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Single Idea 16048

[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism ]

Full Idea

Chalmers says that physicalism is true in a world w just in case every positive fact that obtains in w also obtains in any world physically indiscernible from w.

Gist of Idea

Physicalism says in any two physically indiscernible worlds the positive facts are the same

Source

report of David J.Chalmers (The Conscious Mind [1996], 2.1) by Karen Bennett - Supervenience

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.31

A Reaction

[Bennett summarises Chalmers' argument on pp.39-40] Chalmers says negative facts depend on the world's limits, which aren't part of the physical facts of the world.

The 20 ideas with the same theme [reality consists entirely of material things in space-time]:

1641 Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato]
11256 Materialists cannot explain change [Aristotle, by Politis]
14048 Astronomical movements are blessed, but they don't need the help of the gods [Epicurus]
7559 Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it [Hobbes]
5287 Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels]
18438 Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine]
10243 My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine]
3454 Reality is entirely particles in force fields [Searle]
3437 'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan [Kim]
15318 Gravitational and electrical fields are, for a materialist, distressingly empty of material [Harré/Madden]
8580 Materialism is (roughly) that two worlds cannot differ without differing physically [Lewis]
16054 Physicalism needs more than global supervenience on the physical [Horgan,T]
16055 Materialism requires that physics be causally complete [Horgan,T]
7855 Some suggest that materialism is empty, because 'physical' cannot be properly characterized [Mellor/Crane, by Papineau]
6504 For physicalists, the only relations are spatial, temporal and causal [Robinson,H]
16048 Physicalism says in any two physically indiscernible worlds the positive facts are the same [Chalmers, by Bennett,K]
16060 Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow]
16064 The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow]
14909 Physicalism is 'part-whole' (all parts are physical), or 'supervenience/levels' (dependence on physical) [Ladyman/Ross]
16049 Definitions of physicalism are compatible with a necessary God [Bennett,K]