I would say "immaterial" has no place in scientific speak since science is primarily conerned with material or "that which has a body".  But it is difficult to avoid such issues when in philosophical discussions since, even a philosophical view is to show how there is no immaterial, would entail a defining of immaterial in order to refute it.  Even in many strict materialists views, they have this idea of emergent propterties to account for, what were previosuly described as immaterial such as identity, personality, etc.  Of course that is really just semantics since these aspects about the human condition are still "without body" or, there is no single physical thing within the human body that can be studied and identified as the personhood center, for instance.  So, I would say the idea of things "without bodies" is still a problem, however, we are jsut using diffrent words to describe it. 

There is a dog here now, that REALLY likes beer !

Animals are people too .....  !

AMEN !

 ... all so good to me ,  my Eloise ... I simply adore you  ~

.... and when I object , I will let you know, I promise .... from the bottom of my heart! Thanks for all your words ..... really ..... to know a little of you .... lucky me .... I Love a girl , her name is Eloise ..... wow , so fine , this girl I found , as we know her as , 

                         ELOISE !  wow , I LIKE IT LIKE THAT ..... lucky me !

  sorta like this !!! ....  THE DAVE CLARK FIVE - BECAUSE (1964)

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuYFPyeWuig

      Maybe this says it better ???

            Dave Clark Five - I Like It Like That

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H2REaKIOlg

                            Whatever , Hey,  I love Eloise ! That's the deal      I do !

        I am grateful ..... lucky me !!! ......  

Well again aiia, the reason I do it, as I've said many times, is to counter the religious deplorable dogmatic God definition with an ultra simple sensible definition. The word  G-O-D  isn't going away soon if ever .... we are stuck with it for now.

   I think this is more helpful than just saying god doesn't exist, which to often shuts down debate.  So I say instead that the god of religions is wrong. As I also say, all the cosmos, every atom, all there is , is connected, all is one, all is equal, and that is GAWED. Study what gawed is using science. I especially do this because of the impressionable kids in awe.

    This way I can better say to the religious etc, "let's talk about god (the awe), and why religious god ideas are wrong".  This is more of an eastern philosophy approach, not much known here in the west, of western black and white reasoning.

     No Master, All is One , All is GAWED ..... or whatever we wish to call it. How bout, "The Force" ???      Anyhow, the word god isn't the problem ....religion dogma is the problem ..... god fucking damn it ! .....   i god as u  (((( we are the "force"

 "qualities of life extend directly from that foundation" .... ~ Eloise

                Internet Love !

      Somebody Slap Me

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTyEScrJwUw

  ((( .... "she does her own thing" .... !

Immaterial is an adjective, and as such is the opposite to "material" in its adjectival form. The word comes straight from Latin where, in the adjectival form also, it meant the same thing. It has nothing to do with describing physical substance or lack of it, and everything to do with applying the principle of substance to the abstract. It is a rhetoric device to indicate irrelevance or relevance, just as the word "weighty" is used to describe something profound to contemplate but does not imply that one's brain becomes heavier in doing so.

Cicero once famously dismissed Mark Anthony as "immaterial" and then went on to play with the word; "non-material" (not existing), "ex-material" (derived from substance but now without) and so on, each a derogatory description of his political rival. Mark Anthony equally famously replied to this assault on his materialness by demonstrating just how much he still existed. He sent a hit-man after Cicero to kill him and bring him back the orator's hands. Maybe Cicero should have reviewed his material with a little more foresight before he published it. But it does show that even the Romans got confused with semantics. Cicero thought he was very cleverly accusing Mark Anthony of being increasingly irrelevant. The latter thought he was being told outright that he soon wouldn't exist and set about pre-empting things.

Material as a noun, meaning substance, is what you are discussing here Eloise, which is why I wonder you address its opposite as "immaterial" at all? Is it really the concept of "nothing" that you're wondering about? (Before someone sends a hit-man after you)

I put the "transcendent" in quotes cause I couldn't think of a better term at the time, sorry. I mean only to differ in the way I have indicated, by saying that, for example, a psychological consciousness does not transcend the fundamental processes of it's environment, or IOW is not the accumulation of an increasing complexity that has run over a rim of reducibility.  However, saying that it is reducible could be misleading because though I may refer to it as reducible what I mean by that may defy your ordinary concept of reduction which may follow the line 'the whole is greater than its parts', I would propose a process of reduction which implies rather that 'the whole is more fundamental than its parts'.

That's an interesting proposition and tend to agree with part of it - the part where emotional/psychological states are a conveyance of real perceptible depth of reality. I would only differ with you on the idea that these states were transited into existence by a sort of "objectively independent" bump in the road against the forward momentum of a 'previously' more simple process. (I find this concept which I am challenging to be a greatly entrenched assumption and I apologise for any lack of clarity in identifying it for you).

I can see your objection but the difference is that it is not the prescribed mechanistic laws which I am equating with "Godliness", that really cannot be done. It also succumbs to uncertainty resulting in the God of that picture having no possibility of coherent sentience.

I think you know I am a believer in the multiverse, the idea of God breaches the universes apparent physical limitations in a number of ways, it needs more energy and more time and more purpose than it makes sense to give anything within those bounds. The concept of the multiverse may seem to merely push back the the limits making no difference, but you may know that such a notion doesn't really encompass the consequences of an existing multiverse. In any case, a multiverse provides some what of a loophole out of that particular difficulty.

I think you may have missed some of the subtler points of my post.  My intention is to show that historical 'nothings' (esp. theological eg Aristotle's immaterialism) are contemporary something's and it no longer makes sense to defer to negation to approach those things. 

I go with the premise that people are still deferring where they shouldn't or are ignorant of the fact that a very good provisional definition (and explication moreover) is available for the concept that they are probably trying to articulate.

I don't think I did, with respect, Eloise.

Aristotle's "immaterialism" was not a theological concept - when I used to study these things at least. It was an aspect to his metaphysical assertion that the insubstantial could be proven to have form by observing how causality affected it. In effect he was simply stating grandiosely what we all do as a matter of course when we conceptualise abstracts such as thought as physical entities. Euphemism, in other words. He just took that concept and ran with it (into a brick wall, but that's just my opinion).

Aristotle however did not try to ascribe the quality of substance to nothing, unless you completely misread him. Scientists, as you point out on the other hand, have had to do just that. Those that try to explain the concept metaphysically hit the same brick wall as Aristotle and other philosophers who eventually reach illogical absurdity in their conclusions. The big mistake is to assume from this that scientists experience likewise. They don't.

So my warning earlier still applies, and I think your last sentence might indicate that you agree with me. Be very careful that you don't confuse the euphemistic term "material" with the scientific term "material". Overlapping them intentionally simply means that you still hit the absurdity wall metaphysically, and moreover prevent yourself from understanding how the universe hangs together physically. A waste of time to any intelligent person.

We can if we use the most modern usage of the term "metaphysics", which simply means anything not explained or conceptualised in scientific terms. But that's a lazy definition and not one I go along with (yet another example of where switching between semantic meanings simply confuses the issue and gets no one anywhere - except perhaps theologians into university jobs). Metaphysical philosophy, to me, is the root of all scientific study itself since it attempted, at a time when very little was understood about the nature of reality, to apply scientific methodology to understanding it nevertheless - almost the opposite meaning to the modern one.

I'm not sure we have a "metaphysical innate human nature" either, in any case. We have a mind that is a slave to conceptualisation - the real root of metaphysics as well as science of course - but our "nature" follows very understandable and observable patterns without the need to transcend science in order to describe it.

Yeah, absolutely.

At this point, Eloise, I think the only difference we (you and I) encounter on a philisophical (and mathematically theoretical) level is labelling something "God". Which is funny if you think about it, since I'm a strong atheist.

Also, typo fixed.

Agreed.  To not have an opinion on an issue is to keep the uncertainty in plain view, so we stay aware of it.  To be wrong about something is to have a false belief mixed in with our true beliefs, and then what do we have to base our decisions on but a mix of false and true beliefs which we don't distinguish between?  Better to remove the false ones and try to avoid putting them in in the first place, I think.