Not that I don't admire your effort, but I think TJ beat you to the punch.  Excellent quote.

Define material. Are electromagnetic waves material? Is magnetism material?

In my opinion, the material existence has a qualities like X, Y, Z coordinates, a time dimension, and one more "dimension", which could be called, for a lack of better term, "frequence".
Objects of higher and lower frequence can occupy the same space without collision, thus, object, a living object in particular, subjectively considers a  matter of higher frequence as "immaterial", though it's material, just of a finer quality. It's a description from an observatory look, without inner understanding of these principles, thus I'm sorry if I violated any taboo.
I've seen enough evidence to consider the concept 'frequence' as a functional model, but there are some impassable limits. Beyond some value of this 'frequence', there is  nothing expressible in language or thought. Thus, God is for me hypothetic, because it's effectively out of reach of our mind tools, whatever we can say, think, remember or speculate about God, is an intrinsical quality of the low position on 'frequency' dimension, and thus not usable anywhere else, it's provincial. Just as time and space itself.

Theists are not equipped to fully comprehend not even one dimension with a different laws of physics than ours, different forms of existence, this is why there's a lot of tales about God and gods. I trust the scientists, once they intellectually grasp the crude and provisory concept of 'frequency', they'll be able in several decades do greater progress in searching for God, than theists did for millenia. There are also no parallel dimensions in the sense of alternative versions of universe. Just these segments on a 'frequency' spectrum.
I'm sorry for a metaphorical usage of scientific terms, but there are yet none of it's own, it's a laic, observatory description.

Of course, the basic problem in researching this is, that it works with a matter and energy of high 'frequence', while contemporary science uses only solid-material tools, crafted from ores, minerals, etc. The only machine (except of a few rather ignored technical devices) able to work exactly as we need, is the one which already consists of matter on multiple 'frequencies',  the human. Next, most of humans aren't yet fully functional in that sense, and if yes, most of them isn't aware of it.
It seems this is not yet enough to get an attention of scientists yet (their time is expensive) but as I mentioned, the development speeds up a lot (x several tenths of thousands times, once a certain level is reached) so within a few generations we may have enough of people to make this phenomenon of greater life, publically known and researched. But this is all too distant future.
Btw, there is supposedly some interaction of the high-frequence energies with very pure gold, silver, copper, strong magnets and crystals, but still, it's not understood well.

Note, that there is no worship... I want this to be gotten into most practical effects, like a treatment of drug addiction, tissue rebuilding, free sources of energy, solar system exploration, and other astounding projects. Extent of this all, the potential in the higher dimension, constantly puts me in awe, and even more it will the scientists, who will understand it much more than I can.

But just for the hell of it, why don't we indulge the notion?  Let's say that photons are immaterial.  In fact, let's say that anything which does not have mass, but exists empirically, either as an effect, or any kind of detectable "thing," is immaterial.

This does nothing to help the woo-woo tinfoil hats or the theists, for it simply redefines the word as something that does exist.  It no longer refers to the things that cannot exist for lack of a universe of discourse.  Any argument which uses "immaterial" to refer to both photons and spirits or gods in the same category commits an equivocation.

Unsubstantial, referring to a validity
Unimportant, referring to importance
Incorporeal.
This third meaning is what "immaterial" should be perceived like, as having a quality, not identic with solid, or not identic with things which most often affects solid objects.
Both top meanings gives an impression of non-existence, but, as I and many other people across the globe perceives every day, it is not always the case. I wonder how many of them will have to make their testimony, to awaken a scientific interest. (other than psychiatric )
Then we will define new terms for a states of materiality, finer than solid-material, liquid or gaseous, to name the finer quality. We should also define states of existence different than material. It is sure, that nothing is separated, and so even these finer states of existence are sometimes able to affect our own, good old dense materiality. How exactly, it is up to a scientists to find...
Here's the difference to common laws of decorum. When a scientist claims something, he must provide an evidence, and then, if it's valid, everyone accepts it.
In area of knowledge I'm used to, there is a theory, and if a reader is advanced enough, he will read this theory, and be interested in it enough that he will find an evidence himself, or already have it. If not, he will reject this one and find another theory, for which he is advanced enough. It is, simply because practically nobody has a solid-material evidence, (and if yes, it's immovable) we don't have a scientists to provide one, but if we'd have some, we wouldn't have to do it in so complicated manner.

Anyway, if there are any finer-than-material dimensions of the world, they are a proverbial Promised land. We are in our solid dimension like trapped, all we do requires an extreme amount of energy, material and precision, knowledge, energy and material is scarce, enthropy destroys everything, inertia and friction as well, and the C speed blocks our way to stars.
But "up there" is a lot of energy, and energy of thought is one of the most powerful, no C limit for transportation, minimal inertia and friction, time becomes less obligatory, space and gravity ceases to be an obstacle, etc, etc... Yeah, and a grass is greener there. We can hardly have any these things, without discovering a laws of finer-than-material dimension of the universe. They're actually more substantial than ours.

IAGAY: good definition, man.

That just doesn't make any sense to me Luminion. There are a lot of things that are not solid but material.  i would say that something that can be measured or observed is material.
BTW im not so sure identic is a word. and redefining immaterial would be kinda stupid. i don't think scientist would appreciate that very much.

Yeah. If wisdom philosophy language can't be understood by a 12 yr old, it pretty much fails in my opinion. 'Immaterial' is such a broken word. How the heck can something not have substance? ....  'Anti-matter' of science is much different.

Esoteric, as "secret knowledge, or generally unknown knowledge" is such a word I aviod. I don't like Sophism, as to use fancy confusing language. Plato talked about that in a different way ....

http://aolsvc.merriam-webster.aol.com/dictionary/esoteric

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Define+Sophism&spell=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter

God smothered in religious definitions. Memes, Linguistics, Babel .... Fucking damn it !!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

What hallucinations give you the right to spew this gibberish? Have you ever spent time in a lab, written in an academic journal, conducted research, worked in cross-disciplinary projects with scientific researchers, done statistical analysis? Do you actually know anything about scientists and the community of researchers?

I am unfamiliar with the quantity of "fineness" (unless of course you mean the fine structure constant). What are the SI units of the quantity? What is it a function of? What properties does this quantity have? Is it covariant, contravariant, invariant under coordinate transforms? Is it a ranked tensor? Is it an nth-order system? This is physics that you are mangling here. You cannot hide behind metaphors any more than you could if you were attempting to describe flux rates or curved spacetimes. You can articulate precisely what you are talking about, or you can go away.

Basic chemistry 101. What happens to individual particles during physical changes of state?

Answer: nothing.

The only difference between material bodies in state changes is the intermolecular forces. No changes within individual particles occur. This can be and is explained perfectly in terms of VSEPR theory and the extensions into negative charge centers and the associating chemical bonds. There is absolutely no need to introduce superfluous quantities into the discussion.

I have yet to encounter a quantity that cannot be described quantitatively. Insofar as the above terms are mathematical descriptions of the nature of the object, they can be be extended to include any system. There is no quantity in physics that cannot be described in this way. There are an unimaginable number of derived and defined measures in physics: Magnetic permeability, stress tensors, curvature tensors, flow rates, vorticity, flux vectors, angular momentum, kinetic energy, entropy, pressure, etc. ad infinitum. I find it hard to believe that you are giving me a quantity which has no units. If that is the case, it cannot be measured or mathematically manipulated. If it cannot be measured, it cannot be claimed.

That's really too bad. Let me tell you a lesson that I have learned in 20 years of studying physics. Bad physicists hide behind words. Lots of words. Flowing descriptions and flowery metaphors. You see, words can be abused. They can be softened. With words we can say things which are dishonest, which are meaningless, but ostensibly meaningful. We can subtly twist definitions or say vague things that sound lucid. This is especially so in physics, and especially so in physical descriptions which are mathematically sound but counterintuitive. But good physicists delve into the applied mathematics. For example, I was never interested in attempts to explain quantum mechanical systems in words. The counterintuitive nature of the discipline would present a great obstacle. But diving straight into the mathematics makes the entire discipline perfectly meaningful, articulable and sensible. Mathematics makes you honest, for you cannot fake a mathematical derivation. There is no confusion over what a flux integral is. There is no vagueness associated with curvature tensors, or Hilbert space, or Gaussian spheres. You cannot lie and say that a set of n vectors is linearly dependant when they actually are not.

There is no need to interrogate inanimate entities. Molecules are perfectly measurable. If you articulate the quantity you are talking about and not merely the quality (actually, this is too charitable. What you are saying would never pass as "qualitative description" in the scientific setting) I would not be interrogating you.

Let me see if I understand what I am saying. You can't be bothered to articulate your proposition in precise terms, because then you might be required to put in some effort and a few years to study advanced mathematics in physics. You won't elaborate on your proposition in a precise way that could be meaningfully investigated empirically, but you somehow expect your interlocutor to not only translate these confused descriptions into rigorous ones, but if he does not, he is arrogant and scornful? Give me a break. If you are attempting to discuss a yet unknown quantity, but you cannot even tell me whether this quantity is vector, scalar or tensor, then I'm sorry to say, but...you have no idea about anything at all pertaining to this quantity. Hence, you just made it up.