Atheism feels shunned...

[Purple Rabbit]

1. I haven't argued that it necessarily is not made of the physical. Only that there exist things that are unexplained by physical properties. Calling these things physical therefore is a leap of faith on your part. You claim what you are unable to sustain with evidence and that is a severe case of what you so often blame our theist friends here.

Maybe this is a phraseology thing so I'll ask ... do you mean to say that there exist things that have no physical attributes? If so (and I'm by no means sure that is what you were saying) what?

The truths of euclidean geometry (under asumption of its axiomas) for instance, have no physical properties.

2. You should distinguish between the material and the physical. Not everything in our physical model of the world is matter: fields are not matter, space is not matter, time is not matter, some forms of energy are not matter. That's why the term 'materialism' hasn't been around for some time in the philosophical discussion. It has been replaced by 'physcalism'. Have you really read up on the subject?

I disagree ... fields are matter (as in physical/material) because they can be detected and inferred from various evidences to be constructed of exactly the same kind of stuff other things are made of.

They are physical but not material in the sense that they have no tangible substance, i.e. mass. This distinction is why science itself prefers 'physical' over 'material':
" the term "physicalism" is preferable because it has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more sophisticated notions of physicality than matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles." (source Wikipedia on ' physicalism')
In common language the distinction is used less strict.

3. Here's one reason: mathematical concepts are perceived via first-person experience, are sustained throughout many brains (~it supervenes many brains), and do not arise out of physical properties in the current scientific framework.

Surely that is just thought, thought that it is passed on through various social constructs all of which are entirely explainable? That we don't understand the abstraction (which I think is what you might be saying) is not enough to claim it is non-physical, it's still thought.

I agree that thoughts on mathematics when thought of arise from the brain (althoughthe 'how' part defies any physical explanation), but not that the truths of mathematics vanish when no-one is thinking of them. They still exist. Or do you think euclidean geometry fails when no-one is thinking of them. That really is absurd. In fact such logic brings you well under way towards a deistic ontology.

4. Immaterial is not synonymous with supernatural. The existence of the immaterial is not a plea for the supernatural and we shouldn't refrain from being clear on this out of some fear that it opens the door for theists and the like to obtain a foothold with belief in the supernatural. Immaterial just means 'not material', so if we can't explain something from physical properties it is fair to call it immaterial. It does not necessarily mean that it will always be unexplainable from physical properties. Maybe we one day can show how abstract concepts like 'freedom' or 'mathematics' arise from physical properties. Claiming this now with a 'proof' from the negative is vastly overplaying your hand, premature and very unscientific. Get this into your head: the current scientific model of our reality cannot explain the immaterial concepts we perceive on a daily basis by first-person experience.

Concepts & abstractions are just thoughts, there is no need to elevate them to some special status especially if (as I suspect will occur) in a few decades we have decision making, emotive computers with the ability to think (even if they can't do it as well as at that point ... time will cure that).

The thoughts on concepts and abstractions are thought, the informational content of concepts and abstractions are true with or without a thought. Euclidean geometry holds whether one is thinking of it or not.

I think it is and maybe you, me and Ev are just talking semantics here ... as far as I am concerned if it can be detected (potentially or actually, in part or whole) then it is part of the physical/material universe if it cannot then it is not and right now there is no evidence for any of the not.

You cannot detect euclidean geometry with a physical device. One minor reason for that being that our reality does not even obey euclidean geometry.

5. First-person experience is detectable for every living human being and every physical detection device depends on it! That it is not detectable with physical devices (how to measure mathematics?) is not an indication that it does not exist! It is an indication that the physical properties we build our devices for, don't add up to a measuring device that can measure abstract concepts like these.

So what if something is not detectable on a given instrument ... we can detect the phenomenon even if we can't fully explain it yet, Japanese researchers have begun to be able to read back aspects of the human brain ... what will you say if/when they are fully able to resolve thought? [/quote]
It would be one step more in the direction of sufficient evidence for physicalism, but it wouldn't distinguish between reductive and non-reductive physicalism. If you would be able to make a (The Matrix-like) device that you can plug yourself into (don't ask me wihich part of your body to use for that!) and that gives you full first-person experience, you have shown that first-person experience arises from the physical. The recipe for it would be in the construction of the device. But it would not necessarily prove that the truths of euclidean geometry are reducible to the physical.

Today we believe we understand many things that a thousand years would have been classified as equally immaterial or beyond explanation ... were they immaterial then?

Indeed that is the case. In the time that our understanding of the physical did not encompass force fields, i.e. gravitational force was not a property of mass, it was not clear what held the planets in orbit around the sun (assuming the point in time was reached where was established that the sun is central in the solar system) and the mechanism responsible was in every aspect non-material or immaterial in nature. It is only in hindsight that we can say that we understand gravitation is a (new) property of mass that obeys a certain verifiable law.

In a thousand years time (assuming we're still around) we will likely understand much, much more including (I have few doubts) explanations for many things some currently consider unexplainable. IOW we are slaves to our ability to resolve things ... the microscope and telescope allowed us finer resolution, the electron microscope and radio telescope allowed us to resolve some things finer still, the Hadron Collider and other things have allowed us even greater resolution ... what technologies will exist in a thousand years to resolve better still? Ultimately your argument doesn't raise things like math and concepts to the level of immaterial, all our current inability to explain does is leave us unanswered questions.

The point is, Kyu, that the claim that the phyiscal model can fill the left gaps is made by you and EvF now. It isn't relevant if you have any doubts about explainatory powers of physicalism or not, all that counts, when it comes to claiming from science that all that exists is physical, is verifiable and falsifiable formulated evidence. Btw, the Hadron Collider hasn't given any results yet. The truths of euclidean geometry do not need to be raised to the level of the immaterial, they are there already as a result of the inability of physical properties to add up to its truths. It is possible however that they might become part of the physical one day. Although without evidence it would be on the same level with speculation on some divine cause. Now you would not like to be on that level, would you?

Thanks for your reaction, you raise relevant questions and ideas, but what I really appreciate is that you have abstained from abusive rhetoric throughout.