Materialism is nonsensical IV (spooky action at a distance)

[3017Metaphysician]

Hello philosophers!

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

As atheist Simon Blackburn infamously quoted: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

My argument has been similar, in that it takes those kinds of conceptual interrelations to comprehend or conceive of a some-thing, any thing really. As such, some-thing that exists typically involves a unity of its opposite or opposing features of its existence (mass and energy, gravity and particles, time and change, hot/cold, quality/quantity, inanimate/animate, ad nauseum). But to dichotomize reality as being an either/or causal proposition, only makes the exclusivity of Materialism incomplete. At best it’s a half-theory, in its explanation of all things. At worst, it’s nonsensical.

That said, and back to the OP premise, let’s take a quick look at other observed or perceived 'objects' or phenomena relative to the sciences. First, though we are not supposed to use physically 'analogical reasoning' for all biologically complex systems, the Materialist theory uses it anyway. And while I take no exceptions to that here, cognitive science might want to argue that the ghost in the machine (our stream of conscious thoughts that are perceived as having an independent existence) is that ‘thing’ which happens to us, not by us (it is our Will the breaks the stream of thought and feeling). What is an object of thought? Things-in-themselves, associated with thoughts and feelings, correspond with qualitative properties; not materially quantitative one’s. In other words, such concepts of quality correspond to the actual causes of human behavior. It's part of why we do stuff. Thoughts and feelings cause us to be and want to become a some-‘thing’ (more on that below viz quantum weirdness).

In extending this notion of a stream of independent thoughts and feelings that has subjective causative value, did Einstein’s physical theories share any corresponding experiences along those lines? Well, on many levels he did. If you haven’t checked out his humanistic philosophy about conscious phenomena, I would encourage you to do so. But in his cosmology, his observations about the material world of particles at the most fundamental level of physics -quantum physics- demonstrated and independent behavior or unexplained existence. Much of this behavior was famously coined in his use of the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’.

At the most fundamental level of ‘physical’ reality (sparing the details at the moment), this is to simply say that both local interactions and non-local interactions comprise one’s observations of a physical reality. It also is to say that quantum indeterminism, for the Materialist, corresponds to a paradoxical (free) Will which also is the cause of all human behavior. So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.


At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time. Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.

How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Just a bit of technical jargon (not to get too much into the weeds), when one looks at quantum systems with two particles, say two electrons in a superposition, so that the equations can describe both of them together, they are in an entangled state that seems to defy all that Einstein believed in. If you measure the property of one electron, say its rotation, you can tell what the other electron’s rotation is — without even bothering to measure it. Even weirder, this ability to tell one from the other persists for arbitrarily large distances and appears to be instantaneous. In other words, quantum spookiness defies both space and time. And some quantum phenomena involves things popping in and out of existence (more on that later-The Matter Myth).

Perhaps it’s one more argument for resisting the temptation to dichotomize reality, where there is both a corresponding some-thing that causes action, and an independent existence that acts alone, by itself. A self-organized set of complex instructions that causes things to happen. Much like in the propagation of a species, a self-directed ‘Will’ (philosophically, it seems we cannot escape that concept of Will) that somehow causes things to exist, be, and become. A some thing that causes existence. Like baking a cake, the will to use a set of instructions. But where are those instructions in that hunk of material matter? What are those instructions? And why or who is causing this spooky action at a distance?

If Materialism is not so rational after all, it seems that until there is an observer (a measurement), the notion of where something is does not make sense, not to mention what does it mean for some-thing to exist in the first place. It seems we are back to the question of where did matter come from. Or, perhaps we are back to Mr. Davies quote that sums it all up:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

True, false, or something beyond human reason?

[JackDaydream]

Hello philosophers!

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

As atheist Simon Blackburn infamously quoted: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

My argument has been similar, in that it takes those kinds of conceptual interrelations to comprehend or conceive of a some-thing, any thing really. As such, some-thing that exists typically involves a unity of its opposite or opposing features of its existence (mass and energy, gravity and particles, time and change, hot/cold, quality/quantity, inanimate/animate, ad nauseum). But to dichotomize reality as being an either/or causal proposition, only makes the exclusivity of Materialism incomplete. At best it’s a half-theory, in its explanation of all things. At worst, it’s nonsensical.

That said, and back to the OP premise, let’s take a quick look at other observed or perceived 'objects' or phenomena relative to the sciences. First, though we are not supposed to use physically 'analogical reasoning' for all biologically complex systems, the Materialist theory uses it anyway. And while I take no exceptions to that here, cognitive science might want to argue that the ghost in the machine (our stream of conscious thoughts that are perceived as having an independent existence) is that ‘thing’ which happens to us, not by us (it is our Will the breaks the stream of thought and feeling). What is an object of thought? Things-in-themselves, associated with thoughts and feelings, correspond with qualitative properties; not materially quantitative one’s. In other words, such concepts of quality correspond to the actual causes of human behavior. It's part of why we do stuff. Thoughts and feelings cause us to be and want to become a some-‘thing’ (more on that below viz quantum weirdness).

In extending this notion of a stream of independent thoughts and feelings that has subjective causative value, did Einstein’s physical theories share any corresponding experiences along those lines? Well, on many levels he did. If you haven’t checked out his humanistic philosophy about conscious phenomena, I would encourage you to do so. But in his cosmology, his observations about the material world of particles at the most fundamental level of physics -quantum physics- demonstrated and independent behavior or unexplained existence. Much of this behavior was famously coined in his use of the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’.

At the most fundamental level of ‘physical’ reality (sparing the details at the moment), this is to simply say that both local interactions and non-local interactions comprise one’s observations of a physical reality. It also is to say that quantum indeterminism, for the Materialist, corresponds to a paradoxical (free) Will which also is the cause of all human behavior. So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.


At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time. Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.

How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Just a bit of technical jargon (not to get too much into the weeds), when one looks at quantum systems with two particles, say two electrons in a superposition, so that the equations can describe both of them together, they are in an entangled state that seems to defy all that Einstein believed in. If you measure the property of one electron, say its rotation, you can tell what the other electron’s rotation is — without even bothering to measure it. Even weirder, this ability to tell one from the other persists for arbitrarily large distances and appears to be instantaneous. In other words, quantum spookiness defies both space and time. And some quantum phenomena involves things popping in and out of existence (more on that later-The Matter Myth).

Perhaps it’s one more argument for resisting the temptation to dichotomize reality, where there is both a corresponding some-thing that causes action, and an independent existence that acts alone, by itself. A self-organized set of complex instructions that causes things to happen. Much like in the propagation of a species, a self-directed ‘Will’ (philosophically, it seems we cannot escape that concept of Will) that somehow causes things to exist, be, and become. A some thing that causes existence. Like baking a cake, the will to use a set of instructions. But where are those instructions in that hunk of material matter? What are those instructions? And why or who is causing this spooky action at a distance?

If Materialism is not so rational after all, it seems that until there is an observer (a measurement), the notion of where something is does not make sense, not to mention what does it mean for some-thing to exist in the first place. It seems we are back to the question of where did matter come from. Or, perhaps we are back to Mr. Davies quote that sums it all up:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

True, false, or something beyond human reason?

Would it be possible to go into a little more detail about the Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'? I am not suggesting that you give a full physics account but a bit more background would help, such as why he came to the idea may be useful.

When I have come across the idea I have thought that he may be suggesting that there are connections within systems. Fritjof Capra, in 'The Turning Point', showed how quantum theory provided a basis for a shift from the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanical model to one of systems, based on relationships and processes. He pointed to the way it required a holistic approach rather than as a reductionist one. So, it involved seeing how different aspects within systems affect each other.

Having only read about physics in connection with my interest in philosophy, as I I only studied the mere basics at school, I do find it how far to take the ideas. What I mean is that I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge of physics and try to not get to carried away because I may be distorting the ideas into a metaphysical flight of fantasy, way beyond the findings of the physicists.

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below. '

I wonder to what extent quantum physics draws upon the esoteric sources, including both Bohm and Einstein, in the models which they formed of processes and the nature of manifestation. The idea of 'spooky ideas at a distance' would also be interesting for thinking about in relation to Jung's idea of synchronicity, That involves connections and patterns which exist, especially between events taking place and the meanings which correspond in a person's mind, which make them become 'meaningful coincidences'.

Nevertheless, Jung does suggest that synchronicities are more important as a way of understanding correlations rather than causation. It is more about parallels and patterns in consciousness although I do wonder if the idea does give an underlying slant towards human intentions having an active influence on life events. This could be about the way in which mindset has a critical role, including mental states of fear and faith, in the way human beings interpret and respond in the processes of causal chains in life events.

[Consul]

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

Read from the perspective of non-eliminative/reductive materialism, the (simplistic) statement that "nothing exists except matter" isn't a denial of the mind, but only of the nonphysical mind. If minds are brains and thus physical systems, their existence is perfectly compatible with reductive materialism.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

Materialists (about reality as a whole, not only about concrete reality) aren't mathematical platonists, who believe that "there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices"; and they don't regard the laws of nature as nature-transcendent immaterial entities—as nomological ideas or "canons" in God's mind or Plato's heaven. ("canon" = "a rule, law, or decree of the Church")

QUOTE:
"I think our current concept of a law of nature is a careless secularization of the concept of a decree by God – one suited neither for religious nor secular purposes."

(Forrest, Peter. Quantum Metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. p. 96)

"An externalist conception of laws makes laws out to be entities in the universe—second-order universals—in addition to propertied objects. In creating the universe, God creates the objects and first-order universals, then adds the laws. An internalist conception, a conception that regards properties as powers, encourages the thought that laws are more aptly regarded as linguistic items: equations, formulae, or generalizations that are meant in effect to codify the contribution made by particular properties to the dispositional makeup of their possessors. Newton’s law of universal gravitation, for instance, expresses the contribution mass makes to what objects do or would do—how objects would affect one another—qua ‘massy’. To a first approximation, externalists think of laws as governing objects and holding under ‘ideal’ circumstances; internalists think of objects as self-governing and law statements as attempts to distill the contribution particular kinds of property make to objects’ capacities."

(Heil, John. The Universe As We Find It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 99)

"[T]he natural laws of a world have as their truthmakers the essential irreducible powers of the objects of that world."

(Molnar, George. Powers: A Study in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 162)
:QUOTE

…So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.

QUOTE:
"Action at a distance may be characterized as follows:

Action at a distance is a phenomenon in which a change in intrinsic properties of one system induces a change in the intrinsic properties of a distant system, independently of the influence of any other systems on the distant system, and without there being a process that carries this influence contiguously in space and time.

We may alternatively characterize action at a distance in a more liberal way:

Action* at a distance is a phenomenon in which a change in intrinsic properties of one system induces a change in the intrinsic properties of a distant system without there being a process that carries this influence contiguously in space and time."

Action at a Distance in Quantum Mechanics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-action-distance/
:QUOTE

At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

If electrons are particles or "corpuscles", they cannot possibly be "in many [distinct] places at once"!

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time.

There's an essential difference between classical fields and quantum fields. Mathematically, both kinds of fields are well defined and understood. Ontologically and physically, classical fields are well understood too, but quantum fields are not. For in quantum-field theory the quantum-field values assigned to spacetime points are not determinate, definite values of physical quantities but only expectation values for physical quantities that express the probability of measuring some value somewhere. Now the ontological question is: Are such probability fields (probabilistic quantum fields) really out there in the physical world, or are they just physically useful mathematical fictions? Since physics is the science of physical reality and its nature, this question is of utmost importance.
In my opinion, if quantum fields aren't just mathematical fictions but physical realities, they cannot be like Aristotle's prime matter, which is pure potentiality. For there cannot be any pure potentiality that isn't the potentiality of anything actual.

Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.
How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Action-at-a-distance, entanglement, and superposition are theoretically and ontologically puzzling quantum-physical phenomena, but they pose no threat to the general worldview of materialism/physicalism.

[3017Metaphysician]

Hello philosophers!

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

As atheist Simon Blackburn infamously quoted: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

My argument has been similar, in that it takes those kinds of conceptual interrelations to comprehend or conceive of a some-thing, any thing really. As such, some-thing that exists typically involves a unity of its opposite or opposing features of its existence (mass and energy, gravity and particles, time and change, hot/cold, quality/quantity, inanimate/animate, ad nauseum). But to dichotomize reality as being an either/or causal proposition, only makes the exclusivity of Materialism incomplete. At best it’s a half-theory, in its explanation of all things. At worst, it’s nonsensical.

That said, and back to the OP premise, let’s take a quick look at other observed or perceived 'objects' or phenomena relative to the sciences. First, though we are not supposed to use physically 'analogical reasoning' for all biologically complex systems, the Materialist theory uses it anyway. And while I take no exceptions to that here, cognitive science might want to argue that the ghost in the machine (our stream of conscious thoughts that are perceived as having an independent existence) is that ‘thing’ which happens to us, not by us (it is our Will the breaks the stream of thought and feeling). What is an object of thought? Things-in-themselves, associated with thoughts and feelings, correspond with qualitative properties; not materially quantitative one’s. In other words, such concepts of quality correspond to the actual causes of human behavior. It's part of why we do stuff. Thoughts and feelings cause us to be and want to become a some-‘thing’ (more on that below viz quantum weirdness).

In extending this notion of a stream of independent thoughts and feelings that has subjective causative value, did Einstein’s physical theories share any corresponding experiences along those lines? Well, on many levels he did. If you haven’t checked out his humanistic philosophy about conscious phenomena, I would encourage you to do so. But in his cosmology, his observations about the material world of particles at the most fundamental level of physics -quantum physics- demonstrated and independent behavior or unexplained existence. Much of this behavior was famously coined in his use of the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’.

At the most fundamental level of ‘physical’ reality (sparing the details at the moment), this is to simply say that both local interactions and non-local interactions comprise one’s observations of a physical reality. It also is to say that quantum indeterminism, for the Materialist, corresponds to a paradoxical (free) Will which also is the cause of all human behavior. So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.


At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time. Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.

How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Just a bit of technical jargon (not to get too much into the weeds), when one looks at quantum systems with two particles, say two electrons in a superposition, so that the equations can describe both of them together, they are in an entangled state that seems to defy all that Einstein believed in. If you measure the property of one electron, say its rotation, you can tell what the other electron’s rotation is — without even bothering to measure it. Even weirder, this ability to tell one from the other persists for arbitrarily large distances and appears to be instantaneous. In other words, quantum spookiness defies both space and time. And some quantum phenomena involves things popping in and out of existence (more on that later-The Matter Myth).

Perhaps it’s one more argument for resisting the temptation to dichotomize reality, where there is both a corresponding some-thing that causes action, and an independent existence that acts alone, by itself. A self-organized set of complex instructions that causes things to happen. Much like in the propagation of a species, a self-directed ‘Will’ (philosophically, it seems we cannot escape that concept of Will) that somehow causes things to exist, be, and become. A some thing that causes existence. Like baking a cake, the will to use a set of instructions. But where are those instructions in that hunk of material matter? What are those instructions? And why or who is causing this spooky action at a distance?

If Materialism is not so rational after all, it seems that until there is an observer (a measurement), the notion of where something is does not make sense, not to mention what does it mean for some-thing to exist in the first place. It seems we are back to the question of where did matter come from. Or, perhaps we are back to Mr. Davies quote that sums it all up:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

True, false, or something beyond human reason?

Would it be possible to go into a little more detail about the Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'? I am not suggesting that you give a full physics account but a bit more background would help, such as why he came to the idea may be useful.

When I have come across the idea I have thought that he may be suggesting that there are connections within systems. Fritjof Capra, in 'The Turning Point', showed how quantum theory provided a basis for a shift from the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanical model to one of systems, based on relationships and processes. He pointed to the way it required a holistic approach rather than as a reductionist one. So, it involved seeing how different aspects within systems affect each other.

Having only read about physics in connection with my interest in philosophy, as I I only studied the mere basics at school, I do find it how far to take the ideas. What I mean is that I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge of physics and try to not get to carried away because I may be distorting the ideas into a metaphysical flight of fantasy, way beyond the findings of the physicists.

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below. '

I wonder to what extent quantum physics draws upon the esoteric sources, including both Bohm and Einstein, in the models which they formed of processes and the nature of manifestation. The idea of 'spooky ideas at a distance' would also be interesting for thinking about in relation to Jung's idea of synchronicity, That involves connections and patterns which exist, especially between events taking place and the meanings which correspond in a person's mind, which make them become 'meaningful coincidences'.

Nevertheless, Jung does suggest that synchronicities are more important as a way of understanding correlations rather than causation. It is more about parallels and patterns in consciousness although I do wonder if the idea does give an underlying slant towards human intentions having an active influence on life events. This could be about the way in which mindset has a critical role, including mental states of fear and faith, in the way human beings interpret and respond in the processes of causal chains in life events.

Jack !

Sure, what specifically are you interested in (sorry for the delayed response)?

Quantum weirdness is indeed a mystery. Non-locality (spooky action at a distance) is similar to the way photons and electrons behave. In the famous double slit experiment, it's as if these particles have quantitative properties of the mind. Like one's own Will to make choices. Are you familiar with John Wheeler? Basically, it's like saying matter behaves as if there are laws without laws. Einstein, God bless him, wanted everything to be logical (see OP). But on the quantum level, the behavior of individual/fundamental particles, like Materialism itself, does not make sense. It's as if quantum phenomena have qualitative causal properties of their own. An independent existence of sorts...

[L]ight somehow "senses" the experimental apparatus in the double-slit experiment it will travel through and adjusts its behavior to fit by assuming the appropriate determinate state for it, or whether light remains in an indeterminate state, exhibiting both wave-like and particle-like behavior until measured.[2]

The common intention of these several types of experiments is to first do something that, according to some hidden-variable models,[3] would make each photon "decide" whether it was going to behave as a particle or behave as a wave, and then, before the photon had time to reach the detection device, create another change in the system that would make it seem that the photon had "chosen" to behave in the opposite way. Some interpreters of these experiments contend that a photon either is a wave or is a particle, and that it cannot be both at the same time. Wheeler's intent was to investigate the time-related conditions under which a photon makes this transition between alleged states of being. His work has been productive of many revealing experiments. He may not have anticipated the possibility that other researchers would tend toward the conclusion that a photon retains both its "wave nature" and "particle nature" until the time it ends its life, e.g., by being absorbed by an electron, which acquires its energy and therefore rises to a higher-energy orbital in its atom.

Hence, the Materialist has to overcome those intrinsic qualitative properties of matter, and the instructions that cause matter's behavior. I say again, where are those instructions in that piece of dirt! Nonsense!!

[3017Metaphysician]

Hello philosophers!

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

As atheist Simon Blackburn infamously quoted: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

My argument has been similar, in that it takes those kinds of conceptual interrelations to comprehend or conceive of a some-thing, any thing really. As such, some-thing that exists typically involves a unity of its opposite or opposing features of its existence (mass and energy, gravity and particles, time and change, hot/cold, quality/quantity, inanimate/animate, ad nauseum). But to dichotomize reality as being an either/or causal proposition, only makes the exclusivity of Materialism incomplete. At best it’s a half-theory, in its explanation of all things. At worst, it’s nonsensical.

That said, and back to the OP premise, let’s take a quick look at other observed or perceived 'objects' or phenomena relative to the sciences. First, though we are not supposed to use physically 'analogical reasoning' for all biologically complex systems, the Materialist theory uses it anyway. And while I take no exceptions to that here, cognitive science might want to argue that the ghost in the machine (our stream of conscious thoughts that are perceived as having an independent existence) is that ‘thing’ which happens to us, not by us (it is our Will the breaks the stream of thought and feeling). What is an object of thought? Things-in-themselves, associated with thoughts and feelings, correspond with qualitative properties; not materially quantitative one’s. In other words, such concepts of quality correspond to the actual causes of human behavior. It's part of why we do stuff. Thoughts and feelings cause us to be and want to become a some-‘thing’ (more on that below viz quantum weirdness).

In extending this notion of a stream of independent thoughts and feelings that has subjective causative value, did Einstein’s physical theories share any corresponding experiences along those lines? Well, on many levels he did. If you haven’t checked out his humanistic philosophy about conscious phenomena, I would encourage you to do so. But in his cosmology, his observations about the material world of particles at the most fundamental level of physics -quantum physics- demonstrated and independent behavior or unexplained existence. Much of this behavior was famously coined in his use of the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’.

At the most fundamental level of ‘physical’ reality (sparing the details at the moment), this is to simply say that both local interactions and non-local interactions comprise one’s observations of a physical reality. It also is to say that quantum indeterminism, for the Materialist, corresponds to a paradoxical (free) Will which also is the cause of all human behavior. So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.


At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time. Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.

How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Just a bit of technical jargon (not to get too much into the weeds), when one looks at quantum systems with two particles, say two electrons in a superposition, so that the equations can describe both of them together, they are in an entangled state that seems to defy all that Einstein believed in. If you measure the property of one electron, say its rotation, you can tell what the other electron’s rotation is — without even bothering to measure it. Even weirder, this ability to tell one from the other persists for arbitrarily large distances and appears to be instantaneous. In other words, quantum spookiness defies both space and time. And some quantum phenomena involves things popping in and out of existence (more on that later-The Matter Myth).

Perhaps it’s one more argument for resisting the temptation to dichotomize reality, where there is both a corresponding some-thing that causes action, and an independent existence that acts alone, by itself. A self-organized set of complex instructions that causes things to happen. Much like in the propagation of a species, a self-directed ‘Will’ (philosophically, it seems we cannot escape that concept of Will) that somehow causes things to exist, be, and become. A some thing that causes existence. Like baking a cake, the will to use a set of instructions. But where are those instructions in that hunk of material matter? What are those instructions? And why or who is causing this spooky action at a distance?

If Materialism is not so rational after all, it seems that until there is an observer (a measurement), the notion of where something is does not make sense, not to mention what does it mean for some-thing to exist in the first place. It seems we are back to the question of where did matter come from. Or, perhaps we are back to Mr. Davies quote that sums it all up:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

True, false, or something beyond human reason?

Would it be possible to go into a little more detail about the Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'? I am not suggesting that you give a full physics account but a bit more background would help, such as why he came to the idea may be useful.

When I have come across the idea I have thought that he may be suggesting that there are connections within systems. Fritjof Capra, in 'The Turning Point', showed how quantum theory provided a basis for a shift from the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanical model to one of systems, based on relationships and processes. He pointed to the way it required a holistic approach rather than as a reductionist one. So, it involved seeing how different aspects within systems affect each other.

Having only read about physics in connection with my interest in philosophy, as I I only studied the mere basics at school, I do find it how far to take the ideas. What I mean is that I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge of physics and try to not get to carried away because I may be distorting the ideas into a metaphysical flight of fantasy, way beyond the findings of the physicists.

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below. '

I wonder to what extent quantum physics draws upon the esoteric sources, including both Bohm and Einstein, in the models which they formed of processes and the nature of manifestation. The idea of 'spooky ideas at a distance' would also be interesting for thinking about in relation to Jung's idea of synchronicity, That involves connections and patterns which exist, especially between events taking place and the meanings which correspond in a person's mind, which make them become 'meaningful coincidences'.

Nevertheless, Jung does suggest that synchronicities are more important as a way of understanding correlations rather than causation. It is more about parallels and patterns in consciousness although I do wonder if the idea does give an underlying slant towards human intentions having an active influence on life events. This could be about the way in which mindset has a critical role, including mental states of fear and faith, in the way human beings interpret and respond in the processes of causal chains in life events.

Here's the 101 Jack:

[3017Metaphysician]

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

Read from the perspective of non-eliminative/reductive materialism, the (simplistic) statement that "nothing exists except matter" isn't a denial of the mind, but only of the nonphysical mind. If minds are brains and thus physical systems, their existence is perfectly compatible with reductive materialism.

Minds are not exclusively physical material events. Quantitatively they certainly are, qualitatively they are not.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

Materialists (about reality as a whole, not only about concrete reality) aren't mathematical platonists, who believe that "there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices"; and they don't regard the laws of nature as nature-transcendent immaterial entities—as nomological ideas or "canons" in God's mind or Plato's heaven. ("canon" = "a rule, law, or decree of the Church")

Thank you Consul. I wasn't referring to Platonism. I was referring to the abstract laws of the universe. Those ideas are not exclusively physical ones. They are ideas (thoughts and feelings). A shadowy abstract object of one's thought, of course, is not a material object at all. They, in-themselves, are just thoughts. Ideas. Hence the paradox of one's 'object' of thought. One can think of an object when they are thinking, but all they are doing is thinking. They are just ideas about objects. One can easily think of one's object of thought like in engineering. When a structural engineer looks at a physical beam, he sees numbers. An abstract formula that created its existence. The primacy of its existence came from the mind; the idea itself.

QUOTE:
"I think our current concept of a law of nature is a careless secularization of the concept of a decree by God – one suited neither for religious nor secular purposes."

(Forrest, Peter. Quantum Metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. p. 96)

"An externalist conception of laws makes laws out to be entities in the universe—second-order universals—in addition to propertied objects. In creating the universe, God creates the objects and first-order universals, then adds the laws. An internalist conception, a conception that regards properties as powers, encourages the thought that laws are more aptly regarded as linguistic items: equations, formulae, or generalizations that are meant in effect to codify the contribution made by particular properties to the dispositional makeup of their possessors. Newton’s law of universal gravitation, for instance, expresses the contribution mass makes to what objects do or would do—how objects would affect one another—qua ‘massy’. To a first approximation, externalists think of laws as governing objects and holding under ‘ideal’ circumstances; internalists think of objects as self-governing and law statements as attempts to distill the contribution particular kinds of property make to objects’ capacities."

(Heil, John. The Universe As We Find It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 99)

"[T]he natural laws of a world have as their truthmakers the essential irreducible powers of the objects of that world."

(Molnar, George. Powers: A Study in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 162)
:QUOTE

…So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.

QUOTE:
"Action at a distance may be characterized as follows:

Action at a distance is a phenomenon in which a change in intrinsic properties of one system induces a change in the intrinsic properties of a distant system, independently of the influence of any other systems on the distant system, and without there being a process that carries this influence contiguously in space and time.

We may alternatively characterize action at a distance in a more liberal way:

Action* at a distance is a phenomenon in which a change in intrinsic properties of one system induces a change in the intrinsic properties of a distant system without there being a process that carries this influence contiguously in space and time."

Action at a Distance in Quantum Mechanics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-action-distance/
:QUOTE

At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

If electrons are particles or "corpuscles", they cannot possibly be "in many [distinct] places at once"!

Well, no. The conscious experience (subconscious and conscious working together) can be perceived to be in two places at one time. The infamous driving while daydreaming experiment/experience bears truth to that. Again, the Materialist has to explain everything, all phenomena, in terms of material events. Alternatively, the quantum experience is very similar. The feature of a quantum system exists in several separate quantum states at the same time. Quick example, each electron, until it is measured, will have a finite chance of being in either state. Only when measured is it observed to be in a specific spin state. In common experience a coin facing up has a definite value: it is a head or a tail. Even if you don’t look at the coin you trust that it must be a head or tail. In quantum experience the situation is more unsettling: material properties of things do not exist until they are measured. Until you “look” (measure the particular property) at the coin, as it were, it has no fixed face up.

Perhaps think of like in one's own stream of conscious thoughts, that happen to him and not by him, until the Will consciously breaks the stream, they are just 'potential ideas'. Or, until one stops daydreaming, they are no longer driving and not driving (driving and daydreaming about the beach). Instead, they realize they are driving. But prior to, they are experiencing a phenomenon of being in two places at one time. How does the exclusivity of Materialism explain that ('everything' in terms of material events)?

It's kind of like saying if a tree fell and no one heard it, would it still have fallen. The correct answer is "yes", and "no", dependent on whether being answered using the strictly physical, or the psychophysical definition, respectively.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time.

There's an essential difference between classical fields and quantum fields. Mathematically, both kinds of fields are well defined and understood. Ontologically and physically, classical fields are well understood too, but quantum fields are not. For in quantum-field theory the quantum-field values assigned to spacetime points are not determinate, definite values of physical quantities but only expectation values for physical quantities that express the probability of measuring some value somewhere. Now the ontological question is: Are such probability fields (probabilistic quantum fields) really out there in the physical world, or are they just physically useful mathematical fictions? Since physics is the science of physical reality and its nature, this question is of utmost importance.
In my opinion, if quantum fields aren't just mathematical fictions but physical realities, they cannot be like Aristotle's prime matter, which is pure potentiality. For there cannot be any pure potentiality that isn't the potentiality of anything actual.

...and of course (you left out) they are understood through those abstract laws, which are just ideas in the mind. Remember, an idea is not exclusively a material thing-in-itself. Also, think of potentiality as the distinctions between being and becoming.

Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.
How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Action-at-a-distance, entanglement, and superposition are theoretically and ontologically puzzling quantum-physical phenomena, but they pose no threat to the general worldview of materialism/physicalism.

Unfortunately, as much as I want to embrace the exclusivity of matter, it seemingly poses a great "threat" not only to the rules of deduction (the most secure form of reasoning) itself, but in the processing of information (the information narrative) itself. The instructions for all of material matter's behavior, much less its existence, is that which the Materialist cannot instantiate nor reconcile materially or causally. For example, five things quickly come to mind:

1. Where did material matter come from.
2. The qualitative properties of a paticular thing-in-itself.
3. Information and instruction.
4. The perception of time, light, sound, color, etc..
5. Thoughts and feelings

My part V of the 'matter myth' will cover item 2,4 and 5 relating to the causal effects/human perceptions of 'things' like sound, light and color, all requiring a logically necessary biologically animate creature(s) for its causal effects. I may reserve the perception of Time though, for later, since I'm sure you would agree it deserves somewhat of a more comprehensive study in its own rite...

[Consul]

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below.'

Here's Bohm explanation of the "spooky" nonlocal correlations between entangled particles:

viewtopic.php?p=333828#p333828

[Consul]

Here's Bohm explanation of the "spooky" nonlocal correlations between entangled particles:

viewtopic.php?p=333828#p333828

QUOTE:
"Bohm also uses enfoldment as a means of explaining non-local effects in the quantum domain. He presents the analogy of a fish in an aquarium, projected onto two TV screens via two separate cameras, from two different angles. As a result of this configuration, each movement of the actual fish produces two seemingly separate images on the screens. But these images have a suspicious, instantaneous relationship to one another—much like the non-local relation between 'entangled' particles at the quantum level. In this analogy, the crucial relationship is that of the three-dimensional 'actual' fish to the two-dimensional images of the fish, these latter being seen as unfolded projections from the more fundamental three-dimensional reality. In similar fashion, claims Bohm, our three-dimensional world—including entangled particles in a laboratory—manifests itself as a projection from a yet more fundamental multi-dimensional reality."

(Nichol, Lee, ed. The Essential David Bohm. London: Routledge, 2003. p. 79)
:QUOTE

[Consul]

Bohm was not a reductive materialist. His views on the relationship between mind and matter are not easy to understand, but he was a sort of panpsychist or neutral monist. When he writes that "the particles of physics have certain primitive mind-like qualities," this sounds typically panpsychistic; but when he writes that "the deeper reality is something beyond either mind or matter, both of which are only aspects that serve as terms for analysis," this sounds like neutral monism.

QUOTE:
"Like many other physicists, David Bohm (1917–1992) had a longstanding interest in developing the philosophical implications of quantum physics. He wrote numerous pieces on the philosophy of physics, and seems to have been especially interested in the process of mind. More than any other scientist-philosopher of the twentieth century, Bohm developed and openly endorsed a form of panpsychism that was grounded in fundamental physical laws—in his case, laws of quantum mechanics."

(Skrbina, David. Panpsychism in the West. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. p. 260)
:QUOTE

QUOTE:
"[T]he explicate and manifest order of consciousness is not ultimately distinct from that of matter in general. Fundamentally, these are essentially different aspects of the one overall order. This explains a basic fact (...)—that the explicate order of matter in general is also in essence the sensuous explicate order that is presented in consciousness in ordinary experience."

(Bohm, David. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. 1980. Reprint, London: Routledge, 2002. p. 264)
———
[T]he quantum theory, which is now basic, implies that the particles of physics have certain primitive mind-like qualities which are not possible in terms of Newtonian concepts (though, of course, they do not have consciousness). This means that on the basis of modern physics even inanimate matter cannot be fully understood in terms of Descartes's notion that it is nothing but a substance occupying space and constituted of separate objects. Vice versa, it will be argued that mind can be seen to have always a physical aspect, though this may be very subtle. Thus, we are led to the possibility of a real relationship between the two, because they never have the absolute distinction of basic qualities, that was assumed by Descartes and by others, such as the emergent materialists."
(p. 272)

"In the quantum theory, the 'ballet-like' behaviour in superconductivity, for example, is clearly more like that of an organism than like that of mechanism. Indeed, going further, the whole notion of active information suggests a rudimentary mind-like behaviour of matter, for an essential quality of mind is just the activity of form, rather than of substance. Thus, for example, when we read a printed page, we do not assimilate the substance of the paper, but only the forms of the letters, and it is these forms which give rise to an information content in the reader which is manifested actively in his or her subsequent activities. A similar mind-like quality of matter reveals itself strongly at the quantum level, in the sense that the form of the wave function manifests itself in the movements of the particles. This quality does not, however, appear to a significant extent at the level at which classical physics is a valid approximation."
(p. 281)

"It seems clear from all this that at least in the context of the processes of thought, there is a kind of active information that is simultaneously physical and mental in nature. Active information can thus serve as a kind of link or 'bridge' between these two sides of reality as a whole. These two sides are inseparable, in the sense that information contained in thought, which we feel to be on the 'mental' side, is at the same time a related neurophysiological, chemical, and physical activity (which is clearly what is meant by the 'material' side of this thought)."
(p. 282)

"In this series, the mental side corresponds, of course, to what is more subtle and the physical side to what is less subtle. And each mental side in turn becomes a physical side as we move in the direction of greater subtlety."
(p. 283)

"One may then ask: what is the relationship of these two processes? The answer that I want to propose here is that there are not two processes. Rather, I would suggest that both are essentially the same. This means that that which we experience as mind, in its movement through various levels of subtlety, will, in a natural way ultimately move the body by reaching the level of the quantum potential and of the 'dance' of the particles. There is no unbridgeable gap of barrier between any of these levels. Rather, at each stage some kind of information is the bridge. This implies, that the quantum potential acting on atomic particles, for example, represents only one stage in the process.

The content of our own consciousness is then some part of this over-all process. It is thus implied that in some sense a rudimentary mind-like quality is present even at the level of particle physics, and that as we go to subtler levels, this mind-like quality becomes stronger and more developed. Each kind and level of mind may have a relative autonomy and stability. One may then describe the essential mode of relationship of all these as participation, recalling that this word has two basic meanings, to partake of, and to take part in. Through enfoldment, each relatively autonomous kind and level of mind to one degree or another partakes of the whole. Through this it partakes of all the others in its 'gathering' of information. And through the activity of this information, it similarly takes part in the whole and in every part. It is in this sort of activity that the content of the more subtle and implicate levels is unfolded (e.g. as the movement of the particle unfolds the meaning of the information that is implicit in the quantum field and as the movement of the body unfolds what is implicit in subtler levels of thought, feeling, etc.).

For the human being, all of this implies a thoroughgoing wholeness, in which mental and physical sides participate very closely in each other. Likewise, intellect, emotion, and the whole state of the body are in a similar flux of fundamental participation. Thus, there is no real division between mind and matter, psyche and soma. The common term psychosomatic is in this way seen to be misleading, as it suggests the Cartesian notion of two distinct substances in some kind of interaction (if not through the action of God, then perhaps in some other way).

Extending this view, we see that each human being similarly participates in an inseparable way in society and in the planet as a whole. What may be suggested further is that such participation goes on to a greater collective mind, and perhaps ultimately to some yet more comprehensive mind in principle capable of going indefinitely beyond even the human species as a whole."
(pp. 283-4)

"[W]e may for the sake of thinking about the subject abstract any given level of subtely out of the unbroken whole of reality and focus our attention on it. At each such level, there will be a 'mental pole' and a 'physical pole'. Thus as we have already implied, even an electron has at least a rudimentary mental pole, represented mathematically by the quantum potential. Vice versa, as we have seen, even subtle mental processes have a physical pole. But the deeper reality is something beyond either mind or matter, both of which are only aspects that serve as terms for analysis. These can contribute to our understanding of what is happening but are in no sense separate substances in interaction. Nor are we reducing one pole to a mere function or aspect of the other (e.g. as is done in materialism and in idealism). The key point is, however, that before the advent of the quantum theory, our knowledge of matter as gained from the study of physics would have led us to deny that it could have a mental pole, which would enable it to participate with mind in the relationship that have been described here. We can now say that this knowledge of matter (as well as of mind) has changed in such a way as to support the approach that has been described here. To pursue this approach further might perhaps enable us to extend our knowledge of both poles into new domains."
(p. 285)

(Bohm, David. "A New Theory of the Relationship of Mind and Matter." Philosophical Psychology 3/2 (1990): 271–286.)
:QUOTE

[Consul]

Quantum weirdness is indeed a mystery.

The big problem is that…

QUOTE:
"Despite its status as a core part of contemporary physics, there is no consensus among physicists or philosophers of physics on the question of what, if anything, the empirical success of quantum theory is telling us about the physical world. This gives rise to the collection of philosophical issues known as “the interpretation of quantum mechanics”. One should not be misled by this terminology into thinking that what we have is an uninterpreted mathematical formalism with no connection to the physical world. Rather, there is a common operational core that consists of recipes for calculating probabilities of outcomes of experiments performed on systems subjected to certain state preparation procedures. What are often referred to as different “interpretations” of quantum mechanics differ on what, if anything, is added to the common core."

(Wayne Myrvold: Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory, 2022: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-issues/)

"Quantum mechanics is, at least at first glance and at least in part, a mathematical machine for predicting the behaviors of microscopic particles — or, at least, of the measuring instruments we use to explore those behaviors — and in that capacity, it is spectacularly successful: in terms of power and precision, head and shoulders above any theory we have ever had. Mathematically, the theory is well understood; we know what its parts are, how they are put together, and why, in the mechanical sense (i.e., in a sense that can be answered by describing the internal grinding of gear against gear), the whole thing performs the way it does, how the information that gets fed in at one end is converted into what comes out the other. The question of what kind of a world it describes, however, is controversial; there is very little agreement, among physicists and among philosophers, about what the world is like according to quantum mechanics."

(Jenann Ismael: Quantum Mechanics, 2020: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm/)
———
"What, then, does quantum mechanics tell us about the fundamental nature of physical reality? At the moment, not very much. There are several approaches to quantum mechanics, any or none of which might yield an acceptable physical theory. According to some approaches, the world is deterministic, and according to others it is indeterministic. According to some there are particles at the fundamental level and according to others there are only waves (in a high-dimensional space). According to one, the contents of the universe, including people, are constantly branching into multiple copies. The question of which theory is correct is in part a matter of empirical investigation by experimental physics. But in part it is a matter of theoretical investigation, by both physicists and philosophers, since it is not clear what the phenomena are that must be captured by an empirically adequate theory, and it is not clear what each theory entails about the phenomena. It is not even clear how many distinct theories there are. In the meantime, any metaphysical claim of the form 'Quantum mechanics shows that ...' should be treated with suspicion."

(Lewis, Peter J. "Metaphysics and Quantum Physics." In The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, edited by Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal, and Ross P. Cameron, 517-526. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. p. 525)

"[Quantum mechanics] is a theory in which we have no idea what we are talking about, because we have no idea what (if anything) the basic mathematical structures of the theory represent."

(Lewis, Peter J. Quantum Ontology: A Guide to the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. p. 23)

"So very little can be concluded unconditionally on the basis of quantum mechanics: Metaphysical claims of the form "Quantum mechanics shows that ..." need to be treated very carefully, and in their full generality are likely to be false. However, this doesn't mean that thinking about quantum ontology is a useless exercise. The empirically informed debate over ontological issues generated by quantum mechanics is often quite unlike the standard debates over these issues, and the range of possibilities entertained is often different, too. Even if quantum mechanics doesn't settle many ontological questions, it shifts the debate in interesting and fruitful ways. Furthermore, the metaphysical consequences of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics may, in some cases, reflect back on the tenability of those interpretations. If an interpretation cannot yield a coherent metaphysical picture of the world, then it cannot be regarded as an adequate descriptive theory.
Quantum mechanics is fascinating and frustrating. Its phenomena are astonishingly difficult to fit into any coherent ontological framework. The frameworks we end up with are fascinatingly revisionary but also frustratingly problematic. The best we can say is that not everything in our received classical worldview can be right."

(Lewis, Peter J. Quantum Ontology: A Guide to the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. p. 182)
:QUOTE

[JackDaydream]

Hello philosophers!

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

As atheist Simon Blackburn infamously quoted: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

My argument has been similar, in that it takes those kinds of conceptual interrelations to comprehend or conceive of a some-thing, any thing really. As such, some-thing that exists typically involves a unity of its opposite or opposing features of its existence (mass and energy, gravity and particles, time and change, hot/cold, quality/quantity, inanimate/animate, ad nauseum). But to dichotomize reality as being an either/or causal proposition, only makes the exclusivity of Materialism incomplete. At best it’s a half-theory, in its explanation of all things. At worst, it’s nonsensical.

That said, and back to the OP premise, let’s take a quick look at other observed or perceived 'objects' or phenomena relative to the sciences. First, though we are not supposed to use physically 'analogical reasoning' for all biologically complex systems, the Materialist theory uses it anyway. And while I take no exceptions to that here, cognitive science might want to argue that the ghost in the machine (our stream of conscious thoughts that are perceived as having an independent existence) is that ‘thing’ which happens to us, not by us (it is our Will the breaks the stream of thought and feeling). What is an object of thought? Things-in-themselves, associated with thoughts and feelings, correspond with qualitative properties; not materially quantitative one’s. In other words, such concepts of quality correspond to the actual causes of human behavior. It's part of why we do stuff. Thoughts and feelings cause us to be and want to become a some-‘thing’ (more on that below viz quantum weirdness).

In extending this notion of a stream of independent thoughts and feelings that has subjective causative value, did Einstein’s physical theories share any corresponding experiences along those lines? Well, on many levels he did. If you haven’t checked out his humanistic philosophy about conscious phenomena, I would encourage you to do so. But in his cosmology, his observations about the material world of particles at the most fundamental level of physics -quantum physics- demonstrated and independent behavior or unexplained existence. Much of this behavior was famously coined in his use of the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’.

At the most fundamental level of ‘physical’ reality (sparing the details at the moment), this is to simply say that both local interactions and non-local interactions comprise one’s observations of a physical reality. It also is to say that quantum indeterminism, for the Materialist, corresponds to a paradoxical (free) Will which also is the cause of all human behavior. So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.


At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time. Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.

How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Just a bit of technical jargon (not to get too much into the weeds), when one looks at quantum systems with two particles, say two electrons in a superposition, so that the equations can describe both of them together, they are in an entangled state that seems to defy all that Einstein believed in. If you measure the property of one electron, say its rotation, you can tell what the other electron’s rotation is — without even bothering to measure it. Even weirder, this ability to tell one from the other persists for arbitrarily large distances and appears to be instantaneous. In other words, quantum spookiness defies both space and time. And some quantum phenomena involves things popping in and out of existence (more on that later-The Matter Myth).

Perhaps it’s one more argument for resisting the temptation to dichotomize reality, where there is both a corresponding some-thing that causes action, and an independent existence that acts alone, by itself. A self-organized set of complex instructions that causes things to happen. Much like in the propagation of a species, a self-directed ‘Will’ (philosophically, it seems we cannot escape that concept of Will) that somehow causes things to exist, be, and become. A some thing that causes existence. Like baking a cake, the will to use a set of instructions. But where are those instructions in that hunk of material matter? What are those instructions? And why or who is causing this spooky action at a distance?

If Materialism is not so rational after all, it seems that until there is an observer (a measurement), the notion of where something is does not make sense, not to mention what does it mean for some-thing to exist in the first place. It seems we are back to the question of where did matter come from. Or, perhaps we are back to Mr. Davies quote that sums it all up:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

True, false, or something beyond human reason?

Would it be possible to go into a little more detail about the Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'? I am not suggesting that you give a full physics account but a bit more background would help, such as why he came to the idea may be useful.

When I have come across the idea I have thought that he may be suggesting that there are connections within systems. Fritjof Capra, in 'The Turning Point', showed how quantum theory provided a basis for a shift from the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanical model to one of systems, based on relationships and processes. He pointed to the way it required a holistic approach rather than as a reductionist one. So, it involved seeing how different aspects within systems affect each other.

Having only read about physics in connection with my interest in philosophy, as I I only studied the mere basics at school, I do find it how far to take the ideas. What I mean is that I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge of physics and try to not get to carried away because I may be distorting the ideas into a metaphysical flight of fantasy, way beyond the findings of the physicists.

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below. '

I wonder to what extent quantum physics draws upon the esoteric sources, including both Bohm and Einstein, in the models which they formed of processes and the nature of manifestation. The idea of 'spooky ideas at a distance' would also be interesting for thinking about in relation to Jung's idea of synchronicity, That involves connections and patterns which exist, especially between events taking place and the meanings which correspond in a person's mind, which make them become 'meaningful coincidences'.

Nevertheless, Jung does suggest that synchronicities are more important as a way of understanding correlations rather than causation. It is more about parallels and patterns in consciousness although I do wonder if the idea does give an underlying slant towards human intentions having an active influence on life events. This could be about the way in which mindset has a critical role, including mental states of fear and faith, in the way human beings interpret and respond in the processes of causal chains in life events.

Here's the 101 Jack:

Thanks for the video link and I have just watched it. Part of my own interest is the nature of connections between things. It seems to suggest that various parts exist inside larger parts. It is about systems and intricate relationships. In itself it may not be about simply about mind but it may be that what is perceived as 'mind' is a central aspect of inherent design in nature. I wonder if it shows a level of interconnectedness between people, possibly as a source of intersubjectivity imminent in consciousness.This would make sense because human beings have shared perceptual experiences in many ways in spite of some variations.

[Consul]

Minds are not exclusively physical material events. Quantitatively they certainly are, qualitatively they are not.[/b]

I beg to differ! There is no mentality over and above the physicality of the brain.

Thank you Consul. I wasn't referring to Platonism. I was referring to the abstract laws of the universe. Those ideas are not exclusively physical ones. They are ideas (thoughts and feelings).

If you mean to say that the laws of physics aren't the only scientific laws, then you're right; but if you mean to say that the laws of nature are abstract and thus immaterial entities, I disagree. They are not abstract propositional principles in Frege's Third Realm or Popper's World 3.

I don't agree with David Armstrong's conception of laws of nature, especially as I don't believe in universals; but according to him, laws of nature aren't nature-transcendent mental "ideas" in God's mind or nonmental "ideas" in Plato's heaven, but mind-independent and nature-immanent relations of necessitation between natural/physical properties qua nature-immanent universals.

If electrons are particles or "corpuscles", they cannot possibly be "in many [distinct] places at once"!

Well, no. The conscious experience (subconscious and conscious working together) can be perceived to be in two places at one time. The infamous driving while daydreaming experiment/experience bears truth to that. Again, the Materialist has to explain everything, all phenomena, in terms of material events. Alternatively, the quantum experience is very similar. The feature of a quantum system exists in several separate quantum states at the same time. Quick example, each electron, until it is measured, will have a finite chance of being in either state. Only when measured is it observed to be in a specific spin state. In common experience a coin facing up has a definite value: it is a head or a tail. Even if you don’t look at the coin you trust that it must be a head or tail. In quantum experience the situation is more unsettling: material properties of things do not exist until they are measured. Until you “look” (measure the particular property) at the coin, as it were, it has no fixed face up.

If a theoretical interpretation of a quantum-physical experiment makes no logical or ontological sense, this is a good reason to reject it (the interpretation). For example, elementary particles conceived as tiny local objects cannot be at two distinct places the same time, since there cannot be a nonzero spatial distance between something and itself. And the very concept of an indefinite or indeterminate value of a physical quantity is illogical. For if a particle has the disjunctive property of having V1 or V2, but it actually has neither V1 nor V2, we get a logical contradiction: (V1p v V2p) & (~V1p & ~V2p) <—> (V1p v V2p) & ~(V1p v V2p)

...and of course (you left out) they are understood through those abstract laws, which are just ideas in the mind. Remember, an idea is not exclusively a material thing-in-itself. Also, think of potentiality as the distinctions between being and becoming.

A sententially expressed law can certainly be part of my thought qua inner speech, and I can imagine law-representing mathematical formulas as well.

There is no becoming without being! Of course, something can become in the sense of coming into being; but it cannot come into being out of nonbeing, but only through the reconfiguration or transformation of pre-existing stuff.

Action-at-a-distance, entanglement, and superposition are theoretically and ontologically puzzling quantum-physical phenomena, but they pose no threat to the general worldview of materialism/physicalism.

Unfortunately, as much as I want to embrace the exclusivity of matter, it seemingly poses a great "threat" not only to the rules of deduction (the most secure form of reasoning) itself, but in the processing of information (the information narrative) itself. The instructions for all of material matter's behavior, much less its existence, is that which the Materialist cannot instantiate nor reconcile materially or causally. For example, five things quickly come to mind:

1. Where did material matter come from.
2. The qualitative properties of a paticular thing-in-itself.
3. Information and instruction.
4. The perception of time, light, sound, color, etc..
5. Thoughts and feelings

Regarding the fundamental nature and structure of the physical world (the matter-energy-space-time system), there are many open questions that haven't yet been answered by physicists or physicalist metaphysicists. So what? Yours seems to be a "God of the gaps" or (not necessarily theistic) "Mind of the gaps" argument against the physicalist worldview, which isn't convincing unless the unexplained phenomena can be successfully explained by a nonphysical science that doesn't work on the basis of methodological physicalism.

"If the rivals of materialism have any advantage it must be because there are some residual phenomena which they can explain better. Now, most of the phenomena which the supernaturalist throws in the naturalist's teeth are such as the supernaturalist himself has never explained."

(Williams, Donald Cary. "Naturalism and the Nature of Things." In Principles of Empirical Realism: Philosophical Essays, 212-238. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1966. p. 234)

[3017Metaphysician]

Hello philosophers!

In keeping with the idea that Materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events, it is undeniably clear that the theory itself presupposes the existence of mental properties or phenomena (Idealism). The existence of our qualitative properties of the mind (thoughts and feelings) is logically necessary for any thought or perception to occur in the first place, or even at all. The idea that nothing exists except matter has been found to be essentially self-refuting because if it were true, neither it nor any other idea, would exist. And similarly, a Subjective argument to that effect would also be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.

For instance, in physics, because physical theories are conceived in the mind through the abstract structures of numbers (metaphysics), the existence of the laws themselves are that which the Materialist cannot seem to reconcile. They must use the ‘metaphysically abstract laws’ to instantiate matter. To conceive of the physical, seems to require the meta-physical. These 'meta-physical' laws are attached to matter. They describe, and explain (to a lesser degree) causation, behavior and other physical interactions. The laws are both subject and objective laws. How do they resolve that basic paradox? Not sure they can.

As atheist Simon Blackburn infamously quoted: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure.

My argument has been similar, in that it takes those kinds of conceptual interrelations to comprehend or conceive of a some-thing, any thing really. As such, some-thing that exists typically involves a unity of its opposite or opposing features of its existence (mass and energy, gravity and particles, time and change, hot/cold, quality/quantity, inanimate/animate, ad nauseum). But to dichotomize reality as being an either/or causal proposition, only makes the exclusivity of Materialism incomplete. At best it’s a half-theory, in its explanation of all things. At worst, it’s nonsensical.

That said, and back to the OP premise, let’s take a quick look at other observed or perceived 'objects' or phenomena relative to the sciences. First, though we are not supposed to use physically 'analogical reasoning' for all biologically complex systems, the Materialist theory uses it anyway. And while I take no exceptions to that here, cognitive science might want to argue that the ghost in the machine (our stream of conscious thoughts that are perceived as having an independent existence) is that ‘thing’ which happens to us, not by us (it is our Will the breaks the stream of thought and feeling). What is an object of thought? Things-in-themselves, associated with thoughts and feelings, correspond with qualitative properties; not materially quantitative one’s. In other words, such concepts of quality correspond to the actual causes of human behavior. It's part of why we do stuff. Thoughts and feelings cause us to be and want to become a some-‘thing’ (more on that below viz quantum weirdness).

In extending this notion of a stream of independent thoughts and feelings that has subjective causative value, did Einstein’s physical theories share any corresponding experiences along those lines? Well, on many levels he did. If you haven’t checked out his humanistic philosophy about conscious phenomena, I would encourage you to do so. But in his cosmology, his observations about the material world of particles at the most fundamental level of physics -quantum physics- demonstrated and independent behavior or unexplained existence. Much of this behavior was famously coined in his use of the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’.

At the most fundamental level of ‘physical’ reality (sparing the details at the moment), this is to simply say that both local interactions and non-local interactions comprise one’s observations of a physical reality. It also is to say that quantum indeterminism, for the Materialist, corresponds to a paradoxical (free) Will which also is the cause of all human behavior. So what is ‘action at a distance’ relative to material physical matter’s behavior?

In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.


At about the same time Einstein was trying to rationalize gravity’s ghost, quantum mechanics was on the rise. Among its many weird behaviors, the notion of quantum superposition really defies our imagination. In our everyday life, when you are in one place, that’s where you are. Period. Not so for quantum systems. An electron, for example, is not a thing in one place but a thing in many places at once. This “spatial superposition” is absolutely essential to describe quantum systems. All this seems logically impossible, yet exists.

Quantum mechanics is about the potentiality of something to be found here or there, not about where something is all the time. Does this potentiality correspond to one’s own Will to be and become? Why sure it does! This quantum indeterminacy (or free will if you like) drove Einstein nuts. It was precisely the opposite of what he had found with his theory of gravity — namely, that gravity acted locally in determining the curvature of space at every point. And also causally, always at the speed of light. Einstein believed that nature should be reasonable, amenable to rational explanation, as well as predictable.

How does Materialism explain the causes of everything materially, much less the phenomenon of things like quantum entanglement and indeterminancy? In other words, what are these interrelationships between objects that seem to need each other?

Just a bit of technical jargon (not to get too much into the weeds), when one looks at quantum systems with two particles, say two electrons in a superposition, so that the equations can describe both of them together, they are in an entangled state that seems to defy all that Einstein believed in. If you measure the property of one electron, say its rotation, you can tell what the other electron’s rotation is — without even bothering to measure it. Even weirder, this ability to tell one from the other persists for arbitrarily large distances and appears to be instantaneous. In other words, quantum spookiness defies both space and time. And some quantum phenomena involves things popping in and out of existence (more on that later-The Matter Myth).

Perhaps it’s one more argument for resisting the temptation to dichotomize reality, where there is both a corresponding some-thing that causes action, and an independent existence that acts alone, by itself. A self-organized set of complex instructions that causes things to happen. Much like in the propagation of a species, a self-directed ‘Will’ (philosophically, it seems we cannot escape that concept of Will) that somehow causes things to exist, be, and become. A some thing that causes existence. Like baking a cake, the will to use a set of instructions. But where are those instructions in that hunk of material matter? What are those instructions? And why or who is causing this spooky action at a distance?

If Materialism is not so rational after all, it seems that until there is an observer (a measurement), the notion of where something is does not make sense, not to mention what does it mean for some-thing to exist in the first place. It seems we are back to the question of where did matter come from. Or, perhaps we are back to Mr. Davies quote that sums it all up:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

True, false, or something beyond human reason?

Would it be possible to go into a little more detail about the Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'? I am not suggesting that you give a full physics account but a bit more background would help, such as why he came to the idea may be useful.

When I have come across the idea I have thought that he may be suggesting that there are connections within systems. Fritjof Capra, in 'The Turning Point', showed how quantum theory provided a basis for a shift from the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanical model to one of systems, based on relationships and processes. He pointed to the way it required a holistic approach rather than as a reductionist one. So, it involved seeing how different aspects within systems affect each other.

Having only read about physics in connection with my interest in philosophy, as I I only studied the mere basics at school, I do find it how far to take the ideas. What I mean is that I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge of physics and try to not get to carried away because I may be distorting the ideas into a metaphysical flight of fantasy, way beyond the findings of the physicists.

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below. '

I wonder to what extent quantum physics draws upon the esoteric sources, including both Bohm and Einstein, in the models which they formed of processes and the nature of manifestation. The idea of 'spooky ideas at a distance' would also be interesting for thinking about in relation to Jung's idea of synchronicity, That involves connections and patterns which exist, especially between events taking place and the meanings which correspond in a person's mind, which make them become 'meaningful coincidences'.

Nevertheless, Jung does suggest that synchronicities are more important as a way of understanding correlations rather than causation. It is more about parallels and patterns in consciousness although I do wonder if the idea does give an underlying slant towards human intentions having an active influence on life events. This could be about the way in which mindset has a critical role, including mental states of fear and faith, in the way human beings interpret and respond in the processes of causal chains in life events.

Here's the 101 Jack:

Thanks for the video link and I have just watched it. Part of my own interest is the nature of connections between things. It seems to suggest that various parts exist inside larger parts. It is about systems and intricate relationships. In itself it may not be about simply about mind but it may be that what is perceived as 'mind' is a central aspect of inherent design in nature. I wonder if it shows a level of interconnectedness between people, possibly as a source of intersubjectivity imminent in consciousness.This would make sense because human beings have shared perceptual experiences in many ways in spite of some variations.

Jack!

Because the thing's behavior has causative value (for physical systems or entities), it requires information or instructions for its existence. It's a self-organized or self-directed complex system, much like that of biological systems. In other words, non-locality is not a chaotic system in itself.

Hence, the Materialist must demonstrate the why, how, where, when and what caused the 'physical' system in the first place. They can't!

[JackDaydream]

Would it be possible to go into a little more detail about the Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'? I am not suggesting that you give a full physics account but a bit more background would help, such as why he came to the idea may be useful.

When I have come across the idea I have thought that he may be suggesting that there are connections within systems. Fritjof Capra, in 'The Turning Point', showed how quantum theory provided a basis for a shift from the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanical model to one of systems, based on relationships and processes. He pointed to the way it required a holistic approach rather than as a reductionist one. So, it involved seeing how different aspects within systems affect each other.

Having only read about physics in connection with my interest in philosophy, as I I only studied the mere basics at school, I do find it how far to take the ideas. What I mean is that I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge of physics and try to not get to carried away because I may be distorting the ideas into a metaphysical flight of fantasy, way beyond the findings of the physicists.

Nevertheless, the other physicist who is also important in connection with the materialist/idealist debate is David Bohm, in his idea of the explicate and implicate order. The explicate order is the outer manifestation that the implicate order is the invisible source, and this corresponds to some extent with Plato's theory of forms. It could be argued that such notions imply a form of dualism and Plato was part of the Hermetic esoteric tradition, with the emphasis, 'As above, so below. '

I wonder to what extent quantum physics draws upon the esoteric sources, including both Bohm and Einstein, in the models which they formed of processes and the nature of manifestation. The idea of 'spooky ideas at a distance' would also be interesting for thinking about in relation to Jung's idea of synchronicity, That involves connections and patterns which exist, especially between events taking place and the meanings which correspond in a person's mind, which make them become 'meaningful coincidences'.

Nevertheless, Jung does suggest that synchronicities are more important as a way of understanding correlations rather than causation. It is more about parallels and patterns in consciousness although I do wonder if the idea does give an underlying slant towards human intentions having an active influence on life events. This could be about the way in which mindset has a critical role, including mental states of fear and faith, in the way human beings interpret and respond in the processes of causal chains in life events.

Here's the 101 Jack:

Thanks for the video link and I have just watched it. Part of my own interest is the nature of connections between things. It seems to suggest that various parts exist inside larger parts. It is about systems and intricate relationships. In itself it may not be about simply about mind but it may be that what is perceived as 'mind' is a central aspect of inherent design in nature. I wonder if it shows a level of interconnectedness between people, possibly as a source of intersubjectivity imminent in consciousness.This would make sense because human beings have shared perceptual experiences in many ways in spite of some variations.

Jack!

Because the thing's behavior has causative value (for physical systems or entities), it requires information or instructions for its existence. It's a self-organized or self-directed complex system, much like that of biological systems. In other words, non-locality is not a chaotic system in itself.

Hence, the Materialist must demonstrate the why, how, where, when and what caused the 'physical' system in the first place. They can't!

The main reason why I don't adhere to the philosophy of materialism is that I am not convinced that anything that happens in life is pure coincidence and that causation is simply about matter. On a daily basis, I am aware of a relationship between my mindset and what happens, including states of negativity and positivity. I know that many, especially those of materialist persuasion probably regard this as as a form of 'magical thinking', but that seems too simplistic.

I will give you an example of what has happened to me today to try to illustrate the way in which mind and connections seems to come into play. I have been looking for new accommodation for 2 months because where I am at present is due to be renovated. I have not had much joy because I keep coming up against rogue landlords. I have joked to friends that I would like to go and knock on the door of a landlord who I rented from a long time ago before I trained to be a psychiatric nurse. However, I would probably have not had the Furs to this. Today, I caught a tube to South East London and happened to meet that landlord, walking his dog. He was even surprised that I recognised him and I told him about needing accommodation. He said that he might have accommodation where I used to live in a couple of weeks.

In explaining experiences, I am aware that there may be a danger of reading too much into them. It is quite possible that I will not manage to get accommodation from this previous landlord. However, it is so strange that I thought about the possibility of contacting this landlord from many years ago and came across him. This may be a synchronicity, as a 'meaningful coincidence' but it does lead me to wonder about the possible implications of Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'. Some may try to explain Einstein's idea in terms of systems within the context of the philosophy of materialism. However; what I wonder about is 'mind' and intentions as the raw matter of causation. It may also tie in with the idea of the 'law of attraction' which may often be disregarded in philosophy..

[3017Metaphysician]

Here's the 101 Jack:

Thanks for the video link and I have just watched it. Part of my own interest is the nature of connections between things. It seems to suggest that various parts exist inside larger parts. It is about systems and intricate relationships. In itself it may not be about simply about mind but it may be that what is perceived as 'mind' is a central aspect of inherent design in nature. I wonder if it shows a level of interconnectedness between people, possibly as a source of intersubjectivity imminent in consciousness.This would make sense because human beings have shared perceptual experiences in many ways in spite of some variations.

Jack!

Because the thing's behavior has causative value (for physical systems or entities), it requires information or instructions for its existence. It's a self-organized or self-directed complex system, much like that of biological systems. In other words, non-locality is not a chaotic system in itself.

Hence, the Materialist must demonstrate the why, how, where, when and what caused the 'physical' system in the first place. They can't!

The main reason why I don't adhere to the philosophy of materialism is that I am not convinced that anything that happens in life is pure coincidence and that causation is simply about matter. On a daily basis, I am aware of a relationship between my mindset and what happens, including states of negativity and positivity. I know that many, especially those of materialist persuasion probably regard this as as a form of 'magical thinking', but that seems too simplistic.

I will give you an example of what has happened to me today to try to illustrate the way in which mind and connections seems to come into play. I have been looking for new accommodation for 2 months because where I am at present is due to be renovated. I have not had much joy because I keep coming up against rogue landlords. I have joked to friends that I would like to go and knock on the door of a landlord who I rented from a long time ago before I trained to be a psychiatric nurse. However, I would probably have not had the Furs to this. Today, I caught a tube to South East London and happened to meet that landlord, walking his dog. He was even surprised that I recognised him and I told him about needing accommodation. He said that he might have accommodation where I used to live in a couple of weeks.

In explaining experiences, I am aware that there may be a danger of reading too much into them. It is quite possible that I will not manage to get accommodation from this previous landlord. However, it is so strange that I thought about the possibility of contacting this landlord from many years ago and came across him. This may be a synchronicity, as a 'meaningful coincidence' but it does lead me to wonder about the possible implications of Einstein's idea of 'spooky action at a distance'. Some may try to explain Einstein's idea in terms of systems within the context of the philosophy of materialism. However; what I wonder about is 'mind' and intentions as the raw matter of causation. It may also tie in with the idea of the 'law of attraction' which may often be disregarded in philosophy..

One takeaway there, is that indeed there is both chance and choice, deterministic and indeterminstic features or 'behavior' of physical systems or entities. From your anecdote one could say you have to nonetheless walk the path before 'God' or 'fate' can cross it. You have to put yourself out there for things to happen. You have to participate (see Wheler's PAP-participatory anthropic principle). Anyway, but because we are not exclusively considered material objects, we can only infer their likenesses to ours. More importantly, because we cannot understand how the information narrative (biological/genetically coded creatures or just the behavior of material matter itself) emerges from the matter narrative, all we have is speculation and analogy.

Again, we are not supposed to analogize to physical systems, but that's all we have. In other words, we can turn to biology/chemistry but that just leads us back to 'instructions and information' (genetically coded propagation of a 'thinking' species). In this case, biologically self-organized, self-directed animate matter like that of human animals, etc..

Relative to the human experience, and all the various experiences we have concerning what causes what, we could have fun to also speculate about that 6th sense, or one's premonitions as all part of the phenomena of experience. For instance, some say that quantum entanglement/non-locality corresponds to having premonitions about stuff. Feelings or gut reactions about 'things' that may or may not happen. As a part-time musician, I've had experiences during performance that has had those similar kinds of qualitative effects, or spooky actions at a distance. I'll be doing a part 5 that will cover some of those 'physical' phenomena, which makes the exclusivity of materialism (causation) undoubtedly nonsensical.

To your point, because the phenomenon of non-locality seemingly has no physical connection between the causes of material behavior, along with the outcomes or effects requiring an observer/participant/subject, we have this interconnect-ness that lends itself to the notion of some sort of humanistic law of attraction. At minimum, both quantum observation and human experience/phenomenon requires subject-object to be actualized; not the materialist axiom of object-object, which is nonsensical. Again, exclusive materialism attempts to explain everything in terms of material events. So, we can use spooky action at a distance as being all part of our existential condition of finitude. Why? Because as physicist Davies/Einstein proclaims:

1. The concept of [material] causation is not very well defined in fundamental physics. When it comes down to individual particles, what causes what doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
2. We don't know how to incorporate mental processes into our scientific descriptions of the world.

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

― Albert Einstein