On 10 June 2014 05:07, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 6/9/2014 1:35 AM, LizR wrote:
>
> On 9 June 2014 18:24, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On 6/8/2014 4:03 PM, LizR wrote:
>>
>> David Nyman gave a much more rigorous definition of primitive materialism
>> in another thread (he calls it "primordial").
>>
>> ISTM that what is supposed to be "primordial" about a specific set of
>> entities and their relations is precisely that they *exclusively* underlie
>> (or more correctly, comprise) everything that is "really real". So the
>> hierarchical structure of everything we observe thereafter - be it
>> physical, chemical, biological, physiological, etc. - would be deemed to be
>> underpinned, exclusively and exhaustively, by such a primordial substratum.
>>
>> That's a definition of ur-stuff, but it doesn't say anything about
>> "material". I agree with Bruno that saying the most basic ontology is
>> "matter" is meaningless because "matter" isn't well defined. Physicists
>> have regarded it as substances, particle, fields, quantum fields,
>> strings,... If it's computation or arithmetic those are just the basic
>> ontologies of different theories. What's really of interest is whether the
>> theory can describe and predict what happens at level of kicking things and
>> have them kick back.
>>
>
> OK, so please provide a definition of primitive materialism.
>
> Hmmm? I write that "matter" isn't well defined and so you ask that I
> define "primitive materialism"?
>
Well exactly. You were going off topic, so I felt free to try to steer you
back onto it. To repeat the question - a lot of people believe that
something called "primitive materialism" (at least on this forum) is an
accurate description of the universe at the fundamental level (assuming
there is one), possibly without realising that they do so. I was trying to
find out what definition they are using (consciously or otherwise) mainly
for Mr Ross's benefit, although I'm always interested too of course.
>
> I guess I could venture that it's the ontology of any TOE in which
> interactions are all 3p.
>
> OK, thanks. So I would guess that it's equivalent to eliminativism, as I
think it's called - the idea that consciousness is an illusion ("albeit a
persistent one"). It does seem that way to me.
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