Even if our brains run on dark matter, or spooky quantum shenanigans, such explanations are still fundamentally materialistic, because they're still physical interactions that can be interrogated approximately the same way we interrogate how muscle fiber works or whatever.
As to social dynamics, well, that's like trying to explain the behavior of bulk matter or ensembles of things generally. The tools we use are quite different from explaining the behavior of atoms, but we're pretty sure that one way or another, the behavior of a rod of steel is determined more or less entirely by the fundamental particles/fields/stuff that make it up. There's nothing spooky about a bar of steel even though it behaves completely differently than the quarks and electrons it's made of.
Well, sure. But we know an awful lot about quantum mechanics, and we know quantum mechanics is spooky but appears to be contained entirely in the realm of the physical. Particles behave by laws that we can sit down and calculate. That's all materialism is- it doesn't insist that everything is determined by any particular set of physical laws, much less Newton's, which we know is incomplete. Maybe everything's a wave, maybe everything is a tiny vibrating string, maybe we're all holographic projections on a membrane. All of this is compatible with materialism.
Materialism is essentially a philosophical stance, that everything in the world is physical. It's not something that is likely to be solved empirically and it's not clear how you would even prove it one way or another. Anything as-yet unexplained might yet yield to a physical explanation, and insofar as physics is well-understood, skeptics can retreat into talking about mental states and so on.
> a philosophical stance, that everything in the world is physical. It's not something that is likely to be solved empirically and it's not clear how you would even prove it one way or another. Anything as-yet unexplained might yet yield to a physical explanation, and insofar as physics is well-understood, skeptics can retreat into talking about mental states and so on.
Interesting. From a philosophical standpoint I see no quarrel. You could replace "physical" with "god" in your definition and it would read true to many religions. It's when dogmatism overrides doubt, questioning, and humility that people are misguided, in scientific theory and religion.
> You could replace "physical" with "god" in your definition and it would read true to many religions.
The difference is that the concept of physical minimally satisfies the required features to fill the conceptual role implied by science. If you replace physical with god, you are either eliminating the necessary properties of god or you're assuming more than is warranted.
Necessary properties of our concept of god, e.g. intelligent creator. If you deflate the concept of god such that any sort of eternal grounding substance of the universe is "god" then you've abandoned what is important in the concept of god (or attempting to engage in sleight of hand).
What do you mean "our" god? You do know there are many other understandings of god that are different from the mainstream stereotypical Abrahamic definition of god, right?
"God, therefore, is the one most simple essence of the entire universe"
-Nicholas de Cusa
"We shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in everything."
-Meister Eckhart
"The superior devotee sees that God alone has become everything...He finds that everything, above and below, is filled with God."
-Ramakrishna
"In order to attain perfect union, we must divest ourselves of God...The common belief about God, that He is a great Taskmaster, whose function is to reward or punish, is cast out by perfect love; and in this sense the spiritual man does divest himself of God as conceived of by most people."
Do you have a substantive point, or are you just trying to be pedantic? Clearly, if your conception of god is contentless such that it's isomorphic to a basic physical substance then there is no problem. If your point was simply to point out such conceptions, well, OK, but I'm not sure why you felt the need to point that out.
Which is probably not relevant for the problem at hand: I would be surprised if brains were able to maintain quantum coherence, which means quantum effects will effectively reduce to classical probabilities...
As to social dynamics, well, that's like trying to explain the behavior of bulk matter or ensembles of things generally. The tools we use are quite different from explaining the behavior of atoms, but we're pretty sure that one way or another, the behavior of a rod of steel is determined more or less entirely by the fundamental particles/fields/stuff that make it up. There's nothing spooky about a bar of steel even though it behaves completely differently than the quarks and electrons it's made of.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains it better: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/