Some Philosophical Arguments

I asked for quotes from physicists regarding immaterialism.


Here are some:


I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.


As 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 a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.



-- Max Planck


Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter.


-- Sir James Jeans


The frank realisation that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.


-- Sir Arthur Eddington


Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.


-- Erwin Schrödinger
 
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_plank
(referenes at the link)

Max Planck (Nobel Prize for Physics)
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. As quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
And...

As 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 a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)
Wolfgang Pauli (Nobel Prize for Physics)
For fear of the Pauli effect, the experimental physicist Otto Stern banned Pauli from his laboratory in Hamburg despite their friendship.[1]
...
The Pauli effect, if it were real, would be classified as a "macro-psychokinetic" phenomenon. Wolfgang Pauli was convinced that the effect named after him was real.[3] As Pauli considered parapsychology worthy of serious investigation, this would fit with his thinking; to this end, Pauli corresponded with Hans Bender and Carl Jung on the concept of Synchronicity.
...
Although I have no objection to accepting the existence of relatively constant psychic contents that survive personal ego, it must always be born in mind that we have no way of knowing what these contents are actually like "as such." All we can observe is their effect on other living people, whose spiritual level and whose personal unconscious crucially influence the way these contents actually manifest themselves.

"Modern Examples of Background Physics" ["Moderne Beispiele zur Hintergrundsphysik"] (1948) as translated by David Roscoe in Atom and Archetype (1992) edited by Carl Alfred Meier
Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics)
"Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/325387

Other quotes by Schrödinger:

The observing mind is not a physical system, it cannot interact with any physical system. And it might be better to reserve the term "subject" for the observing mind. ... For the subject, if anything, is the thing that senses and thinks. Sensations and thoughts do not belong to the "world of energy."
...
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.
...
There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind.
Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize for Physics)
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.
Albert Einstein (Nobel Prize for Physics)
I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
...
My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.
...
On the other hand, however, every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
Guglielmo Marconi (Nobel Prize for Physics)
The more I work with the powers of Nature, the more I feel God’s benevolence to man; the closer I am to the great truth that everything is dependent on the Eternal Creator and Sustainer; the more I feel that the so-called science, I am occupied with, is nothing but an expression of the Supreme Will, which aims at bringing people closer to each other in order to help them better understand and improve themselves. (Quotes about God...)​
J. J. Thomson (Nobel Prize for Physics)
J. J. Thomson believed in psychic phenomena and was a member of the Governing Council of the Society for Psychical Research for 34 years. (Source: Entangled Minds by Dean Radin)
Brian D. Josephson (Nobel Prize for Physics)
I shall argue for an explanation involving the idea that a more elementary form of life, not dependent on matter, existed prior to the big bang, and evolved at the level of ideas in the same way that human societies evolve at the level of ideas. Just as human society discovered how to use matter in a range of technological applications, the hypothesised life before the big bang discovered how to organise energy to make physical universes, and to make fruitful use of the matter available in such universes.
William Phillips (Nobel Prize for Physics)
I believe that the observations about the orderliness of the physical universe, and the apparently exceptional fine-tuning of the conditions of the universe for the development of life suggest that an intelligent Creator is responsible. (A Hitch in the Giddy-Up)
Charles Darwin
I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.
Kurt Gödel

Materialism is false.

The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.

The brain is a computing machine connected with a spirit.

I don’t think the brain came in the Darwinian manner. In fact, it is disprovable. Simple mechanism can’t yield the brain. I think the basic elements of the universe are simple. Life force is a primitive element of the universe and it obeys certain laws of action. These laws are not simple, and they are not mechanical.

The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation]. As quoted in H. Wang. "On 'computabilism' and physicalism: Some Problems." in Nature's Imagination, J. Cornwall, Ed, pp.161-189, Oxford University Press (1995).
More at the link incuding Nobelists Richard Smalley, Ernst Chain, Charles Robert Richet, John William Strutt, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Eugene Wigner, John Eccles, Otto Stern, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes, George Wald, Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and non Nobelists: Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Alan Turing, Wernher von Braun, David Bohm, Karl Popper, Louis Pasteur, Carl Jung, Sir Robert Boyle
 
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Do you know how to use "google"? I'm not your Bell Boy Paul. Try typing "quotes" and "Max Planck", or "quotes" and "Heisenberg". Be inquisitive. Ask questions. First step of a good scientist.

My Best,
Bertha
If you say so and so scientists, even imply some scientists called things immaterial it's in your best interest to provide quotes. If not you are asking readers to take your word as authority.
I believe you are conflating a physicist use of the word immaterial with having a spiritual meaning. Feel assured if you were to stand in a particle accelerator in the path of those immaterial particles whizzing around you would certainly feel the impact. I think I've heard that 1 proton would have the impact of a baseball traveling at a speed of 90 mph. I would provide a link but you can look that up.

My best,
evets010
 
If you say so and so scientists, even imply some scientists called things immaterial it's in your best interest to provide quotes. If not you are asking readers to take your word as authority.
I believe you are conflating a physicist use of the word immaterial with having a spiritual meaning. Feel assured if you were to stand in a particle accelerator in the path of those immaterial particles whizzing around you would certainly feel the impact. I think I've heard that 1 proton would have the impact of a baseball traveling at a speed of 90 mph. I would provide a link but you can look that up.

My best,
evets010
I am not here to educate you or help save you from your own ignorance. I suggest you read a few more physics books. You have a lot to learn.

My Best,
Bertha
 
I just quoted Werner Heisenberg. Other people here provided quotes from Max Planck, Schrodinger, and Wolfgang Pauli.

Get a clue.

My Best,
Bertha
You quoted only after asked again.
Would you consider the philosophical ruminations of those long dead physicists could be wrong?
 
Really? You know more about physics than Werner Heisenberg? LOL Ah you're good evets. Very funny. Enjoy your evening. :)

My Best,
Bertha
That's not the answer to the question I asked of you. I'll reiterate it. "Would you consider the philosophical ruminations of those long dead physicists could be wrong?"

It kinda makes me wonder why in all of creation all those physicists keep spending all that time pushing non existent nothings around in particle accelerators?

My Best,
evets010
 
That's not the answer to the question I asked of you. I'll reiterate it. "Would you consider the philosophical ruminations of those long dead physicists could be wrong?"

It kinda makes me wonder why in all of creation all those physicists keep spending all that time pushing non existent nothings around in particle accelerators?

My Best,
evets010
That's your argument? All those physicists using particle accelerators have proven Heisenberg wrong. LMAO!

HENRY! WE GOT A LIVE ONE HERE!!

My Best,
Bertha
 
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Do you know how to use "google"? I'm not your Bell Boy Paul. Try typing "quotes" and "Max Planck", or "quotes" and "Heisenberg". Be inquisitive. Ask questions. First step of a good scientist.
Ah yes, another example of someone spouting out an idea but then refusing to provide examples because, oh my, that would be doing some work.

“I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”
― Werner Heisenberg

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”
― Werner Heisenberg

From these two quotes, should we infer that Heisenberg would say he was not a physicalist, if pressed for his metaphysical leanings?

~~ Paul

Edited to add: Thank you for finally providing an example.
 
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The definition of purpose is not needed here. It's enough to agree on the fact that purposeful movements require consciousness to steer them, and, according to physicalism, consciousness is utterly incapable of steering any movements of matter as pointed out above.
You just defined purpose as requiring consciousness, so I'm not sure why you said we don't need to define it.

I have no idea why you think physicalism says that consciousness cannot steer movements. However, neither of your proofs mention consciousness, so it is not enough to agree on the fact you mentioned above.

"X has some control over Y" means that "X can have an irreducible influence on Y".
I don't know what an "irreducible influence" is.

It sure would be great if you'd post the text of your two proofs.

~~ Paul
 
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That's your argument? All those physicists using particle accelerators have proven Heisenberg wrong. LMAO!

HENRY! WE GOT A LIVE ONE HERE!!
Thoughtful comeback. So Heisenberg said:

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”

How do you think this relates to the fact that we can manipulate elementary particles in all sorts of subtle ways, including tracking them in accelerators? In particular, what could Heisenberg possibly mean by saying they are not "things"? And how are we able to manipulate non-things that are not fact-based?

~~ Paul

(I should note that we're getting a bit off track with these quotes. All I said was "If they decide that the word material, for example, doesn't seem right for some new discovery, then they can call it something else. It makes no difference to what they've discovered. Whether something like a fundamental force is material is really just a matter of definition." But it's an interesting conversation nonetheless.)
 
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Thoughtful comeback. So Heisenberg said:

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”

How do you think this relates to the fact that we can manipulate elementary particles in all sorts of subtle ways, including tracking them in accelerators? In particular, what could Heisenberg possibly mean by saying they are not "things"? And how are we able to manipulate non-things that are not fact-based?

~~ Paul
Good to see you're doing some research for yourself Paul. I am glad to see you using google more, I think that's a step in the right direction. Perhaps you might think about reading a book about Werner Heisenberg and the early quantum physics pioneers? Including Max Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schrodinger etc. You will then probably understand better why Heisenberg made that statement (and others) regarding fundamental particles, and why particles act the way they do in accelerators.

Again, I'm not here to educate you. Right now I want to make breakfast for myself, eggs and pancakes. I also have some reading to do for myself. But you ask a great question - why indeed did Heisenberg make such a statement? He was a well-known physicist that worked with Einstein and Bohr after all right? Asking questions is truly the beginning of scientific thought.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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Good to see you're doing some research for yourself Paul. I am glad to see you using google more, I think that's a step in the right direction. Perhaps you might think about reading a book about Werner Heisenberg and the early quantum physics pioneers? Including Max Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schrodinger etc. You will then probably understand better why Heisenberg made that statement (and others) regarding fundamental particles, and why particles act the way they do in accelerators.
I'm tempted to assume that you don't understand what they meant. Otherwise you could explain it.

I have here Schrodinger's The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," published by Ox Bow Press. Can you recommend which chapter I should read?

~~ Paul
 
I'm tempted to assume that you don't understand what they meant. Otherwise you could explain it.

I have here Schrodinger's The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," published by Ox Bow Press. Can you recommend which chapter I should read?

~~ Paul
I don't think you really understand tbh. I'm making eggs and pancakes right now. Von Neumann is a good source if you're ok with his math. A nice overview is a book by Manjit Kumar, "Quantum Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality." Of course, more has been established in recent decades, but the main foundational theories of QM have not been changed as far as I am aware ... i.e. Heisenberg is still rock solid.

My Best,
Bertha
 
I'm tempted to assume that you don't understand what they meant. Otherwise you could explain it.

I have here Schrodinger's The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," published by Ox Bow Press. Can you recommend which chapter I should read?

~~ Paul
I've been monitoring BH over several months. More often than not they don't answer a question. Instead prefer to respond non productively, usually with an insulting tone, even name calling.
 
I don't think you really understand tbh. I'm making eggs and pancakes right now. Von Neumann is a good source if you're ok with his math. A nice overview is a book by Manjit Kumar, "Quantum Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality." Of course, more has been established in recent decades, but the main foundational theories of QM have not been changed as far as I am aware ... i.e. Heisenberg is still rock solid.
Right, and the rest is interpretation. Whether a quark is material is really just a matter of interpretation.

I just don't understand why you won't talk about what you think Heisenberg meant when he said

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”

I can't think of a definition of fact that would allow us to trace and manipulate elementary particles if they were not factual, regardless of whether they are material.

~~ Paul
 
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