Has anyone seen my neutral pointer?

[The Grand Nudger]

Look, if you insist that whatever we can experience is necessarily material,

-I don't...you see I don't have to - as a materialist, lol. I'm simply reminding you that your examples which you take to be counterfactual to materialism almost invariably end up being descriptions of material interactions arising from a necessarily material framework.  If you'e going to suggest that the framework is not true, then it makes little sense to point to the truth of it's own propositions..such as photons, as an example of that.  You;re essentially saying "I agree with this material description of material phenomena from a material framework - therefore materialism is false.  

Can you see why that would be a problem?  

then crow about how we perceive things, and so they must be material, what knowledge is gained from this?  I know about photons.  I know we perceive them.  What I don't know is whether they, or the framework they are in, have an independent objective reality.

Yeah I know, brain in a vat, can't really know this can't really know that.  

I really think we need to put this discussion on hole while you go watch a few Youtube videos about quantum erasers in double-slit experiments.  Then we'll talk about what "material" really means, hopefully with more precision and less hand-waving.  Or better yet, since you are so confident, ask Alex what "materialism" means to an educated physicist.

No, we won't.  QM is necessarily materialistic.  It is nothing -other- than a description of material interactions at a specific scale of resolution.  It self describes as such, self limits as such, and is defined by and as such. I'm sure Alex would have plenty of interesting things to say. It;s interesting to note that materialism is -not- necessary to physics, even though it -is- fundamental to QM (and to modern physics). That's what makes it such a terrible example.