Talk:Materialism

I think this needs a full citation for the book you used. --John 00:09, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Yeah... I think we need citations on some of this. Barikada 21:24, 25 January 2008 (EST)

Economics isn't materialism?

This article states that Democrats tend to be more materialistic than Republicans, however, it cites economics as an issue which Republicans traditionally focus on, and uses this as evidence that they are less (or not) materialistic. Well, my issue with this is that as far I can guage through my knowledge of the concept, economic is the truest form of materialism! It is essentially an axiomatic, consensus-based system of trading commodity for hypothetical value, is it not? Green paper or shiny metals in exchange for useful goods? Perhaps if this article could explain this ostensible contradiction away by explaining that Republicans are more likely to view it as a vital organizing device for society, or at least, that they are prone to downplaying this aspect of the hypocrisy. Just sayin'.

Hollybibble 17:25, 19 April 2008 (EDT)

We definitely need citations for this article, maybe quote some democrats and show their materialistic nature. Or evidence supporting the claims of a trend in democratic policies to only focus on superficial things like gender, race, and wealth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Discipleof88 (talk)

How are race, gender and wealth superficial? A poor black female is certainly not the same as a rich white male, in my experience. Also, the quote in the quotes section does not have a name associated with it, and is linked to a website written by a man with a fundamental misunderstanding of the fundamental forces which are: gravity, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, and the electromagnetic force. Furthermore, the sentence "Materialism denies that most great intellectual breakthroughs were the result of faith in the unseen" has no associated explanation whatsoever, and probably assumes that it is true because most scientists had faith in the unseen, without realizing that that might not be the cause of the breakthrough. -JZim

Race at least is superficial. Why do you say that the quote is written by someone with a "fundamental misunderstanding of the fundamental forces"? As for the cause of the breakthroughs, see Natural science#beginnings; it was a cause. Philip J. Rayment 20:58, 7 November 2008 (EST)

I mentioned that fundamental misunderstanding bit because the author of the article conveniently ignores the underlying principles of, say, hard drive-making. In his article he cites as a tenet of his hypothesis that a hard drive is no heavier when it is full than when it is empty, and therefore that it contains nothing in either state, and thus that information does not exist physically. In fact, hard drives are built on the principles of basic electronics, which incorporate the fundamental force called electromagnetic, in that electrons are moved through the hard drive and switching states of bistable multivibrators between 1 and 0. Electrons (actual particles with mass and energy), silicone and germanium and semiconductor junctions in general, governed by Boolean algebra is by no means outside of the physical world. The same goes for the great mini-supercomputer we call a brain. In light of this, his entire argument falls apart, because the presence of information is explained by processes well within the material realm, and the quote in the quotes section is obsolete and wrong.

In addition, I read the Natural Science article, and it really confused me. I see no logic in it whatsoever.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by JZim (talk)

Well, I guess I can't do much about your inability to understand the Natural Science article, unless you can explain what is confusing you about it.

As for the hard drive example, your response totally sidesteps the point. His comments about information not being physical are quite correct. See information for more. You are still not clear what you are referring to, in that the linked page of his doesn't mention hard disks (or drives), so I'm only going by what you say he says. Information is found in the arrangement of matter (including the state of electrons), not in their presence. Processes in the material world do not explain the origin of information; they can only explain the medium on which it is stored and transmitted. His quote in this article page is quite correct.

Philip J. Rayment 21:30, 7 November 2008 (EST)

I read the information article. It simply reinforces the argument presented on the website in question (which I suggest you read) and does not actually serve as a reliable resource for supporting evidence. In the natural science article, I noticed that it states that science is not possible without Christianity, and the pursuit of science outside of Christianity is merely unfounded idle speculation. It also strongly implies that without Christianity, the concept of a real, orderly, and observable universe is impossible, and states that we are rational because God is rational. These conjectures seem biased and illogical to me. Perhaps I am devoid of the particular logic that is required to decipher the article as logical. I have long held that I am too sane for society. As to the problem of information not being physical, we could use the exact same argument to show that feelings, visions, causes of physical movement, etc etc are separate dimensions in and of themselves, and then we would simply flummox ourselves into insanity, and achieve nothing. Alternatively, we could simply accept that information can exist physically in that the medium in which it exists actually IS information, much as the space in which we live, which is not entirely populated by matter, exists physically because it can only be explained physically and cannot exist without physical interaction. Lastly, the origin of information can well be random, as has been shown multiple times by scientists and idle thinkers alike, depending on the method of interpretation (is p an r or is r a p?) and information can be taken to be a record of observable processes (per Pavlov's experiments). --JZim 10:52, 8 November 2008 (EST)