In this sense sound and ink have an active role in the creation of meaning, for they are direct causes. — JuanZu

They don't, they only have the meaning we give them. They aren't direct causes because they are inherently empty.

They have meaning because we have agreed on what certain arrangements and sounds communicate and how to interpret them. Without that context nothing happens.

So something is transmitted in a roundabout way. We also convey meaning through tone, context, imagery, etc. Nothing "causes meaning effects" because unless you are taught what all this sounds and etc are or mean then the medium does nothing. The listener doesn't invent meaning, not entirely. How we make meaning is a complex psychological affair, the medium has nothing if very little to do with it.

That meaning that is invented by the listener may be in communion with our meaning, but then it is a case of coincidence in meanings. — JuanZu

It's not because that's not how language or communication work. This is why straight materialism is limited in how it can understand the world, chiefly by positing anything material to begin with.

For my part, I don't think its as easy as "leaving the intention behind" - this since it's the intention which is transmitted to another via the sound or ink or braille - but OK. We seem to at least agree in terms of the sounds, written letters, or braille patterns being intentionally caused by an agent, and this so as to transmit meaning from one agent to another. — javra

But the point is that they think there is something about the physical nature of the medium when that's not it. It's only the meaning we make out of such things, the medium just carries it. Sounds only have meaning because we assign it as such, otherwise it's nothing to us.

Even how you say something, the tone, the context, all that changes the meaning, not the medium itself. It's really all us, hence why straight materialism has limits in what it can explain (like emergence). We have misunderstandings because people have different subjective experiences, the medium isn't the issue.

I'd often cite the Barbie movie for how people thought it was lying to folks who said they thought it was for kids (they clearly didn't see the trailers). Or how people thought WandaVision was endorsing her reaction to enslaving a town (the series very clearly shows her response to losing Vision is BAD). The reason for these is different experiences and filters people interpret things through, not the medium.

If there is ghost in the ink it means that the intention and the purpose are transmitted without any imperfection or defect. — JuanZu

It does not mean that, but there is intention in the ink in the word choice, even writing style, so much. There is nothing about the ink itself.

So the listener or reader receives the intention, purpose and meaning completely, accurately and absolutely clear without any distortion. — JuanZu

You're just making this up as you go along aren't you? Not to mention not even listening. Repeating something doesn't make it so and no materialist would agree with you. Though to be clear people can receive the intention, purpose, and meaning clearly without distortion depending on the relationship they had with the person. What is meaningless to someone is everything to another.

Like I said, you really don't understand how any of this works...

End of discussion. — JuanZu

Wasn't really much of one, you clearly don't understand meaning and how it works and think the medium does anything.

One: Its not a physical attribute of the ink. The intentions are what caused the ink to have the shapes that it does. And so it is inferred from the ink's shapes. It is as much in the ink as might be a spark in an exploding dynamite.

Secondly: How do you reason there would be no possibility of misunderstanding were this to be so (again, as just described)? — javra

I wouldn't bother, they just repeat the same thing over and over hoping it's true.

In this case we are talking about the materiality of the signs, the sounds uttered, the ink, etc.... From a materialistic point of view, mine, there is no possibility that intentions travel through the air or are inside the ink. That is mentalism. — JuanZu

It is not, that is how meaning is made. From the lines we take to be words to mean certain things there is a "ghost in the ink". However due to our various histories and subjective views that meaning changes. There is nothing about the medium doing it.

What you're talking about isn't materialism, it's just dumb...

But misunderstandings are a fact of life. Which implies that if we accept the materialist thesis that denies that kind of mentalism we must assume that the medium, the sound, the ink, etc, has some independence with respect to purpose and intentionality, and an active role in the creation of meaning for a receiver (the hearer, the reader, etc). — JuanZu

Not even by materialism does that track for reasons already stated.

I was working on the presumption that you do not interpret meaning and use to be different in any respect. Is this correct? — javra

Meaning and purpose to be exact.

"Intending to" make use of something is not the same as "making use of something". — javra

Effectively it is to me, especially since we are talking about language where use does determine use. We aren't talking about objects or anything else so your argument doesn't apply.

Use of X presupposes intentioning, but intentioning "that one use X" can occur without X ending up being used. — javra

Still doesn't change what I mean about two sides.

In fact the purpose is absent in the note. I repeat, this is because if it were not absent we would be talking about something similar to the ghost in the machine, in this case the ghost in the ink. — JuanZu

Uhhh, no. There is a 'ghost in the ink' and it's whoever wrote it and their intention. Purpose is not absent in the note, only a fool would think that. Mediums can carry the feelings of whoever uses them and different mediums let you do that. That's how art is a thing.

Uttering words is very similar to leaving a note. Both can lead to misunderstandings. Why is that? — JuanZu

Because different people have different backgrounds, vocabulary, history, and understanding. There...I answered it.

Precisely because there is an active part of the "medium", without this active part there would never be a possible misunderstanding. — JuanZu

You manage to get right up to the point and just blow right past it. The medium has no role at all other than carrying the message, thats it. Again you insisting otherwise doesn't change that.

Medium transparency is an illusion you have invented. The possibility of misunderstanding proves otherwise. But in fact there are misunderstandings, ergo I am right. There is an independence of the medium that is active. — JuanZu

The possibility of misunderstanding is due to different subjective frameworks between people. Medium transparency isn't an illusion it's what is. It carries the meaning we put into it, nothing more or less.

Your last part doesn't track at all, I just explained how there are misunderstandings and you just try to shoehorn in your (incorrect) theory. There is no independence of the medium, at this point it's faster to just call you an idiot. The medium does nothing but carry or contain the message someone puts in and nothing else. We do interpret it and assign meaning to try to understand what is being done. Some mediums are better than others, like film or painting or photos to try to communicate what language cannot. But in the end it's down to our understanding and frameworks we are working with.

Again, you're still wrong....and it's tiresome to keep proving it.

Can you give any example of use that is devoid of any purpose and hence of any usefulness or benefit? — javra

That's why I said it's two sides of the same coin.

Use entails intentioning which entails intent (with purpose equating to either intentioning or intent). They’re not the same thing though. Intentioning X is not the same as making use of X. The latter presupposes the former, but the former can occur without the latter. — javra

They seem the same to me. You're intending to make use of something unless you're just some unconscious robot carrying out orders.

The purpose here is absent because the absent of the autor and is partly a cause for misunderstanding. — JuanZu

Nope, also you seem to be allergic to making sense. This just screams pretentious. The purpose is not absent hence the note.

That is, you can interpret many things from the note. A person can say something to another person and still be misunderstood. Uttering words is like leaving a note on the refrigerator. — JuanZu

You could but they'd be wrong. Uttering words isn't even close to leaving a note on the fridge because you have tone, context, and everything else. You're not good at this are you?

There is some independence of the "medium" from the message. But this independence is active as I have shown. — JuanZu

You have not shown anything, merely insist it is so and I have to keep pointing out how you're mistaken. There is no independence of the medium, the medium and language are dependent. There is nothing active, you merely assert it as such and fail.

The medium in a certain sense can betray the message and the author's intention. — JuanZu

The medium cannot betray anything, it only shows what they wrote or whatever message they did. Any meaning is on the part of the person and they can get it wrong or not. You're failing hard here dude.

But the note as the words we utter imposes its conditions, there is no absolutely transparent medium, which means that there is an active role of the medium beyond the purpose and intention of the agent. — JuanZu

Laughably false, all mediums are transparent as they only show what you put on them. The words we utter don't impose anything, the medium has no active role, it merely carries the message. How people interpret that is on them, the context, prior knowledge. In short it's purely subjective, but they can be wrong. It also depends on the note, a shopping list likely doesn't leave much ambiguity as a love letter might.

You're just wrong dude, and off the mark of the OP and by everyone else talking. This is just pretentious nonsense, a medium isn't active in any capacity no matte how you insist it might be. Jeez this lacks more substance than your post on my other topic.

No human culture has ever come up with names for the colors in the ultraviolet spectrum that are visible to insects, but not to the human eye. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Funny thing about that, apparently people had names to describe language in colors we can't describe. Like the Greeks and the Wine red sea.

Wittgenstein gets at this vaguely with the notion of a "form of life," but I think we could certainly expand on that a great deal more, as a means of showing how human biology determines use and usefulness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Biology plays a role but it does come down to how it's used. There is also some arguments about how language makes things exist but that without it there is none. It's some of the weirder stuff of eastern philosophy, mostly Buddhism (some branches).

Second, I had forgot Grayling's full example. People can use "QED" and the like consistently, in the correct way, and not know their meaning. However, consider "kalb." It means dog in Arabic. You now know what kalb means. However, if you don't know Arabic, you don't know how to use it in a sentence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah but that's still use according to him, what a word means is how it's used. Hence why in my OP I think the dude in wrong in that meaning and purpose are two sides of the same coin.

But what determines use? Wouldn't the causes of use and usefulness play an important role in explaining language too? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Use determines use, paradoxical it may seem.

You are doing nothing other than categorically denying what I state. But without argument. — JuanZu

Well you haven't really made an argument or given evidence so what else is there to do?

That language we share is actively exposed in the note, but not by another person, because this one is absent. — JuanZu

Nope, it's expressed by another person, the note didn't write itself. Again it's the medium.

But as I said the note acts in the absence of its author, it acts in us who read and understand it. — JuanZu

You can say that all you want but it's not acting in any form whatsoever, hence what I meant by imagination being used here. You can insist all you want but the note is nothing more than medium.

In part the note actively is its ordo cognoscendi, by its syntax, by the place in which it is found (a refrigerator), by its style, etc. — JuanZu

In English? As I'm beginning to suspect this just sounds pretentious rather than saying anything of substance. The note isn't anything other than a note. You're just incorrect here?

That is in fact false. Because the mental contents are not in the note as a ghost in the letters. The note is alone and it is exerting a constraint on our language. — JuanZu

It's not and the mental contents are in the note that is why they wrote it, that's also how poetry works among other writing. The note is not alone or exerting anything, again just imagination.

I maintain that it is because there is an active role of the note in the refrigerator. — JuanZu

And you are (still) wrong in that assessment and haven't shown otherwise.

It is partly the reason why we understand what we understand. Partly because the subject also has an active role and both roles interact with each other. — JuanZu

Or because we just use the same language and understand each other. Again you're not coming through here and just dig a deeper hole for yourself. There is a simpler way to say all this instead of convoluting it to give the impression of something deeper that isn't there.

That's why when you are asked why you interpret the way you interpret what the note says you actually have to show the note and say "the note says so". — JuanZu

You're not really being asked that, the note says something, plain and simple. You can sorta guess intent based on the person and your relationship to them.

Again...making less sense with every post. This isn't even related to my original post. Though looking at your username I sorta got a sense of your thought process so I'm not surprised.

You are ignoring that the use we think we can make of the note is delimited by the note itself. It is like a command that interacts with us. And above all it is the reason why we understand a specific use and not any other. This is an active role that transcends the subjectivity of the subject and its intentionality. That is why the notion of use falls short, because the use is anchored to a subject, or to a way of life. Today with artificial intelligence we see more clearly how non-subjective sign systems interact with us. — JuanZu

Not really no. The note is just the medium, it's someone else interacting with us. The note is just a note. We understand what it means by what we know about the person be it friend, family, or whoever. There is no active role, that's just your imagination. It doesn't transcend anything.

We aren't seeing that with AI today either, quite the opposite. I swear the more you write the LESS sense you make, might wanna work on that. Heck I understood Icarus above better than that.

If we see a note on a refrigerator according to our use of words we can understand what it says. However it should be noted that the note has an active role in us shaping our language and selecting the use we are going to give it. But here "giving a use" is misleading, since it seems that the subject is the one who has the only active role. However, we cannot explain our choice of word use other than from the note on the refrigerator. That is, the note has an active role in shaping the use. The role of the note is so active that in my opinion the idea of use is very restrictive to the subject. That is why I prefer to speak of transcription and of active non-subjective sign systems that interact with us. — JuanZu

I don't think the note has an active role in anything, it's just a note. We know what it means because we know what the words mean. It's that simple. There is no selecting a use, it's just to communicate.

The note has no active role in shaping us or anything like that. The idea of use is not restrictive either, it just is.

You can speak of "Transcription and non-subjective sign systems" but that's not what's going on. Sounds like your overcomplicating things. Also not related to my original post.

Though I feel like there's a simpler way to say what you're saying without the "philosophy speak".

That's a lot of quotes! Well, the OP was short on content, I figured I'd add a bit! — Count Timothy von Icarus

None of that is really related to the points in the original about purpose and meaning.

And I didn't really understand what they were saying in that bit about science being wiped out.

First, it might sound simple (i.e., that you're reducing meaning to something simple) saying that use is meaning, but Wittgenstein spent quite a bit of time explaining it. It's not reductionist. — Sam26

Sounds similar to what the dude on quora meant but I'm guessing not.

Yeah that's what I thought, or had some instinct towards that. When I reread his stuff it doesn't really track that well.

I don't know if intent is really true here, seems like meaning and purpose go hand in hand. You can't create purpose without meaning and a purpose means nothing unless you make it so.

So while his remark might sound like purpose comes first it really just sounds more like one in the same.

Like...what you don't understand is that "construction" and the meaning we make is the real you as well as the feelings, sensations, and drives of the body. There is no real distinction between the two, there is no cave of shadows. Making meaning is as much a part of being human as everything else, and everything else also flows from that meaning making.

Even your description of a "real you" is meaning making. You seem to take constructed as "not real" and that's simply false, even Buddhism acknowledges that.

If you understand that "what is irony" is a construction, as is everything which flows out of it, constructions of meaning; and that, the real "you" lies somewhere outside of that cave of shadows, in the feelings, sensations and drives of the body; while you will never escape pleasure and pain, you might escape attachment and suffering. — ENOAH

Not really, again for reasons I said. There is nothing that flows out of it, it’s just one part. The feelings and sensations and drives of you (because you are the body) are also the result of meaning making. I’m also figuring you don’t understand attachment and suffering based on that remark. Pleasure and pain aren’t something to escape and neither is attachment or suffering.

I don't like using up space with long unsolicited explanations, and the statement just made requires long explanations, so I guess I'm unclear. On the upside, I hope my unclear statements might trigger pursuit by others into tunnels they may not have considered, and I learn a lot about tunnels from their responses. — ENOAH

What you said so far wasn’t true so there isn’t anything to learn from it. It’s just ignorance of how things work.

From what learned the real you lies in both, not outside or inside either one. The trap is thinking there is something to escape or transcend. Meaning making is who humans are, there is no getting outside of it.

It doesn’t matter how long your explanation is if the fundamental understanding is wrong.

I meant both sincerely. Thanks for the interesting take. Sorry if I was frustratingly unclear. But for me, all good. How could I really know? So obviously I've grown a little from this. I'm ready to move on.

I don't think I've left you hanging, right? — ENOAH

Oh, it was just unclear. I normally just care about philosophy that helps me live well mostly, call it pragmatism. Stuff like "how do we know anything" is noise to me.

Thank you/Sorry. — ENOAH

Uhhh...ok...

I can't say what David Moore means. — Moliere

Me either, the irony stuff in that post sounds more like the Buddhist idea of dependent arising, especially the part about taking sadness to know what happiness is, noise to appreciate silence and absence to value presence. Though I think that might be debatable.

I think the better notion is how much we often take for granted in our lives that we don't really appreciate certain things. Something like too much of a good thing or other.

But yeah, that sounds more like dependent arising in Buddhism, not really irony.

To cut to the chase, I/we can't help it. It's autonomous. — ENOAH

It's not and that doesn't answer the question.

The exploration further, call it philosophy, is a desire to build meaning. That desire is rooted in a positive feeling. We may not perceive that root feeling on the surface, so overcrowded with layers of constructions, but at the root is an unnable positive feeling. That is what I said was the first movement in philosophy. — ENOAH

But that's not what it is at the root, it's not a positive feeling. Also unnable isn't a word. It's not even the first movement. The first movement is making meaning, that's just what we do as humans. Meaning making is automatic, we do it like that.

Of course it's [grown into] a system etc. But everything beyond whatever that positive feeling is--the feeling both our bodies are after by, for lack, "discovery"--is making-up meaning. — ENOAH

You have it backwards. The feeling comes after all that. Discovery is partly making up meaning, it's also incorporating new information.

In the end some of us produce functional new paths, some don't, but we're all making meaning to attach to organic feelings. So ultimately we're confounding any path to that once real feeling, with making sense. — ENOAH

Except that's not what's happening. There is no "ultimately" and we aren't confounding any path, nothing is getting mixed up or confused here. The feelings and the ideas are in tandem, not one preceding the other.

It really just sounds like you don't know. We aren't attaching meaning to feelings, the feelings arise as we attach meaning. It's one in the same.

I don't take Quora seriously, to be honest. I participated a for a small time there in answering labor questions and saw how it's basically a social media game. — Moliere

Yeah, by now I should know better than to go there. Even just looking at his profile raises some red flags to be honest.

I don't think irony is based on a lack of expectations, though if you're a dullard without any expectations I could see how irony is lost on a person. — Moliere

Then you likely wouldn't get along with many Zen monks then.

I'm not saying irony is relativism, I'm saying that in the original post by David I think he's meaning relative instead of ironic. Saying that anything can be made ironic isn't technically true, things change meaning based on context. So that would make things relative, not ironic.

What does it mean to say "everything is ironic", or "relative?" We claim to be making sense of it, but, ironically we're
confounding it further. — ENOAH

I think it does make sense but some people like to insist otherwise, so far no one has been able to show you can't define it.

But if things didn't make sense you'd never be able to argue the point about whether they do.

We do not focus on the truth we already know. "Irony" like most things surfacing through minds as culture or history, is not a definite singular thing. It represents first an organic feeling best left not displaced by signifiers. But inevitably minds come up with "irony" [for the feeling triggered when facts reveal themselves to be fictions and vice versa]. And its definition is already impossible because it is not the unnamable feeling, but the construction for it in code. But because it is constructed we give to it also constructed meanings. If conventionally accepted within a range of functional applications of that signifier, then we settle upon that as "definition." Fair enough. A reasonably necessarily dialectic for "irony" to function as code. — ENOAH

That made even less sense then your original comment. Irony isn't a feeling, it's something we can define and point out. It's not impossible to define. I mean...all meanings are constructed since we made up words to understand and navigate reality.

Philosophy isn't a feeling so much as a system or method.

But then philosophy (also first an unamable feeling, stretched by Mind into [a] near infinite structure of signifiers, requiring extra lengthy narratives to arrive at the feeling [akin to discovery]) comes along and takes the dialectic beyond the reasonable conventional one designed to give the Signifier some signifieds, the construction of meaning [out of feeling]; but to a place which is clearly more fictional, a game claiming to be uncovering the core of truth. — ENOAH

This was what I expected you to say given the last response but it's an empty statement. We made the rules so how can we say to uncover truth in a system we made up? *yawn* Interesting point, but then it begs the question of why even post that or reply to me to begin with?

Well if nothing was true or "made sense" I doubt we'd be on computers talking about it.

Maybe there is no clear answer. Either way a rather dull response.

Almost reminds me of nihilism and the making of meaning and how I thought we lived a fantasy world of our own creation by pretending all these things matter and are so important, well...at least this bit did:

"The Logic of Mathematics and the Imaginative and Creative Process by which we Make Sense by Rendering the Continuous Discretely and Producing Continuity from the Discrete" — Darkneos

Though I'm not really sure Math says that.

Everything isn't irony because most things don't end in aporia or comedy. — Moliere

Well he seems to think differently, though in my view if irony is based on expectation then nothing is ironic if you have no expectations.

That's why I'm thinking he's meaning relative or subjective, not ironic.

Though given his other content I've linked I can't really say for sure either way.

They are simply words that remind us that there is no ultimate metalanguage that serves to describe language. It is the same with the word "metaphor". You define it in a non-metaphorical sense and there is a contradiction in what it is to speak metaphorically and to define metaphor, that is, you betray its meaning. This implies that there is no metalanguage of definitions valid for all cases. Moreover, when we believe we have a metalanguage we use it as any other way of speaking that you can also define in another metalanguage of a higher order; and so on ad infinitum. That is, there is no ultimate metalanguage from which to define all aspects (or being) of language. — JuanZu

Ummm, in English? I think we can define metaphor with betraying the meaning, otherwise you couldn't use it. There also is no contradiction in defining metaphor and speaking in that way same with irony. Really don't know where people get that one from.

Or does it mean language is fluid, which also isn't news. Words have different meanings based on the time period and the context they're used in.

Do you mean there is no objective language in the universe?

Not really sure what you're getting at.

The other thing I’m thinking about is how he might be saying we live in a fantasy world and not reality because we made all the concepts and ideas used to describe it that only make sense to us because we made it up, even meaning.

Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/vPS5Yw_YsHA?si=HElsCrPjpMUYxSiY

Ironically, we might just end up confounding things. — ENOAH

I'm not sure what you mean.

Ironically, both are something only a human could say... or, does that negate the irony? — ENOAH

Who knows, I’m still trying to work out what the dude means and if it’s just a bit about our attempts to make sense of things.

From the article ‘the most potent examples of irony emerge from scenarios in which objects and the expected meaning in their context appear perpendicular to the more immediate meaning of that context.’

It’s pretty close to what I said. — Wayfarer

But what you said isn't what I'm getting at what I think he means by irony.

Especially in light of some other stuff he has posted: https://www.quora.com/What-is-semantic-despair/answer/David-Moore-408?srid=hp09y
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-attribute-meaning-to-things/answer/David-Moore-408
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-ugly-truths-of-life/answer/David-Moore-408
https://www.quora.com/What-makes-you-wrong/answer/David-Moore-408
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-truth-about-everything/answer/David-Moore-408

That's what I mean by him suggesting that if irony can't be defined then that would apply to all words that we use thus rendering meaning invalid.

Also he has this weird pop track listed too:

https://soundcloud.com/mooretrumpet-1/sets/continuous-discretion

Not sure what this line means:

"The Logic of Mathematics and the Imaginative and Creative Process by which we Make Sense by Rendering the Continuous Discretely and Producing Continuity from the Discrete"

AT first it reminds me of process philosophy but who knows what he's thinking. Maybe I'm trying to make sense of nonsense and I feel like that's playing into his hands. Like deliberately making nonsense to prove a point.

Ugh, who knows.

No, I think you’re on the right track. It’s a little like humor or explaining a joke - if you have to explain why a joke is funny then it’s not funny. And there are those - this includes a particular type of American - on whom ‘irony is lost’, who can’t see the irony of something. In which cases it’s pointless to try and explain why it’s ironic.

I suppose that both irony and a humor (at least not slapstick humor) both rely on cognitive dissonance, a kind of double meaning, a mismatch between what was expected and what actually happened. — Wayfarer

I don’t think you got what I meant by my reply. Ironic means the opposite happening of what’s intended, but he’s saying you can’t define what it is.

And I’m saying if that inability to define it is making the same point about all words that we use, since context can change the meaning of things.

Even still I would only call changing the context or perspective meaning things are relative, not ironic. Ironic implies contradiction, there is also intent and expectation involved in irony.

Though I guess if you expect nothing then nothing is ironic…maybe…

Maybe irony is relative. Either way that’s not really what I’m asking about what David is saying.

Ironically, this David Moore doesn't know what irony is. — DifferentiatingEgg

Probably not, but I'm easily influenced. Though I did come across this while reading up on irony: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1913/03/111-3/132217691.pdf

Though to be honest I think the word he's looking for is relative not ironic, ironic means the opposite of what is intended or expected, not different. Though you could make a argument for it being different not being what you expected and therefor opposite, but that seems kinda weak to me.

I'd also argue if everything is ironic nothing is, though according to him irony is not ironic:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-irony/answer/David-Moore-408

Though the more I read the more it just sounds like his personal takes with some references to Wittgenstein.

I have many arguments in this forum as to whether humans are categorically different to other animals. Most say they’re not, but ironically that’s something only a human could say. — Wayfarer

I guess I’m just wondering if what he means is accurate or not, or just nuts.

The part about irony not being able to be defined according to him kinda undermines his point. How can you call something that you can’t define? Unless he means irony not being able to be defined would apply to all words then thus render meaning useless.

Or am I just severely overthinking it.

Also I think it's changing the context changes the perspective, not changing the perspective changes the context.

Both are considered to be idealists, but I wouldn't say they are "interchangeable", unless you want to trivialize their work as proponents of woo-woo. The link below characterizes Berkeley as a "subjective idealist", and Whitehead as "more complex", perhaps combining subjective concepts and objective percepts. For example, matter is both a tangible percept (experience) and a philosophical concept, as in Materialism. — Gnomon

This is incorrect. Whitehead was not an idealist nor is he considered one. His view is that of panpsychism or close to it, not idealism. Both however did have to underpin their views with god to make it work.

How Matter can also be Mind may sound like woo-woo to some skeptics. And if immaterial ideas are woo-woo (can't see'em or touch'em), then this forum of sharing ideas via spooky action-at-a-distance is also mystical mumbo jumbo — Gnomon

That’s not what spooky action at a distance means at all, that refers to quantum entanglement, the theory that particles don’t have to be near each other to impact each other. It has nothing to do with materiality. In fact there was a Nobel Prize given a few years ago for proving nonlocality, meaning particles that are entangled can impact each other across distances.

But yeah, wrong again as usual.

I have no issue seeing that.

You said energy is a concept. So then matter is energy and therefore matter is a concept.

So is Whitehead interchangeable with Berkeley? — Fire Ologist

He's wrong on pretty much everything and you can literally google it. I told you to stop believing them as they're often either wrong or grossly butchering ideas.

Here, I'll show you per the Einstein "quote":

"While the phrase "there is no matter" is often attributed to Einstein, there is no credible evidence that he actually said this; however, his theory of relativity does suggest that what we perceive as matter is essentially concentrated energy, meaning the distinction between the two can be blurred, leading to interpretations that could be misconstrued as "no matter" exists. "

https://www.google.com/search?q=did+einstein+say+there+is+no+matter&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS1050US1050&oq=did+einstein+say+there+is+no+matter&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgDEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyBggEEEUYPNIBCjIyNDk2ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBYGtsUR7H_JO&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Literally just ignore them if they say anything about this still.