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Comment by goatlover | Hacker News Reader

Do we have proof of any phenomenon being physical?

What we have are various phenomenon that we attempt to classify. Some would like there to be one meta category we can lump everything into. That's typically called material or physical. But it could also be labelled ideal or mental, from a different categorization scheme.

The problem we've had so far is that some phenomena are not easily placed into the one all-encompassing meta category. It would be easier for us conceptually if we could make it all fit, but we haven't quite succeeded so far.

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Actually I think the grandparent comment should be read "...proof [of the truth] of any phenomenon..."

I suggest the problem is with the concept "true".

The assumption that all phenomenon have a physical basis is exceedingly practical and produces fantastic predictive success. "True-ness" as it is intuitively defined is not interesting in this case, indeed it may be nonsense.

Stated another way, if we're going to describe "true" as some aspect of reality that we can never directly perceive but only get at through fallible senses and perceptions then we are not only flirting with something that is likely a-priori unprovable but also likely very uninteresting.

> But it could also be labelled ideal or mental, from a different categorization scheme.

Whatever label you put to the category, they are all in the same one.

Wouldn't it depend on what sort of attributes phenomena in the category are supposed to have? If we say that everything is material, then presumably we mean that there is a criteria for what makes something material, probably along the lines of what physicists use to make physical theories.

Otherwise, our category should just be called "everything".

I've always found that line of argumentation very disingenuous[1]. Of all the explanations we have for anything that has ever been explained, anywhere in any time, they all fall in the physical/material category.

This of course doesn't mean there could never be another explanation. But the time to take it seriously is when serious evidence is presented.

Just because we can imagine a certain reality in which events, actions and things might occur in a different way, doesn't mean it is this reality.

[1]The argument is disingenuous, not you of course.

> Of all the explanations we have for anything that has ever been explained, anywhere in any time, they all fall in the physical/material category.

So far we haven't come up with a decent explanation of consciousness which is why I am prepared to be a bit more open minded. The fact you can't observe it, only experience it adds to that. It may well be physical, but it may not.

It might be an entirely different thing altogether! why restrict our "open mind" to only those two choices?

> So far we haven't come up with a decent explanation of consciousness which is why I am prepared to be a bit more open minded.

Then we should say we don't know. It's disingenuous to say that because we don't have an answer, or as in this case, a full and complete answer, then it means that it might be this entirely different thing for which nobody has any evidence, no one has any explanation and no one can even describe or define.

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