# Solid Matter Is An Illusion **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 11, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113 "2008-09-11T16:35:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/21 "2008-09-13T07:06:35Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > I hate it when I dream I’m at work, then I wake up and have to get up and go to work. Kinda tedious. I hate it when I dream I’m at work, then I wake up and I am at work. Really sucks. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/22 "2008-09-13T18:05:07Z")
All reality is an illusion, **Inigo**. The Matrix has you. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Ipseity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c77e96/32.png) [@Jack\_Ipseity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Ipseity)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/23 "2008-09-13T19:01:41Z")
[QUOTE=Ray Brassier] “When, in its better moments, materialism abandoned its empiricist concept of matter, on the whole it never proved able to go beyond the hyle, the identity of thought and the real, of ideality and matter -the level of relative materiality or of materiality ‘as such’[comme telle] rather than of matter ‘itself’ [telle quelle] or absolute matter.” (Laruelle, 1981, p.78) What would it be to think matter ‘itself’ or absolutely, as opposed to thinking it ‘as such’ or relatively? Is it - pace Hegel- possible to conceive of a matter ‘outside’ the concept, a matter distinct from every concept of matter? Or is any attempt to think along such lines inevitably doomed to relapse into pre- Hegelian naivety? Clearly, the very formulation of the question points away from Hegel and back toward Kant. For the Critical turn is inaugurated in the gesture whereby Kant acknowledges what he calls ‘the transcendental difference’ between thought and thing, representation and represented, phenomenon and in-itself; or more generally, the difference between the ideal realm of that which is representable for the knowing subject, and the real realm of that which subsists ‘problematically’ or independently of the possibility of relation to the subject. Thus, from a quasi-Kantian perspective, one might say that whereas the ideal is intrinsically relational - a function of the relation to subjectivity-, the real -not to be confused with the empirical reality of the represented phenomenon- is simply defined negatively as the absence of relation. In other words, it is problematically or hypothetically defined as the in-itself: - that which is relationless or absolute. Yet according to Hegel it is this very difference between the ideal as relative and the real as absolute which turns out to be internal to thought itself. Subjectivity qua self-relating negativity, selfsundering and self-synthesizing Notion, is nothing but the processual identification of ideal identity and real difference, the ultimately Ideal relation of relation and non-relation, relative and absolute. [Alien Theory: The Decline of Materialism in the Name of Matter](http://www.cinestatic.com/trans-mat/Brassier/ALIENTHEORY.pdf) [/QUOTE] I think **Inigo** is confusing his intuitive phenomenological Notion of what-matter-is with matter’s always-already foreclosed essence. Rookie mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/24 "2008-09-13T19:19:01Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > Don’t trust thoughts you have in semi-consious states. The other day my alarm clock went off so I rolled over, hit the snooze, and thought to myself, “Since I am a super hero I don’t think I’ll go into work today.” > > Then about 15 seconds later I thought, “Wait, what? I’m not a super hero. And I do have to go to work. Damn.” > > Semi-consious thoughts are rarely logical or helpful in any way. 😃 Heh. That’s awesome. I wonder if I’ll be a super hero tomorrow morning when I wake my ass up. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/25 "2008-09-13T19:25:45Z")
Have you been licking toads again? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/26 "2008-09-13T19:37:08Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > Have you been licking toads again? I have a feeling that for **Inigo** , as it is for me, reality is a superfunky toad that licks us. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/27 "2008-09-13T19:46:51Z")
If I recall aright, the proper response to such an argument is to kick a stone. Or maybe the answer was to leave the afflicted person stuck to a tree with a pitchfork overnight. Or maybe they should be kicked, then stoned, then pitchforked. Something like that, anyway. It’s definitely some combination of the above, I remember that much. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113/28 "2008-09-13T22:27:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This just belies our prejudices about what constitutes “something”. The spaces within and between atoms are chock full of fields. The space between the nucleus and the electrons is most relevantly electromagnetic fields, but when you get right down to it, the nucleons and the electrons are themselves just manifestations of fields, too. > > And to the OP’s influenced realization, solid matter is perfectly real, and absolutely solid. It’s just that “solid” doesn’t mean quite what you think it means. Since **Chronos** has broken the wall of inanity and posted a real answer to the o.p.'s…um…well, what has every appearance of being post-toke natural philosophy, I’ll link to one of my personal favorites: [thread=299054]Why can’t my hand go through my desk? (physics question)[/thread] Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solid-matter-is-an-illusion/463113.md?page=1)