Would you consider a magnetic field to be immaterial?

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fisherman_carl

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A magnet attracts metal. But the field seems to be almost immaterial. You can’t see it. The only way you know it is there is because you can see the magnet and the metal come together. You can feel the force of the magnet. So it seems to be almost immaterial in nature. But, it is related to a physical object. The magnetic field would not remain if the magnet vanished.

Also interesting is this article
whatswrongwithatheism.wordpress.com/about/the-shortfalls-of-materialism/you-cant-prove-the-immaterial/
 
No. It is an aspect of the properties that bind atoms together. If one were to smash one’s head against the wall, they would know intimately of the materiality of the electromagnetism.
 
fisherman_carl said:
A magnet attracts metal. But the field seems to be almost immaterial. You can’t see it. The only way you know it is there is because you can see the magnet and the metal come together. You can feel the force of the magnet. So it seems to be almost immaterial in nature. But, it is related to a physical object. The magnetic field would not remain if the magnet vanished.

Also interesting is this article
whatswrongwithatheism.wordpress.com/about/the-shortfalls-of-materialism/you-cant-prove-the-immaterial/
Click to expand...
The magnetic field is created by the exchange of virtual photons and as such is not immaterial. However, virtual photons are not the same as real photons. Still, virtual photons are a manifestation of the material universe.
 
We need to define immaterial. Light (photons, electromagnetic waves) consists of nothing but an electric field and a magnetic field traveling together. It contains no matter, but it has (or it transports) energy and momentum. Light interacts with matter in many ways.

So electric and magnetic field are something physical and localized. Does that make them material or immaterial?
 
Aloysium said:
No. It is an aspect of the properties that bind atoms together. If one were to smash one’s head against the wall, they would know intimately of the materiality of the electromagnetism.
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I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying atoms are bound by magnetism? Only metal? I don’t get how banging your head against the wall would tell you anything.
 
No, a magnetic field can be produced by the physical motion of a magnet,and the field can be identified by metal, it produces poles of attraction and repulsion, which are all physical. We can not effect non-material things with material things When the field cuts through a coil of wire it produces electricity, a physical motion of electrons.
 
ynotzap said:
No, a magnetic field can be produced by the physical motion of a magnet,and the field can be identified by metal, it produces poles of attraction and repulsion, which are all physical. We can not effect non-material things with material things When the field cuts through a coil of wire it produces electricity, a physical motion of electrons.
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But what is a magnetic field? You are describing its behaviour or effects. But what is its essence? I don’t think we know.
 
GEddie said:
Immaterial != nonphysical.

ICXC NIKA
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I never claimed it did.

So you are saying magnetism is nonphysical? Then what is it?

spirit is immaterial and nonphysical. The definition of physical is
.
of or relating to that which is material:
the physical universe; the physical sciences.
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Can you give examples of something non physical that is not immaterial?
 
fisherman_carl said:
I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying atoms are bound by magnetism? Only metal? I don’t get how banging your head against the wall would tell you anything.
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Matter is prevented from passing through other matter in part because of electromagnetic repulsion and in part by the Pauli exclusion principle. I think he was referring to the electromagnetic part.
 
Immaterialism is a proof that you are willing to exchange temporal property to an eternal one.
 
fisherman_carl said:
But what is a magnetic field? You are describing its behaviour or effects. But what is its essence? I don’t think we know.
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It might be argued that its behavior and effects are all we can know. I am reminded of an introductory passage of an old (1936) theoretical physics book, Foundations of Physics, by Robert Bruce Lindsay and Henry Margenau:
… let us make quite plain that the task of physics as of all science is found in the coherent description of experience. Physics has nothing to say about a possible real world lying behind the experience. …] the assumption [of a real world] is no necessary part of physics, and …] in a logical development of the subject the safest course is to omit it entirely.
We are then warned that we may be led astray (of physical truth) by our preconceived notions of the material world:
… our knowledge of it is based naturally on the prevailing physical theories. It seems as if the belief in such a world may tend to encourage too close adherence to reasonably successful physical theories with too small allowance for their necessary revision to meet the demands of new experience.
Perhaps all we can ever know about electromagnetic fields is the description of their behavior and effects.
 
My point was that we need s clear definition of terms. Something can be not composed of matter, but if it depends for existence or transmission upon material processes, then IMNAAHO it would be a stretch to call it immaterial.

ICXC NIKA
 
fisherman_carl said:
A magnet attracts metal. But the field seems to be almost immaterial. You can’t see it. The only way you know it is there is because you can see the magnet and the metal come together. You can feel the force of the magnet. So it seems to be almost immaterial in nature. But, it is related to a physical object. The magnetic field would not remain if the magnet vanished.

Also interesting is this article
whatswrongwithatheism.wordpress.com/about/the-shortfalls-of-materialism/you-cant-prove-the-immaterial/
Click to expand...
Physical particles have intrinsic attribute like charge and spin which this allows that particles to interact with each other through the filed they generate.
 
GEddie said:
My point was that we need s clear definition of terms. Something can be not composed of matter, but if it depends for existence or transmission upon material processes, then IMNAAHO it would be a stretch to call it immaterial.

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
Immaterial means it is not material. It doesn’t tell us what it is, only what it is not.
 
Magnetism is one hundred percent material. It is an aspect of the forces that bind atoms and molecules together. Those forces are responsible for the hardness of things. If the chair-leg you stub your toe on is not material, what is?
 
There is a philosophical list describing "immaterial, adj.
Immaterial: meaning not having matter or the properties of matter.

negatively immaterial : that which as considered by the mind or in abstraction from it’s concrete state, is without matter eg. the concepts of goodness, substance, unity

partially immaterial: that which is free from the limitations of matter in some characteristic of it’s being or in some principle of it’s compound being eg.sensory knowledge

positively and wholly immaterial: that which is intrinsically independent of matter in it’s being or activities; the spiritual

Magnetic field has the properties of matter, material not immaterial
 
fisherman_carl said:
A magnet attracts metal. But the field seems to be almost immaterial. You can’t see it. The only way you know it is there is because you can see the magnet and the metal come together. You can feel the force of the magnet. So it seems to be almost immaterial in nature. But, it is related to a physical object. The magnetic field would not remain if the magnet vanished.

Also interesting is this article
whatswrongwithatheism.wordpress.com/about/the-shortfalls-of-materialism/you-cant-prove-the-immaterial/
Click to expand...
Anything that is bound by the physical laws of this universe is material.
 
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