Energy is the ontological primitive of Materialism not Matter

[SatChitAnanda]

When Materialist/Physical Realists say that matter is the ontological primitive, this is strictly incorrect.
The ontological primitive in a Material Metaphysics is energy.
Energy is the one substance that explains everything in material metaphysics.
Matter is explained in terms of energy.
Not everything in a physics has mass but everything has energy.
You cannot explain energy in terms of something else because you get into a circular argument.
The reason why I think it's important to state this is because then we avoid using particles or field disturbances, etc, to describe the ontological primitive of Material Metaphysics.
Energy is defined by quantities such as mass, charge, spin, frequency, etc.

[Starbuck]

Energy is the one substance that explains everything in material metaphysics.

Is energy a substance?

My understanding is that it relates to the potential capacity for work - quite an abstract phenomenon. Wiki calls it a 'conserved quantity'. I take that to mean Non-degradable and measurable, but not necessarily substantial. At least nothing that can take us beyond "a set of perceptions that appear to regulate and determine another set of perceptions".

[Eugene I]

OK, and how exactly such "energy materialism" resolves the "hard problem of consciousness" and contradictions with quantum entanglement experiments (particularly, violations of physical locality and causality)?

[SatChitAnanda]

Energy is quantity and as such cannot resolve the hard problem but it does give a better ontological primitive than matter. I use to think matter was particles then particles became properties of quantum fields which became something else. Matter is defined as a physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy. But matter is a form of energy and so energy must be the ontological primitive of materialists. Otherwise it's very difficult to define the ontological primitive of materialists. At least I have difficulties defining it. Panpsychists would then define consciousness as a qualia property of energy in addition to the quantity properties.

[Simon Adams]

It’s difficult to even conceive of what the ontological primitive is for materialists. If you take the fact that mass and energy are seen as equivalent, then it sounds like the natural answer. However if you go to Wikipedia, it has;

In physics, energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to an object in order to perform work on, or to heat, the object.

So you have a kind of circular reference if you have it as the primitive. Take heat energy for example, which is the vibration of particles. Potential energy becomes even harder to imagine as something primitive (for me anyway).

I would imagine that for a physicalist, the ontological primitive needs to be either the theoretical fields (with the idea being that there is maybe a unified field), or information. Either way, if they really think about it, it’s not that far from idealism

[Starbuck]

In physics, energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to an object in order to perform work on, or to heat, the object.

So energy is a quantitative property that exists only in its relation to an 'object' which itself turns out to be just made of energy. No wonder materialist don't often bother their pretty heads with metaphysics!

[SatChitAnanda]

Excellent replies. This is why I started the discussion. I realized that materialist are hard pressed to find their ontological primitive. Naive materialist naturally assume that it's matter. But this does not address electromagnetism. Maybe energy is too generic a word but it's hard to find another.
Strictly speaking ontological materialism is the doctrine that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. The problem with this definition is that matter is distinct from energy and at the same time matter is a form of energy but energy in and of itself as a previous contributor has pointed out is undefined.
I think this means ontological materialism is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one, to paraphrase a famous physical realist.

[Eugene I]

I think your attempt to reformulate materialism in terms of energy is futile. E=m*c^2 - in materialism energy is matter and mater is energy, it is the same thing in physics. On the other hand, "energy" in physics is simply a mathematical concept, physicists use it because it is a useful and convenient concept, but you can re-formulate the equations of physics to remove any references to energy whatsoever. Ascribing "reality" to mathematical concepts of physic is how our human "naïve realism" compels us to interpret the math of physical laws. What physics is about is only mathematical relations between the observable phenomena, everything else is our fantasies and mental interpretations of these laws that are actually unnecessary for physics to work. But what happens is that metaphysical materialism "highjacks" physics and imposes its metaphysical concepts of "matter" or "energy" on it, claiming that physics presents an evidence for the existence of such "entities"/substances (while in fact it does not present such evidences at all).

[AshvinP]

Excellent replies. This is why I started the discussion. I realized that materialist are hard pressed to find their ontological primitive. Naive materialist naturally assume that it's matter. But this does not address electromagnetism. Maybe energy is too generic a word but it's hard to find another.
Strictly speaking ontological materialism is the doctrine that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. The problem with this definition is that matter is distinct from energy and at the same time matter is a form of energy but energy in and of itself as a previous contributor has pointed out is undefined.
I think this means ontological materialism is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one, to paraphrase a famous physical realist.

It seems to me "energy" is just another word for "power". Under idealism, "power" is essentially ideational (thinking) activity. Some thinking activity has less power than other thinking activity. Whoever thought up a mountain has more power than whoever thought up a house. There is only One power but it varies in degree.

[SatChitAnanda]

We need to differentiate between physics and metaphysics. Physics is relational as it deals with behavior. Materialism is metaphysics. They claim the ontological primitive is matter. But when you try to find this matter you end up with energy which is a mathematical abstraction. Unless I am missing something, at this point in time I don't see how materialism has an ontological primitive.