As a supervenience physicalist, I say Yes, as do concepts and universals. Fundamental particles and the forces between them in spacetime comprise all that exists (this is far more than mere “material” and so the word “materialism” is a little old fashioned). Objects are comprised of interacting particles in spacetime. Concepts and universals are comprised of interacting particles in spacetime.
Hold up your hoops, erl and I will attempt the necessary gymnastics. Note that (no Nadia Comaneci I!) some of my leaps might be very clumsy and unconvincing, such that I might struggle pitifully when challenged to perform a similar but altogether more difficult move. However, I would hope to persuade the judges that it is possible to complete all the hoops: that such a proposition is logically consistent even if I cannot convince them that it is true.
Example: Let us take the concept of “whiteness”. How in the heck might we describe this in terms of interacting particles?? (or, at least, things which are easily understood as being made of them?) Here goes.[ul]
[li]Some time after conception, a group of cells (under the directions of the DNA in the nuclei of those cells) develop very specialised properties: They begin to be able to interconnect based on an incident signal. For example, vibrations propagating from outside the womb cause these cells to form long chains. Now, the thing about these long chains is that signals can run along them in two directions - they can be sparked off “backwards”.[/li][li]The effect of this dual highway building is that the original signal is encoded by the chain, and any subsequent “sparking” of the chain essentially comprises retrieving the original signal from memory. Now, of course, the cells aren’t very good at this to start with: the foetus cannot simply encode an entire concerto at once. But different kinds of sounds cause slightly different highways to be built, either in location, length, durability; any number of characteristics which distinguish one chain from another. As more and more highways are built, more and more distinct vibrations are encoded in memory, for retrieval any time. And, oddly, the more a particular vibration is input, the stronger and more conductive its associated chain becomes. (One particularly loud superposition of vibrations is encoded very strongly because it occurs so often. This is the beginnings of the concept of “mother”.)[/li][li]At some later point, the DNA has engineered the construction of an altogether more complex apparatus, which produces signals from transverse vibrations of very short wavelength. (Unfortunately, it only seems to work between around 400-700 nm, but still, impressive nonetheless). The dual highway construction company stands redundant for a while, because everything is dark. And then…BOOM! Signals of an entirely different type begin to be input to this biological computer. After initial overload wherein the computer struggles to keep up merely with telling light from dark, further chains are formed which are able to distinguish the full spectrum in which the apparatus operates. Again, because it is so prevalent, a very strong chain is built which encodes the Superposition of All Frequencies at Once (hereafter SAFO). [/li][li]Now, from here on, the chains get constructed at truly astonishing rate. Further, they become interlinked, thus adding orders of magnitude to the complexity of the system. The chains from specific sound vibrations become linked with chains from all manner of inputs, one of them the SAFO from that special apparatus. Eventually, whenever that SAFO chain is sparked (ie. retrieved from memory), the accompanying sound chain sparks in harmony. Similarly, retrieving the sound sparks the retrieval of the SAFO. And what is that sound?[/li][li]For some computers, it is “B-lanc”. For others, “V-eiss”. In this particular computer, that sound is “White”.[/li][li]The complexity of the computer has now made this, almost miraculous thing possible: By inputting that sound to a similarly trained computer, the SAFO chain can be sparked in that computer also!!! If we looked into thos computers, we could not hope to identify which chain was “SAFO”. But if we know that the same sound is associated with it, from a very early age, we can spark that chain merely by uttering it! [/ul][/li]Unfortunately, in a delicious irony, the computer does not have a chain which encodes “chain formation from inputs”. It cannot associate, chain-wise, the chain-sparking with the SAFO. Its chain formation remains incomplete.
The only way its chain can be complete is for another computer, which does have such a chain, to try to cause the formation of such a chain in the incomplete computer. The name of that other computer?
SentientMeat. Says it all, no?
