[ExI] Energy in motion

[Tom Nowell]

Stuart wrote:
"Perhaps you are conflating materialism and broader physicalism.
According to Wikipedia: 

"The philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter, and is considered a form of physicalism. Fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance."

My point is simply that by the current physical theories, the universe is almost totally immaterial. While matter is a form of energy, it is but one form of energy, and if the boffins are right, it is a very minor component of the universe. So the "substance" of existence is actually energy. And the philosophy should properly be called ergonism. This does not imply that minds are supernatural, but it does imply that reductionism won't be able to explain consciousness."

 I think Stuart is selectively quoting wikipedia here, because a couple of paragraphs down in the same article it says "Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of matter to include other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space. However philosophers such as Mary Midgley suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined."

The name "Materialiam" was coined when matter was the main thing we observed in the universe. Now we know that E=MC2 and mass-energy interacts with space, what "matter" is has had to be expanded. As the article says, the concept of "matter" can be hard to define. I suppose strictly speaking the name "materialism" may be slightly out-of-date, but people in the USA still speak "English" rather than "American", and the UK is still the United Kingdom and not the loosely-confederated Queendom. Names often reflect the underlying history of something, rather than the current understanding.

Stuart also wrote:
"If dark energy doesn't actually exist, but it's still in physics then physics is wrong."

Well, physics strives to be the best model we can make to understand the universe with given our current understanding. Therefore physics can't really be said to be completely right or wrong, just the best understanding that could be made at the time. Dark energy and dark matter reflect the observation that our universe looks like space has been distorted by more mass-energy than we can directly observe. Because we can't directly observe it, we call it "dark". By observing its effects on other things, we can theorise and make guesses as to what it is. The current disagreements just show that we don't have enough information to disprove all but one theory.

Tom