"Nothing Exists Except Atoms and Empty Space; Everything Else Is Opinion." -- Democritus

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 88% Existentialist 69% Modernist 63% Postmodernist 50% Cultural Creative 38% Romanticist 25% Idealist 25% Fundamentalist 19% What is Your World View? (corrected...hopefully) created with QuizFarm.com

Well, I definitely do consider myself a materialist (in the philosophical sense, not the "gimme stuff" sense). I believe that the universe consists of matter and energy (not that those are actually two different things), and the rules that govern their interaction. That last bit's important, I think. I'm not necessarily a strict reductionist the way they're saying here, though. It's quite possible that there are systems whose higher-order behavior is so complex that the human brain, at least, is fundamentally incapable of understanding them in terms of their component parts. And, even if it is theoretically possible to understand, say, human societies by starting with fundamental particles and working your way up, it's probably not in general a very helpful way to proceed. Still, for an abstract enough definition of "can be explained by," I do, indeed, agree with that assertion.

I'm curious now what their definition of "existentialism" is, since I scored so high on it. Not curious enough to go back and retake the test to try and get it as an answer, though.