Why materialism is a metaphysical position

[modernPrimitive2]

Based on the derailing of another thread of mine, I'm creating this thread to explain why materialism is a metaphysical position and precisely what the implication are of that.

Firstly, some definitions:

Metaphysics (Britannica): The philosophical study whose object is to determine the real nature of things...
Materialism (Wikipedia): Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature...

It's clear from the definitions already that materialism is something of a metaphysical position, but let me elaborate for the sake of understanding the full implications of this and why it's important because there seems to be a hell of a lot of confusion about this. I'm going to reference Kant's Transcendental Idealism, but since it's rather complex to understand and needs to be read in the context of Kant's disagreements with Newtonian philosophers of his time I'm going to modernize his ideas here.

Let's consider a thought experiment on the fundamental nature of space-time.

Suppose we want to build a robot that like a human being is able to navigate through space and time. We'll begin by assuming the naive Newtonian metaphysic - that this is a material robot in a material reality that we call space-time. Now we could not simply place a camera for the eyes and various sensors on the parts of the robot to detect interactions with a supposed objective reality. We would also need some computer hardware and software that were able to process and "make sense" of this sensory input. Hence, the robot would need to have some form of space-time recognition programmed into it, the ability to identify discrete objects, obstacles, their size, weight, colour, dangers and so on. Furthermore we would have to "fine tune" this space-time cognition for the robots survival very much in line with Darwinian principles. Is water, fire or heat dangerous or is it a case of how much water, fire or heat? Assuming for example that the robot charged it's batteries off solar, how much sunlight is too little and how much sunlight is too much so as to cause the hardware to overheat...and so on. We'll call this "space time cognition" - "A" as opposed to our metaphysical "B" which we'll call "Real Space Time" - which is an objective reality that exists independent of any human (or robotic) cognition, as per the image below:



Now this poses a fundamental epistemological problem for our robot because A cannot be a perfect and accurate representation of B as it is in itself, but rather it must be skewed to the subjective interpretation and the fine-tuning necessary for the robots survival. So what does all empirical data that our robot collects actually describe? A or B? The answer is pretty clear here, empirical data describes A - cognitive space-time rather than B (Real Space Time), or possibly the very best case senario - it points to B but is heavily distorted by A.

Now bearing in mind that I made the metaphysical assertion that our robot is a real material robot in a real material space-time reality, if we are to be philosophically honest I must remove that assertion. Another way of saying that is that since it's particularly difficult to say exactly what B actually is given that as humans we are subject to it's interpretation by A, I must begin with the honest position of admitting that it is initially undefinable. And so we have an image that is more along the lines of this:



I don't think it's philosophically honest to take the Kantian philosophy to it's extreme and say that nothing can be known of the Noumenal (B). Kant himself admits that there must be a Neumenal, a "some thing" but resists any assertions about what it may be and that effectively sums up all metaphysics in that it gives us the epistemological limiations of what can be asserted about it. Certainly we cannot say what it is at the fundamental level - we cannot say that it is fundamentally "a substance" as materialism would have it. In fact, we can even see Kant's idea substantiated by quantum mechanics. Had he been alive in the 1900s he would have been thrilled. The very fact that quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive, that we get strange paradoxes that seem to infer (apparent) retro-causality, spooky action, improbability and so on infer that we have a very strong cognitive bias towards a Newtonian conception of space time. The closer we get to Kant's neumenal, the more counter-intuitive things become. There is no "material substance" to be find in quantum mechanics and reality seems far more unstable than our "Newtonian" intuition would have it.

And that should give a pretty clear idea of why materialism is a metaphysical position because it's simply an assertion about the Kantian neumenal (B), fundamentally "faith-based", irrefutable etc.

 

[Perspicuo]

I didn't know sexy androids were Kantian.
I wonder if it beefs up humans too--I'm too lazy for the gym.

 

[rousseau]

Ok, materialism is a metaphysical position. What does that mean in practical terms for humans?

If all of our positions are essentially metaphysical beliefs and the universe cannot be known, then we go with the position that allows us to better survive, which is empiricism/materialism.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Ok, materialism is a metaphysical position. What does that mean in practical terms for humans?

If all of our positions are essentially metaphysical beliefs and the universe cannot be known, then we go with the position that allows us to better survive, which is empiricism/materialism.

Haha. Well then you have to call it "survivability" rather than "truth" and you could also argue a case for "psychological primacy" and you enter into the humanities. For example, the argument that irrational beliefs are no longer needed as a survival mechanism might become questionable. (They may or may not, I'm just giving an example of how this potentially changes our outlook).

 

[rousseau]

Ok, materialism is a metaphysical position. What does that mean in practical terms for humans?

If all of our positions are essentially metaphysical beliefs and the universe cannot be known, then we go with the position that allows us to better survive, which is empiricism/materialism.

Haha. Well then you have to call it "survivability" rather than "truth" and you could also argue a case for "psychological primacy" and you enter into the humanities. For example, the argument that irrational beliefs are no longer needed as a survival mechanism might become questionable. (They may or may not, I'm just giving an example of how this potentially changes our outlook).

Irrational beliefs might be a good survival mechanism in some societies, for instance maintaining evangelical beliefs in the Southern US, but I'd argue that empiricism, even when mixed with religious beliefs, leads to better outcomes.

To take a simple example, lets use that of loans and interest. Empirically the situation is as simple as verifiable math: if I pay off my loans I pay less interest, if I take out more loans I pay more interest. In the long term the first case is better for my well being if I can accomplish it. A human being who's incapable of making this connection might end up over-burdening themselves with debts until the breaking point happens. Empirically it's as simple as making a strategic decision about life outcomes, without that type of thinking we can hurt ourselves.

Within what you're calling a metaphysical belief there are real laws that describe the universe. For instance, the laws of thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, and on and on. These things have been proven, and tell us real things about how the world behaves. Understanding them gives us an advantage in navigating our lives.

And I'd go further to argue that belief in empiricism and materialism, if that's what you want to call it, has only one true alternative, that being ignorance of empiricism and the material nature of the universe. You can believe in any flavour of deity or religion, but in the end of it you're just making it up, and any real effects of the deity or religion is completely imaginary.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Irrational beliefs might be a good survival mechanism in some societies, for instance maintaining evangelical beliefs in the Southern US, but I'd argue that empiricism, even when mixed with religious beliefs, leads to better outcomes.

To take a simple example, lets use that of loans and interest. Empirically the situation is as simple as verifiable math: if I pay off my loans I pay less interest, if I take out more loans I pay more interest. In the long term the first case is better for my well being if I can accomplish it. A human being who's incapable of making this connection might end up over-burdening themselves with debts until the breaking point happens. Empirically it's as simple as making a strategic decision about life outcomes, without that type of thinking we can hurt ourselves.

Within what you're calling a metaphysical belief there are real laws that describe the universe. For instance, the laws of thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, and on and on. These things have been proven, and tell us real things about how the world behaves. Understanding them gives us an advantage in navigating our lives.

And I'd go further to argue that belief in empiricism and materialism, if that's what you want to call it, has only one true alternative, that being ignorance of empiricism and the material nature of the universe. You can believe in any flavour of deity or religion, but in the end of it you're just making it up, and any real effects of the deity or religion is completely imaginary.

I agree with your example. The world has changed to a large extent and we have evolved. However, we still possess irrational functions, instinctive drives and so on. For example, you do not rely on the rational function to spot an imminent danger. There is no time to calculate the distance and velocity of a possible vehicle collision - rather your instinct kicks in and your intuitive grasp of space and velocity save your life. You see we've demonized the instincts (irrational function) - Religion has done it with their metaphorical devils. (What screams more "animal instinct" than the image of a cloven hoofed hairy beast with a big phallus?). Dawkins does it as well in The God Delusion - his whole theory is based on the idea though at least he recognizes some past evolutionary utility. It's a cultural thing, not a religious one. But there's the problem, the irrational and instinctive drives still live within us, they form part of our psychological make up. One can't simply abandon or ignore the reality of them in relation to social reality, our psychological makeup and even to an extent as I have shown in relation to our physical survivability.

As I said in my post on "Mythology is a reality"

...Let's assume metaphysical materialism is actually true to some extent and that our cognition of space time is somewhat representative of an actual objective materiality. Even then, our scientific models are merely an abstraction. We don't mean to say the scientific model is actually space-time in itself, we know it is merely a mathematical abstraction. In precisely the same way mythology is a metaphorical abstraction of our social and psychological reality. Granted it's not as immediately apparent unless one has delved deeply into the study of psychology and mythology but you can't start by applying one set of standards to the hard sciences and another set of standards to the soft sciences. That's intellectual dishonesty. You know that some scientific formula is merely a representation of something, you don't take the math to be the literal object. Why must you apply literalism to mythology?

 

[untermensche]

We'll begin by assuming the naive Newtonian metaphysic

I don't know what this means.

In Newtons day "material" meant "mechanical".

But he introduced invisible unexplained forces. He was accused of having occult ideas.

Today we accept the notion of invisible forces without question.

But with it the idea of "material" changes as well.

Are the forces of gravity "material"?

 

[modernPrimitive2]

We'll begin by assuming the naive Newtonian metaphysic

I don't know what this means.

In Newtons day "material" meant "mechanical".

But he introduced invisible unexplained forces. He was accused of having occult ideas.

Today we accept the notion of invisible forces without question.

But with it the idea of "material" changes as well.

Are the forces of gravity "material"?

Yeah I agree with what you are saying here.

We have evolved with a naive idea of space-time and what I'm saying is that our models very much describe that naive idea rather than space-time as a thing-in-itself. Exploring that naive idea of space-time at the cosmological and QM scales starts to break down that view which is why QM is counter-intuitive and we find ideas at the cosmological scale where huge mass can occupy an infinitesimally small point "in space" (black holes for example). So what does it tell us about an objective space-time? It tells us our models don't describe it very well.

If for example you set up a lab with some equipment that could digitize a little section of space-time. Say you had a block of wood sitting in some kind of advanced 3D scanning electron microscope that could digitize the position, spin etc of all the particles in a section of "space-time". Now space-time would hence be represented to the computer as numerical values in a binary tree or lookup table. We know that this is just a representation of space-time and not the thing-in-itself. What does this say about how we as humans "detect" (with our senses and cognition) space-time as a thing-in-itself. To our cognition it is experienced as a literal 3d matrix through which we can move and bump into objects which also occupy that 3D matrix. But it's represented differently to than it is to the way our equipment represents it as say a binary tree, so neither of these things can be the thing-in-itself, they are merely representations.

But then if you go on to say, yeah sure, we know that things get strange at the QM or cosmological scales and that tells us more about how space-time really is in itself. Yes, is seems to infer that, but the problem is that we are approaching the entire understanding of space-time as a thing-in-itself from entirely this naive "representational" point of view. So then some physicists might say for example the delayed-choice quantum eraser does not infer retro-causality. Really? Are you sure? How much of your naive representational view is involved in that interpretation of the delayed choice quantum eraser? Because as humans at the macroscopic scale do not experience retro-causality now it "cannot be". Of course I'm not saying it is retro-causality, I'm saying that we don't really know and that we have to understand the epistemological limits of what we say about space-time as a thing-in-itself.

Its not a pretty position to be in but it's an honest one.

 

[untermensche]

I don't know what this means.

In Newtons day "material" meant "mechanical".

But he introduced invisible unexplained forces. He was accused of having occult ideas.

Today we accept the notion of invisible forces without question.

But with it the idea of "material" changes as well.

Are the forces of gravity "material"?

Yeah I agree with what you are saying here.

We have evolved with a naive idea of space-time and what I'm saying is that our models very much describe that naive idea rather than space-time as a thing-in-itself. Exploring that naive idea of space-time at the cosmological and QM scales starts to break down that view which is why QM is counter-intuitive and we find ideas at the cosmological scale where huge mass can occupy an infinitesimally small point "in space" (black holes for example). So what does it tell us about an objective space-time? It tells us our models don't describe it very well.

If for example you set up a lab with some equipment that could digitize a little section of space-time. Say you had a block of wood sitting in some kind of advanced 3D scanning electron microscope that could digitize the position, spin etc of all the particles in a section of "space-time". Now space-time would hence be represented to the computer as numerical values in a binary tree or lookup table. We know that this is just a representation of space-time and not the thing-in-itself. What does this say about how we as humans "detect" (with our senses and cognition) space-time as a thing-in-itself. To our cognition it is experienced as a literal 3d matrix through which we can move and bump into objects which also occupy that 3D matrix. But it's represented differently to than it is to the way our equipment represents it as say a binary tree, so neither of these things can be the thing-in-itself, they are merely representations.

But then if you go on to say, yeah sure, we know that things get strange at the QM or cosmological scales and that tells us more about how space-time really is in itself. Yes, is seems to infer that, but the problem is that we are approaching the entire understanding of space-time as a thing-in-itself from entirely this naive "representational" point of view. So then some physicists might say for example the delayed-choice quantum eraser does not infer retro-causality. Really? Are you sure? How much of your naive representational view is involved in that interpretation of the delayed choice quantum eraser? Because as humans at the macroscopic scale do not experience retro-causality now it "cannot be". Of course I'm not saying it is retro-causality, I'm saying that we don't really know and that we have to understand the epistemological limits of what we say about space-time as a thing-in-itself.

Its not a pretty position to be in but it's an honest one.

I think we are at the point where we recognize there is a universe out there with properties and there are representations of that "reality" which allow animals like humans to interact with that "reality" and continue to survive.

The representation is obviously not that which it represents and never can be.

But the representation only exists because there was something to represent.

But we make no representation of "time", whatever that would mean.

We infer time from the changes to the representations. And nobody really had a thing to say about time until Einstein. And all he said was that it's pace could be altered to a small degree through massive expenditure of energy. Just like you can change your position in space with expenditure of energy.

Einstein said that space and time were inseparable.

I don't see how that changes anything? Nobody ever said they weren't.

 

[Juma]

But we make no representation of "time", whatever that would mean.

Doesnt we? Of course we do. We "are" time.

 

[untermensche]

But we make no representation of "time", whatever that would mean.

Doesnt we? Of course we do. We "are" time.

In English it is "Don't we?".

And this is gibberish.

Our brain makes no representation of time. We don't see time, or feel it, or hear it.

We infer it because the representations we experience change.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Doesnt we? Of course we do. We "are" time.

In English it is "Don't we?".

And this is gibberish.

Our brain makes no representation of time. We don't see time, or feel it, or hear it.

We infer it because the representations we experience change.

Good point.
EB

 

[Juma]

Doesnt we? Of course we do. We "are" time.

In English it is "Don't we?".

And this is gibberish.

Our brain makes no representation of time. We don't see time, or feel it, or hear it.

We infer it because the representations we experience change.

As a musician I definitely feel time.

 

[untermensche]

In English it is "Don't we?".

And this is gibberish.

Our brain makes no representation of time. We don't see time, or feel it, or hear it.

We infer it because the representations we experience change.

As a musician I definitely feel time.

That is metaphor.

Rhythm is not time. It is dividing time neatly with sound.

 

[rousseau]

I agree with your example. The world has changed to a large extent and we have evolved. However, we still possess irrational functions, instinctive drives and so on. For example, you do not rely on the rational function to spot an imminent danger. There is no time to calculate the distance and velocity of a possible vehicle collision - rather your instinct kicks in and your intuitive grasp of space and velocity save your life. You see we've demonized the instincts (irrational function) - Religion has done it with their metaphorical devils. (What screams more "animal instinct" than the image of a cloven hoofed hairy beast with a big phallus?). Dawkins does it as well in The God Delusion - his whole theory is based on the idea though at least he recognizes some past evolutionary utility. It's a cultural thing, not a religious one. But there's the problem, the irrational and instinctive drives still live within us, they form part of our psychological make up. One can't simply abandon or ignore the reality of them in relation to social reality, our psychological makeup and even to an extent as I have shown in relation to our physical survivability.

As I said in my post on "Mythology is a reality"

...Let's assume metaphysical materialism is actually true to some extent and that our cognition of space time is somewhat representative of an actual objective materiality. Even then, our scientific models are merely an abstraction. We don't mean to say the scientific model is actually space-time in itself, we know it is merely a mathematical abstraction. In precisely the same way mythology is a metaphorical abstraction of our social and psychological reality. Granted it's not as immediately apparent unless one has delved deeply into the study of psychology and mythology but you can't start by applying one set of standards to the hard sciences and another set of standards to the soft sciences. That's intellectual dishonesty. You know that some scientific formula is merely a representation of something, you don't take the math to be the literal object. Why must you apply literalism to mythology?

I'm not completely sure what you're trying to get at.

Knowledge, regardless of how you define it, has utility. The scientific method isn't about the 'religion of materialism' you speak of, but rather acquiring knowledge about the universe so we can more effectively manipulate it, and that's exactly what's happening. To say that we don't know real things about the world around us is just absurd, we demonstrate fine knowledge about our environment literally all the time.

It's interesting reading your threads because every now and then you make a comment that's striking, but I still don't really get what the end goal of proving materialism to be 'metaphysical' is. What we know is that the universe is essentially material, and we also know that the only thing that can be known are properties of that material, and so we are pursuing them. You don't even have to call that 'materialism', you could just call it tool-making or knowledge building.

 

[J842P]

Indeed, science doesn't require any particular metaphysical stance. It can exist in a world that adheres to strict naturalism, monism, dualism, idealism etc. Indeed, all science can really tell us is that there is a certain regularity in the world - whatever that is - and that this regularity allows us to make predictions. It does not allow us to distinguish between common-sense realism and brain-in-a-vat solipsism.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

I'm not completely sure what you're trying to get at.

Knowledge, regardless of how you define it, has utility. The scientific method isn't about the 'religion of materialism' you speak of, but rather acquiring knowledge about the universe so we can more effectively manipulate it, and that's exactly what's happening. To say that we don't know real things about the world around us is just absurd, we demonstrate fine knowledge about our environment literally all the time.

It's interesting reading your threads because every now and then you make a comment that's striking, but I still don't really get what the end goal of proving materialism to be 'metaphysical' is. What we know is that the universe is essentially material, and we also know that the only thing that can be known are properties of that material, and so we are pursuing them. You don't even have to call that 'materialism', you could just call it tool-making or knowledge building.

Rousseau, I have no argument with the scientific method or empiricism and it's practically. What I'm finding is that many people interpret empirical knowledge in the incorrect manner leading to assumptions about the nature of reality that are unjustified. The reason for this is I suspect the very strong cognitive bias towards interpreting space-time as it appears to humans through our cognition of it as the "thing-in-itself". As I have asked skepticialbip in another thread: is 3 dimensionality a property of space-time as it is in itself or is it a property of space-time as it is represented to us as a species through our sensory apparatus and cognition?

- - - Updated - - -

Indeed, science doesn't require any particular metaphysical stance. It can exist in a world that adheres to strict naturalism, monism, dualism, idealism etc. Indeed, all science can really tell us is that there is a certain regularity in the world - whatever that is - and that this regularity allows us to make predictions. It does not allow us to distinguish between common-sense realism and brain-in-a-vat solipsism.

Indeed