List of materialist assumptions about the nature of reality

[Brivido]

I'm working on a project and I need a list of materialist assumptions about the nature of reality. This is what I have come up so far:

1. The fundamental substance which makes up reality is matter.
2. Being human, means being a body.
3. There is an external material reality apart from the consciousness of the subject who perceives it.
4. The body/self is apart from the external material world.
5. Consciousness is generated by the interaction of material particles in the brain.
6. Death is a certain and unavoidable event, since consciousness is generated by the brain.
7. The universe is split in the dichotomy subject/object.
8. Mystical experiences are just brain states.
9. There is a clear and definitive distinction between external material reality and inner subjective experience.

This is a list of assumptions generated by Claude Ai:

1. Causal closure of the physical: Every physical event has only physical causes; there's no room for non-physical causation.
2. Emergent complexity: Complex systems and properties emerge from simpler physical components and interactions without requiring non-material explanations.
3. Scientific epistemology: Science is the most reliable method for understanding reality, with empirical evidence and testability as key criteria.
4. Determinism or probabilistic causation: Events are determined by prior physical causes following natural laws, even if quantum mechanics introduces probabilistic elements.
5. Evolutionary origin of mind: Consciousness evolved through natural selection as a biological adaptation with survival value.
6. Rejection of teleology: The universe and natural processes have no inherent purpose or goal-directedness.
7. Naturalistic ethics: Moral values are human constructs based on biological and social factors rather than transcendent principles.
8. Mathematical/logical truths as human constructs: Even abstract mathematical and logical principles are human cognitive tools rather than transcendent realities.
9. Uniformity of natural law: Physical laws operate consistently across time and space.
10. Methodological reductionism: Complex phenomena are best understood by analyzing their constituent parts.

What other assumptions would you add?

Edited April 14 by Brivido

[Breakingthewall]

6 minutes ago, Brivido said:

The fundamental substance which makes up reality is matter

Materialism say that matter is made of energy, and energy is something mysterious that is basically the vibration of the reality. Seems quite mystic 

[Breakingthewall]

9 minutes ago, Brivido said:

Rejection of teleology: The universe and natural processes have no inherent purpose or goal-directedness

That is inevitable, the only purpose of existence can be existing, any other purpose would be limited, finite. 

[Hojo]

 For number 4 Materialists deny the self exists but they don't act like it. They act like 'they' have a body then say 'they' are just clusters of neurons firing off. Then 'they' go around thinking 'they' are making decisions. Its completely contradictory unless they believe they are just a robot. If you told a materialist they were just a robot and to act like one they would be offended somehow?

A materialist thinks that the brain is just firing electrons going off, but when asked if they can imagine something specifically they can. Whats directing the energy? You could argue the person saying to imagine it but then youd have to admit you arent the energy in your mind you are someones words.

Edited April 14 by Hojo

[LastThursday]

1 hour ago, Brivido said:

What other assumptions would you add?

Materialists assume that everyone inhabits the same reality, and by extension that everyone is experiencing the same things in the same way. Science is built on this assumption.

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

1 hour ago, Brivido said:

The fundamental substance which makes up reality is matter

Materialism say that matter is made of energy, and energy is something mysterious that is basically the vibration of the reality. Seems quite mystic 

It's a bit more nuanced, there are also fields and forces and spacetime and quantum states. Quantum mechanics says that everything is ultimately disturbances in a field of some type.

Energy is conserved and Noether's theorem explains why. So that aspect of energy isn't so mysterious.

[Breakingthewall]

15 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Energy is conserved and Noether's theorem explains why. So that aspect of energy isn't so mysterious.

Energy is ultimately vibrating quantum fields, which no one knows what it means or why it happens.

[The Crocodile]

Eliminative materialism specifically says consciousness is an illusion.

[Breakingthewall]

Materialism recognizes its limitations. It doesn't know what the void energy is, whether the cosmological constant is constant, whether the law of entropy will lead to the Big Freeze, or whether there are variables that would reverse this. In short, it admits it knows nothing. So, to say that materialism is false is nonsense when materialism itself recognizes its ignorance.

[Leo Gura]

There are so many.

Like the assumption that reality can be understood through thinking, without state change.

[Aaron p]

That materialist science is a single, objective, unchanging ultimate authority! 

The assumption that science is not ideological, subject to core dogmatic alterations and has massive epistemic gaps (like not knowing what gravity is or only having explored around 20% of the oceans on earth...both of which are true). 

In reality science is a diverse, dynamic and decentralised collection of many disciplines, schools and factions, each with practicioners who often hold opinions that contrast and conflict with eachother and this collection of disciplines literally exists as ideas held in the imagination. The accuracy of these ideas when applied to the current state of reality changes nothing of the fact that what science literally is, is an idea...agreed upon by people.

 

Check out the following notes (you'll forgive the typos):

Edited April 15 by Aaron p

[joeyi99]

On 4/14/2025 at 0:10 PM, Brivido said:

 

1. Naturalistic ethics: Moral values are human constructs based on biological and social factors rather than transcendent principles.
    

Isn't this true?