(September 19, 2016 at 1:08 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(September 18, 2016 at 12:51 pm)Bunburryist Wrote: Now, if I want to ask myself what is in the box, I don’t want to say “what kind of cat is in the box?” No.   I want a “neutral pointer” – a way of referring to what is in the box while implying as little as possible about its nature....The neutral point SAYS NOTHING about what is in the box.

Not to strain the metaphor too much, but what is the nature of the box?

Please don't. That thing makes my head hurt.

(September 19, 2016 at 2:02 pm)Alex K Wrote: If it did, Ghosts would simply become part of an extended version of physics, the same way radio waves were incorporated into our understanding in 1886 or so. I don't understand where "immaterial" would come into play.

The concept of immateriality actually traces back to the problem of universals, realism versus nominalism, and the ontological status of things like essences, numbers, categories, and ideas. In my experience, people who call themselves "materialists" are at root nominalists.

(September 19, 2016 at 2:24 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(September 19, 2016 at 2:02 pm)Alex K Wrote: If it did, Ghosts would simply become part of an extended version of physics, the same way radio waves were incorporated into our understanding in 1886 or so. I don't understand where "immaterial" would come into play.

The concept of immateriality actually traces back to the problem of universals, realism versus nominalism, and the ontological status of things like essences, numbers, categories, and ideas. In my experience, people who call themselves "materialists" are at root nominalists.

I feel like if you explained just a little bit more, I might understand what you are talking about..

Quote:In my experience, people who call themselves "materialists" are at root nominalists.

That shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  The combination of the two (nominalism and materialism) are pretty much the context of contemporary philosophy and obviously find themselves firmly rooted at the most fundamental level to science.  It's not as though a person has to choose between one or the other, or that one is exclusive -from- the other. You may find that some materialists are also nominalists, but you're not going to find that materialists are -instead- nominalists.

.............................?

(September 19, 2016 at 10:33 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(September 19, 2016 at 10:10 am)bennyboy Wrote: Okay, tell me ANY of the material properties of a photon.  What's it's mass?  It's volume?  What color is it?  What shape?  What it the mechanism by which it does any of the things it does?

What happens in double-slit experiments with quantum erasers?  What are the material properties of a photon during that process?  Most important-- does it HAVE material properties, other than a wave function and a result when it collapses onto a photographic plate?

Photons have no mass, but they have energy E = hf = hc/λ.

Quote:Under the photon theory of light, a photon is defined as a discrete bundle (or quantum) of electromagnetic (or light) energy. Photons are always in motion and, in a vacuum, have a constant speed of light to all observers, at the vacuum speed of light (more commonly just called the speed of light) of c = 2.998 x 108 m/s.

http://physics.about.com/od/lightoptics/f/photon.htm

Photons are energy.  They aren't going to have the same measurables as matter.  But that's what we're talking about: measurement.  It's mass, it's volume, it's color.  These are all measurements.  

But none of those things is neutral.  Apparently we are only to grunt indifferently in the general direction of the boxes and leave it at that.

(September 19, 2016 at 6:01 pm)Whateverist Wrote: But none of those things is neutral.  Apparently we are only to grunt indifferently in the general direction of the boxes and leave it at that.

I was simply responding to Benny's contention that the photon doesn't behave "like matter should." As far as grunting at the box, I don't think that's an answer. I believe that every term of reference we think up will be found to be embedded in a theory about the how and the what. No matter how "neutral" we go, we'll never be able to escape the theory dependency of reference. If we ask if it's a cat in the box, we're operating under the theory that cats occupy boxes. If we ask if there's an animal inside, we're operating under the theory that the box is a container for stuff. If we ask if the box is a container for stuff, we're operating under the theory that the box can be other than a container of stuff. No matter how primal we go, we'll always be making assumptions and have a preformed concept of the how and the what of boxes.

(September 19, 2016 at 3:46 pm)Alex K Wrote:

(September 19, 2016 at 2:24 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: The concept of immateriality actually traces back to the problem of universals, realism versus nominalism, and the ontological status of things like essences, numbers, categories, and ideas. In my experience, people who call themselves "materialists" are at root nominalists.

I feel like if you explained just a little bit more, I might understand what you are talking about..

Same here. I read the SEP entry on the problem of universals and I just get confused. Maybe this is a topic which deserves its own thread.

(September 17, 2016 at 2:05 am)Losty Wrote:

(September 19, 2016 at 9:18 am)fdesilva Wrote:

(September 17, 2016 at 12:15 am)Bunburryist Wrote: The concept, or perhaps it really is better to call it a conceptual tool, is what I call the “neutral pointer.”  A neutral pointer is a way of referring to something while saying as absolutely little of what you believe about it as possible. 

Would I be right in thinking your concept of a neutral pointer is similar to the concept of an axiom (self evident truth)?

We have neutral pointers everywhere in everyday life – “that bird” for an unidentified bird.  “That box shaped thing” for a filing cabinet.  But we don’t have a neutral pointer for “the material world.” 
Then there’s the problem of our “bodies.”  It is implicit in most peoples’ thinking that “my body” is made of matter.  But what if we want to see if we really are that kind of being.  We need a neutral pointer for what we learn to believe is a material body. 
If a person is not willing to . .  then they simply will not understand.   If you’re trying to determine if an a bird is  finch or some other kind of bird, you can’t even discuss it wit
 
Let’s take a geometric axiom – that a circle is that set of points that are equidistant from a given point.  That’s an axiom, and we have a definition.  Where does the idea of a neutral pointer idea come in?  Suppose we have a piece of paper with some apparently circle-like shapes.  Now, we don’t know that they are circles because haven’t determined if they are consistent with our definition.  So we don’t want to call them circles, because we don’t know they are circles.  But if we want to talk about them; talk about how we might determine if they are circles or not, we need to call them SOMETHING.  We need a neutral pointer – we could use “those shapes,” for example.   Now we can ask, “Are those shapes circles.”  If we determine one way or another whether they really are circles, then we can throw our neutral pointer away and call them either circles or non-circles.
Neutral pointers in everyday life – like “that animal,” or “that box-looking thing”  -  are common and not particularly interesting.  But ask yourself – what neutral pointer would we use for what we learn to call “the material world”?  “The world”?  “The physical world”?  “The universe”?   “The physical universe”?  “The material universe”?  “The cosmos”?  They all imply a big something that you, as a living thing, exist “in,” and to most people are implicitly synonymous.   But if we want to really “stand back,” so to speak, and take away ALL of our assumptions about what this experience we learn to call “the world” is, and what we as beings are, we need a way to refer to it, just as we needed a way to refer to those circle-looking shapes.  In order to talk about it we need to call it SOMETHING.  My neutral pointer for what we learn to call “the material world” is “this experience.” 
Perhaps the most useful aspect of referring to this experience we learn to call “the material world” as “this experience” is that ALL aspects of “the material world” come into doubt – whether the “things”  I experience seeing are “made of atoms,” whether my experiences happen in a brain existing in “this head,” (neutral pointer) whether there is something called light propagating through “this space” (neutral pointer) or not,  and whether my nature, as a being, is that of a thing in a “world” at all.
Keep in mind that neutral pointer doesn’t imply anything one way or another.  Using the neutral pointer “this brain” doesn’t imply either that my experiences happen in a material, and it doesn’t imply they don’t.  It is merely a way to refer to whatever exists/goes on/happens (whatever) at this place in my experience.
 
Another way to appreciate the necessity of a neutral pointer comes when we analyze and understand what I call the “sense story” – how we learn to believe we see, feel, etc.  If it is true as it is taught in science class (I’m not saying it is, and I’m not going to get into it here) then this experience IS NOT a material world, but is, somehow, an experience happening in a brain in a material world.  So if (according to the sense story) this experience is not a material world but something happening in a material brain – what will I call it?  Some philosophers like the phrase “sense date,” but it’s usage implies “something happening in a material brain,” and far from being a neutral pointer is rather something specific to materialist theories of experience.  I have found the best neutral pointer for what we learn to call “the material world” is “this experience.”

I don't know why you quoted my squirrel

(September 19, 2016 at 9:16 pm)Losty Wrote: I don't know why you quoted my squirrel

Um...probably because she's fabulous?! [emoji1]