I have a very old textbook, entitled Introduction to Philosophy (Rev. ed. copyright 1935), by George Thomas White Patrick, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in the University of Iowa. The following paragraph is an elegant and apt condensation of Materialism. On page 247, within chapter 18, entitled "What is the Mind?," is the following excerpt, which Dr. Patrick authored, and which nails down Materialism better than any other I've read. It's simple to understand, which means one doesn't have to wade through the ego-driven abstractions that many academics create in order to elevate themselves above the masses. According to Dr. Patrick,
Materialism in its older form affirmed that there is no other reality than matter, or mass particles in motion; that mind is in no way a distinct or different form of being, but is itself either a form or function of matter. Man is an adaptive mechanism, wholly explicable in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry. Consciousness arises in the transformation of energy in the highly complex mechanism of the nervous system, but is not itself a distinct form of energy nor distinct form of being of any kind.
