How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Consul
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

Post by Consul »

Steve3007 wrote: August 16th, 2020, 6:47 amSuppose we consider everything in the Universe to be lumps of matter flying around, bouncing off each other and sometimes sticking together. A bit like little pieces of Lego. This would be a literal form of materialism as opposed to the wider understandings of materialism and physicalism.
Materialism/Physicalism is compatible with different ontological models of the physical cosmos. What you describe is the one of ancient Greek atomism:

QUOTE>
"A number of important theorists in ancient Greek natural philosophy held that the universe is composed of physical ‘atoms’, literally ‘uncuttables’. Some of these figures are treated in more depth in other articles in this encyclopedia: the reader is encouraged to consult individual entries on Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. These philosophers developed a systematic and comprehensive natural philosophy accounting for the origins of everything from the interaction of indivisible bodies, as these atoms—which have only a few intrinsic properties like size and shape—strike against one another, rebound and interlock in an infinite void. This atomist natural philosophy eschewed teleological explanation and denied divine intervention or design, regarding every composite of atoms as produced purely by material interactions of bodies, and accounting for the perceived properties of macroscopic bodies as produced by these same atomic interactions.

These ancient atomists theorized that the two fundamental and oppositely characterized constituents of the natural world are indivisible bodies—atoms—and void. The latter is described simply as nothing, or the negation of body. Atoms are by their nature intrinsically unchangeable; they can only move about in the void and combine into different clusters. Since the atoms are separated by void, they cannot fuse, but must rather bounce off one another when they collide. Because all macroscopic objects are in fact combinations of atoms, everything in the macroscopic world is subject to change, as their constituent atoms shift or move away. Thus, while the atoms themselves persist through all time, everything in the world of our experience is transitory and subject to dissolution.

The changes in the world of macroscopic objects are caused by rearrangements of the atomic clusters. Atoms can differ in size, shape, order and position (the way they are turned); they move about in the void, and—depending on their shape—some can temporarily bond with one another by means of tiny hooks and barbs on their surfaces. Thus the shape of individual atoms affects the macroscopic texture of clusters of atoms, which may be fluid and yielding or firm and resistant, depending on the amount of void space between and the coalescence of the atomic shapes. The texture of surfaces and the relative density and fragility of different materials are also accounted for by the same means.

The atomists accounted for perception by means of films of atoms sloughed off from their surfaces by external objects, and entering and impacting the sense organs. They tried to account for all sensible effects by means of contact, and regarded all sense perceptions as caused by the properties of the atoms making up the films acting on the atoms of animals’ sense organs."

Ancient Atomism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atomism-ancient/
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Consul
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Consul wrote: August 21st, 2020, 8:42 amMaterialism/Physicalism is compatible with different ontological models of the physical cosmos. What you describe is the one of ancient Greek atomism:…
An even simpler atomistic model is this one: The physical cosmos is fundamentally constituted by a finite or infinite number of eternal zero-dimensional atoms which lack intrinsic (non-relational) properties and stand in distance relations to one another, with the entire dynamics of nature being reducible to changes of those distance relations.

QUOTE>
"[W]e start from the idea that given a plurality of objects, there has to be a certain type of relations in virtue of which these objects make up a world. The minimalist hypothesis then is that these relations also individuate the objects, thus paving the way for the claim that there is nothing more to these objects than standing in these relations. The objects thus are simple, having no parts or any other internal structure. When it comes to the natural world, relations providing for extension—namely, distances—are first and foremost candidate for the type of relations that fulfills this task. Distances connect unextended and thus point-sized objects. If they individuate these objects, they provide for variation within a configuration of point-sized objects, with each of these objects being distinct from all the other ones by at least one distance relation that it bears to another object. In virtue of standing in distance relations, these objects then are matter points (recall the sparse Cartesian conception of the natural world as res extensa). In order to achieve empirical adequacy, we furthermore have to stipulate that these relations change. We thus propose an ontology of the natural world that is defined by the following two axioms, and only by these two axioms.

(1) There are distance relations that individuate simple objects—namely, matter points.

(2) The matter points are permanent, with the distances between them changing.

We submit that these two axioms prescribe the diet that is as meagre as possible in accounting for the natural world…. Everything else then comes as a means to represent the change in the distance relations that actually occurs in a manner that is both as simple and as informative as possible."
(pp. 3-4)

"[T]he question is what is the essence of the atoms qua material entities?
We bring in ontic structural realism to answer this question: instead of having an intrinsic essence, the atoms have a structural one. Standing in distance relations is their essence. Hence, although we propose an ontology of atomism, we draw on holism to work that ontology out: the atoms are holistically individuated in terms of the distances among them. We conceive the distance relations as establishing the order of what coexists, thereby taking up Leibniz’s relationalist definition of space: these relations are able to distinguish the objects, thereby satisfying the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. There thus is a configuration of objects that is constituted by distance relations: by individuating the atoms, the distance relations provide for variation within a given configuration of matter.

Over and above variation making up for a configuration of objects, there is change, which hence is change in the relations that constitute the configuration—that is, the distances. We follow Leibniz in conceiving time as the order of that change, with that order being unique and having a direction. Mass, charge, energy, spin, wave function, etc., then, are dynamical parameters that a physical theory introduces in order to obtain a law that describes that change in a simple and informative manner. These parameters sort the atoms into different particle species on the basis of salient patterns in their relative motion. Consequently, the atoms are not intrinsically protons, electrons, neutrons, etc., but are so described because their motion exhibits certain contingent regularities. In a nutshell, some atoms do not move electronwise because they are electrons, but they can be classified as electrons because they move electronwise.

Indeed, there is no need to admit physical properties at all. Relations do all the work. It is a misconception to set out ontic structural realism as a stance that is directed against object-oriented metaphysics (cf. Ladyman and Ross (2007) and French (2014)). Ontic structural realism is opposed to the property-oriented metaphysics that has dominated philosophy from Aristotle to today’s analytic metaphysics. Of course, if there are relations, there are objects that stand in the relations, but standing in the relations is all there is to these objects—the relations are their essence (cf. the moderate ontic structural realism set out in Esfeld (2004), Esfeld and Lam (2008, 2011))."
(p. 7)

"In a nutshell, there are distance relations individuating the matter points and thereby constituting a configuration of them, and there is change in these relations. That is all. In terms of Humeanism, the distance relations among the matter points and their change throughout the entire history of the universe are the Humean mosaic, and everything else in the natural world supervenes on that mosaic in the sense that it comes in as a means to describe that change in a manner that is both as simple and as informative as possible. The argument for this sparse ontology is its simplicity together with its empirical adequacy: less won’t do for an ontology of the natural world; bringing in more creates new drawbacks instead of providing additional explanatory value. This sparse ontology hence amounts to a radical ontological reductionism: everything in the natural world reduces to distance relations among matter points and the change in these relations, in the sense that these relations and their change make true all the true propositions about the natural world. (By the natural world, we mean the physical, spatially extended world. We have no intention here to apply this reductionism to the mind, consciousness and normativity)."
(p. 8 )

"[T]he fundamental objects do not have an intrinsic nature, but a relational one. Relations are on the same footing as intrinsic properties in that respect. To come back to the citation from Jackson (1998) earlier, if it were mysterious what it is that stands in the relations (on the assumption that all there is to a fundamental physical object are the relations in which it stands to other such objects), then it would be mysterious in exactly the same way what it is that instantiates the intrinsic properties that are supposed to characterize the fundamental physical objects. To put it differently, in any case, bare particulars are mysterious, and the commitment to bare particulars is avoided by taking certain intrinsic properties, or certain relations to be essential for the fundamental physical objects.

We advocate moderate ontic structural realism. To our mind, there is no physical or metaphysical reason to conceive ontic structural realism as being opposed to an object-oriented metaphysics: if there are relations, there are objects that stand in the relations. In other words, ontic structural realism can admit objects, as long as all there is to the objects are the relations among them. What ontic structural realism rejects is the property-oriented metaphysics that dominates philosophy since Aristotle: the fundamental physical objects do not have an intrinsic essence. This is a conception of objects that stands on its own feet, being an alternative to both the view of objects as bare substrata and the view of objects as bundles of properties (or relations). There is a mutual ontological dependence between objects and relations: as there cannot be relations without objects that stand in the relations, so there cannot be objects without relations in which they stand. Hence, if one removed the distance relations, there would not remain bare substrata, but there would then be nothing (see Esfeld and Lam (2008, 2011))."
(p. 25)

(Esfeld, Michael, and Dirk-André Deckert. A Minimalist Ontology of the Natural World. New York: Routledge, 2018.)
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Consul wrote: August 21st, 2020, 8:59 amAn even simpler atomistic model is this one: The physical cosmos is fundamentally constituted by a finite or infinite number of eternal zero-dimensional atoms which lack intrinsic (non-relational) properties and stand in distance relations to one another, with the entire dynamics of nature being reducible to changes of those distance relations.
Note that 0D atoms cannot collide, because collision entails surface contact, and geometric points do not have a surface. So they cannot be in direct spatial contact or touch one another unless they coincide, which is impossible too if they are "solid" in Locke's sense, i.e. impenetrable.
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Consul wrote: August 21st, 2020, 8:59 amAn even simpler atomistic model is this one: The physical cosmos is fundamentally constituted by a finite or infinite number of eternal zero-dimensional atoms which lack intrinsic (non-relational) properties and stand in distance relations to one another, with the entire dynamics of nature being reducible to changes of those distance relations.
I don't like this minimalist ontological model, because:

1. I doubt that 0D objects (points) can be the substances of the world.

"[T]o take away all extension is to reduce a thing only to a mathematical point, which is nothing else but pure negation or non-entity[.]"

(More, Henry. The Immortality of the Soul. 1659. Pref., §3)

2. I doubt that relations qua polyadic attributes really exist.

3. I doubt that a thing's nature or essence can be entirely extrinsic or relational.
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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The materialist view is fundamentally accurate except for missing the understanding that "material" is merely low-entropy entangled energy. If you break it all down, change is the substrate of the universe. Energy is our most fuzzy attempt at describing those relationships. Matter is more stable, more certain, but it's all made of the same stuff underneath, for infinite layers down. A better understanding of all metaphysics and physics is the mechanistic one. These ideas are only meaningful to the extent they're pragmatically useful. Do they help us gain actionable certainty when it comes to remaking the world in our image?
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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HavenBastion wrote: August 21st, 2020, 1:24 pm The materialist view is fundamentally accurate except for missing the understanding that "material" is merely low-entropy entangled energy. If you break it all down, change is the substrate of the universe. Energy is our most fuzzy attempt at describing those relationships. Matter is more stable, more certain, but it's all made of the same stuff underneath, for infinite layers down. A better understanding of all metaphysics and physics is the mechanistic one. These ideas are only meaningful to the extent they're pragmatically useful. Do they help us gain actionable certainty when it comes to remaking the world in our image?
The idea of "material is merely energy" (taking out the qualifiers just to simplify it) doesn't make sense to me, though. It seems to be saying that energy is more "basic" than material somehow, or that material is really "just energy" or something like that. Which suggests that energy would be something "on its own," but I can't make any sense of that idea.
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Terrapin Station wrote:You can't get to "I have retinas" if you can't observe objects, can you? So no. Idealism/solipsism isn't the default.
The fact that retinas are objects isn't relevant to my point. They're just a convenient point to stop on the proposed causal chain from object being observed to observation.

The point was this:
Terrapin Station wrote:The ball has energy n. Let's say it hits the floor and it momentarily (per whatever other changes we use as a reference) stationary. And then it is in motion again, with energy m. What in that observation would make the explanation "The ball collides with B, whereupon it LOSES ENERGY, and then the ball GAINS ENERGY AFTER the collision" not work? Where are we observing something different than that?
Steve3007 wrote:What makes that observation not work is the same thing that makes this observation not work: "The ball doesn't exist. The light hitting my eyes didn't bounce off a ball. It just appeared immediately in front of me.". Where are we observing something different from that? We're not. But we don't believe it because it doesn't fit a consistent pattern with other things that we've observed. Likewise, the idea that the ball just loses some energy and then gains some again doesn't contradict what is observed here but it's not a useful position to take because it doesn't fit a pattern.
You can, without contradiction, say that "The ball collides with B, whereupon it LOSES ENERGY, and then the ball GAINS ENERGY AFTER the collision" in the same sense that you could say "The ball doesn't exist. The light hitting my eyes didn't bounce off a ball. It just appeared immediately in front of me.". Both are possible and both fit the particulars being observed. But, as we know from discussions about Idealism, the point is not to simply state what's possible given the particulars that are observed. The point is to decide, from the various possibilities, what we think is most plausible or perhaps most useful as a descriptive theory about those particulars, and as a predictive theory about future particulars. And that roughly means what constitutes the best fit to a simple but widely applicable pattern.

Your theory that "the ball collides with B, whereupon it LOSES ENERGY, and then the ball GAINS ENERGY AFTER the collision" is analogous to a theory I might have about what happens to objects when they go behind other objects: "They stop existing and then start existing again".
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Steve3007 wrote: August 23rd, 2020, 6:02 am
So you're disagreeing that we observe the ball as phenomenal data and that we can observe the ball distorting shape as phenomenal data?

If so, we need to work out the unusual way that you're using the term "observe," where you claim to not be a fan of arguments that hinge on using terms in novel ways.
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Terrapin Station wrote:So you're disagreeing that we observe the ball as phenomenal data and that we can observe the ball distorting shape as phenomenal data?
As opposed to observing it as what? Is your question related to something specific that I've said recently?
If so, we need to work out the unusual way that you're using the term "observe,"
Maybe by example? Do you think statements like "I'm observing gravity in action" or "I'm observing conservation of matter in action" make sense? I think so.

If I say that when I observe a table what I'm doing is inferring the existence of a table from a combination of patterns of light on my retina and some background beliefs in the regularity of Nature, does that sound reasonable to you? It does to me.
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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(Incidentally, based on previous conversations, this one will almost certainly end in one of a small number of ways. I think the most likely is that I will ask you some questions and you will tell me I'm pretending to be stupid and it will end there.)
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Steve3007 wrote: August 23rd, 2020, 8:00 am
Terrapin Station wrote:So you're disagreeing that we observe the ball as phenomenal data and that we can observe the ball distorting shape as phenomenal data?
As opposed to observing it as what? Is your question related to something specific that I've said recently?
If so, we need to work out the unusual way that you're using the term "observe,"
Maybe by example? Do you think statements like "I'm observing gravity in action" or "I'm observing conservation of matter in action" make sense? I think so.

If I say that when I observe a table what I'm doing is inferring the existence of a table from a combination of patterns of light on my retina and some background beliefs in the regularity of Nature, does that sound reasonable to you? It does to me.
So it's not possible for you to give the definition of "observe" that you're using?
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

Post by Terrapin Station »

Are you using "observe" in a sense where instruments couldn't observe something? For example, so that we couldn't say that a video recorder observed the motion, shape, etc. of a bouncing ball?
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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It'd be interesting to re-start this one.
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Terrapin Station wrote:Are you using "observe" in a sense where instruments couldn't observe something? For example, so that we couldn't say that a video recorder observed the motion, shape, etc. of a bouncing ball?
Over a year probably seems like a ridiculously long pause before answering a question, so obviously I understand if you're not interested in replying to this, but here's my answer to the above question:

No, I wasn't using "observe" in a sense where instruments couldn't observe something. I was using it in a sense where we could say that a video recorder observed the motion, shape, etc. of a bouncing ball.

(This was a conversation about the nature of kinetic and potential energy. Your view, I think, is that kinetic energy is real in the sense that it is part of the relations between matter (the literal materialist view) but that potential energy, as with other potentials, is abstract/not real. My view is that they're both real and that it makes sense to depart from literal materialism and to regard energy as a real existent which can exist independently of matter, and not just as a property of matter or relations between matter.)
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Re: How would literal materialism work? The Lego Hypothesis

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Steve3007 wrote: November 1st, 2021, 12:54 pmNo, I wasn't using "observe" in a sense where instruments couldn't observe something. I was using it in a sense where we could say that a video recorder observed the motion, shape, etc. of a bouncing ball.
What recording or measuring instruments do is registration rather than observation.
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