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130-537: Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature , and that all things, including mental states and consciousness , are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are caused by physical processes, such as the neurochemistry of the human brain and nervous system , without which they cannot exist. Materialism directly contrasts with monistic idealism , according to which consciousness

260-451: A . The pulse is reflected from a mirror situated a distance a from the light source (event Q), and returns to the light source at x ′ = 0,  ct ′ =  a (event R). The same events P, Q, R are plotted in Fig. 2-3b in the frame of observer O. The light paths have slopes = 1 and −1, so that △PQR forms a right triangle with PQ and QR both at 45 degrees to

390-609: A broadly physicalist or scientific materialist framework, producing rival accounts of how best to accommodate the mind , including functionalism , anomalous monism , and identity theory . Scientific materialism is often synonymous with, and has typically been described as, a reductive materialism . In the early 21st century, Paul and Patricia Churchland advocated a radically contrasting position (at least in regard to certain hypotheses): eliminative materialism . Eliminative materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not exist at all, and that talk of such phenomena reflects

520-689: A conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter. James Jeans concurred with Planck, saying, "The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter." In the Critique of Pure Reason , Immanuel Kant argued against materialism in defending his transcendental idealism (as well as offering arguments against subjective idealism and mind–body dualism ). But Kant argues that change and time require an enduring substrate. Monism There are two sorts of definitions for monism: Although

650-411: A constant rate of passage, independent of the observer's state of motion , or anything external. It assumes that space is Euclidean : it assumes that space follows the geometry of common sense. In the context of special relativity , time cannot be separated from the three dimensions of space, because the observed rate at which time passes for an object depends on the object's velocity relative to

780-405: A critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist theories of language and discourse. Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson have critiqued this body of new materialist literature for neglecting to consider the materiality of race and gender in particular. Métis scholar Zoe Todd , as well as Mohawk (Bear Clan, Six Nations) and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts, query

910-405: A form of absolute nondualism . Material monism can be traced back to the pre-Socratic philosophers who sought to understand the arche or basic principle of the universe in terms of different material causes. These included Thales , who argued that the basis of everything was water, Anaximenes , who claimed it was air, and Heraclitus who believed it to be fire. Later, Parmenides described

1040-445: A fourth dimension, it is treated differently than the spatial dimensions. Minkowski space hence differs in important respects from four-dimensional Euclidean space . The fundamental reason for merging space and time into spacetime is that space and time are separately not invariant, which is to say that, under the proper conditions, different observers will disagree on the length of time between two events (because of time dilation ) or

1170-453: A great shock when Einstein published his paper in which the equivalence of the different local times of observers moving relative to each other was pronounced; for he had reached the same conclusions independently but did not publish them because he wished first to work out the mathematical structure in all its splendor. He never made a priority claim and always gave Einstein his full share in the great discovery. Minkowski had been concerned with

1300-574: A light signal in that same time interval Δ t {\displaystyle \Delta t} . If the event separation is due to a light signal, then this difference vanishes and Δ s = 0 {\displaystyle \Delta s=0} . When the event considered is infinitesimally close to each other, then we may write In a different inertial frame, say with coordinates ( t ′ , x ′ , y ′ , z ′ ) {\displaystyle (t',x',y',z')} ,

1430-434: A location. In Fig. 1-1, imagine that the frame under consideration is equipped with a dense lattice of clocks, synchronized within this reference frame, that extends indefinitely throughout the three dimensions of space. Any specific location within the lattice is not important. The latticework of clocks is used to determine the time and position of events taking place within the whole frame. The term observer refers to

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1560-408: A man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of

1690-442: A mere shadow, and only some sort of union of the two shall preserve independence." Space and Time included the first public presentation of spacetime diagrams (Fig. 1-4), and included a remarkable demonstration that the concept of the invariant interval ( discussed below ), along with the empirical observation that the speed of light is finite, allows derivation of the entirety of special relativity. The spacetime concept and

1820-648: A monist ontology, instead espousing the ontological separation of matter and space (i.e. that space is "another kind" of being). Wang Chong (27 – c. 100 AD) was a Chinese thinker of the early Common Era said to be a materialist. Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta (6th century) in his work Tattvopaplavasimha ( The Upsetting of All Principles ) refuted the Nyāya Sūtra epistemology. The materialistic Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400; when Madhavacharya compiled Sarva-darśana-samgraha ( A Digest of All Philosophies ) in

1950-424: A new turn in materialism in his 1841 book The Essence of Christianity , which presented a humanist account of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach introduced anthropological materialism , a version of materialism that views materialist anthropology as the universal science . Feuerbach's variety of materialism heavily influenced Karl Marx , who in the late 19th century elaborated

2080-419: A person moving with respect to the first observer will see the two events occurring at different places, because the moving point of view sees itself as stationary, and the position of the event as receding or approaching. Thus, a different measure must be used to measure the effective "distance" between two events. In four-dimensional spacetime, the analog to distance is the interval. Although time comes in as

2210-420: A proto-mentality of elementary particles with his vitalist view, "there is life in all matter, throughout the vast extent of all the eternities; it is in the rock, the sand, the dust, in water, air, the gases, and in short, in every description and organization of matter; whether it be solid, liquid, or gaseous, particle operating with particle." Spacetime continuum In physics , spacetime , also called

2340-433: A spacetime diagram illustrating the world lines (i.e. paths in spacetime) of two photons, A and B, originating from the same event and going in opposite directions. In addition, C illustrates the world line of a slower-than-light-speed object. The vertical time coordinate is scaled by c {\displaystyle c} so that it has the same units (meters) as the horizontal space coordinate. Since photons travel at

2470-490: A spatial distance Δ x . {\displaystyle \Delta x.} Then the squared spacetime interval ( Δ s ) 2 {\displaystyle (\Delta {s})^{2}} between the two events that are separated by a distance Δ x {\displaystyle \Delta {x}} in space and by Δ c t = c Δ t {\displaystyle \Delta {ct}=c\Delta t} in

2600-446: A spurious " folk psychology " and introspection illusion . A materialist of this variety might believe that a concept like "belief" has no basis in fact (e.g. the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses). With reductive materialism at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism at the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), revisionary materialism

2730-643: A year before his death), Minkowski introduced his geometric interpretation of spacetime in a lecture to the Göttingen Mathematical society with the title, The Relativity Principle ( Das Relativitätsprinzip ). On 21 September 1908, Minkowski presented his talk, Space and Time ( Raum und Zeit ), to the German Society of Scientists and Physicians. The opening words of Space and Time include Minkowski's statement that "Henceforth, space for itself, and time for itself shall completely reduce to

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2860-856: Is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism claims that God animates all of the universe, and also transcends the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God, like in the Judaic concept of Tzimtzum . Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism. Paul Tillich has argued for such a concept within Christian theology, as has liberal biblical scholar Marcus Borg and mystical theologian Matthew Fox , an Episcopal priest. Pandeism or pan-deism (from Ancient Greek : πᾶν , romanized :  pan , lit.   'all' and Latin : deus meaning " god " in

2990-408: Is "invariant". In special relativity, however, the distance between two points is no longer the same if measured by two different observers, when one of the observers is moving, because of Lorentz contraction . The situation is even more complicated if the two points are separated in time as well as in space. For example, if one observer sees two events occur at the same place, but at different times,

3120-481: Is a manifold , which is to say, it appears locally "flat" near each point in the same way that, at small enough scales, the surface of a globe appears to be flat. A scale factor, c {\displaystyle c} (conventionally called the speed-of-light ) relates distances measured in space to distances measured in time. The magnitude of this scale factor (nearly 300,000 kilometres or 190,000 miles in space being equivalent to one second in time), along with

3250-415: Is a measure of separation between events A and B that are time separated and in addition space separated either because there are two separate objects undergoing events, or because a single object in space is moving inertially between its events. The separation interval is the difference between the square of the spatial distance separating event B from event A and the square of the spatial distance traveled by

3380-467: Is a meditative exercise of withdrawal from the particular and identification with the universal, leading to contemplation of oneself as the most universal, namely, Consciousness. This approach is different from the classical Yoga of complete thought suppression. Vivekananda, according to Gavin Flood , was "a figure of great importance in the development of a modern Hindu self-understanding and in formulating

3510-525: Is a philosophy of materialism from classical antiquity that was a major forerunner of modern science. Though ostensibly a deist , Epicurus affirmed the literal existence of the Greek gods in either some type of celestial "heaven" cognate from which they ruled the universe (if not on a literal Mount Olympus), and his philosophy promulgated atomism , while Platonism taught roughly the opposite, despite Plato's teaching of Zeus as God . Materialism belongs to

3640-569: Is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else." Werner Heisenberg wrote: "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible   ... Atoms are not things." Some 20th-century physicists (e.g., Eugene Wigner and Henry Stapp ), and some modern physicists and science writers (e.g., Stephen Barr , Paul Davies , and John Gribbin ) have argued that materialism

3770-419: Is actually what is indicated by moving clocks by applying an explicitly operational definition of clock synchronization assuming constant light speed. In 1900 and 1904, he suggested the inherent undetectability of the aether by emphasizing the validity of what he called the principle of relativity . In 1905/1906 he mathematically perfected Lorentz's theory of electrons in order to bring it into accordance with

3900-449: Is an incorporeal being that caused all other existence. According to Maimonides, to admit corporeality to God is tantamount to admitting complexity to God, which is a contradiction to God as the first cause and constitutes heresy . While Hasidic mystics considered the existence of the physical world a contradiction to God's simpleness , Maimonides saw no contradiction. According to Hasidic thought (particularly as propounded by

4030-652: Is anything particularly "new" about "new materialism", as Indigenous and other animist ontologies have attested to what might be called the "vibrancy of matter" for centuries. Others, such as Thomas Nail , have critiqued "vitalist" versions of new materialism for depoliticizing "flat ontology" and being ahistorical. Quentin Meillassoux proposed speculative materialism , a post-Kantian return to David Hume also based on materialist ideas. The nature and definition of matter —like other key concepts in science and philosophy—have occasioned much debate: One challenge to

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4160-567: Is because God/Nature has all the possible attributes and no two substances can share an attribute, which means there can be no other substances than God/Nature. Monism has been discussed thoroughly in Indian philosophy and Vedanta throughout their history starting as early as the Rig Veda . The term monism was introduced in the 18th century by Christian von Wolff in his work Logic (1728), to designate types of philosophical thought in which

4290-425: Is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. They are to be sought, not in

4420-471: Is flawed due to certain recent findings in physics, such as quantum mechanics and chaos theory . According to Gribbin and Davies (1991): Then came our Quantum theory, which totally transformed our image of matter. The old assumption that the microscopic world of atoms was simply a scaled-down version of the everyday world had to be abandoned. Newton's deterministic machine was replaced by a shadowy and paradoxical conjunction of waves and particles, governed by

4550-412: Is frequently assimilated to one variety of physicalism or another. Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy , forces , and the spacetime continuum ; some philosophers, such as Mary Midgley , suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined. During the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels extended

4680-460: Is matter and void, and all phenomena result from different motions and conglomerations of base material particles called atoms (literally "indivisibles"). De Rerum Natura provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion, evaporation, wind, and sound. Famous principles like "nothing can touch body but body" first appeared in Lucretius's work. Democritus and Epicurus did not espouse

4810-452: Is missing from the mathematical formalism of our best description of the world. "Materialist" physicalists also believe that the formalism describes fields of insentience. In other words, the intrinsic nature of the physical is non-experiential. Most Hindus and transcendentalists regard all matter as an illusion, or maya , blinding humans from the truth. Transcendental experiences like the perception of Brahman are considered to destroy

4940-568: Is no preferred origin, single coordinate values have no essential meaning. The equation above is similar to the Pythagorean theorem, except with a minus sign between the ( c t ) 2 {\displaystyle (ct)^{2}} and the x 2 {\displaystyle x^{2}} terms. The spacetime interval is the quantity s 2 , {\displaystyle s^{2},} not s {\displaystyle s} itself. The reason

5070-453: Is not one with nature. Panentheism differentiates itself from pantheism , which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe. In panentheism, there are two types of substance, "pan" the universe and God. The universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. God is viewed as the eternal animating force within the universe. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn " transcends ", "pervades" or

5200-410: Is often associated with reductionism , according to which the objects or phenomena individuated at one level of description, if they are genuine, must be explicable in terms of the objects or phenomena at some other level of description—typically, at a more reduced level. Non-reductive materialism explicitly rejects this notion, taking the material constitution of all particulars to be consistent with

5330-539: Is one substance, called Universe, God or Nature. Panentheism , a slightly different concept (explained below). Some of the most famous pantheists are the Stoics , Giordano Bruno and Spinoza . Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system that posits that the divine (be it a monotheistic God , polytheistic gods , or an eternal cosmic animating force) interpenetrates every part of nature, but

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5460-514: Is positive, the spacetime interval is referred to as timelike . Since spatial distance traversed by any massive object is always less than distance traveled by the light for the same time interval, positive intervals are always timelike. If s 2 {\displaystyle s^{2}} is negative, the spacetime interval is said to be spacelike . Spacetime intervals are equal to zero when x = ± c t . {\displaystyle x=\pm ct.} In other words,

5590-614: Is somewhere in the middle. Contemporary continental philosopher Gilles Deleuze has attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda , working with this reinvigorated materialism, have come to be classified as new materialists . New materialism has become its own subfield, with courses on it at major universities, as well as numerous conferences, edited collections and monographs devoted to it. Jane Bennett 's 2010 book Vibrant Matter has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism back into

5720-599: Is that unlike distances in Euclidean geometry, intervals in Minkowski spacetime can be negative. Rather than deal with square roots of negative numbers, physicists customarily regard s 2 {\displaystyle s^{2}} as a distinct symbol in itself, rather than the square of something. In general s 2 {\displaystyle s^{2}} can assume any real number value. If s 2 {\displaystyle s^{2}}

5850-584: Is the discernment of levels of truth, an emphasis on intuitive-experiential understanding of the Absolute such as jnana , bodhi and jianxing: (Chinese; 見性) , and the technology of yin and yang used within East Asian medicine with an emphasis on the integration of these levels of truth and its understanding. Vedanta is the inquiry into and systematisation of the Vedas and Upanishads, to harmonise

5980-401: Is the fundamental substance of nature. Materialism is closely related to physicalism —the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the theories of the physical sciences to incorporate forms of physicality in addition to ordinary matter (e.g. spacetime , physical energies and forces , and exotic matter ). Thus, some prefer

6110-460: Is the most common among Hindus today. This monism, according to Flood, is at the foundation of earlier Upanishads, to theosophy in the later Vedanta tradition and in modern Neo-Hinduism. According to the Pāli Canon , both pluralism ( nānatta ) and monism ( ekatta ) are speculative views . A Theravada commentary notes that the former is similar to or associated with nihilism ( ucchēdavāda ), and

6240-497: Is the theory of chaos, which has recently gained widespread attention. The objections of Davies and Gribbin are shared by proponents of digital physics , who view information rather than matter as fundamental. The physicist and proponent of digital physics John Archibald Wheeler wrote, "all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." Some founders of quantum theory, such as Max Planck , shared their objections. He wrote: As

6370-400: The c t {\displaystyle ct} -coordinate is: or for three space dimensions, The constant c , {\displaystyle c,} the speed of light, converts time t {\displaystyle t} units (like seconds) into space units (like meters). The squared interval Δ s 2 {\displaystyle \Delta s^{2}}

6500-461: The distance Δ d {\displaystyle \Delta {d}} between two points can be defined using the Pythagorean theorem : Although two viewers may measure the x , y , and z position of the two points using different coordinate systems, the distance between the points will be the same for both, assuming that they are measuring using the same units. The distance

6630-473: The identity thesis , a modern form of monism. Monism is also still relevant to the philosophy of mind , where various positions are defended. Different types of monism include: Views contrasting with monism are: Monism in modern philosophy of mind can be divided into three broad categories: Certain positions do not fit easily into the above categories, such as functionalism , anomalous monism , and reflexive monism . Moreover, they do not define

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6760-570: The Axial Age ( c.  800–200 BC). In ancient Indian philosophy , materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali , Payasi , Kanada and the proponents of the Cārvāka school of philosophy. Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism . The Nyaya – Vaisesika school (c. 600–100 BC) developed one of the earliest forms of atomism (although their proofs of God and their positing that consciousness

6890-429: The ct ′ axis is tilted with respect to the ct axis by an angle θ given by The x ′ axis is also tilted with respect to the x axis. To determine the angle of this tilt, we recall that the slope of the world line of a light pulse is always ±1. Fig. 2-3c presents a spacetime diagram from the viewpoint of observer O′. Event P represents the emission of a light pulse at x ′ = 0, ct ′ = −

7020-587: The data reduction following an experiment, the time when a signal is received will be corrected to reflect its actual time were it to have been recorded by an idealized lattice of clocks. In many books on special relativity, especially older ones, the word "observer" is used in the more ordinary sense of the word. It is usually clear from context which meaning has been adopted. Physicists distinguish between what one measures or observes , after one has factored out signal propagation delays, versus what one visually sees without such corrections. Failing to understand

7150-404: The space-time continuum , is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum . Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualizing and understanding relativistic effects, such as how different observers perceive where and when events occur. Until the turn of the 20th century, the assumption had been that

7280-436: The 14th century, he had no Cārvāka (or Lokāyata) text to quote from or refer to. In early 12th-century al-Andalus , Arabian philosopher Ibn Tufail ( a.k.a.  Abubacer) discussed materialism in his philosophical novel , Hayy ibn Yaqdhan ( Philosophus Autodidactus ), while vaguely foreshadowing historical materialism . In France, Pierre Gassendi (1592–1665) represented the materialist tradition in opposition to

7410-508: The 18th century, early 19th-century founder of Chabad , Shneur Zalman of Liadi ), God is held to be immanent within creation for two interrelated reasons: The Vilna Gaon was very much against this philosophy, for he felt that it would lead to pantheism and heresy. According to some this is the main reason for the Gaon's ban on Chasidism. Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that

7540-585: The Lorentz group are closely connected to certain types of sphere , hyperbolic , or conformal geometries and their transformation groups already developed in the 19th century, in which invariant intervals analogous to the spacetime interval are used. Einstein, for his part, was initially dismissive of Minkowski's geometric interpretation of special relativity, regarding it as überflüssige Gelehrsamkeit (superfluous learnedness). However, in order to complete his search for general relativity that started in 1907,

7670-501: The United States and consistently held that mental states are brain states and that mental terms have the same referent as physical terms. The twentieth century has witnessed many materialist theories of the mental, and much debate surrounding them. But not all conceptions of physicalism are tied to verificationist theories of meaning or direct realist accounts of perception. Rather, physicalists believe that no "element of reality"

7800-487: The West's view of Hinduism." Central to his philosophy is the idea that the divine exists in all beings, that all human beings can achieve union with this "innate divinity", and that seeing this divine as the essence of others will further love and social harmony. According to Vivekananda, there is an essential unity to Hinduism, which underlies the diversity of its many forms. According to Flood, Vivekananda's view of Hinduism

7930-684: The attempt was made to eliminate the dichotomy of body and mind and explain all phenomena by one unifying principle, or as manifestations of a single substance. The mind–body problem in philosophy examines the relationship between mind and matter, and in particular the relationship between consciousness and the brain . The problem was addressed by René Descartes in the 17th century, resulting in Cartesian dualism , and by pre- Aristotelian philosophers, in Avicennian philosophy , and in earlier Asian and more specifically Indian traditions. It

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8060-542: The attempts of René Descartes (1596–1650) to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundations. There followed the materialist and atheist abbé Jean Meslier (1664–1729), along with the French materialists : Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751), Denis Diderot (1713–1784), Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780), Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), German-French Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), and other French Enlightenment thinkers. In England, materialism

8190-572: The basis of moral absolutism , and rejected the dualistic notion that God and Satan are opposites, arguing instead that God has no equal, hence no opposite. Lewis rather viewed Satan as the opposite of Michael the archangel . Due to this, Lewis instead argued for a more limited type of dualism. Other theologians, such as Greg Boyd , have argued in more depth that the Biblical authors held a "limited dualism", meaning that God and Satan do engage in real battle, but only due to free will given by God, for

8320-452: The belief that the creator of the universe actually became the universe, and so ceased to exist as a separate entity. Through this synergy pandeism claims to answer primary objections to deism (why would God create and then not interact with the universe?) and to pantheism (how did the universe originate and what is its purpose?). The central problem in Asian (religious) philosophy is not

8450-435: The best suited to the description of our world". Even as late as 1909, Poincaré continued to describe the dynamical interpretation of the Lorentz transform. In 1905, Albert Einstein analyzed special relativity in terms of kinematics (the study of moving bodies without reference to forces) rather than dynamics. His results were mathematically equivalent to those of Lorentz and Poincaré. He obtained them by recognizing that

8580-515: The body-mind problem, but the search for an unchanging Real or Absolute beyond the world of appearances and changing phenomena, and the search for liberation from dukkha and the liberation from the cycle of rebirth . In Hinduism, substance-ontology prevails, seeing Brahman as the unchanging real beyond the world of appearances . In Buddhism, process ontology is prevalent, seeing reality as empty of an unchanging essence. Characteristic for various Asian philosophy, technology and religions

8710-459: The class of monist ontology , and is thus different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism . For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism is in contrast to idealism , neutral monism , and spiritualism . It can also contrast with phenomenalism , vitalism , and dual-aspect monism . Its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the concept of determinism , as espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. Despite

8840-405: The colonial orientation of the race for a "new" materialism. Watts in particular describes the tendency to regard matter as a subject of feminist or philosophical care as a tendency too invested in the reanimation of a Eurocentric tradition of inquiry at the expense of an Indigenous ethic of responsibility. Other scholars, such as Helene Vosters, echo their concerns and have questioned whether there

8970-422: The concept of historical materialism —the basis for what Marx and Friedrich Engels outlined as scientific socialism : The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth

9100-450: The concept of Absolute Monism. Sikh philosophy advocates that all that our senses comprehend is an illusion; God is the ultimate reality. Forms being subject to time shall pass away. God's Reality alone is eternal and abiding.  The thought is that Atma (soul) is born from, and a reflection of, ParamAtma (Supreme Soul), and "will again merge into it", in the words of the fifth guru of Sikhs, Guru Arjan , "just as water merges back into

9230-435: The concept of materialism to elaborate a materialist conception of history centered on the roughly empirical world of human activity (practice, including labor) and the institutions created, reproduced or destroyed by that activity. They also developed dialectical materialism , by taking Hegelian dialectics , stripping them of their idealist aspects, and fusing them with materialism (see Modern philosophy ). Materialism

9360-521: The concept of matter had merely changed, while others believed the conventional position could no longer be maintained. Werner Heisenberg said: "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible...atoms are not things." The concept of matter has changed in response to new scientific discoveries. Thus materialism has no definite content independent of

9490-569: The conventional concept of matter as tangible "stuff" came with the rise of field physics in the 19th century. Relativity shows that matter and energy (including the spatially distributed energy of fields) are interchangeable. This enables the ontological view that energy is prima materia and matter is one of its forms. In contrast, the Standard Model of particle physics uses quantum field theory to describe all interactions. On this view it could be said that fields are prima materia and

9620-687: The creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather transcends it. There is a movement of " Christian Panentheism ". In On Free Choice of the Will , Augustine argued, in the context of the problem of evil , that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather merely the absence of good, something that does not have existence in itself. Likewise, C. S. Lewis described evil as a "parasite" in Mere Christianity , as he viewed evil as something that cannot exist without good to provide it with existence. Lewis went on to argue against dualism from

9750-463: The dialectical form of materialism. George Stack distinguishes between materialism and physicalism: In the twentieth century, physicalism has emerged out of positivism. Physicalism restricts meaningful statements to physical bodies or processes that are verifiable or in principle verifiable. It is an empirical hypothesis that is subject to revision and, hence, lacks the dogmatic stance of classical materialism. Herbert Feigl defended physicalism in

9880-450: The difference between what one measures and what one sees is the source of much confusion among students of relativity. By the mid-1800s, various experiments such as the observation of the Arago spot and differential measurements of the speed of light in air versus water were considered to have proven the wave nature of light as opposed to a corpuscular theory . Propagation of waves

10010-457: The distance between the two events (because of length contraction ). Special relativity provides a new invariant, called the spacetime interval , which combines distances in space and in time. All observers who measure the time and distance between any two events will end up computing the same spacetime interval. Suppose an observer measures two events as being separated in time by Δ t {\displaystyle \Delta t} and

10140-467: The duration that God allows. Latter Day Saint theology also expresses a form of dual-aspect monism via materialism and eternalism , claiming that creation was ex materia (as opposed to ex nihilo in conventional Christianity), as expressed by Parley Pratt and echoed in view by the movement's founder Joseph Smith , making no distinction between the spiritual and the material, these being not just similarly eternal, but ultimately two manifestations of

10270-424: The emergence of analytic philosophy in the early twentieth century, which revolted against the neo-Hegelians. Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer , who were strong proponents of positivism , "ridiculed the whole question as incoherent mysticism ". The mind–body problem has reemerged in social psychology and related fields, with the interest in mind–body interaction and the rejection of Cartesian mind–body dualism in

10400-540: The energy is a property of the field. According to the dominant cosmological model, the Lambda-CDM model , less than 5% of the universe's energy density is made up of the "matter" the Standard Model describes, and most of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy , with little agreement among scientists about what these are made of. With the advent of quantum physics, some scientists believed

10530-422: The entire theory can be built upon two postulates: the principle of relativity and the principle of the constancy of light speed. His work was filled with vivid imagery involving the exchange of light signals between clocks in motion, careful measurements of the lengths of moving rods, and other such examples. Einstein in 1905 superseded previous attempts of an electromagnetic mass –energy relation by introducing

10660-572: The error of dichotomizing conceptualization, as Nagarjuna does, is not to address the question of the relationship between samsara and nirvana -or, in more philosophical terms, between phenomenal and ultimate reality [...] What, then, is the relationship between these two realms? This question is answered in such schemata as the Five Ranks of Tozan , the Oxherding Pictures , and Hakuin's Four ways of knowing . Sikhism complies with

10790-459: The existence of real objects, properties or phenomena not explicable in the terms canonically used for the basic material constituents. Jerry Fodor held this view, according to which empirical laws and explanations in "special sciences" like psychology or geology are invisible from the perspective of basic physics. Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed

10920-615: The fact that spacetime is a manifold, implies that at ordinary, non-relativistic speeds and at ordinary, human-scale distances, there is little that humans might observe that is noticeably different from what they might observe if the world were Euclidean. It was only with the advent of sensitive scientific measurements in the mid-1800s, such as the Fizeau experiment and the Michelson–Morley experiment , that puzzling discrepancies began to be noted between observation versus predictions based on

11050-556: The further development of general relativity, Einstein fully incorporated the spacetime formalism. When Einstein published in 1905, another of his competitors, his former mathematics professor Hermann Minkowski , had also arrived at most of the basic elements of special relativity. Max Born recounted a meeting he had made with Minkowski, seeking to be Minkowski's student/collaborator: I went to Cologne, met Minkowski and heard his celebrated lecture 'Space and Time' delivered on 2 September 1908. [...] He told me later that it came to him as

11180-497: The general equivalence of mass and energy , which was instrumental for his subsequent formulation of the equivalence principle in 1907, which declares the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass. By using the mass–energy equivalence, Einstein showed that the gravitational mass of a body is proportional to its energy content, which was one of the early results in developing general relativity . While it would appear that he did not at first think geometrically about spacetime, in

11310-408: The geometric interpretation of relativity proved to be vital. In 1916, Einstein fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Minkowski, whose interpretation greatly facilitated the transition to general relativity. Since there are other types of spacetime, such as the curved spacetime of general relativity, the spacetime of special relativity is today known as Minkowski spacetime. In three dimensions,

11440-418: The hypothetical aether on the speed of light, and the most likely explanation, complete aether dragging, was in conflict with the observation of stellar aberration . George Francis FitzGerald in 1889, and Hendrik Lorentz in 1892, independently proposed that material bodies traveling through the fixed aether were physically affected by their passage, contracting in the direction of motion by an amount that

11570-540: The illusion. Rudolf Peierls , a physicist who played a major role in the Manhattan Project , rejected materialism: "The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being   ... including knowledge and consciousness, is untenable. There is still something missing." Erwin Schrödinger said, "Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness

11700-419: The implicit assumption of Euclidean space. In special relativity, an observer will, in most cases, mean a frame of reference from which a set of objects or events is being measured. This usage differs significantly from the ordinary English meaning of the term. Reference frames are inherently nonlocal constructs, and according to this usage of the term, it does not make sense to speak of an observer as having

11830-439: The large number of philosophical schools and their nuances, all philosophies are said to fall into one of two primary categories, defined in contrast to each other: idealism and materialism . The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of reality: the primary difference between them is how they answer two fundamental questions—what reality consists of, and how it originated. To idealists, spirit or mind or

11960-462: The latter is similar to or associated with eternalism ( sassatavada ). Within Buddhism, a rich variety of philosophical and pedagogical models can be found. Various schools of Buddhism discern levels of truth: The Prajnaparamita-sutras and Madhyamaka emphasize the non-duality of form and emptiness: "form is emptiness, emptiness is form", as the heart sutra says. In Chinese Buddhism this

12090-488: The laws of chance, rather than the rigid rules of causality. An extension of the quantum theory goes beyond even this; it paints a picture in which solid matter dissolves away, to be replaced by weird excitations and vibrations of invisible field energy. Quantum physics undermines materialism because it reveals that matter has far less "substance" than we might believe. But another development goes even further by demolishing Newton's image of matter as inert lumps. This development

12220-438: The math with no loss of generality in the conclusions that are reached. In Fig. 2-2, two Galilean reference frames (i.e. conventional 3-space frames) are displayed in relative motion. Frame S belongs to a first observer O, and frame S′ (pronounced "S prime") belongs to a second observer O′. Fig. 2-3a redraws Fig. 2-2 in a different orientation. Fig. 2-3b illustrates a relativistic spacetime diagram from

12350-456: The meaning of "real". While the lack of information makes it difficult in some cases to be sure of the details, the following pre-Socratic philosophers thought in monistic terms: Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God, or that the universe (or nature ) is identical with divinity . Pantheists thus do or do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god, but believe that interpretations of

12480-490: The mid-19th century was German materialism , which included Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899), the Dutch-born Jacob Moleschott (1822–1893), and Carl Vogt (1817–1895), even though they had different views on core issues such as the evolution and the origins of life. Contemporary analytic philosophers (e.g. Daniel Dennett , Willard Van Orman Quine , Donald Davidson , and Jerry Fodor ) operate within

12610-453: The objects of mind ( ideas ) are primary, and matter secondary. To materialists, matter is primary, and mind or spirit or ideas are secondary—the product of matter acting upon matter. The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically by René Descartes ; by itself, materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice, it

12740-426: The observer. General relativity provides an explanation of how gravitational fields can slow the passage of time for an object as seen by an observer outside the field. In ordinary space, a position is specified by three numbers, known as dimensions . In the Cartesian coordinate system , these are often called x , y and z . A point in spacetime is called an event , and requires four numbers to be specified:

12870-478: The particular theory of matter on which it is based. According to Noam Chomsky , any property can be considered material, if one defines matter such that it has that property. The philosophical materialist Gustavo Bueno uses a more precise term than matter , the stroma. In Materialism and Empirio-Criticism , Lenin argues that the truth of dialectical materialism is unrelated to any particular understanding of matter. To him, such changes actually confirm

13000-617: The philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch. Through his Dialectics of Nature (1883), Engels later developed a "materialist dialectic" philosophy of nature , a worldview that Georgi Plekhanov , the father of Russian Marxism , called dialectical materialism . In early 20th-century Russian philosophy , Vladimir Lenin further developed dialectical materialism in his 1909 book Materialism and Empirio-criticism , which connects his opponents' political conceptions to their anti-materialist philosophies. A more naturalist -oriented materialist school of thought that developed in

13130-471: The physical constituents of matter. Lorentz's equations predicted a quantity that he called local time , with which he could explain the aberration of light , the Fizeau experiment and other phenomena. Henri Poincaré was the first to combine space and time into spacetime. He argued in 1898 that the simultaneity of two events is a matter of convention. In 1900, he recognized that Lorentz's "local time"

13260-400: The popping of a firecracker or a spark, it is not possible for an observer to be in motion relative to an event. The path of a particle through spacetime can be considered to be a sequence of events. The series of events can be linked together to form a curve that represents the particle's progress through spacetime. That path is called the particle's world line . Mathematically, spacetime

13390-486: The postulate of relativity. While discussing various hypotheses on Lorentz invariant gravitation, he introduced the innovative concept of a 4-dimensional spacetime by defining various four vectors , namely four-position , four-velocity , and four-force . He did not pursue the 4-dimensional formalism in subsequent papers, however, stating that this line of research seemed to "entail great pain for limited profit", ultimately concluding "that three-dimensional language seems

13520-517: The same reality or substance. Parley Pratt implies a vitalism paired with evolutionary adaptation noting, "these eternal, self-existing elements possess in themselves certain inherent properties or attributes, in a greater or less degree; or, in other words, they possess intelligence, adapted to their several spheres." Parley Pratt's view is also similar to Gottfried Leibniz's monadology , which holds that "reality consists of mind atoms that are living centers of force." Brigham Young anticipates

13650-423: The sense of deism ) is a term describing beliefs coherently incorporating or mixing logically reconcilable elements of pantheism (that "God", or a metaphysically equivalent creator deity , is identical to Nature ) and classical deism (that the creator-god who designed the universe no longer exists in a status where it can be reached, and can instead be confirmed only by reason). It is therefore most particularly

13780-733: The spacetime interval d s ′ {\displaystyle ds'} can be written in a same form as above. Because of the constancy of speed of light, the light events in all inertial frames belong to zero interval, d s = d s ′ = 0 {\displaystyle ds=ds'=0} . For any other infinitesimal event where d s ≠ 0 {\displaystyle ds\neq 0} , one can prove that d s 2 = d s ′ 2 {\displaystyle ds^{2}=ds'^{2}} which in turn upon integration leads to s = s ′ {\displaystyle s=s'} . The invariance of

13910-584: The spacetime interval between the same events for all inertial frames of reference is one of the fundamental results of special theory of relativity. Although for brevity, one frequently sees interval expressions expressed without deltas, including in most of the following discussion, it should be understood that in general, x {\displaystyle x} means Δ x {\displaystyle \Delta {x}} , etc. We are always concerned with differences of spatial or temporal coordinate values belonging to two events, and since there

14040-416: The spacetime interval between two events on the world line of something moving at the speed of light is zero. Such an interval is termed lightlike or null . A photon arriving in our eye from a distant star will not have aged, despite having (from our perspective) spent years in its passage. A spacetime diagram is typically drawn with only a single space and a single time coordinate. Fig. 2-1 presents

14170-436: The speed of light, their world lines have a slope of ±1. In other words, every meter that a photon travels to the left or right requires approximately 3.3 nanoseconds of time. To gain insight in how spacetime coordinates measured by observers in different reference frames compare with each other, it is useful to work with a simplified setup with frames in a standard configuration. With care, this allows simplification of

14300-402: The state of electrodynamics after Michelson's disruptive experiments at least since the summer of 1905, when Minkowski and David Hilbert led an advanced seminar attended by notable physicists of the time to study the papers of Lorentz, Poincaré et al. Minkowski saw Einstein's work as an extension of Lorentz's, and was most directly influenced by Poincaré. On 5 November 1907 (a little more than

14430-426: The term monism is derived from Western philosophy to typify positions in the mind–body problem , it has also been used to typify religious traditions. In modern Hinduism, the term "absolute monism" has been applied to Advaita Vedanta , though Philip Renard points out that this may be a Western interpretation, bypassing the intuitive understanding of a nondual reality. It is more generally categorized by scholars as

14560-513: The term physicalism to materialism , while others use the terms as if they were synonymous . Discoveries of neural correlates between consciousness and the brain are taken as empirical support for materialism, but some philosophers of mind find that association fallacious or consider it compatible with non-materialist ideas. Alternative philosophies opposed or alternative to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism , dualism , panpsychism , and other forms of monism . Epicureanism

14690-428: The term differ. Pantheism was popularized in the modern era as both a theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza , whose Ethics was an answer to Descartes ' famous dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate. Spinoza held that the two are the same, and this monism is a fundamental quality of his philosophy. He was described as a "God-intoxicated man," and used

14820-452: The three spatial dimensions into a single four-dimensional continuum now known as Minkowski space . This interpretation proved vital to the general theory of relativity , wherein spacetime is curved by mass and energy . Non-relativistic classical mechanics treats time as a universal quantity of measurement that is uniform throughout, is separate from space, and is agreed on by all observers. Classical mechanics assumes that time has

14950-485: The three-dimensional geometry of the universe (its description in terms of locations, shapes, distances, and directions) was distinct from time (the measurement of when events occur within the universe). However, space and time took on new meanings with the Lorentz transformation and special theory of relativity . In 1908, Hermann Minkowski presented a geometric interpretation of special relativity that fused time and

15080-425: The three-dimensional location in space, plus the position in time (Fig. 1). An event is represented by a set of coordinates x , y , z and t . Spacetime is thus four-dimensional . Unlike the analogies used in popular writings to explain events, such as firecrackers or sparks, mathematical events have zero duration and represent a single point in spacetime. Although it is possible to be in motion relative to

15210-532: The various and contrasting ideas that can be found in those texts. Within Vedanta, different schools exist: The colonisation of India by the British had a major impact on Hindu society. In response, leading Hindu intellectuals started to study western culture and philosophy, integrating several western notions into Hinduism. This modernised Hinduism, at its turn, has gained popularity in the west. A major role

15340-447: The viewpoint of observer O. Since S and S′ are in standard configuration, their origins coincide at times t  = 0 in frame S and t ′ = 0 in frame S′. The ct ′ axis passes through the events in frame S′ which have x ′ = 0. But the points with x ′ = 0 are moving in the x -direction of frame S with velocity v , so that they are not coincident with the ct axis at any time other than zero. Therefore,

15470-737: The water." God and Soul are fundamentally the same; identical in the same way as Fire and its sparks. "Atam meh Ram, Ram meh Atam" which means "The Ultimate Eternal reality resides in the Soul and the Soul is contained in Him". As from one stream, millions of waves arise and yet the waves, made of water, again become water; in the same way all souls have sprung from the Universal Being and would blend again into it. Jewish thought considers God as separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time. According to Maimonides , God

15600-406: The whole ensemble of clocks associated with one inertial frame of reference. In this idealized case, every point in space has a clock associated with it, and thus the clocks register each event instantly, with no time delay between an event and its recording. A real observer, will see a delay between the emission of a signal and its detection due to the speed of light. To synchronize the clocks, in

15730-456: The word God to describe the unity of all substance. Although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate. H. P. Owen claimed that Pantheists are "monists" ... they believe that there is only one Being, and that all other forms of reality are either modes (or appearances) of it or identical with it. Pantheism is closely related to monism, as pantheists too believe all of reality

15860-428: The world as "One", which could not change in any way. Zeno of Elea defended this view of everything being a single entity through his paradoxes, which aim to show the existence of time, motion and space to be illusionary. Baruch Spinoza argued that 'God or Nature' ( Deus sive Natura ) is the only substance of the universe, which can be referred to as either ' God ' or ' Nature ' (the two being interchangeable). This

15990-525: Was developed in the philosophies of Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), and John Locke (1632–1704). Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) became one of the most important materialist philosophers in the 18th century. John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822) believed matter has a moral dimension, which had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth (1770–1850). In late modern philosophy , German atheist anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach signaled

16120-555: Was exactly what was necessary to explain the negative results of the Michelson–Morley experiment. No length changes occur in directions transverse to the direction of motion. By 1904, Lorentz had expanded his theory such that he had arrived at equations formally identical with those that Einstein was to derive later, i.e. the Lorentz transformation . As a theory of dynamics (the study of forces and torques and their effect on motion), his theory assumed actual physical deformations of

16250-428: Was later also applied to the theory of absolute identity set forth by Hegel and Schelling . Thereafter the term was more broadly used, for any theory postulating a unifying principle. The opponent thesis of dualism also was broadened, to include pluralism. According to Urmson, as a result of this extended use, the term is "systematically ambiguous". According to Jonathan Schaffer , monism lost popularity due to

16380-536: Was less than the sum of the speed of light in air plus the speed of the water by an amount dependent on the water's index of refraction. Among other issues, the dependence of the partial aether-dragging implied by this experiment on the index of refraction (which is dependent on wavelength) led to the unpalatable conclusion that aether simultaneously flows at different speeds for different colors of light. The Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887 (Fig. 1-2) showed no differential influence of Earth's motions through

16510-481: Was not material precludes labelling them as materialists). Buddhist atomism and the Jaina school continued the atomic tradition. Ancient Greek atomists like Leucippus , Democritus and Epicurus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (99 – c. 55 BC) reflects the mechanistic philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus. According to this view, all that exists

16640-492: Was played in the 19th century by Swami Vivekananda in the revival of Hinduism , and the spread of Advaita Vedanta to the west via the Ramakrishna Mission . His interpretation of Advaita Vedanta has been called Neo-Vedanta . In Advaita, Shankara suggests meditation and Nirvikalpa Samadhi are means to gain knowledge of the already existing unity of Brahman and Atman , not the highest goal itself: [Y]oga

16770-414: Was then assumed to require the existence of a waving medium; in the case of light waves, this was considered to be a hypothetical luminiferous aether . The various attempts to establish the properties of this hypothetical medium yielded contradictory results. For example, the Fizeau experiment of 1851, conducted by French physicist Hippolyte Fizeau , demonstrated that the speed of light in flowing water

16900-476: Was understood to mean that ultimate reality is not a transcendental realm, but equal to the daily world of relative reality. This idea was well-situated for the existing Chinese culture, which emphasized the mundane world and society. But this does not tell how the absolute is present in the relative world: To deny the duality of samsara and nirvana, as the Perfection of Wisdom does, or to demonstrate logically

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