What Is Meant by Materialism

That's a serious question.

There's a defense of materialism on Tech Central Station, which would be more convincing if it included a non-circular definition of materialism. (Let's see … Materialism is a matter of rejecting supernatural explanations and supernatural explanations are those that reject materialism …)

I have blogged a few months ago on a possible definition of materialism. According to the original materialist theory, Epicurean philosophy, all events were a matter of rearrangements of atoms in the void. In today's physics, there are phenomena with other causes. Even if you discuss elementary particles in general as well as atoms, a physics in which particles can be created or destroyed and in which the void is a participant as well as a background isn't that Epicurean. (Come to think of it, Newtonian action at a distance wasn't that Epicurean.)

It's always possible to move the goalposts and claim that today's physics is materialist anyway. It can, for example, be understood rationally. On the other hand, that brings us back to circular definitions …

Essential disclaimer: According to some interpretations of quantum mechanics, events don't have a definite existence until they are perceived. According to what I think of as the Nitwit Interpretation of quantum mechanics, you can prevent events from having a definite existence by refusing to perceive them. That's going waaay too far. Events have a way of making you perceive them. There's no way you can ignore a nuclear bomb going off, no matter how stoned you get.