Materialism

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

[I strive to leave these fragments intact, but usually can’t resist making a few changes. This excerpt has been more heavily edited than most –ed.]

To be a materialist is to believe that nothing truly exists besides objects with physical properties. Only atoms, particles, quarks, what have you can truly be said to be “real.” Of course, the laws that govern these particles can be said to have a certain reality themselves, which is a tricky issue–are these laws “built in” to matter or do they “exist” in some way separate from matter? But that’s a discussion for another day, preferably with someone whose knowledge of physics is much better than mine.

What I am thinking about today is the logic of materialism. Or, perhaps more accurately, the consequences of a materialist world-view. I’m going to call this standpoint “positivism” for readability, though that term has meant different things at different times (much like “agnosticism”).

It’s impossible for anyone to live as a positivist, that is, without making interpretations that rely on imaginary entities or classifications. Positivism is too limited in what it can describe. Therefore, we must all be idealists. We must simply sigh and allow ourselves to argue about things like culture, society, politics, economic systems, and moral values–none of which exist.

But at least we can remember that such things are abstractions. And, with practice, this can affect our perception of the world and nudge it a little more in line with material reality.

For example, statements about culture are always about a hypothetical average person, and always about a particular slice of a culture, not about the whole thing. So when we talk about a nation’s culture we should remember that no part of the nation’s population fully partakes in this culture and that some socio-economic classes partake less than others. Then we must remember that “culture,” “nation,” “population,” and “socio-economic class” are not real things. They are handles, nicknames, shortcuts we use to talk about the behavior and thoughts of large groups of people. But the only thing that really exists are individuals, their brains, and the connections in various regions of their brains.*

In other words, the whole idea of deducing “cultural norms” is fraught with problems. Acknowledging and being aware of these problems can only help ensure we make statements with better truth-value. A claim that acknowledges its limitations must have greater predictive power than one that doesn’t, right? In the former case, you can not only predict, but you also have a sense of how often your prediction is likely to be wrong. In the latter case, you will always be surprised if your prediction fails to come true.

* One could go farther and say that people, too, do not exist, only collections of atoms. This is true, but to give a name to a collection of atoms is less dangerous than to give a name to a concept.