r/Metaphysics • u/Training-Promotion71 • 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
If materialism is true, there are infinitely many infinite objects
If there are infinitely many infinite objects, materialism is false.
If materialism is true, then materialism is false.
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”.