On Dec 25, 4:54 am,

Robert Epstein <vze25...@verizon.net> writes:

Lee Rudolph wrote:

...

Leaving Tang to speak for himself, I'll say for myself that I'm a
hard-core physicalist at heart: there is (by my lights) nothing but
Everything, and Everything is physical; within Everything (WARNING:
a spatial metaphor just sneaked in) there are many subsystems, among
them "bodies" and their "sensations", and if anything I try *not* to
valorize these subsystems, though I surely acknowledge them

Since sensation is surely not itself a "thing" where does that fit into
hard-core physicality?

By my lights it certainly *is*. I see no point in an ontology in which
what might be called "material objects" (more or less the usual
interpretation of "things") are privileged (or, as Brian might say,
valorised) over , for instance, relations among material objects,
relations among such relations and material objects, etc., etc.;
to slip into mathematical jargon (at the risk of coming across like
Peter Olcott), for me a "thing" can be (fully and faithfully)
modelled as a member of the constructible universe of sets with
ur-elements being the "material objects" (or, perhaps--I prefer this
but don't insist on it--a member of so-called "finite rank"). I
take this ontology to be consistent with, and a sufficient ground for,
the ideas in Ryle's _A Theory of Mind_ and suchlike. Certainly the
evolved bodies of creatures that have been studied (starting, maybe,
with Jerry Lettvin's article "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's
Brain") directly perceive not only (some) "material objects" but
also, and importantly, (some) relations: the frog's eye (*not* its
brain) perceives "flylike motion", and the human eye (or at least
partr of the visual system anterior to the brain) perceives
"parallelism" and "straightness" (after a few weeks of life outside
the womb, absent extraordinary conditions).

My use of the word "subsystem" earlier was an attempt to avoid
talk of "sets". But it's just as well you've prompted me to come
clean, since "system" and "subsystem" do run the risk of implicitly
valorizing certain "things"--in my sense--over others, namely
the ones which are "systematic": yet, by my lights, systematicity
is not an inherent "property" of a "thing", it's (merely though
importantly) a relation between a "thing" and that (for instance,
a speaker, thinker, writer, or frog) to which the "thing" appears
"systematic".

Lee Rudolph

What material objects can be shown to be ur-elements? The best
description of nuclei is in terms of the ur-feld of Heisenberg and
Duerr, and it can be shown that the ur-feld is a field of
consciousness, which means that infinite consciousness is at the core
of every atom. G-D sustains the universe from within each atom. Not
just the force between material objects, as Newton already knew, but
the very existence of those material objects, is an expression of the
Will of God.

As for physicalism, it is a vastly oversimplified worldview. Allowing
for hypostatic levels of substance, as do the Neoplatonists, is a much
richer structure, if one is shamanistic enough to discern that
structure. Being somewhat knowledgable about the meta-physics of
extra-physical reality, I cannot imagine how anyone could llimit
themselves to the straitjacket of physicalism.