Are decentralized systems material from the point of view of philosophy?
This question came up by chance when I thought about the Forex currency market. It is not physically located anywhere, but exists simultaneously in the mind of every person who has a supply or demand. If you sum up all the current and potential currency exchange transactions in the world, you can imagine that this whole system (Forex) seems to be "hanging in the air" and exists.Can this be considered a material phenomenon from the point of view of philosophy (an objectively existing phenomenon) or not? The lack of mass, energy, and momentum can be ignored 🙂
The material and the objectively existing are not necessarily synonymous.
But specifically in this example, we have, in addition to the minds of people, there is also a system for documenting transactions. My intention to make a transaction is known only to me, but the transaction that I conclude with someone has a material manifestation in the form of documents. So in this sense, at least part of the Forex market has a material impact.
you may be “digging deep”.
I usually give an example of “bus route No. 5”, which does not exist in material terms, but many people know about it, use it, and plan their lives in connection with it.
even easier – the concept of “home”. what is the difference between an apartment that is someone's home and one in which no one lives? and if the house is a sewer, or a van?
in natural philosophy, everything that can be influenced by material means is material (reduced to a natural substance).. if you can beat someone with a stick and achieve “obedience”, then obedience is material. all eastern medical practices are based on this energy (chakras, meridians, etc.) .. and our medicine is the same, the pill “from pain” also refers to a certain subjective experience.
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in Yijing, everything imaginable is reduced to three categories, which have different degrees of materiality, and to which “contemplation” can be applied (observation, feeling, perception, reasoning, etc.).
“something that causes feelings.”. these are both directly material things and their qualities and characteristics (color, size), and aesthetic reactions (sympathy, anger, etc.)
“something that lasts” .. related to time and space, any method of prolongation and continuation (processes), sequences and coherent constructions (youth, road to work, river flow..)
“what accumulates” .. various unifying categories (dogs, on Saturdays ..), family ties, any sets (everything in your pocket, 100 rubles …)
of course, different aspects of the same phenomenon can relate to different levels of materialization .. the route of a bus can evoke feelings (any human), last (in time), and accumulate (made up of stops).
your example with the exchange can also be broken down into aspects, and from them you can deduce various influences and significance for the world around you.
finance, in principle, is too dematerialized (and even such forms of lots as futures …), so the example is too difficult to understand (“you dig deep”), and decentralization from the question corresponds to” accumulation ” (unification on some formal basis).
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in modern European philosophy, it is unlikely that the objects of the “noosphere” will be considered material (independently existing) .. imaginable categories that have meaning only when processed by the human mind are difficult to reify without attracting esoteric views, and no matter how modern materialistic thinkers try to explain the active power of contemplative categories (such as the influence of the same currency market on people), everything depends on certain allegorical terms … and whatever “scientific” term you choose from this series, it is still either a sphere or a field, an egregore, a thought form, a casual body, etc.