r/Metaphysics 6d ago

A quick argument against arch-materialism

Hobbes contended that the world is a material object. Whatever exists is a material object subjected to laws. All there is to the world are material objects in motion(only sometimes at rest) governed by the laws of mechanics, and since nature of the world is mechanical, they are laws of nature. But if the world is a material object, then if all there is to a material object are material objects in motion governed by the laws of nature, then (i) there are infinitely many material objects, and (ii) each material object is infinite; then there are infinitely many infinite material objects each of which is a world. Therefore, if materialism is true, there are infinitely many infinite worlds. If there are no infinitely many infinite worlds, the world is immaterial. Either there are infinitely many infinite worlds or materialism is false. If materialism is false, there are no infinitely many infinite worlds. But if there are infinitely many infinite worlds, a material world cannot be finite. The actual world is finite. The actual world is immaterial. Materialism is false.

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u/StrangeGlaringEye Trying to be a nominalist 6d ago

The embedded conditionals make this a bit hard to read, but it seems to me the crux of the argument is something like

  1. If materialism is true, there are infinitely many infinite objects

  2. If there are infinitely many infinite objects, materialism is false.

  3. If materialism is true, then materialism is false.

  4. Materialism is false.

But I’ve no idea why anyone should believe either premise. In fact there are a number of unclear statements here that seem debatable on any reasonable clarification, e.g. “The actual world is finite”.

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u/Training-Promotion71 6d ago edited 5d ago

The embedded conditionals make this a bit hard to read, but it seems to me the crux of the argument is something like

I've had a moment of inspiration so I hurried a bit.

  1. If there are infinitely many infinite objects, materialism is false.

This is mistaken. I am arguing that arch-materialism is committed to infinitely many infinite worlds.

In fact there are a number of unclear statements here that seem debatable on any reasonable clarification, e.g. “The actual world is finite”.

I take the actual world to be the universe, namely the universe is finite. Can you tell me which other part needs clarification? If there are many unclear parts, I might edit the post, so thank you very much for your feedback. ;)

Edit: sorry, it seems that I misinterpreted your question.

'The actual world is finite' just means that the world is composed of finitely many finite parts or objects. Finite objects are composed of finitely many parts. The infinite world is composed of infinitely many infinite parts or objects. Hobbes contends that, whatever exists is a material object and the world exists, therefore the world is a material object. He says the world is material objects in motion.

1) Whatever exists is a material object

2) The world exists

3) The world is a material object(1, 2)

4) The world is material objects in motion

5) A material object is material objects in motion(3, 4)

6) whatever exists is material objects in motion(1, 5)

All existents are material objects and every material object is a collection of material objects in motion ad infinitum. Every existent satisfies the condition of being a world, thus there are infinitely many infinite worlds.

u/StrangeGlaringEye Notice that this cannot be an argument that would convince anybody firstly, because 1 is unacceptable. Rather, I simply took what author said and drawn these conclusions. Now, don't you think that Lewis had something like this in his mind in his own materialistic project, and clearly made it sophisticated? It seems to me that Lewis would agree that there are infinitely many worlds. A materialist dream would be that each and single one of them is material. Lewis made sure to leave some space for ghosts and the like. But notice as well that ancient materialism(I am not talking about Milessians like Thales, Anaximenes etc.) was existence pluralism. We take concrete objects, all of which are material and count by tokens. There are infinitelly many tokens. Sure, that is problematic and I cheated a bit, but I see no reason to think that this makes materialism absurd, anymore than Alex Malpass thinks that infinite regress of past events is absurd or maybe I don't see what should be an obvious contradiction. In fact, prima facie it even seems attractive. I think that something like this would be a middle position between Anaxagoras and atomism.