argue with you by analogy. There is no long-standing debate about whether altitude of a mountain can change with position. This is about time and motion. — Luke

Given that, in eternalism, time is laid out like space, I would like an answer.

What does "depends on time" mean? — Luke

It means:

Motion is change in spatial position over change in temporal position. — Luke

i.e. that where something is depends on when.

I've taken great pains to explain myself and present my argument, which you continue to ignore. — Luke

I have answered every question you have asked. You have not done the same.

What does "the time-dependence of an object's position" have to do with either of the definitions that we previously agreed to? — Luke

Because if a 4D object's position depends on time, it has a gradient with respect to time (equivalent statements). By definition that is motion.

[EDIT: Assuming continuity, i.e. that the 4D object is a continuous body in 4D]

^ This is an example of taking the time to explain oneself. My approach has been thus from the start. Stating otherwise is just openly being an arse. If your counterargument depends on that, fine. It'll be dismissed on those grounds. If you have an actual counterargument that makes sense, don't cheapen it with personal invective.

My argument is based on these definitions. — Luke

Then motion is possible by definition, since the time-dependence of an object's position is retained in the eternalist picture. Again, refer to the image for illustration.

I've actually presented an argument. Where's yours? — Luke

I've attempted to explain it in multiple different ways with a great deal of patience, occasionally stretched. Your responses have amounted to circular arguments, contradicting yourself, and refusing to ever consider any point that would resolve the argument when offered. I am sure this is top-notch by your standard, but it is woeful by mine.

Show me where I've used a different definition of motion. — Luke

You agree that motion, as I have defined it, falls out eternalism by definition, or, in your own words:

Your argument is little more than motion is possible in Eternalism by definition. — Luke

And yet "motion is impossible" in eternalism according to whatever definition you use.

It follows logically that you must have a different definition, otherwise motion would also appear possible to you "by definition".

Oh my god. Your argument is little more than motion is possible in Eternalism by definition. The least you could do is address my argument if I'm so obviously wrong. — Luke

Yes. By the kinematic definition of motion, motion is possible in eternalism. As I said ages ago and multiple times, if you have a different definition of motion, different rules and outcomes will fall out.

Your definition is seemingly presentist-specific, though you deny it: the only reason "motion is impossible" in eternalism is because motion is defined in presentist terms. Therefore your argument is nothing more than: "motion is impossible in Eternalism by definition". In other words, you're just reiterating Zeno's paradox.

This was all covered several pages ago.

(To say nothing of the most embarrassing graph in modern physics....) — Wayfarer

Yes, it is embarrassing. But this is what I keep telling people who think physics is intellectually difficult: any idiot can do it, you just have to be interested! (And accept 30 timetabled hours a week at college.)

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man. — Wayfarer

What this says is that ideal Pythagorean theorem is a belief, not a fact, that is: the idea itself exists in Einstein's head, not out there somewhere.

I'm not going to argue with you by analogy. There is no long-standing debate about whether altitude of a mountain can change with position. This is about time and motion. — Luke

This seems to be par for the course: every opportunity I've suggested to consider how motion is possible in eternalism, you have given some excuse to look away. It all comes down to dx/dt being well-defined in eternalism as d(altitude)/d(radius) is defined for a mountain at any given time, and that the geometry of a 4D object is not dependent on how we calculate it, just as the geometry of a mountain is not dependent on how we calculate it.

I don't think you really dispute this. But I don't think you're apt to follow that to its logical conclusion, which is that motion is therefore well-defined in 4D (a truism, given the kinematic definition of motion). I can't make you see where you refuse to look.

Are you trying to "change" the subject? I thought the subject of our disagreement was whether there is motion in Eternalism. I've given my argument for why there isn't. You may need to clarify how this response addresses that argument. — Luke

No, but I feel you are, whenever you sense impending progress, drawing back. If you agree that motion depends only on time-dependent spatial positions, the crux now seems to be: what needs to change temporal position such that spatial positions may change? The question is perfectly analogous to: what needs to change spatial position such that spatial position may change? If you can understand how the altitude of a mountain can change with position, without some other thing having to change in order for that position to change, then understanding how a 4D body can have movement is in principle trivial.

In short, your counter-argument is equivalent to saying that, at a given moment, a mountain must be flat because there is nothing "changing" position to allow its altitude to vary with position. I am sure you do not think this, but the extent to which you think 3D mountains aren't flat but 4D motion is impossible is the extent to which you're switching definitions when you go from space to time. They are both gradients of geometric objects in some space. If you can account for this difference, we have progress.

What object has changed its spatial location? Please tell me. — Luke

None. You do not need to "change" spatial location to have a length, or properties depending on space, unless, as I've repeatedly asked, you're using "change" with some unobvious meaning:

Nor does that gradient depend on me measuring it. — Kenosha Kid

The gradient of the mountainside is not a change in the spatial position of the mountain, as you implied earlier. The mountain hasn't moved. — Luke

Precisely, and yet it has spatially-dependent altitude (a gradient). So why can you not admit that in 4D a body has time-dependent positions (another gradient) and therefore motion?

But those truths, such as the law of the excluded middle, are not, on those grounds, the product of that evolutionary process. The law of the excluded middle, and such like, are by definition ‘true in all possible worlds’. So, we’re dependent on the (physical) brain to be able to cognise such ideas, but the ideas themselves are not the product of a material process, rather, they are what must exist prior for any material process to occur (hence ‘a priori’). — Wayfarer

Surely that's trivial to discount. First, it assumes the answer to the question by asserting that "the ideas themselves are not the product of a material process". Second, I can point to quantum mechanics where the law of the excluded middle does not hold (e.g. either the radioactive atom decayed or it did not), and the people dealing with it are fine. The law of the excluded middle worked as long as our experience of the material world fitted in with it. Then it was abandoned by some people for something more general when experience begged to differ.

Did the a priori fact of excluded middles suddenly change? Is it's truth dependent on circumstance? Or did its seeming truth derive from experience and pedagogy?

Irrelevant. For which object are you measuring the motion? The mountain. So you need to measure the change in its temporal position. This will require that the same mountain (edit: object) is "defined for more than one time". And then see my argument. — Luke

I'm not asking about motion, I'm asking about length. It is relevant because duration in 4D is a length. I can calculate the gradient of the mountain at any point by measuring the "change" in altitude with "change" in radius. These are not changes over time, these are merely lengths. Nor does that gradient depend on me measuring it.

The same goes in 4D, where I can measure motion as "change" in spatial position with "change" in temporal position: these are lengths. And the motion is there whether I measure it or not.

What is it then that changes spatial position?
— Kenosha Kid

In Eternalism? Nothing. That's what I'm arguing. Nothing moves; nothing changes. — Luke

No. What is it that changes position at all? Forget eternalism. Just a mountain at a given moment in time, an aerial photograph if you will. The summit is in one place. The foot is far away from it. It exists in more than one position. By your argument, radius is impossible because what changes spatial position? The extent to which that is a meaningless question is the extent to which "what changes temporal position?" is a meaningless argument. In 4D, space and time are exactly analogous. If you are satisfied that a mountain in 4D has spatial length, you are satisfied that it has temporal duration.

OK, but the puzzle is to account for what happens when the two apparatus slits go past the electron in the electron's rest frame. — Andrew M

This isn't really in the picture, though. The probability of being beyond the slits grows. That is the closest you can get to "the two apparatus slits go past the electron". You can say, e.g., the probability of the slits being behind the electron is now > 50% for thr first time. That's doable.

That is, no definite measurement event would ever occur in the electron's reference frame. — Andrew M

There's no reason why, if a superposed electron can spontaneously and probabilistically collapse, a superposed laboratory cannot. In fact, I'd suggest the opposite: in the electron's rest frame, the collapse is almost immediate. It seems longer to us due to time dilation.

If a definite measurement event does occur at the back screen in the electron's reference frame then a definite measurement event should also have occurred at the slit. — Andrew M

This is not an argument from quantum theory, I gather, more a philosophical argument as to how quantum mechanics ought to be. The double slit experiment suggests that electron collapse at the slit only occurs if we attempt to observe it at the slit, e.g. if we put something in the way of the slit that causes earlier collapse, such as an electron detector.

Typically, the free will chooses between two conflicting values, where one value is driven by the "appetite" (ie our desire for pleasure and undesire for pain) on one hand, and another value is driven by reason on the other hand (such as health, moral duty, etc). This image comes to mind, where the dark angel is the appetite, and the white angel is the reason. — Samuel Lacrampe

That was part of my caveat. But this too may be deterministic. There are people who would starve to deatg before stealing a loaf of bread. There are criminals who would steal for the least reason. The rest of us would steal a loaf of bread if we were sufficiently hungry. How we choose depends on the circumstances (what are my values, am I starving, is there bread, will anyone know, etc), i.e. is deterministic.

It is quite clear that, in Eternalism, the 3D part existing at t1 is not the same as the 3D part existing at t2. You wouldn't say that the 3D part at t1 moves to t2; clearly not: a different part exists at t2. — Luke

Yes, iirc I did ask for clarity on "3D part", I wasn't sure if you meant the body or its spatial coordinates. Continuity is what makes it the same object. Although, the ship Theseus and all that.

My father won the 1st place in physics in my country several times and I believe he was also no1 in Balkans at a time. — Eugen

Are you thinking of tennis? In what sense did your father win physics?

Well, I don't know much about physics, but I know how the things work there at the human level, and trust me when I am saying there's pure personal interest. Quantum mechanics gets in contradiction with relativity? No problem, we'll invent the quantum gravity. — Eugen

But you understand there's no quantum gravity theory accepted by the scientific community, yes? It's reasonable to make hypotheses. They're not saying it's true.

I have worked in academic physics and the quality control is brutal. You say you don't know much about it, but you act like you can dismiss theory on grounds of taste. There is an abundance of scientists who give up huge amounts of their free time to dismiss theory on grounds that it's bullshit. While I can see you think there'd be benefit to science in getting your input early doors, trust me: we have actual experts trying to destroy our work continuously.

The other problem you raise is quite common: that science changes its mind when nature calls out its errors. You're not alone in characterizing that as a lack of integrity, and I doubt I can convince you otherwise other than to say we see no integrity in sticking to a stupid idea. Self-correction is precisely why science has succeeded as much as it has.

It has to be considered the same object to meet the definition "is defined for more than one time". You can't determine the change of temporal location of an object if it's not the same object that changes temporal location. — Luke

Oh, I think I understand. But that is satisfied by continuity. The mountain at the summit is the same mountain as the one at the foot. What is it then that changes spatial position? A presentist-esque answer might be a hiker moving from the foot to the summit. But this is not necessary for the mountain to occupy the space at the summit and the space at the foot. What's required is continuity: the geometry of the mountain.

Same goes for 4D objects. The Moon at some future event is the same as the Moon at some past event: both events are points on the Moon. What makes it the same Moon is continuity. It has length along the temporal axis. No temporal hiker, or spotlight, or objectively passing 'now' is required for it to have that length.



The length in time is evident in both the Earth (the cylinder) and the Moon (the helix). Both have spatial lengths (the thicknesses of the paths), but only the Moon has motion (wiggles).

I really think Pfhorrest was pretty right saying you have a similar vision to Chomsky's — Eugen

It's possible. I once heard Chomsky speak on moral relativism and I dismissed him as an idiot, so I never gave much care for his views after that. Probably a bit harsh.

I guess you were fooled by my harsh statements regarding materialism, therefore you thought I was automatically a mad christian mad at this view. You probably hate mad christians, therefore you started to defend materialism. But I am not a mad christian and another aspect of today's people is that they use science to prove or disprove God, and you arguments, even if they are intended to defend materialism, many of them do not. — Eugen

I wasn't assuming you were a mad Christian, I just needed an example of an immaterial world for sake of illustration and analogy. I did assume you were a dualist, since materialism rather defined itself in opposition to dualism, but it wasn't terminal.

Anyway, it was an enlightening conversation. It can be difficult sometimes getting your head around other points of view. You are the second person today to attest to an experience of the world I hadn't ever considered before. I'm not sure I'll ever quite get it, less sure I could ever quite communicate mine to you, but something to chew over is always good.

Than just try to laugh yourself at today's science. Seriously, future scientists will laugh their abstract asses at how we "curve" space and time by running faster. — Eugen

On the contrary, I can appreciate the successes of scientific achievement to date while recognising that current paradigms will almost certainly be overthrown. It is an iterative process, but a win-win one. If our current models accord with new observation, we learn something. If they do not, we learn something better.

The meaning of what you say made me write this, not the photons. That transcends matter. — Eugen

So seeing my message was not a cause of you responding to it? The photons are an incidental material fact of a transmission of meaning?

If hunger (immaterial) contribute to the chain of causes, than materialism is kind of f***ed. — Eugen

But again that's begging the question.

By the way, I am starting to think that you're more a rational person than a materialist. — Eugen

I am both, I hope. And a modern physicist to boot (doctorate in quantum mechanics).

More like a Schrodinger's cat is either dead or alive makes more sense than to say it's a combination of the two just because you, as an observer, no not have this information. — Eugen

I actually agree with that. There is little evidence that macroscopic bodies can be in superposition. Most physicists would agree with the above.

You are totally right: loys of information (maybe all of it) is inside matter. Wait, what? Did I say information? Damn it, that's not material, therefore it does not exist. — Eugen

As you just demonstrated yourself, it quite clearly is material, so problem there.

You've totally convinced me that hunger has nothing to do with going to kitchen. — Eugen

It certainly doesn't have "nothing to do with going to kitchen". Can I characterise your position as this: there is either nothing causally relating two things, or the relation must be direct and unmediated? I'm not even sure this is an existing philosophy.

They just validate their own theories and it's really not that hard to do that. — Eugen

More like a conspiracy theory?

I am sure future scientists will laugh at today's science. — Eugen

Inevitably. It is, I suspect unlike your belief system, a self-correcting system.

Why don't extrapolate and say from pure matter to information — Eugen

Because no transition is necessary. Materialism has accounted for information well. If you can send me a video link that is not encoded materially, please do.

Hunger does not directly cause me to walk to the kitchen. There are a great number of steps in between
— Kenosha Kid

Just enlighten my mind with that one please. Give me more details. And please be free to spot all my other errors. — Eugen

This genuinely surprised me. I get that you seek immaterial mediators everywhere, but I struggle to get my head around how you can believe that "I feel hungry" -> "I am walking into the kitchen" has no intermediate stages. Even, "I push down on the sofa and my torso rises" is an intermediate stage. It seems that you not only believe in immaterial forces, you believe that even physical human actions are atomistic, i.e. cannot be broken down into a series of smaller actions.

Intelligence and consciousness - atoms aren't conscious and they have no purpose nor intelligence. 0 all the way. If you combine 0 with 0 you get 0. Not on this one, because a certain combination of atoms brings self-awareness, purpose and intelligence, not to mention perception, thoughts or the sensation of happiness. — Eugen

Apologies, you mentioned this before and I meant to respond but didn't. Your 0 + 0 + 0 + ... = 0 representation is that of yay many independent, non-interacting atoms. You're right: that will not yield a conscious system. In fact, it will not yield a system at all.

For the purposes of finishing this in a finite amount of time, let's just ask whether it is possible for a system of two atoms to exhibit behaviour that two independent atoms cannot. The answer is yes. Some examples, you ask! Sure! Rigidity: two independent atoms of carbon are easy to separate; two interacting (via the action of photons) atoms of carbon are not. Carbon is a rigid material (ask diamonds), but there is no carbon rigidity in a single carbon atom. Thus rigidity is a quality of a system of atoms not present in each atom.

This does not explain every single emergent phenomenon (I could go on just about C2), but it does not rely on modern physics (good old fashioned chemistry is fine) and it does do away with the idea that emergent properties cannot occur. A better, perhaps more specific argument is required for consciousness.

Btw, you don't need to go down to the atomic level to find the mystery of consciousness. For the most part, one would expect the phenomena to emerge, if it could emerge (and it does) at biochemical levels. The answer to consciousness is not going to take an atomistic form, though some parts of that answer might rely on atomic theory. It is not necessary to give a complete bottom-up depiction starting from fundamental particles. It is sufficient to understand how chemistry is a good approximation to quantum mechanics for chemical substances, how biology is a good approximation for chemistry in biological substances, etc. If one can derive the laws of biology from chemistry, and of chemistry from quantum mechanics, and demonstrate a biochemical explanation for consciousness, an atomic explanation is redundant.

You've mentioned space matter curvature, which I believe to be utterly dementia — Eugen

Empirically and independently verified dementia... probably isn't dementia. Or do you think science is some kind of mass hallucination? :rofl:

I do not believe in modern physics — Eugen

That's fair enough. As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, the great thing about facts is that their true whether you believe them or not.

Now, irrespective of your personal dementia (I mean your mad beliefs :joke: ), you have surely noticed that modern physics is widely accepted by other people. You're asking the question: why is materialism so popular. As we've both noted, modern philosophical materialism and science have a mutual understanding. The most successfully tested models of our reality are controversial to you; they are not controversial to the mainstream. Is is therefore really a surprise materialism and determinism are so popular, even if you think they are wrong? And let me remind you of your stated scope for this discussion:

I don't want this to be a topic about denying or defending materialism, but rather the reasons behind its popularity. — Eugen

Atheists tend not to be loose enough with their definitions. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Atheists would say anyone who says that is too loose with their definitions. Every human who ever lived or ever will live is definitively a believer or an atheist. If atheists too are believers of sorts because they believe something, then theism is defined so broadly as to be utterly meaningless.

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. It isn't a question of being too strict with definitions of those deities: that is what the word means if it is to mean anything. That I can conceive of a sixty-foot flying pig says nothing about what I believe in.

4. There is an immaterial abstract part of the world that actually governs the material world — Eugen

That's (2) by definition.

Gravity (not material) governs matter. — Eugen

Gravity is the mediator between the mass of one material body and the action on another. That is also (2). The curvature of space-time is typically considered to fall into the material world, which is precisely what I meant by (2): anything discovered that mediates cause and effect in the material world is co-opted into the material world. In short, over time, the notion of "matter" has evolved from hard, massive stuff to anything in the physical description of nature.

A justification, post hoc:

All such mediating force fields are consistent with a particulate description of them. An electric field, for instance, is a medium both composed of photons and in which photons are excitations. The same is true of the strong force, and is supposed to be true of gravity, a current gap in which the immaterialist gods may still reside.

There does seem to be a dualism here: we have, on the one hand, massive particles like electrons, protons, skyscrapers; we have, on the other hand, these mediating fields like gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear field, the Higgs field. Surely this is a duality at least: material massive things and energetic fields.

But the elements of these massive things are also fields comprised of, and hosting excitations in the form of, massive, particulate matter. Really, the differences between them are whether they interact with the Higgs field or not, itself comprised of and hosting excitations in the form of, massive, particulate matter which rather ruins the massive/massless symmetry.

There are other differences, but those other differences don't split down the massive-body/massless-body divide either. Spin, for instance, or charge. The differences between fields are too numerous to select one arbitrarily and say, "Everything like this is one thing; everything not like it is another."

These are, of course, just models, albeit models with unparalleled predictive success. Whether there is a real distinction between {whatever mediates light, whatever mediates gravity, whatever mediates mass, etc.} and {massive thing, charged thing, etc.} or some other arbitrary-seeming dichotomy is (1) again: the immateriality of the supposed immaterial world does not enter into anything.

Hunger (non-material) makes your physical body to move in order to eat food (purpose - abstract) — Eugen

But that is also mediated. Hunger does not directly cause me to walk to the kitchen. There are a great number of steps in between. This isn't qualitatively different from saying that Oppenheimer's parents having sex causes cancer in Japan. Causal chains are not inconsistent with materialism.

I could go on for hours. — Eugen

No need, I have spotted the error already.

Noble? Noble would have been Yahweh stepping up. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

*Comparatively* noble. If we're going absolutist, morality derives from God, right? So it is noble by virtue of him doing or sanctioning it. I think that's the standard answer.

0 evidence for it, tons against. — Eugen

None that I've heard, but go for it!

- this is why it is so unscientific to say science can explain everything. — Eugen

That's not what I said. It is unnecessary for science to explain everything. Either:

1. the immaterial world does not interact with the material world
2. the immaterial world does interact with the material world as a statistically predictable mediator of material causes;
3. the immaterial world does interact with the material world, but not as a statistically precitable mediator of material causes.

Those are complete and mutually exclusive.

If (1), belief in the world is unjustified -> materialism.
If (2), the "immaterial" world is in fact of the same nature as the material -> materialism.
If (3), there can be no science. God-of-the-gaps--type arguments aside, science breaks down if unpredictable effects can appear in the material world.

I'm not sure you took the vital point of this, which is (2): if one posits an immaterial substance -- the Piggs field -- and that substance interacts with our material world in such a way that it can mediate material cause and effect, it would be material. Materialism could rightly plant its flag in it and say: the Piggs field is amenable to physical enquiry, therefore is physical. By definition.

So an immaterial world that wants to keep its spots will need to define itself by the limits of expanding physical understanding (God of the gaps) or else give rise to uncaused material effects (killing science), or else do nothing at all. Not very compelling.

:rofl:
*flies past*
EEEEEEEEEMMM PPLLEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHH