662 lines
55 KiB
HTML
662 lines
55 KiB
HTML
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<html>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<title>Matter</title>
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<meta name="generator" content="LibreOffice 4.2.8.2 (Linux)">
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<meta name="created" content="20010830;235200000000000">
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<meta name="changed" content="20150721;230900445954856">
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<body lang="en-GB" text="#99ccff" link="#0000ff" dir="ltr">
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#800000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>M<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEwAAAAdCAMAAAA3m3pLAAAAwFBMVEX////38PDv4ODt3Lzk07Xn0NDfwMDOwKTXsLDMmZmzp46voovHkJC/gIC3cHCRh3OKgG2vYGCmUFBpYVOeQEBhWk2ZMzNPST9GQTeOICA9OTGGEBAzLykuKiQqJyF+AAAoJSAkIh0AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABajxfyAAABV0lEQVR4nO2WcW/CIBDFjyqIs3S2QyZDvbnv/yH3jmrs4hS38NeylxAe0P64O2hSmhX1ISo/BtGMigKr/BDRfA4Y1xEtFhVhq6eKsPVzRdjmpSJs+1oRtnurCDvsrmDBmDab3ph+uuDRYrwDO+6vYJ4UJTFakZvMW4ONyP8UtiSJKKLPsOAzwRhZyzb6MzPEEsxpi97RILBe4UNRgQ06h2Y4WZnpx23HJO7BOsKGjYVDfDZxUJaD1j521AGrA6cOMXqslSNL1KE8g8A4gjU05pIm0ndQYzEavtbs8B2MreZWZceuQU5qAvOkjag9V7AE6yk2y5Pr8IaewEI+Hg78KCyRRgripDbJkcA0j4kZFB81c4/CeEnNCavlBI1ibon6qDCf5GCpfSiy5KPcpHByuGYRLp1N/g68jMfZ+7Bf6x/292C1JLD5YrXebHeH403h9+D24kXv+0/GM8/Cazt4UQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" name="OdfSMatter_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="76" height="29" border="0">atter.
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</b></font></font>Naturalists believe that the world is just what is
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in space and time, and having seen that we should, if possible,
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believe that substances are in time in the sense of enduring through
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time, and that substances are in space in the sense of either being
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parts of space itself or coinciding with parts of space, the final
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issue to be settled is about the nature of the substances that
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coincide with space and endure through time. The simplest theory is
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obviously materialism, the belief that matter is the only kind of
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basic substance that coincides with space. But some phenomena seem to
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require immaterial substances as well. Our ontological causes would
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be more complex, if we had to postulate both material and immaterial
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substances as coinciding with space. But if the scope of our
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ontological theory is increased by postulating immaterial substances,
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it can be argued that there is a tradeoff between simplicity and
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scope that keeps the empirical method from requiring naturalists to
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accept materialism. In this case, therefore, we must decide whether
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there are any phenomena that require us to postulate immaterial
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substances as well as material substances. Let us set the stage by
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considering more carefully what materialism holds. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>M<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSMaterial_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="89" height="49" border="0">aterialism.</b></font>
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Materialism holds that none but material substances coincide with
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parts of space. Matter comes in particular bits, and by "matter,"
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we shall mean only substances whose behavior in space makes the laws
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of physics true. Thus, we assume that bits of matter move and
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interact in the regular ways required by the basic laws of
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contemporary physics and that there are enough different kinds of
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bits of matter to account for all the kinds of entities mentioned by
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those laws, from electrons and nucleons (or triplets of quarks) to
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force fields and photons. We will see what essential nature material
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substances that coincide with space must have for this to be true.
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(See <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Contingent Laws</font> under
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<font face="Arial, sans-serif">Local Regularities </font>under
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<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaL.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change</font></a></u></font>.)
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But given that it is true, materialism may also be called
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"physicalism," because the properties mentioned by the
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basic laws of physics are called "physical properties." </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">More
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abstractly, bits of matter are "basic" substances in the
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sense that they are the most elementary substances of their kind.
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Since each has an existence that is distinct from all the rest, they
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are "particular" substances. They are "concrete"
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in the sense that no bit of matter can be in two different locations
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at the same time. And they are "independent" of one another
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in the sense that the existence of one bit of matter does not, in
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general, depend on the existence of the others. That is, bits of
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matter can also move independently of one another and interact
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locally (though, as we shall see in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtkCaL09.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
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Forms of matter</font></a></u></font>, there are some varieties of
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matter that cannot exist except in conjunction with matter of a
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different variety).</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Since
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spatiomaterialism holds that bits of matter are in space in the sense
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of being contained by space as a substance, we shall take the basic
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laws of physics to be descriptions of regularities about their motion
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and interaction that result from their being contained by space, that
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is, as ontological effects of both space and matter. That is
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different from what spatial relationism assumes about the nature of
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matter, because spatial relationism can simply <i>define </i>the
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essential aspect of material substances by the basic laws of physics,
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implying that there is nothing more to be known about their natures
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and that bits of matter have an essential nature that is irreducibly
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temporally complex. But since we take space to be a substance, we are
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assuming that at least some of the regularities described by basic
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laws of physics can be explained ontologically, that is, by how the
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essential nature of space works together with the essential nature of
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matter, because of how matter and space coincide, to constitute those
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regularities. That is why we took spatiomaterialism to have a greater
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scope than spatial relationism: it could explain why bits of matter
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have spatial relations and how change is possible, rather than just
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assuming it. That is also how spatiomaterialism can promise to
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explain the truth of Einstein's relativity theories, as just
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mentioned. And it is how we will explain the other laws of physics in
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<font face="Arial, sans-serif">Contingent Laws </font>under <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtkCaL01.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change</font></a></u></font>.
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Indeed, the possibility of such explanations is what we assumed by
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taking ontology to be a kind of explanation, rather than merely
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realism about science. But that means that spatiomaterialism must
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take matter to be a kind of substance that, working together with
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space as the substance with which it coincides, makes the basic laws
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of contemporary physics true. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">In addition
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to explaining why efficient-cause explanations are true, moreover,
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ontological-cause explanations can also explain why rational-cause
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explanations are true, making all the kinds of explanations mentioned
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in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOteM01.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Method</font></a></u></font>
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parts of a single explanation of the world in the end and reducing
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the social sciences by way of natural science to spatiomaterialism. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Although
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spatiomaterialism implies that there is more to be known about the
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essential nature of matter, what is relevant for present purposes is
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that it agrees with materialism (or physicalism) about physics being
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causally complete. What happens in the world is just what comes
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about, given the initial and boundary conditions that prevail, as the
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result of bits of matter moving and interacting according to the
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basic laws of physics. That is how all efficient causes bring about
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their effects, according to materialism, and spatiomaterialism
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expects to be able to explain why those causal connections hold.
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Naturalists who follow the empirical method must prefer that kind of
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ontology, if it is possible, because it is the simplest explanation
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of what happens in nature. The only question is whether it is
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possible. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>I<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSImmat_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="97" height="49" border="0">mmaterialism.
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</b></font>It is not possible, according to critics of materialism,
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because there are aspects of the natural world that require us to
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postulate immaterial substances in space. Though all naturalists deny
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the existence of anything outside space and time, all the kinds of
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phenomena mentioned in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtcN08.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Naturalism:
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Problems</font></a></u></font> as posing a problem for naturalism
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also pose a problem for materialism. That is, consciousness, goodness
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and holiness, the phenomena that lead, respectively, to the belief in
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Cartesian minds, Platonic Forms, and a transcendent God, can also be
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used to argue for the existence of substances whose natures are not
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described by the basic laws of physics. However, to postulate mental
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substances, teleological substances, or spiritual substances would be
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to give up materialism in favor of a more complex ontology, one with
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immaterial substances that coincide with space and endure through
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time, along with material substances. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Notice
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that, although space is not a material substance, it is not an
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immaterial substance in the sense relevant here. Space is not a
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material substance in the sense that it has an opposite essential
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nature to matter. (Whereas bits of matter are independent of one
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another, parts of space cannot exist without one another.) But here
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we are concerned with the causal completeness of physics, and by
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"immaterial substances," we mean only substances that
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coincide with space. What makes them immaterial is that they do not
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move and interact as described by the basic laws of physics. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though
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space is not a material substance, it is not an immaterial substance
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in the relevant sense, because substantivalism about space does not
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itself deny the causal completeness of physics. On the contrary, it
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affords an ontological explanation of why the basic laws of physics
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are true and, thus, an explanation of the connection between cause
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and effect in efficient-cause explanations. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Ironically,
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however, as it will turn out, all that needs to be added to
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materialism in order to explain the problematic phenomena that lead
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to belief in immaterial substances is substantivalism about space. As
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we shall see, that is because it shows the ontological necessity of
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global regularities, as well as the local regularities described by
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the basic laws of physics. It order to see what spatiomaterialism
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must do, let us consider more carefully each of the reasons for
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believing in immaterial substances. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>M<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSMental_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="26" height="161" border="0">ental
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substances.</b></i> The first challenge to materialism comes from the
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existence of conscious beings like us. As explained in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtcN10.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Naturalism:
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Consciousness</font></a></u></font>, the basic phenomenon that leads
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to belief in the existence of mind is "consciousness,"
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which will be understood here as the fact that it is like something
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to perceive the world and experiences of other kinds. The appearances
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involved in perception are something distinct from what exists in the
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natural world independently of us, and when we reflect on how we know
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about them, it seems that the appearances themselves are responsible
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for our being aware of them and for the judgments we make about them.
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That is what led Descartes to believe that minds are immaterial
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substances not located in space. Though we must, as naturalists, deny
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the existence of Cartesian minds, we must give an ontological
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explanation of the natural world that explains the phenomenon of
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consciousness. </font></font></font>
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</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
|
||
be conscious is to have <i>qualia </i>or phenomenal properties. Since
|
||
they are properties of a radically different kind from the physical
|
||
properties by which the essential nature of matter is defined,
|
||
materialism seems to be incapable of explaining consciousness. There
|
||
are several alternatives.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Eliminative
|
||
materialism.</i> What materialists can do is explain away the
|
||
phenomenon. That is the position called "eliminative
|
||
materialism." It assumes that everything that conscious subjects
|
||
do in the world can be explained by the brain and other forms of
|
||
efficient causation. That means that there is no way to show that
|
||
someone else is conscious by how they behave or anything else that
|
||
happens in the world. Thus, consciousness eludes the method of
|
||
empirical science, since the only acceptable evidence for scientific
|
||
explanations is what is known by perception. Eliminative materialism
|
||
would "solve" the problem of consciousness by simply
|
||
denying the existence of phenomenal properties. It holds that belief
|
||
in them is the result of a confusion (see <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#DennettC">Dennett</a></u></font>)
|
||
or the lack of an adequate scientific explanation of the brain (see
|
||
<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Churchland">Churchland</a></u></font>.)
|
||
This position is not easily refuted, since the evidence for
|
||
consciousness is strictly private, in the sense that it depends on
|
||
first-person reflection. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
willingness to reduce conscious subjects to what materialism can
|
||
explain is, however, the sort of attitude that has given
|
||
reductionistic materialism such a bad name. Most naturalists (like
|
||
<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/">Chalmers</a></u></font>)
|
||
doubt that eliminative materialists are taking consciousness
|
||
seriously, for naturalists are themselves parts of the natural world
|
||
and they can know that they are conscious by reflection, even if
|
||
natural science cannot. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Emergentism.</i>
|
||
At the other extreme is emergentism. It is possible for naturalists
|
||
to give up materialism and hold that what explains this phenomenon
|
||
are mental substances that coincide with space along with material
|
||
substances. Emergentism is different from the belief in Cartesian
|
||
minds, because it takes the mental substances to be <i>in space</i>,
|
||
and for spatiomaterialists, to be contained by space as a substance
|
||
is to coincide with some part(s) of it. But emergentism agrees with
|
||
the Cartesian view about mental substances making a difference to
|
||
what happens in the world. It holds that mental substances are partly
|
||
responsible, at least, for behavior that is ordinarily attributed to
|
||
conscious mind, such as rational behavior. Such a view, however,
|
||
denies materialism, for it denies the causal completeness of physics.
|
||
It implies that there are substances in space and time that do not
|
||
obey the laws of physics, thereby denying that physics can, in
|
||
principle, explain everything that happens in nature.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym"><sup>i</sup></a>[1]</sup>
|
||
</font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It may seem
|
||
that emergentism is not a form of immaterialism, because what
|
||
emergentists mean by "conscious mind" cannot be a substance
|
||
by our definition. We are assuming that substances never come into
|
||
existence nor go out of existence over time, but emergentists
|
||
typically hold that conscious mind comes into existence at some point
|
||
because of the complexity of physical causes, for example, at some
|
||
stage in the evolution of the brain. However, these views are not
|
||
incompatible, because the way in which conscious mind emerges can be
|
||
explained by assuming that matter itself has a (temporally complex)
|
||
nature that allows its nature to change from being the kind described
|
||
by the laws of physics to being a kind that gives consciousness a
|
||
causal role in the world. That is to hold that there are immaterial
|
||
substances in space, for it implies that there are substances that do
|
||
not obey the basic laws of physics. That may mean that there are no
|
||
material substances, only immaterial substances that appear at times
|
||
to be material. In any case, it is a naturalistic theory. But since
|
||
bits of matter would have to follow more complex laws than those of
|
||
physics, the existence of emergent minds would require a more complex
|
||
ontology, and thus, naturalists have good reason to prefer a less
|
||
disruptive explanation of consciousness, if it is possible. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Epiphenomenalism.</i>
|
||
Epiphenomenalism is a compromise between eliminative materialism and
|
||
emergentism. It holds that all the causal roles of conscious mind are
|
||
really the work of the brain and, thus, can ultimately be explained
|
||
by matter alone. Thus, it cleaves to materialism and believes in the
|
||
causal completeness of physics. But it also holds that processes
|
||
involving physical properties of those kinds "give rise" to
|
||
phenomenal properties. That is how it explains the phenomenon of
|
||
consciousness. Since those phenomenal properties have no effects, in
|
||
turn, on what happens in the world, it is called "epi-phenomenalism."
|
||
That is, phenomenal properties are effects of physical properties
|
||
without ever themselves being causes of anything. Such a view avoids
|
||
postulating any immaterial substances, since the substances in space
|
||
would always obey the laws of physical. But it would have to assume
|
||
that material substances can have properties that are not mentioned
|
||
by the basic laws of physics. Thus, it accepts what is called
|
||
"property dualism," while cleaving to materialism (or
|
||
physicalism). Matter must have phenomenal properties as well as
|
||
physical properties.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Epiphenomenalism
|
||
is, however, an unhappy compromise, because phenomenal properties are
|
||
fundamentally different from the properties by which materialists
|
||
define the essential natures of material substances. They are not
|
||
entailed by anything that physics can discover about the world. Thus,
|
||
it is possible to conceive of a physical world in which organisms
|
||
with brains exactly like our own did not have phenomenal properties.
|
||
That is, there may be zombies. Or to use <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Kripke">Kripke</a></u></font>’s
|
||
famous metaphor, epiphenomenalism makes it seem as though, God, after
|
||
creating the physical world, had to go back and tack phenomenal
|
||
properties onto material substances in order to make beings like us
|
||
conscious. Thus, even though epiphenomenalism allows naturalists to
|
||
avoid immaterialism, there is still reason to believe that
|
||
materialism is not the deepest truth about the nature of existence in
|
||
the natural world, because consciousness is still something found in
|
||
the world that does not seem to be constituted by material
|
||
substances. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
order to be the best ontological explanation of the natural world,
|
||
therefore, spatiomaterialism must explain consciousness. That is, it
|
||
must explain the relationship between physical and phenomenal
|
||
properties in a way that shows phenomenological properties to be
|
||
ontologically necessary. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">And
|
||
it can. Indeed, that will be the first necessary truth derived from
|
||
this ontological foundation. (See <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOthP.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Properties</font></a></u></font>.)</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">However,
|
||
since this is only a promise at this point, we are taking out a
|
||
second mortgage on the house of ontological philosophy in order to
|
||
construct its foundation (that is, in addition to explaining why
|
||
Einsteinian relativity is true), and only if we pay off both
|
||
mortgages will we have a clear title to a new way of doing
|
||
philosophy. But as it now stands, if we do pay them back, the
|
||
empirical method will require us to accept spatiomaterialism as true,
|
||
and we will not be able to deny the necessary truths that follow from
|
||
it. This argument will be a new way of doing philosophy.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABoAAAChCAMAAADumV9KAAAAwFBMVEX////38PDv4ODt3Lzo2Ljn0NDdza/fwMDOwKTXsLDBs5m6rZPMmZm1qJDHkJC/gICflH6YjXm3cHCKgW6BeGavYGB7cmFwaFmmUFBrY1WeQEBlXlBfWEuZMzOOICCGEBB+AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACb6XZwAAABpElEQVR4nO2WYXODIAyGwZZGNwsrK9OlFe3//5ND1FNL2Oyt11t3vh/Kh+ekyUsSYJtBL5dLupmKbRit7dahhhLb7aIoTaNo/xpFh7coOr5HUfExogo79ehUjEgCJBwAenT+nG2oYNzw6RCaKJpoKbKdhRWBVGsggKTQGN4tKFGt7I3oN/+lCIQqiuZajCobRaCeGUHrE1LIqCiaaa3DB9ZhUypVkqhKhFIiIeytuZ8nmtcB0qJbhQ7QUDR95guRzLo1kwGyzMdWMRsGb7hElMxQKVs36eXQfmsv/4leXuvwHh668WDIDb2HGRVGzX3OSAQ/eIihvbOiIRC4h6EK0OAhhKj3sBEhagzLS9TAkUjZaoDM1KQbsQh/QJNuvkaTtP8VMhhFE91Uh3Qv16LtZUHdlSJvfzPi+V0yf741MW3mt+hSVPJu1WFhN9wPDGqkuM9yxJyVVMr37+Vv6tDyJIakFLTzrtGtARopZ32CFHLTAXE4k+vJ1r6wGHWUiZ8zeR4i0zlPjUrTx62pNp9pvZcfeS8/I6LVou0u3R+Oxek816n4AuTfnt0U+1z4AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" name="OdfSTeleo_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="26" height="161" border="0">eleological
|
||
substances. </b></i>Another problem with naturalism is the existence
|
||
of a real difference between good and bad, that is, a difference in
|
||
the objects or events themselves that make it true that some ought to
|
||
exist and others ought not. That is the phenomenon that led Plato to
|
||
believe in the existence of Forms in a realm of Being, and the same
|
||
phenomenon that theists believed they could explain by the existence
|
||
of a God who created the natural world. Though as naturalists, we
|
||
must deny both of those supernaturalistic explanations, we do need an
|
||
explanation of the phenomenon itself. If it cannot be explained by
|
||
materialism, goodness will count as evidence for the existence of
|
||
immaterial substances. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Hedonism.</i>
|
||
The time-honored way for materialists to explain the phenomenon of
|
||
goodness is by offering a causal explanation of what is good, such as
|
||
psychological hedonism, that is, the view that beings like us cannot
|
||
help but seek pleasure. But that is to hold, in effect, that pleasure
|
||
is what is good without explaining why the good is good in the sense
|
||
that it ought to exist. It would only explain why hedonistic beings
|
||
like us inevitably pursue it. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Furthermore,
|
||
hedonism does not explain moral goodness, for it does not explain why
|
||
we ought to do what morality requires when it does not maximize our
|
||
expected pleasure, that is, when it is not in our self-interest. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Nor is the
|
||
goodness of morality explained by theories, like Hume's, that take
|
||
human nature to include a moral sentiment, which inclines one to do
|
||
what is moral when it conflicts with self interest. Such a
|
||
psychological disposition may explain why human beings are moral, but
|
||
not why they ought to be.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Non-cognitivism.
|
||
</i>The other traditional naturalistic attempt to explain the
|
||
phenomenon of goodness is to hold that it is an illusion. The
|
||
appearance that there is an objective difference between good and bad
|
||
could comes from projecting our feelings about things onto the world,
|
||
so that they appear to be properties of the objects themselves. This
|
||
view has had many defenders in the Twentieth Century (such as <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Ayer">Ayer</a></u></font>).</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">These
|
||
ways of answering the challenge of goodness are, once again, what has
|
||
given materialist reductionism a bad name. They do not convince
|
||
everyone, and those who continue to believe in a real difference
|
||
between good and bad, in which the good really ought to exist
|
||
regardless what we may happen to (or be determined to) believe about
|
||
it, will accuse materialists of leaving something out of their
|
||
supposedly complete explanation of the world. Thus, although
|
||
materialism is the simplest ontological explanation of the natural
|
||
world, the empirical method cannot force us to accept it as true as
|
||
long it cannot explain goodness as something that beings like us find
|
||
in the natural world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
order to explain the phenomenon of goodness, it may be argued that
|
||
naturalists must postulate teleological substances of some kind, such
|
||
as Aristotle did by holding that there are final causes as well as
|
||
efficient causes at work in nature. To suppose that forces of any
|
||
kind are responsible for the goals pursued by biological organisms
|
||
generally or by human beings would be to hold that there are
|
||
substances that somehow guide change in nature to bring about certain
|
||
states or goals. They could not be material substances, because
|
||
substances whose essential natures are described by the basic laws of
|
||
physics do not have such forward-looking effects (unless, of course,
|
||
they have very special initial and boundary conditions as parts of
|
||
mechanisms, which would need to be explained). In order to account
|
||
for final causation, for example, Aristotle postulated essential
|
||
forms as a component of each particular substance in space. Indeed,
|
||
the actualization of the essential form that exists potentially in
|
||
substances of its natural kind was supposed to be the end for the
|
||
sake of which "natural change" takes place. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Nor was it
|
||
just their role in final causation that made them immaterial
|
||
substances. Though essential forms are located in space and time as a
|
||
component, along with matter, of the particular substances that have
|
||
them, the same essential form must be able to exist simultaneously in
|
||
different particular substances with different locations in space at
|
||
the same time. Thus, they are universals, not concrete material
|
||
substances. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It may be
|
||
possible to materialize teleological causation (as " vitalists"
|
||
like Hans Driesch did) by postulating "entelechies"
|
||
(instead of essential forms and final causes) and holding that each
|
||
entelechy can exist at only one location in space at a time. But
|
||
still, any substances exerting teleological forces would be unlike
|
||
the substances that materialists accept, because in order to guide
|
||
motion and interaction toward certain goals, they would have to work
|
||
in more complex ways than provided by the basic laws of physics. And
|
||
even if they did, making what is good objective, it would still be
|
||
necessary to show how that explains why the goals pursued are good. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
defense of teleological substances has been rare ever since the
|
||
discovery earlier in this century that Darwin was on the right track
|
||
in explaining natural teleology as a result of evolution. Darwin
|
||
showed how the natural selection of random variations in reproducing
|
||
organisms could explain why change seems to occur for the sake of
|
||
ends in them. The existence of traits serving specific functions was
|
||
a result of the differential survival and reproduction of organisms
|
||
having the traits, while other organisms, lacking the traits, died
|
||
out. In other words, it is merely an adaptation to the environment.
|
||
And when the role of genes in the inheritance of traits became clear,
|
||
it was even harder to believe that immaterial substances were
|
||
responsible for the goal-directed traits of biological organisms --
|
||
and harder still when DNA molecules were found to be playing the role
|
||
of genes. Since nothing but efficient causes are involved in the
|
||
mechanism of inheritance and their evolution by natural selection, it
|
||
was no longer plausible to believe in the existence of teleological
|
||
substances. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
evolutionary explanation of the goal-directedness of biological
|
||
traits is not, however, an explanation of the phenomenon of goodness.
|
||
The consensus among contemporary Darwinists is that Darwin’s theory
|
||
has nothing to do with progressive evolution. As we mentioned
|
||
earlier, they believe that the cause of natural selection is
|
||
externally caused changes in the environment, which makes the course
|
||
of evolution seem accidental. What is more, since organisms must make
|
||
do with whatever random variations turn up when the environment
|
||
changes, it also suggests that evolved traits are not generally the
|
||
best way to serve the functions required, but merely what enabled
|
||
them to survive difficult periods. (For a fuller discussion of
|
||
contemporary Darwinism, see <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtkCbGeRAccidentalism.htm" target="Lo">Change:
|
||
Accidentalism.</a></u></font>) Thus, to those who believe that there
|
||
is a real difference between good and bad, one that explains why the
|
||
good ought to exist, the contemporary Darwinist explanation of the
|
||
ends pursued by organisms seems more like an attempt to debunk their
|
||
belief in goodness than an explanation of its nature.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Goodness
|
||
remains, therefore, a source of doubt about materialism. Though
|
||
materialism may be part of the simplest explanation of the natural
|
||
world, there will be naturalists who do not accept it, as long as it
|
||
cannot explain why things are good in the sense that they ought to
|
||
exist. They have reason to believe that teleological substances of
|
||
some kind are required to explain this phenomena. The tradeoff
|
||
between simplicity and scope prevents the empirical method from
|
||
deciding.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
order to hold that the empirical method requires naturalists to
|
||
believe that materialism is true, therefore, and that there are no
|
||
immaterial substances in space, it will be necessary to explain the
|
||
phenomenon of goodness to the satisfaction of those who believe in an
|
||
objective difference between good and bad. That is, it will be
|
||
necessary to give an explanation of the goals pursued by beings like
|
||
us (and by other organisms) that explains why those goals ought to be
|
||
pursued. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
order to establish this foundation for ontological philosophy,
|
||
therefore, we must take out a third mortgage on the necessary truths
|
||
supported by it. Not only must spatiomaterialism explain the truth of
|
||
Einstein's two relativity theories and the nature of consciousness,
|
||
but it must also explain the nature of goodness. And if it turns out
|
||
that we cannot pay off these mortgages, it will not be clear that
|
||
spatiomaterialism is the best ontological explanation of the natural
|
||
world. We will not be entitled to claim that any truths founded on
|
||
its are necessary relative to what is ordinarily believed. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It will,
|
||
however, turn out that spatiomaterialism can pay off this mortgage.
|
||
There is a better explanation of the difference between good and bad
|
||
than contemporary Darwinists offer, and ironically, what makes it
|
||
possible is the recognition that space is a substance. The key, once
|
||
again, is how substantivalism about space entails the ontological
|
||
necessity of global regularities, for evolution is the "<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCbGeR.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Reproductive
|
||
Global Regularity</font></a></u></font>."</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSpirit_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="25" height="161" border="0">piritual
|
||
substances. </b></i>The final reason for doubting that materialism
|
||
(or we are assuming, spatiomaterialism) is the best ontological
|
||
explanation of the natural world is what we called the phenomenon of
|
||
"holiness," which leads people to believe in the existence
|
||
of a transcendent God. Though, as naturalists, we must deny the
|
||
existence of a transcendent God, the phenomenon that gives rise to
|
||
belief in God calls for explanation, and if we cannot explain why
|
||
people believe that is something worthy of worship without
|
||
postulating spiritual or other immaterial substances in space, the
|
||
empirical method will not force naturalists to accept
|
||
spatiomaterialism. There will again be a tradeoff between simplicity
|
||
and greater scope that makes it unclear whether spatiomaterialism or
|
||
some from of immaterialism is the better ontological of the natural
|
||
world.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
this case, once again, a common materialist response to the challenge
|
||
is to hold that what needs explaining is not the phenomenon of
|
||
holiness, but rather the belief in God itself. Thus, people are said
|
||
to have a psychological need to believe in God, either as a result of
|
||
conditioning (behaviorism), psycho-sexual development (Freudianism),
|
||
an instinct selected for other functions (sociobiology), or some
|
||
other irrational cause. This is materialist reductionism in the
|
||
pejorative sense. It does not take seriously the source of the belief
|
||
in the sacred, at least, not in the eyes of those who believe there
|
||
is something worthy of worship. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
sort of explanation is not required by naturalism, that is, the
|
||
denial of supernaturalism, for religious people can be naturalists.
|
||
Though naturalists cannot believe in the existence of a transcendent
|
||
God of any kind, they can insist that there is something immaterial
|
||
in the natural world that is worthy of worship. It is not obvious,
|
||
after all, that what is holy must exist outside space and time. It
|
||
could be a spiritual substance in space, if not the world itself. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
existence of spiritual substances is not, however, compatible with
|
||
materialism. A spiritual substance must have effects that are
|
||
different from what happens as bits of matter move and interact
|
||
according to the basic laws of physics, for otherwise there would be
|
||
no reason to believe that a spiritual substance exists, much less
|
||
that it is worthy of worship. Thus, it must not be a material
|
||
substance in our sense. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Nor
|
||
is it sufficient to declare that the world itself is worthy of
|
||
worship. There must be something about the world that makes it holy,
|
||
and naturalists have never explained what it is. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; background: #cccccc; border-top: 6.75pt double #000000; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #000000; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Spinoza's
|
||
pantheism was rejected by traditional theists for this reason. His
|
||
metaphysics explained why goals are pursued by beings in the world,
|
||
but it denied that pursuing them was a result of free will and it
|
||
failed to explain why those goals are good. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
may not seem necessary, in the case of holiness, to take out a fourth
|
||
mortgage to establish spatiomaterialism as the foundation for a new
|
||
way of doing philosophy, because if spatiomaterialism can explain
|
||
everything but how there is something worthy of worship in the
|
||
natural world, it could be argued that what we have discovered is
|
||
that there is nothing sacred in space. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">However,
|
||
that would not work, if there were naturalists who continued to
|
||
believe in the sacred, because they would insist that it can be
|
||
explained by some kind of immaterialism. And if they were not just
|
||
being willful or arbitrary, but argued with us, giving reasons for
|
||
believing in spiritual substances of some kind, we could not claim
|
||
that the empirical method forces naturalists to believe that
|
||
spatiomaterialism is true. There would be a tradeoff between the
|
||
simplicity of materialism and the scope of immaterialism, and we
|
||
could not, in good conscience, defend any of the necessary truths of
|
||
ontological philosophy. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Thus,
|
||
we will take out a fourth mortgage on the foundation needed to do
|
||
philosophy in this new way. It may seem wildly optimistic at this
|
||
point, or even foolish, to promise an explanation of holiness. But as
|
||
we shall see, spatiomaterialism does show that there is something in
|
||
or about the natural world that is worthy of worship. This fourth
|
||
mortgage will be paid back in the sense that either the religiously
|
||
inclined will agree that it explains what they are getting at, or
|
||
else we will have sufficient grounds for holding that they are not
|
||
being fully rational about all the relevant issues in rejecting it.
|
||
The dispute may continue at that point, but it will be about their
|
||
rationality, not about whether spatiomaterialism is the foundation
|
||
for a new way of doing philosophy. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
completes the construction of the foundation of ontological
|
||
philosophy, though we carry quite a burden with us as we take up the
|
||
project of using spatiomaterialism as a foundation for necessary
|
||
truths. In order to hold that spatiomaterialism is the best
|
||
ontological explanation of the natural world, we must explain why
|
||
Einsteinian relativity is true, why beings like us are conscious, how
|
||
there is a real difference between good and bad, and how there is
|
||
something in the natural world that is worthy of worship. If we can
|
||
pay off those mortgages, however, the edifice that we shall construct
|
||
on that foundation will stand. What spatiomaterialism implies about
|
||
the world will hold necessarily relative to science and our ordinary
|
||
ways of reasoning about what to believe, including empirical science,
|
||
ethics, and the whole gamut of ordinary cognitive endeavors. And the
|
||
use of an empirical naturalistic ontology as a foundation for
|
||
necessary truths will have proved itself to be a new way of doing
|
||
philosophy. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="sdendnote1">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm"><a name="Caston"></a>
|
||
<a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc">i</a><sup>[1]</sup>
|
||
This kind of emergentism is implied by <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Searle">Searle</a></u></font>
|
||
in <i>The Rediscovery of Mind</i>, though his confusion about
|
||
ontological issues would probably lead him to deny it. For a less
|
||
confused discussion of the difference between emergentism and
|
||
epiphenomenalism, see <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Caston">Caston</a></u></font></p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |