PWQs

This is a branch-thread of 'believer response pattern' in the paranormal section.

It is about qualia again......

It is an inevitable fact of life that all our experiences are subjective - we cannot escape from this. But those subjective experiences (or qualia) appear to fall into two distinct sorts of categories - firstly there are our internal emotional states - things like fear and elation. Secondly there are a collection of integrated sense impressions - the sights, sounds and touch of a physical world - we could call them "physical world qualia" - PWQs. If we go back and think about the process of science, and what it is doing, then the source of the difficulties becomes quite clear (to me, anyway). The process of physical science is the process of creating and testing a model of the behaviour of something. But what is the 'something' we are producing a model of? Is it not the case that the 'something' we are producing a model of is the behavior of PWQs?

It seems to me that this is precisely what the laws of physics model - we have no direct access to atoms or quantum waves - we have direct access only to PWQs. If we recognise this then all of the arguments about how qualia arise from matter melt away. The problems are the result of the ontological materialist claiming that the laws of physics, rather than being a model of the behaviour of PWQs, are a model of the behaviour of a self-existing physical world. Why add this extra level of abstraction into our description of reality? Why claim that TLOP are a model of a self-existing physical world and leave yourself doomed to struggle endlessly to explain what qualia are when the REAL situation is that the TLOP are a model of the behaviour of PWQs anyway?

So if you accept the above understanding of what is going on i.e. that humans experience PWQs and create an integrated set of physical laws and equations to describe the behaviour of those PWQs then we can look again at our claims regarding the relationship between the PWQs and the physical model we call TLOP.

My position :

My position is very simple, and seems to me to be an accurate reflection of the true situation - that we find ourselves experiencing PWQs and we build an abstract model we call the laws of physics to describe the behaviour of these PWQs. Therefore the relationship between PWQs and TLOP is very simple - PWQs are the thing being modelled and TLOP is a mathematical model describing its behaviour. There is no question about 'how qualia arise from matter', because 'matter' is just part of the model of qualia. No Hard Problem. No assumptions. A simple accurate statement of the way things actually are.

Eliminative Materialists position :

The eliminative materialist position is not so simple. Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'. This is claiming a very different relationship between PWQs and TLOP. In effect it amounts to a claim that PWQs belong in the model, as a small subset of the model. As a result, the eliminative materialist is faced with the task of showing how it is possible that the thing being modelled "arises" as a subset of the model itself! Eliminative materialism claims that TLOP isn't a model of PWQs at all - it claims that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a directly-unknowable self-existing (mind-independent) physical world, and that PWQs arise from this unknowable self-existing physical world and it is therefore possible to place PWQs within the model! Here is your "Hard Problem" and it is very hard indeed. It is hard because if my position is correct then it is an attempt to claim it is possible to place the actual (entire) thing being modelled into the model as a subset of the model. It is not really surprising that this is proving a little difficult.

Just to make this even clearer I have used the example of physical models of wind behaviour. We build physical models of weather patterns and part of these use physical concepts to explaing and predict the behviour of winds. But if somebody came along and claimed that you could place the winds themselves into the mathematical model you would think they were insane, wouldn't you? It is beyond 'woo-woo' - it is just plain absurd. But when we talk about 'the winds themselves' what we really mean is the PWQs of winds - the winds we actually experience blowing. It is absurd because it is an attempt to place the thing we are modelling into the model - where it quite plainly does not belong. Yet, to claim that PWQs can be placed in the model is even more absurd, because rather than simply just trying to place the winds themselves into the mathematical model of wind behaviour, it is a claim that the whole of collection of PWQs can be placed into the mathematical model of the physical world.

Yet, every time a materialist claims that "there is no reason to believe that subjective experiences are not fully explicable as physical brain activity" they are making precisely this claim - that PWQs are just another part of the abstract model we call 'the material world'. I stand by my assertion that it is prima facie absurd. "Hard Problem" is an understatement.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

It is an inevitable fact of life that all our experiences are subjective - we cannot escape from this. But those subjective experiences (or qualia) appear to fall into two distinct sorts of categories - firstly there are our internal emotional states - things like fear and elation. Secondly there are a collection of integrated sense impressions - the sights, sounds and touch of a physical world - we could call them "physical world qualia" - PWQs.

On what grounds do you assert that they are "distinct"? Certainly you can divide up the qualia into these two groups, but that doesn't mean that they are really distinct in any meaningful way.

If we go back and think about the process of science, and what it is doing, then the source of the difficulties becomes quite clear (to me, anyway). The process of physical science is the process of creating and testing a model of the behaviour of something. But what is the 'something' we are producing a model of? Is it not the case that the 'something' we are producing a model of is the behavior of PWQs?

Sure. Science provides a model for our experiences. But that model implicitely includes the assumption that our experiences are interactions with an objective reality.

It seems to me that this is precisely what the laws of physics model - we have no direct access to atoms or quantum waves - we have direct access only to PWQs. If we recognise this then all of the arguments about how qualia arise from matter melt away.

What problems are you referring to? If you are referring to the problem of how these "PWQ's" work, then they most certainly don't melt away. No matter what philosophical approach you choose to use, the question of how consciousness actually works remains.

The problems are the result of the ontological materialist claiming that the laws of physics, rather than being a model of the behaviour of PWQs, are a model of the behaviour of a self-existing physical world.

This has nothing to do with ontology. The assumption that reality is objective is a necessary assumption of the scientific method. It is also an assumption of Idealism. It is, in fact, nothing more than a rejection of Solipsism.

Why add this extra level of abstraction into our description of reality? Why claim that TLOP are a model of a self-existing physical world and leave yourself doomed to struggle endlessly to explain what qualia are when the REAL situation is that the TLOP are a model of the behaviour of PWQs anyway?

Why assume a self-existing mental world either? The difference is that the assumptions of science constitute a falsifiable hypothesis. That is what makes them useful. That is what makes science a meaningful epistemological framework, rather than a meaningless ontological one.

You are correct in claiming that ontological materialism makes no sense. What you don't seem to understand is that ontology makes no sense. Idealism is just as meaningless as ontological materialism, and for exactly the same reasons.

My position is very simple, and seems to me to be an accurate reflection of the true situation - that we find ourselves experiencing PWQs and we build an abstract model we call the laws of physics to describe the behaviour of these PWQs. Therefore the relationship between PWQs and TLOP is very simple - PWQs are the thing being modelled and TLOP is a mathematical model describing its behaviour. There is no question about 'how qualia arise from matter', because 'matter' is just part of the model of qualia. No Hard Problem. No assumptions. A simple accurate statement of the way things actually are.

There is still a very hard problem. What is the nature of consciousness? Why is it there to begin with? What are the logical rules that describe it? You are essentially sweeping all these questions under the rug.

Saying that consciousness doesn't arise from matter, but instead that matter arises from consciousness, doesn't eliminate any questions that need to be answered, nor does it answer them. You constantly criticize materialists for not being able to explain to you how consciousness arises from matter, but can you explain how matter arises from consciousness? Can you describe, in terms of logical rules, how the mind produces the physical world?

The eliminative materialist position is not so simple. Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'.

I know of nobody who claims this. What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain, which serves an evolutionary advantageous purpose, and which developed through the process of natural selection. There is nothing mysterious about it, other than the fact that we don't have all the details yet.

This is claiming a very different relationship between PWQs and TLOP. In effect it amounts to a claim that PWQs belong in the model, as a small subset of the model. As a result, the eliminative materialist is faced with the task of showing how it is possible that the thing being modelled "arises" as a subset of the model itself!

That is a mischaracterization of the process. What we are trying to model is the physical World that we perceive. If the process of perception is a physical process, then it can, and indeed must, be explainable within that model.

Eliminative materialism claims that TLOP isn't a model of PWQs at all - it claims that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a directly-unknowable self-existing (mind-independent) physical world, and that PWQs arise from this unknowable self-existing physical world and it is therefore possible to place PWQs within the model! Here is your "Hard Problem" and it is very hard indeed. It is hard because if my position is correct then it is an attempt to claim it is possible to place the actual (entire) thing being modelled into the model as a subset of the model. It is not really surprising that this is proving a little difficult.

Notice the emphasis. If your position is correct, then at least one of the axioms of science are wrong. In that case, it is not just a hard problem, it is an impossible problem. But it is only a problem if the scientific method is invalid.

You cannot make assumptions that are inconsistent with the axioms of science, and conclude from them that certain classes of problem cannot be solved by science. Well, you can, but it is trivial and pointless to do so. If the axioms of science are false, then the point is moot!

Just to make this even clearer I have used the example of physical models of wind behaviour. We build physical models of weather patterns and part of these use physical concepts to explaing and predict the behviour of winds. But if somebody came along and claimed that you could place the winds themselves into the mathematical model you would think they were insane, wouldn't you?

What do you mean, put the winds themselves into the model? How is this analogous to what is being done in science? Science is trying to model consciousness. What is the problem with this?

It is beyond 'woo-woo' - it is just plain absurd. But when we talk about 'the winds themselves' what we really mean is the PWQs of winds - the winds we actually experience blowing. It is absurd because it is an attempt to place the thing we are modelling into the model - where it quite plainly does not belong.

Nobody is trying to do that. This is an absurd strawman.

Yet, to claim that PWQs can be placed in the model is even more absurd, because rather than simply just trying to place the winds themselves into the mathematical model of wind behaviour, it is a claim that the whole of collection of PWQs can be placed into the mathematical model of the physical world.

What we are attempting to do is model the physical World. And such a model must necessarily include an explanation for how the observable World interacts with us to produce our perceptions of it.

Yet, every time a materialist claims that "there is no reason to believe that subjective experiences are not fully explicable as physical brain activity" they are making precisely this claim - that PWQs are just another part of the abstract model we call 'the material world'. I stand by my assertion that it is prima facie absurd. "Hard Problem" is an understatement.

It is only absurd if you make the a-priori assumption that physical reality is your experiences themselves, rather than something objective which you experience. But if you make that assumption, then you have already flushed science down the toilet, so the point is moot.

You can reject the assumption of objectivity if you want to, but when you do so, you are rejecting the scientific method too.

Dr. Stupid

[BillyTK]

Anyone mind if we take a coupla steps back for a minute please? I've got a few problems with qualia--which admittedly are prolly the result of my lack of knowledge--I'd just like to iron out.

Firstly, I don't get how we have qualia, anymore than according to behaviourism we "have" operants (basic units of stimulus/response operations which compose our behaviours).

Secondly, the distinction between emotional states and sensory impressions seems somewhat arbitary as these interact with each other--my emotional state is influenced by sensory impressions; my sensory impressions are influenced by emotional state.

Finally, it's the attribution of meaning to these states which makes them significant--for instance, I'm crying because I feel sad (attribution of meaning to emotional state) as opposed to I'm crying because I've got hayfever and just snooked up a noseful of pollen (attribution of meaning to sensory impressions). These meanings are not a result of any intrinsic property of the state/perception/object being perceived but are "out there" (points at rest of world) as much as they are "in here" (taps self on head).

So apologies if this has been covered before, but i just don't get it!

Stimp


On what grounds do you assert that they are "distinct"? Certainly you can divide up the qualia into these two groups, but that doesn't mean that they are really distinct in any meaningful way.


I assert they are distinct on the grounds that one of them (the PWQs) are a representation of a percieved external reality and the other are not. How can you claim this distinction is 'not meaningful'? Nobody would claim fear and elation as being qualia that represent part of the external reality (oops...I forgot....materialists in the house....liable to claim all sorts of patent absurdities..... :D )

You might be able to draw a theoretical, indirect connection between internal emotional states and the physical world, but you would have to be pretty desperate to claim there is a direct connection as there is in the qualia associated with directly representing the external world. Are you that desperate?


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If we go back and think about the process of science, and what it is doing, then the source of the difficulties becomes quite clear (to me, anyway). The process of physical science is the process of creating and testing a model of the behaviour of something. But what is the 'something' we are producing a model of? Is it not the case that the 'something' we are producing a model of is the behavior of PWQs?
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Sure. Science provides a model for our experiences. But that model implicitely includes the assumption that our experiences are interactions with an objective reality.


Slow down.....let us examine this closely. First you say "Science is a model for our experiences - our 'physical world qualia'." Then you say But that model implicitely includes the assumption that our experiences are interactions with an objective reality.

There is a difference between objectivism and materialism. All you are claiming here is that the model of our experiences is common to all of us - that the same model seems to work for your experiences as works for my experiences - that is what makes it objective. The only conclusion/assumption required here is that solipsism is false and the laws of physics describe everybodies PWQs with equal accuracy. Yes?

There is a word for this 'objective reality' - and the word is 'noumenon'. Can we use this word?


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It seems to me that this is precisely what the laws of physics model - we have no direct access to atoms or quantum waves - we have direct access only to PWQs. If we recognise this then all of the arguments about how qualia arise from matter melt away.
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What problems are you referring to? If you are referring to the problem of how these "PWQ's" work, then they most certainly don't melt away. No matter what philosophical approach you choose to use, the question of how consciousness actually works remains.


No, I am not referring to the question of how the "PWQ's" work. That is the job of physicists and/or neuroscientists. I am referring to the question of the relationship between TLOP, PWQs and the noumenon i.e. the Hard Problem and all of its manifestations rather than 'the Easy Problems'.


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The problems are the result of the ontological materialist claiming that the laws of physics, rather than being a model of the behaviour of PWQs, are a model of the behaviour of a self-existing physical world.
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This has nothing to do with ontology. The assumption that reality is objective is a necessary assumption of the scientific method. It is also an assumption of Idealism. It is, in fact, nothing more than a rejection of Solipsism.


A lot of people get solipsism confused with idealism. Can we just both agree that solipsism has been rejected? The only solipsist round here is Franko.

If you read this post carefully you will see that I have not rejected the concept of a shared objective noumenon. Therefore the scientific method is not under threat. The question I am raising is whether the noumenon itself exists independently of the realm of mind (Not YOUR mind or MY mind, but Mind). Ths is a very important distinction, and if you want me to clarify it I will.

I re-iterate my position : TLOP are a model of the behaviour of PWQs. This is not an assumption of idealism - it is a basic statement of the truth. You have experiences of a physical world. Physics provides a model of the behaviour of those experiences (you already agreed to this). If we reject solipsism we have to accept the existence of a shared noumenon that behaves according to objectively verifiable mathematical laws. NO OTHER ASSUMPTIONS are neccesary. Specifically NO ASSUMPTIONS about the primacy of mind or matter are neccesary at this point in our reasoning. If you disagree please explain PRECISELY why.


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Why add this extra level of abstraction into our description of reality? Why claim that TLOP are a model of a self-existing physical world and leave yourself doomed to struggle endlessly to explain what qualia are when the REAL situation is that the TLOP are a model of the behaviour of PWQs anyway?
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Why assume a self-existing mental world either?


I haven't. I am merely observing that the mental world does exist, and that TLOP is a model of the behaviour of those aspects of the mental world which appear to be representations of a physical world. I have not assumed a self-existing mental world and I have not assumed a self-existing physical world. All I have done is observe the relationship between the mental world, TLOP and the noumenon.


The difference is that the assumptions of science constitute a falsifiable hypothesis. That is what makes them useful.
That is what makes science a meaningful epistemological framework, rather than a meaningless ontological one.


Sure....we have to assume the noumenon is objective. I am not challenging this.


You are correct in claiming that ontological materialism makes no sense. What you don't seem to understand is that ontology makes no sense. Idealism is just as meaningless as ontological materialism, and for exactly the same reasons.


Why?

The reason materialism makes no sense is because it is an attempt to put the thing being modelled into the model. Idealism is simply the abscense of an attempt to put the thing being modelled into the model. So idealism does not fall foul of the same problem at all. :)


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My position is very simple, and seems to me to be an accurate reflection of the true situation - that we find ourselves experiencing PWQs and we build an abstract model we call the laws of physics to describe the behaviour of these PWQs. Therefore the relationship between PWQs and TLOP is very simple - PWQs are the thing being modelled and TLOP is a mathematical model describing its behaviour. There is no question about 'how qualia arise from matter', because 'matter' is just part of the model of qualia. No Hard Problem. No assumptions. A simple accurate statement of the way things actually are.
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There is still a very hard problem. What is the nature of consciousness? Why is it there to begin with? What are the logical rules that describe it? You are essentially sweeping all these questions under the rug.


No - I am quite happy to discuss these things, but only when we are in agreement at how I got there. In other words I can examine these problems and provide answers, but the answers will only make sense to a person who has already accepted my line of reasoning up to this point. Otherwise they keep on thinking about it like an ontological materialist and find it very difficult to understand and accept the rest of the reasoning.


Saying that consciousness doesn't arise from matter, but instead that matter arises from consciousness, doesn't eliminate any questions that need to be answered, nor does it answer them.


It totally changes the them. It replaces one set of questions with another set.


You constantly criticize materialists for not being able to explain to you how consciousness arises from matter, but can you explain how matter arises from consciousness?


I can. Whether or not I should is another question.


Can you describe, in terms of logical rules, how the mind produces the physical world?


For a start get rid of 'the mind' because you are thinking about 'your mind'. You are picturing lots of seperate minds somehow 'creating' a shared objective reality, which is of course illogical. I said 'Mind' not 'the mind'. Again, this can be done, but to do so would involve making claims that many people here would find very difficult to accept, and if previous experience is anything to go by they will continue to think like materialists and I will just end up repeating the first part of my reasoning over and over again. If you can cope with discussing this having accepted the first part of my line of reasoning then I will go on. This is VITAL. I had to accept the problems with materialism FULLY before I was able to accept the mechanism by which Mind creates matter.


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The eliminative materialist position is not so simple. Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'.
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I know of nobody who claims this.


Loki does.


What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,


That is materialism, not science....come on Stimp....


...which serves an evolutionary advantageous purpose, and which developed through the process of natural selection. There is nothing mysterious about it, other than the fact that we don't have all the details yet.


And that is pointless materialist dogma that doesn't even belong in this thread. We all know what current orthodox materialism dogma is.


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This is claiming a very different relationship between PWQs and TLOP. In effect it amounts to a claim that PWQs belong in the model, as a small subset of the model. As a result, the eliminative materialist is faced with the task of showing how it is possible that the thing being modelled "arises" as a subset of the model itself!
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That is a mischaracterization of the process. What we are trying to model is the physical World that we perceive.


Exactly! You are modelling PWQs. You are modelling physical world qualia. You are modelling "the physical world you percieve"


If the process of perception is a physical process, then it can, and indeed must, be explainable within that model.


And this is a unneccesary and meaningless piece of materialist dogma tacked onto the end of a correct statement. It amounts to "If materialism is true then materialism is true." What is the point in even saying this? You are saying "If materialism is true then we can put the thing being modelled into the model". Since this is ABSURD, then materialism must be false. It is no good saying "I don't care if it is absurd, if materialism is true then we must be able to do this".

:)


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Eliminative materialism claims that TLOP isn't a model of PWQs at all - it claims that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a directly-unknowable self-existing (mind-independent) physical world, and that PWQs arise from this unknowable self-existing physical world and it is therefore possible to place PWQs within the model! Here is your "Hard Problem" and it is very hard indeed. It is hard because if my position is correct then it is an attempt to claim it is possible to place the actual (entire) thing being modelled into the model as a subset of the model. It is not really surprising that this is proving a little difficult.
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Notice the emphasis. If your position is correct, then at least one of the axioms of science are wrong.


Yikes! :eek:

First, if I am not correct then you need to explain why I am wrong. Secondly, you need to explain which axiom of science I have rejected. If it is that the noumenon is objective then you are wrong, because I have accepted that the noumenon is objective.


You cannot make assumptions that are inconsistent with the axioms of science, and conclude from them that certain classes of problem cannot be solved by science.


I haven't, Stimp. Think about it CAREFULLY. Which axiom of science have a contradicted. Science does not claim primacy of matter. It requires only that the noumenon be objective.


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Just to make this even clearer I have used the example of physical models of wind behaviour. We build physical models of weather patterns and part of these use physical concepts to explaing and predict the behviour of winds. But if somebody came along and claimed that you could place the winds themselves into the mathematical model you would think they were insane, wouldn't you?
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What do you mean, put the winds themselves into the model? How is this analogous to what is being done in science? Science is trying to model consciousness. What is the problem with this?


I mean putting the winds themselves into the model, which is prima facie absurd.

Two paragraphs :

We are modelling our experiences. We experience wind. We would not try to put the wind we experience into a mathematical model of wind behaviour, because that would be silly.

We are modelling our experiences. We experience PWQs. We would not try to put the PWQs into a mathematical model of PWQ behaviour, because that would be silly.


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It is beyond 'woo-woo' - it is just plain absurd. But when we talk about 'the winds themselves' what we really mean is the PWQs of winds - the winds we actually experience blowing. It is absurd because it is an attempt to place the thing we are modelling into the model - where it quite plainly does not belong.
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Nobody is trying to do that. This is an absurd strawman.


Is it?

WHY? ;)

Think about it carefully and tell me why this is a strawman.


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Yet, to claim that PWQs can be placed in the model is even more absurd, because rather than simply just trying to place the winds themselves into the mathematical model of wind behaviour, it is a claim that the whole of collection of PWQs can be placed into the mathematical model of the physical world.
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What we are attempting to do is model the physical World.


Really?

Earlier in your post you agreed that "Science provides a model for our experiences."

So which is it?

A) Does science provide a model for our experiences?
B) Or does science provide a model for the physical world?

Here is the source of your confusion. The true situation is (A). You want to claim (B), but have no basis for making the claim. As a result you end up claiming both interchangeably and do not even realise you are doing it.


And such a model must necessarily include an explanation for how the observable World interacts with us to produce our perceptions of it.


Please untangle your position!

(A) or (B)?


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Yet, every time a materialist claims that "there is no reason to believe that subjective experiences are not fully explicable as physical brain activity" they are making precisely this claim - that PWQs are just another part of the abstract model we call 'the material world'. I stand by my assertion that it is prima facie absurd. "Hard Problem" is an understatement.
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It is only absurd if you make the a-priori assumption that physical reality is your experiences themselves, rather than something objective which you experience.


I have made no such assumption. In fact I have made the second assumption "that it is something objective which we experience". I expressly DO NOT assume that physical reality is the experiences themselves. I do not even believe this to be true!


But if you make that assumption, then you have already flushed science down the toilet, so the point is moot.


Well, I haven't made that assumption, so the point is not moot.


You can reject the assumption of objectivity if you want to, but when you do so, you are rejecting the scientific method too.


The scientific method is a tool for investigating the behaviour of PWQs. It is a tool for investigating the behaviour of an objective shared noumenon. It DOES NOT require that the noumenon is the prime reality and that PWQs are an epiphenomen. That is materialism, not science.

[c0rbin]

Well said Stimpson!

Why assume a self-existing mental world either? The difference is that the assumptions of science constitute a falsifiable hypothesis. That is what makes them useful. That is what makes science a meaningful epistemological framework, rather than a meaningless ontological one.

Why argue that the hand has five fingers so it fits the glove?

UCE, is the storm on Jupiter red even when you or I are not looking at it?

Originally posted by BillyTK
[B]Anyone mind if we take a coupla steps back for a minute please? I've got a few problems with qualia--which admittedly are prolly the result of my lack of knowledge--I'd just like to iron out.

Firstly, I don't get how we have qualia, anymore than according to behaviourism we "have" operants (basic units of stimulus/response operations which compose our behaviours).


You don't "get" how we have qualia?

Surely the only point is that we do have qualia.


Secondly, the distinction between emotional states and sensory impressions seems somewhat arbitary as these interact with each other--my emotional state is influenced by sensory impressions; my sensory impressions are influenced by emotional state.


True, these things do influence each other - the mind is a whole thing. But this doesn't mean the distinction between sensory impressions and emotional states doesn't exist. The picture of your girlfriend in your visual field is easy enough to distinguish from your emotional feelings about your girlfriend, isn't it?

Corbin :


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Why assume a self-existing mental world either? The difference is that the assumptions of science constitute a falsifiable hypothesis. That is what makes them useful. That is what makes science a meaningful epistemological framework, rather than a meaningless ontological one.
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Why argue that the hand has five fingers so it fits the glove?


I'm not. Please see my reply to Stimpson. I have assumed neither a self-existing mental world or a self-existing physical world. I am merely pointing out that out physical models are directly models of our experiences of the physical world. The are indirectly models of an objective noumenon. That the noumenon is objective does not require it to pre-exist before the phenomenal world of consciousness.


UCE, is the storm on Jupiter red even when you or I are not looking at it?


Corbin,

Can you try answering the questions I asked instead of back-slapping Stimpson and responding with other questions designed to pull the thread off course?

"Red" is meaningless without a human observer. This is off-topic and has already been discussed at length before. Can I ask you, with respect, to address the questions and issues I actually raised?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyTK
Secondly, the distinction between emotional states and sensory impressions seems somewhat arbitary as these interact with each other--my emotional state is influenced by sensory impressions; my sensory impressions are influenced by emotional state

Stimpy
On what grounds do you assert that they are "distinct"? Certainly you can divide up the qualia into these two groups, but that doesn't mean that they are really distinct in any meaningful way.



One set represents the external world and the other set represents qualia which are generated internally. A case of a former would be a family of our PWQ's which we label a particular table. Now if we both viewed this table from the same distance away and from the same perspective we would experience very similar PWQ's. On the other hand my experiencing a particular emotion of some kind is something you would ned to infer from my bodily behaviour. So basically PWQ's constitute an objective external world, where as other mental events generated wholly internally are irreducibly subjective. For example no-one else can literally experience my pain.

UCE
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If we go back and think about the process of science, and what it is doing, then the source of the difficulties becomes quite clear (to me, anyway). The process of physical science is the process of creating and testing a model of the behaviour of something. But what is the 'something' we are producing a model of? Is it not the case that the 'something' we are producing a model of is the behavior of PWQs?
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Stimpy
Sure. Science provides a model for our experiences. But that model implicitely includes the assumption that our experiences are interactions with an objective reality.



Not interactions with an objective reality. Rather consitutes an objective reality. This objective reality is simply a consensus of subjectivity.

UCE
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It seems to me that this is precisely what the laws of physics model - we have no direct access to atoms or quantum waves - we have direct access only to PWQs. If we recognise this then all of the arguments about how qualia arise from matter melt away.
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STIMPY
What problems are you referring to? If you are referring to the problem of how these "PWQ's" work, then they most certainly don't melt away. No matter what philosophical approach you choose to use, the question of how consciousness actually works remains.


The problem of how a material world can produce consciousness or intelligibly be said to equate to consciousness. The questioon of how consciousness works is meaningless, like asking how physical laws work. Consciousness simply exists. Besides the question of what consciousness is was not the topic of debate.

UCE
The problems are the result of the ontological materialist claiming that the laws of physics, rather than being a model of the behaviour of PWQs, are a model of the behaviour of a self-existing physical world.
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Stimpy
This has nothing to do with ontology. The assumption that reality is objective is a necessary assumption of the scientific method. It is also an assumption of Idealism. It is, in fact, nothing more than a rejection of Solipsism.



You don't understand. There is absolutely no problem with supposing that reality is objective even if one is an idealist.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by c0rbin
Well said Stimpson!



Why argue that the hand has five fingers so it fits the glove?

UCE, is the storm on Jupiter red even when you or I are not looking at it?

Corbin,

What would a cats grin look like without a cat?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I assert they are distinct on the grounds that one of them (the PWQs) are a representation of a percieved external reality and the other are not. How can you claim this distinction is 'not meaningful'? Nobody would claim fear and elation as being qualia that represent part of the external reality.
I don't understand your distinction. Are you saying that experiencing blueness when looking at the sky is a representation of reality, but experiencing fear when looking at a tiger is not? How are these really different, other than the trivial difference that we've called blue a sense and fear an emotion?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
I don't understand your distinction. Are you saying that experiencing blueness when looking at the sky is a representation of reality, but experiencing fear when looking at a tiger is not? How are these really different, other than the trivial difference that we've called blue a sense and fear an emotion?

~~ Paul

Paul,

Look at my first post in this thread for an answer to your question.

[slimshady2357]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
One set represents the external world and the other set represents qualia which are generated internally. A case of a former would be a family of our PWQ's which we label a particular table. Now if we both viewed this table from the same distance away and from the same perspective we would experience very similar PWQ's. On the other hand my experiencing a particular emotion of some kind is something you would ned to infer from my bodily behaviour. So basically PWQ's constitute an objective external world, where as other mental events generated wholly internally are irreducibly subjective. For example no-one else can literally experience my pain.

Well, no one can literally experience your vision field either. ;)


Not interactions with an objective reality. Rather consitutes an objective reality. This objective reality is simply a consensus of subjectivity.

I think what you mean is that the 'objective' part is simply the consensus of subjectivity. I don't think you really mean that the consensus constitutes reality? Or do you?

The reason I ask is this. If you want to divide your mental events into PWQ's and internally generated Q's, I would ask... What is generating the PWQ's?

Consensus? :confused:?[/b]


You don't understand. There is absolutely no problem with supposing that reality is objective even if one is an idealist.

:D:D:D:D

Did you read the sentence where he said:
The assumption that reality is objective is a necessary assumption of the scientific method. It is also an assumption of Idealism

bolded by me


Of course he knows there is no problem with supposing reality is objective for an Idealist! He even says it is necessary! :D

Adam

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:One set represents the external world and the other set represents qualia which are generated internally. A case of a former would be a family of our PWQ's which we label a particular table. Now if we both viewed this table from the same distance away and from the same perspective we would experience very similar PWQ's. On the other hand my experiencing a particular emotion of some kind is something you would ned to infer from my bodily behaviour. So basically PWQ's constitute an objective external world, where as other mental events generated wholly internally are irreducibly subjective. For example no-one else can literally experience my pain.
This is a strong argument for a real external world. Tables appear similar to many people because they are both forming subjective images of the same external object. Fear is different (is it really?) because it is predominantly internally generated.

However, first things first. Is the sameness of our views of the table really all that much greater than the sameness of our fears? We seem to be able to talk about fear with one another and understand what we're talking about just fine.

~~ Paul

Paul


I don't understand your distinction. Are you saying that experiencing blueness when looking at the sky is a representation of reality, but experiencing fear when looking at a tiger is not? How are these really different, other than the trivial difference that we've called blue a sense and fear an emotion?


Well, let's pretend the tiger is a tame tiger called Fluffy and you are visiting its owner, not knowing he owns a tiger. You and the owner walk out into the back yard and come face to face with Fluffy. You both see the same PWQ of Fluffy - you see the same tiger. But you are mortally terrified but Fluffys owner knows he is relatively harmless and goes and pats him on the head. There's your distinction. PWQs refer to an objective 'external' reality. Your fear is your own. And yes, everybody sees the same sky.

[BillyTK]

Hi UCE, thanks for your reply!




You don't "get" how we have qualia?

Surely the only point is that we do have qualia.

My bad for not explaining enough--I can understand qualia as an entity in a model for understanding what's going on in our headsin the same way "operants" are useful to behaviourism or ego/superego/id to psychodynamic theory but it doesn't mean the latter two exist in any kind of way independently of the theory that posits them. Are maybe a better example; I can create a picture in my head of my wife. I can call that picture a mental image. But because I can term it such, it doesn't mean I literally have mental images in my head--like my old philosophy tutor used to say, "saying we have mental images in our heads is as meaningful in explaining our mental activity as saying God puts pictures in our heads..."

True, these things do influence each other - the mind is a whole thing. But this doesn't mean the distinction between sensory impressions and emotional states doesn't exist. The picture of your girlfriend in your visual field is easy enough to distinguish from your emotional feelings about your girlfriend, isn't it?

Yeah, but don't tell my wife about it ;) But seriously, no it's not, because the picture of my girlfriend evokes those emotional feelings--it's fundamental to the way I relate to the picture; it's fundamental to the way I attribute significance to the picture. If I didn't, it'd just be a picture that I wouldn't attach much significance to--in fact I'd prolly hardly notice it. Now, I'm not suggesting that the emotions I attach to the picture are any intrinsic property of the picture itself, 'cos afterall it's just a sheet of paper with various chemicals coated on it. But it's the meanings I attach to the picture which give it existence for me.

Hope that explains it!

Cheers

Billy

[Win]

UCE:

Ah, but how can you know that the "physical world qualia" associated with Fluffy are the same for me as for Fluffy's owner.

In fact, why should I believe that Fluffy's owner has qualia at all?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Well, let's pretend the tiger is a tame tiger called Fluffy and you are visiting its owner, not knowing he owns a tiger. You and the owner walk out into the back yard and come face to face with Fluffy. You both see the same PWQ of Fluffy - you see the same tiger. But you are mortally terrified but Fluffys owner knows he is relatively harmless and goes and pats him on the head. There's your distinction. PWQs refer to an objective 'external' reality. Your fear is your own. And yes, everybody sees the same sky.
My fear is my own. So is the color I perceive Fluffy to be. So is the way Fluffy smells. So is the volume of his roar. So are the memories I have of other tiger experiences. And so is the color of the sky, especially if I'm color blind. Everything is my own. What does this have to do with the difference between perceptions and emotions?

~~ Paul

Paul


This is a strong argument for a real external world. Tables appear similar to many people because they are both forming subjective images of the same external object. Fear is different (is it really?) because it is predominantly internally generated.


'real' meaning what?

Meaning 'shared' or 'objective', yes.

Meaning 'ontologically primary to mind'? WHY?


Adam :


Well, no one can literally experience your vision field either.


No, but we can agree that our visual fields seem to be representative of a shared objective reality (noumenon).


The reason I ask is this. If you want to divide your mental events into PWQ's and internally generated Q's, I would ask... What is generating the PWQ's?


The PWQs may well be 'generated' by brain machinery, but in the end they are representative of data recieved from our sense organs. The IGQs are generated from internal information that does not represent sense data.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:The PWQs may well be 'generated' by brain machinery, but in the end they are representative of data recieved from our sense organs. The IGQs are generated from internal information that does not represent sense data.
Nonsense. I can walk up to a large dog and pat it on the head. Someone else sees the same dog and is instantly afraid. Why? Because that person had bad experiences with dogs in the past. Those sensory experiences got wired up as fear. When they are repeated, they are again experienced as fear.

This distinction is untenable. And I still don't understand why the distinction is interesting.

~~ Paul

Win


Ah, but how can you know that the "physical world qualia" associated with Fluffy are the same for me as for Fluffy's owner.

In fact, why should I believe that Fluffy's owner has qualia at all?


Because I already agreed to reject solipsism. We can re-examine solipsism at the end of the line of reasoning, but introducing it at this point is unhelpful.

I assume both an objective noumenon and that other people have qualia because rejecting either leaves me with a simplistic form of solipsism that I find too unpleasant to be worth contemplating.


Paul :


My fear is my own. So is the color I perceive Fluffy to be. So is the way Fluffy smells. So is the volume of his roar. So are the memories I have of other tiger experiences. And so is the color of the sky, especially if I'm color blind. Everything is my own. What does this have to do with the difference between perceptions and emotions?


Everything is your own, yes. But the PWQs associated with Fluffy are still 'translations' of some sort of shared objective noumenon. Your fear is not - it is entirely dependent on your (lack of) knowledge about Fluffy being a tame tiger.

[BillyTK]

Hi Ian


One set represents the external world and the other set represents qualia which are generated internally. A case of a former would be a family of our PWQ's which we label a particular table. Now if we both viewed this table from the same distance away and from the same perspective we would experience very similar PWQ's. On the other hand my experiencing a particular emotion of some kind is something you would ned to infer from my bodily behaviour. So basically PWQ's constitute an objective external world, where as other mental events generated wholly internally are irreducibly subjective. For example no-one else can literally experience my pain.

I'm going to seem like a troll for the way I keep banging on about meaning--sorry! On the one hand I can accept the existence of the physical world as illustrated by physics'n'stuff. On the other, I carnt experience it directly because my experience is mediated by language. Without language my world is literally meaningless, a chaotic jumble of sensation with no understanding of what those sensations are. So this is where I kinda fall over with the separation of sensory impression and emotional state qualia and to some extent even with the separation between internal mental states and the external physical world. My PWQs are wholly internally generated because they depend on the meanings I've learnt to attribute to them. So for instance, I carnt experience your pain, but you know you have pain because you understand the concept of pain; you can communicate that concept to me and I can empathise with your position because I understand that concept... but if you didn't have the concept of pain, then what would you be experiencing?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

On what grounds do you assert that they are "distinct"? Certainly you can divide up the qualia into these two groups, but that doesn't mean that they are really distinct in any meaningful way.
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I assert they are distinct on the grounds that one of them (the PWQs) are a representation of a percieved external reality and the other are not. How can you claim this distinction is 'not meaningful'? Nobody would claim fear and elation as being qualia that represent part of the external reality (oops...I forgot....materialists in the house....liable to claim all sorts of patent absurdities..... )

First of all, your entire argument seems to be based on a rejection of the notion that our perceptions are perceptions of an external reality, in which case this distinction becomes meaningless. Secondly, it is certainly the case that things like fear and elation have an effect on, and are effected by, this external physical world of ours, so the idea that they are, in fact, a part of it, hardly seems to me to be a patent absurdity.

You might be able to draw a theoretical, indirect connection between internal emotional states and the physical world, but you would have to be pretty desperate to claim there is a direct connection as there is in the qualia associated with directly representing the external world. Are you that desperate?

Why would that be desperation? I think the evidence with regards to how chemicals affect emotional states, and how emotional states affect brain chemistry, is pretty compelling.

Sure. Science provides a model for our experiences. But that model implicitely includes the assumption that our experiences are interactions with an objective reality.
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Slow down.....let us examine this closely. First you say "Science is a model for our experiences - our 'physical world qualia'." Then you say But that model implicitely includes the assumption that our experiences are interactions with an objective reality.

Yes.

There is a difference between objectivism and materialism. All you are claiming here is that the model of our experiences is common to all of us - that the same model seems to work for your experiences as works for my experiences - that is what makes it objective.

no, that is not all I am claiming. I am also claiming that the reality which I am experiencing is the reality which you are experiencing.

The only conclusion/assumption required here is that solipsism is false and the laws of physics describe everybodies PWQs with equal accuracy. Yes?

For one thing, the scenario you have just presented is not even coherent. In order for me to say that science describes other peoples experiences as well as mine, I must assume that there are, in fact, other people. That is the rejection of Solipsism. Science also requires the assumption that we are all experiencing the same objective reality, as I mentioned above.

There is a word for this 'objective reality' - and the word is 'noumenon'. Can we use this word?

I don't care what you call it, as long as you don't attach a bunch of meaningless metaphysical baggage to it.

What problems are you referring to? If you are referring to the problem of how these "PWQ's" work, then they most certainly don't melt away. No matter what philosophical approach you choose to use, the question of how consciousness actually works remains.
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No, I am not referring to the question of how the "PWQ's" work. That is the job of physicists and/or neuroscientists. I am referring to the question of the relationship between TLOP, PWQs and the noumenon i.e. the Hard Problem and all of its manifestations rather than 'the Easy Problems'.

Under the scientific axioms, these relationships are fundamentally no different than any other physical relationships. If you a-priori assume that this is false, of course you are going to have a problem. But unless you can demonstrate that your assumption is correct, that is your problem, not science's.

And the fact remains that under Idealism, you cannot explain how consciousness produces the physical reality that we experience.

This has nothing to do with ontology. The assumption that reality is objective is a necessary assumption of the scientific method. It is also an assumption of Idealism. It is, in fact, nothing more than a rejection of Solipsism.
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A lot of people get solipsism confused with idealism. Can we just both agree that solipsism has been rejected? The only solipsist round here is Franko.

I thought we could, but then you objected to the scientific assumption that there is an external reality that we experience. If you are accepting this assumption, then your entire argument against attempting to scientifically understand consciousness falls apart.

If you read this post carefully you will see that I have not rejected the concept of a shared objective noumenon. Therefore the scientific method is not under threat. The question I am raising is whether the noumenon itself exists independently of the realm of mind (Not YOUR mind or MY mind, but Mind). Ths is a very important distinction, and if you want me to clarify it I will.

That question is meaningless, unless you can define what it means to say that reality exists in the realm of "MIND". I know what "my mind" and "your mind" mean. I have no idea what "MIND" means. In any event, I do not assume that reality exists independently of this "MIND", or anything else. I simply don't assume that it is dependent on any such thing. I assume nothing about it that cannot be inferred from reliable scientific evidence.

I re-iterate my position : TLOP are a model of the behaviour of PWQs. This is not an assumption of idealism - it is a basic statement of the truth. You have experiences of a physical world. Physics provides a model of the behaviour of those experiences (you already agreed to this). If we reject solipsism we have to accept the existence of a shared noumenon that behaves according to objectively verifiable mathematical laws. NO OTHER ASSUMPTIONS are neccesary. Specifically NO ASSUMPTIONS about the primacy of mind or matter are neccesary at this point in our reasoning. If you disagree please explain PRECISELY why.

I agree completely. What you have just described is scientific materialism. What I do not understand is (a) Why you insist that materialists are assuming anything more about the nature of reality than what you have just described, (b) Why you think that any of this implies that it is not possible for the mind itself to be understood scientifically, (c) Why you think that any of this implies that the mind itself cannot be a physical process, and (d) Why you choose to make the additional assumption that physical reality is created by some "mind" of some sort.

Why assume a self-existing mental world either?
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I haven't. I am merely observing that the mental world does exist, and that TLOP is a model of the behaviour of those aspects of the mental world which appear to be representations of a physical world. I have not assumed a self-existing mental world and I have not assumed a self-existing physical world. All I have done is observe the relationship between the mental world, TLOP and the noumenon.

The why do you claim that the mental world cannot be a subset of the physical world? The hypothesis that consciousness is a physical process in the brain, and that our experiences are interactions between our brains (which are part of the physical world) and the rest of the physical world, is perfectly consistent with the scenario you have just described.

You are correct in claiming that ontological materialism makes no sense. What you don't seem to understand is that ontology makes no sense. Idealism is just as meaningless as ontological materialism, and for exactly the same reasons.
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Why?

Because ontological existence cannot be coherently defined.

The reason materialism makes no sense is because it is an attempt to put the thing being modelled into the model.

I don't know what kind of materialism you are referring to, but this certainly isn't the case for scientific materialism.

Idealism is simply the abscense of an attempt to put the thing being modelled into the model. So idealism does not fall foul of the same problem at all.

Idealism makes the assumption that physical reality is produced by minds. That is an unnecessary and unjustified assumption. It is also one which I have never seen anybody manage to define coherently.

There is still a very hard problem. What is the nature of consciousness? Why is it there to begin with? What are the logical rules that describe it? You are essentially sweeping all these questions under the rug.
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No - I am quite happy to discuss these things, but only when we are in agreement at how I got there. In other words I can examine these problems and provide answers, but the answers will only make sense to a person who has already accepted my line of reasoning up to this point. Otherwise they keep on thinking about it like an ontological materialist and find it very difficult to understand and accept the rest of the reasoning.

Scientific materialism provides a method for determining how consciousness arises from the physical. Sure, this method depends on the assumption that it does arise from the physical to be true, in order to work, but that is trivially obvious.

Idealism, however, provides no method for determining how the physical World arises from the mind. It does not even attempt to provide a method. On the contrary, it defines itself in such a way that no reliable method for doing this could, even in principle, exist.

Saying that consciousness doesn't arise from matter, but instead that matter arises from consciousness, doesn't eliminate any questions that need to be answered, nor does it answer them.
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It totally changes the them. It replaces one set of questions with another set.

And in doing so, it replaces a set of questions which are, at least in principle, answerable, into a set of questions which are not, even in principle, answerable. It turns a difficult problem into an impossible one.

You constantly criticize materialists for not being able to explain to you how consciousness arises from matter, but can you explain how matter arises from consciousness?
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I can. Whether or not I should is another question.

I would love to hear a description of the method by which you would attempt to find the answer.

Can you describe, in terms of logical rules, how the mind produces the physical world?
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For a start get rid of 'the mind' because you are thinking about 'your mind'. You are picturing lots of seperate minds somehow 'creating' a shared objective reality, which is of course illogical. I said 'Mind' not 'the mind'.

Well, I am afraid that until you explain what you mean by "Mind" I cannot make any sense of your claims.

Again, this can be done, but to do so would involve making claims that many people here would find very difficult to accept, and if previous experience is anything to go by they will continue to think like materialists and I will just end up repeating the first part of my reasoning over and over again. If you can cope with discussing this having accepted the first part of my line of reasoning then I will go on. This is VITAL. I had to accept the problems with materialism FULLY before I was able to accept the mechanism by which Mind creates matter.

I am perfectly happy to consider your line of reasoning from within whatever logical framework you choose to present it, but first you must provide that logical framework. Attempting to point out flaws with materialism accomplishes nothing in this regard. Start with the axioms and definitions of your framework, and go from there.

What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,
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That is materialism, not science....come on Stimp....

It is a scientific theory, and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence. Materialism only assumes that consciousness is physical. It makes no a-priori assumptions beyond that. It leaves it up to the scientific method to determine what its specific characteristics and mechanisms are.

If the process of perception is a physical process, then it can, and indeed must, be explainable within that model.
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And this is a unneccesary and meaningless piece of materialist dogma tacked onto the end of a correct statement. It amounts to "If materialism is true then materialism is true." What is the point in even saying this? You are saying "If materialism is true then we can put the thing being modelled into the model". Since this is ABSURD, then materialism must be false. It is no good saying "I don't care if it is absurd, if materialism is true then we must be able to do this".

you have not explained why it is absurd, you have merely asserted that it is. My point is that it is only absurd if you make assumptions that materialism does not make.

Notice the emphasis. If your position is correct, then at least one of the axioms of science are wrong.
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Yikes!

First, if I am not correct then you need to explain why I am wrong.

I have not claimed that you are not correct. It is entirely possible that the axioms of science are wrong. I am simply saying that you have not established that you are correct. I have no reason to believe that you are.

Secondly, you need to explain which axiom of science I have rejected. If it is that the noumenon is objective then you are wrong, because I have accepted that the noumenon is objective.

The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed. If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical. The idea that our minds are not physical, but yet that they interact with the physical, is a blatant rejection of the axioms of science.

We are modelling our experiences. We experience wind. We would not try to put the wind we experience into a mathematical model of wind behaviour, because that would be silly.

We are modelling our experiences. We experience PWQs. We would not try to put the PWQs into a mathematical model of PWQ behaviour, because that would be silly.

I still don't see how this has anything to do with what materialists are doing. We are attempting to model physical reality. Physical reality is what we experience. Clearly the fact that we experience physical reality, and how we experience it, are going to have to be explained by that model.

What we are attempting to do is model the physical World.
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Really?

Earlier in your post you agreed that "Science provides a model for our experiences."

So which is it?

A) Does science provide a model for our experiences?
B) Or does science provide a model for the physical world?

Here is the source of your confusion. The true situation is (A). You want to claim (B), but have no basis for making the claim. As a result you end up claiming both interchangeably and do not even realise you are doing it.

No, I claimed that science attempts to model the physical World that we experience. In doing so, it provides a model for our experiences. I made that very clear when I stipulated that science provides a model for our experiences, but that in doing so it makes the implicit assumption that what we are experiencing is an external objective reality.

The distinction becomes moot within the framework of the scientific method, because the scientific method assumes that the physical world is what we experience, and in doing so, assumes that the process of experiencing is, in fact, a physical process, and thus part of what we are attempting to model.

You can reject the assumption of objectivity if you want to, but when you do so, you are rejecting the scientific method too.
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The scientific method is a tool for investigating the behaviour of PWQs. It is a tool for investigating the behaviour of an objective shared noumenon. It DOES NOT require that the noumenon is the prime reality and that PWQs are an epiphenomen. That is materialism, not science.

That is ontological materialism, which I agree is an incoherent position. Science also does not require that physical reality be an aspect of mind. It does require that the process of experiencing physical reality be a physical process, though.

Your claim that science cannot be used to model consciousness can not be derived from the axioms of science. on the contrary, that claim is inconsistent with the axioms of science. All these arguments about Materialism and Idealism are irrelevant, because the only philosophical framework that has ever been demonstrated to be a reliable tool for understanding reality, is the scientific method. I call that philosophical framework "scientific materialism". You can call it physicalism, or scientism, or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't make any difference.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

UCE:

Nevertheless, simple rejection of solipsism, and acceptance of an "objective noumenon," doesn't answer my first question: How can you know that the "physical world qualia" associated with Fluffy are the same for me as for Fluffy's owner?

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Nonsense. I can walk up to a large dog and pat it on the head. Someone else sees the same dog and is instantly afraid. Why? Because that person had bad experiences with dogs in the past. Those sensory experiences got wired up as fear. When they are repeated, they are again experienced as fear.


Yes, initially all information comes to us through our senses. Some of it then gets stored and processed. Then we cogitate on our stored information and create new information "dogs are scary". Then when we see a dog we access that stored information, and feel fear. The fear is triggered by the PWQ of the dog, but it would not exist without the internally stored information about past bad experiences with dogs. The PWQ itself does not depend on any internally stored information. Even if you have never seen a dog before, you still get the same PWQ of the dog.


And I still don't understand why the distinction is interesting.


It is interesting because I am trying to establish what it is that the laws of physics are a model of. I am claiming that in actual fact they are a model of the behaviour of PWQs - i.e. of the experienced physical world.

Win


UCE:

Nevertheless, simple rejection of solipsism, and acceptance of an "objective noumenon," doesn't answer my first question: How can you know that the "physical world qualia" associated with Fluffy are the same for me as for Fluffy's owner?


I can't.

But the fact that we can do objective science and different people get the same verifiable results provides evidence for a shared objective reality. Whether or not I see the same red as you doesn't really matter.

I'm not really sure what you're aiming at here....

...and I'm off to the aquarium shop to buy some Fluffy Barbs.

[Keneke]

I've read this whole thread, and after much thought, have finally understood the position. Maybe. Interesting theory, UCE, you're separating realityand PWQs from TLOP, I guess that's pretty cool. Let me go through and ask a few questions of you, UCE.

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'.


Do the materialists claim it is because of matter? Or is it because of reality, existence, and/or spacetime? Isn't matter just one part of reality?

This is claiming a very different relationship between PWQs and TLOP. In effect it amounts to a claim that PWQs belong in the model, as a small subset of the model.

Maybe someone stated that along the way, but I know the difference between how reality behaves and our estimation of how it behaves.

Eliminative materialism claims that TLOP isn't a model of PWQs at all - it claims that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a directly-unknowable self-existing (mind-independent) physical world, and that PWQs arise from this unknowable self-existing physical world and it is therefore possible to place PWQs within the model!

Er, ok. The way I see it: Reality is a mental patient. PWQs are his symptoms and behavior. TLOP is his diagnosis. Therefore, PWQs are included in models only in the sense that they are the inputs, the raw data. So yeah, I guess what you say makes sense. The problem is this: your "eliminative materialists" see the behavior (qualia) as part of the reality, not a separate entity of itself. Are we dealing with too many variables? I'd say no, that the qualia is only perception, and therefore possibly deviant from reality.

Yet, every time a materialist claims that "there is no reason to believe that subjective experiences are not fully explicable as physical brain activity" they are making precisely this claim - that PWQs are just another part of the abstract model we call 'the material world'. I stand by my assertion that it is prima facie absurd. "Hard Problem" is an understatement.

Materialists claim experiences are physical brain activity, then. Hm, ok. But, qualia and experience is separated. If a tree falls and no one hears it, the tree still falls, according to materialists. The fact that you have separated reality from PWQ doesn't change that fact. They are both outside the observer, they are both what is perceived. What does PWQs, since you assume objective reality, have to do with a person's mind?

[c0rbin]

UCE,

I pat Dr Stupid's back to cut down on redundancy and unnecessary repetition. Also because what he said made perfect sense, whereas the metaphysical pontification issuing from your post does not.

I am not trying to be rude, but it seems to me you are trying to add complexity to a potentially cut-and-dry explanation of the universe.

I understand that the universe is largely untouched by our perception, but there is no need to jump any guns by assuming demons live in the darkness.

And replies like this:
I can. Whether or not I should is another question.

To questions like this:
You constantly criticize materialists for not being able to explain to you how consciousness arises from matter, but can you explain how matter arises from consciousness?

Only deepens my skepticism of your assertions

And to Interesting Ian,

Why would there ever be a cat's grin without a cat?

Stimp


First of all, your entire argument seems to be based on a rejection of the notion that our perceptions are perceptions of an external reality, in which case this distinction becomes meaningless.


Not really. One set of qualia refer to a shared objective noumenon, the other refer to our internal state.


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You might be able to draw a theoretical, indirect connection between internal emotional states and the physical world, but you would have to be pretty desperate to claim there is a direct connection as there is in the qualia associated with directly representing the external world. Are you that desperate?
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Why would that be desperation? I think the evidence with regards to how chemicals affect emotional states, and how emotional states affect brain chemistry, is pretty compelling.


You cannot seriously be claiming you don't know the difference between PWQs and internal emotional states......


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There is a difference between objectivism and materialism. All you are claiming here is that the model of our experiences is common to all of us - that the same model seems to work for your experiences as works for my experiences - that is what makes it objective.
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no, that is not all I am claiming. I am also claiming that the reality which I am experiencing is the reality which you are experiencing.


...that there is a shared objective noumenon.


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The only conclusion/assumption required here is that solipsism is false and the laws of physics describe everybodies PWQs with equal accuracy. Yes?
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For one thing, the scenario you have just presented is not even coherent. In order for me to say that science describes other peoples experiences as well as mine, I must assume that there are, in fact, other people. That is the rejection of Solipsism. Science also requires the assumption that we are all experiencing the same objective reality, as I mentioned above.


And I have granted that assumption as part of my rejection of simple solipsism. All I am doing is pointing out that what we call 'the material world' is strictly speaking an abstract mathematical model of PWQs. Those PWQs are subjetive interpretations of a shared objective noumenon. What I reject is the assumption that the shared objective noumenon neccesarily exists independently of the general realm of Mind. Berkeleys position is that the noumenon exists in a 'Metamind'. It is exactly the same position as yours except that rather than positing a self-existing prime reality made of matter from which qualia 'arise' I am suggesting that this shared objective noumenon exists in a higher mental realm. It's (normal) behaviour remains the subject of scientific study exactly as does under materialism.


And the fact remains that under Idealism, you cannot explain how consciousness produces the physical reality that we experience.


How do you know I can't?

I can, but I'm only willing to do it in another thread where materialism is temporarily banished and we think about the question from the point of view of some form of mentalism.


I thought we could, but then you objected to the scientific assumption that there is an external reality that we experience.


I made no such objection. I objected to the assumption it was self-existing and primary over mind. Not YOUR mind. The Noumenon is external to Stimpson J Cats mind (as Stimpson J Cats mind currently is).


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If you read this post carefully you will see that I have not rejected the concept of a shared objective noumenon. Therefore the scientific method is not under threat. The question I am raising is whether the noumenon itself exists independently of the realm of mind (Not YOUR mind or MY mind, but Mind). Ths is a very important distinction, and if you want me to clarify it I will.
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That question is meaningless, unless you can define what it means to say that reality exists in the realm of "MIND". I know what "my mind" and "your mind" mean. I have no idea what "MIND" means.


It means I am taking the position Erwin Shroedinger did. It means that fundamentally all consciousness is linked - there is only one consciousness and the seperation between minds, as most of us experience it most of the time, is illusory. Think of your mind and my mind as leaves on a branching tree structure.


In any event, I do not assume that reality exists independently of this "MIND", or anything else. I simply don't assume that it is dependent on any such thing. I assume nothing about it that cannot be inferred from reliable scientific evidence.


Then don't [i]assume anything at all. I merely pointing out some possinilities because you claimed my position was incoherent. I am demonstrating it is not incoherent, not claiming scientific proof.


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I re-iterate my position : TLOP are a model of the behaviour of PWQs. This is not an assumption of idealism - it is a basic statement of the truth. You have experiences of a physical world. Physics provides a model of the behaviour of those experiences (you already agreed to this). If we reject solipsism we have to accept the existence of a shared noumenon that behaves according to objectively verifiable mathematical laws. NO OTHER ASSUMPTIONS are neccesary. Specifically NO ASSUMPTIONS about the primacy of mind or matter are neccesary at this point in our reasoning. If you disagree please explain PRECISELY why.
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I agree completely. What you have just described is scientific materialism. What I do not understand is (a) Why you insist that materialists are assuming anything more about the nature of reality than what you have just described,


They also assume that the noumenon pre-exists PWQs. They do this because they are still thinking about time froim the point of view of materialism. To go further we have to think about how time relates to materialism and consciousness.


(b) Why you think that any of this implies that it is not possible for the mind itself to be understood scientifically,


I didn't even neccesarily claim that. My claim is that science cannot explain how self-existing matter, independent of Mind can produce qualia, since the matter is in fact an abstract model of the qualia.


(c) Why you think that any of this implies that the mind itself cannot be a physical process,


In a way, it is. But that is only half of the story.:)


and (d) Why you choose to make the additional assumption that physical reality is created by some "mind" of some sort.


That is a conclusion rather than an assumption.


The why do you claim that the mental world cannot be a subset of the physical world?


For all the reasons highlighted over and over again by the manifestations of Chalmers Hard Problem. Right now I am trying to present the scenario which has given rise to the problem, rather than the Problem itself - which has already been discussed at great length.


The hypothesis that consciousness is a physical process in the brain, and that our experiences are interactions between our brains (which are part of the physical world) and the rest of the physical world, is perfectly consistent with the scenario you have just described.


No it isn't. That would be the same as claiming that the winds themselves, the winds we experience are part of the model of the behaviour of the winds.



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The reason materialism makes no sense is because it is an attempt to put the thing being modelled into the model.
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I don't know what kind of materialism you are referring to, but this certainly isn't the case for scientific materialism.


Not until scientific materialism makes the claim that qualia are solely dependent on matter. As soon as it does that it is attempting to place the thing being modelled (PWQs) into the model.


Idealism makes the assumption that physical reality is produced by minds. That is an unnecessary and unjustified assumption.


The is debatable, which is why we are debating it.


Scientific materialism provides a method for determining how consciousness arises from the physical. Sure, this method depends on the assumption that it does arise from the physical to be true, in order to work, but that is trivially obvious.

Idealism, however, provides no method for determining how the physical World arises from the mind. It does not even attempt to provide a method. On the contrary, it defines itself in such a way that no reliable method for doing this could, even in principle, exist.


This is true. If materialism is false then science may have ot accept certian very specific limitations. I believe those limitations are unavoidable and inherent in the system though - so whether or not it limits science in this one specific area is irrelevant.


And in doing so, it replaces a set of questions which are, at least in principle, answerable, into a set of questions which are not, even in principle, answerable. It turns a difficult problem into an impossible one.


From the point of view of scientism. There is an assumption that subjective knowledge cannot be obtained directly - and if all consciousness is indeed linked then it is indeed possible that subjective knowledge can be obtained directly - in other words your objection is itself dependent on materialism being true.


I would love to hear a description of the method by which you would attempt to find the answer.


If you want to discuss this I want to do it in a different thread where materialistic objections are void.


I am perfectly happy to consider your line of reasoning from within whatever logical framework you choose to present it, but first you must provide that logical framework. Attempting to point out flaws with materialism accomplishes nothing in this regard. Start with the axioms and definitions of your framework, and go from there.


Well we have already started by accepting the existence of PWQs, and an shared objective noumenon. The framework also requires a 'trunk' metamind of which all other minds are branches or leaves i.e. they are all ultimately part of the same Mind.


It is a scientific theory, and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence. Materialism only assumes that consciousness is physical. It makes no a-priori assumptions beyond that.


That one assumption is the one I am challenging.


you have not explained why it is absurd, you have merely asserted that it is. My point is that it is only absurd if you make assumptions that materialism does not make.


Which are?


I have not claimed that you are not correct. It is entirely possible that the axioms of science are wrong.


The axioms of MATERIALISM, Stimp..... :(


The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed.


Nope Stimp - that is an axiom of materialism, not science.


If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical.


You are now trying to claim that the science claims conscious as physical as part of its axioms.

You know that isn't true. You know the difference between science and materialism.


The idea that our minds are not physical, but yet that they interact with the physical, is a blatant rejection of the axioms of science.


I don't think you understand the alternative model being proposed. It is a limitation of science, not a contradiction of its axioms.


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We are modelling our experiences. We experience wind. We would not try to put the wind we experience into a mathematical model of wind behaviour, because that would be silly.

We are modelling our experiences. We experience PWQs. We would not try to put the PWQs into a mathematical model of PWQ behaviour, because that would be silly.
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I still don't see how this has anything to do with what materialists are doing. We are attempting to model physical reality. Physical reality is what we experience.


Then you are attempting to model [i]what you experience! :D

You just said it! :)

Try to seperate your experiences from the model of the behaviour of your experiences.


No, I claimed that science attempts to model the physical World that we experience. In doing so, it provides a model for our experiences.


It is DIRECTLY a model of our experiences. It is [i]first and foremost a model of our experiences.


I made that very clear when I stipulated that science provides a model for our experiences, but that in doing so it makes the implicit assumption that what we are experiencing is an external objective reality.


Again, I ask you to examine the word 'external'. External to an individual human mind - not neccesarily external to Mind itself. Science does not require the noumenon to exist independently of a higher mental realm. It makes no claim about the mode of existence of the noumenon. Only ontological materialism makes that claim.


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You can reject the assumption of objectivity if you want to, but when you do so, you are rejecting the scientific method too.
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The scientific method is a tool for investigating the behaviour of PWQs. It is a tool for investigating the behaviour of an objective shared noumenon. It DOES NOT require that the noumenon is the prime reality and that PWQs are an epiphenomen. That is materialism, not science.
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That is ontological materialism, which I agree is an incoherent position. Science also does not require that physical reality be an aspect of mind. It does require that the process of experiencing physical reality be a physical process, though.


NO NO NO. That is Materialism Stimp. You cannot defend materialism by lamenting the fact that idealism LIMITS science in one critical respect. Science has no right to claim domain over every question in existence.

.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Yes, initially all information comes to us through our senses. Some of it then gets stored and processed. Then we cogitate on our stored information and create new information "dogs are scary". Then when we see a dog we access that stored information, and feel fear. The fear is triggered by the PWQ of the dog, but it would not exist without the internally stored information about past bad experiences with dogs. The PWQ itself does not depend on any internally stored information. Even if you have never seen a dog before, you still get the same PWQ of the dog.
Of course PWQ depends on stored information! That's the problem with the Knowledge Argument. Everyone seems to forget that my perception of color depends on all sorts of neural wiring that I've developed by actually seeing color. And other wiring developed by learning about color (e.g., the word red).

When I see a photo of the ocean, I smell a particular shoreline in southern Rhode Island. Waves of emotion roll over me from spending childhood summers there. It's all of a piece.

~~ Paul

Keneke


I've read this whole thread, and after much thought, have finally understood the position. Maybe. Interesting theory, UCE, you're separating reality and PWQs from TLOP, I guess that's pretty cool. Let me go through and ask a few questions of you, UCE.


Well the word 'reality' is at the centre of the troubles I think.


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Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'.

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Do the materialists claim it is because of matter? Or is it because of reality, existence, and/or spacetime? Isn't matter just one part of reality?


Depends what you mean by 'reality'. I would agree that what we call 'matter' is just one part of reality.


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This is claiming a very different relationship between PWQs and TLOP. In effect it amounts to a claim that PWQs belong in the model, as a small subset of the model.
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Maybe someone stated that along the way, but I know the difference between how reality behaves and our estimation of how it behaves.


The question really amounts to "what 'reality' actually is". I assume you are talking about the noumenon - the shared objective reality. In which case the laws of physics are our estimation of how it behaves, its behaviour is its actuall behaviour, and what it actually is - its means of existence is an open question.


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Eliminative materialism claims that TLOP isn't a model of PWQs at all - it claims that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a directly-unknowable self-existing (mind-independent) physical world, and that PWQs arise from this unknowable self-existing physical world and it is therefore possible to place PWQs within the model!
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Er, ok. The way I see it: Reality is a mental patient. PWQs are his symptoms and behavior. TLOP is his diagnosis. Therefore, PWQs are included in models only in the sense that they are the inputs, the raw data.


They are the data whose behaviour is being modelled.....?


So yeah, I guess what you say makes sense. The problem is this: your "eliminative materialists" see the behavior (qualia) as part of the reality, not a separate entity of itself. Are we dealing with too many variables? I'd say no, that the qualia is only perception, and therefore possibly deviant from reality.


Qualia are just a mental representation of the noumenon. I think we need to be careful about the word 'reality' and what we mean.


Materialists claim experiences are physical brain activity, then. Hm, ok. But, qualia and experience is separated. If a tree falls and no one hears it, the tree still falls, according to materialists.


And to the idealists also....the only difference is the claim that it falls in the metamind rather than in a mind-independent self-sustaining physical reality.


The fact that you have separated reality from PWQ doesn't change that fact. They are both outside the observer, they are both what is perceived. What does PWQs, since you assume objective reality, have to do with a person's mind?


Well, they are one of the main consituents of a persons mind.

I get the feeling I'm missing something in your post.....have I answered your questions...?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Not until scientific materialism makes the claim that qualia are solely dependent on matter. As soon as it does that it is attempting to place the thing being modelled (PWQs) into the model.
What does this mean? What can you model that doesn't have this supposed problem?

~~ Paul

[c0rbin]

UcE said:

All I am doing is pointing out that what we call 'the material world' is strictly speaking an abstract mathematical model of PWQs.

This is the glove and hand bit. Shouldn't this statement be the other way around?

IE "It is possible to make an abstract mathmatical model of the material world."

[Loki]

uce,

(uce wrote ) : The eliminative materialist position is not so simple. Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'.

(Stimpy wrote) : I know of nobody who claims this.

(uce wrote ) : Loki does.
First, I doubt that I'm an eliminative materialist - well, maybe just a little, early in the mornings.

Second, when I first read this I though "I wonder if he's basing this rather strange statement on the conversation we had a few weeks back". Now I know - you are!

Third, that's not what I said! We were discussing a statement you made that "qualia have *no* evolutionary benefit". I'd dispute this, but since this point was already being covered, I offered a second possibility - that qualia are a necessary 'side-effect' of brain processing. Your argument seemed to be proceeding along the lines :

1. All human physical attributes are the result of evolutionary pressures;
2. Qualia have no evolutionary value;
3. Therefore, qualia cannot be physical.

All I was saying was that one possible counter argument is that some things are 'necessary' to achieve another goal, but may not be themselves beneficial.

Anyway, just wanted to clear up this small confusion - continue with your main discussion.

[Loki]

uce,

Slightly more on topic...

Eliminative materialism claims that TLOP isn't a model of PWQs at all - it claims that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a directly-unknowable self-existing (mind-independent) physical world, and that PWQs arise from this unknowable self-existing physical world and it is therefore possible to place PWQs within the model!

TLOP - What is actually there (not directly knowable to humans)
PWQ - Human perception of TLOP (directly knowable to humans)

One thing that weakens your position (well, for me) is that the current understanding we have of TLOP strongly suggests that TLOP has been around far longer than PWQ - in other words, we humans are receiving information (via PWQ) that suggests that TLOP predates us. Can this be proven to be true? Not that I can see - however, rejecting this current information seems to involve either some form of Young Earth Creationism, or even a return to your theory of last year that the past doesn't exist until some human looks at it (fossils don't exist until archeologists look for them - isn't that how you proposed it works?).

TLOP - 20 billion years old
PWQ - 10,000 years old.

Which came first?

We might also consider Bells Theorem and quantum entanglement. These things suggest the whole of the material world is somehow connected directly at a deeper level of reality - that the Universe is non-local. If the noumenon is a self-existing reality then this is a big mystery. If it exists in a metamind then non-locality and 'faster than light' connections suddenly make a bit more sense.

:)

[Peskanov]

UCE;

----
quote:
My position is very simple, and seems to me to be an accurate reflection of the true situation - that we find ourselves experiencing PWQs and we build an abstract model we call the laws of physics to describe the behaviour of these PWQs. Therefore the relationship between PWQs and TLOP is very simple - PWQs are the thing being modelled and TLOP is a mathematical model describing its behaviour. There is no question about 'how qualia arise from matter', because 'matter' is just part of the model of qualia. No Hard Problem. No assumptions. A simple accurate statement of the way things actually are.
-----

No assumptions?
Yes, there are. You have forgotten a very important thing in this model.
You have forgotten that part of these PWQ is the feeling of presence on it!
I feel I am positioned where my eyes are; I feel my body is myself or at least part of me; I feel the chair and the table here are not part of me.
You are assuming these feelings are unnacurate or at least incomplete.
Your strong assumption implies that the presence of the body, (which is controled by the mind in both models!), cannot be described in the terms of TLOP because TLOP describe the PWQ. As you assume the mind that controls this body is external to the PWQ and creates it (the body), TLOP couldn't exaplain it.
In other words: You are assuming that the PWQ can NOT contain all relevant information about the source of our actions.

And this assumption is every day more close to be shown wrong, as the study of the brain advances in the description of how our body is controled ( that is, a functional model of how the brain control our actions).

----
quote:
Eliminative Materialists position :

The eliminative materialist position is not so simple. Materialism claims that PWQs, along with the rest of our subjective experience is an epiphenomen (or puzzling side-effect) of 'matter'. This is claiming a very different relationship between PWQs and TLOP. In effect it amounts to a claim that PWQs belong in the model , as a small subset of the model.
----

But this model does not make your strong assumption depicted before...

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

First of all, your entire argument seems to be based on a rejection of the notion that our perceptions are perceptions of an external reality, in which case this distinction becomes meaningless.
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Not really. One set of qualia refer to a shared objective noumenon, the other refer to our internal state.

OK, but it is still a bit presumptuous to claim that they are truly distinct. To do so implies the assumption that your internal states are not, themselves, part of this shared objective reality. Note that saying that they are part of the shared objective reality does not in any way imply anything absurd like that one person should be able to experience another person's emotions.

Why would that be desperation? I think the evidence with regards to how chemicals affect emotional states, and how emotional states affect brain chemistry, is pretty compelling.
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You cannot seriously be claiming you don't know the difference between PWQs and internal emotional states......

No, what I am saying is that I don't think the distinction is as clear-cut as you are presenting it. Both types of "qualia" have clear physical conotations, whether you choose to believe that they are "physical correlates", or take the more parsimonious approach of assuming that they are physical processes.

For one thing, the scenario you have just presented is not even coherent. In order for me to say that science describes other peoples experiences as well as mine, I must assume that there are, in fact, other people. That is the rejection of Solipsism. Science also requires the assumption that we are all experiencing the same objective reality, as I mentioned above.
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And I have granted that assumption as part of my rejection of simple solipsism. All I am doing is pointing out that what we call 'the material world' is strictly speaking an abstract mathematical model of PWQs. Those PWQs are subjetive interpretations of a shared objective noumenon. What I reject is the assumption that the shared objective noumenon neccesarily exists independently of the general realm of Mind. Berkeleys position is that the noumenon exists in a 'Metamind'.

But look at what you are saying here. You are "rejecting the assumption that the shared reality exists independently of the general mind". What mind? Who has made that assumption? How can I assume that objective reality exists independently of something that I don't even have any idea what it is? Obviously I do not assume that objective reality is part of some general mind, because I have no idea what that even means!

It is exactly the same position as yours except that rather than positing a self-existing prime reality made of matter from which qualia 'arise' I am suggesting that this shared objective noumenon exists in a higher mental realm.

Once again, you are mistaking my position for ontological materialism. i don't believe in any mysterious ontological material realm. I make no assumptions about the nature of objective reality. I leave it to science to tell me what those characteristics are.

My belief that human consciousness arises from physical brain activity is not a metaphysical assumption. It is a conclusion based on substantial scientific evidence. I make no claim either way about this "MetaMind" that you speak of, because I have no idea what it is. I will not deny the possibility that physical reality is a part of some more fundamental "realm". I simply do not assume that it is, nor do I assume anything about what the nature of that realm must be.

The question is, why do you?

It's (normal) behaviour remains the subject of scientific study exactly as does under materialism.

Which raises another question. You have made it clear that this "Metamind", or "mental realm" of which you claim physical reality is a part, is not simply my mind, or yours, or even a conglomeration of human minds. In fact, so far you haven't explained what it is at all, or how it relates to human minds. So why does any of this have any relevance to the question of human consciousness? In fact, it seems perfectly conceivable to me that physical reality could be a component of some "MetaMind", with human minds still being purely physical processes taking place in our physical brains.

And the fact remains that under Idealism, you cannot explain how consciousness produces the physical reality that we experience.
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How do you know I can't?

Well let me put it this way. I know that you cannot do it under Berkely's Idealism, because he has defined it in such a way that such an explanation is not possible, even in principle.

I can, but I'm only willing to do it in another thread where materialism is temporarily banished and we think about the question from the point of view of some form of mentalism.

I have already told you that I am perfectly happy to look at your claims from within the framework of whatever system it is you are proposing. All you have to do is state your axioms and definitions, and present your argument.

That question is meaningless, unless you can define what it means to say that reality exists in the realm of "MIND". I know what "my mind" and "your mind" mean. I have no idea what "MIND" means.
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It means I am taking the position Erwin Shroedinger did. It means that fundamentally all consciousness is linked - there is only one consciousness and the seperation between minds, as most of us experience it most of the time, is illusory. Think of your mind and my mind as leaves on a branching tree structure.

Analogies are great for getting an idea across, but I still need a formal definition. How are all consciousnesses linked? What characteristics does this MetaMind possess that individual consciousnesses do not? How does this MetaMind produce the physical world?

And of course, what possible logical reason could you have for believing this MetaMind exists?

In any event, I do not assume that reality exists independently of this "MIND", or anything else. I simply don't assume that it is dependent on any such thing. I assume nothing about it that cannot be inferred from reliable scientific evidence.
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Then don't assume anything at all. I merely pointing out some possinilities because you claimed my position was incoherent. I am demonstrating it is not incoherent, not claiming scientific proof.

So far, your position does seem to be incoherent. But that is beside the point. My point is that without these extra ontological assumptions you have been talking about, there is absolutely no reason to believe that human consciousness cannot simply be a physical process in the brain. All of your arguments against this hypothesis have been based on your ontological assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and the physical World.

I agree completely. What you have just described is scientific materialism. What I do not understand is (a) Why you insist that materialists are assuming anything more about the nature of reality than what you have just described,
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They also assume that the noumenon pre-exists PWQs.

We don't assume that. It is a very obvious conclusion drawn from our observations. All of the scientific evidence indicates that the Physical World was around before people, and all of the scientific evidence indicates that human minds do not exist without human brains.

You can create ad-hoc hypotheses for how human minds could have been around before human brains, but there is no reason to believe that any of them are true.

They do this because they are still thinking about time froim the point of view of materialism.

We think about time from the point of view of the way science describes it, which is the only meaningful way we can think about it. To think about it any other way would be blind speculation.

To go further we have to think about how time relates to materialism and consciousness.

Thinking about it isn't enough. If it is going to be meaningful, it has to be scientifically verifiable.

(b) Why you think that any of this implies that it is not possible for the mind itself to be understood scientifically,
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I didn't even neccesarily claim that. My claim is that science cannot explain how self-existing matter, independent of Mind can produce qualia, since the matter is in fact an abstract model of the qualia.

Science does not assume that matter is self-existing. It just doesn't assume that it is not. And as I said before, the matter is an abstract model for the shared reality, not for the qualia. The qualia are simply our experience of the reality which, as I have already explained, science must assume is an interaction between the shared reality and our mind. I see no reason why this would rule out the possibility of science being able to describe the qualia themselves. On the contrary, it seems clear to me that if the axioms of science are valid, then it must be possible to do so.

(c) Why you think that any of this implies that the mind itself cannot be a physical process,
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In a way, it is. But that is only half of the story.

It's the whole story, until you start adding additional assumptions like MetaMinds. Operating strictly from within the philosophical framework of science, there is no reason to think that there is anything more to it than that.

and (d) Why you choose to make the additional assumption that physical reality is created by some "mind" of some sort.
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That is a conclusion rather than an assumption.

It certainly isn't a conclusion that can be drawn from the assumptions of science, or from any scientific evidence. On what basis do you draw this conclusion. What additional assumptions do you have to make (in addition to the axioms of science) in order to draw this conclusion? And why do you make those assumptions?

The why do you claim that the mental world cannot be a subset of the physical world?
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For all the reasons highlighted over and over again by the manifestations of Chalmers Hard Problem. Right now I am trying to present the scenario which has given rise to the problem, rather than the Problem itself - which has already been discussed at great length.

But as I already pointed out, operating strictly within the framework of science, there is no Hard Problem. The Hard Problem only arises when you make additional ontological assumptions about the relationship between the physical World and human consciousness, whether they take the form of ontological materialism, dualism, or idealism. All three yield equally "Hard Problems".

The hypothesis that consciousness is a physical process in the brain, and that our experiences are interactions between our brains (which are part of the physical world) and the rest of the physical world, is perfectly consistent with the scenario you have just described.
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No it isn't. That would be the same as claiming that the winds themselves, the winds we experience are part of the model of the behaviour of the winds.

What is the inconsistency? Your wind analogy means nothing to me. Explain in logical terms exactly what the contradiction this produces is.

I don't know what kind of materialism you are referring to, but this certainly isn't the case for scientific materialism.
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Not until scientific materialism makes the claim that qualia are solely dependent on matter. As soon as it does that it is attempting to place the thing being modelled (PWQs) into the model.

As I have pointed out several times already, the experiences are not what science tries to model. Science tries to model objective reality. The experiences are our source of information about that reality. There is absolutely nothing wrong with suggesting that the mechanism by which our minds acquire information about objective reality cannot also be explained by our model.

Idealism, however, provides no method for determining how the physical World arises from the mind. It does not even attempt to provide a method. On the contrary, it defines itself in such a way that no reliable method for doing this could, even in principle, exist.
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This is true. If materialism is false then science may have ot accept certian very specific limitations. I believe those limitations are unavoidable and inherent in the system though - so whether or not it limits science in this one specific area is irrelevant.

First of all, what I, and most modern materialists, call materialism is nothing more than the philosophical framework of science, meaning that if it is false, then the scientific method is invalid. Second, science does have limitations. I just don't see any reason why I should believe that the inability to scientifically study the mind should b one of them.

And in doing so, it replaces a set of questions which are, at least in principle, answerable, into a set of questions which are not, even in principle, answerable. It turns a difficult problem into an impossible one.
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From the point of view of scientism. There is an assumption that subjective knowledge cannot be obtained directly - and if all consciousness is indeed linked then it is indeed possible that subjective knowledge can be obtained directly - in other words your objection is itself dependent on materialism being true.

No, it isn't. Even if Materialism is false, even if the scientific method is invalid, you still have the verification problem. Idealism does not provide any reliable way to verify the validity of knowledge. You can argue that under Idealism it is possible to have direct subjective access to knowledge, but you have no way to determine its validity. You have no way to rule out subjective bias. In short, you have no way to distinguish between reality and fantasy. That way lies madness.

I would love to hear a description of the method by which you would attempt to find the answer.
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If you want to discuss this I want to do it in a different thread where materialistic objections are void.

Fine with me.

am perfectly happy to consider your line of reasoning from within whatever logical framework you choose to present it, but first you must provide that logical framework. Attempting to point out flaws with materialism accomplishes nothing in this regard. Start with the axioms and definitions of your framework, and go from there.
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Well we have already started by accepting the existence of PWQs, and an shared objective noumenon. The framework also requires a 'trunk' metamind of which all other minds are branches or leaves i.e. they are all ultimately part of the same Mind.

That's where I have problems. I still don't have any idea what that means. Remember, we are talking about a formal logical framework here. I need formal definitions and axioms, not vague analogies.

It is a scientific theory, and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence. Materialism only assumes that consciousness is physical. It makes no a-priori assumptions beyond that.
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That one assumption is the one I am challenging.

I don't see how you can challenge it without rejecting science. Science defines the word "physical" in terms of interactions. If A interacts with B, and A is physical, then so is B. There is no question that consciousness interacts with the physical world. This is true from mundane things like the fact that we can experience the physical worlds, and the fact that mental states affect our actions, to more subtle things like the impact of chemicals on mental states, and the affect of mental states on brain chemistry.

The interaction is definitely there. This makes consciousness every bit as deserving of the label "physical" as anything else that interacts with other physical stuff.

The only way consciousness could be non-physical would be if the physical World is not causally closed. And that is a direct rejection of a basic axiom of science.

you have not explained why it is absurd, you have merely asserted that it is. My point is that it is only absurd if you make assumptions that materialism does not make.
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Which are?

All that MetaMind stuff.

I have not claimed that you are not correct. It is entirely possible that the axioms of science are wrong.
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The axioms of MATERIALISM, Stimp.....

The axioms of scientific materialism are the axioms of science. As I said before, I define scientific materialism to be nothing more than the philosophical basis of the scientific method. If you want to argue about the validity of ontological materialism, you will have to find somebody who believes in it first. Good luck.

The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed.
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Nope Stimp - that is an axiom of materialism, not science.

No, that is clearly an axiom of science. If the physical World is not causally closed, then no logical conclusions can ever be drawn from scientific evidence, because there is always the possibility that some "non-physical" influence could have skewed the results.

After all, if the physical World is not causally closed, then we cannot reject the possibility that Satan just put those fossils there to trick us into believing that the Earth is older than it really is...

If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical.
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You are now trying to claim that the science claims conscious as physical as part of its axioms.

No, science claims that anything that has an effect on something physical is also physical. The fact that consciousness has an effect on the physical world is a trivial observation. From this observation I conclude that if the axioms of science are valid, then consciousness must be physical.

I still don't see how this has anything to do with what materialists are doing. We are attempting to model physical reality. Physical reality is what we experience.
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Then you are attempting to model what you experience!

That's right, I am trying to model what I experience, not the experiences themselves. I am trying to model objective reality.

Try to seperate your experiences from the model of the behaviour of your experiences.

I am not modeling the behavior of my experiences, I am modeling objective reality, based on the behavior of my experiences. I have absolutely no problem with the idea that the mechanism by which I experience objective reality can also be modeled by my model of objective reality.

No, I claimed that science attempts to model the physical World that we experience. In doing so, it provides a model for our experiences.
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It is DIRECTLY a model of our experiences. It is [i]first and foremost a model of our experiences.

No, it isn't. If that were the case, then we wouldn't be going to all the trouble of ruling out subjective bias. After all, such biases are a part of our experiences. They are not, however, included as part of the model.

Clearly what we are attempting to model is the objective reality itself. Our experiences are simply our source of information about it.

I made that very clear when I stipulated that science provides a model for our experiences, but that in doing so it makes the implicit assumption that what we are experiencing is an external objective reality.
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Again, I ask you to examine the word 'external'. External to an individual human mind - not neccesarily external to Mind itself.

Once again, I have no idea what this MetaMind is. Nor is this MetaMind in any way a part of the philosophical framework of science, nor is it in any way implied by scientific evidence.

Science does not require the noumenon to exist independently of a higher mental realm. It makes no claim about the mode of existence of the noumenon. Only ontological materialism makes that claim.

And Idealism, and Dualism. All three are making unnecessary and unjustified assumptions about the nature of reality. That is why I reject them all.

I will just stick with science, thank you very much.

We might also consider Bells Theorem and quantum entanglement. These things suggest the whole of the material world is somehow connected directly at a deeper level of reality

That depends on what you mean by "suggest". They may intuitively suggest those things to you, but they do not in any way logically suggest them at all.

that the Universe is non-local. If the noumenon is a self-existing reality then this is a big mystery.

It's a big mystery either way. Fact: we don't understand it. Making up metaphysical fantasies about it isn't going to change that fact.

If it exists in a metamind then non-locality and 'faster than light' connections suddenly make a bit more sense.

Maybe intuitively, but not logically. you still don't understand the mechanism. You still can't make any more testable predictions then you could before. All you have done is added some metaphysical icing to the cake, to make it taste better. Unfortunately, it is low-fat sugar-free icing, and adds no nutritional value.

See, I can play the analogy game too. :D

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Peskanov

Your strong assumption implies that the presence of the body, (which is controled by the mind in both models!), cannot be described in the terms of TLOP because TLOP describe the PWQ.


The body is also part of PWQ. If you drill a hole in your head you can see your own brain in a mirror. But the body also exists in the noumenon, and the part of the body called the brain is closely correlated to the mind itself.

Stimpson :

I think I explained this beofre but I'll say again - I think science stops being useful after we stop talking about the workings of material reality. The methods of science aren't so easily applicable to the investigation of the metaphysical laws underlying physical reality. If you want to stop where science stops then that is your choice, and I have no intention of trying to show how scientific methods can be applied to metaphysics.


quote:
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that the Universe is non-local. If the noumenon is a self-existing reality then this is a big mystery.
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It's a big mystery either way. Fact: we don't understand it. Making up metaphysical fantasies about it isn't going to change that fact.


It's only as mystery if you are a materialist. It doesn't seem like much of a mystery to me. Under mentalist metaphysics it's almost predictable.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it exists in a metamind then non-locality and 'faster than light' connections suddenly make a bit more sense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe intuitively, but not logically. you still don't understand the mechanism.


I haven't ever really explained it in detail. I'd probably end up like Franko if I did.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

I think I explained this beofre but I'll say again - I think science stops being useful after we stop talking about the workings of material reality.

Of course.

The methods of science aren't so easily applicable to the investigation of the metaphysical laws underlying physical reality.

They aren't applicable to metaphysics at all.

If you want to stop where science stops then that is your choice, and I have no intention of trying to show how scientific methods can be applied to metaphysics.

I don't see any alternative to stopping where science stops, since no other philosophical framework seems to be able to provide a method for going any further.

With respect to the current topic, though, I think that the issue is not about how to go beyond where science can go, but rather to establish whether the workings of human consciousness are beyond where science can go, or not. I still don't see any reason why I should that it is.

It's a big mystery either way. Fact: we don't understand it. Making up metaphysical fantasies about it isn't going to change that fact.
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It's only as mystery if you are a materialist. It doesn't seem like much of a mystery to me.

You don't understand it any better than any materialist does. Your metaphysical beliefs my give you an intuitive way of looking at it, but it does not, and can not, provide any actual understanding of it.

Under mentalist metaphysics it's almost predictable.

Almost predictable? Is that anything like being unpredictable? Are you claiming that the nonlocal, possibly non-deterministic, and definitely non-temporally causal, nature of QM can be inferred from Mentalism? This is a perfect example of an ad-hoc hypothesis, and post-hoc reasoning. You are looking at a phenomenon that you would never have predicted from your metaphysical beliefs, and saying "oh yeah, that is obviously exactly what we should expect to see under Idealism".

If it exists in a metamind then non-locality and 'faster than light' connections suddenly make a bit more sense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe intuitively, but not logically. you still don't understand the mechanism.
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I haven't ever really explained it in detail. I'd probably end up like Franko if I did.

It's not even a question of whether you can provide an explanation of the mechanism involved. What is at question is whether you have any reliable method for establishing that your explanation is the correct one.

Dr. Stupid

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
It seems to me that this is precisely what the laws of physics model - we have no direct access to atoms or quantum waves - we have direct access only to PWQs.

"When are we sure that the meaning of a question is clear? Obviously if and only if we are able to exactly describe the conditions in which it is possible to answer yes, or, respectively, the conditions in which it is necessary to answer with a no. The meaning of a question is thus defined only through the specification of those conditions...
The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference.
(M. Schlick, 'Positivismus und Realismus' in Erkenntnis, 3, 1932).
Metaphysical statements are thus forbidden: they are meaningless. Also the traditional philosophy is indeed meaningless, and the only role of philosophy is the clarification of the meaning of statements. "



Now, Mr Elephant, where is the verifiable difference?

[muscleman]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


"When are we sure that the meaning of a question is clear? Obviously if and only if we are able to exactly describe the conditions in which it is possible to answer yes, or, respectively, the conditions in which it is necessary to answer with a no. The meaning of a question is thus defined only through the specification of those conditions...
The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference.
(M. Schlick, 'Positivismus und Realismus' in Erkenntnis, 3, 1932).
Metaphysical statements are thus forbidden: they are meaningless. Also the traditional philosophy is indeed meaningless, and the only role of philosophy is the clarification of the meaning of statements. "



Now, Mr Elephant, where is the verifiable difference?

Thats the problem why ppl become atheists, because they cant think for themselves but need a book to be refferred to..

A book is fine, as long as u dont put so much faith and effort to believing it is a "FACT", without asking other ppl in which who disagrees with your book, so u can learn both ways..

I am here in the skeptic forum, posted all my arguments because I want to learn both sides, Im not like the narrow minded cult, but the response I get is "your a troll"..LOL

Ossai is a "PERFECT" example of the brainwashed cult member. Making his own definitions, FALSELY accusing me, then ignores points and move on.


Lucifuge, welcome to atheism, listed among the "freaky beliefs", among the list other than atheism is UFO, chupacabra, non-life can create life, Koran is a peacefull religion, etc.

[Peskanov]

UCE;

----
quote:
The body is also part of PWQ. If you drill a hole in your head you can see your own brain in a mirror. But the body also exists in the noumenon, and the part of the body called the brain is closely correlated to the mind itself.
----

I think you have not understood my point.
In your model, there is a 2 ways information interface between the individual conscience and what you call "the mind".
Like a computer game, your model implies and entity (the Mind <=> the computer) generating PWQ, and a second entity (the mind <=> a program ) controlling one of the parts of this PWQ.
In a computer game, agents can be controlled by the computer or the external user. If you can look inside the system, the examination of the agent controlled internally will show a closed circuit of information, while the externally controlled one would led to a misterious source of information, bringing complex, unpredictable data: the joystick hardware register! ;)

And you already pointed how could this interface work in you model, although maybe it was in other thread. You said the mind could overcome probable brain outputs. Are you aware that this source of information is as visible and present as any other?
I claim that in your model there is information entering the PWQ system which is external to the definition of this system,and that as long as this system shows coherent itself, the source must be detectable in it.

Again, in other others words: You are assuming the information circuit relevant to our actions comming from PWQ can NOT be closed.
That is your assumption, which theorically could be shown false (locally in time as a minimum).

Luci


"When are we sure that the meaning of a question is clear? Obviously if and only if we are able to exactly describe the conditions in which it is possible to answer yes, or, respectively, the conditions in which it is necessary to answer with a no. The meaning of a question is thus defined only through the specification of those conditions...
The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference.
(M. Schlick, 'Positivismus und Realismus' in Erkenntnis, 3, 1932).
Metaphysical statements are thus forbidden: they are meaningless. Also the traditional philosophy is indeed meaningless, and the only role of philosophy is the clarification of the meaning of statements. "

Now, Mr Elephant, where is the verifiable difference?


Can you translate this into English for me, and explain what it has to do with this thread? :confused:



Peskanov :


I think you have not understood my point.


Quite likely.


In your model, there is a 2 ways information interface between the individual conscience and what you call "the mind".


I assume you mean "consciousness".

And yes, there is a mental connection between all aspects of Mind, including our own.


Like a computer game, your model implies and entity (the Mind <=> the computer) generating PWQ, and a second entity (the mind <=> a program ) controlling one of the parts of this PWQ.
In a computer game, agents can be controlled by the computer or the external user. If you can look inside the system, the examination of the agent controlled internally will show a closed circuit of information, while the externally controlled one would led to a misterious source of information, bringing complex, unpredictable data: the joystick hardware register!

And you already pointed how could this interface work in you model, although maybe it was in other thread. You said the mind could overcome probable brain outputs. Are you aware that this source of information is as visible and present as any other?


Did I say that? I don't remember saying that. And I'm not really understanding your point....


I claim that in your model there is information entering the PWQ system which is external to the definition of this system,and that as long as this system shows coherent itself, the source must be detectable in it.


:confused: :confused: :confused:

Je ne comprends pas. Maybe we have a language problem here, but I'm not following you at all. Information entering from where? What does "and that as long as this system shows coherent itself" mean? and how can "the source must be detectable in it." be resolved with "I claim that in your model there is information entering the PWQ ".

You seem to be claiming two different things which contradict each other, then highlighting it as a problem with my metaphysics, but I don't understand why you are claiming either of the things you are claiming.

:confused: :(


Again, in other others words: You are assuming the information circuit relevant to our actions comming from PWQ can NOT be closed.


The WHOLE SYSTEM is open. It is Infinite. We've been there before....

Peskanov - I think we must be talking at cross-purposes - I think there must be something you think I am suggesting that I'm not suggesting. I just don't understand your post.

Geoff.

[Peskanov]

UCE, sorry I didn't explain it clearly...
If you think about how information travels in your model, maybe you will understand my post better. Anyway, I will re-read your posts again to see if I am understanding your model correctly and I will remake my message.

Originally posted by Peskanov
UCE, sorry I didn't explain it clearly...
If you think about how information travels in your model, maybe you will understand my post better. Anyway, I will re-read your posts again to see if I am understanding your model correctly and I will remake my message.

Information all travels via the metamind.

[Win]

UCE:

What was I aiming at? Just this.

The distinction between "physical world qualia" and "internal state qualia" is artificial. A quale is a quale is a quale.

If you begin with qualia as the only certain existant, then go about trying to explain things, eventually you reach the point where you have to ask: What's the relationship between the existence of qualia and the content of qualia?

It doesn't matter whether you frame that question in terms of "physical world qualia" or the physical world. Your formulation just changes the terms in the question, but leaves us no nearer an answer.

Originally posted by Win
UCE:

What was I aiming at? Just this.

The distinction between "physical world qualia" and "internal state qualia" is artificial. A quale is a quale is a quale.

If you begin with qualia as the only certain existant, then go about trying to explain things, eventually you reach the point where you have to ask: What's the relationship between the existence of qualia and the content of qualia?

It doesn't matter whether you frame that question in terms of "physical world qualia" or the physical world. Your formulation just changes the terms in the question, but leaves us no nearer an answer.

Doesn't it?

I am just pointing out that TLOP are a model of the behaviour of a certain class of qualia. Which question are you suggesting I'm no closer to answering?

I still don't really understand what you are getting at. What makes you think I can't answer the question about the relationship between the existence and content? What does this have to do with what I am actually saying? I get the feeling you are trying to debunk something I'm not claiming.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by muscleman


Thats the problem why ppl become atheists, because they cant think for themselves but need a book to be refferred to..

A book is fine, as long as u dont put so much faith and effort to believing it is a "FACT", without asking other ppl in which who disagrees with your book, so u can learn both ways..

I am here in the skeptic forum, posted all my arguments because I want to learn both sides, Im not like the narrow minded cult, but the response I get is "your a troll"..LOL

Ossai is a "PERFECT" example of the brainwashed cult member. Making his own definitions, FALSELY accusing me, then ignores points and move on.


Lucifuge, welcome to atheism, listed among the "freaky beliefs", among the list other than atheism is UFO, chupacabra, non-life can create life, Koran is a peacefull religion, etc.

All of this coming from a moron who believes in Pope Infalibility, Enciclics and Marian Dogma. Give me a break! If you are interested in the subject, see my answer to UCE.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What is the metamind?

~~ Paul

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Luci



Can you translate this into English for me, and explain what it has to do with this thread? :confused:




Of course Geoff.

Let's suppose you are right and Stimpy is wrong. What would be a verifiable difference we can objetively test and wich can't be true if Stimpy is right? Is there ANY? Because if no, then your post has no meaning.

"The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference. "

Is there any verifiable difference?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by slimshady2357
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Not interactions with an objective reality. Rather consitutes an objective reality. This objective reality is simply a consensus of subjectivity.
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I think what you mean is that the 'objective' part is simply the consensus of subjectivity. I don't think you really mean that the consensus constitutes reality? Or do you?

The reason I ask is this. If you want to divide your mental events into PWQ's and internally generated Q's, I would ask... What is generating the PWQ's?

Consensus? ?



Ok, I'm going to expand a bit here. Please take note because it is pretty profound stuff.

In our sensory perceptions of the world it is quite clear that our actual visual experiences are not determined by the images on the retina as everyone seemingly naively supposes. Perceptual illusions illustrate this nicely. You've heard of the necker cube? It's the series of lines drawn on a flat plane which we in our western culture perceive as a cube http://www.yorku.ca/eye/necker.htm
However, the results of experiments on members of a number of African tribes whose culture does not include the custom of depicting 3-dimensional objects by 2-dimensional perspective drawings, indicate that the member of those tribes would see the
"necker cube" as simply a 2-dimensional array of lines. Interesting to note here is that when I look at a necker cube, I cannot but see it as a cube, although whether I see its under surface or top surface will keep instantaneously changing.

It must not be thought that this applies only to perceptual illusions. What observers see, the subjective experiences that they undergo, when viewing an object and scene is not determined solely by the images on their retinas but depends also on the experience, knowledge, expectations and general inner state of the observer.

Take our familiar visual experience of immediately perceiving a 3-dimensional world. All that hits our retina are a series of shapes and differing colors. We construe this as a 3 dimensional world in a similar manner that we see the necker cube as a 3 dimensional object.

Just to clear up a possible misunderstanding. It may be thought by some people that differing people see the same thing, but interpret what they see differently. I absolutely disagree with this. This is because reality is constituted by our very perceptual experiences and in turn, as explained, our perceptual experiences are determined to a large extent by our inner state, knowledge or expectations. Another way of stating this is our perceptual experiences are to a very great extent influenced by an implicit theoretical interpretation of reality and by necessity it is not possible to have an atheoretical intepretation of reality (everything one can ever perceive is through a lens of some implicitly held theory). Therefore reality really is literally different for us and for african tribes. We see a cube they don't. Therefore for us there really does exist a cube, for them there really is no cube there!

Also take note that obviously I am not claiming that reality is wholly determined by our inner state. We cannot just see absolutely anything. What we perceptually see, and therefore what is real, is moulded by the mind, not created ex nihilo. And that which is moulded is the information entering our senses. My own view is that what we perceptually experience is a kind of collaboration between our finite minds and the infinite Mind, although the apparent separateness of minds (all minds) is ultimately illusionary.


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You don't understand. There is absolutely no problem with supposing that reality is objective even if one is an idealist.
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Did you read the sentence where he said:

quote:
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The assumption that reality is objective is a necessary assumption of the scientific method. It is also an assumption of Idealism

bolded by me

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Of course he knows there is no problem with supposing reality is objective for an Idealist! He even says it is necessary!



{SHRUGS}

So this time he directly contradicts himself in the very same post. Stimpy always conradicts himself, it's just that he normally doesn't do it in the same post.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

II
One set represents the external world and the other set represents qualia which are generated internally. A case of a former would be a family of our PWQ's which we label a particular table. Now if we both viewed this table from the same distance away and from the same perspective we would experience very similar PWQ's. On the other hand my experiencing a particular emotion of some kind is something you would ned to infer from my bodily behaviour. So basically PWQ's constitute an objective external world, where as other mental events generated wholly internally are irreducibly subjective. For example no-one else can literally experience my pain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul
This is a strong argument for a real external world. Tables appear similar to many people because they are both forming subjective images of the same external object. Fear is different (is it really?) because it is predominantly internally generated.

However, first things first. Is the sameness of our views of the table really all that much greater than the sameness of our fears? We seem to be able to talk about fear with one another and understand what we're talking about just fine.

~~ Paul [/B]

The point about PWQ's is that they have a location, they are sufficiently similar amongst different people that families of PWQ's can be defined ostensively, they can be measured, and my measurement will be the same as anyone elses measurement etc. Seems very obvious to me that they are utterly different from wholly internally generated qualia.

[Win]

UCE:

Which question are you suggesting I'm no closer to answering?

This one:

What's the relationship between the existence of qualia and the content of qualia?

One way to ask this question is: How do qualia arise from the physical? Another way is: What distinguishes "physical world qualia" from "internal state qualia?" Another is: What about qualia connects it to the concepts of necessity and being?

Simply according qualia status as the primary existant doesn't get us any closer to answering the question.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
What is the metamind?

~~ Paul

Berkeley lived in a time where, as a Bishop, he was forced to use the term "The Mind of God", for fear of upsetting "the powers that were", i.e. the church. The term 'Metamind' comes from Peter Lloyd who finds himself in a position where he wants to avoid using this term for rather similar reasons, "the powers that be" now being materialistic philosophy.

The Metamind is a higher mind, of which ours are derived. The noumenon (the physical world in its true form) exists within the metamind. It is supported by the Metamind. This scheme replaces a self-existing self-supporting material reality with information stored in a higher mental realm.


Luci


Let's suppose you are right and Stimpy is wrong. What would be a verifiable difference we can objetively test and wich can't be true if Stimpy is right? Is there ANY? Because if no, then your post has no meaning.


You mean it has no meaning in terms of materialistic science. Your above statement depends on the assumption that anything not objectively verifiable by the scientific method has no meaning.


"The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference. "

Is there any verifiable difference?


The difference is metaphysical, not physical. It makes an enormous difference to ones outlook on the possibility of the existence of paranormal phenomena or meaning in religion. There are no objectively verifiable differences because both schemes result in the same (normal) behaviour in the physical world - the realm of objective study. But in terms of metaphysics it makes the difference between

1) all paranormalism and all religion being utterly non-existent and meaningless

and

2) The possibility of making sense of recurrent themes throughout the history of religion, and providing explanations for the vast amounts of anecdotal evidence surround so-called 'paranormal' phenomena.

This is a crucial difference. So long as you are an ontological materialist you don't really have to experiment to find out whether paranormal phenomena exist, and you don't need to investigate religion and philosophy - because your metaphysical model has already rendered both of these things devoid of meaning. That isn't because the are actually devoid of meaning - it is because you have chosen a metaphysical model which renders them meaningless. This choice then causes serious bias amongst the so-called skeptics because they already "know" they are right. Even though they are wrong. ;)

Win :


this one

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's the relationship between the existence of qualia and the content of qualia?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


But I didn't ask that question..... :confused:

You did!

I might have asked it in a previous thread, but I didn't ask it in this one.


One way to ask this question is: How do qualia arise from the physical? Another way is: What distinguishes "physical world qualia" from "internal state qualia?" Another is: What about qualia connects it to the concepts of necessity and being?

Simply according qualia status as the primary existant doesn't get us any closer to answering the question.


I am examining the relationship between the laws of physics and qualia representing the physical world. You are asking a different question.

"the question" you are asking isn't the one I am trying to answer.

I am asking "What is it the laws of physics are a model of?"

None of the three formulations of question you have posted are actually the question I am actually asking.

[slimshady2357]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


My own view is that what we perceptually experience is a kind of collaboration between our finite minds and the infinite Mind, although the apparent separateness of minds (all minds) is ultimately illusionary.


Thanks, that's all you needed to say. The rest I already know you believe. ;)

You may have stated this before, if so, I missed it.

Oh, and text sucks sometimes, so to be clear, I'm not dismissing what you said :) Just acknowledging your answer.

Adam

[Win]

UCE:

And what I'm saying is that the question: What is "the relationship between the laws of physics and qualia representing the physical world"

just boils down to

What's the relationship between the existence of qualia and the content of qualia?

Not trying to pull your chain, I promise. :)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyTK
Hi Ian



I'm going to seem like a troll for the way I keep banging on about meaning--sorry! On the one hand I can accept the existence of the physical world as illustrated by physics'n'stuff. On the other, I carnt experience it directly because my experience is mediated by language. Without language my world is literally meaningless, a chaotic jumble of sensation with no understanding of what those sensations are.



Hmmmm, that's interesting. I remember a few years back when I was doing my degree the tutor saying this and everyone in the class agreeing with her apart from me! Although to be honest me disagreeing with everyone was scarcely a rare occurence! LOL Anyway, I still find this statement ludicrous. Sorry!




So this is where I kinda fall over with the separation of sensory impression and emotional state qualia and to some extent even with the separation between internal mental states and the external physical world. My PWQs are wholly internally generated because they depend on the meanings I've learnt to attribute to them.



Surely not. Otherwise that would mean my mind is the genesis of what I perceive to be the external world! :eek: Do you really wish to maintain PWQ's are wholly generated? Shaped and moulded yes, but not wholly generated!

Win


And what I'm saying is that the question: What is "the relationship between the laws of physics and qualia representing the physical world"

just boils down to

quote:
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What's the relationship between the existence of qualia and the content of qualia?
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Does it?

Why?

It seems to me you are complicating something that is actually very simple. It's simple because the relationship between PWQs and the laws of physics is very simple. We experience PWQs. We create a mathematical model called TLOP which describes their behaviour. Simple. Why complicate it?


Not trying to pull your chain, I promise.


Sorry...didn't think you would be....but this thread seems to have contained a lot of people making posts that must have seemed relevant to them, but to me seemed to be attempts to change the question to something else that the poster in question was happier answering. And I found several of them quite hard to understand as well as feeling them to be irrelevant.

Fact : We have qualia
Fact : Some of those qualia are representations of a physical world that appears to behave in a predictable, logical manner.
Fact : we have invented something called the laws of physics which describe this predictable behaviour.

STOP.

What is wrong with my facts?
Why can't we STOP there?
Why does everybody want to go....but...but...but...and try to smear marmalade all over my simple argument...

:)

[BillyTK]

Hi Ian, thanks for taking time to reply.


Hmmmm, that's interesting. I remember a few years back when I was doing my degree the tutor saying this and everyone in the class agreeing with her apart from me! Although to be honest me disagreeing with everyone was scarcely a rare occurence! LOL Anyway, I still find this statement ludicrous. Sorry!
Could you outline your reasons for finding it ludicrous?

Surely not. Otherwise that would mean my mind is the genesis of what I perceive to be the external world! :eek: Do you really wish to maintain PWQ's are wholly generated? Shaped and moulded yes, but not wholly generated!
Well no--your mind isn't the genesis of what you perceive to be the outside world. For instance, the Necker cube example your presented earlier; our perception of it depends on the cultural meanings we learn to attribute to it, and these meanings precede the individual; you're not born with the "thing" that makes you see the Necker cube as a cube; you learn it.

Also as you explain, our sense perceptions are not the same as the stimuli which causes those perceptions. I might be making an error here in misunderstanding what PWQs are, but my understanding is that PWQs arise as a result of our sensory perceptions, not as a result of the real-world stimuli. So PWQs must be wholly internally generated, in response to the sensory perceptions acting in combination with other factors such as the meanings we possess.

[Win]

UCE:

It seems to me you are complicating something that is actually very simple. It's simple because the relationship between PWQs and the laws of physics is very simple. We experience PWQs. We create a mathematical model called TLOP which describes their behaviour. Simple. Why complicate it?

Strictly, I'd have to say: because it is more complicated. There are qualia. Some of those qualia, taken together, have a content that can be decribed with TLOP.

It's not that TLOP describes the behaviour of qualia; it's that TLOP describes the content of some qualia.

Win :


Strictly, I'd have to say: because it is more complicated. There are qualia. Some of those qualia, taken together, have a content that can be decribed with TLOP.

It's not that TLOP describes the behaviour of qualia; it's that TLOP describes the content of some qualia.


If I said "TLOP describes the behaviour of the content of some qualia (PWQs)" would this really be any different to saying "TLOP describes the content of some qualia"?

Sometimes subtle differences are more relevant than you initially think they are, and I'm willing to believe this is true here, but I'm yet to be convinced.

Does "describes the content" and "describes the behaviour of the content" differ relevantly?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
quote:
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On what grounds do you assert that they are "distinct"? Certainly you can divide up the qualia into these two groups, but that doesn't mean that they are really distinct in any meaningful way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UCE
I assert they are distinct on the grounds that one of them (the PWQs) are a representation of a percieved external reality and the other are not. How can you claim this distinction is 'not meaningful'? Nobody would claim fear and elation as being qualia that represent part of the external reality (oops...I forgot....materialists in the house....liable to claim all sorts of patent absurdities..... )
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Stimpy replying to UCE
First of all, your entire argument seems to be based on a rejection of the notion that our perceptions are perceptions of an external reality, in which case this distinction becomes meaningless.


How did you manage to discern this meaning? Substantiate with relevant quotations.



Stimpy replying to UCE
Secondly, it is certainly the case that things like fear and elation have an effect on, and are effected by, this external physical world of ours, so the idea that they are, in fact, a part of it, hardly seems to me to be a patent absurdity.


Oh? Well that's curious. So with my hope that my next electricity bill will not be to high, the hope itself might actually consitute part of the furniture of the world?? :eek: LMAO!

[Win]

UCE:

Does "describes the content" and "describes the behaviour of the content" differ relevantly?

Yes, in that I don't think that qualia can be said to have "behaviours."

The content of some qualia, taken together, can be interpreted as an external world, which has certain features. Among those features are entities with behaviours.

Unless you accept that the qualia just are one of those features, or arise from those features, I think your position breaks down.

Win


Yes, in that I don't think that qualia can be said to have "behaviours."


Why not? :confused:


The content of some qualia, taken together, can be interpreted as an external world, which has certain features. Among those features are entities with behaviours.


Hmmmm......


Unless you accept that the qualia just are one of those features, or arise from those features, I think your position breaks down.


This seems like turning something on its head for no good reason.

I don't understand why qualia can't be said to have behaviour?

I really don't understand why I have to accept qualia are part of an abstract external world.

I still thinking you are adding a completely unneccesary level of complexity, for no apparent reason.

[Keneke]

DAMMIT! I had a nice sized post in response, posted it, came back this morning, and it's nowhere to be found!

Mods, please check up on this. Disappearing posts anger me.

[Win]

UCE:

I still thinking you are adding a completely unneccesary level of complexity, for no apparent reason.

OK. Perhaps we should turn it around. What is the extra level of complexity I'm adding?

[Keneke]

In essence, the big long post that never was (grrrrr) said that UCE's theory of PWQs can co-exist with a materialistic outlook, because our subjective experiences or reality (qualia) have nothing to do with the assumption that the universe exists and behaves in a materialistic fashion. Shall we go from there?

Originally posted by Win
UCE:

OK. Perhaps we should turn it around. What is the extra level of complexity I'm adding?

You claiming that the behaviour I perceive to be occuring in qualia cannot be said to be behaviours of the qualia. This is the bit I don't understand. WHY can't qualia be said to have behaviour?

I am aware that because I have rejected solipsism and accepted the meaningfulness of science that there must be a shared objective noumenon, but I do not understand why qualia must be thought of as properties of the noumenon. The behaviour of the qualia infers behaviour inherent in the noumenon itself, but why does this mean that qualia cannot be said to have behaviour and why does it mean that qualia have to be considered as properties of the noumenon. I am missing a piece of your line of reasoning.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

UCE
There is a difference between objectivism and materialism. All you are claiming here is that the model of our experiences is common to all of us - that the same model seems to work for your experiences as works for my experiences - that is what makes it objective.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimpy

no, that is not all I am claiming. I am also claiming that the reality which I am experiencing is the reality which you are experiencing.



My PWQ's cannot literally be the same as your PWQ's. Therefore you must hold the position that our PWQ's refer to something other than our PWQ's. In which case, despite your denials, you are involved in ontological speculation.

[Win]

UCE:

You claiming that the behaviour I perceive to be occuring in qualia cannot be said to be behaviours of the qualia. This is the bit I don't understand. WHY can't qualia be said to have behaviour?

Ultimately, what you are saying is that part of the content of qualia can be interpreted as entities which exhibit regular behaviour. This says nothing about qualia. It only says something about the content of qualia, interpreted in such a way as to give entities, which can have behaviours.

Qualia exist, and have content. That's all, until you start to build up an explantion for the content. Once you have an explanation of the content, you can start talking about "behaviour."

But building up an explanation, and what that explanation should be, is what we've all been arguing about for so long.

Your position depends on the assumptions and conclusions that get made in the "building up an explanation" stage. So, it can't be used to answer the ultimate question, because it is posterior to it.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat




The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed.



And who gets to decide that it is an axiom? Why does it need to be an axiom?



If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical.



Not at all. It just means that our non-physical consciousness is not causally efficaceous.




The idea that our minds are not physical, but yet that they interact with the physical, is a blatant rejection of the axioms of science.



Well that one axiom yes. but why is that axiom necessary?

Originally posted by Keneke
In essence, the big long post that never was (grrrrr) said that UCE's theory of PWQs can co-exist with a materialistic outlook, because our subjective experiences or reality (qualia) have nothing to do with the assumption that the universe exists and behaves in a materialistic fashion. Shall we go from there?

This is basically correct. As far as the physical world is concerned, materialism still operates exactly the same. The only difference occurs when we look at questions like "Why does the Universe exist at all"/"What is the metaphysical support for the Universe", questions surrounding the relationship between the mental and physical realms and certain issues regarding the nature of time. All of those questions are arguably philosophical questions in the first place anyway. As far as materialistic science is concerned the only difference is that the specific question about why a 1st-person perspective exists at all has been removed, because under my metaphysics it is no longer a question that needs answering. But again - I don't see this as any great loss to science since as far as I am concerned science is condemned to be unable to answer that question anyway. All my metaphysics really does is open the door to new theoretical possibilities regarding what sort of phenomena are actually possible. I've said this before - materialism renders several whole classes of phenomena theoretically impossible - but if you look closely enough this actually includes subjective consciousness. If you modify your metaphysics so you can acount both for an 'external' world that behaves as if it was made of matter and 1st-person consciousness then those classes of phenomena are no longer impossible. More importantly for me, it opens up the possibility of making some sort of sense of some the biggest questions I have spent my whole life asking myself, questions for which science has not been able to provide much in the way of answers, mainly because of its perceived dependence on materialism.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is materialism, not science....come on Stimp....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It is a scientific theory,



If you think this you clearly don't understand what science means. Quite bad considering you claim to be a scientist. FYI it is a metaphysical theory, and an impressively stupid one at that.





and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence.



There is no evidence whatsoever. How many times do you need to be told this???

[Win]

Stimp:

What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,

I noticed this, via Ian, and I'd be interested to know exactly what the content of the theory is.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by c0rbin
[
And to Interesting Ian,

Why would there ever be a cat's grin without a cat? [/B]

There wouldn't.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Secondly, it is certainly the case that things like fear and elation have an effect on, and are effected by, this external physical world of ours, so the idea that they are, in fact, a part of it, hardly seems to me to be a patent absurdity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh? Well that's curious. So with my hope that my next electricity bill will not be to high, the hope itself might actually consitute part of the furniture of the world?? LMAO!

Does your hope affect your actions? Does it affect your brain chemistry? Clearly it does. The very fact that you are able to physically say "I hope..." proves this.

no, that is not all I am claiming. I am also claiming that the reality which I am experiencing is the reality which you are experiencing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My PWQ's cannot literally be the same as your PWQ's. Therefore you must hold the position that our PWQ's refer to something other than our PWQ's. In which case, despite your denials, you are involved in ontological speculation.

It is not ontological speculation, because I am not attributing any characteristics to this external reality that cannot be empirically verified. It is an epistemological position, not an ontological assumption.

The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And who gets to decide that it is an axiom?

Whoever it is that is responsible for deciding what the word "science" means. I am telling you what I think the word "science" means, so I guess I do. Of course, the fact that these are the same definitions and axioms that the entire scientific community uses, should count for something.

Why does it need to be an axiom?

Because without it the scientific method is not logically valid. If you allow for influences which don't obey physical laws to influence things which do, you can no longer claim that those things do.

Look at it this way. If the physical World is the set of all things which obey physical laws, then it must be causally closed. If it is not causally closed, then that implies that there are physical things which can be affected by things which do not obey physical laws. This in turn implies that these physical things do not function according to physical laws, nor does anything physical which they interact with. The entire framework falls apart!

As a practical example, consider the mind. Clearly the mind has an effect on the brain. If the mind does not obey physical laws, then the brain cannot either. The brain affects the rest of the body. Our bodies have the potential to affect pretty much anything else. The entire scientific method falls apart.

Science simply isn't a coherent framework without the axiom that the Physical World is causally closed.

If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not at all. It just means that our non-physical consciousness is not causally efficaceous.

Which is a trivially false statement.

What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is materialism, not science....come on Stimp....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is a scientific theory,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you think this you clearly don't understand what science means. Quite bad considering you claim to be a scientist. FYI it is a metaphysical theory, and an impressively stupid one at that.

What is metaphysical about it? It is a falsifiable hypothesis, and the most parsimonious falsifiable hypothesis that is consistent with the available data.

and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no evidence whatsoever. How many times do you need to be told this???

You can tell me this as many times as you like. Until you actually provide some sort of reasonable argument to back up this claim, you are just blowing hot air. Your "that isn't consciousness, that is just the neural correlate" argument holds no water, because at the very least, it begs the question.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Stimp:

Which is a trivially false statement.

No it isn't. It isn't even false.

Originally posted by Win
UCE:



Ultimately, what you are saying is that part of the content of qualia can be interpreted as entities which exhibit regular behaviour. This says nothing about qualia. It only says something about the content of qualia, interpreted in such a way as to give entities, which can have behaviours.

Qualia exist, and have content. That's all, until you start to build up an explantion for the content. Once you have an explanation of the content, you can start talking about "behaviour."

But building up an explanation, and what that explanation should be, is what we've all been arguing about for so long.

Your position depends on the assumptions and conclusions that get made in the "building up an explanation" stage. So, it can't be used to answer the ultimate question, because it is posterior to it.

I still don't really understand. :(

Which assumptions?

[Win]

UCE:

Which assumptions?

Well, assumptions, or conclusions, like certain of the contents of qualia are "objects," these "objects," properly defined, persist over time, and, again over time, these "objects" do the same sorts of things when in the presence of other "objects," giving rise to the concept of "behaviour."

Originally posted by Win
UCE:



Well, assumptions, or conclusions, like certain of the contents of qualia are "objects," these "objects," properly defined, persist over time, and, again over time, these "objects" do the same sorts of things when in the presence of other "objects," giving rise to the concept of "behaviour."

But none of the above pose a particular problem, do they?

To be honest I don't think I even want to answer the 'Ultimate question'. I think people must answer that question for themselves. All I am really trying to do is, keeping in mind some of the long-discussed problems facing materialism, provide a suggested alternative metaphysical model which might go some way to making progress toward understanding certain contraversial phenomena like Jungs collective unconscious and things like the 'hundredth monkey" effect - plus things like non-locality in physics. I'm not trying to prove anything except that there are workable alternatives to materialism, and suggesting how they might work.

[Win]

UCE:

But none of the above pose a particular problem, do they?

Only to the idea that qualia themselves have "behaviours."

And when I say "ultimate question," I only mean with regard to qualia and their relation to the physical world, if any. ;)

Ultimatel ... er, I mean, in the end, all I'm saying is that looking at "physical world qualia" as opposed to looking at the physical world doesn't really get us anywhere. It's just reposing the same questions using different terms.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


"When are we sure that the meaning of a question is clear? Obviously if and only if we are able to exactly describe the conditions in which it is possible to answer yes, or, respectively, the conditions in which it is necessary to answer with a no. The meaning of a question is thus defined only through the specification of those conditions...
The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference.
(M. Schlick, 'Positivismus und Realismus' in Erkenntnis, 3, 1932).
Metaphysical statements are thus forbidden: they are meaningless. Also the traditional philosophy is indeed meaningless, and the only role of philosophy is the clarification of the meaning of statements. "



Now, Mr Elephant, where is the verifiable difference?

What's with all this logical postivist cr*p? And what's the verifiable difference between what?

[Peskanov]

UCE,

----
quote:
And I found several of them quite hard to understand as well as feeling them to be irrelevant.
----

Oops! I guess I am included there...

Well, I have read again your model. Could you give me some details? I want to know:
Would the world perceived through PWQ follow always an internal logic?
Woud the brain workings that we perceive though PWQ be an accurate projection of a mind? Or it would just an unrelated illusion? Or a partial one?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale
[B]

Of course Geoff.

Let's suppose you are right and Stimpy is wrong. What would be a verifiable difference we can objetively test and wich can't be true if Stimpy is right?



What precisely are you claiming Stimpy is right about??




Is there ANY? Because if no, then your post has no meaning.



What precisely don't you understand about UCE's original post?



"The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference. "



Justify this position.



Is there any verifiable difference?

If there is no verfiable difference btween UCE's position and Stimpy's position how does this entail that UCE's position is meaningless and Stimpy's isn't?

[Win]

Ian:

What's with all this logical postivist cr*p?

Didn't you know? This board is the last redoubt of logical positivism. Though it went out of fashion, indeed bankrupt, in the philosphical community and the world at large fifty years ago, here they still tend the flame.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
no, that is not all I am claiming. I am also claiming that the reality which I am experiencing is the reality which you are experiencing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My PWQ's cannot literally be the same as your PWQ's. Therefore you must hold the position that our PWQ's refer to something other than our PWQ's. In which case, despite your denials, you are involved in ontological speculation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It is not ontological speculation, because I am not attributing any characteristics to this external reality that cannot be empirically verified. It is an epistemological position, not an ontological assumption.



Saying it exists is the ontological presumption. It is sufficient for reality to be objective that we experience similar PWQ's when in the same place and time.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And who gets to decide that it is an axiom?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Whoever it is that is responsible for deciding what the word "science" means.


Who has stated that the hypothesis that the world is physically closed is an axiom of science? Did anyone argue against him that it ought not to be?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why does it need to be an axiom?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Because without it the scientific method is not logically valid.



Why not? Change in the world initiated by sentient beings could be explained in terms of intent and desires. I see no necessity in supposing the world must be physically closed.



If you allow for influences which don't obey physical laws to influence things which do, you can no longer claim that those things do.



Sorry you're confusing me here. Care to expand?



Look at it this way. If the physical World is the set of all things which obey physical laws,



But it isn't. The physical world is the set of all things which can be discerned from a third person perspective.



then it must be causally closed. If it is not causally closed, then that implies that there are physical things which can be affected by things which do not obey physical laws. This in turn implies that these physical things do not function according to physical laws,



No it doesn't imply this at all. Change might be initiated by a non-physical thing, but thereafter unfold according to physical laws.



As a practical example, consider the mind. Clearly the mind has an effect on the brain.


How did you work this out?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not at all. It just means that our non-physical consciousness is not causally efficaceous.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Which is a trivially false statement.



What you say here is quite patently false. If the world is causally closed then our behaviour is fully explicable in terms of physical processes. You can only say that it is trivial false if it is self-evidently true that experiential consciousness is one and the very same thing, or is a function of such processes. However we were considering the scenario of non-physical consciousness



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is materialism, not science....come on Stimp....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is a scientific theory,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you think this you clearly don't understand what science means. Quite bad considering you claim to be a scientist. FYI it is a metaphysical theory, and an impressively stupid one at that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What is metaphysical about it?



To say that A and B are one and the very same thing, when they appaer to be utterly different from each other, and we merely have a correlation between them, is at the very minimum, to take a gigantic leap of faith to say nothing of its highly questionable intelligibility.


It is a falsifiable hypothesis, and the most parsimonious falsifiable hypothesis that is consistent with the available data.


You can't falsify it. There is absolutely no way one could falsify such a crazy hypothesis.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no evidence whatsoever. How many times do you need to be told this???
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



You can tell me this as many times as you like. Until you actually provide some sort of reasonable argument to back up this claim, you are just blowing hot air.



No, you are required to produce the evidence.




Your "that isn't consciousness, that is just the neural correlate" argument holds no water, because at the very least, it begs the question.


So what evidence do you have that consciousness just simply is its neural correlates. Come on, you've claimed you've got plenty. I await with baited breath :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:Didn't you know? This board is the last redoubt of logical positivism. Though it went out of fashion, indeed bankrupt, in the philosphical community and the world at large fifty years ago, here they still tend the flame.
Ooh, it went out of fashion with philosophers! Say it ain't so.

What is logical positivism? Is this the correct definition:

"a 20th century philosophical movement that holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless"

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Win said:
Ooh, it went out of fashion with philosophers! Say it ain't so.

What is logical positivism? Is this the correct definition:

"a 20th century philosophical movement that holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless"

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

~~ Paul

God exists.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:No it doesn't imply this at all. Change might be initiated by a non-physical thing, but thereafter unfold according to physical laws.
Do the physical laws govern how the nonphysical thing interfaces with the phyisical things? If so, then the nonphysical thing must be a least at least partially physical (and by induction, completely physical). If not, then we're missing the physical laws that govern the interface from the physical side.

Or, I suppose you could just say POOF ! the nonphysical thing does the physical things.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:God exists.
Meaningless. Define God.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos


Or, I suppose you could just say POOF ! the nonphysical thing does the physical things.

~~ Paul [/B]

What's wrong with that?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
God exists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Meaningless. Define God.



The denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs.

[Win]

Paul:

I am reminded of Ernst Mach denying the existence of atoms.

But you ask:

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

All metaphysics. Plato's Forms, Berkeley's Idealism, Materialism.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant



Luci



You mean it has no meaning in terms of materialistic science. Your above statement depends on the assumption that anything not objectively verifiable by the scientific method has no meaning.

The statement depends of any difference that can be detectable.



The difference is metaphysical, not physical. It makes an enormous difference to ones outlook on the possibility of the existence of paranormal phenomena or meaning in religion. There are no objectively verifiable differences because both schemes result in the same (normal) behaviour in the physical world - the realm of objective study. But in terms of metaphysics it makes the difference between

1) all paranormalism and all religion being utterly non-existent and meaningless

and

2) The possibility of making sense of recurrent themes throughout the history of religion, and providing explanations for the vast amounts of anecdotal evidence surround so-called 'paranormal' phenomena.


And this difference traslates to?


This is a crucial difference. So long as you are an ontological materialist you don't really have to experiment to find out whether paranormal phenomena exist, and you don't need to investigate religion and philosophy - because your metaphysical model has already rendered both of these things devoid of meaning. That isn't because the are actually devoid of meaning - it is because you have chosen a metaphysical model which renders them meaningless. This choice then causes serious bias amongst the so-called skeptics because they already "know" they are right. Even though they are wrong. ;)

Not really. I'm asking about what difference would make your theory if true. You can't provide any. In that very real sense, your theory has no meaning.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


What precisely are you claiming Stimpy is right about??


I was just claiming what would happen if UCE is right!




What precisely don't you understand about UCE's original post?


I understand everything


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference. "


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Justify this position.



It would be absurd to claim that any set of words put together have a meaning. Just the words that claim something about something can have a meaning. And only if we can decide somehow if the claim is correct. What part you don't understand?



If there is no verfiable difference btween UCE's position and Stimpy's position how does this entail that UCE's position is meaningless and Stimpy's isn't?

Parsimony.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Win
Paul:

I am reminded of Ernst Mach denying the existence of atoms.

But you ask:



All metaphysics. Plato's Forms, Berkeley's Idealism, Materialism.

What do you think of Stimpy's claim that his particular version of materialism is devoid of any metaphysical elements?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Win said:
Ooh, it went out of fashion with philosophers! Say it ain't so.

What is logical positivism? Is this the correct definition:

"a 20th century philosophical movement that holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless"

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

~~ Paul

The above statement is correct. All metaphysical theorys that I know of (including materialism) are meaningless.

[Win]

Ian:

What do you think of Stimpy's claim that his particular version of materialism is devoid of any metaphysical elements?

To be charitable, I think it's misconceived.

[Keneke]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


This is basically correct. As far as the physical world is concerned, materialism still operates exactly the same. The only difference occurs when we look at questions like "Why does the Universe exist at all"/"What is the metaphysical support for the Universe", questions surrounding the relationship between the mental and physical realms and certain issues regarding the nature of time. All of those questions are arguably philosophical questions in the first place anyway. As far as materialistic science is concerned the only difference is that the specific question about why a 1st-person perspective exists at all has been removed, because under my metaphysics it is no longer a question that needs answering. But again - I don't see this as any great loss to science since as far as I am concerned science is condemned to be unable to answer that question anyway. All my metaphysics really does is open the door to new theoretical possibilities regarding what sort of phenomena are actually possible. I've said this before - materialism renders several whole classes of phenomena theoretically impossible - but if you look closely enough this actually includes subjective consciousness. If you modify your metaphysics so you can acount both for an 'external' world that behaves as if it was made of matter and 1st-person consciousness then those classes of phenomena are no longer impossible. More importantly for me, it opens up the possibility of making some sort of sense of some the biggest questions I have spent my whole life asking myself, questions for which science has not been able to provide much in the way of answers, mainly because of its perceived dependence on materialism.

Hey, whatever works for you. I say the same thing about religions.

Science and materialism is simply observation of these PWQs and making a workable model. Not a thing to do with "why".

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,
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I noticed this, via Ian, and I'd be interested to know exactly what the content of the theory is.

Then I suggest you do some reading in the fields of Neuroscience and modern Psychology.

Which is a trivially false statement.
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No it isn't. It isn't even false.

I guess that depends on how you define consciousness. I define it to be my thoughts, perceptions, awareness, feelings, memory, and intuition. The fact that my brain is aware of these things trivially demonstrates that they are causally efficacious.

You can define it to be something else, ala epiphenomenalism, but if you do so, I have no idea what it is, or why you think it is real.


Ian,

It is not ontological speculation, because I am not attributing any characteristics to this external reality that cannot be empirically verified. It is an epistemological position, not an ontological assumption.
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Saying it exists is the ontological presumption.

Only if I were claiming that it ontologically exists. I am not. I don't even know what that means.

And who gets to decide that it is an axiom?
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Whoever it is that is responsible for deciding what the word "science" means.
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Who has stated that the hypothesis that the world is physically closed is an axiom of science?

The scientific community. Scientists. You know, the people who have defined what science is. You can define it to mean something else if you want, but don't expect anybody else to care.

Did anyone argue against him that it ought not to be?

Only you. :rolleyes:

Why does it need to be an axiom?
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Because without it the scientific method is not logically valid.
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Why not? Change in the world initiated by sentient beings could be explained in terms of intent and desires. I see no necessity in supposing the world must be physically closed.

If it is not causally closed, then there is no way to determine which observed effects are due to physical causes, and which are due to non-physical causes. This makes it impossible to actually determine what the physical laws are, rendering the scientific method completely impotent.

If you allow for influences which don't obey physical laws to influence things which do, you can no longer claim that those things do.
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Sorry you're confusing me here. Care to expand?

If object A is physical, and object B is non-physical, and object B has an effect on object A, then the behavior of object A cannot be described in terms of physical laws. Furthermore, there is no way to determine what the physical rules for anything are, because you can never determine whether a given observation was due to physical laws, or some sort of non-physical influence.

It's the old "how do you know Satan didn't put the fossils there?" problem. Since science can only address the physical, it cannot be used to determine which observed phenomena are strictly physical, and which are due to non-physical influences.

This leaves you two options

1) Arbitrarily decide, based on your religious/metaphysical beliefs, which phenomena are subject to physical laws, and which are not.

2) Discard science entirely.

Option number one renders the scientific method logically incoherent, because there is no logical way to determine when it does and does not apply. It becomes just another aspect of your irrational beliefs.

Look at it this way. If the physical World is the set of all things which obey physical laws,
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But it isn't. The physical world is the set of all things which can be discerned from a third person perspective.

You can define it that way, but that is not how science defines it, and that is what is important if you are making arguments about the limitations and validity of science.

then it must be causally closed. If it is not causally closed, then that implies that there are physical things which can be affected by things which do not obey physical laws. This in turn implies that these physical things do not function according to physical laws,
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No it doesn't imply this at all. Change might be initiated by a non-physical thing, but thereafter unfold according to physical laws.

If the change was initiated by a non-physical thing, then that event cannot be explained in terms of physical laws. This means that it is impossible to determine whether any observed event was initiated by something non-physical, which makes determination of the physical laws impossible.

As a practical example, consider the mind. Clearly the mind has an effect on the brain.
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How did you work this out?

The fact that my brain makes decisions based on my mental states. I know, you don't think my brain makes decisions based on mental states, but rather based on the neural correlates. But even then your brain is indirectly being effected by the mental state. The fact that your brain knows you possess mental states clearly demonstrates this.

Not at all. It just means that our non-physical consciousness is not causally efficaceous.
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Which is a trivially false statement.
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What you say here is quite patently false. If the world is causally closed then our behaviour is fully explicable in terms of physical processes.

The very fact that we are physically discussing consciousness clearly demonstrates that it is causally efficacious.

You can only say that it is trivial false if it is self-evidently true that experiential consciousness is one and the very same thing, or is a function of such processes. However we were considering the scenario of non-physical consciousness

The scenario of non-physical consciousness is only possible if the physical world is not causally closed. In the real World, consciousness is clearly causally efficacious. If it wasn't, our physical brains would have no idea that it even exists, and would not be here arguing about it.

If you think this you clearly don't understand what science means. Quite bad considering you claim to be a scientist. FYI it is a metaphysical theory, and an impressively stupid one at that.
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What is metaphysical about it?
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To say that A and B are one and the very same thing, when they appaer to be utterly different from each other, and we merely have a correlation between them, is at the very minimum, to take a gigantic leap of faith to say nothing of its highly questionable intelligibility.

Intuitive arguments like this have no place in a logical argument. Your claim that mental processes "appear to be utterly different from each other" is not only a highly subjective judgement call, but also one which many people would disagree with (myself included).

It is a falsifiable hypothesis, and the most parsimonious falsifiable hypothesis that is consistent with the available data.
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You can't falsify it. There is absolutely no way one could falsify such a crazy hypothesis.

Do you even know anything about this scientific theory, other than that it contradicts your beliefs? I don't think you have the slightest idea what you are talking about.

and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence.
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There is no evidence whatsoever. How many times do you need to be told this???
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You can tell me this as many times as you like. Until you actually provide some sort of reasonable argument to back up this claim, you are just blowing hot air.
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No, you are required to produce the evidence.

The evidence is published in publicly available journals and books. Go read about the subject if you don't believe me.

Your "that isn't consciousness, that is just the neural correlate" argument holds no water, because at the very least, it begs the question.
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So what evidence do you have that consciousness just simply is its neural correlates. Come on, you've claimed you've got plenty. I await with baited breath

The fact that it is a falsifiable theory which has been extensively tested. That is the only kind of evidence that there is for anything.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Stimp:

Then I suggest you do some reading in the fields of Neuroscience and modern Psychology.

Don't you know what the content of the theory is?

I guess not.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Then I suggest you do some reading in the fields of Neuroscience and modern Psychology.
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Don't you know what the content of the theory is?

I guess not.

you're saying that like the content of the theory is something I could just post here in a few paragraphs. It is not.

If you just want a brief overview of the content of the theory, then I can do that. The theory is that all of our mental processes, thought, memory, emotion, feelings, intuition, perception, and so on, are neurological processes in the brain. The theory is that the brain is a complex systems of neural networks, and that all of these mental processes are examples of sophisticated pattern-matching processes, which the brain learns how to do.

This theory is supported by considerable evidence, including the fact that pretty much all of our mental processes have been shown to be manipulatable through manipulations of the brain, as well as the fact that when a portion of the brain is destroyed, loss of such functions can occur, only to be "re-learned" by other portions of the brain.

Dr. Stupid

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Win
Stimp:



Don't you know what the content of the theory is?

I guess not.

Have you ever tried it?

I guess not.

I did. Hard stuff, but the final results are spectacular.

Dualism is dead.

[Win]

Stimp:

Nothing that you've posted supports the contention that "consciousness is a physical process in the brain," taking consciousness to mean qualia.

I'm still waiting for the "theory" that supports your contention.

Maybe I should read some more in the fields of, what was it, oh yes, "Neuroscience and modern Psychology?"

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Win
Stimp:

Nothing that you've posted supports the contention that "consciousness is a physical process in the brain," taking consciousness to mean qualia.

I'm still waiting for the "theory" that supports your contention.

Maybe I should read some more in the fields of, what was it, oh yes, "Neuroscience and modern Psychology?"

Start with neuroscience. Get back in a year ;)

[Win]

Lucifuge:

Start with neuroscience. Get back in a year

What aspects of neuroscience, exactly, do you think I fail to understand?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Win
Lucifuge:



What aspects of neuroscience, exactly, do you think I fail to understand?

The binding problem, neurone firing, chemical reactions asocciated to perception, chemical reactions associated to will, chemical reactions associated with pure tought for a start.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Nothing that you've posted supports the contention that "consciousness is a physical process in the brain," taking consciousness to mean qualia.

I never said anything about qualia. I still have yet to hear a coherent definition for the term. Instead I stated exactly what I mean by consciousness.

Maybe I should read some more in the fields of, what was it, oh yes, "Neuroscience and modern Psychology?"

Maybe you should start by deciding what it is you mean by consciousness. Are you talking about the mental states that we all know we have, like thought, memory, perception, etc...? Or are you talking about something else? If the latter, then what are you talking about, and why do you think it is real at all?

Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
[B]Win,



you're saying that like the content of the theory is something I could just post here in a few paragraphs. It is not.

If you just want a brief overview of the content of the theory, then I can do that. The theory is that all of our mental processes, thought, memory, emotion, feelings, intuition, perception, and so on, are neurological processes in the brain. The theory is that the brain is a complex systems of neural networks, and that all of these mental processes are examples of sophisticated pattern-matching processes, which the brain learns how to do.



And how does experiential consciousness miraculously derive from these processes? What is logically inconsistant with supposing these physical processes occur without any accompanying experiences?



This theory is supported by considerable evidence, including the fact that pretty much all of our mental processes have been shown to be manipulatable through manipulations of the brain, as well as the fact that when a portion of the brain is destroyed, loss of such functions can occur, only to be "re-learned" by other portions of the brain.


Which of course is wholly irrelevant to showing that experiential consciousness is identical to processes within the brain. Indeed in my opionion it is even wholly irrelevant to the question of whether interactive dualism corrects depicts the relationship between mind and body.

[Win]

Lucifuge:

The binding problem, neurone firing, chemical reactions asocciated to perception, chemical reactions associated to will, chemical reactions associated with pure tought for a start.

All of these are fascinating, with the exception of "chemical reactions associated with pure thought."

You've been around here for a while. Surely you must know that I'm conversant with these issues.

Stimp:


Maybe you should start by deciding what it is you mean by consciousness.

Oh ... my ... god. You know what I mean. We've exchanged hundreds of posts. Surely we're not back to this now.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Win
Lucifuge:



All of these are fascinating, with the exception of "chemical reactions associated with pure thought."

What happens with the chemical reactions of abstract thinking? The "god experience" induced using TMS IS fascinating. The brain zones and chemicals liberated during an experience in abstract thinking has been widely studied. The expansion of the mind induced using TMS or LSD derivates are currently the work of many scientists.

You've been around here for a while. Surely you must know that I'm conversant with these issues.


Then it is my fault. But I don't remember you in my threads dedicated to the subject, months ago. Did we discuss the issue?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale
The "god experience" induced using TMS IS fascinating.

Do you believe this provides compelling evidence for a God?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Do you believe this provides compelling evidence for a God?

Actually it is the other way around. What is more logical to conclude if we learn that all mystical experiences have a pretty mundane origin?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale

II
Do you believe this provides compelling evidence for a God?
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Luc
Actually it is the other way around. What is more logical to conclude if we learn that all mystical experiences have a pretty mundane origin?


The thing is we don't actually know what the origin of these experiences are. It coul;d be that appropriate alteration of the brain allows the mind or soul to access other realities.

What about the people who are artificially induced to have the "God experience". Do they believe the experience is unreal, an hallucination?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

you're saying that like the content of the theory is something I could just post here in a few paragraphs. It is not.

If you just want a brief overview of the content of the theory, then I can do that. The theory is that all of our mental processes, thought, memory, emotion, feelings, intuition, perception, and so on, are neurological processes in the brain. The theory is that the brain is a complex systems of neural networks, and that all of these mental processes are examples of sophisticated pattern-matching processes, which the brain learns how to do.
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And how does experiential consciousness miraculously derive from these processes?

It doesn't miraculously derive from those processes, it is those processes. As for the details of how it works, that is what the scientists are busy trying to figure out.

What is logically inconsistant with supposing these physical processes occur without any accompanying experiences?

What do you mean "accompanying experiences"? The theory is that these physical processes are the experiences.

Note that I am not claiming that all other alternative hypotheses are necessarily logically inconsistent. So long as our scientific knowledge has not advanced to the point where we can logically deduce the existence of subjective experiences from observed brain activity, one could always speculate that there is something more to the mind than just those processes. But this is completely pointless speculation. As I have pointed out before, exactly the same thing could be said about most fields of science. Almost none of the behavior of molecules can be logically deduced from the laws of physics, but I don't see anybody claiming that this means there must be more to chemistry than just physics. We make the assumption that chemistry is reducible to physics, because that is the most parsimonious falsifiable hypothesis available. The mind/brain problem is no different.

Unless you have reliable evidence to demonstrate that consciousness is not reducible to brain activity, there is absolutely no logical reason to assume that there must be more to it than that.

This theory is supported by considerable evidence, including the fact that pretty much all of our mental processes have been shown to be manipulatable through manipulations of the brain, as well as the fact that when a portion of the brain is destroyed, loss of such functions can occur, only to be "re-learned" by other portions of the brain.
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Which of course is wholly irrelevant to showing that experiential consciousness is identical to processes within the brain.

It is not irrelevant at all. It is reliable evidence in support of the theory.

Saying that the fact that the extensive testing of the mind/brain theory is not relevant to showing that the mind is a brain process, is like saying that the extensive testing of the chemistry/physics theory is not relevant to showing that chemistry is reducible to physics. It demonstrates a complete and utter lack of understanding of what scientific evidence is.

Indeed in my opionion it is even wholly irrelevant to the question of whether interactive dualism corrects depicts the relationship between mind and body.

I don't know what that is even supposed to mean.

I will say that it doesn't have to say anything about any form of dualism. Any hypothesis which is less parsimonious than the mind/brain theory must be rejected until such time as the theory is falsified. And any unfalsifiable hypothesis, no matter how parsimonious, must be rejected for being unverifiable, and thus completely useless.


Win,

Maybe you should start by deciding what it is you mean by consciousness.
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Oh ... my ... god. You know what I mean. We've exchanged hundreds of posts. Surely we're not back to this now.

Recall our previous discussions. My argument with your philosophical views has always been that I don't think your definitions are meaningful. This issue of consciousness is at the core of the issue. If you define consciousness in terms of things I am aware of, like thought, memory, perception, etc..., then I know what you are talking about, and can try to make arguments about it. But anytime I make such arguments, you assert that these things are not, in fact, what you are talking about. Instead, you are talking about something which you claim is completely unknowable, yet which my brain somehow knows about. None of this makes any sense to me.

It is my opinion that all of the mental processes that I am aware of could be reducible to physical activity in the brain, which is to say that I have not seen any reasonable argument for why they could not be. In addition, this theory is the most parsimonious falsifiable hypothesis available, and is supported by substantial evidence. I have no reason to believe that the mental processes whose existence my brain is aware of, could not be reducible to brain processes, and I have no reason to believe that mental processes that my brain is not aware of, actually exist at all.

Dr. Stupid

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


The thing is we don't actually know what the origin of these experiences are. It coul;d be that appropriate alteration of the brain allows the mind or soul to access other realities.



We know the origin: First EMF stimulation, then God experience. Other realities? Not really, same mind, same universe, same chemicals, same pre and post mental state.




What about the people who are artificially induced to have the "God experience". Do they believe the experience is unreal, an hallucination?

No, they experience the "real thing". With appropiate training and feedback, some can produce it at wish. Not so different of a "high" state produced at will with over oxigen inhalation, just more intense.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale

II
The thing is we don't actually know what the origin of these experiences are. It coul;d be that appropriate alteration of the brain allows the mind or soul to access other realities.

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Luc
We know the origin: First EMF stimulation, then God experience. Other realities? Not really, same mind, same universe, same chemicals, same pre and post mental state.


So if if inniating a change in A brings about some change in B then necessarily A not only causes B, but B must originate from A?

Are you sure you really wish to maintain this?? :eek:




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What about the people who are artificially induced to have the "God experience". Do they believe the experience is unreal, an hallucination?
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No, they experience the "real thing". With appropiate training and feedback, some can produce it at wish. Not so different of a "high" state produced at will with over oxigen inhalation, just more intense.



So they believe the experience is genuine, that they truly experience God? This being so is it rational to suppose that the person who hasn't had such an experience will more correct in his opinion of the nature of this experience than those who have actually undergone the experience?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


So if if inniating a change in A brings about some change in B then necessarily A not only causes B, but B must originate from A?

Are you sure you really wish to maintain this?? :eek:

Are you still addict to strawmen II?. I will put the facts here:

1.- ECG and CAT show that mystical experiences by yogis and other mystics (excuse the redundance) are produced AFTER some changes in the electrical and chemical activity of the brain.
2.-Those changes, when replicated in test subjects using TMS show the same "god experience".
3.- Some subjects can trigger those changes at will, having the same experience.

Is it clear now? who produces the effect? God? The subject? The stimuli?




So they believe the experience is genuine, that they truly experience God? This being so is it rational to suppose that the person who hasn't had such an experience will more correct in his opinion of the nature of this experience than those who have actually undergone the experience?

II, the experiments have been done also in mystics!. They report the same experience no matter the originIt's the real thing!.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you like POOF ! as an explanation of things.

The denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs.
Meaningless. Define atheism.

Win said:All metaphysics. Plato's Forms, Berkeley's Idealism, Materialism.
All meaningless and not quite as fun as masturbation.

Ian said:What do you think of Stimpy's claim that his particular version of materialism is devoid of any metaphysical elements?
What's a metaphysical element?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
The denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs.
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Meaningless. Define atheism.


You can't define atheism? In that case how can you declare you are one?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Nope, can't define it. Never said I was one.

Atheism probably has something to do with god, so perhaps you could start by defining god. Are we getting circularly jiggy yet?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Nope, can't define it. Never said I was one.

Atheism probably has something to do with god, so perhaps you could start by defining god. Are we getting circularly jiggy yet?

~~ Paul

Why do you want me to define God?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That's how we started earlier today. I asked for a metaphysical theory that logical positivism claims is meaningless, you said "God exists," and I replied "Meaningless. Define God." Then you defined it as "The denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs." and I said "Meaningless. Define atheism" and here we are. It's a circle game.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
That's how we started earlier today. I asked for a metaphysical theory that logical positivism claims is meaningless, you said "God exists," and I replied "Meaningless. Define God." Then you defined it as "The denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs." and I said "Meaningless. Define atheism" and here we are. It's a circle game.

~~ Paul

Even if the declaration that God exists were meaningless (which it certainly isn't), this doesn't mean to say that all metaphysical utterances are meaningless. Of course some metaphysical utterances are good candidates for being meaningless eg the Universe and everything within it is shrinking in a systematically uniform manner so that we could never in principle detect the shrinkage. Nevertheless even if we were to conclude that some metaphysical utterances such as this are meaningless, this does not at all imply that all metaphysical utterances are meaningless.

I do genuinely like my definition of God by the way. I also believe that "atheism and its associated family of beliefs" can be understood in a general way without using the term God or synonyms of God in our definiton. I could also provide a positive definition of God although this would be nowhere near as satisfactory as defining it as the denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs (together with a suitable expansion of what this essentially means).

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale
So if if inniating a change in A brings about some change in B then necessarily A not only causes B, but B must originate from A?

Are you sure you really wish to maintain this??

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Are you still addict to strawmen II?.



I never have been. The accusation by materialists that I simply attack strawmen has no merit.




I will put the facts here:

1.- ECG and CAT show that mystical experiences by yogis and other mystics (excuse the redundance) are produced AFTER some changes in the electrical and chemical activity of the brain.



So certain brain states are necessary before one can have an appropriate mystical experience. How does this imply that such experiences are not real?



2.-Those changes, when replicated in test subjects using TMS show the same "god experience".
3.- Some subjects can trigger those changes at will, having the same experience.

Is it clear now? who produces the effect? God? The subject? The stimuli?



Perhaps God produces the effect but this effect is only realised in particular brain states.




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So they believe the experience is genuine, that they truly experience God? This being so is it rational to suppose that the person who hasn't had such an experience will more correct in his opinion of the nature of this experience than those who have actually undergone the experience?
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II, the experiments have been done also in mystics!. They report the same experience no matter the originIt's the real thing!.



I don't think you understood my question. What I'm asking is why your opinion about the reality of the experience, when you have never undergone one of these experiences, is more likely to be correct than a person who actually has undergone one of these experiences?

Allow me to illustrate this point with an analogy. Imagine 2 people, one of whom has consumed chocolate on many occasions and declares it to be delicious, the other person has never ever tasted chocolate and declares it to be horrible in taste. Who should we take more notice of? Surely the person who has consumed chocolate before! Thus why doesn't the same principle apply in the case of mystical experiences?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm not enough of a philosopher (what has philosophy done for me lately?) to have a strong opinion on the usefulness of metaphysics. However, most of the debates I read or participate in seem to involve poorly defined or circular terms. Hell, I don't even understand what ontology means.

"a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being"

What does that mean? What is being? And what does "relations of being" mean? You need two or more things to have relations.

I don't see how atheism can be any better defined than god or deity.

~~ Paul

[metacristi]

Originally posted by UCE

The Metamind is a higher mind, of which ours are derived. The noumenon (the physical world in its true form) exists within the metamind. It is supported by the Metamind. This scheme replaces a self-existing self-supporting material reality with information stored in a higher mental realm.


If I understood well the hypothesis you propose is a variant of Kant's 'string':mind-models of 'obective facts'-'objective facts' as perceived by our senses-noumenon [the 'thing in itself'].The noumenon in Kant's perspective is 'objective' in the materialistic sense,not directly connected with our minds,but his proposals could be interpreted in various modes:an ultimate reality as understood by actual materialism,a Platonic 'world of forms' which our minds directly access,a metamind,or simply a computer in who knows what transcedental reality,our world being a sort of virtual reality ['the Matrix hypothesis'].
Even if we reject materialism as we know today it is very difficult to make the difference between 'the metamind' hypothesis [a very old one-hinduism has this proposal from ancient times:we 'live' in the 'mind of God'] and 'the Matrix hypothesis' for example.
Frankly speaking the only way to 'confirm' 'the metamind' hypothesis is to access it directly,indeed if our consciusnessess do belong to that level then we should be able to do that.Generally this is considered as being 'non reliable' subjective 'evidence' by many scientists.But if a majority of perfectly healthy people,in controlled experiments,would report [repeatedly] the same things then we would have a strong,scientific,reason to believe it does exists [of course they must not know each other and moreover they must not know the goal of the experiment].
Unfortunately the 'near death experiences','out of body experiences' and so on are not reliable as they are not generally repetable and moreover they are compatible with explanations in the frame of usual materialism [release of endorfines in the case of NDE and so on].Mysticism also have the same shortcuts moreover its 'picture' of the ultimate reality is one of nondeterministic chaos,anyway not one which imply a [personal] Mind.
Also to confirm the 'Matrix hypothesis' we should be somehow capable to 'get out',a Morpheus and a 'red pill' would be needed...
Do you think that our science would be able to make the difference one day or,as some wise men from all religions have always said,only the moment of death could give us the answer...?

[Edited to add]:To confirm the existence of a metamind is enough what I said above but to have strong reasons to believe also in idealism the subjects involved in experiements should also 'see' directly that our 'reality' is a 'projection' of 'metamind'.

Originally posted by Peskanov
[B]UCE,

I want to know:
Would the world perceived through PWQ follow always an internal logic?


Its 'normal' behaviour seems to follow an internal logic.


Woud the brain workings that we perceive though PWQ be an accurate projection of a mind?



There is a close correlation between the brain and the mind.

I don't know how else to answer the question.

Originally posted by metacristi



If I understood well the hypothesis you propose is a variant of Kant's 'string':mind-models of 'obective facts'-'objective facts' as perceived by our senses-noumenon [the 'thing in itself'].The noumenon in Kant's perspective is 'objective' in the materialistic sense,not directly connected with our minds,but his proposals could be interpreted in various modes:an ultimate reality as understood by actual materialism,a Platonic 'world of forms' which our minds directly access,a metamind,or simply a computer in who knows what transcedental reality,our world being a sort of virtual reality ['the Matrix hypothesis'].
Even if we reject materialism as we know today it is very difficult to make the difference between 'the metamind' hypothesis [a very old one-hinduism has this proposal from ancient times:we 'live' in the 'mind of God'] and 'the Matrix hypothesis' for example.
Frankly speaking the only way to 'confirm' 'the metamind' hypothesis is to access it directly,indeed if our consciusnessess do belong to that level then we should be able to do that.Generally this is considered as being 'non reliable' subjective 'evidence' by many scientists.But if a majority of perfectly healthy people,in controlled experiments,would report [repeatedly] the same things then we would have a strong,scientific,reason to believe it does exists [of course they must not know each other and moreover they must not know the goal of the experiment].
Unfortunately the 'near death experiences','out of body experiences' and so on are not reliable as they are not generally repetable and moreover they are compatible with explanations in the frame of usual materialism [release of endorfines in the case of NDE and so on].Mysticism also have the same shortcuts moreover its 'picture' of the ultimate reality is one of nondeterministic chaos,anyway not one which imply a [personal] Mind.
Also to confirm the 'Matrix hypothesis' we should be somehow capable to 'get out',a Morpheus and a 'red pill' would be needed...
Do you think that our science would be able to make the difference one day or,as some wise men from all religions have always said,only the moment of death could give us the answer...?

[Edited to add]:To confirm the existence of a metamind is enough what I said above but to have strong reasons to believe also in idealism the subjects involved in experiements should also 'see' directly that our 'reality' is a 'projection' of 'metamind'.

There can be no objective verification. I believe there can be subjective verification by direct experience of it. I don't neccesarily even think it would be a good idea for science to verify it, even if it could.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ontology: a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being

E-prime definition, please. :D

~~ Paul

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I never have been. The accusation by materialists that I simply attack strawmen has no merit.


Then why you are acuusing me of the claim that I equate correlation to causation?



So certain brain states are necessary before one can have an appropriate mystical experience. How does this imply that such experiences are not real?

Who said that they are not real?


Perhaps God produces the effect but this effect is only realised in particular brain states.


If god produces it, then the TMS operator is god. Parsimony please.



I don't think you understood my question. What I'm asking is why your opinion about the reality of the experience, when you have never undergone one of these experiences, is more likely to be correct than a person who actually has undergone one of these experiences?


Well, I believe the claims of the people that have had both experiences.



Allow me to illustrate this point with an analogy. Imagine 2 people, one of whom has consumed chocolate on many occasions and declares it to be delicious, the other person has never ever tasted chocolate and declares it to be horrible in taste. Who should we take more notice of? Surely the person who has consumed chocolate before! Thus why doesn't the same principle apply in the case of mystical experiences?
That's why I told you that the experiment has also been run on mystics!

[slimshady2357]

Originally posted by UCE

The Metamind is a higher mind, of which ours are derived. The noumenon (the physical world in its true form) exists within the metamind. It is supported by the Metamind. This scheme replaces a self-existing self-supporting material reality with information stored in a higher mental realm.

Let's be fair now ;)

I think it should be more like:

This scheme replaces a self-existing self-supporting material reality with information stored in a self-existing self-supporting higher mental realm.

pointless jab removed

Adam

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I get the feeling that if we talk this out long enough, we will come to the conclusion

meta/mind = material reality

and thus demonstrate how this is just a giant definition-fest.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ontology: a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being

E-prime definition, please. :D

~~ Paul

Exactly.

:)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


Then why you are acuusing me of the claim that I equate correlation to causation?


Who said that they are not real?


If god produces it, then the TMS operator is god. Parsimony please.



Well, I believe the claims of the people that have had both experiences.


That's why I told you that the experiment has also been run on mystics!

Are we talking at cross purposes here or not? If the experiences are real then they do actually experience god. Otherwise these experiences are hallucinations. I thought you were disputing that these people were actually experiencing god?

[Peskanov]

UCE,

----
quote:
Its 'normal' behaviour seems to follow an internal logic.
[...]
There is a close correlation between the brain and the mind.
----

Thanks, I just wanted to know which level of "illusion" you attribute to PWQ. You know, there are people which is way more radical. For example: I remenber a person suggesting that scientists didn't studied or understood the brain: they just obtained (false) remenbering of doing so.

About what I said before about the information circuit:
Looking the brain like an I/O device, if you are able to follow the paths of all the information, you can say that the knowledge about this information circuit is "closed" despite not having the slightest idea of how the device works.
If we perceive through PWQ that a brain is a known system, and test it in real time, then what we are looking should be an accurate reflection of a mind.

Thinking about you model I concluded that in this system an spontaneus source of information should be observed in the brain, I thinked that the circuit couldn't be closed. That's wrong; I just messed myself! The circuit can be fully known as far as there is not information flowing from the metamind directly to the mind. If the metamind reads information from the mind, and produces fitting PWQ for it, there is no problem at all.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Are we talking at cross purposes here or not? If the experiences are real then they do actually experience god. Otherwise these experiences are hallucinations. I thought you were disputing that these people were actually experiencing god?

Right, they have a real experience wich feels like they are in presence of god. The fact that there is no god involved doesn't invalidate the reality of the experience.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


Right, they have a real experience wich feels like they are in presence of god. The fact that there is no god involved doesn't invalidate the reality of the experience.

But why don't you think they are genuinely experiencing God?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


But why don't you think they are genuinely experiencing God?

Because of parsimony.

1.- ECG and CAT show that mystical experiences by yogis and other mystics (excuse the redundance) are produced AFTER some changes in the electrical and chemical activity of the brain.
2.-Those changes, when replicated in test subjects using TMS show the same "god experience".
3.- Some subjects can trigger those changes at will, having the same experience.

To produce the experience ther was no necessity of introducing any god, so the existence of this entity can be ruled out in this experiment thanks to Occam.

[c0rbin]

Some delights from this thread...

Or, I suppose you could just say POOF ! the nonphysical thing does the physical things.
---------------------------------------------------------------
What's wrong with that?

When that happens, let me know. Or, when that has ever happened in the history of human kind, let me know as well, please.


And...

But why don't you think they are genuinely experiencing God?

This sort of thing is interesting to say to philosophy students or dates you want to impress with small talk about deep thing, but really, where does this get any of us?

What is the practical application of any of this discussion?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by c0rbin

What is the practical application of any of this discussion?

That was my original point. And even more, apart that there are no practical application for this, there is no way on earth to decide if what we are talking about is true or not. :mad:

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale

But why don't you think they are genuinely experiencing God?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Because of parsimony.



{Shrugs} Materialists just define explanations consonant with materialism as always being more simple. Thus the assertion that it is more parsimonious is essentially vacuous unless you provide independent reasons. Let's see if you do.



1.- ECG and CAT show that mystical experiences by yogis and other mystics (excuse the redundance) are produced AFTER some changes in the electrical and chemical activity of the brain.



Yes, so what? So the brain needs to be in a certain physical condition before a mystical union with God can be obtained.




2.-Those changes, when replicated in test subjects using TMS show the same "god experience".



Excellent. Pity it can't be obtained after a pint of lager. Still no evidence.



3.- Some subjects can trigger those changes at will, having the same experience.



Interesting. Doesn't give evidence that the experience originates from the brain though.


To produce the experience ther was no necessity of introducing any god,



God isn't needed? But this presupposes that you are correct and the experience wholly originates from the brain. I still don't see what's wrong with the alternative explanation that the brain needs to be in a particular state before access to God can be acheived.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


{Shrugs} Materialists just define explanations consonant with materialism as always being more simple. Thus the assertion that it is more parsimonious is essentially vacuous unless you provide independent reasons. Let's see if you do.



Yes, so what? So the brain needs to be in a certain physical condition before a mystical union with God can be obtained.



Excellent. Pity it can't be obtained after a pint of lager. Still no evidence.



Interesting. Doesn't give evidence that the experience originates from the brain though.


God isn't needed? But this presupposes that you are correct and the experience wholly originates from the brain. I still don't see what's wrong with the alternative explanation that the brain needs to be in a particular state before access to God can be acheived.


You amaze me II. You acusse me of presuppose that I'm correct, but I'm only taking into account the registered FACTS. OTOH, you presuppose a god, make an argument using that premise and THAT makes my parsimonious explanation vacuous!:eek:

Please, read your post again carefully.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Does anybody else here notice a remarkable double standard in Ian's evaluation of "evidence"?

Whenever people comment on the lack of evidence for things Ian believes in, like NDEs, God, Psi, etc..., he complains that the scientific standard of evidence (extensive testing of a falsifiable theory) is too stringent. Instead, demonstrably unreliable things like anecdotal evidence, intuition, and subjective interpretation of personal experiences, should be accepted.

But when he asks for evidence supporting the scientific theories that contradict his beliefs, suddenly the scientific standard of evidence is not strict enough! Indeed, nothing short of absolute falsification of his own hypothesis will suffice. The is especially convenient (for him), because his own hypothesis is unfalsifiable.

The hypothesis that these "mystical experiences" are some sort of communication with God, is unfalsifiable. The hypothesis that no agency outside of the brain (God or otherwise) is involved, is falsifiable, and has been extensively tested. Those are the facts.

This is not specific to the question of consciousness either. One can always postulate that there is something more to any observed phenomena than just what is empirically determinable. But what's the point?

I offer once again the fact that we are currently unable to deduce the rules of Chemistry from the laws of physics. Does this imply that there is more to chemical reactions than just physical interactions? Is there any reason to postulate a metaphysical influence there? If not, why not? How is this any different from what is being done with respect to the mind?

Dr. Stupid

[c0rbin]

So the brain needs to be in a certain physical condition before a mystical union with God can be obtained.

Have you had such an expirience? How do you know it was God?

Why do I bother asking when I am willing to bet that a strait-forward answer will not be forth-coming?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
[B]Does anybody else here notice a remarkable double standard in Ian's evaluation of "evidence"?



Well I'm sure they would like to, unfortunately they most likely will have been or be disappointed. Or if they do detect a double standard that doesn't say much for their thinking ability.



Whenever people comment on the lack of evidence for things Ian believes in, like NDEs, God, Psi, etc..., he complains that the scientific standard of evidence (extensive testing of a falsifiable theory) is too stringent.



You're a liar. Name anywhere where I have stated this. Otherwise retract your statement and apologise. Why on earth should I hold the position that the scientific standard of evidence is too stringent?? Scientific evidence necessarily needs to be stringent. What you seem to be unable to get through to your head is that certain phenomena are really not amenable to a scientific investigation. What is it about the physical facts of the world which could possibly make you come to the conclusion that a God exists, or indeed a God doesn't exist? What is it about the physical facts of the world which could possibly make you come to a conclusion that there is a life after death, or indeed there is no life after death?? Science deals with the empirical realm, not otherworldly realities. Why the f*ck are you unable to understand the most elementary things??




Instead, demonstrably unreliable things like anecdotal evidence, intuition, and subjective interpretation of personal experiences, should be accepted.



All pertinent information should be taken appropriate notice of, whether it be suggestive of the existence of some phenomenon, or suggestive of its non-existence. The reliability or unreliability of the evidence, and to what extent we might judge its reliability or unreliability, is all taken into consideration to reach the most rational conclusion warrented by this evidence. I have stated on many occasions why the overall evidence and reasons compel a rational person to adopt the beliefs that I have.



But when he asks for evidence supporting the scientific theories that contradict his beliefs, suddenly the scientific standard of evidence is not strict enough! Indeed, nothing short of absolute falsification of his own hypothesis will suffice. The is especially convenient (for him), because his own hypothesis is unfalsifiable.



Metaphysical hypotheses generally are. This includes your own precious materialism. At least my theistic subjective idealism actually makes sense of the world.

Now I am a tad tired of your stupidities. Go get yourself a clue about elementary reasoning before attacking my position. I've had enough of your stupidities to be quite frank.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:All pertinent information should be taken appropriate notice of, whether it be suggestive of the existence of some phenomenon, or suggestive of its non-existence. The reliability or unreliability of the evidence, and to what extent we might judge its reliability or unreliability, is all taken into consideration to reach the most rational conclusion warrented by this evidence. I have stated on many occasions why the overall evidence and reasons compel a rational person to adopt the beliefs that I have.
There is no way to take the reliability of anecdotes into consideration, because you do not know which anecdotes are true, if any.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
There is no way to take the reliability of anecdotes into consideration, because you do not know which anecdotes are true, if any.

~~ Paul

Indeed it is extremely difficulty to assess the reliability of various anecdotes. But you know, that's just the way things are. I never said it was easy to reach a rational decision on the ultimate nature of the world. But persuing the rational path is better than having a silly arbitrary faith in materialism, and petulantly demanding to anyone who expresses doubts as to its correctness, that they prove it is false!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It's not that anecdote analysis is difficult, it's impossible. It is irrational to think that you can ponder a bunch of stories about NDEs, god visitations, OBEs, and ghosts and determine which ones are true. Give me an example of how it could possibly work. Does the story with the most votes win?

~~ Paul

[Loki]

Stimpy,

Does anybody else here notice a remarkable double standard in Ian's evaluation of "evidence"?
Sorry, but I disagree - I see no inconsistency in Ian's approach to "evidence". He clearly seems to be able to differentiate between 'hard/scientific/objective' evidence and 'soft/anecdotal/subjective' evidence.

If the 'hard' evidence seems to point towards a 'natural' conclusion (ie, consciousness arises from the brain), then he ignores it.

If there is no 'hard' evidence to support a paranormal claim (ie, ghosts, for example), but some amount of 'soft' evidence then he feels the claim is probably proven.

The presence, or even absence, of hard evidence = "meaningless"

The presence, or even absence, of soft evidence = "meaningful".

Very consistent.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Whenever people comment on the lack of evidence for things Ian believes in, like NDEs, God, Psi, etc..., he complains that the scientific standard of evidence (extensive testing of a falsifiable theory) is too stringent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You're a liar. Name anywhere where I have stated this. Otherwise retract your statement and apologise.

I am not lying. You have repeatedly claimed that things like anecdotal evidence, intuition, and subjective experiences, should be accepted as evidence in support of things you believe in.

Why on earth should I hold the position that the scientific standard of evidence is too stringent?? Scientific evidence necessarily needs to be stringent. What you seem to be unable to get through to your head is that certain phenomena are really not amenable to a scientific investigation.

Says who? Who decides? And once you determine that a specific phenomenon is not amenable to scientific investigation, why does this imply that you should allow less stringent evidence?

What is it about the physical facts of the world which could possibly make you come to the conclusion that a God exists, or indeed a God doesn't exist?

Nothing that I know of, hence the claim that there is no evidence.

What is it about the physical facts of the world which could possibly make you come to a conclusion that there is a life after death, or indeed there is no life after death??

That depends on what you mean by life after death.

Science deals with the empirical realm, not otherworldly realities. Why the f*ck are you unable to understand the most elementary things??

What does any of this have to do with what I said? The fact remains that when it comes to these "otherworldly realities" you are happy to accept unreliable evidence, but when it comes to entirely scientific claims which happen to dispute your beliefs, you will not accept even scientific evidence as being sufficient.

Instead, demonstrably unreliable things like anecdotal evidence, intuition, and subjective interpretation of personal experiences, should be accepted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All pertinent information should be taken appropriate notice of, whether it be suggestive of the existence of some phenomenon, or suggestive of its non-existence. The reliability or unreliability of the evidence, and to what extent we might judge its reliability or unreliability, is all taken into consideration to reach the most rational conclusion warrented by this evidence. I have stated on many occasions why the overall evidence and reasons compel a rational person to adopt the beliefs that I have.

Unfortunately, what you don't seem to understand is that if the evidence is unreliable, then the appropriate way to take consideration of it, is to disregard it. Reliable conclusions cannot be drawn from unreliable evidence!

But when he asks for evidence supporting the scientific theories that contradict his beliefs, suddenly the scientific standard of evidence is not strict enough! Indeed, nothing short of absolute falsification of his own hypothesis will suffice. The is especially convenient (for him), because his own hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metaphysical hypotheses generally are. This includes your own precious materialism.

No, it doesn't. :rolleyes:

At least my theistic subjective idealism actually makes sense of the world.

It makes no sense at all. It is not only unsupported by any evidence, but like all metaphysical beliefs, it is fundamentally incoherent.

Now I am a tad tired of your stupidities. Go get yourself a clue about elementary reasoning before attacking my position. I've had enough of your stupidities to be quite frank.

Call me stupid all you want. That doesn't render my argument any less valid, or my statements any less true.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


That was my original point. And even more, apart that there are no practical application for this, there is no way on earth to decide if what we are talking about is true or not. :mad:

Not from the POV of an objective intellect maybe, certainly not from the POV of matter and science. But maybe the yogi genuinely knows something you don't. Maybe, from the subjective POV of the person experiencing 'mystical Union' it is something they cannot doubt, simply because of the direct knowledge imparted by the experience. You have no way of either affirming the relevance of this and you have no way of discounting it either. You cannot say for sure that the Yogi does not know something you don't. In Western lingo the Yogi achieves direct Union with the 'mind of God'. I know you don't believe that such a thing can happen - but if it did happen, and it happened to you, it is quite conceivable that you would be left with no choice but to accept it.

Until you stand at the top of Everest you can never know what it feels like to stand at the top of Everest.

Paul :


There is no way to take the reliability of anecdotes into consideration, because you do not know which anecdotes are true, if any.


True. Therefore if you want to know these answers you have to go and get them yourself.


It's not that anecdote analysis is difficult, it's impossible. It is irrational to think that you can ponder a bunch of stories about NDEs, god visitations, OBEs, and ghosts and determine which ones are true. Give me an example of how it could possibly work. Does the story with the most votes win?


No. We must take into account all the information available. By that I mean we must take what we have learned from science, and the mysteries we have trouble understanding. We must think about what we have learned from 18 months discussing the difficulties regarding materialism and consciousness (instead of digging our heels in and pretending these difficulties don't really exist), and we must examine the long and rich history of religion and philosophy and see if any of the recurring themes in this history fit into the picture created by our understandings of science and philosophy. In short we must spread out all the pieces of our jigsaw and try to grasp the bigger picture, instead of just categorising the pieces and hoping to find the answer by analysing each piece on its own.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:No. We must take into account all the information available. By that I mean we must take what we have learned from science, and the mysteries we have trouble understanding. We must think about what we have learned from 18 months discussing the difficulties regarding materialism and consciousness (instead of digging our heels in and pretending these difficulties don't really exist), and we must examine the long and rich history of religion and philosophy and see if any of the recurring themes in this history fit into the picture created by our understandings of science and philosophy. In short we must spread out all the pieces of our jigsaw and try to grasp the bigger picture, instead of just categorising the pieces and hoping to find the answer by analysing each piece on its own.
This is a fine and possibly profitable intellectual exercise, but when you are done you have a pastiche of scientific and philosophical ideas, with no way of knowing whether some of the ideas are nothing more than fanciful daydreams. You may adopt the resulting potpourri as your own philosophy, but that does not mean that it is in any sense the "correct" metaphysics.

~~ Paul

[c0rbin]

Science deals with the empirical realm, not otherworldly realities. Why the f*ck are you unable to understand the most elementary things??

Why get angry about it, or call people stupid? Seems a little more meditation might be in order.

How does any of this metaphysics further the plight of man (beyond paying the salary of philosophy professors?

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
This is a fine and possibly profitable intellectual exercise, but when you are done you have a pastiche of scientific and philosophical ideas, with no way of knowing whether some of the ideas are nothing more than fanciful daydreams. You may adopt the resulting potpourri as your own philosophy, but that does not mean that it is in any sense the "correct" metaphysics.

~~ Paul

Well, that rather depends on what sort of picture emerges. There is a tendency in some circles round here to assume various things which aren't neccesarily true - e.g. that all religions are equally meaningless and equally wrong, that all metaphysics are equally meaningless and equally wrong, that nobody actually experiences any sort of paranormal phenomena, that the laws of reality work the same for everybody and do not depend on belief or expectation, and, basically, that there is no "bigger picture" to be found. I get the impression you are more of a fence-sitter, at least on some of the above issues.

What I am trying to say is that it is my opinion that what would result from such an investigation is not a potpourri at all, but rather a few rather profound inevitabilities which have been continually re-interpreted in different ways and different times for different sorts of ears. Rather than a pot-pourri we find the same ideas represented in many different ways. We need to look through the surface and try to find the common threads that lie beneath.

There has been a great resistance to this from the 'skeptics' on this board. There has been a tendency to argue that everything outside science is meaningless, and therefore of no interest. Certainly with regard to mysticism, most of its detractors understand either very little or not at all (except Franko who is a special case). IMO if those people actually took a little bit of time to investigate it a little more closely they may find reasons to change their outlook. But its safer to argue it is meaningless from the useful vantage point of knowing nothing whatsoever about it.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Not from the POV of an objective intellect maybe, certainly not from the POV of matter and science. But maybe the yogi genuinely knows something you don't. Maybe, from the subjective POV of the person experiencing 'mystical Union' it is something they cannot doubt, simply because of the direct knowledge imparted by the experience. You have no way of either affirming the relevance of this and you have no way of discounting it either. You cannot say for sure that the Yogi does not know something you don't. In Western lingo the Yogi achieves direct Union with the 'mind of God'. I know you don't believe that such a thing can happen - but if it did happen, and it happened to you, it is quite conceivable that you would be left with no choice but to accept it.

Until you stand at the top of Everest you can never know what it feels like to stand at the top of Everest.


So, you agree with me. There is no way to know is the experience is true? I'm sorry but I changed my mind.

If
1.- The yogi agrees that he experiences the same in his mystical state of meditatios and during the TMS estimulation

and

2.- CAT and EEG shows the same configuration during both experiences.

I can say objetively that the experience in both cases is the same. And if I was stimulated using TMS and my CAT and EEG are the same as the yogi, I can say OBJETIVELY that I had the same SUBJETIVE experience.

So, your point is not valid Mr. UCE

Luci

When I said "There is no way for YOU to know if the yogi is experiencing Union with the Metamind" I meant YOU, not the Yogi. The Yogi knows what he is experiencing.


So, you agree with me. There is no way to know is the experience is true?


Did you actually read my post?

"There is no way to know the experience is true" just muddles everything up again. No way for YOU to know? No way for the Yogi to know? No way for objective science to know? Please avoid "No way to know". No way for WHO?


If
1.- The yogi agrees that he experiences the same in his mystical state of meditatios and during the TMS estimulation

and

2.- CAT and EEG shows the same configuration during both experiences.

I can say objetively that the experience in both cases is the same.


No you can't. You don't even know whether the brain acts as a 'generator' of conscious experiences or a 'transmitter/receiver' of conscious experiences.



And if I was stimulated using TMS and my CAT and EEG are the same as the yogi, I can say OBJETIVELY that I had the same SUBJETIVE experience.


All you can say objectively is that your CAT and EEG were the same as the Yogi. You can NEVER know objectively what was going on in the subjective realm of the mind of the Yogi.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Luci

When I said "There is no way for YOU to know if the yogi is experiencing Union with the Metamind" I meant YOU, not the Yogi. The Yogi knows what he is experiencing.

And when the yogi claims that both experiences are the same (TMS and "metamind"), it follows that both are the same.



Did you actually read my post?

That`s why I answered it.


"There is no way to know the experience is true" just muddles everything up again. No way for YOU to know? No way for the Yogi to know? No way for objective science to know? Please avoid "No way to know". No way for WHO?

As far as the yogui can claim that his experience is the same, we all can know if it is the same.


No you can't. You don't even know whether the brain acts as a 'generator' of conscious experiences or a 'transmitter/receiver' of conscious experiences.

If I use parsimony, I can say that the brain produces it. If I want to imagine any sort of external entity and disregard the fact that stimulation of the EMF field of the brain produces the experience then I'm screwed :D.


All you can say objectively is that your CAT and EEG were the same as the Yogi. You can NEVER know objectively what was going on in the subjective realm of the mind of the Yogi.

This time I have to agree and that is because we don't have yet a technology that can read the exact electrical charge AND chemical composition of a parte of a LIVE brain. We have gross aproximations...of course and we are making it better every year.

But when we have the complte picture of the brain, if my description of the subjetive experience is the same as the other person and my brain state is the same, I'd say that we had the same subjetive experience, objetively.

Luci

We may be talking at cross-purposes here - I jumped in having missed a couple of days posts. All I am saying is this : If the Yogi experiences the Unity of his own consciousness with all other consciousness - if his consciousness fuses with the Metamind - then all of the scientists running around with probes aren't going to be able to know what the Yogi knows. But the Yogi himself will have no doubt what he is experiencing, based on the fact that he has becomes joined with Beingness itself - he has BECOME Everything. And this is what mystics have claimed throughout the centuries. Such an experience is difficult to mistake, no? You can lie about it I suppose, but if it actually happened to you there wouldn't be much room for doubt, would there?

:)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Well, that rather depends on what sort of picture emerges. There is a tendency in some circles round here to assume various things which aren't neccesarily true - e.g. that all religions are equally meaningless and equally wrong, that all metaphysics are equally meaningless and equally wrong, that nobody actually experiences any sort of paranormal phenomena, that the laws of reality work the same for everybody and do not depend on belief or expectation, and, basically, that there is no "bigger picture" to be found. I get the impression you are more of a fence-sitter, at least on some of the above issues.
I don't think it depends on what sort of picture emerges. You still have no way of knowing whether the picture represents anything other than your own personal cobbled-up metaphysics.

What I am trying to say is that it is my opinion that what would result from such an investigation is not a potpourri at all, but rather a few rather profound inevitabilities which have been continually re-interpreted in different ways and different times for different sorts of ears. Rather than a pot-pourri we find the same ideas represented in many different ways. We need to look through the surface and try to find the common threads that lie beneath.
What will result is some kind of matrix/global consciousness/metamind/god/pure being thing that behaves like a computer and thus provides abundant memory, interconnection, and computational resources to solve all tough problems. See my signature.

There has been a great resistance to this from the 'skeptics' on this board. There has been a tendency to argue that everything outside science is meaningless, and therefore of no interest. Certainly with regard to mysticism, most of its detractors understand either very little or not at all (except Franko who is a special case). IMO if those people actually took a little bit of time to investigate it a little more closely they may find reasons to change their outlook. But its safer to argue it is meaningless from the useful vantage point of knowing nothing whatsoever about it.
You have no idea how much time people have spent investigating these things.

We may be talking at cross-purposes here - I jumped in having missed a couple of days posts. All I am saying is this : If the Yogi experiences the Unity of his own consciousness with all other consciousness - if his consciousness fuses with the Metamind - then all of the scientists running around with probes aren't going to be able to know what the Yogi knows. But the Yogi himself will have no doubt what he is experiencing, based on the fact that he has becomes joined with Beingness itself - he has BECOME Everything. And this is what mystics have claimed throughout the centuries. Such an experience is difficult to mistake, no? You can lie about it I suppose, but if it actually happened to you there wouldn't be much room for doubt, would there?
Sure there would. I spent years in the Transcendental Meditation movement, meditating my brains out and talking to all sorts of people who were supposed to be a various levels of consciousness. I had some beautiful experiences, such as realizing that even if was the last person in the universe, I would still have the stars as company. I see no reason to believe any of that was more than the workings of my imagination.

~~ Paul

Paul


What will result is some kind of matrix/global consciousness/metamind/god/pure being thing that behaves like a computer and thus provides abundant memory, interconnection, and computational resources to solve all tough problems.


Yes, something like that will result.


You have no idea how much time people have spent investigating these things.


Well, I wasn't referring to yourself. But I think I have a pretty good idea how long some of the others have spent investigating these things - the ones who think 'mysticism' is indistinguishable from Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men.


quote:
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We may be talking at cross-purposes here - I jumped in having missed a couple of days posts. All I am saying is this : If the Yogi experiences the Unity of his own consciousness with all other consciousness - if his consciousness fuses with the Metamind - then all of the scientists running around with probes aren't going to be able to know what the Yogi knows. But the Yogi himself will have no doubt what he is experiencing, based on the fact that he has becomes joined with Beingness itself - he has BECOME Everything. And this is what mystics have claimed throughout the centuries. Such an experience is difficult to mistake, no? You can lie about it I suppose, but if it actually happened to you there wouldn't be much room for doubt, would there?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sure there would. I spent years in the Transcendental Meditation movement, meditating my brains out and talking to all sorts of people who were supposed to be a various levels of consciousness. I had some beautiful experiences, such as realizing that even if was the last person in the universe, I would still have the stars as company. I see no reason to believe any of that was more than the workings of my imagination.


Well, I have never really meditated. I am hyperactive and find meditation almost impossible. I found my own path to subjective confirmation of some of these things. There is a limit to what can be rationalised. But that's ancient history.... ;)

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Luci

We may be talking at cross-purposes here - I jumped in having missed a couple of days posts. All I am saying is this : If the Yogi experiences the Unity of his own consciousness with all other consciousness - if his consciousness fuses with the Metamind - then all of the scientists running around with probes aren't going to be able to know what the Yogi knows. But the Yogi himself will have no doubt what he is experiencing, based on the fact that he has becomes joined with Beingness itself - he has BECOME Everything. And this is what mystics have claimed throughout the centuries. Such an experience is difficult to mistake, no? You can lie about it I suppose, but if it actually happened to you there wouldn't be much room for doubt, would there?

:)

That's great because we can have such proofs. If I find the time I'll send you links to the actual experiments.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Yes, something like that [global computer] will result.
Way too easy. Solves every unsolved problem at the stroke of a thought.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Way too easy. Solves every unsolved problem at the stroke of a thought.

~~ Paul

Does it?

Does it solve the problem of whether we have Free Will?
Does it solve the mystery of what time is? Beginning? Ending?
Does it solve the problems of the conflicting needs of Unity and Individuality?
I think it leaves us with a different sort of problem.

And does the fact that it 'easily' solves many of the problems bugging materialism make it false?

Often it is the simplest answer which is closest to the truth. Not always, but the fact that this seems "too easy" from the POV of a materialist does not neccesarily mean it is incorrect.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Does it solve the problem of whether we have Free Will?
Does it solve the mystery of what time is? Beginning? Ending?
Does it solve the problems of the conflicting needs of Unity and Individuality?
I think it leaves us with a different sort of problem.
Yup, solves all those problems. Think of the solution you like, the global computer can do it that way. Well, except possibly for the conflicting needs, which I don't understand.

And does the fact that it 'easily' solves many of the problems bugging materialism make it false?
Nope, it might be correct. But meanwhile it's vapid, unfalsifiable, and unsatisfying.

Often it is the simplest answer which is closest to the truth. Not always, but the fact that this seems "too easy" from the POV of a materialist does not neccesarily mean it is incorrect.
Well, I don't think it's as simple as you believe it is, because if you really want to answer specific questions, you have to get down to details. But it might be correct.

~~ Paul

Paul


Yup, solves all those problems. Think of the solution you like, the global computer can do it that way. Well, except possibly for the conflicting needs, which I don't understand.


Well, the conflicting needs thing is, IMO, what ultimately provides the insight into why things are the way they are. Free Will comes into this also. In a way, you can have Free Will or you can have your individuality (see : Franko).

There is also a parallel with left/right politics - the rights of the individual and the common good of the collective. Which is why politics must not mix with mysticism. It may seem like a trivial detail, or hard to understand, but I think it is extremely relevant.

[Loki]

uce,

In short we must spread out all the pieces of our jigsaw and try to grasp the bigger picture, instead of just categorising the pieces and hoping to find the answer by analysing each piece on its own.
...
What I am trying to say is that it is my opinion that what would result from such an investigation is not a potpourri at all, but rather a few rather profound inevitabilities which have been continually re-interpreted in different ways and different times for different sorts of ears.
...
There has been a great resistance to this from the 'skeptics' on this board.
Sounds fine, but if I exhibit 'resistence' to this approach it's based mainly in the fact that it simply doesn't seem to work at all! Rather than a 'few rather found inevitabilities', we do indeed seem to get a potpourri. Uce, Franko and Christian all espouse an approach to "life" that incorporates "non-physically verifiable" concepts - and you all differ wildly on both the funsamentals and the details. Even "free will" is not a constant amongst the "subjective is truth" mob.

Originally posted by Loki
uce,


Sounds fine, but if I exhibit 'resistence' to this approach it's based mainly in the fact that it simply doesn't seem to work at all! Rather than a 'few rather found inevitabilities', we do indeed seem to get a potpourri.


Depends where you look, and how you look.


Uce, Franko and Christian all espouse an approach to "life" that incorporates "non-physically verifiable" concepts - and you all differ wildly on both the funsamentals and the details. Even "free will" is not a constant amongst the "subjective is truth" mob.

Even among these three there are commonalities. You have to find your own way through religion and philosophy. I think it has to be that way. You have to figure out how all these views fit together. You have to understand why Franko really is is the way he is, and why I am the way I am, and why Christian is the way Christian is. And Win. And II. And JK. And even VD ( :D ) Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

You know that it is not neccesarely true.

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


You know that it is not neccesarely true.

The truth can be found, Lucifuge. If you think that nobody has found it then that is your choice. ;)

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


The truth can be found, Lucifuge. If you think that nobody has found it then that is your choice. ;)

No, no no, UCE. My comment is that not neccesaily the truth cam be foun in the middle of two opposite beliefs. Sometimes, the truth is one of these.

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


No, no no, UCE. My comment is that not neccesaily the truth cam be foun in the middle of two opposite beliefs. Sometimes, the truth is one of these.

Maybe. But then perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say. Loki said that trying to investigate philosophy and religion without the aid of objective science just resulted in a pot pourri of conflicting beliefs. I'm not sure it is a pot pourri so much as many different perspectives on the same basic truths. Certainly I think that several of the persons on my list know considerably more than they let on, and for different reasons. Perhaps you have to understand the motivations of person concerned to understand their take on philosophy. To understand Frankos stated position it is neccesary to understand, at least to an extent, Franko. I'm not sure many people round here do, as was so eloquently expressed by Pillory in a recent opening post.

[Loki]

uce,

Loki said that trying to investigate philosophy and religion without the aid of objective science just resulted in a pot pourri of conflicting beliefs.
Actually, it was Paul who started this particular sub-thread about "non-objective" processes leading to a potpourri of concepts (some contradictory) that have essentially equal "truth-value". Anyway, the only point I'd add is that I *do* think that objective science has limits, and humans can entertain thoughts and beliefs beyond this - but I don't see the point in trying to declare such things as "the truth".

I'm not sure it is a pot pourri so much as many different perspectives on the same basic truths.
Well, we'll just have to disagree. I think you're falling for the same old human fault of "pattern-matching". You're finding the hits in different concepts, and ignoring the misses. I have no doubt that you can find "common ground" with someone like Christian - but so can I. Problem is, the common ground you find is not the common ground I find - and may even be contradictory.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Maybe. But then perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say. Loki said that trying to investigate philosophy and religion without the aid of objective science just resulted in a pot pourri of conflicting beliefs. I'm not sure it is a pot pourri so much as many different perspectives on the same basic truths. Certainly I think that several of the persons on my list know considerably more than they let on, and for different reasons. Perhaps you have to understand the motivations of person concerned to understand their take on philosophy. To understand Frankos stated position it is neccesary to understand, at least to an extent, Franko. I'm not sure many people round here do, as was so eloquently expressed by Pillory in a recent opening post.


UcE:

Do you think that the person can add to the idea? I mean, the idea, as an abstract expression of a tought, can be modified with the understanting of the person having the idea? Don't you think that, if it is needed, then the idea is incomplete?

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale



UcE:

Do you think that the person can add to the idea? I mean, the idea, as an abstract expression of a tought, can be modified with the understanting of the person having the idea? Don't you think that, if it is needed, then the idea is incomplete?

Quite probably there is no 'complete' way to linguistically describe 'the Truth'. It is always filtered through personalised goggles. Therefore grasping this Truth involves both an awareness of your own goggles and of the goggles of others. I am glad of those goggles. I don't want to be blinded.

:)

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Quite probably there is no 'complete' way to linguistically describe 'the Truth'. It is always filtered through personalised goggles. Therefore grasping this Truth involves both an awareness of your own goggles and of the goggles of others. I am glad of those goggles. I don't want to be blinded.

:)

I wasn't talking about "The Truth (tm)". I was talking about an idea. If what you say is correct, then there is no point into studying, reading or communicating anything more profound than "I'm hungry".

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


I wasn't talking about "The Truth (tm)". I was talking about an idea. If what you say is correct, then there is no point into studying, reading or communicating anything more profound than "I'm hungry".

Same is probably true of any 'idea'.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Same is probably true of any 'idea'.

Then ,what is the point to discuss anything?

Also, how can we advance science and technology if, pe, to understand GR you should have to read the life of Albert Einstein and know his personality and mind? I don't get it.

[synaesthesia]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale

Also, how can we advance science and technology if, pe, to understand GR you should have to read the life of Albert Einstein and know his personality and mind? I don't get it.

Although it's not strictly necessary, I do not think we should underestimate the importance of this sort of contextual information to scientific progress. Science is, after all, a process not an end result. To understand scientific findings, the study of the process behind them may prove invaluble.

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


Then ,what is the point to discuss anything?

Also, how can we advance science and technology if, pe, to understand GR you should have to read the life of Albert Einstein and know his personality and mind? I don't get it.

I thought we were talking about subjective things. The behaviour of the material Universe is the one exception to all this.

Originally posted by synaesthesia


Although it's not strictly necessary, I do not think we should underestimate the importance of this sort of contextual information to scientific progress. Science is, after all, a process not an end result. To understand scientific findings, the study of the process behind them may prove invaluble.

Yes, this is also true.

[Loki]

uce,

Completely (utterly) off-topic, but what ever happened to that group of witches/psychics (I forget the exact details) in Brighton that you were invited to join about 18 months ago? Ever get anywhere with that?

[DanishDynamite]

(bump)

Just thought I'd spare some of the old threads on materialism from the Great Pruning.