Matter

[Capitalism Forever]

given that the materialists don't actually invoke the specific concept 'matter' in their argument

I'm puzzled ... what concept do you think they do invoke, if not matter ?

[DavidOdden]

I'm puzzled ... what concept do you think they do invoke, if not matter ?

Hah! You're assuming that they operate in terms of concepts. Anyway, I don't spend much time (any time) reading reductionist philosophy, so I don't know. That's kinda why I asked about their use of the word "matter". If their argument hinged entirely on a faulty definition of "matter" then we should care about their use of "matter"; if they don't argue on the basis of "matter" or their argument fails for another reason (failure to consider "organization"), then I don't see that it makes a difference whether matter is the particulate stuff with mass, or also includes energy.

[Miles White]

Not to get to off topic, but there is an interesting theory called M-theory which states that sub-atomic particles that we use to identify as fundamental pieces of matter are actually interpreted as waves vibrating off of even more fundamental pieces of matter known as 0 branes 1 branes and 2 branes. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove it right or wrong because these pieces of matter would have to be so incredibly small that it would literally take a particle accelerator bigger than our entire solar system just to smash quarks let alone these branes.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

To put it as simply as I can, matter is everything out there (that you can perceive); spiritual or consciousness is everything in here ("in" your mind, or what your mind is doing).

This is actually a very important milestone in the history of philosophy -- the realization that material things (rocks, pens, coffee cups, automobiles, computers, the weather, etc.) are not controlled by spirits or gods; but rather operate according to different principles than that which governs one's mind. In other words, there is no will involved in a rock rolling down a hill or your automobile breaking down and leaving you stranded or a thunderstorm cropping up and ruining one's house with a flood. Prior to this discovery, there was a lot of appeasing the gods in order to have a successful life in the material realm -- i.e. to have a good yield on one's farm or to have that perfect statue. Of course, because there are no such gods, then such appeals went unanswered. It wasn't until mankind realized that material objects are what they are and that they don't have a will that man was able to take control of the material world using his own will (reason and free will) to understand it and to utilize it to his own advantage.

But it became clear that rational principles applied to material things; that there was a fundamental predictability to things being what they are and doing the things they do. In other words, even without the gods, it was possible to understand matter. However, there was still a lot of confusion as to what things operating according to a rational principle meant. To put it in modern terminology, the issue became does a rational principle operate inside matter sort of like a force inside matter?

Unfortunately, even Aristotle got this wrong. He thought that the predictability of things doing what they do comes about because there was a rational principle inside material things making it be what it is, and making it possible for man's mind to, in a sense, perceive the rational principle inside material things. We still implicitly use his formulations today when we speak of the Laws of Nature in an intrincisist manner -- as if the Laws of Nature was actually some real thing out there that makes things operate predictably.

Objectivism rejects this mistake. There are no Laws of Nature in the sense of it being an active force making things be what they are or making them work the way they do. Rather, the material thing exists and is something; leading it to be the way it is and working the way it does. In other words, there is no rational principle inside your car making it start up every morning before you go to work. It is an automobile -- material things put together in such a way that when you turn your key it starts up. That's it. It is what it is and does what it does because it is what it is.

In other words, an entity is what it is and does what it does because it is an entity; and there is no active Form (or rational principle) inside of it governing it's actions. This is known as the law of identity, or " A is A".

[agrippa1]

Not to get to off topic, but there is an interesting theory called M-theory...

Sounds like a 0 braner to me...

[cmdownes]

...the answer is "the materialists / physicalists have screwed up philosophy because they don't understand the nature of 'matter'.". Their error, as you identified, is the failure to see that the nature of existents is a result of not just the minimal physical entities, but also the organization.

How does physicalism fail to take into account the possibility of existents having emergent or relational properties, that is, properties stemming from the "organization" of the physical simples some composite existent is reducible to/supervenes on?

[Robert J. Kolker]

How does physicalism fail to take into account the possibility of existents having emergent or relational properties, that is, properties stemming from the "organization" of the physical simples some composite existent is reducible to/supervenes on?

It doesn't fail to do so.

Bob Kolker

[hunterrose]

Isn't that an issue to be decided by Physics?

I don't see how physics can decide this.

I don't see how it's a philosophical matter. AFAIK, "matter" isn't a fundamental concept in Objectivist metaphysics, and the relationship between energy and matter is even less relevant to philosophy.

To the original poster: why did you look in a philosophy dictionary for a defintion of matter? IMO it's like looking in a philosophy dictionary for a definition of gravity - it's something that philosophy needn't (and probably shouldn't) be defining in the first place.

[lex_aver]

One word - University.