Defining Physicalness: Inviting Physicalists to Weigh In

[sameandnot]

wow!
<breathing for the posters.>
hhuuhhhhh... hahhhhhhhhhhhh... (does not stop, of course).

notices: object is perceived by subject.
realizes: object is within subject, as a perception.
further: perception is subject.
concludes: object is subject.
thinks: how to know object, without knowing subject?

<breathing... silence.>

 

[octelcogopod]

While sameandnot has a point..

In THIS world, so to speak, where we are in a sense observing a physical reality, I would define physical as anything that isn't subjective.
Heh, while that may be a broad statement, just tihnk about it for a second.
In my personal world view, almost everything is physical, up to the point where everything is physical.
However, I think that some things, like a subjective state, which I wrote about in a thread in General Philosophy, is somehow a transcending state of physicality.

I believe therefore, that to simply define physical as everything that isn't physical, is the simplest solution.
YES, I do know that we haven't defined physical, we haven't defined subjective, but then again who can do that?

 

[sameandnot]

isn't it amazing how all of these threads, which we perceive as seperate, are really trying to make sense of the same thing?! all of the posts of all the threads are so innately One, that we cannot help but talk about the topics of other threads in the context of a "different" one.

wow! this is something that is truly fascinating!

we are all really pointing at the One; be it with "different" ideas and varying crudity of perception of It (which forms the basis of our "pointing").

 

[octelcogopod]

Haha, I agree sameandnot.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I think that some things, like a subjective state, which I wrote about in a thread in General Philosophy, is somehow a transcending state of physicality.

Okay, and a lot of us agree with you about that (most around here don't).

I believe therefore, that to simply define physical as everything that isn't physical, is the simplest solution.
YES, I do know that we haven't defined physical, we haven't defined subjective, but then again who can do that?

The problem with such a definition is that while it might be a practical way to identify the physical, it doesn't tell anything about physicalness. As I explained to Nameless earlier, I started this thread mostly because in past debates (usually about the nature of consciousness) between physicalist theorists and those who believe existence involves at least "something more," sometimes there would be a problem in the debate about where physical begins-ends and non-physical begins-ends.

For example, I often claim that physicalists attribute behaviors to physicalness never before observed, such as the quality of self-organization needed for chemistry to have organized itself into life. Similarly, accidental utterly dumb genetic variation and natural selection alone are believed to have built high-functioning organs and organisms. Yet in both cases, no such ability of chemistry or genetic variation/natural selection have been observed achieving what's attributed to them.

It seemed important therefore to distinquish what physical is and can actually do from what it isn't and can't do.

In this thread, I have argued that mass and its effects/products seem to cover all that's physical. Gravity, for instance, isn't mass, but it doesn't reveal itself until mass is present. EM is emitted by mass, matter is composed of mass, heat is the combustion of mass or the vibrations of something radiated by mass, etc.

I am not insisting that's the right definition, but with that sort of definition we give physical its own "is-ness" at least. We acknowledge it has characteristics that define it. The type of definition which explains it simply as what we perceive with the senses, or in terms of what everything else isn't doesn't tell anything about the "is-ness" of physicalness, and so we are right back to the vagueness that we started with when I posed the question.

 

[octelcogopod]

Ah. Thanks.

Anyway what I was aiming for with my post, is that the problem lies also in seperating what is subjective with what is objective.
While stating that mass and its effects covers most of the physical world, we do not know the strict line between what we perceive and what is a true objective state.

For instance, consciousness.
If I eat an apple, and I have some emotions regarding that, then defining the physicality of this action and its emotions, and seperating it from the subjective, becomes hard.
We don't even know if the emotions and thoughts themselves are physical in nature(although on a level we are unable to testi n the lab at the moment at least.)

Another problem is also that we just don't know.

The problem with these consciousness and physicality threads is that nobody knows where one begins and the other ends.
We don't know if they are one and the same, or if they are seperated, or if there are other layers to reality, transcending layers, that we can't see or feel.

BUT, for the purpose of discussing, I would say that mass and all its effects is a good definition.
But as you already know, there are other issues to take into consideration too.

I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words here, regarding this issue.
But, let's define physical as mass, then say that everything subjective is what a conscious observer creates in his head, combined with his thoughts and emotions and senses.

Seperating the two would be easy it seems, just say that everything the observers creates in his head is subjective, and everything NOT created in any observers head, aka the unconscious eventsi n the universe, as physical.
But the problem is that we ourselves are completely subjective, even the tools we use in the lab, the concepts we create, they are all subjective altered and perceived incomplete images of reality.
I don't mean to reinvent the wheel because you already know what I've just said, my point is just that I'm almost at the point now where I feel that discussing what the physical and subjective is, is a waste of time.
This view will always be incomplete, and so I've almost given up and left it to the scientists to figure it out.

 

[debeng]

Debates about physicalism are sometimes hampered because participants can't seem to agree what "physical" is. I'd like to invite all physicalists and those who believe they are clear about what physicalness is to create an exact definition.
I'll offer my opinion first. I think physicalness is mass, immediate effects of mass, and all that which has come about from the presence of mass. Since all mass we know of is believed to have originated with the Big Bang, then I'd also restrict the definition of physical to how mass and mass effects have developed from that event.
In a past thread I posted the following in support of my definition:
Princeton's Word Reference site give the definition of physical science here:
- the science of matter and energy and their interactions
On the same page you can find a definition for physicalness:
- the quality of being physical; consisting of matter
The Word Reference site gives several relevant definitions of physical here:

1* physical - involving the body as distinguished from the mind or spirit . . .
2* physical - relating to the sciences dealing with matter and energy; especially physics; "physical sciences"; "physical laws"
3* physical, tangible, touchable - having substance or material existence; perceptible to the senses; "a physical manifestation"; "surrounded by tangible objects"
4* physical - according with material things or natural laws (other than those peculiar to living matter); "a reflex response to physical stimuli"
6* physical - concerned with material things; "physical properties"; "the physical characteristics of the earth"; "the physical size of a computer"

Of Physicalism the Wikipedia says:
Physicalism is the metaphysical position that everything is physical; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. Likewise, physicalism about the mental is a position in philosophy of mind which holds that the mind is a physical thing in some sense. This position is also called "materialism", but the term "physicalism" is preferable because it does not have any misleading connotations, and because it carries an emphasis on the physical, meaning whatever is described ultimately by physics -- that is, matter and energy.

Actually there is no such word that independently would be written as physical unless it is in the form of adjectives. it is just like asking what is good?or how good is good? we say 'physical properties' , 'physical mass', perhaps 'physical being'.
try this, have you heard about Dr. Ivan pavlov and russian cummunist leader Starlin. when Starlin saw Pavlove's experiment about conditional and unconditional reflex behaviour mmodification taht was carried out on a dog with a bell and food, he just asked if he could do the same with the humans. that may be something 'PHYSICAL' u wanted to know about. may be it means "huamn can be physical" or "can be governed bys ome physical laws"