Talk:Mereological nihilism

criticism
Could someone who knows list the common criticisms of MN? What are the opposing or alternative views?

nihilism vs. mereological nihilsm
Could someone (who knows) edit the article make the distinction between the two a little more clear? This is especially important because it M.N. seems often be referred as plain nihilism. If this terminology confusion persists in the field of philosophy, then point out this confusion in the article also. Thanks. -- Isn't MN just a type of nihilism? I think it is an old old use of the word too, because it traces back to the words nihilism and mereology, which I think are both Greek, and the position of mereological nihliism was held by Democritus, an ancient Greek atomist. But anyway... I think MN is just a type of nihilism. So that could be pointed out in the article.

I think mereological nihilism should not be as obfuscated as it is in regards to nihilism. It is a branch that one needn't be nihilist to take. It is a sort of metaphysical minimalism. While a nihilist may reject fundamental or common metaphysical assumptions (ethical truths, objective meaning etc) the nature of matter or objects needn't be one of them, and in this way the two ideologies differ. Perhaps something along those lines should be added, and if you get into some of the first formal defining of active and passive nihilism, and subsequent branches, you'll see this distinction. Also, and I'd be less sure on how to deal with this, but there is endless scope for the confusion of mereological nihilism and metaphysical nihilism, and unnecessary links to modal realism. It's a little harder to explain without going into the literature, for me anyhow. Wselfwulf (talk) 16:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

New introduction added in Feb.
I tried to make this article more accessible to a general audience. Ok

etymology
I think it would help if an etymology on MN were done. Also, this article needs to be written in a clearer npov encylopedic tone. Of course I say this lacking the ability to do either, hoping that someone smarter than me comes along to do this...

Popularity, and Removing Grupp Part 1
Uh, how much scientific basis does mereological nihilism have? I've talked to a number of people who study theoretical physics and only a handful of them have heard of mereological nihilism, and they're vaguely farmiliar with it. It seems like it's a fringe theory of quantum physics with few supporters. I'd go far enough to say its borderline crank science. For example, I spoke to Jeffery Grupp via email once, and he believes that since no composite objects would exist in accordance with mereological nihilism, the only thing that would exist would the conciousness, the soul- a form of cartesian dualism where our soul is interfacing with an aspect of the blob reality to generate what we see.

It seems to have alot in common with the position of a number of ancient Buddhist Fundamentalist viewpoints, and it sounds alot like Vedic Science the more I've looked into it. A classic example of Vedic Science is Human Deevolution, which, although having generated controversy a number of years ago among the scientific community, is now dismissed as pure pseudoscience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.50.178 (talk • contribs)


 * Mereological nihilism is a philosophical position. I wouldn't think it could have or require a scientific basis. Michael Slone (talk) 15:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it really just a philosophical position? Because to me it seems like Grupp is trying to prove it scientifically through a number of articles, and the whole thing seems like its built on and bathing in the fallacy of composition, or something akin to it.

To sum it up:

1. Matter exists. 2. All matter is made up of atoms. 3. Therefore, only atoms exist, and nothing else.

It honestly seems like Grupp and others are trying to prove it scientifically, more along the lines of a revival of ancient forms of Buddhist thought. I believe Sidhartha thought along the same lines, that no material objects actually exist. I'm very interested in Buddhism and am considering converting myself, but I've never heard of this. It sounds like its trying to completely justifiy a radical rejection of materialism, by saying, "if no material objects exist, why fixate so much on materialism?" It's just like what I mentioned about Vedic Sciences and Human De-evolution- trying to form a scientific basis for their religious beliefs. And how many people adhere to MN? The article says its been gathering popularity but shows nothing about this.


 * Hello. I am a student in Grupp's Intro to Philosophy class right now at Indiana U. Northwest, I also had his metaphysics class last year too. He went over lots about mereological nihilism, and he gave some of us a copy of his paper on it (I think it is published, or will be, or something). He definately tries to prove it scientifically (he spent a lot of time on that in class), and he says elementary particles give a perfect description of mereological nihlism, and he said that only the particles exists. He said he is trying to prove that this can even help the scientists. He does not hold that mind is something different, not particles, like Descartes dualism, as somebody wrote above. He says this is a possibility, but tries to show that all the elementary particles are equal to mind-- quantum idealism.

....And yet if mind is no different than the rest of matter, that being plain elementary particles, who is arguing for MN? Grupp's theories seem like they're apart of pure fringe science as I've never, ever seen MN mentioned by any well-known physicists or scientists. Is he some kind of crank? Why is he being given tenure at a university?

--Hello again. His resume (CV?) online does not say he is a tenured professor, but an adjunct, and I don't think they have tenure, at least thats what a friend of mine told me. I know he is also still getting his PHD at Purdue too. And your other question, in that paper he gave us, yes there are physicists discussed all over it. Why don't you just email Prof. Grupp? He was always eager to talk about his ideas with us outside of class (even when we were sick of discussing them). And why are you calling him a crank? have you read vaninwagen's stuff on nihilism? That's the stuff that seems weird, to me.

Well, I wasn't calling him a crank specifically, but his ideas can come off as that to people who know little of his work. But thanks, I guess I'll email him.

Adjuncts are untenured. This Grupp guy is not a serious person. He is not well-known among philosphers, his ideas are not influential. He has a number of publications, but they are in little-known and little-read journals. I have never heard of any of them. All mention of Grupp's material should be purged from this entry.


 * This is called the genetic fallacy: discredit an idea based on its source. So would the Canadian philosophers up north agree with you that Dialogue (Canadian Phil. Rev.) is not an influential journal? Because there is a Canadian professor in my department that I asked about this, and he said that it's one of the two main ones up in Canada (CJP is the other). Is it how well known a person is that makes him worthy of discussion? If so, then I have a lot of professors that must be worthless, even though they do interesting and impressive research. I personally don't care if Grupp is on this page, and I personally like the idea of having the most famous people on an article on this (Merricks is really interesting). But you are embarrassing us philosophers by seeming to say that philosophy just is a popularity contest. What about Thomas Aquinas? Didn't people (the church) say he had nothing to say?


 * Went ahead and purged the article of Grupp references.

Mereological Nihilism and Quantum Mechanics

 * This seems to be purely a philosophical position, but its arguments seem very questionable to me... for example, relating it to quantum mechanics: subatomic particles seem to have an interesting, paradoxical kind of "existence": they are both waves and particles; perhaps neither... and they "pop" into view only when there is an observer to measure their position. In quantum physical terms, there can't be said to be a "particle" there... only the "probability" of one, although their existence is basically taken for granted... on the other hand, take the human body, for example: its unbelievable complexity and astonishing abilities are endless, and all bodies are composed of parts, individual living entities that function together for a purpose. But the body is somehow less real than a particle whose place in space and time is ephemeral... hmmm, sounds very suspect. -Daniel Villalobos 14:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, MN is a philosophical theory. As for the "paradoxical existence," that is not the only position one needs to take on QM, and Feynman never backed up those assumptions much. You are merely demanding that a form of Copenhagenism is the only way to interpret QM--which, of course is not true (e.g., Bohm, etc.). According to what you write, you make it sound like this Copenhagenist theorization must dictate what our observations are, but, of course, in reality, observation must determine theory--and when the computer detects an electron, it is not probable that it exists, it certainly exists, and so it sure can be said that 'THERE IS A PARTICLE THERE,' which, it seems you say cannot occur. It is as if you are saying physicists cannot detect particles, which they can, and when they do. Also, you say a reason why MN is 'suspect', but you did not say why. Can you elaborate on why, rather than just suggest??


 * Eh? See way further down, below. Mainstream QM as taught to physics students, from standard textbooks, loves to avoid the part/whole particle/wave debate by brushing it under the rug. Quit trying to decompose some wave function or some Hilbert space into "parts". There are no parts. Believing that QM is capable of describing "parts" is based on a fallacy, a mis-apprehension of what is actually happening at the subatomic level. (More generally, a mis-apprehension of what a Hilbert space is.) 67.198.37.16 (talk) 06:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Breadth of entry, removing Grupp Part 2
The discussion in this article seems misleadingly concerned with the philosophical positions advanced by Grupp. Nihilism, in its "pure" form, has been defended in print (rather than merely "online") by Cian Dorr in "What We Disagree About When We Disagree About Ontology" and in "Composition as Fiction" (co-authored with Gideon Rosen) as well as in Dorr's dissertation, "The Simplicity of Everything." (Princeton, 2000(?)). As someone interested in mereology, I found the repeated reference to Grupp's work out of place. Given that I never across a citation of Grupp's work in my extensive survey of mereology, it seems this article ought not concern itself with his work, but, rather, with Dorr's (insofar as one is concerned with "pure" nihilism). Although, if this article were, say, written by Grupp, I suppose he would be well within his rights to note his contributions.


 * You're right that Dorr should be mentioned prominently in this article. And you're right that the repeated references to the work of Grupp is out of place. But these references would be out of place even if Grupp wrote the article. You raise an interesting point about the extent to which Dorr's work is cited in the literature, in contrast to that of Grupp. Since Grupp's work in mereological nihilism is completely unkown, uncited, and uninfluential, Grupp's name should not come up in an encyclopedia article on the topic, which should be limited to the views of preeminent philosophers.


 * I have been keeping an eye on this issue for a while, and I completely agree with the commentary here about Grupp. I am happy others have noticed this obvious issue. Grupp is little more than a hack, who is guilty of what some professional philosophers call philosophical rebellion--but which I merely call shocking and destructive nihilism (certainly not mereological nihilism). Grupp's work is the worst 'philosophy' I have ever read, all in pathetic 'journals' that hardly anybody even knows exist. Grupp, who is an atheist, cleary has a bone to pick, with almost everybody! If you take a look at his so-called publications, he is eager to attack and distort the very things that certainly most people find sacred: God and Christianity, common sense, decency, among other things.


 * Since Grupp's work in mereological nihilism is completely unkown, uncited, unprofessional and uninfluential, since he is only a graduate student at an unranked and poor PHD program (Purdue), and since he is amateur/unprofessional, and he is unproven as a philosopher (and some people would say that he is a total outcast to contemporary philosophy), I thusly demand, as others have in this discussion page, that Grupp's name not come up in an encyclopedia article on the topic, which is meant for mature/seasoned philosophers, not for unprofessional philosophers who have only published in pseudo-journals and nonacademic internet magazines, which is ONLY what Grupp has done.

I had Grupp as an instructor when I was an undergrad at Western Michigan (now I am a grad at another school). I am not agreeing with this discussion here about Grupp, who was one %##@$ good instructor. But rather than write for an hour why this is what I believe, I will just say I don't agree because: 1. Most of what's written here about Grupp is a personal attack (calling him a crank, atheist, and so on) 2. It is clear that people here are not up on the literature, and by mocking the journals Grupp has published in, and saying they are unheard of and they are imposter journals, can't be right and just shows ignorace. For example, David Armstrong is on the editorial board of METAPHYSICA, Barry Smith is on the editorial board of AXIOMATHES, and that's just the start. Unless my professors are lying to me, these are some real big philosophers! I could go on, but this is enough. I like and follow Grupp's research, and think that the discussion of him here is a just a few beers short of being a lynching mob. So it's wrong, and I am going to put a link in the 'externals links' part of the page to his 'mereological nihlism' article. That's the least I can do for him, after how much he's helped me with my life and career. ANd just by putting a little teeny link, well ten none of you can get too bent out of shape about not having your favs displayed here how you want them to be. Cheers, David.
 * Grupp may be a really nice guy, and may have helped you out. And your professors are right about Armstrong, but I've never heard of Barry Smith or the journal he sits on the editorial board of. Anyway, the fact that some big-name guy sits on the editorial board of a journal doesn't mean that the journal is important or well-respected. It would be a lot easier to see why Grupp's views should appear in an encyclopedia article if they had appeared in Nous, Mind, Phil Review, or some such journal. Even that wouldn't be enough, though. The views would then have had to be around for a while, and then other leading figures in the field would have had to cite his work in their work, even if they were just running it up the flag pole in order to shoot it down. But the fact is that Grupp's work appears in unknown journals, then no one reads it, and it gets ignored in the literature. That doesn't mean he's a crank; this sort of thing happens to a lot of people. But it does mean that he doesn't belong in any encyclopedia article. Maybe someday, but not now.

Explanation
"and these smallest building blocks are individual and separate items that do not ever unify or come together into being non-individual. Thus they never compose anything" This is not absolutely true, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-Einstein_condensate. However as this article is about the arguments of mereological nihilism and not about truth, I guess it does not matter.

I'm curious why you think mereological nilihism is incompatible with the existence of Bose-Einstein condensates. I cannot see how this idea could derive from anything but a misunderstanding of M.N. It's a philosophical position - there is no conceivable scientific experiment that could prove or disprove it, because the question is not in that domain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 54.240.196.185 (talk) 23:34, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

van Inwagen, etc
This page had a lot of errors. I've corrected a couple of the important ones, but it still needs a lot of work. The main error concerned van Inwagen's view, where someone wrote that van Inwagen believed tables to be atoms arranged table wise. That's a common misunderstanding, so I've corrected it and flagged the misunderstanding.

I also took out the claim that objects exist only in the present if there are no temporal parts. Obviously, no endurentist is going to accept that.

The other change I made was to alter the claim that nihilism was a denial of mereology, making it clear that it is only a denial of classical mereology.

Mereological hyponyms

 * Mereological nihilism, compositional nihilism: all or most objects are constituted of their improper parts
 * mereological simples, those basic building blocks without proper parts do exist, so merometaphysics is partly false in the eye of mereological nihilism, because in merometaphysics, nothing can be a mereological simple if metalogically examined. Mereological simples exist only if we take for granted some of their properties without to mereologically examin them. For example the electron erroneously can be considered a mereological simple, but as all particles, the electron is a mere phenomenon of field interactions [we haven't yet solved the quantum field theory causation problem]. If we make mistakes and we take things for granted, then yes, "mereological simples" do exist.
 * Merometaphysics: no system is complete neither its metalogical foundations can be thorougly described (not because of expertise lack, but due to the nature of all fundamental mechanisms)

merometaphysics: metalogically partial metaphysics
merometaphysics (η μερομεταφυσική) < meros (part) + metaphysics
 * Metaphysics is the the field of metalogical causation (causal analysis) of the fundamental principles.
 * Merometaphysics is the theory that extrapolates Gödel's incompleteness theorems (no system is complete especially if metalogically examined) into metaphysics, thus the Theory of Everything doesn't exist; instead only partial theories.

Rice bowl
Is a bowl of rice a mereological simple?
 * the physical rice bowl is constituted of matter, thus it isn't a mereological simple
 * the ideal rice bowl is a thought, thus constituted of neuroaxonal paths; also we must have spatial ability and understand many other notions

Can a dead person imagine a rice bowl? No! Either somewhere should we print a schematic, either we must explain what a rice bowl is.

The fact that one might take for granted a living brain able to think, or a manual book, doesn't mean that a rice bowl is a mereological simple.

Many pseudosophists claim "I don't care about an issue, I take it for granted, so that's not an issue." This isn't mathematical or philosophical thinking. It's juvenile thinking without metalogical analysis. I don't claim that the rice bowl is the ideal example, but no mereological simples exist.

If you accept soft philosophy, then mistakes are accepted, but we call that softosophy.

Human notions aren't mereological simples because a. are results of active thought, without it they immediately die, even if we take life for granted by mistake, b. all human notions are derived from other human notions, anything can be explained with other terms, and without explanation, we have no notion.

No fundamental principle in our Universe is genuinely fundamental, but it's a phenomenon that occurs while the whole universal mechanism is functioning. Neither our Universe is a mereological simple, because it's constituted of metalogically interconnected parts.

pseudomonomeroprobabilism
Can something that isn't yet defined be a "probable monomer" (monomer: mer[e]ological simple) of course still
 * When we discover a notion it isn't longer a monomer (mer[e]ological simple).
 * When a new particle comes into existence isn't longer a monomer.

Answer: No! Potentiality doesn't create monomers (mer[e]ological simples). Even if something only potentially exists or might exist, it still requires some probable metalogical basis, and that can never allow monomerism (state of being a mereological simple). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8408:A600:ED1D:A045:9381:3E0B (talk) 10:48, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

A ball is made of two parts?????
The second sentence of "explanation" states:
 * For example, a ball is made up of two halves, so the ball is a whole that is made up of two parts.

Huh?? Only if you are mentally deranged or schizophrenic! Now, during manufacture, a ball might be assembled out of multiple parts, sure. But once the ball is completed, it no longer has any "halves" (unless you mean "the inside half" and "the outside half" ??? The "top half" and the "bottom half"??? Which way is up??? The left half? Balls are sphere symmetric, there is no naturally distinguished direction. Footballs are not sphere-symmetric, but they still do not have any "halves" in any sort of perceptual common-sense manner.) Is there some other example that doesn't blatantly violate common-sense perception? Like "For example, a piston engine consists of pistons and an engine block" or "A banana consists of a peel and an edible pulpy interior."? Or is something fundamentally lost when you use something that obviously does have actual parts as an example of something that obviously does have parts? Does the example require the parts to only be imaginary, in-your-head, can't-actually-point-to-them kinds of parts that don't have a physical existence? 67.198.37.16 (talk) 18:58, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Bad particle physics
The intro currently is tragically incorrect w.r.t physics, as is commonly understood. It states:
 * The only things we know of that do not have parts are the smallest items known to exist, such as leptons and quarks[dubious – discuss]. These fundamental particles cannot be 'seen' and are not directly experienced.[dubious – discuss] They may, however, be experienced indirectly through emergent properties.[clarification needed]

Umm, leptons and quarks are hypothesized to be made out of preons, we have a WP article out of that. Please don't just make stuff up cause it sounds good to you! Next -- leptons and quarks are "seen" and "experienced directly" all the time: quarks, as jets in all the major particle accelerators, and leptons, in many typical college physics classes, e.g. the Millikan oil drop experiment that undergraduates do. The last sentence seems to imply that quarks and leptons have "emergent properties". This is a minority opinion, held by only a few (albeit famous) theorists, e.g. Eric Verlinde, but is definitely not the mainstream interpretation. The physics in these sentences is ... painfully wrong, and a deep mischaracterization of physics. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 19:22, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

More awkward/incorrect subatomic physics statements
The "discussion" section contains this claim:
 * ... since "wholes" themselves only exist at the subatomic level.

This too seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of modern particle physics. Just like you will not find any physics textbook or ArXiv preprint that talks about the "emergent properties" of a electron, so also you won't find one that talks about "wholeness", either. Let me give a flavor of that: There are many theories in physics that interpret fermions as being themselves little knots in space-time and fields constructed in various ways, ranging Skyrmions in pion fields, instantons in Minkwoski space-time, spin manifolds as generic constructs in Riemannian geometry, or even whizzy ideas e.g. from Leonard Susskind's ER=EPR argument, suggesting that, uhhh fermions are knots in spacetime. From a physics standpoint, to argue that there is some kind of "whole" that exists at some fabled subatomic level is incoherent and meaningless. Is this claim being made by some serious, academically accepted philosophers, or is this just made-up non-sense inserted into this WP article by someone who didn't know any better? 67.198.37.16 (talk) 03:52, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

... And even if there were subatomic-wholes, the full sentence itself is incoherent, as a sentence written in the English language:
 * Mereological nihilists maintain that such relations between part and whole do not exist, since "wholes" themselves only exist at the subatomic level.

The word "since" implies an if..then, cause-effect relationship: to say "A since B" is shorthand for saying "if B then A, and B is unarguably true" ... not only is B false, but A does not follow from B: lets try rewording it: "if wholes exist at the subatomic level, then relations between part and whole do not exist", which is a strange non-sequiter, an incoherent claim. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 04:03, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

... And then there is this:
 * Perhaps what we take to be the most fundamental entities of current physics can actually be decomposed, and their parts can be further decomposed, on down the line. If matter is infinitely decomposable in this respect, then there are no mereological simples.

This statement appears to be founded on theoretical concerns in physics, dating from the 1950's-1980's that has largely abated. For a while, if you imagined that subatomic physics is just like human-scale physics, except smaller, then one might imagine that parts are made of parts are made of parts, ad infinitum. But subatomic physics is not at all like human-scale physics. It's different down there. The big break-through of the 1980's and 1990's was the application of cohomology theories to fields, including space-time itself - not only instantons, alluded to above, but also Donaldson's knot theory, or Milnor's exotic spheres, or the non-rigidity of affine Lie algebras. Or string theory, more generally. If subatomic particles are indeed just knots in space-time, then asking if a particle is made out of parts is like asking: is a trefoil knot made out of parts? Show me the parts that a trefoil knot made out of! So, although it would be true that, at some point, some-when, certain philosophers, physicists and grad students wrung their hands about parts being made of parts, ad infinitum, this is no longer a plausible concern, based on what we know about physics, today. It is perhaps still a valid philosophical concern, but if that is the case, do not drag physics into the debate.

The entire "objections" section seems incoherent. After reading this article three times, I believe it is safe to say that the vast majority of practicing physicists are mereological nihilists. It doesn't take long to arrive there: Just try giving a Hilbert space basis to a hydrogen atom experiencing the Zeeman effect and you promptly run into the problem of wondering what the correct basis is for that Hilbert space. Now, the answer is that Hilbert space is sphere-symmetric; its like a ball, there is no preferred basis; there's no way to decompose it into parts, or preferred-parts. It's just a whole, its not composable or decomposable, it just "is". At best, there's just some coordinate charts that are more convenient than others. For a student, this feels like a crisis for a while, until you get over it. Perturbation theory forces you into accepting mereological nihilism as a fact, as the fundamental state of matter ... at least, in the domain of quantum mechanics. Now, of course, not everyone agrees, and perhaps the most insightful attempt to slay the dragon of nihilism comes from Max Tegmark, specifically this ArXiv paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219 where he tries to define a QM version of Tonini's Phi as a tool to evade nihilism, and to show how take a Hilbert space and create a "whole" that is a preferred assemblage, rather than an ambiguous homogeneous choice of coordinates. Its a way of thinking about compositionality, in quantum mechanics, as something that is non-trivial. Some coordinate frames are actually fundamentally better than others; some coordinate frames for Hilbert space actually allow you to perceive parts, which was not possible in the 20th-century theory. But all this is definitely brand-new, its not textbook stuff. Now, I am not expecting Tegmark's stuff to appear in this article, but it sure would be nice if the various claims about physics that are made in this article actually lined up with actual physics, or at least, with whatever it is that the philosphers actually said, with some explanation of why they would have said it. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 04:32, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Contradictions
The section titled "Discussion" states:
 * Mereological nihilists maintain that such relations between part and whole do not exist

Fine. But then the section titled "Objections" states:
 * This empirical perspective poses a problem for nihilism because it does not look like material objects neatly decompose in the way nihilists imagine they do.

Do I need to explain the contradiction? The first statement says that nihilists do not decompose wholes into parts. The second statement implies that nihilists actually do decompose wholes into parts, just not correctly. Which is it?

Its worse than that. Let's look at the surrounding sentences:
 * For example, there is no single decomposition of light; light can be said to be either composed of particles or waves depending on the context.[6] This empirical perspective poses a problem for nihilism because it does not look like material objects neatly decompose in the way nihilists imagine they do.

The standard solution for this would be that all physicists are de-facto mereological nihilists: that is exactly how one evades the perennial particle-wave duality problem: stop thinking about the "parts", there are no "parts". Feynman apparently said "shut up and calculate" as the solution to the inane parts-whole debate. There are no parts. Trust the formulas. The formulas describe reality, not the ambiguous word-play. Quit asking whether its a particle or a wave. Its both. Its neither. Yes. No. All of the above. Wrong question. Physicists are defacto nihilists, yet it seems to be somehow turned around, upside-down throughout this article. (I'm assuming that nihilists deny the existence of a parts/whole relationship. Right? I think that is what this article is saying.) 67.198.37.16 (talk) 04:13, 21 May 2019 (UTC)


 * So, the SEP article Material Constitution (see 4. Eliminativism) suggests that mereological nihilists believe that simples do exist, must exist. Therefore, the physics viewpoint that there are no simples presents a crisis. I think that is what these sentences were trying to say. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 22:10, 22 May 2019 (UTC)