What Matter? Exorcising the Ghost of matter

[Spirit_Warrior]

Thinking you just saw a ghost, but actually nothing was there, but hey that's matter too. We think it is there, we can be absolutely sure we can see something solid in front of us, we can hear it, we can touch it, smell it and taste. Then surely it is there right? Right, but the person who saw a ghost can be just as sure they saw it, touched it, smelled it and tasted it, but it's not really there.

Isn't a very radical thing to say that giant rocky mountain you see in front of you is not there? You can see it, you can hear it, you can touch it, you can smell it and you can taste it. No, actually is not radical, it is YOU who has called this sensory picture in front of you "Matter" You have made a lot of assumptions without even realising

1. It is rock solid
2. It is continuous
3. It is external
4. It is real
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This is what we can call "naive materialism"(aka naive realism) A lot of materialists, especially the scientifically ignorant ones are naive materialists. The first two assumptions are already disproven in physics, and the other two are not yet totally disproved, but are very far on their way to being disproved.

(1) We know what we think is solid, is not solid at all, it is 99.99999% empty space. Now to add more to this we know from around mid-20th century, not only is this thing we call "matter" 99.9999% empty space, but it only forms 5% of the universe. The rest of that 95% of "matter" is called dark matter and dark energy, ''dark" because we cannot see it. Is that matter?

(2) This was already disproved in the the early 20th century with quantum theory. So here is what we know: every moment every particle in this universe disappears from its current position and reappears in another position -- now you see it, now you don't. Every moment it appears and disappears. Where is it during this period when it disappears? Can we even say it is the same particle that reappears, or is the particle created and destroyed ever moment and replaced with another. And is that matter?

(3) Is it external? This one isn't yet proven, but it is damn right very close to being proven. A simple mathematical test devised by a quantum physicist John Bell known as the Bell inequality(without going into technical detail) tests two variables (1) locality and (2) reality. If the inequality is violated, then either (1) is false or (1) and (2) are false. The experiment has since been done and the inequality has been violated. This means we can say positively that locality is not true i.e., space does not exist. If there is no space there is no question of an 'internal' or an 'external'

(4) Is it real? Well, (3) already has thrown it into question. Since Bell, another physicist came up with another test known as the Legget's inequality, which test for the variable of reality more than it does locality. The variable of reality tests for whether consciousness is all involved in the construction of reality e.g. does it collapse the wavefunction or not. The experiment has been done, and this is the conclusion:

Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra "hidden variables". Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871).

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So that is as far as we have from the Physics side. Now let us interrogate it from the Philosophy side and I am going to look at a Hindu philosophy known as Advaita Vedanta which presents the clearest arguments for the assumptions we are making about what we call reality, but its conclusion materialists are not going to like(then again they don't like the conclusions of quantum physics either) I am not going to into technical details

1. There are ONLY 5 elements that make up "matter" No less and no more. What are those 5 elements? They are definitely not "hard" they are known as 'tanmatras' which literally means they measure out extension. There are 5 elements sound, touch, colour, taste and smell. In other words our reality is a sensory reality made of these sensory potentials. NOT MATTER.

Here is the proof: Suppose your brain is connected to something that provides sensory information of a remote location in a past period. If we feed this information into your brain at present, you will experience the location in the past, thinking you are witnessing something in the present which is not actually there. Your entire sensory universe is made of only 5 elements of sensory information.

Here is another proof: In dream, your mind receives sensory information, which creates space, time and objects. You experience yourself as being there, when you are not.

2. You experience not just the waking state, but dream state and dreamless sleep. You spend half of your life in states other than waking. However, you only assign reality to one of these states and that is waking. You do not think dream is real and dreamless sleep is like some temporal state of non-existence or non consciousness. Let us just look at just two states waking and dream. You experience exactly the same features of these states as the aforementioned when you are in the states (1) Solid (2) It is continuous (3) It is external and (4) it is real. It is only once you leave dream and enter the waking you falsify the dreaming state. Yet, by that logic, we have a see-saw between waking state and dream state. The waking state falsifies the dream state; the dream state falsifies the waking state --- and finally the dreamless sleep state falsifies both.

In the dreamless sleep we experience the true reality when both waking and dream disappear a reality with absolutely no space, time or objects. Therefore, the reality of space, time and objects cannot be real -- it is only an appearance.

On both physical and psychological analysis we find out this "matter" thing is a ghost, it is not there though we think we see it. With "matter" The materialist no longer has anything to hang this word "matter" on and therefore materialism is disproven.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

What?

 

[Nakosis]

On both physical and psychological analysis we find out this "matter" thing is a ghost, it is not there though we think we see it. With "matter" The materialist no longer has anything to hang this word "matter" and therefore materialism is disproven.

None of this "matters".

Matter occupies space and has mass. That's all that is required of it for physics. That makes it non-"ghosty".

 

[George-ananda]

In the end no one can tell us what matter and energy actually are. The deeper you look the more ghostly it becomes. I believe the teachers of the eastern/Hindu tradition that say matter is ultimately thought and ultimately not real as an independent entity. Brahman Alone is Real.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

None of this "matters".

Matter occupies space and has mass. That's all that is required of it for physics. That makes it non-"ghosty".

This is the problem, even a dream image occupies dream space and has dream mass in relation to the dream observer. Physics deals with images in waking space with waking mass. It is only that we call latter "matter" Also space itself, as I demonstrated with (3) itself appears not to exist.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

In the end no one can tell us what matter and energy actually are. The deeper you look the more ghostly it becomes. I believe the teachers of the eastern/Hindu tradition that say matter is ultimately thought and ultimately not real as an independent entity. Brahman Alone is Real.

Indeed, once you examine reality your ultimate conclusion is the field in which reality is not "matter" but "mind" or mind-field. The same mind that generates our waking reality also generates our dream reality. There is a proof for this. In dreamless sleep mind is absent, and space, time and objects are also absent; in dream and waking mind is present and space, time and objects are present. Therefore, mind is the cause of space, time and objects.

The conclusion is this there is no space, time and matter. It is just a mental creation. The mind associates one object in relation to another object which gives us "space" The mind associates one object in sequence with another object which gives us "time" Finally, the object itself it is the mind associating a series of moments of sensory information to give the impression of seeing something continuous.

In that case materialism is false and idealism is true --- reality is a mind-field.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What?

I got lost too.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

I got lost too.

Not really sure what there is to get lost about. The post is in standard clear English and makes clear points, sticking to the analogy of matter as a "ghost" where ghost is something you see, but is not really there; likewise matter is something you see etc but isn't really there.

 

[Twilight Hue]

This is the problem, even a dream image occupies dream space and has dream mass in relation to the dream observer. Physics deals with images in waking space with waking mass. It is only that we call latter "matter" Also space itself, as I demonstrated with (3) itself appears not to exist.

A reference is required for dreaming in a contextual sense. If you never saw, held, smelled, or tasted an orange, I suspect the results would be vastly different in context by which the mind envisions an orange to be in a dream and how it's spatial qualities are determined.

Matter is contextual by our standards which it serves as a reference point by which various forms are identified and brought forth through our atomic and molecular arrangements through forces of attraction and repulsion.

The question involves the spatial quality attributed to empty space determined by the influences through mass and matter that gives empty space it's quality.




.

 

[निताइ dasa]

I get what you are trying to say, but I don't think it's the whole picture. (I disagree with materialism, but I'm not an idealist either).

In Vedanta there are actually five subtle and gross elements. Taste, smell, sound, touch and sight are subtle elements, but they correspond to gross matter, which is in one sense real. Taste corresponds to earth. Touch corresponds to air. Sound corresponds to ether and so on. Even Sankara admits this.The sense organs when they attach to a sense object reveal the specific qualia of said object. That is why Nyaya's definition of physical matter, is that which produces a externally percievable quale (sensation). Like take a mango for example. Mango is physical matter, because when we experience it, we see a certain Color, we feel a certain texture, we taste a certain quality all of which are stimulated by the mango. The mango is the substratum of that qualia. In the dream, the soul goes inwards and detaches itself from the senses reveling only in the mind, which mixes the impressions of previous experiences to create dreams. The Gita clearly states that this world is manifest from two energies. para (superior) and apara (inferior) prakriti, the superior is the souls, the beings of consciousness who experience, and the inferior is matter which is nonconcious and perceived.

It is really only Adwaita, out of all the Hindu schools that makes the claim that only experiences exists and matter does not. The rest of the schools (whether it is Nyaya, Samkhya, and even the other Vedanta schools) are dualist. Even in Adwaita, the absolute oneness is only recognised in the paramarthika view not in the vyavahrika view. For example, in my tradition, matter exists, but it is simply a manifestation of Maya, so during creation and destruction, the sum of all matter collapses into itself and enters into the body of God during the night of Brahma and manifests itself again during the day of Brahma.


While I agree, there is no way to know empirically
that there exists anything outside of our experience, the question whether only the experience exists, or whether that experience is linked to some matter that exists objectively outside of us, are both assumptions (leading to idealism or dualism respectively). For this conclusion study of Sruti and the Vedas is needed, as well a rational thought.

Regarding your proofs, a Hindu dualist could very well claim that your brain in the vat thought experiment requires still an external source (of electrical signals) which supply your brain and lead to those experiences. This stimuli is real, because without it the experience cannot form. If matter is false, it cannot account for why we have more diverse and vivid experiences when the senses attach to an external object compared to when the object is conceived in thought alone. Like when I consider the thought of sensation of eating an apple, and compared it with the actual sensation of eating an apple, the latter is much for vivid, and this stands as proof that there does exist something outside of the mind that stimulates this more vivid sensation (this is Descartes proof for matter). Jaya Nitaai!

 

[Nakosis]

This is the problem, even a dream image occupies dream space and has dream mass in relation to the dream observer. Physics deals with images in waking space with waking mass. It is only that we call latter "matter" Also space itself, as I demonstrated with (3) itself appears not to exist.

If you could get space an matter to work constantly in dream space then physics could be applied there as well. It'd still be materialism. The problem is you can't do that, not that it's "dream" space. "waking" reality can be an illusion, metaphysics or whatever. The only thing that important is that mass and space work consistently. Therefore science can work with it. We've developed natural laws which have proven themselves to work. You can't do that with dreams and if you could it would just support the truth of materialism.

The way that materialism deals with dream, feelings, thoughts etc... is to say they exist as a result of a material process. Energy is an inherent property of matter. Basically without matter nothing can exist. Not you mind, not your soul. It's all dependent on matter.

To disprove materialism you'd have to prove something can exist without matter. I don't know how you could go about that. Of course you are free to believe otherwise.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

I get what you are trying to say, but I don't think it's the whole picture. (I disagree with materialism, but I'm not an idealist either).

Thank you, I am not actually against you, because I consider dualism philosophically an acceptable position and a far more stronger position than materialism. I am metaphysically an idealist, but in practice a dualist. As you have pointed out yourself, for an Advaita dualism is a pragmatic reality and idealism is reality as it really is. There is no place for materialism in our system, as materialism is basically based on the ignorance of misidentifying mind for matter and failing to come up with a proper ontological schema of reality or tattava. The Advaita shastra strongly condemn this position but respect the dualists position:

The deluded man considers the ego to be the mass of skin, flesh, fat, bones and filth. The means of discrimination knows the essential form of the self, which is the supreme truth, to be without these as characteristic marks

"I am the body" -- such is the opinion of a deluded man; of the learned the notion of I is only in relation to the body, as well as to the Jiva. Of the great soul possessed of discrimination and direct perception "I am Brahman," such is the conviction with regard to the eternal self.

O you of deluded judgement, abandon the opinion that the ego in consists in the mass of skin, flesh, fat, bone and filth; know that the real self is the all pervading, changeless Atman and so obtain peace

As long as the wise man does not abandon the notion that the ego consists of the body, organs and the rest, the production of illusion, so long there is no prospect of their salvation, even though they be acquainted with the Vedas and their metaphysical meaning

As ones idea of I is never based on the shadow or reflection of the body, or the body seen in dream or imagined by the mind, thus may it also be with the gross body.

Because the false conviction that the ego is merely the body is seed producing pain in the form of birth and the rest, pains must be taken to abandon that idea; the attraction towards material existence will then cease to exist.

Vivechudamani 161-167​

In Vedanta there are actually five subtle and gross elements. Taste, smell, sound, touch and sight are subtle elements, but they correspond to gross matter, which is in one sense real. Taste corresponds to earth. Touch corresponds to air. Sound corresponds to ether and so on. Even Sankara admits this.The sense organs when they attach to a sense object reveal the specific qualia of said object.

Actually the gross elements are just the subtle elements mixed with one another, this process is known as gr ossification(panchikarana) 1/2 of the one of the subtle element splits, mixed with 1/8 of every other subtle elements. Hence, why a gross colour element, is just 1/2 of subtle colour elements, followed by 1/8th each of sound, touch, taste and smell.

That is why Nyaya's definition of physical matter, is that which produces a externally percievable quale (sensation). Like take a mango for example. Mango is physical matter, because when we experience it, we see a certain Color, we feel a certain texture, we taste a certain quality all of which are stimulated by the mango. The mango is the substratum of that qualia.

There is a problem with this definition pointed out by Buddhism. If a substance is a just a cluster of qualities, then really only qualities and exist and not substances. The substance is just the mind's way of arranging a cluster of qualities, and the cluster of qualities change moment to moment. The same applies too every substance we perceive, it is just a way we can classify our practical reality into separate things, but it is merely the mind creating these divisions for the purpose of practical usage e.g. The body does not really consist of several different parts, there are clear markers in the body saying this is the head, this is the torso, these are the legs, these are the arms, the body is a single unit, but we classify it into separate areas for the purpose of practicality. Similarly, we can classify reality into substances for practical purposes.

In the dream, the soul goes inwards and detaches itself from the senses reveling only in the mind, which mixes the impressions of previous experiences to create dreams. The Gita clearly states that this world is manifest from two energies. para (superior) and apara (inferior) prakriti, the superior is the souls, the beings of consciousness who experience, and the inferior is matter which is nonconcious and perceived.

I agree that sense impressions collected during waking get recycled in dreams, and this accounts for dreams we have about events experienced during dream. However, it does not account for all dreams. There are dreams when we experience things we have not experienced before e.g. see people we have never met, learn things we had not yet learned e.g. the Chemist who discovered the Benzene ring, saw it prior in a dream as the symbol of a snake eating its own tail. There are dreams where blind people dream in colour. There are also shared dreams, where two or more people remember the same dreams. Then there are precognitive dreams where we dream of something and in the future in waking we experience that as de ja vu. This establishes a two way loop between the waking and dreaming; where we take into dream what we experience in waking, and take into waking what we experience in dreams. So again, we have a see-saw.

It is really only Adwaita, out of all the Hindu schools that makes the claim that only experiences exists and matter does not. The rest of the schools (whether it is Nyaya, Samkhya, and even the other Vedanta schools) are dualist. Even in Adwaita, the absolute oneness is only recognised in the paramarthika view not in the vyavahrika view. For example, in my tradition, matter exists, but it is simply a manifestation of Maya, so during creation and destruction, the sum of all matter collapses into itself and enters into the body of God during the night of Brahma and manifests itself again during the day of Brahma.

There is a reason for this. What we call "matter" is only a reference to those so-called "external" signals that impinging upon our senses giving us a sensory picture of what is supposedly outside. However, this assumes a dichotomy of external and internal, but in that case there needed to be a fixed position with reference to which we can say internal and external, In waking, that fixed position is the waking body. In reference to that we say that everything that is external to the body is 'external' and everything that is internal to the body is 'internal' So naturally, this leads to the conclusion I am the waking body and what is external are is waking space and waking objects. But in dream the fixed position is the dream body. In reference to that we say that dream space and dream objects are external. However, in dream the entire internal and external dichotomy is false, rather the dream body, dream space and dream objects are all taking place in the mind.

Now, coming back to the see-saw argument. We experience exactly the same features in both waking and dream re matter, continuity, external and real. When we are in waking we negate what we experience in dream as unreal, but by the same logic we should negate what we experience in waking by dream. As both states are mutually negating. Finally, we find that both waking and dream are negated by dreamless sleep where all four features vanish altogether and the mind becomes dormant. Hence, by the method of presence and absence(anivaya vyatireka) it follows: When mind is present, the four features are present; when the mind is absent, the four features are absent. Therefore the mind is the cause of the four features in both waking and dream. The same mind that generates dream also generates waking.

The dreamless sleep state corresponds to the waking state of Brahma when the entire universe is in a potential unmanifest state, and the waking state corresponds to the dreamless sleep state of Brahma when the entire universe is manifest. This is the purport of what Krishna says in in the Gita to Arjuna, "The wise are asleep when the ordinary man is awake; and awake when the ordinary man is asleep" Waking up in the dreamless sleep state by attaining Nirvilkapa Samadhi is liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth. The unliberated jiva is overcome by the sleep of Maya in dreamless sleep and thus remembers nothing, when in actual fact every night when we enter the dreamless sleep state we enter into Brahman.

Regarding your proofs, a Hindu dualist could very well claim that your brain in the vat thought experiment requires still an external source (of electrical signals) which supply your brain and lead to those experiences. This stimuli is real, because without it the experience cannot form. If matter is false, it cannot account for why we have more diverse and vivid experiences when the senses attach to an external object compared to when the object is conceived in thought alone. Like when I consider the thought of sensation of eating an apple, and compared it with the actual sensation of eating an apple, the latter is much for vivid, and this stands as proof that there does exist something outside of the mind that stimulates this more vivid sensation (this is Descartes proof for matter). Jaya Nitaai!

As I have tried to demonstrate the idea that the objects outside in space are causing the sensations rests on the idea of a fixed body in relation to which things are external. In the waking it appears the objects outside are the cause of our sensations; in dreaming it appears the objects outside are the cause of our sensations, but in both cases it is the mind and only the mind that is generating everything. It is generating not only the sensations, but also the body, space, time and objects. This truth is far easier to appreciate it in a dream than it is in waking, because in waking space, time and object appear to be fixed, but in dream space, time and objects are fuzzy --- however look at the actual fundamental reality of the physical universe according to current physics, it is not fixed as we experience it in our waking perception, but it is actually fuzzy like we experience it in our dream perception. Modern physics now even says fundamentally space, time and objects do not exist; like in our dreamless sleep state.

We can form a cosmology from this. At the fundamental level of this universe the universe is like dreamless sleep state, pure potential, unmanifest, undifferentiated(causal reality) at the subtle level of this universe the universe is like the dream state, manifest, differentiated, fuzzy(subtle reality) at the gross level of this universe the universe is like the waking state, manifest, differentiated, fixed(gross reality) It is at the waking state we experience reality the furthest from what it is and come up with a completely wrong deluded view of reality.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Everybody's different stories are all so interesting and fun.