What is the nature of material differences?
JPL Verhey
and differences between material differences play such a prominent role
in his ideas on universal truth and sentience/consciousness. But let me
ask some questions that continue to bug me thinking about these things.
I Material
First, the word material cannot be used lightly or superficially. What
is meant by it exactly? If we take the common meaning of the word
matter, I'd say it means that:
1. it has mass
2. it has a volume
3. it has a density
4. it is made of atoms (particles)
5. its properties change all the time during material process
Is the meaning of material restricted to those things, or does it
include more such as the known weak and strong forces that exist between
material objects and within atoms?
What about the space between material objects.. is that space material?
Or physical, or neither?
Is material *change* (process) 'material' as well?
What about EM waves.. are they also material, or physical but not
material (matter)?
So.. I guess I'm asking for the set S(matter).. and what belongs in
there and what not, preferably using terms and definitions directly
borrowed form 101 physics glossaries.
Also, I would think nobody dares to claim to know all there is to know
about matter.. that makes a big difference.
II Differences
After the definition of material is more clear, should then material
*differences* be considered material in nature or not?
At one point differences (between material differences) stop being
material (or physical) if I understand Lester correctly.. but then what
is their nature?
Enough chewing gum,
Cheers
Lester Zick
Good summary, JPL. I'd rather you and others chew the fat over this to
see if you can come to any consensus without my interference. But just
allow me to say that it's only differences between differences that
become immaterial at any point. Differences alone are always material.
Differences between differences are immaterial only to the extent that
we can't know of mechanical necessity the material differences between
which differences between differences are taken.
Regards - Lester
Jeff Rubard
Material objects are the obverse of physical concepts: matter is
present in experience as superadded to our conceptualization of it,
such that the concept can always be checked against the experiential
contribution of matter. It is a *permanent* possibility of experience,
since our minds do not contribute it to experience: another way of
putting this is to say that the material object's persistence in time
is independent of our observation. Thusly, anything which persists in
time independently of the way we think about it is a material object:
things which require us to use certain concepts as constitutive of
their being (which require us to collaborate with their existence, so
to speak) are immaterial. To explain: physical concepts like mass and
velocity are concepts of perfectly general objects, which have no
important observer constraints. Minds and other social facts, on the
other hand, often require us to employ a particular concept in order to
be able to draw out the nature of the thing (we have to reason about
the mind using certain concepts which actually constitute the character
of the mind). Thusly, material reality is what doesn't require us to
think of it in a certain way.
Just Playing
guess I suffer from short attention deficit. I lose interest in any
postings longer than 250-300 words and/or any thread longer than 10-15
postings puts me off.
Anyway I will try to summarize what is my understanding of the theory.
I will assume that there are just a few elements, for exemplification I
will use numbers, let's say 1, 15, 86 and I will use subtraction as
the operation that differentiates these elements or numbers. I can
arrange these numbers in pairs and calculate the differences between
them as follows
Difference between 1 and 15 is 14.
Difference between 1 and 86 is 85.
Difference between 15 and 86 is 71.
I will call 14, 85 and 71 material differences.
Now I can go on and look at these material differences 14, 71 and 85
and using the same operation, subtraction, measure them against the
first three elements, 1, 15 and 86 and then among themselves as
follows:
Differences between the original elements and material differences:
Differences between 1 and 14, 71 and 85.
Differences between 15 and 14, 71 and 85.
Differences between 86 and 14, 71 and 85.
And differences among the material differences:
Difference between 14 and 71.
Difference between 14 and 85.
Difference between 71 and 85.
I can go on and on with calculating new differences and I will call all
these differences as differences between differences.
I guess this is my understanding of the theory and if it is correct my
only problem is in the using of the word difference to cover so many
different things. The reduction of information achieved by using the
word difference makes the theory open to too many interpretations.
JP
Joseph Legris
Lester Zick
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
Allow me to correct a slight misunderstanding here. What you say is
largely correct. But the use of arithmetic examples misconstrues what
is going on physically. There are certainly numerous differences
between differences that are taken among a vast array of potential
external material differences. But each time a difference occurs in
physical non arithmetic contexts, there is a material reaction
involved that results from the difference in addition to results of
the difference. This is where sentient behavior comes from. In the
arithmetic world, we don't see this reaction to the difference between
differences.
Regards - Lester
dem...@myway.com
contributions. I am a bit confused here, in regards to the bottom line
(perhaps because I am unfamiliar with the topics in this group). Are we
talking about literal differences or differences which help to explain
the reality (or potential non-reality) of something's existence (or
lack thereof)?
If the former is true, then, can we assume that we can accurately
predict the original nature of the 'first instant' of materiality based
on all the current differences as they may occur, re-occur and the like
(provided we had a machine or the ability to do so)? And wouldn't that
lead to omniscience (i.e, by calculating the known everything, in
theory, we can instantly know the past everything as it is represented
by the states of the current-everything)?
Or am I reliying to heavily on math for this rant... Sorry for the
obfuscation here but I THINK i might be speaking to people who 'get'
what i am saying.
If not I will shut up.
Lester Zick
wrote:
>I enjoy reading the posts here, though I have never made any
>contributions. I am a bit confused here, in regards to the bottom line
>(perhaps because I am unfamiliar with the topics in this group). Are we
>talking about literal differences or differences which help to explain
>the reality (or potential non-reality) of something's existence (or
>lack thereof)?
All differences as well as differences between differences. I don't
quite understand what non literal differences would be. Everything
that is a differences is a mechanical mechanism (please excuse the
redundancy).
>If the former is true, then, can we assume that we can accurately
>predict the original nature of the 'first instant' of materiality based
>on all the current differences as they may occur, re-occur and the like
>(provided we had a machine or the ability to do so)? And wouldn't that
>lead to omniscience (i.e, by calculating the known everything, in
>theory, we can instantly know the past everything as it is represented
>by the states of the current-everything)?
There is a kind of omniscience in the sense that we can know and prove
we know the foundation for everything and the knowledge of everything.
There is no intended omniscience in the sense of knowing how
everything got to be the way it is or will become apart from
subordination to those mechanical principles.
>Or am I reliying to heavily on math for this rant... Sorry for the
>obfuscation here but I THINK i might be speaking to people who 'get'
>what i am saying.
I think I get it. It's hard to tell whether you get it without further
Q&A.
>If not I will shut up.
Not at all. We're talking mechanics here not mysticism. But be advised
that I've been discussing the problem of differences and differences
between differences for the last year; so, there is quite a lot of
material you may not be aware of.
Regards - Lester
dem...@myway.com
philosophy is ethereal, mystical forms with more physical and definite
ones. Omniscience, as a word to me, is scientific more than
metaphysical. However it does beg the question, what really is
metaphysical anyway? Metaphysics in the way we are talking about it in
this context, would seem to become science if only due to a modern
societies misuse of the word (for example, we can readily use it here
as it would be a perfectly scientific outcome of this hypothetical
possibility of unravelling the known everything by observing
differences, etc...).
I will definitely check up on some of your older posts. Thank you for
the suggestion.
Paul Bramscher
movement/excitement and arrangement. Neither are material when you
think about it. One is predominantly behavioristic. That is, it
requires a unit of time analysis and how the material "behaves" in
relation to environmental conditions.
The other has an historical component to it. In other words, whether
the material formed crystalline structures or not, the conditions that
caused it to go one way or the other.
If we omit molecular movement/excitement and arrangement from the list
of things which are to be reckoned with in an analysis of material
differences, we cannot tell the difference between water (a liquid
solvent) or ice (a mineral), or carbon or a diamond...
dem...@myway.com
consider it:
"That is, it
requires a unit of time analysis and how the material "behaves" in
relation to environmental conditions."
Then in reality, isn't materiality (and hence all things, well,
material) dependant upon observation? We know this is not true but your
statement somehow is... and when we consider that something requires
'analysis' we imply it's dependance upon that to 'be', as analysis is a
measurment of men (or machines made by men) for verification, and is
also a concept.
Fascinating shit.
Paul Bramscher
there are aspects about things which do not require a time unit in a
physical behavioral frame in order to make sense of them.
Philosophy still largely likes to conceive of things like color,
temperature or weight as intrinsic qualities, but they all require
movement over time (light frequencies, molecular movement, or tendency
to exert force on a gravitational body respectively).
It might be an artifact of our measuring methodologies. That is, they
generally require (or involve some derivation with) a time unit. We
measure phenomena-over-time and not timeless qualities themselves.
We should be careful not insist on making gods out of ourselves as
physicists have a tendency to do, that without observation things would
not exist. No, they'd exist (but just not be commented on). A drop of
honey existed to an ant, long before we came into the picture...
The question I think is whether (strong theory) there is anything except
phenomenon, or whether (weak version) appeal to phenomenological
characteristics is just the only way we can describe things.
I like to think of the Japanese sumi-e watercolor paintings heavily
influenced by Zen. They say that the white space is as important as the
object itself, and that in the art of watercoloring all visible colors
are in the palette except one: white. To paint white, one doesn't paint.