sodium

I'm not sure I understand the distinction. Let's say I use smaller and smaller bricks, until finally, you can't see the individual bricks with the naked eye. They become microscopic. At this point what, in your view has changed? Before, the properties of the wall could be reduced to the properties of the bricks. Now, the properties of the wall supervene on, but do not reduce to the properties of the bricks? What is the change that occurs when going from macroscopic to microscopic components?

eh

In that case, I would call it physical.

That's true, because from that standpoint, spacetime is all that exists. That is in contrast to certain idealists who believe a dimensionless and sometimes timelesss mind exists and is the foundation of reality. However, it doesn't mean materialists need to believe in all spatial things, such as souls made of a different kind of substance.

There isn't much difference, because those parts are geometric as well. You can probably say the basic concept of materialism (spacetime is all that exists) branches off with several variations, though the central idea stays in tact with each.

jon1

"What is the change that occurs when going from macroscopic to microscopic components?"

The change is the fact that macroscopic wetness is radically different from microscopic particles. The wall is not radically different from the bricks and mortar arranged in a certain way, the wall just is bricks and mortar arranged in a certain way.

jon1

This is very simple really. First, imagine a bunch of particles behaving in a certain way, note how wetness doesn't flow from this. Now, imagine a bunch of bricks and mortar arranged in the specific way that makes a wall, the wall isn't anything other than the bricks and mortar arranged in that way. Now when I say the arrangement "makes a wall" I do not mean the arrangement actually causes the wall like the wall and the arrangement are two distinct things, the arrangement is the wall.

contracycle

They would be terms of description applying to bricks, mortar and steel.

They do not have consistent prioperties in all frames. "brickness" is a word used by humans; there is no reason to think that "brickness" exists indepedantly in some sort of abstract possibility space.

contracycle

Oof. Well, thinking about it, maybe thats not too bad a way of putting it.

There are limits to the range of things we can usefully investigate in out shared world. Therefore, we have to use some sort of utility estimate to determine which things would be worth while investigating.

You can sit and cogitate endlessly about the nature of an ineffable being, but what does it actually achieve? Very little it would seem to me. arguably, if you spent that time instead speculating in why fire is hot, you might understand something useful in the end.

There is also an implicit methodological praxis to the effect that appropriate subecjects of inevstigation should probably be easily identifiable as really existing aspects of reality commonly perceived by all or most observers. Otherwise, you might be researching illusions.

contracycle

Specifically, I am saying that there is a tendency for sufficiently complex system to develop a sort of self-regulation that we identify as mentality.

Because it is our stance for perception, we tend to see it as in some way special. But I don't think it is - it is merely an emergent phenomenon of a highly complex system.

We should not therefore explore the universe with an eye on an abstracted "mentality". We should instead look for highly complex systems.

John Page

What do you mean by "frames", aren't you just inventing another mysterious universal?
Yes, but its perception is caused by exposure of humans to bricks, yes? Thus the import of the material world is conveyed to our material senses - "brickness" is a real perception of the material mind/brain. Soft materialism?

contracycle

Granted, it was short hand. But not without basis given the use of frames of reference to delineate the relationships between objects moving at relatavistic speeds. And that is, more or less, the point - the status of the observer will indicate which kind of feedback they get from an object, like its hardness or granularity or whatever.

Such like, as a general rule, metal does not float in water. But if you bend the metal into a ball displacing enough volume to offset its density, then you can make metal float. The pointis, there is not abstract property which governs this - there are only the (observed) laws of physics. In this case I have not changed the frame of reference, of course, but by simply manipulating the same material in 3(4) dimensions I produce different phenomena.

Hmm Possibly. "Vulgar Materialism" was something Stalin was accused of, but I digress.

Sure, so, a human acquires a set of perceptions due to phenomonlogical exposure to bricks, no problem. And the human is experiencing reality at a particular scale, in which for most people, a single brick is something you can pick up and carry around.

An ants phenomenological exposure to a brick is substantially different. The object does not imply portability, and is apparently much grainier, constituting a veritable assault course of pits and bumps.

Therefore, I see no reason to expect that the human perception construct which we have in our brains should contain every knowable thing about a brick. It will all depend on how extensive your exposure is to bricks. Equally, the fact that a collection of bricks can be arranged in such a way as to act as a wall is not an obseravtion on "brickness", except inasmuch the brick is a suitable component.

The fact that a wall may not share the same property of portability as a brick, in human percpetion, does not imply anything about the nature of the object or an abstract "brickness" - becuase different observers (such as the ant) may never have attributed portability to the brick in the first place. There is no abstract "brickness" - just bricks.

John Page

Yes, perhaps just "Vulgarity".
Agreed, but I will check with my ant.
If there is no quality of brickness, how can we ever qulify sense perceptions as belieing the presence of bricks?

Isn't human perception just building the case for materiality when there are only detectable "effects". The repeatability in these effects lead us to suppose the laws of physics, but all we're doing is filling in the causal chain.

While I'm not against the notion of physicality, our intuition of "material" or "stuff" is incomplete without materiality itself being an effect.

Cheers, John