HUM 201 Microlesson Mod 2.pdf

1. Humanities 201: Micro-lessons
LESSONS
Materialism
4th Dimension
Picasso and Einstein
Materialism
Would you like to know more?
Can materialists be theists or deists? Typically, no. The way to rationalize materialism and deism or theism, is to believe in
a purely physical deity/supreme being. This being would then be bound by the laws of physics and must be comprised of
matter. More often than not, gods, God, and other deities are portrayed as being above the physical universe. Thus,
materialism and atheism are closely related. Atheism is disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. To some
extent, almost all people are atheists because almost all people reject the existence of at least some gods (ie. Christians
typically reject Vishnu or Zeus).
Materialism is a philosophical premise that states: matter is the fundamental
substance in nature. This means that all things, including mental states, mental
experiences, and consciousness, are solely the result of material interactions (ie.
electromagnetism, gravity, biochemistry, etc.). As such the way a human being thinks,
feels, remembers, and interprets sensory input is all through the biochemistry of the
brain and neurological processes. Materialism rejects theism, deism, and naturalism to
some extent, denying the existence of anything supernatural – all is natural.
Although materialism is truly a Modern theory, and defines the 20th century, there have
been materialist movements in prior eras (such as Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius
from Antiquity or Thomas Hobbes from the Enlightenment).

2. Humanities 201: Micro-lessons
LESSONS
Materialism
4th Dimension
Picasso and Einstein
The Fourth Dimension
Would you like to know more?
The fourth dimension is an expression of materialism.
If space and time work in the ways that Abbott Abbott
and Poincaré propose, then miraculous things are
truly just happenings that we cannot understand
because of our limits of perception and awareness.
We live in a three-dimensional world. Everything we know has width, height/length, and depth or latitude,
longitude, and altitude. Even the thinnest piece of paper is three-dimensional.
Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838 – 1926) proposed a thought experiment in his novel Flatland: A Romance of Many
Dimensions in which there might be a fourth spatial dimension. In it, a square (a two-dimensional being stuck to
the surface of a plane) meets a sphere. The sphere is godlike in its abilities, because it has altitude and depth it
can move in bizarre ways (through walls, teleport, change size, etc.). Why? Because to the square who is limited to
two-dimensions, perceives the sphere as circles intersecting the plane. Abbott Abbott postulates that a fourth
dimensional being would experience our three dimensional world in a similar way – as a god.
Likewise, mathematician Henri Poincaré (1854 – 1912) considered the possibilities of a fourth spatial dimension in
his work Science and Hypothesis. According to Poincaré, if you could enter the fourth dimension you would see
every perspective of a scene all at once. All of time and space could be experienced like traveling to an island. But
instead of the island being a location on a map, it would also be like an island of time: an island for 1776 or 1945.

3. Humanities 201: Micro-lessons
LESSONS
Materialism
4th Dimension
Picasso and Einstein
Picasso and Einstein
Would you like to know more?
At its core, materialism is about finding reasonable, rational,
and logical explanations for the universe. Materialism rejects
supernatural explanations which are not reliable, verifiable,
or credible. Instead, materialism is about using empirical
evidence to prove the ways reality operates.
Both Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) and Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) were inspired by Poincaré’s Science
and Hypothesis. Picasso considered the nature of perception through representation in art, which
resulted in cubism. Einstein considered the nature of movement and reality which resulted in the theory
of relativity. If anything defined the 20th century in an all-encompassing way, it was the radical shift in the
way the world was seen both in terms of art and science.
Picasso agreed with Poincaré, realizing that we do not see the world in the way that we say we do: we
see the world in terms of constant shifting and changing of size, proportion, motion, and perspective.
Cubism is an attempt to show all of the angles and multiple times of the same object on a flat picture
plane.
Likewise, Einstein knew that Newtonian models of physics were incomplete. Though Newton’s work did
a great job of describing human scales, when it comes to the massive (stars and galaxies) or the
infinitesimal (atoms and subatomic particles) Newton wouldn’t suffice. Relativity reenvisioned gravity as a
fabric of the universe in which objects weighed down that fabric in order to pull other objects towards
them. And by doing so, gravity warped the shape of the cosmos as well as the passage of time.