What is 'causally closed' and does it imply materialism?

Thanks for the puzzle:

Here's something very related,

excerpt from:

http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/09/23/

The conclusion goes like this,

 

The author has slightly addressed your concern here

because we haven't been able to explain, observe or otherwise understand certain events in the universe dosn't mean they won't be understood at a later date through better technology or process.

I have to say that you have brought up my contention with the theory.

Let's say gravity is X and mass is A and the effects of gravity are B.

We observe A and we observe B and these two observables lead us to a conclusion of X yet we cannot observe X. Is X material or what?

 

What makes you think that there is something to gravity over and above its effects? Or, in other words, what makes you say that we can't observe gravity? Certainly I seem to observe gravity all the time, not directly, but indirectly by unconsciously postulating that there is something that explain the similarity in the way things fall. So I observe a similarity, which we call "gravity", by observing individual effects.

 

That's an assumption of X not an observation of X.

 

All observation are "assumptions" to some extent. For example, we observe individual atoms only by observing the readout of an electron micoscope. We are thus making an assumption that the readout tracks what is really going on at the atomic level, an assumption that is justified by theory. Likewise we observe gravity through our obvservations of a similarity (analogous to observations of readout) which is supported by a theory of gravity (analogous to our theory concerning how electron microscope works).

 

I have to agree about the omniscience concept. Wishful thinking with regard to the future of technology and its abilities is no reason to assume there will be an understanding of the mysteries we are faced with today.

I think its about verification.

When we are able to directly observe a phenomenon it means it's state or its condition is interacting with our own senses. Our senses are systems which we, in turn, are able to verify by observation (of neurons and brain activity).

So, the interaction between our senses and an observable phenomenon is a "confirmation" of the material nature of the interaction. (This does not take into account hallucination, illusion or misperception)


Is there a chance that mass is caused by the apparently unobservable property of "gravity" rather than the opposite?

 

I would like very much to digress towards the last post by bay wax. I have pondered Einstein's relativity and come to the conclusion that I am not content with the explanation of spacetime curvature as being entirely due to geometry. I think we have the tools to describe the curve but not the cause. What are your thoughts on this.