You are absolutely right that it has to do with metaphysics and that's why the term materialism carries such forebodingly negative baggage in the crevo debates around here!
The term materialism in taken to mean the belief that everything that actually exists is material, or physical.
Here's more on the quandary from Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind:
The problem is that the relevant notion of spatial extension may depend on the very notion of material in need of elucidation. If there is such dependence, conceptual circularity hampers the proposed characterization of materialism. The main worry here is that the notion of spatial extension is actually the notion of something's being extended in physical space, or the notion of something's being physically extended. It seems conceivable that something (perhaps a purely spiritual being) has temporal extension, in virtue of extending over time, even though that thing lacks extension in physical space. It does not seem self-contradictory, in other words, to hold that something is temporal (or, temporally extended) but is not a body. If this is so, the proposed characterization of materialism should be qualified to talk of physical space or physical extension. In that case, however, the threat of conceptual circularity is transparent. Even if there is no strict circularity here, the pertinent notion of spatial extension may be too closely related to the notion of material to offer genuine clarification. At a minimum, we need a precise explanation of spatial extension, if talk of such extension aims to elucidate talk of what is material. Perhaps a notion of spatial extension is crucial to an elucidation of materialism, but further explanation, without conceptual circularity, will then be needed. (Cf. Chomsky 1988.)
If there is indeed a coherently conceivable distinction between minds and material bodies, we must reject the view that materialism, understood as entailing mind-body identity, is conceptually, or analytically, true—that is, true just in virtue of the meanings of `mind' and `body'. Given such a coherently conceivable distinction, we can also challenge any version of materialism implying that psychological concepts (for example, the concepts of belief and sensory pain) are defined in terms of the ordinary physical causes of belief states and pain states. (Such materialism has been proposed by D. M. Armstrong 1977, and David Lewis 1966.) If `pain' is defined in terms of the ordinary bodily causes of pain, then it will not be coherently conceivable that there is pain without bodies. The concept of pain will then depend for its semantic significance on the concept of a bodily cause.
Materialists do not share a uniform view about the nature of psychological properties, such as the properties of being a belief, being a desire, and being a sensory experience. In particular, they do not all hold that every psychological property is equivalent or identical to a conjunction of physical properties. Only proponents of reductive materialism hold the latter view, and they are a small minority among contemporary materialists. Proponents of nonreductive materialism reject the latter view, and affirm that psychological properties can be exemplified even in an immaterial world. Such nonreductive materialists include functionalists about the mind, who hold that psychological properties differ from material properties in virtue of the special causal or functional roles of the former. Functionalists differ from behaviorists in acknowledging the psychological relevance of causal relations among not only stimuli and behavior but internal states as well. A third prominent version of materialism, eliminative materialism, recommends that we eliminate most, if not all, everyday psychological discourse, on the ground that it rests on seriously misguided assumptions about human psychology—assumptions that will disappear with the advance of science.
Yes, that's true, but we're going a bit off-road. I started this sub-thread by stating that Penrose was a materialist regarding the issue of consciousness, which is firmly a question of (Penrose's) epistemology.
My epistemology is firmly materialist, but my metaphysics is not. I believe that there exist an infinitude of objective and universal Truths, which all of existence (and all mathematical systems) is inexorably bound to satisfy, and out of which all material is constructed. The sum of these inviolable Truths is what I have in mind when I talk of God. My view is rigidly Deistic, because for God to intervene in the universe would violate the laws of Nature, and thereby violate the Truth, clearly an impossibility.
(Note, however, that these Truths are not in themselves physical, so I'm still not clear on the "physical but not material" concept.)
The term materialism in taken to mean the belief that everything that actually exists is material, or physical.
Whereas the term physicalism means the belief that everything that actually exists is physical, or material. ;^)
Hello all! I went off-line about 5 p.m. yesterday, and only checked my messages this morning, some of which were amazingly thought-provoking. Since then I’ve been running about doing my normal Saturday things, all the while composing in the background an essay under the working title, “Adventures in Consciousness.” Now I feel tasked to try to write that down.
What I want to address can be found in the above italics: The conceivability of something that has temporal, but not spatial extension, and what the ramifications of such a something would be. In particular, I think this question has the most urgent relevance for quantum theory. For the very thing that has temporal, but not physical extension, seems to me to be consciousness itself. Which to my mind seems to have direct relevance to the problem of the QM “observer.”
QM seems to want to reduce the “observer” to the status of some abstract measurement. Forgive me you physicists out there who hold with this view, but I can’t conceive what could possibly be the relevance of any measurement absent a conscious observer. (To put it another way: Absent a conscious observer, what is the point of making a measurement?)
Since it has been suggested in prior posts to this thread that whatever role consciousness has to play in the understanding of reality, nobody really knows what consciousness is – at least science has managed to elude this question so far.
I’ll be the first to tell you, I don’t know what consciousness is, as it is in itself. But I have had certain conscious experiences that seem germane to our present topic. I do not offer “conclusions” here; just want to record certain quite empirical (because actually experienced, first-hand) experiences into the record.
So let’s cut to the chase. Physicist, I’ll gladly take my opening text from you. You wrote: “what about when the song is in your head? That, of course, is the question upon which the discussion hangs, so we must stay agnostic on that...er, score.”
Well, all I can say to that is, not only can I play songs in my head, but I can play entire plays in my head.
Case in point: I used to participate in community theater. Early on in my “career”, I decided that the best way to prepare for a role was to memorize, not only my own character’s lines, music, and dance, but to memorize the whole play – that is, every other character’s lines, music, and dance, as well as the settings, the placement of props, and the position of every other character on stage in a given scene -- in sequence from opening curtain to final curtain. I chose this method of preparation because I felt that it would help me become so steeped in the play that I would never have to think about anything at all once I was on-stage (since the various contingencies had been effectively anticipated in advance) except “being” my character. (And I think I was right about this, looking at experience.) And there was a significant side benefit: If any of my fellow actors were to get in trouble – say, forget a line, or be in the wrong position on stage – then I would automatically be in a position to “draw them back into the play” in a way that was completely inside my own character. This meditative exercise gave me so much confidence, that I was completely free to just “be” my character.
To get to this point of “mastering the play” involved a meditative exercise of consciousness. Starting at least a week before opening night, every night I would “go to bed early,” then sit on my bed, and run through the entire play “in my head.” That is, in complete solitude and silence. In the case I have presently in mind (South Pacific), that would take roughly two hours each night.
Looking back at that experience, I can tell you two things: Those two hours of conscious experience do not seem to have had spatial extension; but it’s clear to me they did have temporal extension.
In the second place, even odder than that, the plays I did then are still recorded someplace “in me,” somewhere in unconscious mind (i.e., in “deep storage”), and retrievable (at least partially, given the passage of time) by active memory. Somewhere in the “deep storage” of my unconscious mind lurk in their entirety not only South Pacific, but also Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and perhaps a dozen other plays -- at least parts of any of which I can still play in my present consciousness, at will.
The immediately foregoing and other relevant things considered, I hypothesize: The scientific method is applicable to objects that have spatial extension. But it has no grip whatsoever on how to deal with “objects” that have only temporal extension.
But this is precisely where a “new kind of science is needed,” to break the cognitive impasse….
Let me give you another example from my “adventures in consciousness.” This one probably will appear not only bizarre, but insane in the minds of most readers of these lines. But I can only tell you what I’ve personally seen as truthfully as I can. The judgment is left to you.
Again, I will take my cue from Physicist, who wrote: “My view is rigidly Deistic, because for God to intervene in the universe would violate the laws of Nature, and thereby violate the Truth, clearly an impossibility.”
On the basis of my experience, I think it is possible that God may intervene in the universe in a manner that does not violate His physical laws of Nature at all. Here’s a case study:
I am fast asleep after an extraordinarily difficult and taxing day. I hear someone saying: Awake! And so I wake up, and find two “persons” standing beside me. One of them says, “You must come with us. You are expected.”
Instantly I am perplexed. For the speaker has not spoken verbally. He has spoken telepathically – “mind to mind”, so to speak. I am not afraid at all, because these unwonted strangers (only one of whom ever “speaks” to me in this entire episode) radiate love and peace and goodwill – and more than that, they implicitly convey the sense that they aren’t “there” on their own initiative.
So I get up, and let them take me wherever it is they are supposed to take me.
The next thing I know is I find myself, with my companions, in a vast, incredibly dark place. Somehow I feel that I am in an enclosed space; but I cannot see walls, or ceiling, or even floor for that matter – although assuredly I am standing on something.
I turn to the “guide” who “spoke” to me, and ask him by a look (verbal language seeming to be quite useless in this scenario): Why am I here? And he looks me in the eye, and then turns his head as if to indicate the direction in which I ought to be looking, to find my answer.
And so I follow his gaze.
I see an astounding vision: a graphical object suspended in the chamber, radiating light, pulsating with energy, with life…. I can’t adequately describe it to this day (this event happened in 1984). But it appeared to be spherical in form, consisting of innumerable bands of light, intertwined, mutually penetrating yet all the same discrete -- glowing, pulsing, corruscating, amazing to behold. I stood there, dumbfounded. I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at; all I knew was that it was extraordinarily beautiful….
It was then I got some “help” – which in retrospect I gather was the purpose of this “trip” in the first place. I heard a Voice, which said: “This is My creation.”
Time out. I need to characterize the nature of this Voice. My “guides” had been silent, communicating telepathically. This Voice was voiced -- I.e., physically audible, but in a way that set up an incredible cognitive dissonance in my perceptual apparatus, depending on which ear I was predominantly hearing the message through. Through one ear, I heard a Voice that thundered, in a way well beyond any thunder that any human person ever heard before or could possibly imagine. But through my other ear, I could hear a Voice speaking so softly, so clearly, so matter-of-factly. Somehow, I managed to receive the message.
Which was (to paraphrase in so many words): “This is My Creation. I so love My Creation and each and every created thing I ever made within it. But most of all, I love Man. And not just “Man” in the generic. I love each and every man, personally, by name. I love each and every human person, without regard to their standing in the world of created things. For each of them is the child of My Love.”
The next thing I knew, I was sitting bolt upright on my bed, crying my eyes out to relieve the sheer pain occasioned by the pressure of indescribable, ineffable, inexpressible joy….
On the basis of such “exploits,” I would tend to surmise that the problem science has with God has to do mainly with the problem of trying to “measure” or test an Entity which has temporal extension, but not spatial extension. For He certainly has had “temporal presence” in my lived reality for quite a while by now. (Not that I mean to set myself up as some kind of ultimate test of reality – I am just a part and participant of same.)
If science wants to integrate such experiences into its body of knowledge, it needs to figure out what to do with consciousness -–for that is precisely the “matrix” in which such “adventures” as I have adumbrated above occur.
If science doesn’t feel this is a question it needs to deal with, then it seems to me that the best science can do is to come up with only a partial picture of Reality. JMHO FWIW.