By sitting under an apple tree. Have you not heard of gravity? Have we not covered this ground?

By sitting under an apple tree. Have you not heard of gravity? Have we not covered this ground?

What is invisible to the eye, can be quite visible to the mind. Unless of course we choose to see with and not through the eye.

Sorry nwr, but the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a very real problem as is addressed by the article that I began this thread with. If the universe is eternal, then it has had all eternity to for entropy to have taken it's course, so we have limited options.

By sitting under an apple tree. Have you not heard of gravity? Have we not covered this ground?

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Invisible qualities clearly seen?

What is invisible to the eye, can be quite visible to the mind. Unless of course we choose to see with and not through the eye.

Some people are blind.

Every Word Ringo... Every Word.

Rob writes



So you have evidence that gravity is immaterial is that what you are saying Rob?

Gravity is not immaterial. We do not yet know as much about it as we will in the future, so those questions go into the "Unanswered Questions folder" until we can find the answer.

But if your question were slightly different... if you were to have asked, 'do I have evidence of the immaterial'?

To that I would say yes!

So you already know that gravity is material. Just as I thought...

There is no unanswered question when you already know the answer. What you mean is one thing... what you actually said is... 'the evidence will be found in the future, to prove our philosophical belief'.

It is the evidence that is missing, not the questions. The questions are what you are avoiding.

Science is about looking at the evidence we have, not searching for evidence to prove what we have predetermined the natural world to be.

Materialism is about searching for evidence to prove what might be. It is not science, but philosophy. But there are other philosophical lenses by which to interpret the empirical evidence.

Materialism is about searching for evidence to prove what might be. It is not science, but philosophy. But there are other philosophical lenses by which to interpret the empirical evidence.

Of course. We can see it, measure it, test it. Material.

And that is other point I am making... that immaterial entities (laws, or whatever we want to call them) exist. We can see the effects of immaterial things on material things, but not the immaterial thing itself.

I am only making the case for the immaterial in general.

This is not difficult to grasp.

The laws/descriptions about material things are not "things". A fiction, whether internally consistent or not, is not reality.


Anything "immaterial" is inherently impossible to grasp.

Eddington does not say that his scientific table contains no material substance (although
he questions it), nor can we now. The idea that everything is to be explained as a
construct built from some replacement for Newton’s “hard, massy” material atoms is a
theme [3] still capable of motivating scientists. If elementary particles have failed to be
elementary, no matter, a search for the ‘ur-atom’ still proceeds.

But it is not the ‘ur-atom’ but a contrary theme that I want to explore. Eddington’s
captivating review of modern science shows that the material substance of the universe is
on the defensive in this century, reduced at most to scattered specks in the emptiness, its
garrisons pulled together in isolated posts. Of course, it does not necessarily follow that
by conceding ground in the spatial arena, matter has lost sovereignty in the sphere of
understanding. But, in fact, matter’s position is not good there either. For the scientist
who can see Eddington’s second table, the locus of understanding is not in matter, the
particles, but in the interactions among them. We do not say, what an electron is, but we
do write laws for how it interacts with photons and other electrons. Thus even for the
action-at-a-distance atomic theorist, the locus of understanding is not in the specks of
matter, but in the intervening space through which the particles communicate in order to
interact, and in the patterns of higher symmetry in the laws describing their interactions.

Part of Einstein/s genius was his ability to see real if invisible things inhabiting the
emptiness in Eddington’s table, where so many others had seen nothing. Attempting to
explain how we grasp external realities, Bronowsky tells a delightful tale [4] of a Sherpa
mountaineering guide who had for a lifetime known two mountains seen from two
different valleys, and called by their own proper names in the different local languages.
The guide reacted with the pleasure of scientific insight when a European climber
suggested that they were the same mountains, seen from different viewpoints. And the
guide could then even verify this to his greater satisfaction by recognizing features visible
in both views. In some such way an infant must correlate his varying retinal images as he
turns a toy over in his hand and achieves the conception of independently existing objects
that we all share in common discourse. This was Einstein’s approach, also in special
relativity. He had no need for the Michelson-Morley experiment. He instead played with
a simple electromagnetic experiment in his mind. Viewing this experiment one scientist
could see electric forces at work, another magnetic forces. The E and B forces were, to
infant scientist Einstein, mere retinal images. But he soon saw, and taught others to see,
the really existing thing, the invariable object in the external world (indeed in empty
space) that gave rise to them, namely the electromagnetic fields F. Notice how different
my emphasis is from the usual statement that Einstein unified the two vectors E and B in
the tensor F. It is not the unification I stress, but the grounds he found for conviction in
the existence of some external reality (here F). By this insight Einstein discovered fields
in nature as surely as Galileo discovered the solar system by showing it to us (actually a
model of it) from a new viewpoint in turning his telescope on the moons of Jupiter,
We must now skip rapidly on.

Einstein showed us that immaterial entities are fundamental constituents of the universe. He discovered (in the sense described above)
not only the electromagnetic field, but also the first conscious use of what is called
‘higher symmetries’, which is the use of the mathematical structures as co-authors in
writing the laws of physics, and not merely as the pen and paper that communicate and
embody the laws when written. (Perhaps in these higher symmetries we will find those
further embodiments of geometry in physics for which Einstein had long searched, as
Dirac has reminded us.) The extent to which these generative structures will be seen as
fundamental constituents of ordinary matter is not yet known. Most theories of this type
(general relativity, Yang-Mills, harmonic maps) are only beginning to be explored and
we cannot have a sound philosophical reaction to vague hints of insights speculated for
achievement in the future.

Perhaps you are unable to grasp it Ringo. I am not.

And I don't think you have a problem of grasping so much as a problem of not wanting to be led (by reality) away from what you want reality to be.

You can argue your position and still give a little ground now and then. Giving up one point, does not mean your whole worldview is in error.

You may turn out to be right. But you had better make sure you are with all of your mind, soul, heart, and strength.

We should all put truth ahead of partisanship.

I can "grasp" Frodo in the same way that you grasp your own immaterial fantasies. That doesn't make them anything other than convenient fictions.


Look in a mirror. (Hint: The mirror is material and real. The reflection may be "immaterial" but it is only perceptible by real material eyes.)

Be honest. You're the one who believed in God first and only later thought up all this voodoo to prop up your faith.


How can I give any ground when you won't even stand your ground? How can I concede anything when you don't even respond to most of what I say? You can't just blather a point and expect people to concede that you're right. You have to deal with the counterpoints.

Get used to it. I won't fall down until I've been dead a week.


You really don't get it, do you? It isn't about being "right" at all. It's about becoming a little less wrong every day.


You're the one who's wearing a Bible Party armband.

The laws/descriptions about material things are not "things". A fiction, whether internally consistent or not, is not reality.


Anything "immaterial" is inherently impossible to grasp.

Eddington does not say that his scientific table contains no material substance (although
he questions it), nor can we now. The idea that everything is to be explained as a
construct built from some replacement for Newton’s “hard, massy” material atoms is a
theme [3] still capable of motivating scientists. If elementary particles have failed to be
elementary, no matter, a search for the ‘ur-atom’ still proceeds.

But it is not the ‘ur-atom’ but a contrary theme that I want to explore. Eddington’s
captivating review of modern science shows that the material substance of the universe is
on the defensive in this century, reduced at most to scattered specks in the emptiness, its
garrisons pulled together in isolated posts. Of course, it does not necessarily follow that
by conceding ground in the spatial arena, matter has lost sovereignty in the sphere of
understanding. But, in fact, matter’s position is not good there either. For the scientist
who can see Eddington’s second table, the locus of understanding is not in matter, the
particles, but in the interactions among them. We do not say, what an electron is, but we
do write laws for how it interacts with photons and other electrons. Thus even for the
action-at-a-distance atomic theorist, the locus of understanding is not in the specks of
matter, but in the intervening space through which the particles communicate in order to
interact, and in the patterns of higher symmetry in the laws describing their interactions.

Part of Einstein/s genius was his ability to see real if invisible things inhabiting the
emptiness in Eddington’s table, where so many others had seen nothing. Attempting to
explain how we grasp external realities, Bronowsky tells a delightful tale [4] of a Sherpa
mountaineering guide who had for a lifetime known two mountains seen from two
different valleys, and called by their own proper names in the different local languages.
The guide reacted with the pleasure of scientific insight when a European climber
suggested that they were the same mountains, seen from different viewpoints. And the
guide could then even verify this to his greater satisfaction by recognizing features visible
in both views. In some such way an infant must correlate his varying retinal images as he
turns a toy over in his hand and achieves the conception of independently existing objects
that we all share in common discourse. This was Einstein’s approach, also in special
relativity. He had no need for the Michelson-Morley experiment. He instead played with
a simple electromagnetic experiment in his mind. Viewing this experiment one scientist
could see electric forces at work, another magnetic forces. The E and B forces were, to
infant scientist Einstein, mere retinal images. But he soon saw, and taught others to see,
the really existing thing, the invariable object in the external world (indeed in empty
space) that gave rise to them, namely the electromagnetic fields F. Notice how different
my emphasis is from the usual statement that Einstein unified the two vectors E and B in
the tensor F. It is not the unification I stress, but the grounds he found for conviction in
the existence of some external reality (here F). By this insight Einstein discovered fields
in nature as surely as Galileo discovered the solar system by showing it to us (actually a
model of it) from a new viewpoint in turning his telescope on the moons of Jupiter,
We must now skip rapidly on.

Einstein showed us that immaterial entities are fundamental constituents of the universe. He discovered (in the sense described above)
not only the electromagnetic field, but also the first conscious use of what is called
‘higher symmetries’, which is the use of the mathematical structures as co-authors in
writing the laws of physics, and not merely as the pen and paper that communicate and
embody the laws when written. (Perhaps in these higher symmetries we will find those
further embodiments of geometry in physics for which Einstein had long searched, as
Dirac has reminded us.) The extent to which these generative structures will be seen as
fundamental constituents of ordinary matter is not yet known. Most theories of this type
(general relativity, Yang-Mills, harmonic maps) are only beginning to be explored and
we cannot have a sound philosophical reaction to vague hints of insights speculated for
achievement in the future.

Perhaps it would help you to read what C.W Misner had to say on the matter (or lack thereof ). This is only a clip of a great 4 page rebuttal to your disbelief. It is meant to help you (and other struggling materialists) come to terms with 20th (and 21st) century understanding of existence.