Question

The stuff that everying is made of is called matter​

Answer 1

In physics matter means something different then in philosophy. So, for physics, matter is only a part of physical existing things.

If we take matter to mean anything physical (existing in space and time and in motion always), then the material world (what is outside /external to our consciousness and independent of it) is indeed matter, and everything is made up of matter.

But there are ‘things’ that are not material:

• Dreams, ideas, a poem, a program, information, a mathematical structure. They also ‘exist’ in some sense, but are not material. They are either mental/spiritual or abstract.

• So, we could categorize the world in two or three classes of existing ‘things’:

• Material: anything that exists independent of our consciousness, and exists in space and time, and is in motion always.
• Mind: anything that exists in our consciousness/mental experience of the world (thoughts, dreams, emotions, cognition and perception)
• Abstract: Numbers, mathematical structures, geometrical forms, etc.
• The abstract world sort of exists on its own (exist independent of mind and indepent of anything material, and not in space/time).

The fundamental question in philosophy is about the relation between the material world and the world of mind.

Two directions exist, the first being that matter is the original component of the world (matter exists without being created, so matter exists on its own), and mind is a development product of the material world (though life/living entities). That is the position of (philosophical) materialism. The opposite direction is that the original component of the world is mind (either subjective or objective) which created the material world. The subjective form is called Solipsism (only one’s own mind exist, nothing else) the objective form Idealism, and which in many cases takes shape as a form of religion (the belief in a supernatural spiritual creator of the world).

And as a third direction, one could mention platonism, the idea that the original component of the world are abstract forms/relations ('ideal forms’). Modern form of it: the mathematical universe hypothesis (Max Tegmark).

Answer 2

Answer:

The term matter refers to anything that occupies space and has mass—in other words, the “stuff” that the universe is made of. All matter is made up of substances called elements, which have specific chemical and physical properties and cannot be broken down into other substances through ordinary chemical reactions.