Re: A New Smear Article: Interpreter Targets Givens and Hauglid
Posted: Thu May 05, 2022 12:22 am
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Interesting thoughts. So let me preface this that I've gotten most of my understanding of physics from Sean Carroll. He's written a lot about how physics would deal with religious or spiritual questions. As I understood electrons aren't made of anything. They are considered leptons but are created by energy interaction. They have mass as a result of a concentration of energy. YOu would't be able to break into an electron because there is nothing that composes it. Now that I read your ideas here, though, I don't know what that means. And if at bottom the mass of atoms are nothing more than energy fields interacting(?) in some concentration, then what is really materialism anyway? So interesting thoughts.Physics Guy wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 7:15 amTo me materialism seems perfectly compatible with most, if not all, of what people actually mean when they refer to things that they think must be immaterial. Thinking that a materialist can't believe in God or the soul, for example, is like thinking that a materialist can't believe in information. Books and hard drives consist of nothing but atoms, but that doesn't stop them from holding all kinds of meaning.
As far as I can see, most religions predate science, and so naturally tend to describe things in pre-scientific ways. Precisely because the old religions predate science, though, their apparent statements on scientific questions were really only figures of speech, because that was the only speech available at the time. Bearing that in mind, it seems to me that an awful lot of pre-scientific religious and philosophical thought is actually platform-agnostic. It doesn't care about the hardware on which God or souls or karma may be running. It's talking about the software, or even just about the user experience.
And, on the other hand, materialism seems to me to be perfectly compatible with Berkeleyan idealism—that everything is only ideas, that only information is real. As a physicist I'll happily tell you how familiar things are made of electrons, but if you ask me what electrons are made of, I have no answer at all. I can only tell you about the mathematical rules that electrons obey. If you dig down to the bottom of current scientific materialism, it is idealism.
Thanks, PG. Yes, materialist cosmologies and theologies are very ancient indeed. One can bring up the Stoics in this context, for example. My thoughts were more about the impact of modern ideologies on systems of thought and belief. A materialist ideology has to be, in my view, considered a separate thing from the scientific method, which is not an ideology but a method. I am not making an argument against science, or saying that before the dominance of materialist ideologies everything was seen as non-material. I am instead saying that the dominance of materialist ideologies has distorted both popular theology and popular scientific discourse.Physics Guy wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 7:15 amTo me materialism seems perfectly compatible with most, if not all, of what people actually mean when they refer to things that they think must be immaterial. Thinking that a materialist can't believe in God or the soul, for example, is like thinking that a materialist can't believe in information. Books and hard drives consist of nothing but atoms, but that doesn't stop them from holding all kinds of meaning.
As far as I can see, most religions predate science, and so naturally tend to describe things in pre-scientific ways. Precisely because the old religions predate science, though, their apparent statements on scientific questions were really only figures of speech, because that was the only speech available at the time. Bearing that in mind, it seems to me that an awful lot of pre-scientific religious and philosophical thought is actually platform-agnostic. It doesn't care about the hardware on which God or souls or karma may be running. It's talking about the software, or even just about the user experience.
And, on the other hand, materialism seems to me to be perfectly compatible with Berkeleyan idealism—that everything is only ideas, that only information is real. As a physicist I'll happily tell you how familiar things are made of electrons, but if you ask me what electrons are made of, I have no answer at all. I can only tell you about the mathematical rules that electrons obey. If you dig down to the bottom of current scientific materialism, it is idealism.
I wish I were taking your introductory courses. Just having you here sharing your knowledge on this board is a real gift. Thanks much!Physics Guy wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:34 pmThere isn't really any such thing as an "energy field". Energy isn't a kind of stuff; it's a property. As I say in lectures, you don't have energy in the way you have blood. You have energy in the way you have height. The old Star Trek line about "a being made of pure energy, Captain!" makes no more sense than a being made of pure height. Nothing whatever could ever be made of energy, even in principle.
There are fields; lots of them, actually. There is a field for every type of particle, and for every field there are particles. Particles are quantised excitations of fields, in kind of the way that digital music is carried by sound waves. It's not really true to say that the fields are made of the particles, though. That would be kind of like saying that sound waves were made of musical notes. It's not a completely crazy thing to say but it's not a good way to explain the relationship to anyone who doesn't already understand it clearly.
Electrons are points that can move. They have mass and electrical charge; they all have exactly the same mass and charge, in fact. They also have spin, which means that even though they are points they have a certain kind of internal directionality that can point in any direction. What are they made of? The question just doesn't come up. It's not clear if it even makes sense. It might be like asking what an inch or an hour is made of. Or maybe the only answer is that they are made of themselves.
I thought that was how you were using the terminology.
Could you expand on your thoughts about 'materialist ideology'? Is it the Epicurean view?Kishkumen wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 6:12 pmA materialist ideology has to be, in my view, considered a separate thing from the scientific method, which is not an ideology but a method. I am not making an argument against science, or saying that before the dominance of materialist ideologies everything was seen as non-material. I am instead saying that the dominance of materialist ideologies has distorted both popular theology and popular scientific discourse.