eh

In terms of ontology, I would say yes. If the soul has geometric extent and is clearly located in the spacetime everything else physical is, then there is no reason to call it anything else. In fact, there are spiritualists who believe souls are just a different kind of substance (the new age buzz word is energy) than normal matter. While they certainly wouldn't call themselves materialists, their view is virtually identical to materialism and ontologies based on physicalism.

Also I should note that physicalism does not necessarily equal reductionism. A soul that cannot be broken down into parts causes no problems for that ontology.

I'm not sure that position would work, since the wave function of a photon has an extent that is spread thoughout spacetime. It seems one would have a difficult time defining "photon" or any talk of interactions without spacetime itself. But if by location you mean precise location, then one would still be a materialist since the definition of a photon in modern physics necessarily includes the wave function.

Both are compatible. And I would merely argue that materialism is the simplest ontology we have.

jon1

"Consider water. Water is wet, but where does the wetness come from? I think most people would agree that what we refer to as wetness, is the behaviour of the component particles of water. These things are conceptually different, but they refer to the same physical phenomenon. Wetness holds no privileged place in the laws of the universe, but is the result of more basic particle interactions, that don't involve wetness. Wetness isn't just caused by the interaction of particles, it is another way to describe certain interactions of particles.

So, in other words, wetness can be reduced to a more fundamental non-wetness. But this isn't a denial of the existence of wetness."

I just don't see how by referring to the macroscopic property of wetness we also refer to the microscopic behavior of particles. Wetness is wetness and the behavior of particles is the behavior of particles. This is not to say I don't recognize any connection at all between the two, I see wetness as the macroscopic product of the microscopic particle behavior. Wetness can't be just another way to describe the interaction of particles anymore than brain processes are just another way to describe mental processes or vice versa. Think if we tried to describe the brain process correlated with the qualitative experience of pain in terms of the pain. It wouldn't make any sense. It would leave out what we are trying to describe. Pain is pain and a brain process is a brain process. Any attempt to describe pain in terms of a brain process or a brain process in terms of pain is an attempt to describe it in the terms of that which it is not.

sodium

What if I said that there was a force, like the force of gravity, except that it was a force of cosmic justice. It tends to alter the movement of particles slightly, in order to reward the just and punish the wicked. Leaving aside whether this is plausible, do you think it is consistent with materialism?

sodium

OK then, let me try another example. If you put bricks and mortar together, and arrange them just right, you can get a brick wall. Even though wallness (the properties of the wall), isn't a property of any of the individual bricks. Now, can the properties of the wall, it's wallness, be reduced to properties of the bricks and mortar? Or is it that the bricks and mortar cause the wallness by some unknown means? Does the property of wallness refer to properties of the bricks and mortar, or does this leave something out?

jon1

"OK then, let me try another example. If you put bricks and mortar together, and arrange them just right, you can get a brick wall. Even though wallness (the properties of the wall), isn't a property of any of the individual bricks. Now, can the properties of the wall, it's wallness, be reduced to properties of the bricks and mortar? Or is it that the bricks and mortar cause the wallness by some unknown means? Does the property of wallness refer to properties of the bricks and mortar, or does this leave something out?"

This is a fallacy. Wetness and particle behavior are on different levels, the microscopic and the macroscopic. Bricks, mortar, and the brick wall are on the same level of description.

contracycle

If it were observed, recorded, and independantly verified, then probably yes. It would thereby give us a clear indication of what the universe mechanistically considered "justice" to be.

That, of course, is fairly unlikely.

contracycle

"wallness" is a property of a particular arrangement of components. It is not a property of the brick or the mortar, as I can make walls of wood or steel.

I think there is a tendency to assume that materialism cannot handle complexity. But ever since we realised that complex systems can have properties radically distinct from the properties possessed by individual components, there is no need to see properties of all systems apparent in their subtsrates. This is entirely a mechanical property.

eh

Is this force spatial, and is it located in spacetime?

John Page

What then of brickness, mortariness, woodiness and steely?

sodium

My intent was that my Karmic force should be similar to gravity, and located in space time in an analogous way.

But this brings me to my point. It seems to me that your definition of materialism doesn't imply very much. It doesn't seem to rule out the things that people who have called themselves materialists have generally argued against.

If we go all the way back to Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things", we find that his philosophy makes minds and souls reducible to component parts. If he had believed in unitary minds that had a position in space and time, and purposeful cosmic forces, I don't see how his philosophy would have been much different than any other.

But that suggests that materialism makes no claims about how things are, only about what course our research should take.