# The Metaphysics of Materialism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2001, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392 "2001-10-19T10:55:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![VileOrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/9e8a1a/32.png) [@VileOrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VileOrb)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/121 "2001-10-26T19:27:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > Orb, I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I can’t convince you that I am sincere about what I’m saying, so no meaningful debate can possibly arise. \*\* It’s not that I don’t think you’re sincere. It’s that I think you misunderstand. And, you ignore most of my comments on your insults, which leads me to believe that you intended to be insulting. And, I acknowledged the arbitrariness of meaning several posts back and apparently you didn’t read it. So, now I feel frustrated, ignored, and insulted. Still, I will try to add to the discussion. Maybe someone else will read it. Adding to discussion now. Humanity’s existence is entirely arbitrary. But, now that we are here, we can decide to give life meaning. We can base that decision on experience – the experiences of continuing and improving the quality of our lives (or failing in these endeavors). If you choose to call that decision arbitrary based on the arbitrariness of existence, I think I can accept that definition. But, for me, life has meaning, I don’t care if it’s an arbitrary meaning. It’s a meaning I chose. It’s a meaning that I care about. Now, if you add determinism into the picture then my choice was predetermined and my accepting is predetermined and so forth. This depends, I think, on whether there can be randomness and on whether a randomly created consciousness could then make non random, non predetermined choices. This is where I think there is a lot of room for discussion and disagreement even amongst materialists. ---
**Author:** ![VileOrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/9e8a1a/32.png) [@VileOrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VileOrb)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/122 "2001-10-26T19:35:07Z")
Yes, material exists regardless of my definition of it. But, I thought the point was to explain what **I** as a materialist believe. This discussion, I thought, was about what the materialists here believe to exist rather than what may actually exist. We strive to make the two as equivalent as possible, but we’re not there yet. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/123 "2001-10-26T19:48:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **Back once again to the universe being meaningless** So what if the universe is meaningless? Why is that necessarily a bad thing? Is life not worth living if the universe has no meaning? If so, why? If the universe must have meaning in order for your life to be worth living, then why can’t YOU assign meaning to it? Why must it be done for you? (Besides, even if life had no meaning, I bet you’d still want to live. The instinct for survival is strong or else the human race would not exist, though it’s weaker in some individuals than in most.) > [@](#): > > **and all meaning being arbitrary. Including, of course, any and all speculations — inspections, measurements, what have you — of it.** When you say “arbitrary”, do you mean that you don’t believe there are any standards? Of course there are. We made them, based on experience. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/124 "2001-10-26T20:18:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by VileOrb \* > \*\*Yes, material exists regardless of my definition of it. But, I thought the point was to explain what **I** as a materialist believe. This discussion, I thought, was about what the materialists here believe to exist rather than what may actually exist. We strive to make the two as equivalent as possible, but we’re not there yet. \*\* That’s the kind of intellectual honesty I appreciate. You do realize, of course, that you will never attain what you’re striving for. If you are part of the universe, then your observation itself is part of the reality, so that once you’ve observed it, the reality has changed. As a closed consciousness, you cannot escape the fact that you have absolutely nowhere in the universe to look but in a mirror: your own mind. Yes, this discussion is about what Materialists believe, but that doesn’t give you license to get off scott-free without challenging inquiry any more than theists get off scott-free in threads where they are questioned. If you state that you believe that the universe is objectively real, then what sort of person would I be if I let go unchallenged the fact that you cannot know anything objective about what you are a part of? ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/125 "2001-10-26T20:22:19Z")
**VileOrb** : I couldn’t find a _solid_ definition of “material”, either \<_cringe_\>, but [here](http://www.xrefer.com/entry/552734) is a good reference page. There’s an interesting paragraph about midway through: > [@](#): > > Sometimes a distinction is made, as it has been in different ways by Frege and Popper, between three kinds of real things (three ‘realms’ or ‘worlds’). The first contains material things, including the things like photons that are associated with centrally material things and might be called quasi-material. The second contains psychological things like thoughts, feelings, pains, desires, including the substantive minds that have these, if there are any; if there are, then the thoughts etc. that they have will not be independent substantive entities, but will still count as denizens of the second realm. The third contains abstract things like numbers, properties, classes, truths (and perhaps falsehoods), values, or some selection of these, all those selected being treated as substantive entities, though not material nor properly speaking spiritual either. Philosophers have tended to treat these three realms not so much as lying in a straight line, with one in the middle between the other two, as lying in a triangle, so that the rejection of one was compatible with accepting either or both of the other two. Materialists strictly speaking say that only matter exists, but in modern times they have tended to direct their fire primarily against believers in the second realm… …obviously that would disqualify a few of us from being “strict” materialists. **Lib** , I wouldn’t say materialism makes all meaning arbitrary so much as it is subjective. When I look out of my painted window, I see many things I don’t know to be **real** that I nonetheless imagine to be **true**. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/126 "2001-10-26T20:24:22Z")
My syntax in that last statement was oblique. You cannot know anything objective about what you are a part of. And incidentally, Orb, I’d like to request that we all dispense with the you-aren’t-reading-my-posts arguments. I think we’re all reading each other’s posts. I think we can all disagree without it requiring that we have somehow misunderstood simple concepts. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/127 "2001-10-26T20:32:03Z")
Xeno, what’s the difference between arbitrary and subjective? Or is there some “absolute” standard by which sensory data is interpreted? ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/128 "2001-10-26T20:54:48Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by **Libertarian** _ > Xeno, what’s the difference between arbitrary and subjective? Or is there some “absolute” standard by which sensory data is interpreted? You are of course correct that, in a universe without the supernatural, meaning is arbitrary, **Lib** ; I was hasty in my statement. The distinction I meant to draw (clumsily) is that I don’t feel that I or any individual can have complete independence in our search for meaning. We are subject to exigencies and cannot depend on either the accuracy of completeness of any information we obtain; we can only choose our subjective interpretation of information and in that sense it is not entirely arbitrary but is somewhat circumstantial. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/129 "2001-10-26T21:17:18Z")
Xeno, Well, okay then. I agree with that. I guess it’s an arbitrariness forced upon us by circumstance. Naturally, as soon as old questions are answered, new ones arise. Given that it’s impossible to define material (such that it is still an objective thing), and given that we are forced to make interpretations of reality according to our experience, is Materialism, at least on one level, a sort of Solipsism in denial? I mean, isn’t it the case that the Materialist philosopher sort of snuffs himself out with his own argument? Didn’t what Hume offer amount to, “Don’t believe anything, including what I say.”? ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/130 "2001-10-26T21:29:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **If you are part of the universe, then your observation itself is part of the reality, so that once you’ve observed it, the reality has changed.** …but infinitesimally. The only part that has changed are those few neurons that were responsible for interpreting the messages they received from our senses. (And so what if reality has changed? Whoever said that reality must remain fixed? The laws that govern reality are fixed, but they allow reality to change. Thermodynamics, anyone?) I observe the Moon. A small change occurs in the visual cortex of my brain and in the cerebral cortex that allows me to understand what I have seen. But the Moon itself has not changed in even the tiniest bit. (Indeed, nothing outside my brain has been changed by my observing the Moon.) > [@](#): > > **As a closed consciousness, you cannot escape the fact that you have absolutely nowhere in the universe to look but in a mirror: your own mind.** My consciousness would be closed only if I lacked any means of sensing anything outside it. But I do have the means: Eyes, ears, a nose, a tongue and skin. My consciousness is NOT closed; it’s very open. > [@](#): > > **If you state that you believe that the universe is objectively real, then what sort of person would I be if I let go unchallenged the fact that you cannot know anything objective about what you are a part of?** I don’t accept this assertion as “fact”. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/131 "2001-10-26T21:43:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Given that it’s impossible to define material (such that it is still an objective thing), and given that we are forced to make interpretations of reality according to our experience, is Materialism, at least on one level, a sort of Solipsism in denial? I mean, isn’t it the case that the Materialist philosopher sort of snuffs himself out with his own argument? Didn’t what Hume offer amount to, “Don’t believe anything, including what I say.”? Dunno, **Lib**. But I don’t believe that you can fairly characterize materialism as Solipsism Lite® either. The fact that all experience is necessarily subjective does not mean there are no verifiable points of commonality. (I think.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/132 "2001-10-26T21:52:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jab1 \* > but infinitesimally. The only part that has changed are those few neurons that were responsible for interpreting the messages they received from our senses. (And so what if reality has changed? Whoever said that reality must remain fixed? The laws that govern reality are fixed, but they allow reality to change. Thermodynamics, anyone?) It is my understanding that those laws are most decidedly _not_ fixed. They were substantially different at one point in the universe. They are unknown for the singularity of a black hole. And I don’t know whether you can reliably predict the laws that might govern a closed system with one-hundred percent entropy. Ask Chronos. Or Eris. > [@](#): > > I observe the Moon. A small change occurs in the visual cortex of my brain and in the cerebral cortex that allows me to understand what I have seen. But the Moon itself has not changed in even the tiniest bit. (Indeed, nothing outside my brain has been changed by my observing the Moon.) I don’t think anybody’s talking about telekinesis here. Do you consider your brain to be divorced somehow from reality? > [@](#): > > ]My consciousness would be closed only if I lacked any means of sensing anything outside it. But I do have the means: Eyes, ears, a nose, a tongue and skin. My consciousness is NOT closed; it’s very open. That’s not what I mean by a closed consciousness. I don’t mean a blind and deaf one; I mean one that you cannot share with another one (like mine, for instance) in any objective way, simply because I’m not privvy to the unabridged context of your experience. You alone know everything you know. No one else can. > [@](#): > > I don’t accept this assertion as “fact”. Well, that’s a rather Lolo argument, isn’t it? Challenge it with reasonable rebuttal or inquiry. It makes sense to me that no element can be both a part of and not a part of any arbitrary set. That’s why A is not Not A. If you’re a part of the universe, how can you view it objectively? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/133 "2001-10-26T21:57:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > The fact that all experience is necessarily subjective does not mean there are no verifiable points of commonality. (I think.) Uh oh. Verifiable by whom or what? And please specify why the whom or what that you select is both significant and not arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/134 "2001-10-26T22:09:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Uh oh. Verifiable by whom or what? And please specify why the whom or what that you select is both significant and not arbitrary. _Damn you, Liiiiiiiib!_ \<_xeno’s voice fades into obscurity as he is sucked into the hysteresis loop of Libertarian’s obsessive search for an agency of order in the universe…_\> (Just being whimsical there, **Lib** ; I don’t mind the question a bit.) The whom or what would be another _assumed_ perceptive sentience with whom the subjective truth-seeker (or fact-checker, cost-comparer, what-have-you) has some contact. The significance lies in the relevance of that contact to a quasi-solipsistic view of reality. The non-arbitrariness lies in the capricious nature of that contact, but this is admittedly not a precise usage of the term “arbitrary”. And now I’ve just made my own head hurt, so I’m going to log off for a few hours. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/135 "2001-10-26T22:26:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **It is my understanding that those laws are most decidedly _not_ fixed. They were substantially different at one point in the universe. They are unknown for the singularity of a black hole.** Fine, then. They are currently fixed outside the singularities of black holes. > [@](#): > > **And I don’t know whether you can reliably predict the laws that might govern a closed system with one-hundred percent entropy. Ask Chronos. Or Eris.** I just might do that. > [@](#): > > **Do you consider your brain to be divorced somehow from reality?** Of course not. I consider it to be a part of reality (and a relatively small part at that.) > [@](#): > > **You alone know everything you know. No one else can.** Others can know what I know if I tell them. > [@](#): > > **It makes sense to me that no element can be both a part of and not a part of any arbitrary set. If you’re a part of the universe, how can you view it objectively?** Are you saying that a person must be somehow outside the universe in order to view it objectively? **Lib** , all you have to do is compare your observations with those of others; they will spot your errors and you will spot theirs.\* What’s left is the objective truth. \*Isn’t that what we’re doing here? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/136 "2001-10-27T00:09:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by VileOrb \* > **So, now I feel frustrated, ignored, and insulted.** Thank you for revealing that I’m not the only person who has felt frustrated and insulted. I am grateful for your reality check. I commend you, **VileOrb** and **xenophon41** , for explicating and defending materialism so effectively and eloquently! I have found your posts to be exemplary and eminently well reasoned. As the original target of Lib’s mockery, I am naturally in full agreement with your posts on the explicability (non-)issue. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by VileOrb \* > **Still, I will try to add to the discussion. Maybe someone else will read it.** You can be assured of that! I’m going to browse around and read more of your and xeno’s fine contributions in other threads… > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **If you are part of the universe, then your observation itself is part of the reality, so that once you’ve observed it, the reality has changed.** Perhaps, but I don’t see the relevance. In any case, that in no way refutes or challenges materialism in any way. But then Lib “corrects” that statement and substitutes: _“You cannot know anything objective about what you are a part of”_. I see no logical foundation for that statement. Objectivity is defined externally to individual subjects but it does not follow that individual subjects thus cannot be objective! I am sitting on a chair. I can know that I’m sitting and I can know that I am sitting on a chair. On what grounds can you reasonably claim that I cannot know these things objectively? ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/137 "2001-10-27T01:16:18Z")
A quick note here to **ambushed** : That green thing **Lib** shook at you a few posts ago was an olive branch. I know he brandished it very vehemently, but that’s just the way **Lib** does things. Since I don’t know you nearly as well as I know him, I don’t know if you’ve accepted it or not. I hope so. **Lib** ’s worth the effort. [/quote] A quick note here to **Libertarian** : I don’t know if **ambushed** got it or not. But I humbly suggest that maybe he or she is worth the effort to move on as if from a fresh start. [/quote] OK. Butting out now… ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/138 "2001-10-27T01:18:09Z")
(A metaphor, written for **Libertarian** , by **crazymonkey41**.) I’ve been carrying my window for as long as I can remember. I started painting it when I was very young, but it was not the first device I used to Look at things. (My lovely furry Ma tells me I had a pacifier I used to Look through when I was just a wee monklet.) It is a good window, I think. Sometimes other monkeys share devices with me, but mostly I must Look through my window to see outside, or even to use another’s device. And some of those devices are quite ingenious. Yesterday a monkey Showed me in his mirror, which he had made from washrags stolen out of deepsinks. You might think as I did that the reflective qualities of washrags would not be sufficient for mirrors, but the soap bubbles made the contraption marvelously Revealing. I didn’t even have to squint through my window to See me! But he is careful not to shine his mirror. I think a mirror you can’t shine is not as good as it could be. I see many things through my painted window, some of which I don’t know to be **real** but I nonetheless imagine to be **true**. Some **real** things I see (or which I take to be **real** , as other monkeys can see them through their own devices, or through my window) I don’t think are always **true** things, but it may just be my bad monkey nature to believe that. There are very nice devices groups of monkeys share, although most of those monkeys Look through personal devices when they use the big ones (although they deny it mostly when you ask them about it). They’re supposed to Show the same things to all who use them, but I know many groups of monkeys who See very differently through the same device other groups use. A monkey who uses a big lens made from sticks and cotton wadding told me yesterday she Saw through the lens that my painted window will make me go to hell if I keep using it. She’s one of the monkeys who don’t Look through a smaller device, so I think maybe that lens isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I met another monkey not too long ago —you don’t know her— who had a tube device she said that showed her how my soul was beautiful. (I Looked at her tube through my window, and it was filled with colored glass and **real** mirrors.) I asked her about some rotted fruit we had slipped on earlier, and she said that was beautiful too. Between you and me, I think _that_ crazy monkey is nuts! Lately I’ve been hanging around with a nice bunch of monkeys. We try and See with each other’s devices _without_ using our own. It’s really hard, but I think I know some more **true** things that I didn’t know before. And I suspect a whole lot of **real** things, too. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/139 "2001-10-27T02:56:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > **A quick note here to ambushed: That green thing Lib shook at you a few posts ago was an olive branch. I know he brandished it very vehemently, but that’s just the way Lib does things. Since I don’t know you nearly as well as I know him, I don’t know if you’ve accepted it or not. I hope so. Lib’s worth the effort.** I have accepted it, and I do find Lib to be worth the effort! I even praised his posts very recently in this thread. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to act as peacemaker, xeno! It is often a thankless job, but you have my gratitude. I find your action most honorable and I sincerely appreciate it. As I also said previously, there can be no denying Lib’s very powerful intellect! And I’m still contemplating your interesting allegory! ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392/140 "2001-10-27T04:10:57Z")
Whew. OK, as I consider the potential for beauty in the Concerto for Gausopheme, may I (in addition to an imaginary instrument, producing an imperceivable output of an imagined opus) play before an entirely imaginary audience, and still have beauty, or possibility for beauty as valid as John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” played before the HRH Elizabeth, at Windsor? Wow, you materialists are a wild bunch after all! Why you won’t buy the water into wine, and walking on water is a mystery to me! ## Tris “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung ~ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-metaphysics-of-materialism/88392.md?page=8)