What is it?

  • comi [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    You being happy is not matter. It is connected to underlying material reality (hormones, neurochemicals, some neurons firing up), but it is not a matter, it’s a state.

    Capitalism is not matter - remove all humans from the world, where is capitalism?

    You conception of dog is not matter, you can see and tell something is a dog, yet, without humans there is no concept of a dog as such

    • wmz [any]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      happy is a description of my state. therefore, it is describing matter.

      by your logic, all words are merely conceptions that don't exist without humans, so are they not matter now?

      • comi [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yes, they aren’t, and no its not. Happy as in the exact state of neurons I described is material reality, happy as in your state is not.

        Matter exists objectively, words don’t.

        • wmz [any]
          hexagon
          ·
          3 years ago

          so basically, you make the distinction between the world(is matter), and human perception(isn't matter). However, we know that thoughts influence our actions. Since we are part of the world, we are matter, and something that isn't matter(our thoughts) is affecting matter. Is this still materialism?

            • wmz [any]
              hexagon
              ·
              3 years ago

              Well, I'm mostly concerned with materialism, here specifically Im taking issue with the distinction between matter and non-matter. How does one make a meaningful distinction, and what are the implications? I see too often materialism just descend into vulgar scientism, but surely theres more to it.

          • comi [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            In material conception matter is primary. Human consciousness, a subjective, is perceiving the world not as it is, we see reflection of the world in our senses/perceptions in our mind. Subjective idealism, for example, supposes that all this reflections are a real world, which has certain consequences.

            Your actions are done by your material body, material output of your actions, you can’t will yourself to change material world, there is no telekinesis basically.

            • wmz [any]
              hexagon
              ·
              3 years ago

              In material conception matter is primary. Human consciousness, a subjective, is perceiving the world not as it is, we see reflection of the world in our senses/perceptions in our mind. Subjective idealism, for example, supposes that all this reflections are a real world, which has certain consequences.

              This sounds a lot like Kant's transcendental idealism to me. If that is the case, how can subjectivity interact with the material world? Is this really materialism, if it asserts that subjectivity can't truly grasp the material world?

              • comi [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Objective idealism shares some traits with materialism, as in that framework primary spirit/essence produces material world, which is then interactable by subjective spirits/consciousness

                We can discover it and search for commonalities. We can’t grasp totality of something like a table. You see a table, you can perceive and conceptualize a table, but what exactly is table color objectively? Unless you enter realms of science, you can’t objectively describe a table. Description such as “it’s light-brown” is subjective, what is table uv color? How does it look on nanoscale? What is table composition chemically? Those are objective description of material reality. Subjectivity can find material reality (which is exactly what science is, and why it came from philosophy, especially physics) through search of objective.

                You, a single human, can’t find natural law of physics, but finding a law and then receiving it confirmation from independent source means it is likelier to be objective description of material world