Materialism

Materialism regards Matter as the only reality in the world. Everything that actually exists is material. Every event in the universe results from the activity of matter. Life emerges from and returns to inorganic matter. Mind emerges of matter: All the mental terms such as sensation, will, reasoning and so on have reference to physical events or physiological changes in our material brains. (1)(2)

Moreover, the materialists tell us a magnificent story. It begins with the Big Bang and the appearance of simple elements such as photons, quarks, electrons, nucleus and finally atoms. All these elements enter in combinations and some of them although appearing by chance, do not disappear because they are compatible with earlier combinations. It is then explained that a logical necessity seems to replace mere chance as this series advance: Atoms create molecules and then organic molecules.

Life emerges from them. Living organisms evolve by the accumulation of micro mutations that only happen by chance. Through natural selection, some mutations are conserved and finally the process leads to the human brain, the consciousness and the thought. All the diversity of the universe, all the mysteries of our consciousness only come up from some particles of matter combined by chance and necessity.

Materialists claim that this story is the scientific truth. In fact Materialism brings a lot of hopeless paradoxes through its interpretation of mind body relations. It is facing many implausible hypothesis with change and evolution. It contains some miraculous explanations. Moreover, their theory results in poor ethics: Finally, Materialism is a Nihilism.

Many beginners in philosophy think that Materialism is the most obvious theory. In fact, it is not obvious at all.

People think that the existence of matter is as evident as the objects that they see or touch. Of course, educated people know that a table that appears compact is made up of empty space and a group of points called atoms with a nucleus and a lot of electrons orbiting around. These atoms finally reduced themselves to be a dust of particles or waves. However, people believe that they can easily reconstitute the table: Little grains are aggregated in bigger elements such as atoms, then these atoms are aggregated in bigger molecules and finally in compact objects just like the table!

In fact, this conception is wrong. There are not two or three different layers giving through aggregation a compact table. There is only one layer: A dust of particles specifically arranged. It means that there is only a specific configuration of particles and it is only our sensations which reconstitute a table that does not exist as a compact object in the external reality.

By the same token, people think that the properties (shape, color, odor) are inside the différent objects and related to them. Once again it's wrong. Consider for example two different elements such as oxygen and carbon, a gas and a solid. The oxygen atom is formed of a nucleus of eight protons with eight electrons circling around it. The carbon atom, on the other hand, has six protons and six electrons. All the atoms are basically made up of the same stuff: Electrons are the same whatever the atom. On the other hand, protons too are the same. Consequently, the difference between the properties of an atom of carbon and an atom of oxygen do not come from the intimate stuff of the electrons or protons since it is the same. The properties and their difference only result of the number and the position of the electrons on the orbits around their nucleus, that is to say their configuration. A configuration is a network of relations. It means that the relations, and not the stuff, create the properties that distinguish the carbon from oxygen.

Since the external reality is made up of waves and particles, the compact objects that we know are just some constant association of diverse sensations. Looking and touching are sensations. The color, the odor, and the shape of the table are sensations . Moreover, when we reach out toward this table, the effort undertaken is a sensation and the sight of our outstretched arm is yet another one. When an object falls on our head, the sound of the impact and the pain we felt are also sensations. In short, the compact objects we see, touch or smell do not exist outside our sensations and we challenge anybody to claim the contrary. (3)

Of course, it could be argued that the atomic turmoil is like a multitude of separate bees who appear like a compact ball when you see them at a close distance. However this comparison implies the vision as sensation. Likely through powerful microscope you can really see atoms. As you see them it's once again a sensation that has no accordance with the external reality of the atoms made up of particles and waves. You can object that a photo reflects a compact body but the photo by itself is just a cloud of tiny points and once again that is is your sensation which reconstitutes a compact body.

Of course, it becomes very difficult to relate this complex external reality to our daily sensations. What is more, our own senses, that is to say our body and its cells look also like some atomic turmoil. Considering that, the process of sensation is described as follow, in materialist descriptions: The particles and waves of the external objects enter in relations with some particles that compose the cells of our organs such as the eye. Then through chemical and nerve pattern, the brain is activated and it seems to the viewer that he is seeing the external world on a mirror in his mind. In fact all that stuff is reconstituted by the mind from the translation of the neuronal signals and consequently we experience compact things that do not exist in the external reality.

There are two hurdles in this description: Firstly, the qualities of the sensation such as colors, sound, perfumes, bitter or sweet do not exist in the external objects and into our organs. When it is said that the frequency of a vibration corresponds to the red it does not mean that either the frequency or the vibration are the red by themselves. So how can the external objects and our organs bring in the mind a quality that they do not posses? Secondly, any sensation, even at an infinite low level implies some pain or pleasure that don't exist neither in external objects nor in our brain: Let's suppose with Leibnitz that you can travel in the brain like in a windmill. You will observe chemical phenomenon or electrical waves but you will never find a pain or a joy.

The materialist theory of identity claims that feelings, such as pain, are caused by some neural state. Thanks to drugs, pain can be anaesthetized. It’s quite clear but if we admit that the neural state is the cause of the pain, we must accept the idea that the pain is by itself a material fact. For example when a candle is lighted on, you can say that the smoke is an effect because in examining it you will discover that it's made up of some molecules of gaz. Clearly, the cause is material and the effect too. Now can you argue that your feeling of pleasure is by itself made up of molecules? Indeed, the materialist explanation of sensation brings a lot of mysteries!

Materialism becomes more complicated when the basic particles are introduced into the framework of space time and motion. Materialists profess that space and time exist really by themselves: Things are in space and move according to time. As space and time are not really material things, it is always difficult to connect their supposed reality with the material things. Since the antiquity, these expected connections have been a fountain of hopeless paradoxes (See additional comments-4)

We must recall that space and time are today conceived as one integrated space-time framework. Relativity theory shows that neither the time interval between events nor the spatial interval are independent from the observer. As the observer is not an object but mainly a mind, Relativity implies that space and time are mind dependant ( Remember that Einstein was Deist ). It means that Relativity weakens the Materialism based on absolute space and time existing by themselves and independently of any mind.

Materialists have always had the difficult task of explaining how their materialism can take in account the psychological phenomena such as thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions,

Regarding action, the materialists consider that there is a part of the brain which governs all the phenomenon of our body and which enables it to act. This part of the brain is animated by some material facts. For example, it can be a lack of calcium. This material situation will start some anatomic and biologic phenomenon. As a result, you get up and go towards the door. Of course there is not any freewill in such a process. Materialists argue that instead of talking about the will, you have to seek the motives of the action: lack of calcium in our example. As a result the "will" is just a word, a linguistic habit that means nothing and the freewill does not exist. It's just an illusion.

Of course, certain actions such as impulses seem strictly determined by a motive and do not make intervene a will. For example, my pain is the cause of my will to go away from the fire. However even such a basic action can involve a will. For example, the pain can be a joy for a kamikaze and incited him to stay close of the fire. In fact the pain can cause several events and the determination of one out of them depends on my freewill. Once again, relations between the states of our body and our wills exist but it's wrong to say that the will does not exist by itself.

This example introduces a distinction between the will and the goal. Any free will has a goal and in some way is finalist. Of course as a goal does not yet exist, it is impossible to state that it could be represented by an existing material state. That is why the materialists who proscribe any finalism in nature cannot allow a goal to exist. As we have the feelings to have goal, the materialists must state that these goal are some reverberations of material states in the brain.

This position leads to absurdities: For example, I am hungry and I refuse to eat because I expect to be a top model. Do you mean that my goal to be a top model is a material state ? Consider now a more serious topic such as the manufacturing process of a combustion engine: The engineer must represent this goal in his mind through the complex sketch of a combustion engine. Now how could you accept that such a complex model is only a material state built up of particles and waves? More largely, how could you resign yourself to a materialist theory that is so much in contrast with our daily experience? (5)

Therefore, some materialists are obliged to admit the existence of the free will but it leads to another hurdle: If the will exists by itself, how could you explain that it is able to move or to be connected with your brain and your entire body that are only an atomic turmoil made up of radiations and particles?

According to materialism, thought and knowledge emerge along the evolution from the complexity of matter: An atom knows nothing. A vegetal just reacts to some impulses. The insects act in a far complex way like automate. Then, there is a significant progress with upper animals. Finally men know in different ways due to the complexity of their brain.

The problem is that whatever its complexity a matter is always made up of particles and waves which do not think and know nothing. Materialist neuroscientists accept that neurons of course do not think. However, when they are joined and interact, a new phenomenon emerges from their network: They call it human consciousness!

If this explanation was a proved scientific fact, we only should have to accept it. In fact once again, it's just an hypothesis fabricated in the mind of some hard thought materialists. We are absolutely free to assert that it's just a no sense: Do you seriously believe that your most secret thoughts are an atomic reality such as waves or particles ? Could you accept that?

Moreover, as a consequence of its genuine principle, Materialism destroys itself! Let's suppose that all my ideas are only determined by non intelligent atoms in my brain. Consequently, I have no reason to suppose that my ideas are true and hence I have no reason to suppose that my ideas result of atoms! it's impossible to state any truth including any "materialist truths".

Finally, the knowledge process remains a mystery. The materialist explanations do not resist to a close examination: We should have better to say that this stone enjoys a soul just like the primitives believe it. These materialist explanations do not bear more value than those of magic! Clearly, Materialism tends to be an animism.

The materialist description is not obvious but the story it tells seems magnificent. It begins with the Big Bang and the appearance of simple elements such as photons, quarks, electrons, nucleus and finally atoms. All these elements enter in combinations and some molecules although appearing by chance, do not disappear because they are compatible with earlier combinations.

It is then explained that a logical necessity seems to replace mere chance as this series advances: Atoms create molecules and then organic molecules. Life emerges from them. Living organisms evolve by the accumulation of micro mutations that only happen by chance. Through natural selection, some mutations are conserved and finally the process leads to the human brain, the consciousness and the thought.

Universe is supposed to have a beginning with the big bang. If the world had a beginning, what was the cause of it? Nothingness being at rest, one thing had to have started moving. This means that an irrational cause, such as Epicure ‘ clinamen’ or God snap of the fingers imagined by Descartes had to start the first movement.

Today, some believe that it could be a simple fluke but such an interpretation seems incompatible with what we know of the birth of the universe based on dozens of calculated cosmological constants so precisely tuned that they could not have occurred by chance. For example, mathematician Roger Penrose has calculated that the probability to get by chance the fine tuning of our Universe is one part of a quite infinite number. It means that the probability is quite zero.(6)

In order to preserve their argument based on chance and statistic, the materialists have imagined that there could be an infinite number of universes so that our fine tuning should be just a chance among million existing worlds deprived of such constants. Obviously, this cosmic lottery complicates the problem but does not solve it.

According to Materialism, life arose by an accident and then a great number of small genetics mutations, through natural selection, could explain all the evolution since a bacteria to a man. In short Materialism states that life emerges from organic molecules.

The first hurdle is the beginning of life. Of course organic molecules can appear easily by chance under primitive earth conditions. For example the Miller-Urey experiment shows that a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and hot vapor exposed to electrical lightning's brings new components such as amino-acids.

Unfortunately the real hurdle is to go from these organic components to a real simple living cell. Thanks to the computers, many scientists realize today that it's quite impossible for a random mix of organic molecules to produce a living cell. Odds to assemble by chance these elements in a single cell bacteria were one in 10 followed by 7 zeros. To assemble by chance such a bacteria, a computer would need a span of time superior to the duration assigned to our universe from the big bang until now!

More precisely, the DNA Double Helix that establishes each organism's physical characteristics appears to be incredibly complex. What is more, its components act as instructions and guide the formation of the cell. It means that the random of bits of matter should be able to produce not only a complex organism but also the information's that guide the formation of the cell.

Materialism states that living organisms evolve by the accumulation of micro mutations that only happen by chance. Through natural selection, some mutations are conserved and finally the process leads to the human brain, the consciousness and the thought.

The idea that complex organisms are created through random events and necessity has always been very difficult to believe because it implies that evolution has no goal. In other words, an eye has not been made up for seeing. The complex network of the eye is just the result of a blind random move of bits of matter: Firstly a primitive eye once occurred by chance. As it's useful to see, this primitive eye was then conserved through natural selection. Then, new random mutations improved the primitive eye and finally they drove to our present eye. Of course, all this process is not logically impossible but it becomes quite miraculous when we are facing the most complex structure of the universe, that is to say our own brain.

Lets examine the human brain. Neuroscience has concluded that every brain has billions of neurons, joined together in billions of networks by tiny filaments called dendrites and axons. According to Darwin explanation (7), evolution is a step by step process. It means that a very complex system like the brain has been built up step by step. Unfortunately, the intermediary steps cannot show any utility and one can wonder why they should be conserved by the natural selection. On the other hand a complex system may only function when it is complete just like any machine. So these two facts suppose that billions of useless intermediary steps have been conserved.

Just like for the DNA, the fact to imagine that such a complexity could appear through random mutations helped by necessity is more miraculous than the biblical withdraw of the red sea!

We have to underline that science has never proved the materialist theory of evolution in the same way as we say that the rotation of earth around the sun has been proved. Consequently we can think that this unproven and incredible hypothesis is not a matter of dogma and should be easily overcome to preserve the scientific idea of evolution: We have just to admit that evolution tends to a goal.

Indeed, evolution exists. Of course, mutations are constantly observed in nature and laboratories. Of course, the natural selection certainly plays a role in the conservation of the useful variations.

Nevertheless there is a gap between the observation of basic elements and the results such as the DNA and the brain. This gap can be crossed only in admitting that there is something like a finalism added to chance and necessity and acting into the evolution. Of course, finalism by itself should be unexplained but nevertheless if life shows a goal, the finalism cannot be assimilated to some supernatural hypothesis. The explanation of evolution should be comprehensive : Organisms have evolved over a long period through gradual changes, mutations, natural selection and in addition a goal.

Materialists claim that they do not need such an hypothesis. Sure they need it because their own hypothesis is incredible! It means that the materialists only Keep their hypothesis because it could be an asset for the philosophical materialism. In other words, materialists do not hesitate to sacrifice the scientific method just to conserve their materialist beliefs. Clearly, they want to adapt the Science to the Materialism. It's exactly a religious behavior comparable to those which had been denounced in the past.

In a materialist vision, ethics are nothing because all that happens, even your feelings, is just dictated by the evolution of matter: particles and waves!

Materialists argue that morality is too a product of the natural selection. Firstly, they equate moral discrimination with sense discrimination. The ability to decide whether this thing is better or worse than that thing is the same as the ability to feel a difference between heat and cold, light and dark. Consequently, moral discrimination results of a mutation conserved through natural selection. For example, a gene favoring a peaceful character has been conserved. Finally Human beings are moral not because they have chosen to be but because natural selection has conserved some characters which were useful in the life competition.

We shall not here discuss the credibility of this process. We only take notice that during the history a mechanism of natural selection has been effectively implemented through heredity and nobility. It has produced fierce leaders and we can assert that about 90% of the rulers had behaved like criminals along our history. Today most of the rulers in the dictatorships are yet some sadist and fierce individualities. It means that this natural selection failed to produce any morality. (see global history).

In fact, all these authoritarian societies have been defeated by the democracies. Does it mean that democracy is a result of a genetic mutation conserved through natural selection? In fact the success of democracies rely on freedom, creativity, technical progress and finally the free intelligence of the subjects. According to that, does it mean that our brain has registered along the history some variations? A comparison of the large and comprehensive Aristotle mind with those of our contemporary scholars does not tend to back up this assert!

Anyway, according to the materialism, good and evil are non sense. There are only some conducts adapted to the state of a society. It means that all the civilizations are equal: A Papua society based on cannibalism and ritual murders is equal to a democracy based on freedom and technical progress. Of course these two societies are different but it's absolutely forbidden to state that the latter is superior to the former! Obviously this materialist philosophy is today predominant in the media's. Nevertheless, it's a dangerous absurdity!

According to the materialist theory, Individuals have no freewill, do not bear any responsibilities and cannot be judged as guilty. All our judicial institutions are meaningless. When an individual deviates from the normalized conduct encrypted by the evolution in the society, he has to be reeducated or simply eliminated. In some way the society, that is to say the power, completes and corrects the course of the natural selection.

If materialism is true, your life is meaningless. You are the result of random chemicals that came together by chance. You are individually worthless. If nothing is valuable, any effort is meaningless. Of course, these bitter prospects result in an increase in despair, depression and teen suicides. Instead of favoring the survival, it's clear that the materialism could lead individuals and society to degenerate and to disappear. In fact the most negative outcomes are in the political sphere.(8)

If you are nothing according to your own estimation be sure that you are less than nothing in the political Power estimation! Since you are just a number with no more value than a sand grain in the Sahara, it cannot be sad to torment or eliminate your insignificant physical body. What is more, it could be a correct action regarding the elimination of deviant in the politically correct trend inherited of the evolution. That is why the most awful crimes humanity has ever known have been committed by materialist ideologies such as nazism and communism. Of course, most of the materialist individuals are honest and peaceful persons (9) but history proves that when transplanted in a trouble period such as a revolution, the materialist theory becomes easily a free license to kill.

We must underline that the Materialism is not a scientific theory: We do not know the ultimate matter and the materialist evolution is just an hypothesis never scientifically proved. A quick investigation shows that all these hypothesis are incredible and call for miraculous facts. They deserve science instead of helping its progress. What is more, the Materialism tends to be a nihilism in ethics.

Fortunately, we shall show that Materialism relies on a logical impossibility and as a result is condemned to destroy itself.

1-You may have a good overview of Materialism and its last trends with the two next sites:

http://skepdic.com/materialism.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative

2-You will find with the two next sites all the "great thinkers" of the Marxist Materialism: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and so on.

www.marxist.com

Go to: www.infidels.org : Indicate materialism in the research bar and you will find an interesting survey with many links to the greek materialists. It's worth to recall that Materialism is the oldest philosophical doctrine and certainly not a new one. Visit also www.twow.net/index.htm: A very complete web site about the spatio-materialism by Frank Smitha: An extensive survey regarding all the philosophical schools since the early beginning until right now.

3-In "problem of philosophy", ( click on: www.popular-science.net . Click on "Russell" and then on "Appearance and reality"), Lord Russell establishes a difference between sensations and that he calls "sense-data" :" Let's us give the name of 'sense-data' to the things that are immediately known in sensation: such things as colors, sounds, smells, hardness, roughness, and so on. We shall give the name 'sensation' to the experience of being immediately aware of these things. Thus, whenever we see a color, we have a sensation of the color, but the color itself is a sense-datum, not a sensation. The color is that of which we are immediately aware, and the awareness itself is the sensation".

Russell establishes a linguistic description. We can easily contend that: If the "sense-data" are different of sensations, they must exist outside our mind as physical objects. Nevertheless, Russell claims that the "sense-data" are not the real table which is an atomic turmoil. He says that they result of a convergence between the atomic turmoil of the table and of our organs. As our organs are also an atomic turmoil, and as it's impossible to find the color in a physical brain, we can finally ask: Where are located the sense-data? If the sensation of the red is not the red by itself, where may we find the red by itself outside the sensation?

With the "sense -data", Russell just restores the old idea of Epicure about the "simulacra " in order to save the Materialism. About Epicure go to: www.epicurus.net. In fact, "sense -data" and sensations are only one thing.

4-Materialist profess that space and time exist really by themselves. As space and time are not really material, it has been always difficult to connect their supposed reality with the material things. Since the antiquity, this connection has been a fountain of hopeless paradoxes. We describe here some of these paradoxes. Due to relativity, some of them are worthless but I present them because they illustrate the philosophical way of thinking. It's a good drill before dealing with more complex topics along this survey!

-Space

If space is a real thing, it must occupy a spot and thus another space. This assertion leads to an hopeless regression to the infinite. Clearly we cannot confuse any space with a real thing. If it is not a thing, do we conclude that it is nothing and that objects float in nothingness? To mitigate this obvious difficulty, some assert that space is an attribute of matter. It means that the objects themselves create distance and space by their diversity. So the appearance of objects would be a prelude of space. In fact, once an object changes place, the space it occupied does not disappear. It means that which still exists once its content is gone, is what existed before the content appears. So objects do not create space and space is prior to objects.

Space being neither a thing nor an attribute of matter, the materialism comes up against a great difficulty, which is compounded when we examine extension as the content of an object. Space is infinitely divisible. Indeed, the extension of an object, being a portion of space, would also be infinitely divisible. In this case, a billiard ball would never have a center because the division of its diameter would never end. On the contrary, the real presence of any object demonstrates that its extension is not infinitely divisible, because if it were, its composition from its primary constituents would have necessitated an infinite period of time. It means that the composition would never end and that this object could not be present here and now.

So we have to suppose that divisibility stops at indivisible points. These points are they extended, or non-extended? If these points are extended, all the while being indivisible, it would mean that space is not to a certain degree divisible. There would then be specific indivisible spaces in the middle of divisible space: A contradiction with all geometry! If our indivisible point is non extended, it is just a geometric point. It means that it is an idea or a concept. It cannot be a point of matter and it becomes impossible to reconstruct the extension of any material body with idea or concepts.

-Time

The belief that objective time exists outside of our mind leads to hopeless paradoxes. The sensation cannot give us objective time because the feeling of duration only exists in the present: We breathe and act in the present. We are unable to imagine time existing without a spirit. For example, when we speak of the universe before man, we cannot do anything but imagine it as if we were a fictive observer.

The concept of objective and physical time puts reason to a rough trial. The past no longer exists, the future does not exist yet and the present is nothing. Indeed, if time, and each instant, is infinitely divisible, what is now tends to be nothing. We cannot imagine materialist’s real time, as the very idea self-destroys as soon as it is stated. For example, how can an object change instants when the preceding one no longer is and the future one does not exist yet? Besides, because the future does not exist yet, we are now faced with nothingness. Since, all the world is with us in this instant, it must be concluded that it is also faced with nothingness. This idea seems extravagant but it is the logical conclusion from the materialist’s real time.

What is more, according to Hume, if a cause precedes the effects, the causing event would be over before its effects begin! when you say that such event has a cause, this cause being in the past no longer exists and you must assume that something which do not exist is the cause of a thing which exists!

On the other hand without any particular effort of our imagination, we can notice duration. We are able to conceive it even in the absence of any conscious observer but it is more because we have the habit of confusing duration with the measure of a reference movement such as the earth around its axis. In fact we must suppose that this reference movement is always of the same duration! This supposition calls upon an homogenous time which would be anterior to all the particular durations. It is impossible to exclude time and we find ourselves up against the same wall once again.

-Motion

The most fascinating argument against the movement is due to Zeno of Elée. It can be formulated as follow:

"If all that occupies an extension equal to its own extension is at rest and if an arrow always, at each moment, occupies an extension equal to its own, then an arrow that flies is immobile"

The argument is based here on the notion of indivisible instant: Look at the Drawing . An object always being in a spot AB to its own and in an instant I, the arrow does not leave the spot during that instant. If it does not change spot, it is therefore immobile. To refute this argument, Aristotle tries to demonstrate that indivisibility does not exist and that therefore movement cannot be fixed in an indivisible instant.

Let us suppose that the arrow, does not exist in one indivisible instant I, but, for example in two instants I1 an I2. In this case one instant is in the present and the second either in the future or in the past. If our arrow exists in these two instants, that means that one of its segments does not yet exist, or non longer exists! So, it is no use dividing the instant, because in its most minute, the arrow will remain with its extension. Look at the next drawing.

DRAWING 1

Zeno’ argument both amuses and irritates because we constantly observe multiple movements, but the words " we observe" are important here because it means that the content of this observation exists only for a mind. Today, a bit of calculus is supposed to solve the paradox.

In fact time space and motion are not material things. Kant said they were only the subjective framework of our perceptions and hence only existed in our human mind. On the other hand, absolute Idealism states that time space and motion belong to a transcendental subject intuition. Through Idealism all these paradoxes vanish.

5-A prominent version of materialism, eliminative materialism, recommends that we eliminate most, if not all, everyday psychological discourse, on the ground that it rests on assumptions about human psychology that will disappear with the advance of science. It means that we must accept the materialist description just like it is. We are not allowed to object. That is another proof of the old religious character of Materialism which finally condemns free examination!

Along human history, men have shared many falsehoods. For example, they believed that the earth was plate or that the sun was moving around our planet. However these falsehoods were quite understandable because the sun seems really moving around the earth and on the other hand people were unable to explain how they could avoid to fall in the vacuum if the earth was spherical. By contrast, our contemporaries have no excuse to accept the materialist theory that is so in contradiction to the common sense.

How could you really imagine that the consciousness that you right now experience in reading this essay is located in the disgusting spongy and bloody mass of tissue that we use to call the brain. How could you be comfortable with the idea that your thoughts are located inside a matter that does not think. The only coherent explanation should be to say that this matter is thinking by itself and has a soul. It's clearly the opinion of the natives of Australia and New Guinea. They believe that this river or this stone think and that you have to respect them in order to avoid some painful consequences. Clearly the materialism is in fact a new animism and a dramatic back step of the human thought.

6-Some arguments come up from the "Intelligent design movement" notably represented by the Discovery Institute which explores the fields of technology, science and culture. For more information, browse Discovery's Web site at: http://www.discovery.org.

7-About the famous Darwin book"Origins of species" go to www.popular-science.net and click on "Darwin".

8-It is currently said that Materialism inverses the values. It was probably true with the communism that was an inversion system. But any inversion of values does not deny the values by themselves and just replaces some values by other. For example, the marxists stated that the matter was the cause of everything but they nevertheless considered that some behaviors were morally grounded such as the proletarian heroism.

On the other hand, the new materialism does not inverse the values. It states that values do not exist. It means that it is a true nihilism based on the idea of nothingness. As a result, Materialism is an absolute alienation. This materialization of the man has no precedent in the history of ideas. It explains why darkness is spreading over the mind of so many persons notably over those of young people directly exposed to a wrong education. I think that we cannot forecast all the future consequences: Terrorism, genocide and so on.

9-We must mention that these "honest and peaceful" persons were strong supporters of Stalin or Pol Pot. Just take a look at the early writings of our modern materialists. Forty years ago they said that Stalin was the masterpiece of the universal philosophy. Compared to Stalin, Plato and Aristotle were peanuts. For example in France, it was used to ask " Is it possible to think after Marx?" Marx having concentrated all the thinking power, it was not politically correct to think any more about philosophy or Economy.

This grotesque respect to Marx, Lenin, Stalin and so on remains today prevalent and explains why the metaphysic studies do not exist any more: It's not fruitful to only open an essay of metaphysics since the materialism has already stated all that merited to be stated in such a matter. It means that today metaphysics is not "politically correct".

Go to: www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/07/15/stories/13150611.htm

1-INTRODUCTION 2-STRANGER THINGS 3-MIND BODY RELATION 4-CHANGE AND EVOLUTION 5-ETHICS 6-CONCLUSION

Home page Legal advices Privacy policy Search engines Contact Send to a friend