Materialism

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Whoops, I just re-read the Chalmers article and saw that I goofed. Here is another quote from him:


Consider: if it is logically possible that my functional isomorph might lack qualia entirely, it seems equally logically possible that there could be a qualia-free physical replica of me.

Hahaha, that sounds pretty foolish.

My apologize to anyone (neo) that I may have offending.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Win
AS:

I'm going to be in and out today, 'cause I'm working on something else, but I will try to address all your points eventually.


That's cool. It's simply the nature of trying to incorporate these sort of internet discussions into our real world lives.


First off, I'm sorry that I get snarky with you. I really will try harder not to do that.


No sweat. We each are guilty of past abuses towards each other. Mea culpa.


Again, I think you're equivocating. Materialism, dualism, idealism are all ways of thinking about the world. They are not preconditions for thinking at all.


I disagree. I'm not discussing thinking at all. I'm discussing thinking about thinking. Trying to suspend belief about materialism is indeed trying to suspend belief about how thinking and imagining themselves occur.

Talk about your recursive loops...

Isn't this like supposing that I'm not really generating my thoughts, but in fact they are being beamed into my head by some malevolent alien civilization, intent on taking over the world?

If I can imagine that, how then can I imagine a pseudo-me, exactly like me, but without the thoughts from the aliens?

If I can, then my pseudo-me isn't exactly like me, is he?

I simply cannot comprehend this sort of "conceivability."

It's inconsistent (I've been calling it "illogical" or alternately, "incoherent").



So, since you don't have to commit yourself to the truth of any of these positions to think about the world, just think of yourself as a sceptic: You've suspended judgement.

Does that make it easier to see how to "not assume materialism is true."


No. As my comments above explain, this is indeed thinking about thinking. Trying to reach a conclusion about how I can conceive of how else I might think about thinking gives me a big headache. I think it's the recursive loop again. Damn recursion.


Kicking on the tires and looking under the hood, as it were, are good ideas. But hopping in and taking her for a spin is also a good idea.

What I don't like very much is standing in the lot, looking at the car and saying, "that car will never run."


Perhaps I've noticed that the tires are bald and the brake line is cut. Maybe I'm not so eager to get into that particular car, as I deem it unsafe.


Moving on, zombie Win has all the beliefs that Win does. What differs between zombie Win and Win is the truth value of their beliefs. And it's the state of the world, not the state of Win that determines those truth values. Zombie Win lives in zombie world. Win lives here.


Thanks for clearing that bit of confusion on my part up. Apparently, in this exercise, never the twain shall meet.

Maybe this is part of the problem materialists have--your argument concerns a world that is different from ours. How then, can it tell us anything about this one, I repeat, over and over?


It's unproductive, I think, to talk about Win having a discussion with zombie Win, because if zombie Win lived in this world, he wouldn't be a zombie.


Is it really? I mean, if p-zombies are supposed to demonstrate any truths at all about this world, then they must interact with it, as Stimpson has maintained and explained to you, over and over.


It's a natural fact about this world that people are conscious.


I agree. My point of departure is in the description given for p-zombies by dualists. It matters not whether you describe them as functional analogues of humans, only lacking qualia, or as physical replicas of humans, but still lacking qualia.

It has been obvious to me--and I suppose countless other materials--all along in this and other similar discussions, that such a definition is, a priori, a supposition that dualism is true. That is to say that such a description of conceptual p-zombies is tantamount to a description of the world in which dualism reigns supreme. To be a functional analogue or a physical replica of a human, only to lack one essential characteristic of being human--possessing or having access to qualia--is in fact to inhabit a dualistic world. You are defining them in such a way that qualia must necessarily exist some place else, or to be some non-essential property, if you prefer, other than in the physical brains. This is what leads you to property dualism. To get there, however, you have already assumed it is true.

If dualism is inextricably bound with the definition of p-zombie, then their supposed conceivability can have no bearing on whether materialism is true or not. To conceive of p-zombies is in fact to assume that dualism is true.

Win, I have argued a very shorthand version of this objection to you numerous times before in our previous discussions. I apologize for assuming it was more obvious than it apparently is.
(In previous discussions, I have called it "tautological" or begging the question, or assuming its own conclusion).


But zombie Win has emotions, and he can form a model of zombie you and your zombie emotions, so he can empathize.


How can a p-zombie have emotions? Aren't emotions experienced subjectively and only subjectively? Emotions can be understood in part intellectually, but no one can have emotions without experiencing them. Emotions are experienced subjectively, by how they feel, and they are exhibited objectively, by how we act and respond.

This isn't a trivial issue.


Again, I think it's important to note that the truth of our beliefs is determined by the state of the world.

Yes, if you are referring to the objective truth, what you call the "truth value." There is also a subjective truth, which is the genuine belief of a proposition's truth.

I fail to understand how a p-zombie could genuinely believe he is not a p-zombie when confronted with the accusation. Necessarily entailed in the accusation is a proper understanding of the difference between a p-zombie and a human.

See Dennett's objections (it's in the link given a few posts above) to suggestions that p-zombies would not be likely to develop a "mentalistic vocabulary" without qualia. I think he puts forth essentially the same objection that I do. Perhaps I am remembering this objection from months ago when I first read it. Otherwise, I'll take due credit for developing it independently.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/goldman.html



I added the italics.

It is not a isomorphic in a physical sense, only a functional sense.

Dennett:

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/unzombie.htm

It all seems rather boooooring. :o

Thanks for taking the time and effort to find and post the links. I went to them, only to discover that I in fact found them myself many months ago. I recall reading precisely those same two links several times before. I believe I even bookmarked them for a while.

Chalmers' link is very difficult to follow. First, it's hard because of all the obscure terms that are most likely unfamiliar to most persons who are not professional philosophers. Second, the leaps he takes seem to be unwarranted. He loses me when he states that "it is equally logically possible that there could be a qualia-free physical replica of me." I disagree and think that in order to make such a statement he is a priori assuming that the physical cannot and does not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia. In essense, he presumes materialism is false in order to draw some conclusion about or to make a critique of it.

To me, that's invalid.

It's boring if you are not interested in or fascinated by the subject of consciousness. On the other hand, if you are so interested, then the debate is topical. It is a little technical, however, which contributes to its being dry.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by The One called Neo

AS,

We can only understand first person consciousness by experiencing it for ourselves. It is not possible to define it.



Thanks again for responding, Neo.

Hmmm. I'm not convinced that p-zombies couldn't understand intellectually a description of first-person consciousness.

Perhaps any definition of first-person consciousness will be incomplete. Nevetheless, I would argue that a sufficient description of it can indeed convey the essense of it adequately to reach a true conclusion about whether or not one possesses access to it or not.



P-zombie Win would respond he is not a p-zombie because he is physically identical. The same physical laws which determine all our behaviour is the same for both Win and p-zombie Win. P-Win "believes" he is not a p-zombie only in the sense of the appropriate behaviour. He doesn't actually have the mental belief, that is to say the qualitative phenomenological feel that he is not a p-zombie. This phenomenological feel is only present with the real Win. The actual qualitative phenomenological knowing that he has a mental life is only present with the real Win. That's the way I see it anyway.

Thanks, that helps somewhat.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Win,

This just leapt out at me in a huge way:

What make zombie Win think hes has phenomenal consciousness is the same thing that makes me think I have phenomenal consciousness, briefly, a recursive self-modelling mental architecture. Why isn't that sufficient to explain consciousness? Again briefly, because that doesn't explain, can't explain, the phenomenal aspects of consciousness.


"Recursive self-modelling mental architecture" Say that again and again.

Isn't this in fact subjective experience, the "raw feel" of the visual field right there in front of you?

Why are they different, as you contend?

AS

AS :


I disagree and think that in order to make such a statement he is a priori assuming that the physical cannot and does not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia. In essense, he presumes materialism is false in order to draw some conclusion about or to make a critique of it.


This is the same hurdle that PixyMisa can't even see over , let alone get over. Chalmers neither presumes materialism nor presumes that it is false. You appear to be saying that in order for P-zombies to be logically possible, that one has to have 'presumed' materialism is false. But the logical possibilitiy or non-possibility of P-zombies does not depend on materialism - it is the other way around. The concept of a P-zombie is built from concepts we use to describe and make sense of our whole experiences of reality - that very same reality we are trying to figure out the nature of. We know what we mean when we talk about mental things and physical things. Materialism makes it neccesary that the mental things are part of the physical things. It does not logically follow that the mental things are part of the physical things. It only follows if you insist materialism must be true.

In terms of your complaint :


he is a priori assuming that the physical cannot and does not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia


The truth is :

"he is a priori assuming that the physical may not not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia"

Chalmers assumes a neutral position. By contrast, in order to escape the logic it is neccesary for you to either assume materialism is true, and therefore force qualia to be physical (however counter-intuitive) or to accuse him of assuming that materialism is false, even though he has no need to do so.

[Peskanov]

Hello again, UCE; as I see you are interested again in the thread, I am back for more :)

-----
quote:
The concept of a P-zombie is built from concepts we use to describe and make sense of our whole experiences of reality - that very same reality we are trying to figure out the nature of. We know what we mean when we talk about mental things and physical things.
-----

As I pointed to you some time ago, the concepts related to thinking (mind, consciousness, qualia) come all from intuition and are very fuzzy. Every philospher draws his own frontiers and moves the basic definitions to his own camp.
Do you agree?

----
quote:
Materialism makes it neccesary that the mental things are part of the physical things. It does not logically follow that the mental things are part of the physical things. It only follows if you insist materialism must be true.
----

It has been said tons of times. Correct, it does not follow; instead it is assumed. If you provide evidence that it can not be assumed, you have falsified materialism.


----
quote:
"he is a priori assuming that the physical may not not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia"

Chalmers assumes a neutral position. By contrast, in order to escape the logic it is neccesary for you to either assume materialism is true, and therefore force qualia to be physical (however counter-intuitive) or to accuse him of assuming that materialism is false, even though he has no need to do so.
----

Neutral? The hypothesis of a p-zombie afirms that it's possible to obtain human behaviour without conscience.
This is not neutral at all. It is a very critical, very dangerous assumption, which is not accepted by materialists.
Can you explain, in steps, how can Chalmers reach that conclusion?
IMO a person which proposes a p-zombie and a materialist are using different definition if consciousness. It would probably help to set a minimum definition of it, or at least to list some properties accepted by both parts.

A note: counter-intuitive concepts are normal in science and materialism. Anything related to electricity is counter-intuitive to me, for example. I don't think this should a problem anymore for philosophers.

[Win]

AS:

I disagree. I'm not discussing thinking at all. I'm discussing thinking about thinking. Trying to suspend belief about materialism is indeed trying to suspend belief about how thinking and imagining themselves occur.

Let me try this a different way.

Imagine a person who has no position regarding the truth of materialism, idealism or dualism. She hasn't reached a conclusion yet, but is still mulling over the positions.

Under your conception, would she not really be thinking about these questions at all? Or would she really have accepted the truth of one of the positions, only she's just not aware of it?

Or is it that she has to provisionally accept the truth of one of the positions, at least implicitly, before beginning to think about consciousness? How might one find oneself in the position of implicitly assuming the truth of materialism, even when believing that one hasn't?

I think you'll have to admit that it's possible to think about these things without first accepting materialism is true, or false.

Perhaps I've noticed that the tires are bald and the brake line is cut. Maybe I'm not so eager to get into that particular car, as I deem it unsafe.

So take it for a very slow drive around the parking lot. Oh wait, let me guess, you've also noticed that it's leaking gasoline ... and ... there's a lion in the front seat ... and ... a bomb, no wait, a nuclear bomb ... ;)

Metaphors tend to break down. I hope you've taken my meaning.

Maybe this is part of the problem materialists have--your argument concerns a world that is different from ours. How then, can it tell us anything about this one, I repeat, over and over?

P-zombies tell us something about logical possibility. Logical possibility tells us something about our world. The natural impossibility of p-zombies has no effect on the argument from conceivability, because it's logical possibility that's required to make the argument go through.

Is it really? I mean, if p-zombies are supposed to demonstrate any truths at all about this world, then they must interact with it, as Stimpson has maintained and explained to you, over and over.

Actually, I understood Stimpy to be making that point about qualia, not p-zombies.

Anyway, even though he's "explained it to me over and over," I still find his ideas about causation misconceived. And his arguments about qualia in this regard based on a mistaken intuition.

If dualism is inextricably bound with the definition of p-zombie, then their supposed conceivability can have no bearing on whether materialism is true or not. To conceive of p-zombies is in fact to assume that dualism is true.

Dualism isn't "inextricably bound with the definition of p-zombie." There's no need to mention p-zombies at all to make the argument from conceivability. Substitute "person who sees gred not red," where "gred" is a color sensation qualitatively different to red, and the person is otherwise physical indistinguishable from a normal person, for p-zombie and the argument still goes through.

As to the last, for a p-zombie universe to exist, dualism would have to be true. To conceive of p-zombies doen't require belief in the truth of dualism. Do you see the difference?

How can a p-zombie have emotions? Aren't emotions experienced subjectively and only subjectively? Emotions can be understood in part intellectually, but no one can have emotions without experiencing them. Emotions are experienced subjectively, by how they feel, and they are exhibited objectively, by how we act and respond.

Emotions are experienced subjectively. But a p-zombie has them without experiencing them. No one does have them without experiencing them. This doesn't mean that it's logically impossible to have them without experiencing them.

Yes, if you are referring to the objective truth, what you call the "truth value." There is also a subjective truth, which is the genuine belief of a proposition's truth.

The truth value is the truth value. Genuine belief isn't the same as true belief.

I fail to understand how a p-zombie could genuinely believe he is not a p-zombie when confronted with the accusation. Necessarily entailed in the accusation is a proper understanding of the difference between a p-zombie and a human.

A p-zombie genuinely believes he's not one. He's just mistaken.

Isn't this in fact subjective experience, the "raw feel" of the visual field right there in front of you?

This being a recursive, self-modelling mental architecture.

No. It's the physical analogue underlying our phenomenal judgements. It's what "causes" us to have our beliefs about qualia. It's what's "in our brains," as it were. But it's not a quale.

The cause of our beliefs is not the justification for our beliefs.

Every part of this argument relies on the acceptance of one fact: Qualia exist. *We* know this because *we* have direct acces to the fact of the existence of a phenomenal world.

A p-zombie would say the same thing, but he wouldn't have that direct access.

As I've said before, "qualia don't exist" is a perfectly acceptable position. If, however, you accept their existence, I think you are compelled to accept the falsity of materialism.

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot

Whoops, I just re-read the Chalmers article and saw that I goofed. Here is another quote from him:



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Consider: if it is logically possible that my functional isomorph might lack qualia entirely, it seems equally logically possible that there could be a qualia-free physical replica of me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Hahaha, that sounds pretty foolish.

My apologize to anyone (neo) that I may have offending.



If something is physically identical, then it follows it must also be functionally identical. However the converse of course need not be true. Thus one could imagine creating an android which is a replica of myself, and which is therefore functionally identical to myself (behaves and talks exactly like me), but is obviously not physically identical as it contains electronic circuitry.

At the risk of going slightly off topic would such an android be conscious ie experience qualitative phenomenological states? It seems to me that a materialist would say that the android would be conscious by definition. A property dualist would, I suppose, say that consciousness within the android is physically necessitated.

But what would interactive dualists or idealists maintain? Maybe they would deny that such an android is possible at all maintaining that human behaviour is not amenable to an algortihmic description.

[Win]

Neo:

A property dualist would say that consciousness within the android is naturally necessitated.

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Win
Neo:

A property dualist would say that consciousness within the android is naturally necessitated.

Does physically necessitated have a distinct meaning from naturally necessitated? :eek: Hmmmm . . .maybe you have in mind physical laws describe rather than compel. I agree saying naturally necessitated would have been more appropriate.

[AmateurScientist]

Now I just have a headache.

:D

It's probably from both trying to get my head around the nearly incomprehensible and also staring at this damn screen for hours.

Time to go out and get some fresh air and to the gym.

I'll come back later when I'm more refreshed.

Thanks for responding, everyone.

[In my best Arnold voice: I'll be back."]


AS

[Win]

Neo:

Does physically necessitated have a distinct meaning from naturally necessitated? Hmmmm . . .maybe you have in mind physical laws describe rather than compel. I agree saying naturally necessitated would have been more appropriate.

I do think that it's best to think about physical "laws" as descriptions, but that wasn't what I was getting at.

Rather, to say that something is physically necesitated suggests to me that it is a logically necessary consequence of physical facts. A dualist doesn't accept that consciousness is a logically necessary consequence of physical facts.

For myself, phenomenal consciousness is a property of information processing of a certain class. That it is a property of this class is not physically necessitated, but rather naturally necessitated. That is to say, at all times in this universe that information processing within the class occurs, consciousness co-occurs. Again, though, nothing about the physical facts necessitates this. This property is an extra fact over and above the physical facts.

To digress a little, I have found AS's discussion of dualists' supposed predisposition to look at other people as p-zombies a little perverse. If anything, the opposite is true. Property dualists are likely to grant phenomenal consciousness to a wider class of things than materialists are wont to.

It all comes down to what defines the class of information processing which naturally gives rise to phenomenal consciousness. A property dualist might well consider a thermostat to be conscious, albeit having a limited number of conscious states, to wit: It's too hot; it's too cold; it's just right.

I'm not committed to this position, but I don't rule it out either.

[c4ts]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
AS :



This is the same hurdle that PixyMisa can't even see over , let alone get over. Chalmers neither presumes materialism nor presumes that it is false. You appear to be saying that in order for P-zombies to be logically possible, that one has to have 'presumed' materialism is false. But the logical possibilitiy or non-possibility of P-zombies does not depend on materialism - it is the other way around. The concept of a P-zombie is built from concepts we use to describe and make sense of our whole experiences of reality - that very same reality we are trying to figure out the nature of. We know what we mean when we talk about mental things and physical things. Materialism makes it neccesary that the mental things are part of the physical things. It does not logically follow that the mental things are part of the physical things. It only follows if you insist materialism must be true.

In terms of your complaint :



The truth is :

"he is a priori assuming that the physical may not not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia"

Chalmers assumes a neutral position. By contrast, in order to escape the logic it is neccesary for you to either assume materialism is true, and therefore force qualia to be physical (however counter-intuitive) or to accuse him of assuming that materialism is false, even though he has no need to do so.

It's amazing how you manage to think upside-down so consistently. Abstract ideas, logically, are based on other ideas which are not so abstract, and these ideas are based on smaller ideas which are even more concrete, and so on, until you reach actual sensory input, and from that, the thing itself. Is the form of a log cylindrical, or is a the form of a cylinder a log?

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant Stimpson :
Atman=Brahman, remember? The individual mind is an illusion.
There is only one consiousness. The mental states, if you look
at it like this, are not a characteristic of the person. This only
makes sense if minds are unified but bodies are seperate.

Brahma, as a a perfect unchanging being, cannot be consious.
Consious awareness changes, Brahma cannot change, thus your
consiousness is with you alone. Just as your mind is with you alone.
Brahma creates the universe, as the source source of all things, but
does not act. In becoming one with Brahma, as the Brahmans do,
you must loose mind and consiousness, only then will you understand.

[Win]

c4ts:

It's amazing how you manage to think upside-down so consistently. Abstract ideas, logically, are based on other ideas which are not so abstract, and these ideas are based on smaller ideas which are even more concrete, and so on, until you reach actual sensory input, and from that, the thing itself. Is the form of a log cylindrical, or is a the form of a cylinder a log?

UCE isn't thinking upside down. It's you who is doing so. What's amazing, and indeed ironic, is that you believe he is.

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Win
c4ts:



UCE isn't thinking upside down. It's you who is doing so. What's amazing, and indeed ironic, is that you believe he is.

Win

Are you saying that all logical deductions are actually based on belief systems (and I don't mean to be derogatory with the phrase belief system - they may be perfectly logical belief systems ;)) with given axioms? That is to say that there are things that are just accepted to be true and then we actually build up from these?

Sou

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Win
AS:

Let me try this a different way.

Imagine a person who has no position regarding the truth of materialism, idealism or dualism. She hasn't reached a conclusion yet, but is still mulling over the positions.

Under your conception, would she not really be thinking about these questions at all? Or would she really have accepted the truth of one of the positions, only she's just not aware of it?

Or is it that she has to provisionally accept the truth of one of the positions, at least implicitly, before beginning to think about consciousness? How might one find oneself in the position of implicitly assuming the truth of materialism, even when believing that one hasn't?

I think you'll have to admit that it's possible to think about these things without first accepting materialism is true, or false.


This doesn't help at all. Sorry. No, what I will admit, is my judgment that thinking about p-zombies necessarily requires the thinker to assume either that materialism is not true, or never to have believed it true in the first place.

I don't think it's possible to be "neutral" about a materialistic stance once p-zombies are conjured up. The very definition of a p-zombie requires one to reject materialism. Claiming the stance is "neutral" does not make it so.

As I have said before, I believe materialism to be the default worldview of any sensible scientific-minded person with some familiarity with neuroscience and some of its more salient recent empirical observations.

To deviate from the default position is not a neutral stance. You can claim it so, but it isn't. It is a radical departure in some other direction. You choose to depart in the direction of propety dualism. Fine. It's not neutral. It's anti-materialistic--a rejection of the default position.



P-zombies tell us something about logical possibility. Logical possibility tells us something about our world. The natural impossibility of p-zombies has no effect on the argument from conceivability, because it's logical possibility that's required to make the argument go through.


If this is so, then I just don't get this version of "logical possibility" and its bearing on this world.




Actually, I understood Stimpy to be making that point about qualia, not p-zombies.


Technically true, but essential the same as my remark (I was somewhat sloppy). What are p-zombies but humans without qualia? To speak of p-zombies is to speak of qualia.


Anyway, even though he's "explained it to me over and over," I still find his ideas about causation misconceived. And his arguments about qualia in this regard based on a mistaken intuition.


I do not. I must agree with Stimpy. You resort to the mantra "correlation is not causation" to defend this claim. Very tight correlation is indeed highly indicative of a causal relationship, although not entirely dispositive. As between any two tightly-bound variables, usually the only issue is that of which is cause and which is effect.

Perfect correlation is equivalence. Neuroscience provides us solid evidence of nearly perfect correlation. Nearly everyone familiar with the delay in our own conscious awareness of our own volitional actions will conclude that the conscious awareness is the effect, and not the cause, which is of course counterintuitive.

As I understand it, you, as a property dualist, believe there must be some special dualistic property which arises from brains and their structure and function, as you put it. When I asked you before, you responded that the property disappears upon death. I guess now I just don't get where this property is supposed to reside if not in the brain, or as a physical result of its processes.


Dualism isn't "inextricably bound with the definition of p-zombie." There's no need to mention p-zombies at all to make the argument from conceivability. Substitute "person who sees gred not red," where "gred" is a color sensation qualitatively different to red, and the person is otherwise physical indistinguishable from a normal person, for p-zombie and the argument still goes through.


Fine. Switch the two. P-zombies are inextricably bound with the definition of dualism. Happy?

The gred thing is hardly as radical as p-zombie. I don't see how it leads to the same conclusion, either.


As to the last, for a p-zombie universe to exist, dualism would have to be true. To conceive of p-zombies doen't require belief in the truth of dualism. Do you see the difference?


No, I sure don't. And I don't believe it either. I think to conceive of p-zombies as they are defined by the conceivability argument does require a rejection of materialism. I see this as tantamount to accepting dualism, as between the two. (I realize there are other possible worldviews, so no need to list them here.)


Emotions are experienced subjectively. But a p-zombie has them without experiencing them. No one does have them without experiencing them. This doesn't mean that it's logically impossible to have them without experiencing them.


WTF? How can a person or a p-zombie "have" emotions without experiencing them? What does it mean to "have" emotions if one never experiences them?

Are you trying to say having knowledge that emotions exist is the same as "having" them? I find that preposterous, just as Dan Dennett does.




The truth value is the truth value. Genuine belief isn't the same as true belief.



A p-zombie genuinely believes he's not one. He's just mistaken.


Then please explain how the p-zombie genuinely believes he is not a p-zombie. I cannot understand how he can understand the difference between a p-zombie and a human with qualia, yet somehow not be able to look within himself and determine whether or not he has that same access to qualia.

I maintain that if he cannot, then he doesn't understand the difference. If he does not understand the difference, then how can he have any genuine belief as to the truth or falsity of his answer to the quesiton?


This being a recursive, self-modelling mental architecture.

No. It's the physical analogue underlying our phenomenal judgements. It's what "causes" us to have our beliefs about qualia. It's what's "in our brains," as it were. But it's not a quale.


This just seems to be a restatement of the definition of dualism. Or call it "anti-materialism," if you prefer.

After all, doesn't the materialist respond by stating that the physical analog is the feedback?



Every part of this argument relies on the acceptance of one fact: Qualia exist. *We* know this because *we* have direct acces to the fact of the existence of a phenomenal world.

A p-zombie would say the same thing, but he wouldn't have that direct access.

As I've said before, "qualia don't exist" is a perfectly acceptable position. If, however, you accept their existence, I think you are compelled to accept the falsity of materialism.

OK, perhaps this fundamental talking past one another boils down to our different concepts of "to exist."

Perhaps I do not agree that "qualia" exist in any meaningful sense. Perhaps they are merely a tool useful for describing what we experience, without really having any independent existence outside the recursive feedback loop.

AS

Originally posted by John Lockard

Brahma, as a a perfect unchanging being, cannot be consious.
Consious awareness changes, Brahma cannot change, thus your
consiousness is with you alone. Just as your mind is with you alone.
Brahma creates the universe, as the source source of all things, but
does not act. In becoming one with Brahma, as the Brahmans do,
you must loose mind and consiousness, only then will you understand.

I don't think it is consciousness you lose. I think it is everything else that you lose.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Win

To digress a little, I have found AS's discussion of dualists' supposed predisposition to look at other people as p-zombies a little perverse. If anything, the opposite is true. Property dualists are likely to grant phenomenal consciousness to a wider class of things than materialists are wont to.

It all comes down to what defines the class of information processing which naturally gives rise to phenomenal consciousness. A property dualist might well consider a thermostat to be conscious, albeit having a limited number of conscious states, to wit: It's too hot; it's too cold; it's just right.


To respond to your digression, perhaps you took my rhetorical questions about "practicing dualists" a little too seriously. I was editorializing on the silliness inherent in paying too much heed to the truth that there is no objective test for first-person consciousness. Well, of course there isn't. It's the nature of the beast.

Nevertheless, each of us, materialist, dualist, and idealist alike, makes very practical use everyday of the tools we do in fact have in order to "test" for other beings' first-person consciousness. Any sane mammalian child of ordinary intelligence can do it.

Instead of "testing" for HPC directly, we look for indirect evidence for it. The indirect evidence is found in the behaviors exhibited by the subject. I understand fully that this is the realm of the Turing Test. We don't need to go into a detailed discussion about that.

My rhetorical questions about practicing dualists were simply my little jab at the disregard for the indirect evidence that p-zombie conceivers apparently have. I'm not convinced that p-zombies could reliably fool anyone--including themselves, if they understood the difference between p-zombies and humans--that they truly had HPC.

I find your comments about themostats and the possibility of their having a rudimentary "consciousness" disturbing.

;)

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

The truth is :

"he is a priori assuming that the physical may not not produce the mental states giving rise to qualia"

Chalmers assumes a neutral position. By contrast, in order to escape the logic it is neccesary for you to either assume materialism is true, and therefore force qualia to be physical (however counter-intuitive) or to accuse him of assuming that materialism is false, even though he has no need to do so.

What does it truly mean to adopt a "neutral" position with respect to whether consciousness can arise from physical processes?

This is not a trivial question.

I maintain, as I suppose PixyMisa does, that to adopt what you call a "neutral" position is in fact a dispensing of it. It is anti-materialism. By definition, then, one is adopting the position that consciousness must be something other than arising solely from or contained within the physical. That is the only way one can conceive of p-zombies in the manner in which Chalmers et al. define them.

AS

[c4ts]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


I don't think it is consciousness you lose. I think it is everything else that you lose.

If you remove the senses, memory, the perception of the passage of time, and all other parts that comprise awareness, as suggested by the poem, what is left? Can that really be said to be conscionable?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by UnrepentantSinner


Ugh, it must be the Brit in you...

Look, it's simple.

Phylogeny is based on the principle that:

If A is indistinguishable from B then A=B.

Claudistics is based on the principle that:

If A is indistinguishable from B then A=B.



Hmm, I'm not a Brit ... but "simple" is right. Makes almost as much sense to the topic at hand as 5=Zork. ROTFLMAO!

Yeah, I know, I should have read the rest of the responses before posting; ya'll will surely demonstrate the infallable truth of "matter makes consciousness". :rolleyes:

[neutrino_cannon]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


I don't think it is consciousness you lose. I think it is everything else that you lose.

Indeed, this would point towards a soul, or some aproxiamtion thereof. And for that there is... no evidence, other than your assertion.

Care to show some?

[hammegk]

I'll try again to see why Win gives consideration to dualism.

Is not a p-zombie only a perfect Turing Machine operating Mr.Data - who in actuality is also a machine? Nothing can be asked of that Turing Machine that would not generate the exact answer Win (or I) would give -- well, other than Mr.Data would always be scientistically correct with his answers.

And I suspect Win might agree that consciousness would be a deeper attribute of "what-is" rather than needing something as complicated as a thermostat to have it. ;)

[Win]

AS:

This doesn't help at all. Sorry. No, what I will admit, is my judgment that thinking about p-zombies necessarily requires the thinker to assume either that materialism is not true, or never to have believed it true in the first place.

Fine then. Assume that I have never believed materialism to be true in the first place.

I don't think it's possible to be "neutral" about a materialistic stance once p-zombies are conjured up. The very definition of a p-zombie requires one to reject materialism. Claiming the stance is "neutral" does not make it so.

Again fine. Assume I've never "conjured up" p-zombies.

As I have said before, I believe materialism to be the default worldview of any sensible scientific-minded person with some familiarity with neuroscience and some of its more salient recent empirical observations.

Of course you do. Just as a Christian believes his metaphysical stance to be the default, or a Communist believes his political stance to be.

Nothing about our observations about the world necessitates your position. It's just your "religion."

To deviate from the default position is not a neutral stance. You can claim it so, but it isn't. It is a radical departure in some other direction. You choose to depart in the direction of propety dualism. Fine. It's not neutral. It's anti-materialistic--a rejection of the default position.

Only if your "religion" demands that it be accepted as the "default position."

My default position is scepticism.

If this is so, then I just don't get this version of "logical possibility" and its bearing on this world.

No, you don't. That's why I think you should make an attempt to educate yourself with regard to these issues.

Technically true, but essential the same as my remark (I was somewhat sloppy). What are p-zombies but humans without qualia? To speak of p-zombies is to speak of qualia.

No, not "technically true." Just true. And not "essentially the same" as your remark. Different in kind.

Please make an effort simply to acknowledge your failures of understanding, rather than wasting my time with attempts to justify them.

I do not. I must agree with Stimpy. You resort to the mantra "correlation is not causation" to defend this claim. Very tight correlation is indeed highly indicative of a causal relationship, although not entirely dispositive. As between any two tightly-bound variables, usually the only issue is that of which is cause and which is effect.

It's not a mantra, it's just a fact. Very tight correlation is indicative of a very tight correlation.

I'm amused, however, that you, as a supposed materialist, are now compelled to argue that, under certain circumstances, conducive to your position of course, correlation really does equal causation.

Perfect correlation is equivalence. Neuroscience provides us solid evidence of nearly perfect correlation. Nearly everyone familiar with the delay in our own conscious awareness of our own volitional actions will conclude that the conscious awareness is the effect, and not the cause, which is of course counterintuitive.

Perfect correlation is just perfect correlation. Of course, since you want it to mean causation in this instance, I guess it must do. :rolleyes:

As I understand it, you, as a property dualist, believe there must be some special dualistic property which arises from brains and their structure and function, as you put it. When I asked you before, you responded that the property disappears upon death. I guess now I just don't get where this property is supposed to reside if not in the brain, or as a physical result of its processes.

I challenge you to provide the quote that backs up your attribution of a response to me.

Of course, since I never made that response, you won't be able to. If you'd like to get a response, without taking the liberty of putting words in my mouth, ask the question.

Penitently.

Fine. Switch the two. P-zombies are inextricably bound with the definition of dualism. Happy?

I've been assuming all along that you aren't just trying to bait me with polemics. My mistake, I guess.

Let me spell it out for you. If X is "inextricably bound" to Y, Y is "inextricably bound" to X.

If you waste my time with more of this, that will be the end of the exchange. Do you understand?

The gred thing is hardly as radical as p-zombie. I don't see how it leads to the same conclusion, either.

Think harder.

No, I sure don't. And I don't believe it either. I think to conceive of p-zombies as they are defined by the conceivability argument does require a rejection of materialism. I see this as tantamount to accepting dualism, as between the two. (I realize there are other possible worldviews, so no need to list them here.)

Again, think harder. It doesn't.

WTF? How can a person or a p-zombie "have" emotions without experiencing them? What does it mean to "have" emotions if one never experiences them?

And again, think harder. Try to answer your own question before you waste my time for polemics sake.

Are you trying to say having knowledge that emotions exist is the same as "having" them? I find that preposterous, just as Dan Dennett does.

No.

Frankly, I can't even bother to respond further. If I've misunderstood you, and what I take to be just cheap polemics are just a reflection of your ignorance, say so.

[c4ts]

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon


Indeed, this would point towards a soul, or some aproxiamtion thereof. And for that there is... no evidence, other than your assertion.

Care to show some?

More of a spirit than a soul, really. The soul's just a quality.

[AmateurScientist]

Win,

I can only conclude from your last "response" to me, which was terribly non-responsive to my questions, that you are indeed the self-satisfied, arrogant a**hole that I concluded you were nearly a year ago when you announced your twin aims by appearing at this so-called skeptics' board, one of which was to teach us so-called skeptics some basic manners.

Your hypocrisy is exceeded only by your arrogance.

Thank you for demonstrating to me that my initial judgment was indeed correct, and that I may give your comments the due lack of respect that they deserve.

Please do not bother to issue a huffy, indignant reply.

AS

[c4ts]

Of course you do. Just as a Christian believes his metaphysical stance to be the default, or a Communist believes his political stance to be.

Nothing about our observations about the world necessitates your position. It's just your "religion."

The Christian believes his metaphysical stance to be the default as the result of a lifetime of mental conditioning, in this case it's exposure to church on a routine, weekly basis. The Communist believes his political stance to be the default because he presumably spends his life in a Communist country where Communism really is the default political stance. But materialism does not seem to result from either the acceptance of some kind of religious or political orthodoxy. Perhaps you could show some examples that show materialism as a kind of public orthodoxy.

[Loki]

Win,

[What make zombie Win think hes has phenomenal consciousness is the same thing that makes me think I have phenomenal consciousness, briefly, a recursive self-modelling mental architecture.
...
In zombie world, they'd reach the same conclusions. Only they'd be mistaken. In zombie world, ironically, the dualist zombie philosophers would be convinced that something was missing from their discription of the world, when nothing really was. The zombie materialist philosophers would insist that nothing is missing, and they'd be right. Here, the situations are reversed.
Okay, I'm understanding this (I think). What you seem to be saying is that P-Zombies also have "direct internal access" to their qualia - except it's false. I can only assume that this means that 'qualia' in P-ZombieWorld are some sort of illusion, or figment. In other words, in P-ZombieWorld humans are pretty much the way Type-A materialists (using the Chalmers category system) say we are? Is that about it? Dennet says that (a) we seem to have 'experience', but (b) once we fully understand the functioning of the brain we'll see that this 'experience' is an illusion - doesn't he? Isn't that the same thing your describing with P-Zombie Win?

Again, I think it's important to note that the truth of our beliefs is determined by the state of the world
Yes, but if I have understood what you are saying above, then the "state of the world" is actually compatible with both your preferred dualism, and Type-A materialism, isn't it? Doesn't this mean that P-Zombies don't actually help at all in determining which alternative is correct? Doesn't this force us to look to other thought experiements to try and determine the truth behind the "state of the world"?

[DialecticMaterialist]

Materialism to me seems the only tenable position. Why?

1) Materialism is parsimonous given what we know in science.

2) Idealism cannot explain why we have different ideas,why things change,where the "mind"comes from etc. If things only exist because they are percieved;where did the perciever come from?

This is easily explained by materialism via ignorance of what is real(impossible in idealism) and by the blind nature of causality in materialism. However in idealism causality is guided and one can literally be ignorant of nothing that exists, creating a demand for further explanation.

3) Idealism is absurd in that all that exists is supposed to be ideas and perceptions; but then what is doing all the "thinking" and "observing"? The mind is obviously not thought of or observed so something must exist besides thoughts and perceptions alone. An observer must exist and this replaces the idealism with an even less coherent dualism. Monist materialism is less superfluous then dualism. in short, if things only exist because I percieve them, who is percieving me?

4) Idealists cannot explain how any given human can be ignorant of anything or unable to do certain acts given the mind is THE creator and controller of all things real. Many try to get out of this by presupposing other minds...but these minds cannot be percieved/thought all the time. This negates the original argument of thoughts being all we know and hence all we can say exists.

5) The phenomenon of negating beliefs, idealists cannot deal with this. Since thinking something makes it real, any nonidealist thoughts would have to be real.

6) What is the actual substance of idealist "entities" when percieved made of? How do we percieve the substance? We can for example make certain statements concerning the structue and nature of matter with different theories. Idealism however does not allow for this, as such things will only exist as "perception" requiring itself an underlying substance.

7) How do we percieve idealism or justify the belief in things like atoms?

By what mechanism(or group thereof) does this all operate? I cannot see these mechanisms that makes idealism work, so does that mean they do not exist?

8) With idealism it is difficult to explain why the same mental substance manifests itself in radically different ways(sight vs sound vs touch) via idealist mechanism of the mind. Why are we in fact limited to these senses and not others? Materialism though gives fairly simple and straight forward answers by the fact that the mind didn't create its own sensations. We have different organs, developed through blind causality, that transmit different aspects of the enviroment to us.

9) A pluralist/dualist position is more superfluous then a monist one, whether idealist or materialist. Even if a monist explanation is possible it is more reasonable to adhere to, even if a pluralist position is just as possible.

10) Pluralists cannot state how it is two or more radical substances interact....making their theories somewhat incoherent.

11) Such pluralist interaction would violate the first law of thermodynamics.

12) Lastly materialism is less superfluous in the face of an external world then idealism. As idealism to establish an external world must posit third, very superfluous entities/super-minds like God. That is positing the substance for things seen and a special unseen force to control it. Which in a sense negates many original idealist arguments whereas materialism only has substance to compose seen things.

All these points prove materialism to be true beyond a reasonable doubt via process of elmination.

Peskanov :

RE : Why not assume materialism?

Originally posted by AmateurScientist

What does it truly mean to adopt a "neutral" position with respect to whether consciousness can arise from physical processes?

This is not a trivial question.

I maintain, as I suppose PixyMisa does, that to adopt what you call a "neutral" position is in fact a dispensing of it. It is anti-materialism. By definition, then, one is adopting the position that consciousness must be something other than arising solely from or contained within the physical. That is the only way one can conceive of p-zombies in the manner in which Chalmers et al. define them.



Peskanov said it clearly - it is 'dangerous' for a materialist to take a neutral position.

All I can say is this :

http://www.2think.org/2think.shtml


Arriving at a tentative conclusion vs. beginning at a conclusion that must be defended

The above statement in regards to Islam is an example of someone who once forming (or being born with) a conclusion must do everything to defend it. If the author of the web page really believed his statement then it would be 'unreasonable' for him not to conclude that every large or rapidly growing movement or religion is "True". People tend to create their own conclusion boxes. They then make statements that can't be logically defended--but can help solidify the box they are living in. The assumptions that make up the box are not carefully evaluated.

An example of this from a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint can be found in the August 12, 1996 issue of Christianity Today. On page 64, Charles Colson, writing about what Christians must do to defend their beliefs against evolution, insists that "Christians must come together, craft a credible apologetic, and then refuse to back down". The author doesn't ask that the evidence be examined or that the Truth be sought. Similar statements have also been made by Mormon leaders.

The author Matt Berry states, "The search for] Truth does not begin with an answer on behalf of which all questions must constantly rearrange themselves. The [search for] Truth begins with fearless questions." This all seems so basic and self-evident, but large segments of the population haven't been able to (or don't want to) grasp this fundamental Truth.




I reject any line of thought that begins with its conclusion and then depends on the assumption of the conclusion to be able to defend the conclusion.

Originally posted by c4ts


If you remove the senses, memory, the perception of the passage of time, and all other parts that comprise awareness, as suggested by the poem, what is left? Can that really be said to be conscionable?

Well, I may be usuing a different concept of 'consciousness' to you. I woudl say all of the above are mere zombie-functions being witnessed by consciousness. Maybe the Brahmans experience something higher, once the lower has been removed.

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon


Indeed, this would point towards a soul, or some aproxiamtion thereof. And for that there is... no evidence, other than your assertion.

Care to show some?

I was answering a question about mysticism and consciousness. If I had 'evidence' that mysticism was true then the world would be a different place.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by DialecticMaterialist
Materialism to me seems the only tenable position. Why?

1) Materialism is parsimonous given what we know in science.



No I would say idealism is. After all idealists are both dispensing with a material world and they are not committed to suppose that there is a unique reality which are theories are trying to describe.



2) Idealism cannot explain why we have different ideas,why things change,where the "mind"comes from etc. If things only exist because they are percieved;where did the perciever come from?



Perceivers are self-subsistent. They exist in there own right and don't come from anywhere.



This is easily explained by materialism via ignorance of what is real(impossible in idealism) and by the blind nature of causality in materialism. However in idealism causality is guided and one can literally be ignorant of nothing that exists, creating a demand for further explanation.



Sorry but I don't understand any of this. Why shouldn't idealists be ignorant of something that exists? :eek:



3) Idealism is absurd in that all that exists is supposed to be ideas and perceptions;



You are in error. Where did you get this idea from? Selves also exist.



but then what is doing all the "thinking" and "observing"? The mind is obviously not thought of or observed so something must exist besides thoughts and perceptions alone. An observer must exist and this replaces the idealism with an even less coherent dualism. Monist materialism is less superfluous then dualism. in short, if things only exist because I percieve them, who is percieving me?



Idealism can't be considered anymore of a dualist position than materialism (apart from materialists who literally deny the existence of conscious experience). And things don't only exist because you perceive them. And even if that were true, it only applies to the realm of the perceptually experienced, not to experiencers.



4) Idealists cannot explain how any given human can be ignorant of anything or unable to do certain acts given the mind is THE creator and controller of all things real.



Where on earth are you getting your ideas of idealism from! :eek: If I am the creator and controller of all things real then why don't I think into existence a thick wad of bank notes! LOL




Many try to get out of this by presupposing other minds...but these minds cannot be percieved/thought all the time. This negates the original argument of thoughts being all we know and hence all we can say exists.



You're simply in error about what subjective idealism is saying.



5) The phenomenon of negating beliefs, idealists cannot deal with this. Since thinking something makes it real, any nonidealist thoughts would have to be real.



Thinking something makes it real?? :confused: :eek:



6) What is the actual substance of idealist "entities" when percieved made of?



In a complete literal sense they are not made of anything.




How do we percieve the substance?



What substance? Idealists don't believe in any substance comprising the external world.


We can for example make certain statements concerning the structue and nature of matter with different theories. Idealism however does not allow for this,


But of course it does!



as such things will only exist as "perception" requiring itself an underlying substance.


There is no underlying substance.



7) How do we percieve idealism or justify the belief in things like atoms?



Things exist either because we "directly" perceive them, or they play a fruitful role in our successful theories (whether explicit or implicit) of the world, or parts of the world.



By what mechanism(or group thereof) does this all operate? I cannot see these mechanisms that makes idealism work, so does that mean they do not exist?



The same mechanisms as materialism.



8) With idealism it is difficult to explain why the same mental substance manifests itself in radically different ways(sight vs sound vs touch) via idealist mechanism of the mind.



Mental substance? What is mental substance?



Why are we in fact limited to these senses and not others?



{shrugs} Who knows? Is this supposed to be a problem applicable only to idealism?


Materialism though gives fairly simple and straight forward answers by the fact that the mind didn't create its own sensations.



It's essentially the same for both the theistic subjective idealist and the materialist. In the case of the former our sensory perceptions are a kind of result of the a collorboration between God's mind and our own; in the latter it is the moulding by the mind, dictated by some implicitly held theory, of a putative mind-independent reality.



12) Lastly materialism is less superfluous in the face of an external world then idealism. As idealism to establish an external world must posit third, very superfluous entities/super-minds like God.



They don't need to. And bear in mind that idealists dispense with a whole material reality!



That is positing the substance for things seen and a special unseen force to control it. Which in a sense negates many original idealist arguments whereas materialism only has substance to compose seen things.



Material substance? Didn't think any materialists believed in material substance anymore!



All these points prove materialism to be true beyond a reasonable doubt via process of elmination.

Dear me! You systematically comprehensively misunderstand what idealism is, so I think your conclusion here is a bit premature.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

I reject any line of thought that begins with its conclusion and then depends on the assumption of the conclusion to be able to defend the conclusion.

Funny--that's exactly what's wrong about the conceivability of p-zombies argument's being asserted as a supposed proof that materialism must be false.

AS

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


Funny--that's exactly what's wrong about the conceivability of p-zombies argument's being asserted as a supposed proof that materialism must be false.

AS

This would only be true if the reality we are trying to explain did not appear dualistic. And remember I am a monist. It is nevertheless true that reality appears to us to be split into mental things and physical things. The materialists try to shrug and make out that they "see no reason" to consider mind and matter to be significantly different things. This is where it comes back to language. Think about the way a conscious being learns to navigate reality. First there are just sensations - then if it is a slightly more complex being the sensations collect together as "perceptions", and in complex life forms like humans a further stage of "concepts" emerges. The we invent words to label the concepts and come to JREF and use those words to have a debate about the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. The crucial thing is that the whole reason this debate is being had is because of those noun-concepts - "things" - there is an absolute and perfectly demonstrable split between mental things and physical things- things which exist as part of the outside world and things which exist in the internal world of the mind. Chalmers simply starts from an observation that reality is perceived to be dualistic, and if the materialist claims otherwise he is telling himself lies on a truly monumental scale. The materialist position, by sharp contrast, is that "there is no reason to believe reality is dualistic". They try to claim that there is no dualism in our languages, our concepts or our reality, even though any honest evaluation of this things reveals a blatant an unmistakable percieved dualism. In short, Chalmers starts from the position of what reality seems to be, and materialism starts from the position that depends on an assumption which was introduced as a conceptual tool for examing the physical world in isolation from the subjective realm, and claims there is no reason to believe that the subjective realm is anything different to the physical realm. They do this even though science itself is founded on a method which is critically dependent on the very same dualism the materialists claim not to be able to see - science deliberately eliminates the subjective. You have now gone a step further and claimed that since you cannot distinguish between objective+subjective and objective-on-its-own (having eliminated the subjective from your method), that there is no reason to believe that there is anything different about these things. The harder you look at it the more silly becomes materialism. :)

[Win]

Loki:

Yes, but if I have understood what you are saying above, then the "state of the world" is actually compatible with both your preferred dualism, and Type-A materialism, isn't it? Doesn't this mean that P-Zombies don't actually help at all in determining which alternative is correct? Doesn't this force us to look to other thought experiements to try and determine the truth behind the "state of the world"?

Well, no. The "state of the world" includes qualia. *We* know this as a consequence of our direct access. So long as you're committed to the position that qualia really exist, the Type-A materialist conception will be unsatisfying, because it doesn't, as Chalmers puts it, "take consciousness seriously." It denies the existence of qualia as anything more than the "illusion" created by our nueral architecture. That explains a p-zombie's consciousness, not our, because it doesn't explain the qualia as a real existent.

[Yahzi]

Win
It denies the existence of qualia as anything more than the "illusion" created by our nueral architecture.
Qualia is just what brain states look like from a particular angle.

It's like looking at the pyramids: from the outside, they look one way, from the inside, they look different.

But you can't imagine brain states without qualia, anymore than you can imagine pyramids without insides.

Hence, p-zombies are not logically possible.

AmateurScientist
Hmm... well, he didn't post a huffy response. That's an improvement. Really, it is.

UCE
Chalmers simply starts from an observation that reality is perceived to be dualistic
The earth is perceived to be flat.

One might conclude that unexamined perception is not a particularly reliable guide to reality.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Yahzi


One might conclude that unexamined perception is not a particularly reliable guide to reality.

One who actually does so will not be a materialist. ;)

[Peskanov]

UCE,

----
quote:
Peskanov said it clearly - it is 'dangerous' for a materialist to take a neutral position.
----

Sorry, I did not say that. I said that the idea of p-zombies comes from a dangerous position.
In this case, a neutral position would be to confess ignorance about the real nature of consciousness and remain there. I don't see anybody in this thread taking such position;
Your position is that is possible to correctly emulate human behaviour without consciousness (p-zombie). This is far from neutral, specially when you negate to provide a definition of consciousness and the avalaible ones does not help you either.

----
quote:
Arriving at a tentative conclusion vs. beginning at a conclusion that must be defended

I reject any line of thought that begins with its conclusion and then depends on the assumption of the conclusion to be able to defend the conclusion.
----

This is what you are doing when you say that p-zombies are logically posible. I am still waiting an explanation how is possible to emulate human behaviour without consciousness.
See, the word "subjective" is not explanation of consciousness, but a condition. You can not use it to stop providing explanations. Where starts and where ends this subjective experience? I am conscient of taking decissions. Can this decisions be taken without me experiencing the process, or is this experience part of the decission?
Some dualist say consciousness is totally passive. In their view, p-zombies are possible. Other dualist do not consider consciousness as pasive, so I can not see how p-zombies could be possible there.
In any case, nobody provides clear evidence of the reality of his definition; as you can see, this is not a problem of materialism, but of universal lack of information.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Yahzi
Win

Qualia is just what brain states look like from a particular angle.

It's like looking at the pyramids: from the outside, they look one way, from the inside, they look different.

But you can't imagine brain states without qualia, anymore than you can imagine pyramids without insides.

Hence, p-zombies are not logically possible.



Yes, this is what I have been trying to say about conceiving of p-zombies, only not nearly so succinctly as you have just now.


AmateurScientist
Hmm... well, he didn't post a huffy response. That's an improvement. Really, it is.



I quite agree. I had just gotten used to not having to deal with Win's condescension and oversensitivity to criticism of any kind when he appeared in this thread and directly engaged me. I didn't invite his engagement, but I was content to treat it seriously and with cordialness.

Instead of making much of an attempt to take my rebuttals and objections to his arguments seriously, or to give them due consideration, Win prefers to issue enigmatic restatements of his earlier remarks without explanation to some, glib non-substantive responses to some others, and downright insulting and abusive responses to others still.

He then has the audacity to demand a huffy apology ("Penitently"--Please, be serious. This made my laugh uncontrollaby and then bite my tongue as to the only response such a stupid demand calls for) for what he mistakenly perceives as my baiting him.

I've had quite enough of this audiacious game in which I am expected to be subservient and unduly reverential to the all-knowing, preternaturally wise and insightful professor.

Methinks the professor was seduced by the dark side and is preoccupied with defending and justifying his following the cult of the dualist. To top it off, he purports to champion "civility," while simultaneously failing to practice it but selectively.


UCE

The earth is perceived to be flat.

One might conclude that unexamined perception is not a particularly reliable guide to reality. [/B]

Good point again. Thanks for hanging around in this thread.

AS

Yahzi :


But you can't imagine brain states without qualia, anymore than you can imagine pyramids without insides.

Hence, p-zombies are not logically possible.


Are pyramids conscious then?

:D


UCE

quote:
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Chalmers simply starts from an observation that reality is perceived to be dualistic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The earth is perceived to be flat.


Indeed. And the Universe is perceived to be made of material. ;)


One might conclude that unexamined perception is not a particularly reliable guide to reality.


Hence we are examining it. :)

Peskanov


I am still waiting an explanation how is possible to emulate human behaviour without consciousness.


Well, this is part of my job. I work on software which simulates the external environment in a battle for training members of the armed forces. Specifically the software I have been involved with is used in military flight simulators. These simulators are much more useful if the simulated enemy actually behaves like a human instead of like a computer. Much research is going on regarding neural nets and the possibility of 'teaching' them to behave like human pilots. I see no reason at all why a sufficiently powerfull neural net, given the correct 'training' could not emulate much of human behaviour. I would question whether it could emulate altruism or love, but I'm not sure these are functions of the analytical 'mind'.


See, the word "subjective" is not explanation of consciousness, but a condition. You can not use it to stop providing explanations. Where starts and where ends this subjective experience?


It never ends. :)


I am conscient of taking decissions. Can this decisions be taken without me experiencing the process, or is this experience part of the decission?


Neural nets make decisions all the time. Whether or not their decisions were pre-determined is another question, but they do not need to be aware.

[Soubrette]

All quotes in bold originally posted by Loki
Win,


Okay, I'm understanding this (I think). What you seem to be saying is that P-Zombies also have "direct internal access" to their qualia - except it's false. I can only assume that this means that 'qualia' in P-ZombieWorld are some sort of illusion, or figment. In other words, in P-ZombieWorld humans are pretty much the way Type-A materialists (using the Chalmers category system) say we are? Is that about it? Dennet says that (a) we seem to have 'experience', but (b) once we fully understand the functioning of the brain we'll see that this 'experience' is an illusion - doesn't he? Isn't that the same thing your describing with P-Zombie Win?

I think Win is saying that p-zombies erronously assume they have direct access :)

They think this due to the limitation of our vocabulary (kind of :p) Everything we describe about an experience, a p-zombie would nod excited and say yes yes I see red, I smell the rose, I feel the water against my skin. Each and every aspect of that experience that I experience is experienced by p-Sou. Except one - she does not have the experience of the experience. But that experience adds nothing to the actual experience itself. So when we are talking about our experiences she will intuitively think she has direct access to it - because our actual experience is the same :)

So she will tell me adamantly that of course she experiences the experience. After all we've just point by point described the same damned experience haven't we????

But she'd be wrong and I'd be right. I DO have direct access because I know I have that extra layer. She just intuitively thinks she does.

What interests me is what would happen if my direct access was taken away (in a hideous accident :eek: ) Would I wake up and know I was a p-zombie?

This is what UcE is saying I think) when he says that HPC is not explainable under Darwin's theory of evolution. HPC simply adds nothing to the experience itself - it's just an extra layer of knowing we experience something.

Yes, but if I have understood what you are saying above, then the "state of the world" is actually compatible with both your preferred dualism, and Type-A materialism, isn't it? Doesn't this mean that P-Zombies don't actually help at all in determining which alternative is correct? Doesn't this force us to look to other thought experiements to try and determine the truth behind the "state of the world"?

P-zombies are just a thought experiment to try and simply explain that the phenomenon known as HPC (on this board anyway :D) is irreducable to brain function. Because the brain will function the same with or without HPC. Unless you can put forward some logical reason as to why this isn't the case ;)

So if HPC cannot be reduced to brain function - then what is it? And this is where, I think, Win's dualism gets interesting. I'd like to see some threads saying let's slog out the logic of property dualism somewhere else - on this thread we will assume it to be true and the dualist (ok ok both of them;)) amongst us, can explain the actual implications of this duality.

Because at the moment property dualism seems only centimetres away from Physicalism or Modern Materialism to me :)

Sou

(It's funny but AS and Win remind me so much of each other :D - sorry guys :D)

[AmateurScientist]

Sou,

Thanks for the clear distillation of p-zombies. Finally, one that actually makes sense, even if they are flawed.

Perhaps you should be the philosophy professor defending dualism. Someone else apparently has great difficulty explaining concepts in 500,000 words or less.

(It's funny but AS and Win remind me so much of each other - sorry guys )

:mad:

Do you really think so? I mean, do your really think that I am that pedantic, condescending and priggish?

AS

[Lord Kenneth]

If it consoles you any, AS, you're the intelligent one.

[Soubrette]

All quotes in bold by originally posted by AmateurScientist
Sou,

Thanks for the clear distillation of p-zombies. Finally, one that actually makes sense, even if they are flawed.

Perhaps you should be the philosophy professor defending dualism. Someone else apparently has great difficulty explaining concepts in 500,000 words or less.

Well, maybe you should thank Win - he taught me everything I know :D Oh ok - maybe slimshady put a hand in the mix too (you aint' getting away with it fella - just in case I've said something wrong ;))


:mad:

Do you really think so? I mean, do your really think that I am that pedantic, condescending and priggish?

AS

I don't think either of you are totally pedantic, condescending and priggish - but I think both of you are very sensitive to perceived insults :p

You really are very alike EXCEPT it's Win who always seems to be apologising :eek:

:D

But I kinda like you both despite of it :D :p :D

DC

Just because you don't understand what one person is saying or just because you agree with someone else - it doesn't automatically make that person intelligent. That you think so reflects poorly on your own intelligence imo

Sou
(Edited to add - And AS - that was a general comment to DC - in no way am I implying you aren't intelligent - as if I'd dare ;))

[Loki]

Win/Sou,

I'm feeling a little like BillyJoe in the Duplicator thread - you keep writing words, I keep reading them, but comprehension continues to refuse to show up.

(Win wrote) : The "state of the world" includes qualia.
Yes, but that's not denied by Type-A materialists. Isn't the question (for Dennett) "what actually are qualia"? Perhaps I have that wrong ... you seem to be implying that I do.

So long as you're committed to the position that qualia really exist, the Type-A materialist conception will be unsatisfying, because it doesn't, as Chalmers puts it, "take consciousness seriously."
Now, I read this, and it seems to clearly state that you know "the truth" about qualia because you assume it! Why should I be "committed to the position that qualia really exist", rather than take the position "qualia may exist, or may be a subtle illusion, or may be 'x'"? How should I read the above quote as being anything other that a straight out expression of "assuming 'X' is true, then 'X' is true"?

Anyway, P-Zombie Win would also be committed to the position that qualia really exist.

In case it's not clear, the question I'll asking here is not "are qualia real", but "what evidence makes you (Win/Sou) believe they are real"? The short answer seems to be "Direct Internal Access" (DIA).

Well, it seems to me that you are saying that Win and P-Zombie Win would both hold this 'qualia are real" position, and would both offer the same 'evidence' in support of their position. So, if the DIA evidence in this world leads to a 'true' conclusion, but the exact same evidence leads to 'false' in P-ZombieWorld, then the evidence doesn't actually tell us which world we're in, does it? How could it?

Seems to me that this can only mean that DIA of qualia - if viewed in isolation - tells us nothing about the underlying "truth" of that which we are accessing (or thik we're accessing)

(sou wrote) : I think Win is saying that p-zombies erronously assume they have direct access.
Yes, but as far as I can see his reason for asserting that P-Zombies are wrong, and he is right, is that he is right.

(sou wrote) : I DO have direct access because I know I have that extra layer. She just intuitively thinks she does.
perhaps this is simply where I'm failing...I can't see how you differentiate between "I know" and "she intuitively thinks". Stop for a moment, and focus inward on the 'experience of seeing red". That's your DIA of seeing red. Now, try and see how you could believe you had "experienced seeing red", without actually doing so?!?!

What interests me is what would happen if my direct access was taken away (in a hideous accident ) Would I wake up and know I was a p-zombie?
An interesting way of asking essentially the same question! If DIA was suddenly taken away from you, would you know this?

For some strange (to me) reason, a PZombie who has never had DIA, still tries to convince me that he has indeed had it. He gets frustrated as he tries to express in 3rd person terms the 1st person perspective he claims to have. He insists that there is "something it is like to be a bat", and "something it is like to be a humna", and that he knows this to be true because he has DIA. If I suggest to him that perhaps he doesn't have DIA, he scoffs and ridicules me, saying that if I'm stupid enough to deny such a basic fact of human existence then I'm just a dogmatic materialist who will never listen to anything that threatens my "need to believe". When I ask him what evidence can he provide to back up this claim, he gets really frustrated, and shouts "I just told you - I have direct internal access to qualia. What more do you want me to say!". And yet, the entire time, he in fact doesn't have DIA! Again, the question (for me) remains - why is the P-Zombie so passionately defending his DIA when it in fact isn't there? And this leads directly to "if the P-Zombie can be so wrong, yet so adamant, about DIA, then why should I trust Win (or Sou's) assertion that their claim of DIA is anymore reliable than the P-Zombie?"

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Win
A general note on what it means for a p-zombie to be "indistinguishable"
from a person.

I am incapable of distinguishing whether any given individual I might
meet is a p-zombie or a person. On the other hand, I know I'm not a
p-zombie. Therefore a p-zombie and a person are not indistinguishable
in principle, because I can tell the difference as regards myself.
And so can you.

The note helps, but one cannot tell if one is a p-zombie or not.

There are two doors. Behind one is certain death; the other, freedom.
Two fellows Jeoff and Jeon stand beside the doors, one always tells
the truth and one always tells a lie. What question could you ask in
order to safely pass through both doors? None that I can think of.

Simillarly, the p-zombie problem. Lets say Jeon has consiousness and
Jeoff does not. You examine both Jeon and Jeoff, ask questions, and
the like, you cannot tell one from the other. Even if you asked on about
the other you get an answer like, "I don't know."

In then end you cannot know if your a p-zombie,
because you give the same answer as a p-zombie.
Otherwise all p-zombies would answer or act otherwise.

P.S. I hope I got that arguement right. :)

[c4ts]

Originally posted by John Lockard

The note helps, but one cannot tell if one is a p-zombie or not.

There are two doors. Behind one is certain death; the other, freedom.
Two fellows Jeoff and Jeon stand beside the doors, one always tells
the truth and one always tells a lie. What question could you ask in
order to safely pass through both doors? None that I can think of.

Simillarly, the p-zombie problem. Lets say Jeon has consiousness and
Jeoff does not. You examine both Jeon and Jeoff, ask questions, and
the like, you cannot tell one from the other. Even if you asked on about
the other you get an answer like, "I don't know."

In then end you cannot know if your a p-zombie,
because you give the same answer as a p-zombie.
Otherwise all p-zombies would answer or act otherwise.

P.S. I hope I got that arguement right. :)

What if you ask them to walk through a door? Wouldn't the one who refuses to enter be the one guarding certain death?

[Lord Kenneth]

Originally posted by Soubrette

DC

Just because you don't understand what one person is saying or just because you agree with someone else - it doesn't automatically make that person intelligent. That you think so reflects poorly on your own intelligence imo

Sou
(Edited to add - And AS - that was a general comment to DC - in no way am I implying you aren't intelligent - as if I'd dare ;))

Of course.

But AS does indeed to appear intelligent, unlike his... "competition".

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by John Lockard

There are two doors. Behind one is certain death; the other, freedom.
Two fellows Jeoff and Jeon stand beside the doors, one always tells
the truth and one always tells a lie. What question could you ask in
order to safely pass through both doors? None that I can think of.



Actually, there is a question you can ask either Jeoff or Jeon which will allow you safe passage.

Ask Jeoff (or Jeon--it doesn't matter which you choose) this question:

"If I ask Jeon (this has to be ther other guy, despite which guy you choose to direct your question to) whether I can safely pass through his door and live, will he tell me the truth?"

If Jeoff answers, "No," then you should go through Jeon's door. If he answers, "Yes," then go through Jeoff's door.

You cannot pass through both doors if one of them leads to certain death. I suspect you meant to say "the correct" door.

AS

[edited for clarity]

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Dark Cobra


Of course.

But AS does indeed to appear intelligent, unlike his... "competition".

Thanks, DC. Of course, I could be a p-zombie and never know it. I could even be Win's sock puppet, engaged in a peverse, but amusing circus.

:D

AS

[Win]

Loki:

Well, it seems to me that you are saying that Win and P-Zombie Win would both hold this 'qualia are real" position, and would both offer the same 'evidence' in support of their position. So, if the DIA evidence in this world leads to a 'true' conclusion, but the exact same evidence leads to 'false' in P-ZombieWorld, then the evidence doesn't actually tell us which world we're in, does it? How could it?

The source of confusion, I think, is that here, and later in your post, you seem to be suggesting that you need to take my word for it that I'm not a p-zombie, and that qualia exist.

You don't.

You know yourself that you have phenomenal experiences. You don't have to take anyone's word for that. Since you know that you have those phenomenal experiences, it is rational to suppose that other people have them, too.

So the evidence, your direct access to your own phenomenal consciousness, tells you that this isn't zombie world.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Loki


For some strange (to me) reason, a PZombie who has never had DIA, still tries to convince me that he has indeed had it. He gets frustrated as he tries to express in 3rd person terms the 1st person perspective he claims to have. He insists that there is "something it is like to be a bat", and "something it is like to be a humna", and that he knows this to be true because he has DIA. If I suggest to him that perhaps he doesn't have DIA, he scoffs and ridicules me, saying that if I'm stupid enough to deny such a basic fact of human existence then I'm just a dogmatic materialist who will never listen to anything that threatens my "need to believe". When I ask him what evidence can he provide to back up this claim, he gets really frustrated, and shouts "I just told you - I have direct internal access to qualia. What more do you want me to say!". And yet, the entire time, he in fact doesn't have DIA! Again, the question (for me) remains - why is the P-Zombie so passionately defending his DIA when it in fact isn't there? And this leads directly to "if the P-Zombie can be so wrong, yet so adamant, about DIA, then why should I trust Win (or Sou's) assertion that their claim of DIA is anymore reliable than the P-Zombie?"

A very good question. I have been asking essentially (although I don't think Win understands the meaning of the word "essentially") the same question, albeit phrased very differently.

I have not gotten a substantive response that reflects an appreciation for the insight behind the question. I don't suppose that you will get one that satisfies you either.

I could be wrong.

AS

[Loki]

Win,

...you seem to be suggesting that you need to take my word for it that I'm not a p-zombie, and that qualia exist.

No, that's not the confusion (I think - perhaps I'm confused about that?)

So the evidence, your direct access to your own phenomenal consciousness, tells you that this isn't zombie world.
But this is precisely the answer I get from the P-Zombie.

"I'm sorry, you're just a P-Zombie - you don't have direct access, you just think you do" I say.
"Well, you might think that, but I can assure you that I *know* for a fact that I do have direct access" replies the P-Zombie.

Why is he so sure he has it, since he doesn't ? If he can be just as certain as I am that he has it, then why should I discount his certainty, and trust my certainty?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Can someone define p-zombie in terms of other, well-defined concepts (not, e.g., consciousness)?

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Loki
.....why should I discount his certainty, and trust my certainty?

*I* think. ;) Who cares what his problem is?

Ah, nevermind. :(

[Win]

Loki:

No, that's not the confusion (I think - perhaps I'm confused about that?)

I think you may be. Let's play it out a little.

But this is precisely the answer I get from the P-Zombie.

Yes. But the issue isn't whether I am a p-zombie. The issue is whether you are.

The evidence doesn't come from what I tell you. Whether I am a p-zombie or not is irrelevant.

Why is he so sure he has it, since he doesn't ? If he can be just as certain as I am that he has it, then why should I discount his certainty, and trust my certainty?

Why should you trust your certainty? You *know* that phenomenal consciousness exists because you have direct access to it. The p-zombie, while honestly believing he does, doesn't, and there is a qualitative difference between your experience and your p-zombie twin's experience, or rather lack of it.

The only evidence you'll ever have for the existence of phenomenal consciousness is your own.

The point of the p-zombie thought experiment is to show that it's possible to exhibit all the behaviours and have all the beliefs associated with having phenomenal consciousness and still lack it. But that doesn't justify saying, aha, if all the behaviours and beliefs are explained, that's consciousness explained. Because the qualia themselves are still left unexplained. And each of us knows that they exist.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:The point of the p-zombie thought experiment is to show that it's possible to exhibit all the behaviours and have all the beliefs associated with having phenomenal consciousness and still lack it. But that doesn't justify saying, aha, if all the behaviours and beliefs are explained, that's consciousness explained. Because the qualia themselves are still left unexplained. And each of us knows that they exist.
Why not say, instead, that consciousness is a content-free term? It's just a word we made up to encompass the mish-mash of self-awareness, sensory input, memory, and so forth, that make up our brains.

~~ Paul

[c4ts]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Win said:
Why not say, instead, that consciousness is a content-free term? It's just a word we made up to encompass the mish-mash of self-awareness, sensory input, memory, and so forth, that make up our brains.

~~ Paul

Becuase UCE says that isn't what he's talking about.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Okay, what if I amend my statement?

Why not say, instead, that consciousness is a content-free term? It's just a word we made up to encompass the mish-mash of self-awareness, sensory input, memory, higher-level function monitoring, and so forth, that make up our brains.

What, precisely, is this elusive consciousness that we spend so much time ruminating over? I'm not asking if it's a product of our brains or something outside our brains. I'm asking exactly what portion of our overall experience are we calling consciousness?

http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwphil/pctall.html

"The problem with the notion of "phenomenal consciousness" is that the term is so laden with ambiguities that we cannot trust it to pick out any one kind of mental state."

~~ Paul

[c4ts]

Does "intelligent perception of experience" help?

[Loki]

Win,

Yes. But the issue isn't whether I am a p-zombie. The issue is whether you are.
No, the issue is why is P-Zombie Win (pWin) so sure he's not a P-Zombie.
The evidence doesn't come from what I tell you. Whether I am a p-zombie or not is irrelevant.

Win to loki:
"The only evidence you'll ever have for the existence of phenomenal consciousness is your own. It is correct".

Win to pLoki
"The only evidence you'll ever have for the existence of phenomenal consciousness is your own. It is, unfortuantely, not correct".

Because the qualia themselves are still left unexplained. And each of us knows that they exist.
Yes, including pWin! He knows, just as well as you and I, that he has these qualia. Except he doesn't...

...and there is a qualitative difference between your experience and your p-zombie twin's experience, or rather lack of it
If I ask pWin (who doesn't know he's a P-Zombie) "is there a qualitative difference between your experience and your p-zombie twin" he will answer "yes, because the p-zombie doesn't have the same direct access I have - he's missing the 'quality' that I have access to". Now, you and I both snicker behind his back, because we know that poor old pWin is deluding himself - although he thinks and says he has this 'quality' aspect to his experiences, we know he doesn't.

Still, for me the question remains how can he talk so assertively (and honestly - by definition, he's not lying, unless you are also lying - after all, he's an exact replica of you!) about his direct access if he doesn't have it? And if he can be so completely fooled into believing that he has it, then why can't I be? You seem to be saying "you are correct to trust your own perception", and also "a P-Zombie is wrong to trust his own perception". Why the difference, unless you are just starting from the assumption that there is a difference (even if you can't explain the difference)?

Let me mix your thought experiments a little. We have a "DupliZombifier". I strap Win into the 'in' chair in room A. In rooms B and C we have 'out' chairs. I throw the switch, and instantly I get a 'true' copy of Win in one 'out' chair, and a p-Zombie copy of Win in the other 'out' chair (as a small offering to AmateurScientist, lets just say that the Win in the 'in' chair is vaporised after a moment (or two) of excruiciating pain - sorry Win, but I'm playing to the audience here and it's my thought experiment, okay?). Anyway, the DupliZombifier also includes a randomizer, so no one knows which room (B or C) contains the p-zombie.

So we sit down to interview our two potential Wins. Both answer the same to any question regarding qualia, direct access, and 'evidence'. Neither is lying. Both are at pains to express the 'quality' of their direct access. Both deny that it could be some sort of illusion. "I know what you're getting at", they both cry in stereo, "but you're wrong - I can assure you I'm not the p-zombie. Although I can't prove it to you, I have only to 'look within' to see that I do indeed have this extra 'experience' that marks me as the non-zombie." Of course, at least one of them is wrong. Why is it not possible they are both wrong?

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Win
Loki:

...snipped

Why should you trust your certainty? You *know* that phenomenal consciousness exists because you have direct access to it. The p-zombie, while honestly believing he does, doesn't, and there is a qualitative difference between your experience and your p-zombie twin's experience, or rather lack of it.

..snipped

Loki

I think this answers our question. If my HPC was sucked out of my body by some maliciously evil polymorph then I would know the difference.

So in your duplicate example - the duplicate Win without HPC would be aware of his loss - would be aware of the qualitative difference in his experience if you like before and after duplication.

P-Sou only assumes she has direct access because she never has. If she knew what it was like then she would know that she didn't have it - and there's a paradox to play around with ;)

So p-Sou is sure that she is not a p-zombie because she has every physical aspect of an experience. Her neurons in her brain fire in exactly the same way mine do. To that extent her experience and mine are the same. So intuitively she tells me that of course she is experiencing the experience.

But she isn't *sharp intake of breath* she is having the experience. She is not experiencing it as well as having it (damn our crappy vocab though :() I on the other hand know that I have that experience of the experience because I both have access to both the having of the experience and the experiencing of the having of the experience.

So my experience is a two layered thing - hers is only one :)

Sou

Originally posted by c4ts


Becuase UCE says that isn't what he's talking about.

'self-awareness' is exactly what I am talking about. I am talking about the awareness rather than the content that one is aware of.

Paul :


I'm asking exactly what portion of our overall experience are we calling consciousness?


It is all of it. Everything you experience you experience relative to "I". I am talking about that relationship itself - the relationship between "I" and "everything I am aware of." You are attempting to put "I" within the mish-mash of everything that "I" am aware of.

[Loki]

Sou,

I on the other hand know that I have that experience of the experience because I both have access to both the having of the experience and the experiencing of the having of the experience.

So my experience is a two layered thing - hers is only one
But the problem (for me) still remains - pSou will answer exactly as you have just done. PSou assures me that she does in fact have the two layers. When I tell her she's mistaken, and in fact she isn't really having the experience of having the experience, she looks at me slightly strangely, starts to move slowly towards the nearest exit, and politely attempts to change the topic of conversation. In her eyes, I'm some sort of idiot that simply refuses to be told what to her is an obvious and self evident truth - she *does* have these two layers.

How can pSou be so adamant that she :
(a) totally understands the difference between 'having the experience' and 'having the experience of having the experience';
(b) she understands this because she can "look within" and verify for herself that these 'two layers' are in fact present.

Yet, she doesn't have the two layers. If she can be so sure yet so wrong, why can't you be so sure yet so wrong)?

[Soubrette]

All quotes originally posted by Loki
Sou,


But the problem (for me) still remains - pSou will answer exactly as you have just done. PSou assures me that she does in fact have the two layers. When I tell her she's mistaken, and in fact she isn't really having the experience of having the experience, she looks at me slightly strangely, starts to move slowly towards the nearest exit, and politely attempts to change the topic of conversation. In her eyes, I'm some sort of idiot that simply refuses to be told what to her is an obvious and self evident truth - she *does* have these two layers.

Pfft if she's anything like me (and I understand she's almost an exact duplicate;)) then she'll be enjoying the argument - although let's hope she never finds out she's wrong because pouty Sou lacks dignity ;)

I think she won't actually believe she has the two layers (don't tell Win though ;)). And I'm willing to confess that here I'm groping on my own and without Win's help. I think if you could explain HPC clearly enough to her she would have to admit that she does not have that objective awareness of her experience that I do - otherwise a p-zombie would not be logically coherent. But the fact that she would believe she does would be a huge hurdle to overcome - because everytime you tried to describe the experience she would say that yes she does experience that, and probably roll her eyes a little just to tease :p

How can pSou be so adamant that she :
(a) totally understands the difference between 'having the experience' and 'having the experience of having the experience';
(b) she understands this because she can "look within" and verify for herself that these 'two layers' are in fact present.

Yet, she doesn't have the two layers. If she can be so sure yet so wrong, why can't you be so sure yet so wrong)?

She's adamant because our actual experience is the same apart from HPC and that adds nothing to the actual experience.

She understands it because when she looks within she knows she is having an experience. She knows it. she feels it. Just like you and I. She is mistaking her knowledge of the experience for the objective experience of the experience.

And for me this is one of the strengths of the p-zombie argument. You don't understand why she can be so adamant that she has those two layers - it's because she is mistaken. And she is mistaken because HPC adds nothing to the experience. So her description of an experience and mine would be the same.

Sou

[AmateurScientist]

For anyone who cares to answer:

(Let me assume my best enigmatic hammekg voice):

Qualia *exist*?

(Or is that, "*Qualia* exist?")



***************

Is the above question epitemological or ontological?

(Think about it--it just might be a more sophisticated question that you initially think)


***************

Does cyberspace *exist*?

***************

Isn't this really the point of departure between those who accept that the conceivability of p-zombies kills materialism and those who do not?


If cyberspace's existence can be seen so clearly as an ontological question explained in terms of 1's and 0's at the machine level, and dualists are perfectly willing to accept that answer, why is it so much harder to accept that HPC is explainable in terms of neurons firing in concert?

Is it the access to experience thing again? Well, don't you have access to the experience that cyberspace is "out there" where you can visit this website and that, complete with addresses and apparent different "locations?"

Why is one experience any more reliable than the other, from an epistemological perspective?

You could ask this as, couldn't HPC really just be a very convincing illusion?

If you are inclined to answer "no," then isn't this just an intuitive response, not an empirical one, as the dualists here seem to insist?

AS

[Soubrette]

And one last Loki :)

p-Sou doesn't look within and verify she has direct access to HPC - she can't - she doesn't have it, I do (evil maniacal laughter echoes in dark corridor). She intuitively assumes she does because her actual experience and mine is the same (apart from the HPC part which adds nothing to that actual experience)

Sou

AS:


Is the above question epitemological or ontological?


It is ontological. We do not require philosophy to tell us that qualia exist. All we need to do is wake up and smell the coffee.


Does cyberspace *exist*?


Yep, but cyberspace isn't qualia.


Isn't this really the point of departure between those who accept that the conceivability of p-zombies kills materialism and those who do not?

If cyberspace's existence can be seen so clearly as an ontological question explained in terms of 1's and 0's at the machine level, and dualists are perfectly willing to accept that answer, why is it so much harder to accept that HPC is explainable in terms of neurons firing in concert?

Is it the access to experience thing again?


Yep. We have no reason to believe cyberspace is self-aware. We have reason to believe humans are self-aware.


Well, don't you have access to the experience that cyberspace is "out there" where you can visit this website and that, complete with addresses and apparent different "locations?"

Why is one experience any more reliable than the other, from an epistemological perspective?


Because we know DIRECTLY that brains have an internal self-awareness. We do not need "epistemology" aka "the study of what is knowable" - because we already know. On the other hand, we can demonstrate clearly that not only do we not know whether cyberspace is self-aware - we can NEVER know.


You could ask this as, couldn't HPC really just be a very convincing illusion?


NO! Who or what is experiencing the illusion? It makes no difference whether you call the experience real or illusory because all that matters is that there is an experience.


If you are inclined to answer "no," then isn't this just an intuitive response, not an empirical one, as the dualists here seem to insist?


It is empirical. The existence of a 1st-person experience is an empirical fact. The theoretical inability to determine whether a computer (or cyberspace) has an internal 1st-person experience is also an empirical fact.

[Loki]

Sou (and Win),

Thanks, but no sale I'm afraid. I've travelled this line before, and reached the same terminus as before. Try as I might, I just don't seem to be able to conceive of a difference between my 'direct access' and pLoki's lack thereof. I think simple repetition of the same points is unlikely to bring a breakthrough, so for now I'll just go back to my previous position - just assuming that it's somehow possible to honestly believe you are internally accessing something that in fact you aren't - yet not understanding how such a thing could be. But thanks for trying...

Accepting that these are empirical facts rather than intuitive guesses was without doubt the most important philosophical insight I have ever grasped. It changed my whole perspective on existence. I am aware that the claim that materialism has been demonstrated logically flawed will continue to be resisted by some of the people here. It is resisted by those people for the same reasons that accepting it was world-changing for me. Before that acceptance it was a case of taking a deep breath, and preparing to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew. I went through 3 weeks of calling myself a nihilist. I do not underestimate the importance of whether or not these are empirically demonstrable facts or mere intuitions. In my mind I had to demonstrate to myself that materialism was false with 100% certainty, and I believe this has been done. I also believe it has been shown as such on this board many times. That 100% certainty was the key to opening up whole new vistas of intellectual and spiritual understandings. I get the impression that some of the materialists here will only accept materialism is false if they are spoon-fed a fully-formed alternative worldview to adopt. No such worldview is available. Rather than there being a quick answer, there is an entire new ball-game in the offing - a ball-game where both ends of the pitch are in use, instead of just half of it. Furthermore it is even possible to play that ball-game without forgetting science and skepticism. Indeed retaining science and skepticism in ones armoury makes the investigation of the non-materialistic realm potentially a lot more profound, since one can still reject any claims or perceptions which clash with science - or at the very least one is forced to find a way to make sense of both science and metaphysics together. There is life after materialism, even for the skeptic.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Hi I have a lot of questions, I do hope you will forgive my ignorance of certain terms.

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

Well, I may be usuing a different concept of 'consciousness' to you. I woudl say all of the above are mere zombie-functions being witnessed by consciousness. Maybe the Brahmans experience something higher, once the lower has been removed.

What are the Brahmans? I did a google search but got results for an video game.


Originally posted by Soubrette
I think if you could explain HPC clearly enough to her she would have to admit that she does not have that objective awareness of her experience that I do - otherwise a p-zombie would not be logically coherent.

First what is HPC? Now if we say that we can explain HPC 'clearly enough' to grant a complete understanding that is the materialist view. The dualist are the one who say you can explain it as completely as possible but that is always lacking, and it is lacking the true experience of it.

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


I don't think it is consciousness you lose. I think it is everything else that you lose.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Neutrino Cannon

Indeed, this would point towards a soul, or some aproxiamtion thereof. And for that there is... no evidence, other than your assertion.

Care to show some?

Soul is not a good word, the word to use is "agent". It points towards an "agent".

The proof of the "agent" stems directly from the truth of the freedom of the will.

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16024&pagenumber=2


Originally posted by Win
Loki:



I think you may be. Let's play it out a little.



Yes. But the issue isn't whether I am a p-zombie. The issue is whether you are.

The evidence doesn't come from what I tell you. Whether I am a p-zombie or not is irrelevant.



Why should you trust your certainty? You *know* that phenomenal consciousness exists because you have direct access to it. The p-zombie, while honestly believing he does, doesn't, and there is a qualitative difference between your experience and your p-zombie twin's experience, or rather lack of it.

The only evidence you'll ever have for the existence of phenomenal consciousness is your own.

The point of the p-zombie thought experiment is to show that it's possible to exhibit all the behaviours and have all the beliefs associated with having phenomenal consciousness and still lack it. But that doesn't justify saying, aha, if all the behaviours and beliefs are explained, that's consciousness explained. Because the qualia themselves are still left unexplained. And each of us knows that they exist.

Thanks for the explanation! I think I understand what is meant by the p-zombie argument before!

What is not important is whether p-zombies can ever exist or not.

What is important is that we can think of automitons that are functionally and physically identical but that lack consciousness. Because we can think that way it suggests that when we think of conscoiusness we are not thinking of anything physical. In our thoughts we are naturally attributing consciousness to a non-phsyical aspect, thereby providing evidence to suggest dualism.

But what if I assert that it is not possible for a human being to think of something that is completely physically identical to something else?

I change my mind, you have concinved me that p-zombie is a very interesting argument. Thank you.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Loki
Sou (and Win),

Thanks, but no sale I'm afraid. I've travelled this line before, and reached the same terminus as before. Try as I might, I just don't seem to be able to conceive of a difference between my 'direct access' and pLoki's lack thereof. I think simple repetition of the same points is unlikely to bring a breakthrough, so for now I'll just go back to my previous position - just assuming that it's somehow possible to honestly believe you are internally accessing something that in fact you aren't - yet not understanding how such a thing could be. But thanks for trying...


It's like the Mary in a black + white room, in a way.

This is Chalmers idea, (I think), but is not mine.

Mary lives in a black and white room wearing black and white clothes and painted black and white her entire life. Mary has never seen any colors before, she has only seen black and white. However, every day she reads in her black and white books about the color red. Every day she talks on her black and white phone to someone who explains the color red to her as completely as possible.

Mary knows eveything she can be taught and told about red. EVERYTHING. Mary can answer questions any questions about red that you ask her. If you were to show Mary a red, green, blue, yellow, and orange blocks Mary could tell you which one was red.

But one day someone brings Mary a red flower. Now Mary has the experience of Red. She did not have this before.

P-zombie is Mary in the black and white room. Conscious person is Mary that has actually seen Red.

Both can answer any question about red. But only one Mary has experienced Red.

Rusty


What are the Brahmans? I did a google search but got results for an video game.


The Brahmans are the highest spiritual class in Hindu society. They are 'buddhas', or hindu priests.

http://www.buddhistdoor.com/passissue/9704/sources/teach29.htm


First what is HPC?


Hard Problem Consciousness. The elements of consciousness that materialism can't explain. The experience of the content of the mind, as opposed to the content itself.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
AS:

It is ontological. We do not require philosophy to tell us that qualia exist. All we need to do is wake up and smell the coffee.



But UCE, this is precisely what I'm asking about. You think qualia are so obvious, and I don't. Why is my doubt so unbelievable to you?

I'm asking about existence. What does it mean for qualia to exist? It does no good to merely assert that they do because we experience them. That is a naked assertion, just as you are so fond of labeling my arguments.

There are plenty of illusions we experience as real, but which are in fact illusions. Why can't the very existence of qualia be one of them?



Yep, but cyberspace isn't qualia.


But you experience cyberspace as a seamless web. It is analogous because although you experience cyberspace as a seamless web, it isn't really one. It's really an illusion created by a vast network of discrete computers linked by wires and electrical radiation.


Yep. We have no reason to believe cyberspace is self-aware. We have reason to believe humans are self-aware.


The question isn't about self-awareness. It's about existence in a meaningful sense.


Because we know DIRECTLY that brains have an internal self-awareness.


I understand self-awareness to be different from the concept of qualia. After all, the p-zombie is self-aware, right?

How do you know you have qualia? Because you intuit that you do? Doesn't the p-zombie intuit the same thing, albeit incorrectly?

Isn't this going around in circles? Aren't p-zombie argument proponents chasing their tails?


We do not need "epistemology" aka "the study of what is knowable" - because we already know.


Do we? Or are we relying too heavily on our intuition to tell us we have it? Can't this recursive feedback loop produce some bizarre results? The illusion of the existence of qualia, perhaps?


On the other hand, we can demonstrate clearly that not only do we not know whether cyberspace is self-aware - we can NEVER know.

Then you've just turned my ontological question into an epistemological one.

[QUOTE]
NO! [b]Who or what is experiencing the illusion? It makes no difference whether you call the experience real or illusory because all that matters is that there is an experience.


Bingo! There *IS* the experience. Is this ontological or epistemological?


It is empirical. The existence of a 1st-person experience is an empirical fact.


It is no more empirical fact than the "empirical fact" of the hypochondric who has convinced himself that he has an undetectable form of terminal cancer. Is either "fact" more reliable than the other?

AS

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Loki
Sou (and Win),

Thanks, but no sale I'm afraid. I've travelled this line before, and reached the same terminus as before. Try as I might, I just don't seem to be able to conceive of a difference between my 'direct access' and pLoki's lack thereof. I think simple repetition of the same points is unlikely to bring a breakthrough, so for now I'll just go back to my previous position - just assuming that it's somehow possible to honestly believe you are internally accessing something that in fact you aren't - yet not understanding how such a thing could be. But thanks for trying...

Hey - cheater - I just told you I like to argue and you pull the rug from beneath my feet :p

But p-Sou doesn't have direct access. She intuitively believes she does because there is no actual difference between my actual experience and hers.

It's a bit like the intuitive feel that many people get on that quiz choice question. Hobson's choice or something. There are three doors, one with a prize behind. You choose one and then one of the empty doors is opened. Do you switch to the other door?

Most people intuitively feel there is a 50/50 per cent chance of being right - so there is no point switching. They intuitively know this. And many argue this point fiercely and will keep arguing. Alot of people are never convinced by the argument - others are convinced only when they've done their own tests and played around with the scenario a bit *whistles and looks furtive*

But if you understand statistics properly then you will know you should switch and furthermore you will know that the other person is wrong - even though they are convinced they are right.

So I know because I have direct access to HPC. P-Sou knows because of her intuitive feelings - not because she has direct access.

And she has intuitive feelings because HPC adds nothing to the actual experience of seeing red. So she intuitively believes she experiences exactly the same as I do - because we have the same actual experience.

Oh and I like to have the last word too :p

;)

Sou
(Edited for clarity)

AS :


But UCE, this is precisely what I'm asking about. You think qualia are so obvious, and I don't. Why is my doubt so unbelievable to you?


Because Qualia are the one things we do know exist. From qualia we infer the existence of a material world. To then claim that the material world exists but the qualia do not appears to me to be the ultimate in upside-down thinking.


I'm asking about existence. What does it mean for qualia to exist? It does no good to merely assert that they do because we experience them. That is a naked assertion, just as you are so fond of labeling my arguments.


Well, that is the question. They do exist. I think you know what my response is to "what does it mean for them to exist".


There are plenty of illusions we experience as real, but which are in fact illusions. Why can't the very existence of qualia be one of them?


Because qualia are the 'baseline' - they are the ground within which all illusions occur. Without them there can be no illusions, and no reality.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, but cyberspace isn't qualia.

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

But you experience cyberspace as a seamless web. It is analogous because although you experience cyberspace as a seamless web, it isn't really one. It's really an illusion created by a vast network of discrete computers linked by wires and electrical radiation.


Well, that is interesting with regard to the unity of systems which can be otherwise considered as distributed. This is interesting in its own right, but has little to do with the Hard Problem.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep. We have no reason to believe cyberspace is self-aware. We have reason to believe humans are self-aware.

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

The question isn't about self-awareness. It's about existence in a meaningful sense.


It is certainly about different modes of existence. Both the physical world and qualia 'exist'. The question is how these types of existence are related. Materialism runs into trouble because once it accepts there are two different types of existence, and they are both real, it can't effectively put the genie back in the box and claim that consciousness is physical on any grounds apart from that it must do to protect materialism, and this is not convincing to a person who is willing to accept the reality of the perceived dualism of mind and matter and wishes to find an answer that actually makes sense. You don't find the truth by running away from awkward questions and inconsistencies.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because we know DIRECTLY that brains have an internal self-awareness.

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

I understand self-awareness to be different from the concept of qualia. After all, the p-zombie is self-aware, right?


No. The P-zombie is not self-aware, any more than your toaster is.


How do you know you have qualia? Because you intuit that you do? Doesn't the p-zombie intuit the same thing, albeit incorrectly?


I know I have qualia because qualia are my means of detecting that I myself exist. Without qualia I would be aware of neither myself nor the Universe. The P-zombie is aware of nothing. It is an automaton.


Isn't this going around in circles? Aren't p-zombie argument proponents chasing their tails?


I don't think so, no. They are a bit like the schroedingers cat proponents. They are trying to highlight a problem, in order to be better able to understand the solution.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We do not need "epistemology" aka "the study of what is knowable" - because we already know.

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

Do we? Or are we relying too heavily on our intuition to tell us we have it? Can't this recursive feedback loop produce some bizarre results? The illusion of the existence of qualia, perhaps?


Again...what or who is experiencing this illusion. It is the existence of the "I" which is being decieved that matters, not the deception itself.


It is no more empirical fact than the "empirical fact" of the hypochondric who has convinced himself that he has an undetectable form of terminal cancer. Is either "fact" more reliable than the other?


Depends whether the cancer is as self-evident as qualia are.

I'm not sure what you mean by "qualia don't meaningfully exist". They are my whole world.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Hey UE when you say that qualia is the whole world, I am curious, do you mean qualia is your whole world because that is all you can percieve of the world, or do you mean that the world only exists through the qualia?

If you would prefer I will go start a new thread. I find this all very interesting :)

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


There are plenty of illusions we experience as real, but which are in fact illusions. Why can't the very existence of qualia be one of them?




AS,

I wonder if you could tell me what the distinction is between declaring qualia to be "illusionary" and declaring them to be real? What I'm getting at is if they seem to exist, ie we appear to be directly apprehensive of qualia, than don't they exist by definition?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Here is the problem I see with Win's argument. Within dualism there is a dual meaning to "you" or "I". One meaning being the aspects of the mind which are physical brain processes, and the other being these other aspects which, according to Win, are not causally efficacious on the physical.

Win acknowledges that the brain does the thinking and remembering. So consider the statement "You know you have HPC because you have direct access to it".

This is really a non-sequitur. The first part "You know you have HPC" can only mean "you're brain knows you have HPC", since it is your brain that "knows" things. From what Win has said, the non-brain stuff is limited to the experiences themselves. This aspect is simply not cognitively equipped to interpret information, or draw conclusions. It is not meaningful to say that it "knows" anything.

But the second part, that you have direct access to it, is clearly false if you are talking about the brain. By definition, Win is claiming that the brain does not have direct access to it.

So what aspect of me knows that I possess HPC? If it is my brain, then how does it know it, and more importantly, how does it know it is right? If it is not my brain, but instead something that has "direct access to it", then how does it know anything? Where do the cognitive processes necessary for "me" to conclude from my direct access of HPC that I have it, come from?

And, of course, since it is Win's brain which is telling us all these wonderful things, from where does it obtain this information? The question "Why does Win's brain, which is not affected in any way by HPC, believe that Win has HPC" is dismissed by Win as some sort of coincidence. Why? Isn't it far more parsimonious to conclude that your brain believes you have experiences because it is, in fact, your brain which has direct access to them?

To assert that you brain knows something which is true, but that it has no way of knowing that it is true, is nonsensical.

Dr. Stupid

[Loki]

Sou,

I just told you I like to argue and you pull the rug from beneath my feet
Well, if you insist...

But p-Sou doesn't have direct access. She intuitively believes she does because there is no actual difference between my actual experience and hers.
Perhaps this is a way of asking the question - how can you be 'aware' of direct access, but not have it play a part in your thought processes? No, I don't think that helps....

It's a bit like the intuitive feel that many people get on that quiz choice question. Hobson's choice or something. There are three doors, one with a prize behind. You choose one and then one of the empty doors is opened. Do you switch to the other door?
The good old Monty Hall Problem - I like it a lot! And you're right - plenty of people refuse to accept the answer, even when it's explained. I just used this very same example in the Free Will thread with Rusty.

So I know because I have direct access to HPC. P-Sou knows because of her intuitive feelings - not because she has direct access.

And she has intuitive feelings because HPC adds nothing to the actual experience of seeing red.
But if it adds *nothing*, then how can you detect it's absence? You seem to be saying :

1. pSou is your average, garden variety Bristol P-Zombie, totally lacking HPC;
2. pSou suddenly 'gets' HPC via another of Dr Win's fabulous experimental devices ("the DeZombifier" -tm)
3. pSou suddenly says "damn - now I see what I was missing".

Surely, she can only say that phrase if she just gained something! Something that *does* impact on her thought processes.

Oh and I like to have the last word too.
Oh...then forget everything I just said :cool:

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

Rusty,

P-zombie is Mary in the black and white room. Conscious person is Mary that has actually seen Red.

Both can answer any question about red. But only one Mary has experienced Red
This doesn't help, because pMary will insist that she has in fact experienced red.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Soubrette


It's a bit like the intuitive feel that many people get on that quiz choice question. Hobson's choice or something. There are three doors, one with a prize behind. You choose one and then one of the empty doors is opened. Do you switch to the other door?

Most people intuitively feel there is a 50/50 per cent chance of being right - so there is no point switching. They intuitively know this. And many argue this point fiercely and will keep arguing. Alot of people are never convinced by the argument - others are convinced only when they've done their own tests and played around with the scenario a bit *whistles and looks furtive*

But if you understand statistics properly then you will know you should switch and furthermore you will know that the other person is wrong - even though they are convinced they are right.



If you understand statistics properly then you will know?? Oh yes, you think so do you? "Maria Vos-Savant", the person with the highest IQ in the world, was asked this question on some TV programme or other. She gave the correct response that one should switch. Subsequent to that there were howls of rage eminating from the academic community, especially mathematicians and physicists , deploring her understanding of probability! :eek: They also questioned the entire educational system that it should produce people with such a poor grasp of probability. One of them even mentioned that it must be something about womans brains making them unable to grasp simple logic! :eek:

This from f*cking daft mental retard tw*ts like Tez. Ok, I admit that I initially thought that the probability wouldn't change if I didn't switch. But after reading her explanation it was absolutely clear. And I have never ever studied anything on statistics or probability. So much for what education can do for you :rolleyes:

It just reinforces my conviction that a lot of education (not all!) is a complete waste of time.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Loki
Rusty,


This doesn't help, because pMary will insist that she has in fact experienced red.

Exactly! She will insist she has and believe that she has, when she, in fact, cannot!

Therefore it appears that the ability of "experiencing" red is contained in something that is not "physical"!

[Loki]

Rusty,

Therefore it appears that the ability of "experiencing" red is contained in something that is not "physical"!
Or the ability of "experiencing red' is not what it seems;
Or P-Zombies are not conceivable.

Originally posted by Loki

Or the ability of "experiencing red' is not what it seems;


How can it not be what it seems? "What it seems" is all that matters - Qualia ARE "what reality seems to be". So long as you "seem to be experiencing red", then qualia exist. Your response is a bit like people who don't want to accept Bells theorem positing that logic might be wrong - i.e. posit anything to avoid accepting the 'unacceptable' but obvious.

Rusty :


Hey UE when you say that qualia is the whole world, I am curious, do you mean qualia is your whole world because that is all you can percieve of the world, or do you mean that the world only exists through the qualia?


Firstly, I have observed that all I can percieve about the world is qualia. Secondly, I think that if you follow the logic through that it is implied that the world only exists through qualia. Without qualia there is no world. In what way can a lifeless or zombie Universe be said to exist? How would such a Universe differ from, say, an unobserved mathematical fractal? Are they not both just 'potential'? Are they not both just 'unobserved information'? For me, the only solution to the Hard Problem is to understand that Qualia, i.e. consciousness, is the primary thing which it exists - it IS reality. The physical world is just a collective pool of information which different fragments of that consciousness access via structures embedded within this physical/information 'Universe' ("brains").

edited :

The first and biggest problem with grasping this is to do with time. The hurdle is that the materialist concieves of matter existing within a linear time-frame. They see the matter as pre-dating the consciousness. But this is also a misconception - because from the point of view of consciousness it is always "NOW", and the past and future are much like directions in space - continuing infinitely backwards and forwards from the present place of reference. You have to understand these two different ways of interpreting time to be able to see the two different ways of interpreting what reality is made of. Both interpretations are useful - and understanding the way reality works requires synthesising both views together.

[Peskanov]

It seems we are all playing the usual game of label changing here... First the question is "behaviour without consciousness", now is "behaviour without awareness".
Nobody seems to acknowledge our lack of understanding of mind activity (my sin also, I confess).

Well, I think we can boil down the problem of p-zombies to these 2 points:

1.- Is awareness an active part of the mind? Or a passive one?
If you say awareness is pasive, p-zombies are logically posible. But this does not make materialism false, only make awareness redundant in human behaviour. Here UCE could use the evolution argument...
If you say awareness is a key component in decisions, you must prove that this piece of the mind can be succesfully emulated to make p-zombies logically possible. I don't see it possible now.

2.- Does emulation prove anything about the true nature of the emulated object? If pzombies are posible, does it prove materialism is false?
I can use more than 7 different algor. to obtain a circle. If I can make a circle without using the sinus function, does my algor. tell something about the nature of sinus?
I think not!

Originally posted by Peskanov
[B]It seems we are all playing the usual game of label changing here... First the question is "behaviour without consciousness", now is "behaviour without awareness".


To be fair, "awareness" was always the problem. That is the way the 'Hard Problem' is defined. "Consciousness" and "thought" are ambigious words that cause lots of problems.


Nobody seems to acknowledge our lack of understanding of mind activity (my sin also, I confess).


Well, up till now it has been difficult to formulate the correct questions for understanding mind activity. I believe that to do so we have to understand the relationship between the analytical activities of the mind and the awareness of those activities. I don't think it is possible to frame the correct questions with a materialistic model because materialism forces us to think of consciousness in ways that do not really match up with our experience of consciousness. At the middle of the whole debate lies this "I" thing. I see. I feel. I hear. What am "I"?

In my biased way, I believe that the whole body of religious-philsophical literature has as its central goal the expansion of the awareness of consciousness, and the improvement of understanding of how the different parts of consciousness inter-relate.


Well, I think we can boil down the problem of p-zombies to these 2 points:

1.- Is awareness an active part of the mind? Or a passive one?


Your posts always seem to me to be asking exactly the wrong questions. Awareness is passive by its very nature. The agent of awareness, when active, becomes will.


If you say awareness is pasive, p-zombies are logically posible.


:confused:

Awareness is passive, the agent of awareness is not passive because it is also responsible for will. I don't understand how either of these things make any difference to p-zombies. The awareness need only exist, it need not be passive. A p-zombie has no awareness at all. It has self-referentiality, but then so does a computer program.


If you say awareness is a key component in decisions, you must prove that this piece of the mind can be succesfully emulated to make p-zombies logically possible. I don't see it possible now.


Now you have lost me, can you re-phrase in terms of my above response regarding will.


2.- Does emulation prove anything about the true nature of the emulated object? If pzombies are posible, does it prove materialism is false?


Yes. The possible of existence of p-zombies is just one of the manifestations of the 'hard problem'. There are many others - and they all lead to materialism being false.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Are there any books you might suggest I pick up? I'm going into the city soon and will be placing an order for some books. I *think* we have very similar ideas, possibly even the same idea, but I (unfortunately) do now know a great deal about this metaphysical argument.

I suppose I will look up 'Daniel Dennet' and 'David Chalmers' because they seem to be popular around here. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks again,


Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Rusty :



Firstly, I have observed that all I can percieve about the world is qualia. Secondly, I think that if you follow the logic through that it is implied that the world only exists through qualia. Without qualia there is no world. In what way can a lifeless or zombie Universe be said to exist? How would such a Universe differ from, say, an unobserved mathematical fractal? Are they not both just 'potential'? Are they not both just 'unobserved information'? For me, the only solution to the Hard Problem is to understand that Qualia, i.e. consciousness, is the primary thing which it exists - it IS reality. The physical world is just a collective pool of information which different fragments of that consciousness access via structures embedded within this physical/information 'Universe' ("brains").

edited :

The first and biggest problem with grasping this is to do with time. The hurdle is that the materialist concieves of matter existing within a linear time-frame. They see the matter as pre-dating the consciousness. But this is also a misconception - because from the point of view of consciousness it is always "NOW", and the past and future are much like directions in space - continuing infinitely backwards and forwards from the present place of reference. You have to understand these two different ways of interpreting time to be able to see the two different ways of interpreting what reality is made of. Both interpretations are useful - and understanding the way reality works requires synthesising both views together.



So what would you say grants self-identity? Would it be an "agent" that:

1) Can be causaully efficacious.
2) Is not subject to causaility from the "physical" world. A better way to say this here would be: Is not subject to causaulity from the world we perceive.
?

This is the "agent" that I have put forth in another thread.

[AmateurScientist]

Stimpy said:

Within dualism there is a dual meaning to "you" or "I". One meaning being the aspects of the mind which are physical brain processes, and the other being these other aspects which, according to Win, are not causally efficacious on the physical.

LOL. "Dualism," "dual meaning to..."

Exactly. Although you have explained the problem much more clearly and succinctly than I have, this is essentially the same point I have been trying to make.

In essence, then, the p-zombie conjecture involves assuming a dual nature to mind and brain (only it refers to "qualia" and their absence in p-zombies) in order to supposedly demonstrate that materialism is false.

Call it begging the question, call it equivocation, call it "Zork" for all I care, it's the same criticism of the argument.

I like yours better than mine. I fell victim to trying to explain it in the terms of the dualist philosopher, rather than sticking to terms and concepts with which I am more at ease. In other words, I allowed myself to play on their field rather than mine.

AS

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
Stimpy said:



LOL. "Dualism," "dual meaning to..."

Exactly. Although you have explained the problem much more clearly and succinctly than I have, this is essentially the same point I have been trying to make.

In essence, then, the p-zombie conjecture involves assuming a dual nature to mind and brain (only it refers to "qualia" and their absence in p-zombies) in order to supposedly demonstrate that materialism is false.

Call it begging the question, call it equivocation, call it "Zork" for all I care, it's the same criticism of the argument.

I like yours better than mine. I fell victim to trying to explain it in the terms of the dualist philosopher, rather than sticking to terms and concepts with which I am more at ease. In other words, I allowed myself to play on their field rather than mine.

AS

I can't speak for Win. I don't know whether he asserts that the "mind" is not causaully efficacious on the "body" but I can tell you that you have misunderstood the p-zombie idea.

It is not some stunning evidence that will destroy materialism. It is another way to illustrate a problem that materialism has. Pretending the problem isn't there will not make it go away, either.

I can imagine a functional replica of myself that will do every single thing I do but does not posses consciousness. Now I can imagine a "physical" replica of myself that will do the same.

This 'suggests' that consciousness is not a "physical" thing.

This doesn't appear to be a very strong argument to me and fails in several ways, but it does suggest the problem.

I can address it in a different way, feel free to ignore me if this has already been debated:

What would you (AS) say makes you the same person I was arguing with yesterday?

You are not the same physically. Your brain is not the same physically. Some cells in your brain have died and been carried out of your brain through your blood. Other cells may have possibly been replacated.

So what makes you the same? What gives you your identity?

If I created a complete "physical" replica of myself would there then be two of me? Or would there be me plus another person who looks and possibly exacts exactly like me but is not me?

But "physical" really must be defined.

You appear to be using a definition such as: "Anything that exists is physical."

Which I (and most likely Win, UE, and everyone else) wouldn't have a problem with.

So are you simply using the word "physical" to replace the word "exists"?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:It [consciousness] is all of it. Everything you experience you experience relative to "I". I am talking about that relationship itself - the relationship between "I" and "everything I am aware of." You are attempting to put "I" within the mish-mash of everything that "I" am aware of.
What's the problem with that? All you need is another layer of brain to watch the lower levels. Then you've got the experience of self. Heck, you can add another layer to watch the watcher, and you've got a richer experience of meta-self. The fact that there are a finite number of layers might even explain why consciousness seems so mysterious: there is no layer to watch the top layer, thus rendering the top layer inexplicable through experience.

I think Austen Clark describes it well:

http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwphil/pctall.html

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:I can imagine a functional replica of myself that will do every single thing I do but does not posses consciousness. Now I can imagine a "physical" replica of myself that will do the same.
What part of the broad term consciousness won't it possess? Are you talking about self-awareness?

~~ Paul

Rusty :


Are there any books you might suggest I pick up? I'm going into the city soon and will be placing an order for some books. I *think* we have very similar ideas, possibly even the same idea, but I (unfortunately) do now know a great deal about this metaphysical argument.

I suppose I will look up 'Daniel Dennet' and 'David Chalmers' because they seem to be popular around here. Do you have any suggestions?



Many suggestions, dependent on what you want to know.

1) The Taboo of Subjectivity : Towards a new science of consciousness (B Allan Wallace) :

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195132076/qid=1049118113/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0657255-3736747?v=glance&s=books

This is probably the most comprehensive demolition of scientistic materialism ever written. It explains the historical reasons for why we are having this debate.


2) The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Alan Watts) :

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679723005/qid=1049118301/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0657255-3736747?v=glance&s=books

This is a book that was written in the late sixties, attempting to explain Vedantic philosophy to westerners.


3) The Ending of Time (David Bohm and J Krishnamurti) :

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060647965/qid=1049118531/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-0657255-3736747?v=glance&s=books

This is a book of dialogues between Bohm and Krishnamurti. Bohm acts as a scientist and Krishnamurti as a mystic. Bohm attempts to get to the bottom of what Krishnamurti is saying by seeking out inconsistencies in what K. is saying, and inconsistencies between what K is saying and what physics allows as possible.

4) Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists (Ken Wilber)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394723384/ref=pd_sim_books_4/104-0657255-3736747?v=glance&s=books

If you only read one more book, then read this one.



So what would you say grants self-identity? Would it be an "agent" that:

1) Can be causaully efficacious.
2) Is not subject to causaility from the "physical" world. A better way to say this here would be: Is not subject to causaulity from the world we perceive.


Well, as you have framed it the question is tough. In fact 'self-identity' does not come from the agent of will and awareness. Far from it. That agent perceives self-identity but this is in fact an illusion. All of the information distinguishing your consciousness from my consciousness is derived from your own circumstances - your point of entry into the world and your genetics and brain. "I" think I am UCE. In fact "I" am just "I", and in order to make the sums add up this "I" turns out to be shared and collective - it has no self. The perception of individuality ("self-identity") is a very powerful illusion. However, without the "I" there is no awareness of anything at all, be it self-identity or pure collective 'beingness'.

Originally posted by AmateurScientist

I fell victim to trying to explain it in the terms of the dualist philosopher, rather than sticking to terms and concepts with which I am more at ease. In other words, I allowed myself to play on their field rather than mine.



That'll be the field with both ends rather than just one of them..... ;)


Rusty :


So are you simply using the word "physical" to replace the word "exists"?


This is precisely what simplistic materialism does. Just as simplistic idealism defines existence as "mind". Both are useless, since they attempt to get rid of the other 'monism' by defining it into oblivion before the debate even starts. We have to be smarter than that. We have to work out how these two forms of existence are related. Are they equal partners? Does one exist within the other? If so which way around?

Paul :


What's the problem with that? All you need is another layer of brain to watch the lower levels. Then you've got the experience of self.


That would only be true if self-referentiality implied awareness.


Heck, you can add another layer to watch the watcher, and you've got a richer experience of meta-self. The fact that there are a finite number of layers might even explain why consciousness seems so mysterious: there is no layer to watch the top layer, thus rendering the top layer inexplicable through experience.


Well then you have another form of infinite regression, leading to the existence of Infinity, which is exactly what that top layer is.....

:)

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

To assert that you brain knows something which is true, but that it has no way of knowing that it is true, is nonsensical.

Dr. Stupid

The point is what data point is most certain, most nearly objective; that you *are*, or that you *think*?

For me the *think* part is the most certain, and the "exist, physically, *are*" part is the subset.

The Black & White room is an interesting analogy for the p-zombie problem, imo.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:That would only be true if self-referentiality implied awareness.
I presume you meant "of." I have no idea what you mean. Could you explain?

Well then you have another form of infinite regression, leading to the existence of Infinity, which is exactly what that top layer is.
There is no infinite regression. The brain is finite, with a finite number of levels. Because nothing is watching the top level, the top level seems mysterious from the viewpoint of self-experience. That is indeed a mystery, but it has nothing to do with consciousness or qualia (whatever they are). There is no reason to jump out of the brain and postulate some external additional layer that watches the brain.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hammegk said:The Black & White room is an interesting analogy for the p-zombie problem, imo.
The woman in the room was missing objective data in her brain, namely the experience of perceiving color. A p-zombie would have that experience, wouldn't it?

Can someone enumerate exactly what the p-zombie is missing, without merely assigning the missing stuff a name?

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

I can imagine a functional replica of myself that will do every single thing I do but does not posses consciousness. Now I can imagine a "physical" replica of myself that will do the same.

This 'suggests' that consciousness is not a "physical" thing.

All it suggests is that as far as you know, it is possible that consciousness may not be a physical thing. The fact that you can imagine a physical replica of yourself that will behave exactly like you, but which does not possess consciousness, is nothing more than a reflection of the fact that you cannot logically deduce the existence of consciousness from what you know about your physical characteristics.

This doesn't appear to be a very strong argument to me and fails in several ways, but it does suggest the problem.

The only problem it suggests is that we do not yet know how to derive the existence of consciousness from the physical facts. It in no way implies that such a derivation is not possible. I cannot logically derive all of the chemical properties of a sugar molecule from then laws of Quantum Mechanics either. Indeed, I can imagine a molecule with the same atomic structure as a sugar molecule, but with different chemical properties. Does this mean that such a thing must necessarily be possible? Of course not.


Hammegk,

To assert that you brain knows something which is true, but that it has no way of knowing that it is true, is nonsensical.

Dr. Stupid
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The point is what data point is most certain, most nearly objective; that you *are*, or that you *think*?

What are you talking about? How can I think if I don't exist?

For me the *think* part is the most certain, and the "exist, physically, *are*" part is the subset.

My post was in direct reference to the issue of whether or not consciousness is a physical brain process or not. If you want to debate about whether the physical brain even exists at all, then you will have to find somebody considerably more out of touch with reality than I am.

Dr. Stupid

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
... My post was in direct reference to the issue of whether or not consciousness is a physical brain process or not. If you want to debate about whether the physical brain even exists at all, then you will have to find somebody considerably more out of touch with reality than I am.

Dr. Stupid

So was mine.

Your arguments have successfully -- for me at least -- made any form of dualism logically impossible.

And yup, *I* exist, as do *you*. You answer the "what exists" question with "matter"; I answer with "mind". Of course perception tells us that a "physical brain" exists; you say "matter makes consciousness", I choose the alternative.

Brahman=Atman would seem then most likely, imho. You of course also accept compatabilism as correct; my answer allows reasonable expectation for libertarianism. It also provides a possible "why" that 2nd Law is violated by everything interesting in the "perceived, physical" universe.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


I can't speak for Win. I don't know whether he asserts that the "mind" is not causaully efficacious on the "body" but I can tell you that you have misunderstood the p-zombie idea.



I'll take this to mean what I have done is misunderstand the import of the p-zombie idea, rather than the idea itself. I think it quite clear from my discussion within this thread that I get what the conceivability of p-zombies is supposed to illustrate.


It is not some stunning evidence that will destroy materialism. It is another way to illustrate a problem that materialism has. Pretending the problem isn't there will not make it go away, either.


Well, the argument from conceivability is sometimes put forth as a proof that materialism must be false.

You are right that using it as an illustration that there exists a problem is a different animal.

I disagree that it illustrate anything at all other than the silliness that some philosophers can indulge in when they get carried away.

It is a flawed argument. It demonstrates nothing.


I can imagine a functional replica of myself that will do every single thing I do but does not posses consciousness. Now I can imagine a "physical" replica of myself that will do the same.

This 'suggests' that consciousness is not a "physical" thing.


It only suggests that you are engaging in the same sort of equivocation or question begging that everyone who seriously entertains the p-zombie argument does.

It suggests nothing about consciousness in the real world.


I can address it in a different way, feel free to ignore me if this has already been debated:

What would you (AS) say makes you the same person I was arguing with yesterday?

You are not the same physically. Your brain is not the same physically. Some cells in your brain have died and been carried out of your brain through your blood. Other cells may have possibly been replacated.


Yes, we did this discussion quite some time ago. I'm not ignoring you, but I don't feel like rehashing it at the moment.


But "physical" really must be defined.


Well, either this is semantics or it's merely a restatement that there exists a rift among materialists, dualists, and idealists.

I don't seriously entertain dualism because I find no reasonable argument compelling me to adopt it as a sensible worldview in keeping with what I know and have learned.

I'm beginning to get the idea that this is a little like arguing about a half-empty and a half-full glass. It really depends on one's perspective.

The materialist thinks the dualist indulges in a fiction by imagining a "mind" separate from the brain.

The dualist thinks the materialist daft for failing to see that obviously the mind exists, or he wouldn't be experiencing thinking about the question at all.

Shall we settle this with pistols at dawn?

AS

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]UcE said:
I presume you meant "of." I have no idea what you mean. Could you explain?


I meant "if". A 'daemon' on a computer is 'aware' of other processes. This isn't the same as 'awareness' in terms of consciousness. Self-referentiality alone does not equal qualia.


There is no infinite regression. The brain is finite,


Ah...but we are discussing mind, not brain....


with a finite number of levels. Because nothing is watching the top level, the top level seems mysterious from the viewpoint of self-experience.


"Nothing" is indeed what is watching..... ;)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I meant "if". A 'daemon' on a computer is 'aware' of other processes. This isn't the same as 'awareness' in terms of consciousness. Self-referentiality alone does not equal qualia.
What do you mean by "awareness"?

And tell me about qualia.

Is it the ability to see red without looking at a red object (something I cannot do)?
Is it the ability to discuss redness without reference to a specific object?
Is it the ability to associate red with the memory of an object?
Is it the ability to pick red out of a pile of color swatches?


I think that having one layer of brain "watching" another layer would produce much more than just self-awareness. It might also produce "feelings" about the objects and concepts that the lower brain was working on, particularly if some of the output of the higher brain were fed back into the lower brain. Imagine what might happen if the higher brain watched the lower brain perceiving red, then passed some of its outputs to portions of the brain that process emotions.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:You are not the same physically. Your brain is not the same physically. Some cells in your brain have died and been carried out of your brain through your blood. Other cells may have possibly been replacated.
I don't see how this question argues for materialism or dualism one way or the other. If everything is material, then duplicating it produces the same results. If my mind is external to my brain, then duplicating my brain makes no difference. Either way, no difference.

~~ Paul

[Soubrette]

All quotes originally posted by Loki
Sou,

Well, if you insist...

I do, I do, I do (she says insistently :p)


Perhaps this is a way of asking the question - how can you be 'aware' of direct access, but not have it play a part in your thought processes? No, I don't think that helps....

Because I am saying there is a difference between the actual physical experience of seeing red (the one which fires your neurons and stuff) and the whole experience of seeing red which includes not only that actual experience but HPC as well. So it does play a part in my thought processes but it doesn't appear to interact with my actual experience - it just adds a layer behind it (or on top of it, or however you'd like to express that :))


The good old Monty Hall Problem - I like it a lot! And you're right - plenty of people refuse to accept the answer, even when it's explained. I just used this very same example in the Free Will thread with Rusty.


Now that is spooky - I honestly didn't know that :eek: Or otherwise I'd have gotten the name right ;)


But if it adds *nothing*, then how can you detect it's absence?

It adds nothing to the physical experience - the one that seems to be explicable due to brain mechanics (neurons firing etc :))

However it adds another layer to my experience. I am aware of being aware that I am experiencing something :)


[b]You seem to be saying:
1. pSou is your average, garden variety Bristol P-Zombie, totally lacking HPC;
2. pSou suddenly 'gets' HPC via another of Dr Win's fabulous experimental devices ("the DeZombifier" -tm)
3. pSou suddenly says "damn - now I see what I was missing".

Surely, she can only say that phrase if she just gained something! Something that *does* impact on her thought processes.

I think that HPC doesn't impact on the experience but it does impact on thought processes. I have this objective awareness that I am experiencing something. P-Sou (two a penny round here:p) is experiencing something without that objective awareness.


Oh...then forget everything I just said :cool:

In your dreams :p

And don't forget that all analogies break down in the end. Rusty's Mary in a room scenario is a different way of looking at the same problem. It is not something that is to be slotted into the p-zombie analogy.

As I read it (and I like it) the big difference is that Mary knows she's never experienced red. If you asked black and white Mary and full on technicolour Mary if she has ever seen red then one of them will say yes - the other no.

The analogy there then, is merely illustrating that someone can know everything there is to know about an experience and still not have had the experience.

P-Sou knows everything there is to know about the experience but has not actually experienced the experienced:)

I feel that her intuitive feelings that she has HPC is nothing to do with the Mary analogy imo

Sou

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sou said:As I read it (and I like it) the big difference is that Mary knows she's never experienced red. If you asked black and white Mary and full on technicolour Mary if she has ever seen red then one of them will say yes - the other no.
That's not the only big difference. The other is that black and white Mary has never experienced red light entering her visual system. She has not had the physical experience and she knows she has not had it.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

What do you mean by "awareness"?


I mean a direct knowledge of Being. I mean "Being aware of existence."


And tell me about qualia.

Is it the ability to see red without looking at a red object (something I cannot do)?

Is it the ability to discuss redness without reference to a specific object?

Is it the ability to associate red with the memory of an object?

Is it the ability to pick red out of a pile of color swatches?


None of the above. Qualia are not abilities at all. Whether or not one has qualia certainly affects one abilities. Certainly the first two in your list would not be possible for an entity which lacked qualia. The third and fourth could be acheived by a correctly programmed automatic machine.

For me it is so d*mned obvious what qualia are I can't really understand why anybody has to ask. Qualia are the 'raw feel' of consciousness. Qualia are what happen in your mind - the redness of seeing red. This is so easily distinguishable from the associated brain process (which has an entirely different description) that I cannot understand the source of the confusion.


I think that having one layer of brain "watching" another layer would produce much more than just self-awareness.


Why?

All operating systems and software work like this. Layer on top of layer on top of layer. It makes not the slightest difference how many layers you add, or how complex they are, all you have are lots of layers of information which refer to each other. If you want to claim that qualia result you have to explain what it is about the brain that suddenly causes this entirely new sort of phenomena to appear. Layers alone do not suffice.


It might also produce "feelings" about the objects and concepts that the lower brain was working on, particularly if some of the output of the higher brain were fed back into the lower brain.


What is it that is having the feelings?

The top layer?

If so, why is the top layer any different to all the others?


Imagine what might happen if the higher brain watched the lower brain perceiving red, then passed some of its outputs to portions of the brain that process emotions.


I still see absolutely no reason why qualia should result. I see no reason why the whole shebang you just described would not act like a computer system with lots of software layers, even with the feedback. I don't see what turns it from a zombie into something with qualia. All I see is a mixture of "Consciousness arises out of complexity" and "Consciousness arises out of information", but with no explanation why or how except for self-referentiality and feedback.

Here is some self-referential information :

10 Print "Hello"
20 Goto 10.

Here is some self-referential information with feedback :

Run_Layer()
{
printf("this is getting deeper\n");
Run_Layer();
}

Layers and self-referentiality may well explain many of the characteristics of consciousness, but they fail to answer the root question of why it exists at all.

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Sou said:
That's not the only big difference. The other is that black and white Mary has never experienced red light entering her visual system. She has not had the physical experience and she knows she has not had it.

~~ Paul

Paul

Do we agree that seeing red is the same as the physical experience of red?

Because I think we're describing the same difference :)

Sou

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Sou said:
That's not the only big difference. The other is that black and white Mary has never experienced red light entering her visual system. She has not had the physical experience and she knows she has not had it.

~~ Paul

That's right. This is also why P-Zombie Win would in fact recognize that he had never experienced anything once he learned the difference between being human and being a p-zombie. This is why p-zombieism is incoherent. P-zombies can't be p-zombies and behave functionally exactly like humans. Behaving functionally exactly like a human is also to have the experience that comes with the behavior.

AS

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Soubrette


Paul

Do we agree that seeing red is the same as the physical experience of red?

Because I think we're describing the same difference :)

Sou

And just to add - ah now I think I see what I appeared to mean :) When I said seeing red - I meant the physical experience. Black and White Mary could of course visualise red mentally because she knows everything there is to know about the experience.

Or at least that's how I see it :)

Sou

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Hammegk,

And yup, *I* exist, as do *you*. You answer the "what exists" question with "matter"; I answer with "mind". Of course perception tells us that a "physical brain" exists; you say "matter makes consciousness", I choose the alternative.

But that's just it. I don't answer the question with "matter", because that is not an answer. Neither "matter" nor "mind" answer the question. All they do is replace the question with "What is matter?" or "What is mind?".

For me, "matter" is just a convenient label. This is where the primary distinction between materialism and idealism lies. When you ask "what exists", a materialist will answer "matter", and an idealist will answer mind, but without any additional explanation, both of those replies are equally devoid of meaning. You might as well say it is made of Ether.

The difference is what happens when you follow up with "What is matter?" or "What is mind?". The materialist will proceed to give you the best description for what matter is that the scientific method can provide, and will endeavor to continue to improve this description through further scientific investigation, whereas the idealist can only offer vague metaphors and speculation.

Brahman=Atman would seem then most likely, imho. You of course also accept compatabilism as correct; my answer allows reasonable expectation for libertarianism.

I don't see how. The only way to allow for Libertarianism is through the rejection of the idea that the Universe functions according to Natural Laws. You certainly don't need to be an idealist to do that. You just have to give up the idea that there is actually any validity at all to the scientific method.

It also provides a possible "why" that 2nd Law is violated by everything interesting in the "perceived, physical" universe.

Which second law are you talking about?

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:For me it is so d*mned obvious what qualia are I can't really understand why anybody has to ask. Qualia are the 'raw feel' of consciousness. Qualia are what happen in your mind - the redness of seeing red. This is so easily distinguishable from the associated brain process (which has an entirely different description) that I cannot understand the source of the confusion.
I don't see how it's easily distinguishable from the brain processes, because I have no idea how those processes seem or feel. Do you? Perhaps qualia are precisely the experience of those processes.

All operating systems and software work like this. Layer on top of layer on top of layer. It makes not the slightest difference how many layers you add, or how complex they are, all you have are lots of layers of information which refer to each other. If you want to claim that qualia result you have to explain what it is about the brain that suddenly causes this entirely new sort of phenomena to appear. Layers alone do not suffice.
Sorry, but you don't have any idea whether they suffice, because you are not embedded in the operating system. It seems entirely possible that feedback from upper layers of the brain to lower layers might produce "feelings about awareness of brain processing" that we call qualia.

What is it that is having the feelings?

The top layer?

If so, why is the top layer any different to all the others?
The top layer(s) sending input to more primitive layers that handle emotions, for example. Then you might have feelings about higher-level processes, The absence of a layer above the top layer is why we cannot intellectually grasp the experience of this feedback; why it just feels like some kind of fuzzy "consciousness." Perhaps consciousness arises precisely from our own lack of complete understanding of ourselves.

I still see absolutely no reason why qualia should result. I see no reason why the whole shebang you just described would not act like a computer system with lots of software layers, even with the feedback. I don't see what turns it from a zombie into something with qualia. All I see is a mixture of "Consciousness arises out of complexity" and "Consciousness arises out of information", but with no explanation why or how except for self-referentiality and feedback.
Well, since I don't know what the zombie is missing and I don't know what qualia are, I can't answer this. However, I don't think the computer programs really capture the complexity.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sou said:And just to add - ah now I think I see what I appeared to mean When I said seeing red - I meant the physical experience. Black and White Mary could of course visualise red mentally because she knows everything there is to know about the experience.
What do you mean by "visualize"? I don't think B&W Mary could see red in her mind like some people claim to be able to do (I cannot). The red portion of the color spectrum in her visual cortex has never been activated by light entering her eyes, so I don't think she could activate it by will. All her book learning wouldn't help her do that, even with perfect understanding of the brain.

Of course, I may be wrong and she could learn to do that with book learning, in which case I think she would also have all the other experiences of redness, including the quale (whatever that is).

~~ Paul

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Sou said:
What do you mean by "visualize"? I don't think B&W Mary could see red in her mind like some people claim to be able to do (I cannot). The red portion of the color spectrum in her visual cortex has never been activated by light entering her eyes, so I don't think she could activate it by will. All her book learning wouldn't help her do that, even with perfect understanding of the brain.

Of course, I may be wrong and she could learn to do that with book learning, in which case I think she would also have all the other experiences of redness, including the quale (whatever that is).

~~ Paul

How could she tell the difference between yellow, red, blue etc then without the physical experience then?

:confused:

But oh so easily done ;)

Sou

[Peskanov]

UCE,

----
quote:
To be fair, "awareness" was always the problem. That is the way the 'Hard Problem' is defined. "Consciousness" and "thought" are ambigious words that cause lots of problems.
----

I agree; but I don't think awareness is much better defined. It the context of this thread, only seems to describe information entering in the subjective realm...However, in other context it refers to the action of acknowledge information (this definition fits in the materialist model without problems).

----
quote:
Well, up till now it has been difficult to formulate the correct questions for understanding mind activity. I believe that to do so we have to understand the relationship between the analytical activities of the mind and the awareness of those activities. I don't think it is possible to frame the correct questions with a materialistic model because materialism forces us to think of consciousness in ways that do not really match up with our experience of consciousness.
----

I fully agree they don't match, but only at intuition level.
The problem is that while you and many others seem to think it is possible to show this mismatch using language, I think it can't be done. I have read many arguments against materialism in this board; free will, qualia, p-zombies, the hard problem...Until now, only the hard problem seems well defined enough to give it a serious debatting.

----
quote:
In my biased way, I believe that the whole body of religious-philsophical literature has as its central goal the expansion of the awareness of consciousness, and the improvement of understanding of how the different parts of consciousness inter-relate.
----

Interesting theory; which part of christianity do you think is specially consciousness related? And what about hebrews?


----
quote:

Your posts always seem to me to be asking exactly the wrong questions. Awareness is passive by its very nature. The agent of awareness, when active, becomes will .
...
Awareness is passive, the agent of awareness is not passive because it is also responsible for will. I don't understand how either of these things make any difference to p-zombies. The awareness need only exist, it need not be passive. A p-zombie has no awareness at all. It has self-referentiality , but then so does a computer program.
----

Difference between self-referentiality and self-awareness? It could be said that self-awareness it's only a complex form of self-referentiality...


----
quote
Now you have lost me, can you re-phrase in terms of my above response regarding will .
----

No problem. It is commonly accepted that awareness receives several sources of information with different degrees of importance. I am aware of my reasonings now, a bit aware of typing on the keyboard, not aware of my breathing, etc...
In most decissions, we only choose between the options we are aware of.
You can see it in 2 ways:
1.-Awareness filters the information, and then the "will" uses the results of this filter. This means awareness has an active role in decissions, because it reduces available options.
2.- Other system filters the information and passes it to the "will" system; awareness is a pasive witness.
Option 1 is a intuitive one accepted by most people...


----
quote:
I said
2.- Does emulation prove anything about the true nature of the emulated object? If pzombies are posible, does it prove materialism is false?
I can use more than 7 different algor. to obtain a circle. If I can make a circle without using the sinus function, does my algor. tell something about the nature of sinus?
----
UCE said:
Yes. The possible of existence of p-zombies is just one of the manifestations of the 'hard problem'. There are many others - and they all lead to materialism being false.
----

You have not argued it....I think my question has more meat than it looks.
A computer example:
A debugger run on top of a program as a silent witness.
If I remove the debugger, the program runs in the same manner. However, it does not prove that the debugger is not a program. In fact, it is.
If awareness is a passive part of the mind, the concept of a human without awareness does not prove awareness has a differente nature that the rest of the mind.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sou said:How could she tell the difference between yellow, red, blue etc then without the physical experience then?
I can't imagine how, but perhaps with sufficient book learning she could figure out how to activate specific parts of the color spectrum in her visual cortex. Without feedback, though, how would she know if she was correct? Perhaps other book learning would give her clues about how to tell if she got red or blue or yellow.

No matter how far we carry this, it is still the case that she has never made a connection between her eye and the color spectrum. Some objective data is missing.

~~ Paul

[Soubrette]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Sou said:
I can't imagine how, but perhaps with sufficient book learning she could figure out how to activate specific parts of the color spectrum in her visual cortex. Without feedback, though, how would she know if she was correct? Perhaps other book learning would give her clues about how to tell if she got red or blue or yellow.

No matter how far we carry this, it is still the case that she has never made a connection between her eye and the color spectrum. Some objective data is missing.

~~ Paul

That I agree with :)

Sou

Stimpson :


For me, "matter" is just a convenient label. This is where the primary distinction between materialism and idealism lies. When you ask "what exists", a materialist will answer "matter", and an idealist will answer mind, but without any additional explanation, both of those replies are equally devoid of meaning. You might as well say it is made of Ether.


This is correct.


The difference is what happens when you follow up with "What is matter?" or "What is mind?". The materialist will proceed to give you the best description for what matter is that the scientific method can provide, and will endeavor to continue to improve this description through further scientific investigation, whereas the idealist can only offer vague metaphors and speculation.


The materialist will provide oodles of information about how mind correlates with brain, and provide some or other sort of actually meaningless waffle to try to circumvent the Hard Problem. Idealism is not so badly specified as you think it is. Maybe you haven't looked closely enough at it.

The real questions are "If you start with matter, how do you get mind?" and "if you start with mind, how do you get matter?"

The first of these leads to the debate we are currently having, and an endless banging of heads against the hard problem. The second does not. It is very easy to explain how to make a Universe if you have the source of consciousness. Science has told us the Universe seems to behave in a logical manner, its behaviour determined by simple mathematical laws. Stephen Wolfram has written a book claiming that the whole of that Universe can be accounted for by the behaviour of simple iterating algorithms. If numbers self-exist then somewhere in that sea of numbers exists the formula that underlies this Universe - its mathematical blueprint. All you need is logic and consciousness. In other words, if 'Mind' exists all you need to create matter is mathematics, and mathematics is the sole thing we have any reason to argue self-exists.

To summarise :

"Matter makes mind" leads to the Hard Problem, and many other deep mysteries.

"Mind makes matter" leads to a simple and elegant explanation for the existence of the Universe, a simple and elegant way of understanding problems like the Schroedingers cat problem, an explanation for non-locality in physics, an explanation as to why the Universe behaves mathematically and has prime numbers embedded in its basic laws, and it correlates with the oldest and most widely-occuring religious-philosophical system.

Unfortunately this last piece of information, which to me appears to me to be both fascinating and compelling supportive evidence that the theory is correct (as if any more were needed) is also its downfall in the eyes of most materialists, since it directly threatens hard atheism and places a theoretical limit on the ability of materialistic science to explain the non-material parts of reality.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I don't see how it's easily distinguishable from the brain processes, because I have no idea how those processes seem or feel.


They don't 'feel' like anything. You don't see a brain process. You see 'red'.


Do you? Perhaps qualia are precisely the experience of those processes.


Of course are! I want to know why there is an experience associated with those processes in the first place.


Sorry, but you don't have any idea whether they suffice, because you are not embedded in the operating system. It seems entirely possible that feedback from upper layers of the brain to lower layers might produce "feelings about awareness of brain processing" that we call qualia.


Why?

How is it possible?

Why is the difference between layer 1 and layer 2 any different to the difference between layer 1 and layer 9,000,000? At what point does there suddenly appear an enttity on the inside looking out?

Does it appear bit-by-bit?

Does it suddenly appear at the 503rd layer?


Perhaps consciousness arises precisely from our own lack of complete understanding of ourselves.


In a way, this is deeply true.


Well, since I don't know what the zombie is missing and I don't know what qualia are, I can't answer this. However, I don't think the computer programs really capture the complexity.


My point is that no amount of complexity can flip the viewpoint from external to internal. The problem is not one of mechanism - it is one of having to account for an entirely new viewpoint on the mechanism.

Peskanov :


Interesting theory; which part of christianity do you think is specially consciousness related?


Gnostic Christianity. The original Christianity.

Christian Gnosticism, early Christianity and the mystery teachings (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen11.html)


And what about hebrews?


Qabbalism.

http://www.geocities.com/xeroiii/Kab/1KABinRL.htm


Difference between self-referentiality and self-awareness? It could be said that self-awareness it's only a complex form of self-referentiality...


It could, but we would have to examine that claim. The argument ends up boling down to :

Can a finite self-referential system be self-aware?

I would argue the answer is no, since no part of it can ever hold the entirety. However, if the system is Infinite then I would answer differently.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:They [brain processes] don't 'feel' like anything. You don't see a brain process. You see 'red'.
This is a meaningless statement. Again, you have no idea what brain processes might feel like, so redness is a perfectly good possibility.

Why?

How is it possible?

Why is the difference between layer 1 and layer 2 any different to the difference between layer 1 and layer 9,000,000? At what point does there suddenly appear an enttity on the inside looking out?

Does it appear bit-by-bit?

Does it suddenly appear at the 503rd layer?
It appears when one layer watches another. Even more when multiple layers do so. Even more when higher layers feed into lower layers. The internal experience of all of this is what we're talking about.

My point is that no amount of complexity can flip the viewpoint from external to internal. The problem is not one of mechanism - it is one of having to account for an entirely new viewpoint on the mechanism.
The viewpoint is always internal, and your only option is your own internal viewpoint. It's misleading to picture us inquiring into the workings of the brain by standing outside the brain and poking at it. We do that, sure, but at the smae time we also experience the brain using the brain. There is no other experience to compare that to, so I see no reason to be surprised by the experience at all.

The experience of the brain experiencing red is redness. Can't be anything else.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

The difference is what happens when you follow up with "What is matter?" or "What is mind?". The materialist will proceed to give you the best description for what matter is that the scientific method can provide, and will endeavor to continue to improve this description through further scientific investigation, whereas the idealist can only offer vague metaphors and speculation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The materialist will provide oodles of information about how mind correlates with brain, and provide some or other sort of actually meanginless waffle to try to circumvent the Hard Problem.

The hard problem does not even exist unless you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is not reducible to empirically observable phenomena. Such an assumption is a rejection of the scientific method, and renders all scientific knowledge invalid.

Idealism is not so badly specified as you think it is. Maybe you haven't looked closely enough at it.

Idealism is completely and utterly useless, because it provides no reliable method for answering the question "what is mind?".

The real questions are "If you start with matter, how do you get mind?" and "if you start with mind, how do you get matter?"

That's right. And Materialism provides a method which, if the assumptions of the scientific method are valid, should in principle be able to provide an answer. But Idealism provides no such method.

The first of these leads to the debate we are currently having, and an endless banging of heads against the hard problem.

Wrong. The first leads to scientific research. No amount of debate or metaphysical speculation is going to answer either of those questions. And the only thing that leads to these debates is the insistence of some people, in spite of them having no evidence to back it up, that scientific research cannot possibly provide the answer.

The second does not.

The second leads absolutely nowhere.

It is very easy to explain how to make a Universe if you have the source of consciousness.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to provide an infinite number of such "explanations". Unfortunately, it is impossible, within the framework of Idealism, to determine which, if any, of them are correct. Furthermore, such "explanations" don't actually tell us anything useful. They are all ad-hoc, and have absolutely no predictive power whatsoever.

Sceicne has told us the Universe seems to behave in a logical manner, its behaviour determined by simple mathematical laws.

Science has told us no such thing. Science itself is based on the assumption that the Universe behaves in a logical manner. Reject that assumption, and no logical conclusions can be drawn from our observations at all.

Stephen Wolfram has written a book claiming that the whole of that Universe can be accounted for by the behaviour of simple iterating algorithms.

And this is relevant how? Newton was the one who presented the idea that the Universe could be described in terms of differential equations, and it was known even then that any differential equation can be approximated to an arbitrary degree of precision through iterating algorithms. How do you think numerical analysis works?

If numbers self-exist then somewhere in that sea of numbers exists the formula that underlies this Universe

Saying that numbers self-exist is utterly devoid of meaning. The term "exist" has a very specific meaning in mathematics, and that meaning has nothing to do with ontology or reality.

its mathematical blueprint. All you need is logic and consciousness.

I could just as well say that all you need is logic and matter. So what? Neither statement tells us anything about why there is anything at all, or any of the other "deep" questions that philosophers are constantly bothering people with.

In other words, if 'Mind' exists all you need to create matter is mathematics, and mathematics is the sole thing we have any reason to argue self-exists.

This is pure nonsense. How do you conclude that is "mind" exist, then all you need to create matter is mathematics? What is this "Mind"? What are its characteristics? How do you know it exists? How does it create matter? This is exactly the kind of nonsense I was talking about in my post to Hammegk. All you are doing is replacing the question "what exists?" with the question "What is Mind?". And you have already made it clear that you cannot answer that question, nor can you provide a reliable method for finding the answer.

"Matter makes mind" leads to the Hard Problem, and many other deep mysteries.

No, it doesn't. Without the presumption of dualism, there is no "Hard Problem". There is just another complex process which we do not yet know a complete mathematical description for.

"Mind makes matter" leads to a simple and elegant explanation for the existence of the Universe, a simple and elegant way of understanding problems like the Schroedingers cat problem, an explanation for non-locality in physics, an explanation as to why the Universe behaves mathematically and has prime numbers embedded in its basic laws, and it correlates with the oldest and most widely-occuring religious-philosophical system.

It leads absolutely nowhere. You do not have any answers or explanations. All you have are vague analogies and metaphors. You cannot even define the concept which is the foundation of your philosophy.

Unfortuantely this last piece of information, which to me appears to me to be both fascinating and compelling supportive evidence that the theory is correct (as if any more were needed) is also its downfall in the eyes of most materialists, since it directly threatens hard atheism and places a theoretical limit on the ability of materialistic science to explain the non-material parts of reality.

Nonsense. We reject it because it is incoherent and useless.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Can a finite self-referential system be self-aware?

I would argue the answer is no, since no part of it can ever hold the entirety. However, if the system is Infinite then I would answer differently.
I think you're asking a loaded question. How about this one instead:

Can a finite self-referential system be aware of 100% of itself?

Perhaps not, but we clearly are not aware of 100% of ourselves.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This page has a short list of why consciousness is different from other things:

http://www.davidchess.com/words/poc/hard.html

~~ Paul

This is a meaningless statement. Again, you have no idea what brain processes might feel like, so redness is a perfectly good possibility.


I have no idea what is doing the feeling.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My point is that no amount of complexity can flip the viewpoint from external to internal. The problem is not one of mechanism - it is one of having to account for an entirely new viewpoint on the mechanism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The viewpoint is always internal, and your only option is your own internal viewpoint.


YES...but why is there an internal viewpoint at all!?

Stimpson :


What is this "Mind"?


The relationship between infinity and mathematics.


What are its characteristics?


All of them? :)


How do you know it exists?


I am.


How does it create matter?


It doesn't. Matter is made of mathematics. Mind turns it into a reality, just like the reality it creates when you dream, except refering to a deeper dream in a deeper Mind.

:)

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

What is this "Mind"?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The relationship between infinity and mathematics.

Infinity is a mathematical concept. Or are you referring to this mystical concept you can "Infinity" that you claim cannot be defined?

What are its characteristics?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All of them?

ALl of them? Are you seriously trying to tell me that "Mind" is everything that can possibly be conceived of? What are you trying to say?

How do you know it exists?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am.

Non-sequitur.

How does it create matter?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It doesn't. Matter is made of mathematics. Mind turns it into a reality,

I thought Mind was everything? Does Mind include mathematics? If not, then there are characteristics it does not have. If so, then what does it mean to say that it turns mathematics into reality? And why does it only turn some mathematics into reality? Why is not every logically possible thing real? Why are some logically consistent things real, and others not?

just like the reality it creates when you dream, except refering to a deeper dream in a deeper Mind.

So now Mind is a literal mind, somehow analogous to a human mind, and not everything? What's with the vague metaphors?

This is exactly what I was talking about. Your entire post was meaningless nonsense. You have claimed that Idealism gives a simple and elegant solution, but you cannot even explain it coherently, much less in a simple and elegant way.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I have no idea what is doing the feeling.
The same thing that is calculating 2 + 2 or deciding to run away from a lion: my brain.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This promises to be interesting:

http://www.california.com/~mcmf/hardproblem.html

~~ Paul

Stimpy :


All of them? Are you seriously trying to tell me that "Mind" is everything that can possibly be conceived of? What are you trying to say?


I am trying to say that everything that can be conceived of is conceived by mind.


I thought Mind was everything? Does Mind include mathematics?


Mathematics is logic applied to Zero. Mind does the applying.


If so, then what does it mean to say that it turns mathematics into reality?


Not so different to the computers that drive flight simulators.....


And why does it only turn some mathematics into reality?


See : Anthropic principle (participatory).


Why is not every logically possible thing real? Why are some logically consistent things real, and others not?


See : Anthropic principle (participatory).


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
just like the reality it creates when you dream, except refering to a deeper dream in a deeper Mind.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now Mind is a literal mind, somehow analogous to a human mind, and not everything? What's with the vague metaphors?


Every human mind is part of the same Mind.

:)

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
This promises to be interesting:

http://www.california.com/~mcmf/hardproblem.html

~~ Paul


So despite my belief that to some degree I have accounted for the explanatory gap, and invalidated many of Chalmers' arguments for the hard problem, I also believe that the hard problem itself has not vanished.

[AmateurScientist]

UCE:

Mathematics does not "self-exist." It is nothing more than a tool invented by humans to assist in defining and manipulating relationships among tangible material objects.

It is an abstraction which maps real objects onto symbols and concepts involving the relationships of those symbols to one another. The conclusions drawn by manipulating the relationships of the symbols to each other can then be mapped back to objects in order to make practical use of the mathematics in ordinary life.

Without humans or some other intelligent beings with a biological need to organize data, mathematics makes no sense and does absolutely nothing. Infinity is nothing more than a concept. It does not govern matter any more than "+" does.

Sure, there is some research done by various zoologists suggesting that many other animals, among them mammal species and bird species, perform rundimentary counting. Many zoologists believe that such animals can differentiate between 5 babies and 6, for instance.

That would certainly make sense biologically that they might have a need to perform such tasks and thus have evolved brains which could do them, but I wouldn't agree that this means mathematics or arithmetic exist on their own.

If you would like to make a thread devoted to this topic alone, please be my guest.

AS

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So despite my belief that to some degree I have accounted for the explanatory gap, and invalidated many of Chalmers' arguments for the hard problem, I also believe that the hard problem itself has not vanished.
Yes, but which hard problem? The one where you ponder consciousness and decide it's a tough nut to crack, or the one where you insist it can't be explained by the brain and turn it into a giant mountain of confusion?

~~ Paul

[Peskanov]

Paul,

----
quote:
I think you're asking a loaded question. How about this one instead:
Can a finite self-referential system be aware of 100% of itself?
Perhaps not, but we clearly are not aware of 100% of ourselves.
----

Nice point, clearly stated. But mystics don't believe awareness has limits at all...

BTW, comming from your link:
----
Opacity to physical instruments: Not only do I have no direct experience of anyone else's consciousness, but I know of no way to gather convincing indirect evidence. There is no physical observation or measurement that I know of whose results would constitute evidence for or against the hypothesis that anyone besides me has (or does not have) consciousness. (This is because, due to the fact that I have only a single datapoint to infer from, I have no reliable knowledge about the correlations between physical facts and subjective consciousness.)
----

It does not seem true to me. If I know of a drug that alter consciousness, and give it to other person, then I will able to hear a description of it's effects and test it in myself. If the effects in my consciousness are similar this is a pretty good indirect evidence of consciousness in the other side!

[Loki]

UCE,

So despite my belief that to some degree I have accounted for the explanatory gap, and invalidated many of Chalmers' arguments for the hard problem, I also believe that the hard problem itself has not vanished.
Could you be any more selective in your quoting!! What are the very next sentences from the article :

But I would like to think that the considerations I have raised make the problem somewhat more complex as well as more significant to a variety of other issues. I would hope even more that it is actually a pseudo-problem, and that my new formulation will enable someone to see why.
The entire point of the article is not to "dismiss" the hard problem (yet), but to try and define it more accurately, thus leading (hopefully) to an eventual solution, rather than the Dennett/Chalmers stalemate. What part of that didn't you understand? If you did understand it, then why not offer a reply that addresses the issues raised in the article? You're not afraid to confront 'new ideas' that might challenge your preconceived notions of "what is", are you?

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
That's right. This is also why P-Zombie Win would in fact recognize that
he had never experienced anything once he learned the difference between
being human and being a p-zombie. This is why p-zombieism is incoherent.
P-zombies can't be p-zombies and behave functionally exactly like humans.
Behaving functionally exactly like a human is also to have the experience
that comes with the behavior.

I have a small identity problem. I behave like a p-zombie and not like a
q-zombie. While busy with an activity, someone will ask me a question,
I will say, 'what?' But then half a second later I answer them fully. If I
were a q-zombie I should not ask why but just answer. I think this is
due to a split brain, so I must be a p-zombie.

Originally posted by AmateurScientist

Mathematics does not "self-exist."


No?

This is the kind of scientistic blinkeredness I am out to prod. I think you are wrong. So do lots of other people, many of them prominent scientists and certainly many great mathematicians.


It is nothing more than a tool invented by humans to assist in defining and manipulating relationships among tangible material objects.


Really? So mathematics only works for "tangible material objects", eh? :rolleyes:


Without humans or some other intelligent beings with a biological need to organize data, mathematics makes no sense and does absolutely nothing.


Without consciousness?


Infinity is nothing more than a concept.


Again, total certainty based upon nothing, and no attempt to see any bigger picture. Tunnel vision. :)

Originally posted by Loki
UCE,


Could you be any more selective in your quoting!! What are the very next sentences from the article :


The entire point of the article is not to "dismiss" the hard problem (yet), but to try and define it more accurately, thus leading (hopefully) to an eventual solution, rather than the Dennett/Chalmers stalemate. What part of that didn't you understand? If you did understand it, then why not offer a reply that addresses the issues raised in the article? You're not afraid to confront 'new ideas' that might challenge your preconceived notions of "what is", are you?

I do not share this "hope" of a material solution, mainly due to the fact that the solution already exists, but the materialists don't like it. From my perspective it is like hearing a Creationist quoting a long article which tries to diminish the challenge from Darwinism, and ends by saying that Darwinism isn't a 'real problem', and that the author 'hopes' that one day there will be a Christian 'solution' to it. :)

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

All of them? Are you seriously trying to tell me that "Mind" is everything that can possibly be conceived of? What are you trying to say?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am trying to say that everything that can be conceived of is conceived by mind.

Which completely fails to answer my question, which was "what characteristics does Mind have?"

I thought Mind was everything? Does Mind include mathematics?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mathematics is logic applied to Zero. Mind does the applying.

The first part of that statement is simply false. The second part tells me absolutely nothing.

If so, then what does it mean to say that it turns mathematics into reality?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not so different to the computers that drive flight simulators.....

Except that computers are finite, physical, and their processes are completely objective. In other words, completely different (according to you).

And why does it only turn some mathematics into reality?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See : Anthropic principle (participatory).

So you are saying that it turns all mathematics into reality, but that we only have access to the part of reality that we are a mathematical subset of. OK, I'll buy that, but this is just Platonism. You still have to explain what the Mind is, why it is there, and how it turns mathematics into reality. No metaphors please. I want the actual explanation that you claim Idealism provides.

Dr. Stupid

Stimpson


Which completely fails to answer my question, which was "what characteristics does Mind have?"


Whole libraries contain the answers to that question.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And why does it only turn some mathematics into reality?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See : Anthropic principle (participatory).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So you are saying that it turns all mathematics into reality, but that we only have access to the part of reality that we are a mathematical subset of. OK, I'll buy that, but this is just Platonism. You still have to explain what the Mind is, why it is there, and how it turns mathematics into reality. No metaphors please. I want the actual explanation that you claim Idealism provides.


It turns mathematics into reality in exactly the same way your mind turns memories into reality when you dream. That isn't a metaphor. It is taking an observation that your mind has the ability to take information and from it create the experience of reality. If it can do it when you dream then it can do it when you are awake. Just as I cannot provide you with a precise mechanism as to how a mind creates reality during dreaming, I can neither provide you with a precise mechanism as to how it does it when you are awake, but apart from the fact the information source is different I see no reason why the actual 'reality construction' cannot be exactly the same process. What is the difficulty you are having understanding this? You know what a dream is, yes? You know that it feels like reality until you wake up, yes? You know that this 'reality' is actually created by the mind, yes? So what is your problem understanding me, apart from the fact that you want there to be a problem?

NB : And I DO NOT need to provide an explanation as to what mind 'is' any more than you can explain what matter 'is'. The question was given X, how do we get Y (and given Y, how do we get X). It was NOT 'what is X?' and it was NOT 'what is Y?'. You start with matter and fail to provide an explanation for mind. I start with mind and point out that it 'creates matter' every time you dream. Asking me 'what mind is' was NOT the question we were trying to answer, remember?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

Which completely fails to answer my question, which was "what characteristics does Mind have?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whole libraries contain the answers to that question.

I am not asking for a complete description here. I am asking for a formal logical definition of what you mean by the term "Mind". Do you have one, or not?

So you are saying that it turns all mathematics into reality, but that we only have access to the part of reality that we are a mathematical subset of. OK, I'll buy that, but this is just Platonism. You still have to explain what the Mind is, why it is there, and how it turns mathematics into reality. No metaphors please. I want the actual explanation that you claim Idealism provides.
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It turns mathematics into reality in exactly the same way your mind turns memories into reality when you dream.

My dreams are not reality. Only a mentally ill person would believe they are.

That isn't a metaphor. It is taking an observation that your mind has the ability to take information and from it create the experience of reality. If it can do it when you dream then it can do it when you are awake.

It is not an explanation. You are saying X does A in the same way that Y does B, even though X is clearly a very different thing from Y, and A is very different from B. Reality is not a dream, and my mind is not infinite. What you gave was not a metaphor, but an analogy, and a seriously flawed one at that.

Just as I cannot provide you with a precise mechanism as to how a mind creates reality during dreaming, I can neither provide you with a precise mechanism as to how it does it when you are awake, but apart from the fact the information source is different I see no reason why the actual 'reality construction' cannot be exactly the same process.

As I said before, dreams are not reality. And besides, just because you see no reason why the process cannot be the same, doesn't mean that they are. And I thought you said you have an explanation? What you are providing is not an explanation. It is an ad-hoc hypothesis with zero explanatory power.

What is the difficulty you are having understanding this?

You haven't given me anything to understand.

You know what a dream is, yes?

Yes, but apparently you don't.

You know that it feels like reality until you wake up, yes?

No, it doesn't. But when I am asleep, I usually don't have the cognative faculties to recognize all the differences (sometimes I do). If you seriously cannot tell the difference between dream and reality, you need help.

You know that this 'reality' is actually created by the mind, yes? So what is your problem understanding me, apart from the fact that you want there to be a problem?

There are two problems:

1) Reality is very different from dreams. Reality is logically self-consistent. Dreams are not. Reality is temporally consistent. Dreams are not.

2) Your speculation that reality is just a dream in some super-mind is just that, speculation. You have no evidence to support this claim. You have no way of explaining how this works (whereas we can, potentially, understand how human dreaming works). You have way of establishing the existence of this supermind at all.

All you are doing is making blind speculation, attempting to describe it with vague analogies and metaphors, and carefully constructing it all in such a way as to make it unfalsifiable. None of what you are saying actually makes any sense at all.

Dr. Stupid

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

NB : And I DO NOT need to provide an explanation as to what mind 'is' any more than you can explain what matter 'is'.

No, but you do have to define the term. If you define the term to simply mean "everything that exists", then that is fine. But it is clear from your posts that you are attaching specific characteristics and properties to it beyond that. If you were not, then your position would be no different than materialism.

The question was given X, how do we get Y (and given Y, how do we get X). It was NOT 'what is X?' and it was NOT 'what is Y?'. You start with matter and fail to provide an explanation for mind.

I start with matter, and have a method which could potentially provide an explanation for human/animal consciousness.

I start with mind and point out that it 'creates matter' every time you dream. Asking me 'what mind is' was NOT the question we were trying to answer, remember?

No, you start with "Mind", which if you are not willing to give any further definition than simply "all that exists", leaves you in exactly the same position of having to explain where human/animal consciousness comes from. If you define "Mind" to be human/animal consciousness, then you can not also define it to be "everything that is". What's more, simply pointing out that human minds create matter everytime they dream, is not only false, but it is not an explanation of how Mind creates reality.

Pointing out that human minds create mini-realities every time they dream, is not an explanation for how the meta-mind creates reality. In order for it to qualify as an explanation, you would need to be able to do two things:

1) Explain how human minds produce mini-realities when they dream (which they don't).

2) Demonstrate that the mechanism by which the Meta-Mind creates reality is the same as in (1).

You have done neither.

Dr. Stupid

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
I don't see how this question argues for materialism or dualism one way or the other. If everything is material, then duplicating it produces the same results. If my mind is external to my brain, then duplicating my brain makes no difference. Either way, no difference.

~~ Paul

So if Rusty last week has 5 trillion brain cells and 200,000 of them are of type "xyz123", but Rusty of now only has 4.999 trillion brain cells but 300,000 of them are of type "xyz123" am I the same Rusty?

The brain is made of many cells and they do not all duplicate at precisely the same rates.

: by AS
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Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Sou said:
That's not the only big difference. The other is that black and white Mary has never experienced red light entering her visual system. She has not had the physical experience and she knows she has not had it.

~~ Paul
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That's right. This is also why P-Zombie Win would in fact recognize that he had never experienced anything once he learned the difference between being human and being a p-zombie. This is why p-zombieism is incoherent. P-zombies can't be p-zombies and behave functionally exactly like humans. Behaving functionally exactly like a human is also to have the experience that comes with the behavior.

AS

So you do not believe that I can create a computer that looks exactly like Rusty and performs exactly like Rusty? In ever possible circumstance this computer Rusty would behave identical to how the real Rusty would behave. If you believe this can not happen THEN YOU ARE NOT A MATERIALIST. Welcome to libertarianism!


- STIMPSON J CAT
I don't see how. The only way to allow for Libertarianism is through the rejection of the idea that the Universe functions according to Natural Laws. You certainly don't need to be an idealist to do that. You just have to give up the idea that there is actually any validity at all to the scientific method.


No. The universe can be functioning through TLON. There can be laws that are affecting the "agent" of the Libertarian, the only thing that must be true is:

1) The agent is causal
2) The agent cannot be caused

Also if you assert:

1) The definition of the universe is such that all things that exist do so within the universe.

Then I can assert that the universe is infinite and you are putting a clause on a undefinable definition. Useless.

This is another discussion that I am rusty (hehehe) at but can defend as well.

- Paul C. Anagnostopoulos


What do you mean by "visualize"? I don't think B&W Mary could see red in her mind like some people claim to be able to do (I cannot). The red portion of the color spectrum in her visual cortex has never been activated by light entering her eyes, so I don't think she could activate it by will. All her book learning wouldn't help her do that, even with perfect understanding of the brain.

Of course, I may be wrong and she could learn to do that with book learning, in which case I think she would also have all the other experiences of redness, including the quale (whatever that is).

I can't imagine how, but perhaps with sufficient book learning she could figure out how to activate specific parts of the color spectrum in her visual cortex. Without feedback, though, how would she know if she was correct? Perhaps other book learning would give her clues about how to tell if she got red or blue or yellow.

No matter how far we carry this, it is still the case that she has never made a connection between her eye and the color spectrum. Some objective data is missing.

~~ Paul


Paul that is the stance of someone who is not a materialist. If you are materialist then you must believe that it is possiible for Mary to learn all there is about the color Red. In materialism Mary must be possible for her to learn all there is to know about the color red. all there is to know.

- STIMPSON J CAT

The hard problem does not even exist unless you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is not reducible to empirically observable phenomena. Such an assumption is a rejection of the scientific method, and renders all scientific knowledge invalid.


You are very confused Simpson J. Cat. If we make the assumption that consciousness (in some form or on some level) exists in such a way that it can not be caused (and therefore cannot be completely reduced to empirically observable phenomena) we are not assuming that it cannot be percieved at all. Nor are we assuming that just because human beings posses a free will granting "agent" that eveything has one. Obviously, TLOP still apply even though we have "agents" (since we do), so obviosly it follows that you are incorrect.

Try to imagine a world with "agent" where only the "agent" is not completely reducable to empirically observable phenomena.

Regardless, we still do not have to (and should not) assume that the agent is not reducable. We have this two things that the "agent" might have been:

1) Causaully determined
2) Random

No it cannot be either of those. So we add the third thing:

3) Something else.

We do not know what #3 is yet, but hopefully one day science will tell us. To claim that just because science has not demonstrated it yet means that science has refuted it is nonsense.

I claim that it is #3 because:

1) it cannot be #1, #2
and
2) It logically follows that "agent" exists because we have free will.

I'll move over to Free Will when I get back from lunch!

Happy April Fools days! :)

Stimpson


I am not asking for a complete description here. I am asking for a formal logical definition of what you mean by the term "Mind". Do you have one, or not?


Well...give me an example of what you mean by providing a 'formal logical definition' of matter (without it being self-referential). Do you have one, or not?


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It turns mathematics into reality in exactly the same way your mind turns memories into reality when you dream.
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My dreams are not reality. Only a mentally ill person would believe they are.


I didn't say your dreams were reality, Stimpy. I said that when you have dreams they appear like reality to the dreamer.


It is not an explanation. You are saying X does A in the same way that Y does B, even though X is clearly a very different thing from Y, and A is very different from B. Reality is not a dream, and my mind is not infinite. What you gave was not a metaphor, but an analogy, and a seriously flawed one at that.


How do you know what reality is?
How do you know the mind is not infinite?


quote:
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Just as I cannot provide you with a precise mechanism as to how a mind creates reality during dreaming, I can neither provide you with a precise mechanism as to how it does it when you are awake, but apart from the fact the information source is different I see no reason why the actual 'reality construction' cannot be exactly the same process.
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As I said before, dreams are not reality.


And as I said before dreams appear like reality to the dreamer. If you were dreaming now then how would you know?


And besides, just because you see no reason why the process cannot be the same, doesn't mean that they are.


FACT : Every time you dream your mind constructs the illusion of reality.
FACT : It has therefore already been demonstrated that mind can create the illusion of matter very easily. ***And that was all I was trying to demonstrate***.


quote:
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You know that it feels like reality until you wake up, yes?
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No, it doesn't. But when I am asleep, I usually don't have the cognative faculties to recognize all the differences (sometimes I do). If you seriously cannot tell the difference between dream and reality, you need help.


WHEN YOU ARE DREAMING it FEELS LIKE reality. Or are you a freak? :D


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You know that this 'reality' is actually created by the mind, yes? So what is your problem understanding me, apart from the fact that you want there to be a problem?
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There are two problems:

1) Reality is very different from dreams. Reality is logically self-consistent. Dreams are not. Reality is temporally consistent. Dreams are not.


Fair enough, and totally irrelevant. All that matters is that mind has created something which appears as material reality. ***That was all I was trying to demonstrate***. Therefore your first problem is a strawman, since it is raising complaints that are not relevant. I did not say that mind created a 'logically self-consistent' illusion of reality. ***all I said was that it creates an illusion of reality***. Try to keep focused on what we are discussing instead of shooting off in other directions to find something to attack, Stimp.


2) Your speculation that reality is just a dream in some super-mind is just that, speculation.


At least I have an explanation to speculate with, plus a whole collection of 'mysteries' which appear to be solved by this solution. All the materialists have is a headache.


quote:
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The question was given X, how do we get Y (and given Y, how do we get X). It was NOT 'what is X?' and it was NOT 'what is Y?'. You start with matter and fail to provide an explanation for mind.
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I start with matter, and have a method which could potentially provide an explanation for human/animal consciousness.


You start with matter and run into the Hard Problem, then you spend 18 months glued to the spot, refusing to accept the Hard Problem exists and making no progress toward finding answers to any of these questions.


quote:
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I start with mind and point out that it 'creates matter' every time you dream. Asking me 'what mind is' was NOT the question we were trying to answer, remember?
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No, you start with "Mind", which if you are not willing to give any further definition than simply "all that exists", leaves you in exactly the same position of having to explain where human/animal consciousness comes from. If you define "Mind" to be human/animal consciousness, then you can not also define it to be "everything that is".


Why not?

That is precisely what YOU DO when you claim that mind is physical.


What's more, simply pointing out that human minds create matter everytime they dream, is not only false, but it is not an explanation of how Mind creates reality.


Why not, Stimp?

If a mind creates a reality every time you dream why not when you are awake? Or is that solution too simple for you to understand? I may not be able to explain the mechanism by which mind creates the illusion of reality but I can sure as hell point out that it does indeed do so.


Pointing out that human minds create mini-realities every time they dream, is not an explanation for how the meta-mind creates reality.


No, but it is conclusive proof that minds are capable of creating the illusion of physical reality. I repeat : This was the claim I was trying to support. It has been supported.


In order for it to qualify as an explanation, you would need to be able to do two things:

1) Explain how human minds produce mini-realities when they dream (which they don't).


Why do I have to explain the details of the mechanism? All that matters is that the mechanism exists, and it clearly does exist.


2) Demonstrate that the mechanism by which the Meta-Mind creates reality is the same as in (1).


Well if we have two mechanisms by which mind creates matter. Do you think they are likely to be very similar or completely unrelated? :rolleyes:

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

No. The universe can be functioning through TLON. There can be laws that are affecting the "agent" of the Libertarian, the only thing that must be true is:

1) The agent is causal
2) The agent cannot be caused

I am a bit puzzled by your use of causality here. You are aware, aren't you, that materialism does not hold that the physical world is causal? Indeed, the laws of nature are not causal. Anyway, if you "agent" functions according to the laws of nature, then how does your position differ from materialism?

Also if you assert:

1) The definition of the universe is such that all things that exist do so within the universe.

Then I can assert that the universe is infinite and you are putting a clause on a undefinable definition. Useless.

How does that render the definition undefinable? If the set of things that exist is infinite, then the Universe is an infinite set. So what?

The hard problem does not even exist unless you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is not reducible to empirically observable phenomena. Such an assumption is a rejection of the scientific method, and renders all scientific knowledge invalid.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are very confused Simpson J. Cat. If we make the assumption that consciousness (in some form or on some level) exists in such a way that it can not be caused (and therefore cannot be completely reduced to empirically observable phenomena) we are not assuming that it cannot be percieved at all.

It is you that are confused. Many empirical phenomena are not caused. This is the basis of Quantum Mechanics. What is important for science is that the phenomena is observable, and can be described according to logical rules. Materialism only claims that consciousness is observable, and functions according to logical rules. If you agree with this, then the rest of your so-called dualism is not a philosophical or metaphysical issue at all. It is simply a question of what the proper scientific description for consciousness is. Contrary to what many people my have told you, the idea that consciousness is a brain process that can be completely described by our current laws of physics, is not an assumption of materialism. It is just the best scientific theory that we currently have.

Nor are we assuming that just because human beings posses a free will granting "agent" that eveything has one. Obviously, TLOP still apply even though we have "agents" (since we do), so obviosly it follows that you are incorrect.

How am I incorrect? If consciousness can be described according to logical rules, and those rules can be determined empirically, then the Hard Problem does not exist.

Try to imagine a world with "agent" where only the "agent" is not completely reducable to empirically observable phenomena.

I thought before you said the agent could be perceived? If it can be perceived, then there are only two options. Either it functions according to natural laws, in which case it can be empirically observed, and scientifically studied, or it does not, in which case it is supernatural.

Regardless, we still do not have to (and should not) assume that the agent is not reducable. We have this two things that the "agent" might have been:

1) Causaully determined
2) Random

No it cannot be either of those. So we add the third thing:

How do you conclude that it cannot be either of those? Are you just assuming this? If so, why?

3) Something else.

Before you can assert that it is something else, you must define "random" in such a way that there could even be something else. As I said before, the precise mathematical definition for random is "undetermined".

We do not know what #3 is yet, but hopefully one day science will tell us. To claim that just because science has not demonstrated it yet means that science has refuted it is nonsense.

It is not a question of science refuting it. It is not a scientific question at all. "Random" means "not determined". Saying that it is not determined and not random is a contradiction.

I claim that it is #3 because:

1) it cannot be #1, #2
and
2) It logically follows that "agent" exists because we have free will.

Why can't it be 1 or 2? And how do you know we have Libertarian free-will?


UCE,

I am not asking for a complete description here. I am asking for a formal logical definition of what you mean by the term "Mind". Do you have one, or not?
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Well...give me an example of what you mean by providing a 'formal logical definition' of matter (without it being self-referential). Do you have one, or not?

I already told you, I define "matter" to mean "everything that exists". Is that how you define Mind? If so, then how does your philosophy differ from mine, and how do you explain the existence of human consciousness?

My dreams are not reality. Only a mentally ill person would believe they are.
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I didn't say your dreams were reality, Stimpy. I said that when you have dreams they appear like reality to the dreamer.

That is irrelevant. The only analogy that you could draw from that is that reality appears like reality to the Meta-Mind. That says absolutely nothing about why reality appears like reality to me.

It is not an explanation. You are saying X does A in the same way that Y does B, even though X is clearly a very different thing from Y, and A is very different from B. Reality is not a dream, and my mind is not infinite. What you gave was not a metaphor, but an analogy, and a seriously flawed one at that.
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How do you know what reality is?

I know that dreams are not reality. That is enough to refute your argument.

How do you know the mind is not infinite?

I don't. Nor did I claim that it is not. I just claimed that the mind is not "Infinity", whatever that is supposed to be.

As I said before, dreams are not reality.
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And as I said before dreams appear like reality to the dreamer. If you were dreaming now then how would you know?

But you are not claiming that reality is my dream. You are claiming that reality is a dream of the Meta-Mind, and that I am a part of that dream. Do you not see the difference?

And besides, just because you see no reason why the process cannot be the same, doesn't mean that they are.
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FACT : Every time you dream your mind constructs the illusion of reality.
FACT : It has therefore already been demonstrated that mind can create the illusion of matter very easily. ***And that was all I was trying to demonstrate***.

No, it demonstrates that human minds can create the illusion of matter. It demonstrates absolutely nothing whatsoever about this hypothetical Meta-Mind of yours.

No, it doesn't. But when I am asleep, I usually don't have the cognative faculties to recognize all the differences (sometimes I do). If you seriously cannot tell the difference between dream and reality, you need help.
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WHEN YOU ARE DREAMING it FEELS LIKE reality. Or are you a freak?

Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. As I already pointed out, this is beside the point.

There are two problems:

1) Reality is very different from dreams. Reality is logically self-consistent. Dreams are not. Reality is temporally consistent. Dreams are not.
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Fair enough, and totally irrelevant. All that matters is that mind has created something which appears as material reality. ***That was all I was trying to demonstrate***. Therefore your first problem is a strawman, since it is raising complaints that are not relevant. I did not say that mind created a 'logically self-consistent' illusion of reality. ***all I said was that it creates an illusion of reality***. Try to keep focused on what we are discussing instead of shooting off in other directions to find something to attack, Stimp.

once again, what does any of this have to do with the Meta-Mind. My mind is not the Meta-Mind. The Meta-Mind is not a human mind. So far, you have provided no definition of this Meta-Mind other than to say it is everything that exists.

All you are doing is positing the existence of some mind, which you claim is somehow qualitatively similar to human minds, and which generates reality as some sort of dream. This is pure anthropomorphic nonsense!

2) Your speculation that reality is just a dream in some super-mind is just that, speculation.
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At least I have an explanation to speculate with, plus a whole collection of 'mysteries' which appear to be solved by this solution. All the materialists have is a headache.

No, all you have is an ad-hoc hypothesis that you cannot even formulate coherently. Materialists have an entire field of scientific research which has told us more about the human condition in the last 50 years then all the mystics throughout history have.

The question was given X, how do we get Y (and given Y, how do we get X). It was NOT 'what is X?' and it was NOT 'what is Y?'. You start with matter and fail to provide an explanation for mind.
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I start with matter, and have a method which could potentially provide an explanation for human/animal consciousness.
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You start with matter and run into the Hard Problem, then you spend 18 months glued to the spot, refusing to accept the Hard Problem exists and making no progress toward finding answers to any of these questions.

I state again that unless you assume dualism a-priori, there is no hard problem. Scientific research has answered many questions about the mind. Burying your head in the sand won't change that fact. Neither will taking every question about the mind that science does answer, and moving it into the category of brain activity.

No, you start with "Mind", which if you are not willing to give any further definition than simply "all that exists", leaves you in exactly the same position of having to explain where human/animal consciousness comes from. If you define "Mind" to be human/animal consciousness, then you can not also define it to be "everything that is".
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Why not?

That is precisely what YOU DO when you claim that mind is physical.

No it is not. When I claim that the mind is physical, all I am doing is stating that it interacts with other physical stuff. This is a trivial observation.

What's more, simply pointing out that human minds create matter everytime they dream, is not only false, but it is not an explanation of how Mind creates reality.
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Why not, Stimp?

If a mind creates a reality every time you dream why not when you are awake? Or is that solution too simple for you to understand? I may not be able to explain the mechanism by which mind creates the illusion of reality but I can sure as hell point out that it does indeed do so.

I can point out that ducks fly, but that is hardly an explanation for how flight works. And it is certainly not an explanation for how helicopters fly.

Pointing out that human minds create mini-realities every time they dream, is not an explanation for how the meta-mind creates reality.
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No, but it is conclusive proof that minds are capable of creating the illusion of physical reality. I repeat : This was the claim I was trying to support. It has been supported.

And as I have pointed out, that is irrelevant unless you are going to demonstrate that the Meta-Mind is, in fact, a human mind. And even then, you will not have explained how minds create the illusion of reality in the first place!

In order for it to qualify as an explanation, you would need to be able to do two things:

1) Explain how human minds produce mini-realities when they dream (which they don't).
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Why do I have to explain the details of the mechanism? All that matters is that the mechanism exists, and it clearly does exist.

Because you claimed that idealism provides an explanation for these questions. Are you now saying that it does not? That it is, in fact, nothing more than an ad-hoc hypothesis which does not actually explain anything?

2) Demonstrate that the mechanism by which the Meta-Mind creates reality is the same as in (1).
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Well if we have two mechanisms by which mind creates matter. Do you think they are likely to be very similar or completely unrelated?

now you are playing word games. Human minds create the illusion of matter. The Meta-Mind creates real matter. You can argue that real matter is somehow illusory too, but this does not change the fundamental fact that there is clearly a difference between dreams and reality. And it doesn't resolve the fact that you still haven't defined "Meta-Mind".

Is it everything that exists? Is it a human mind? Does it share some characteristics with human minds? If so, which ones? And what are its characteristics that it does not share with human minds?

And even if you can explain all that, the fact still remains that Materialism provides a method by which we can attempt to determine the mechanism by which reality works. Idealism provides no such thing. instead you just say "see, it works. We don't need to know how".

Dr. Stupid

Stimpson


I already told you, I define "matter" to mean "everything that exists". Is that how you define Mind? If so, then how does your philosophy differ from mine, and how do you explain the existence of human consciousness?


'Mind' encompasses all that exists. All that exists exists within Mind.



I didn't say your dreams were reality, Stimpy. I said that when you have dreams they appear like reality to the dreamer.
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That is irrelevant. The only analogy that you could draw from that is that reality appears like reality to the Meta-Mind. That says absolutely nothing about why reality appears like reality to me.


Your mind is a sub-division of the metamind. Your mind is part of the metamind. The seperation is an illusion.



I know that dreams are not reality. That is enough to refute your argument.


Why? All I was doing was demonstrating that mind can create the illusion of reality. It does it when you dream. It also does it when you are awake, since the version of reality you experience is indeed an illusion. The only difference is the source of the information used to generate the illusion.



And as I said before dreams appear like reality to the dreamer. If you were dreaming now then how would you know?
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But you are not claiming that reality is my dream. You are claiming that reality is a dream of the Meta-Mind, and that I am a part of that dream. Do you not see the difference?


You and the Meta-mind are One. Atman=Brahman. All our minds are as leaves, the metamind is the tree. We share the same root.


quote:
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And besides, just because you see no reason why the process cannot be the same, doesn't mean that they are.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FACT : Every time you dream your mind constructs the illusion of reality.
FACT : It has therefore already been demonstrated that mind can create the illusion of matter very easily. ***And that was all I was trying to demonstrate***.
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No, it demonstrates that human minds can create the illusion of matter. It demonstrates absolutely nothing whatsoever about this hypothetical Meta-Mind of yours.


We are examining the respective claims of "matter makes mind" and "mind makes matter". We are agreed that minds can create the illusion of matter. They do so when dreamind, and they do so when awake - remember Kant, Stimp?


WHEN YOU ARE DREAMING it FEELS LIKE reality. Or are you a freak?
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Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. As I already pointed out, this is beside the point.


It is the whole point. Mind creates the illusion of a material world.


once again, what does any of this have to do with the Meta-Mind. My mind is not the Meta-Mind. The Meta-Mind is not a human mind. So far, you have provided no definition of this Meta-Mind other than to say it is everything that exists.


I have, actually. It encompasses all that exists, including your mind. Your mind can be the metamind. That is what happens during 'mystical Union'.


All you are doing is positing the existence of some mind, which you claim is somehow qualitatively similar to human minds, and which generates reality as some sort of dream. This is pure anthropomorphic nonsense!


Ah, yes.....anthropomorphism is the ultimate heresy.... :rolleyes:


I state again that unless you assume dualism a-priori, there is no hard problem.


There is no Hard Problem!
There is no Hard Problem!
THERE IS NO HARD PROBLEM!

:D


Why not, Stimp?

If a mind creates a reality every time you dream why not when you are awake? Or is that solution too simple for you to understand? I may not be able to explain the mechanism by which mind creates the illusion of reality but I can sure as hell point out that it does indeed do so.
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I can point out that ducks fly, but that is hardly an explanation for how flight works. And it is certainly not an explanation for how helicopters fly.


Neither you nor I have an explanation as to how the mind generates an illusion of material reality from some sort of base information. This is not what we are discussing. We are discussing whether mind has the capability of creating the illusion of a material world, and we have agreed that it does indeed have this capability.


quote:
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Pointing out that human minds create mini-realities every time they dream, is not an explanation for how the meta-mind creates reality.
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No, but it is conclusive proof that minds are capable of creating the illusion of physical reality. I repeat : This was the claim I was trying to support. It has been supported.
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And as I have pointed out, that is irrelevant unless you are going to demonstrate that the Meta-Mind is, in fact, a human mind.


And I have told you again and again that human minds are sub-divisions of the Metamind.

"There is only One Consciousness, and it is all that exists." (Shroedinger)


Human minds create the illusion of matter. The Meta-Mind creates real matter.


You have forgotten everything I told you about Kant, even though you have been told a hundred times. All you ever experience is THE ILLUSION of matter. All the meta-mind needs to do is store the information. Come on Stimp, you know this stuff... :(


You can argue that real matter is somehow illusory too, but this does not change the fundamental fact that there is clearly a difference between dreams and reality. And it doesn't resolve the fact that you still haven't defined "Meta-Mind".


I HAVE! It is the root of all that exist. It encompasses all that exists. It is also the root of your own mind and everybody-elses.


Is it everything that exists? Is it a human mind? Does it share some characteristics with human minds? If so, which ones? And what are its characteristics that it does not share with human minds?


Human minds, in their normal state, are limited to the knowledge of one host brain. Human minds are capable of losing this one-host identification and 'stepping backwards' and becoming the metamind. You say mysticism is poorly specified. Well, I'm telling you now that mystical Union is the experience of discovering that ones consciousness is the entirety of consciousness - Union with the metamind. That is precisely what mystics have always reported!

Stimpson :

Your argument seems to have deteriorated to : "You can't clearly specify and define this. You cannot give me a mechanism"

Well, I can, but it will take a whole book. Provide me with a postal address and I will send it to you. It is unavailable in Germany. :)

Consciousness and Berkeleys Metaphysics (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1902987004/qid=1049200441/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_16_2/202-8959985-6603044)

But then you don't really want to know, do you Stimp? ;)

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,


I am a bit puzzled by your use of causality here. You are aware, aren't you, that materialism does not hold that the physical world is causal? Indeed, the laws of nature are not causal. Anyway, if you "agent" functions according to the laws of nature, then how does your position differ from materialism?


Stimpson J Cat I do not have much time left today.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I am coming to realize that you do not even understand your own argument.

These are Stimpson J Cat quotes:


I have no idea what you mean by the "causal bit" not crossing over? An interaction is an interaction. If the interaction can be observed (directly or indirectly), and described with logical rules, then how is it different from any other physical interaction


I use causal bit to differentiate between a causal action and a non-causal interaction. You claim that all interactions are causal.


Rusty,

I use the scientific definition of physical. Something is physical if it interacts with something else that is physical, and the things which we can directly empirically observe are taken to be physical by definition.

So physical things are things that interact with other physical things? Very poor definition, but ok.

I do not have the time to discover your quote where you state that materialism is "all things are made of one substance and that substance is physical", so this will suffice:

then it necessarily follows that either the fact that you were thirsty was a purely physical phenomenon (materialism),


Now you are asserting that TLON are non-causal? You are a very confused cat! TLON are causal, they are an explanation of the causality. You need to go back to science 101!

Causal:
Something is causal if it's occurance neccesitates an effect.

Why does my striking of the match neccesitate the match head bursting into flame? This can be explained through TLON, because TLON are explanations of cause.

Perhaps you think that something is not causal if it contains any randomness. That is not so, something is causal if it's occurance neccesitates an effect. So if a random occurance necceistates an effect then this random occurance was causal. It was not caused, but was causal.

I am tempted to ignore the rest of your post permanently, but you are obviously highly intelligent. I simply cannot understand why you are being so obtuse.

I must go, I will be back tommorrow or the next day to address the remainder of your post.

Rusty


Are you being deliberately obtuse?


No, he just conveniently forgets all the points you already made when it looks like his position is under threat. You have to keep repeating yourself in every post or he just backslides all the time.


Now you are asserting that TLON are non-causal? You are a very confused cat! TLON are causal, they are an explanation of the causality. You need to go back to science 101!


Nah...send him to room 101...containing an endless repeat-loop audio tape of Franko discussing logical deism..... :D


I am tempted to ignore the rest of your post permanently, but you are obviously highly intelligent. I simply cannot understand why you are being so obtuse.


He has a belief system to defend.

[Q-Source]

UCE

I took the time to read some of the multiple links that you have provided to support your opinions. However, most of them in fact contradict your own line of reasoning. I wonder if you have noticed that before.

One of the solutions to the Mind/Body Problem (http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm) (if there is any :rolleyes: ) is proposed by Idealism, which the author describes as lunatic:

A fourth view is that there are no physical phenomena, there are only ideas in our minds. Contrary to popular opinion, therefore, there really aren't any pencils, mountains, or matter. The whole physical world is all in our minds. This lunatic view is called idealism, and it was held by Bishop Berkeley, who preferred, however, to say that pencils were ideas rather than that pencils don't exist.

BTW, this site is just a bad-spelling strawmen of materialism, i.e. materialism does not deny that people have mental states.

Anyway, the fundamental principle of Idealism is just a belief: for the physical world to be a mere mental representation in our minds, we have to believe that there is a Metamind generating this illusion. You've already conceded this point when I asked you why you said not to have beliefs:

Q-Source
You believe in the Metamind

UCE
This is indeed belief, but given that materialism is false and that an objective reality exists, the metamind must also exist. My 'belief' is that solipsism is false. I see solipsism or the metamind as the only logical possibilities once materialism is demonstrated to be false. Some form of dualism might be possible but I am yet to hear a convincing solution to the binding problem.

Quite strange if we consider that in nobeliefs.com, they clearly state that beliefs are internal to the individual and they do not necessarily require external validation. There is no way to achieve knowledge of the external world if we don’t confront the representations in our minds with the external physical world.

The site is not working so I couldn't quote the exact words. My point is that all your philosophy relies on nothing else than a belief. And this belief cannot be proved because its mental by nature.

Q

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

I already told you, I define "matter" to mean "everything that exists". Is that how you define Mind? If so, then how does your philosophy differ from mine, and how do you explain the existence of human consciousness?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Mind' encompasses all that exists. All that exists exists within Mind.

That's exactly how I define "Universe". Now, is that it? Does it have any other characteristics, or is it just synonymous with Universe?

I didn't say your dreams were reality, Stimpy. I said that when you have dreams they appear like reality to the dreamer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is irrelevant. The only analogy that you could draw from that is that reality appears like reality to the Meta-Mind. That says absolutely nothing about why reality appears like reality to me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your mind is a sub-division of the metamind. Your mind is part of the metamind. The seperation is an illusion.

I could as easily say that your mind is a part of the Universe, and that the separation that dualists are always talking about is an illusion. What's the difference, other than the fact that under my framework, the scientific method can be used to try to understand how the mind works, and under yours, it (for some as yet unexplained reason) cannot?

I know that dreams are not reality. That is enough to refute your argument.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why? All I was doing was demonstrating that mind can create the illusion of reality. It does it when you dream. It also does it when you are awake, since the version of reality you experience is indeed an illusion. The only difference is the source of the information used to generate the illusion.

No, you demonstrated that human minds can create the illusion of reality. You have demonstrated absolutely nothing about "Mind".

And as I said before dreams appear like reality to the dreamer. If you were dreaming now then how would you know?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But you are not claiming that reality is my dream. You are claiming that reality is a dream of the Meta-Mind, and that I am a part of that dream. Do you not see the difference?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You and the Meta-mind are One. Atman=Brahman. All our minds are as leaves, the metamind is the tree. We share the same root.

This is nonsense. It amounts to nothing more than the Solipsistic argument that reality is just my dream. Is it my dream, or the Meta-Mind's dream? If I am the Meta-Mind, then your Idealism is just Solipsism wearing a funny hat. If I am a part of the Meta-Mind, then your argument falls apart, because the fact that my mind can create an illusion of reality which it alone observes bears absolutely no relevance to the argument that the Meta-Mind can create an objective reality that all minds observe.

No, it demonstrates that human minds can create the illusion of matter. It demonstrates absolutely nothing whatsoever about this hypothetical Meta-Mind of yours.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are examining the respective claims of "matter makes mind" and "mind makes matter". We are agreed that minds can create the illusion of matter. They do so when dreamind, and they do so when awake - remember Kant, Stimp?

You are still playing word games. There is a difference between a human mind and this "Mind" you keep talking about. You cannot assert that Mind makes matter on the basis that human minds create the illusion of matter. Not unless you are asserting that the Mind is a human mind, and that reality is somebodies dream. And even if this is what you are asserting, it is referentially incoherent.

WHEN YOU ARE DREAMING it FEELS LIKE reality. Or are you a freak?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. As I already pointed out, this is beside the point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is the whole point. Mind creates the illusion of a material world.

My mind is not "Mind". The material World is not my dream World. you analogy is pure nonsense. You can assert that reality is a dream in some hypothetical Meta-Mind, but you cannot cite human dreams as evidence that this is the case, nor do they constitute an explanation of how it works.

once again, what does any of this have to do with the Meta-Mind. My mind is not the Meta-Mind. The Meta-Mind is not a human mind. So far, you have provided no definition of this Meta-Mind other than to say it is everything that exists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have, actually. It encompasses all that exists, including your mind. Your mind can be the metamind. That is what happens during 'mystical Union'.

Once again, this tells me nothing. So the Meta-Mind encompasses all that exists. How do you go from this to the claim that it is, in fact, a "mind".That is, how do you conclude that it is capable of dreaming up a reality? All you are doing is assuming that reality is a dream in some mind. This tells us nothing about how reality works, and certainly gives us no insight into the nature of that mind, or how it dreams up reality. It is just one in an infinite chain of utterly useless unfalsifiable hypotheses.

All you are doing is positing the existence of some mind, which you claim is somehow qualitatively similar to human minds, and which generates reality as some sort of dream. This is pure anthropomorphic nonsense!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah, yes.....anthropomorphism is the ultimate heresy....

No, not heresy. Just naive and silly.

I can point out that ducks fly, but that is hardly an explanation for how flight works. And it is certainly not an explanation for how helicopters fly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neither you nor I have an explanation as to how the mind generates an illusion of material reality from some sort of base information. This is not what we are discussing. We are discussing whether mind has the capability of creating the illusion of a material world, and we have agreed that it does indeed have this capability.

No, we already agree that human minds have the ability to create the illusion of a material world. This bears absolutely no relevance to the question of whether reality is a dream in some Meta-Mind. And unlike your idealism, materialism provides a method for trying to figure out how human minds create dreams. Your idealism does not even make the attempt!

And I have told you again and again that human minds are sub-divisions of the Metamind.

"There is only One Consciousness, and it is all that exists." (Shroedinger)

As I said before, this tells me nothing. You still need to explain how the Meta-Mind creates reality. Simply pointing out that human minds create the illusion of matter in dreams does not do this. All you have is an unsupported, and unsupportable, assertion.

Human minds create the illusion of matter. The Meta-Mind creates real matter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have forgotten everything I told you about Kant, even though you have been told a hundred times. All you ever experience is THE ILLUSION of matter. All the meta-mind needs to do is store the information. Come on Stimp, you know this stuff...

And all the Universe needs to do is store the information. You are just playing word games here. How is your Meta-Mind different than the Materialistic conception of the Universe? What additional characteristics does it have? And why do you think it has them?

You can argue that real matter is somehow illusory too, but this does not change the fundamental fact that there is clearly a difference between dreams and reality. And it doesn't resolve the fact that you still haven't defined "Meta-Mind".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I HAVE! It is the root of all that exist. It encompasses all that exists. It is also the root of your own mind and everybody-elses.

If that is all it is, then you just have Materialism. Your Meta-Mind is just the universe. What else do you claim about it, that makes it an actual mind, instead of just "all that exists"?

Is it everything that exists? Is it a human mind? Does it share some characteristics with human minds? If so, which ones? And what are its characteristics that it does not share with human minds?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Human minds, in their normal state, are limited to the knowledge of one host brain. Human minds are capable of losing this one-host identification and 'stepping backwards' and becoming the metamind. You say mysticism is poorly specified. Well, I'm telling you now that mystical Union is the experience of discovering that ones consciousness is the entirety of consciousness - Union with the metamind. That is precisely what mystics have always reported!

You still haven't told me what the Meta-Mind is!

Your argument seems to have deteriorated to : "You can't clearly specify and define this. You cannot give me a mechanism"

Well, I can, but it will take a whole book. Provide me with a postal address and I will send it to you. It is unavailable in Germany.

Consciousness and Berkeleys Metaphysics

But then you don't really want to know, do you Stimp?

You said you had a simple explanation. Clearly that was a lie. :rolleyes:

Don't bother sending me the book. I am not interested in pointless metaphysical speculation.


Rusty,

Stimpson J Cat I do not have much time left today.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I am coming to realize that you do not even understand your own argument.

These are Stimpson J Cat quotes:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have no idea what you mean by the "causal bit" not crossing over? An interaction is an interaction. If the interaction can be observed (directly or indirectly), and described with logical rules, then how is it different from any other physical interaction
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I use causal bit to differentiate between a causal action and a non-causal interaction. You claim that all interactions are causal.

I never claimed that. On the contrary, interactions are not, in general, causal. Causality is an emergent phenomena of Quantum Mechanics.

I use the scientific definition of physical. Something is physical if it interacts with something else that is physical, and the things which we can directly empirically observe are taken to be physical by definition.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So physical things are things that interact with other physical things? Very poor definition, but ok.

Why is it a poor definition? It is clear, concise, and unambiguous.

I do not have the time to discover your quote where you state that materialism is "all things are made of one substance and that substance is physical", so this will suffice:

Perhaps because I never said that? I reject ontological materialism as meaningless. I reject ontology itself as meaningless. I am one person you will never see here going on about "substances".

then it necessarily follows that either the fact that you were thirsty was a purely physical phenomenon (materialism),
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now you are asserting that TLON are non-causal? You are a very confused cat! TLON are causal, they are an explanation of the causality. You need to go back to science 101!

Somehow I doubt that. I can assure you that the Laws of Nature, at least as we currently understand them, are neither causal nor deterministic. As somebody who has taken graduate level courses in Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, I feel pretty confident on this point.

Causal:
Something is causal if it's occurance neccesitates an effect.

Why does my striking of the match neccesitate the match head bursting into flame? This can be explained through TLON, because TLON are explanations of cause.

Trust me, I understand how combustion works very well.

Perhaps you think that something is not causal if it contains any randomness. That is not so, something is causal if it's occurance neccesitates an effect. So if a random occurance necceistates an effect then this random occurance was causal. It was not caused, but was causal.

It just so happens that my field of expertise is stochastic nonlinear dynamics and statistical analysis. Believe me, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know.

I am tempted to ignore the rest of your post permanently, but you are obviously highly intelligent. I simply cannot understand why you are being so obtuse.

How am I being obtuse? I think you are reading things into my position that I have not said.

Let me reiterate my position, just so there is no confusion.

1) I am a scientific materialist. Scientific Materialism is nothing more than the philosophical basis of the scientific method.

1a) I define physical to be that which can be either directly, or indirectly, observed, where indirect observation refers to observing the effect that something which cannot be directly observed has on something that can.

1b) I assume that reality functions according to consistent logical rules, and that it is possible, at least in principle, to determine those rules from observation.

2) I do not think that ontology is a meaningful concept.

3) I reject any hypothesis that is not, at least in principle, falsifiable.

4) I do not believe any claim unless there is substantial reliable evidence to support it.


That said, the main problem I am having with the arguments you have presented thus far are these two points:

1) You have asserted that the interaction between the "agent" and the brain is one-way. We know of no one-way interactions anywhere in nature. On what basis have you concluded this?

2) You have asserted that the agent is neither deterministic nor random. I know of only one formal definition for random, and that is "non deterministic". What precisely do you mean by random, and how is random different for simply "not deterministic". What characteristic does something which is random have, which something which is just not deterministic does not necessarily have?

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE, the fact that the human mind can construct a (usually strange) reality during dreams, although irrelevant to the Metamind, would be more compelling if we knew that a congenitally blind, deaf, and dumb person had realistic dreams. In other words, if we knew that contact with the physical world isn't necessary for realistic dreams. I bet it is.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Q-Source
[B]UCE

I took the time to read some of the multiple links that you have provided to support your opinions. However, most of them in fact contradict your own line of reasoning. I wonder if you have noticed that before.

One of the solutions to the Mind/Body Problem (http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm) (if there is any :rolleyes: ) is proposed by Idealism, which the author describes as lunatic:


I had noticed. Indeed I have mentioned it several times. The author goes to great lengths to logically disprove the other systems, but chooses to dismiss mentalism as "lunatic". ;)


BTW, this site is just a bad-spelling strawmen of materialism, i.e. materialism does not deny that people have mental states.


Doesn't it?

It does if it wants to be coherent. Synasthesia has denied that qualia exist. Materiaists on this board regularly declare consciousness to be 'an illusion', not that they ever explain what this actually means.


My point is that all your philosophy relies on nothing else than a belief. And this belief cannot be proved because its mental by nature.


Well, we'd best agree to disagree on that one. My position is that of Robert Anton Wilson. Materialism is false, and that is not a belief but an empirical fact. I don't expect people here to swallow that, but I nevetheless maintain it to be the case.

:)


Paul :


UcE, the fact that the human mind can construct a (usually strange) reality during dreams, although irrelevant to the Metamind, would be more compelling if we knew that a congenitally blind, deaf, and dumb person had realistic dreams. In other words, if we knew that contact with the physical world isn't necessary for realistic dreams. I bet it is.


Why is this relevant?

[davidsmith73]

Been reading this thread with interest.
If I may jump in a little further back in the argument!

Stimpy said:

"For me, "matter" is just a convenient label. This is where the primary distinction between materialism and idealism lies. When you ask "what exists", a materialist will answer "matter", and an idealist will answer mind, but without any additional explanation, both of those replies are equally devoid of meaning. You might as well say it is made of Ether.

The difference is what happens when you follow up with "What is matter?" or "What is mind?". The materialist will proceed to give you the best description for what matter is that the scientific method can provide, and will endeavor to continue to improve this description through further scientific investigation, whereas the idealist can only offer vague metaphors and speculation."

I agree with the first parapgraph. The second I have a problem with and i think it may have to do with my definition of materialism but anyway...
The materialist will give a description of how matter behaves which I believe is different from what matter is. Also, materialism endows certain qualities onto matter as being somehow more real than others. For example under the materialist philosophy, real qualities are things like position and momentum. These are accepted as being more real than qualities like wetness or the redness of red because position and momentum can be described according to mathematical principles whereas qualia cannot. This acceptance in the superior reality of so-called primary qualities over secondary ones (what I understand as qualia) has been a consequence of the history of science and philosophy and the success of materialism in describing our quantitative observations.

So my first question to Stimpy would be - do you think that secondary qualities like wetness and redness are real in the same sense as mathematical descriptions like position and momentum are real ? or do you think there is a difference between them and if so what is the difference ?

[davidsmith73]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I don't see how it's easily distinguishable from the brain processes, because I have no idea how those processes seem or feel. Do you? Perhaps qualia are precisely the experience of those processes.


The very notion of suggesting that we "feel a physical process" necessarily puts us in a dualistic position does it not ?

(edited because something I wrote didn't make sense!)

I'm begining to see the problem (perhaps :( )
The materialist view is advocating one realm. It says that the dualistic categories of qualia vs physical belong to one realm but instead of creating a philosophy that encompases both categories, it choses to retain the dualistic interpretation of physical reality and discards the qualia which leaves us with the hard problem.

Stimpson :


That's exactly how I define "Universe". Now, is that it? Does it have any other characteristics, or is it just synonymous with Universe?


It is not synonymous with Universe, since 'Universe' is already a label for the perceived physical Universe. 'Mind' is a container for that physical Universe. Refering to the mental level of existence as 'Universe' may have its uses, but it is likely to complicate this debate.


Your mind is a sub-division of the metamind. Your mind is part of the metamind. The seperation is an illusion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I could as easily say that your mind is a part of the Universe, and that the separation that dualists are always talking about is an illusion. What's the difference, other than the fact that under my framework, the scientific method can be used to try to understand how the mind works, and under yours, it (for some as yet unexplained reason) cannot?


The reason, Stimp, is that you claim mind is part of the physical Universe on the grounds that this enables science to investigate it with no regard for the fact that science itself eliminates mind from its method!!!!

By contrast I claim mind is the context within which the Physical Universe exists in the first place....****thus providing a philosophical answer to a philosophical question instead of sticking my head in the sand and trying (hopelessly) to use science to answer a non-scientific question****

In addition, if the Universe is made of matter you have great difficulties explaining what 'mind' is, as has been painfully demonstrated on this board almost continually for the last 2 years! By contrast if the Universe is really made of 'Mind' then claiming that your mind is part of the Universe poses not the slightest problem at all!

Yes, we know that my solution means science can't touch it. That does not prevent my answer being the logical one and yours being a load of non-sensical materialistic gibberish. If the Universe is made of mind, then more mind is easy to explain. If it is made of matter then you are left with the Hard Problem. YAWN. :(


No, you demonstrated that human minds can create the illusion of reality. You have demonstrated absolutely nothing about "Mind".


'Mind' does the same thing.


You and the Meta-mind are One. Atman=Brahman. All our minds are as leaves, the metamind is the tree. We share the same root.
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This is nonsense. It amounts to nothing more than the Solipsistic argument that reality is just my dream. Is it my dream, or the Meta-Mind's dream?


The metamind provides the environment and the data. You dream your dream.


If I am the Meta-Mind, then your Idealism is just Solipsism wearing a funny hat.


Mysticism is indeed Solipsism wearing a funny hat - but you have to understand it first. All these questions have answers for those who bother to go looking for them.


If I am a part of the Meta-Mind, then your argument falls apart, because the fact that my mind can create an illusion of reality which it alone observes bears absolutely no relevance to the argument that the Meta-Mind can create an objective reality that all minds observe.


Well, your confusion is due to the fact that you do not understand the way idealistic metaphysics works. I have offered to send you a book about it. You say you aren't interested..... :(


You are still playing word games. There is a difference between a human mind and this "Mind" you keep talking about.


Is there?

http://members.aol.com/trikshaiva/


Trika Shaivism is a form of Hindu religion that believes in one God, which they call ParamaShiva, who creates the universe within Himself out of his own pure cosmic conscious Being.

ParamaShiva literally means "Supreme Auspiciousness". He is considered to be essentially pure infinite featureless consciousness (called Shiva). But this Shiva aspect has an active creative side called Shakti. It is this ever-active Shakti that creates, operates, and destroys endless universes.

Our own consciousness, which appears so tiny and limited, is not just a part of the cosmic consciousness, but actually is the supreme consciousness in total! It just appears small and limited due to creative activity of supreme conscious Shakti which has a veiling deluding aspect (Maya Shakti). It is through this veiling deluding power that Shakti then transforms the supreme conscious experience into the experience of infinite finite conscious beings inhabiting different limited non-sentient universes. The discovery and overcoming of this Maya Shakti is then the key to spiritual liberation - the realization of one's own true nature and complete liberation from the wheel of Karma - of life and death. This process whereby the Supreme Consciousness hides from itself through its own veiling power, and then liberates itself through seeing itself as it really is, is described in 36 steps.....


You continue...


I have, actually. It encompasses all that exists, including your mind. Your mind can be the metamind. That is what happens during 'mystical Union'.
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Once again, this tells me nothing. So the Meta-Mind encompasses all that exists. How do you go from this to the claim that it is, in fact, a "mind".That is, how do you conclude that it is capable of dreaming up a reality? All you are doing is assuming that reality is a dream in some mind.


Yes, I am pointing out that a relationship between mind and matter as described here provides a means whereby mind can create the illusion of matter, by contrast to the materialists who just flap around in a quagmire of logical backwardness.


This tells us nothing about how reality works, and certainly gives us no insight into the nature of that mind, or how it dreams up reality.


Doesn't it?

Not in a basic outline form like this it doesn't, but these answers are available to those who seek them. There is a whole world of literature and traditions that deal with these things. The fact that you and the other materialists write them off as meaningless even though you know little or nothing about them is your loss. But do not assume these things are not known. And don't expect me to ram them down your unwelcoming throat just to prove they exist. :(


Ah, yes.....anthropomorphism is the ultimate heresy....
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No, not heresy. Just naive and silly.


If you say so.


No, we already agree that human minds have the ability to create the illusion of a material world. This bears absolutely no relevance to the question of whether reality is a dream in some Meta-Mind.


Doesn't it?

Your memory is short and selective, Stimp. We were discussing whether 'mind creates matter' or 'matter creates mind' makes more sense. We have now agreed that mind creates the illusion of matter when you dream, and that your perceptions of a material world when awake is also an illusion. You have a 2 and a 2. Why such a struggle to make 4? :rolleyes:


And unlike your idealism, materialism provides a method for trying to figure out how human minds create dreams.


Your bottom line, as usual. Science can't use this hypothesis so I will reject it, even if materialism is illogical and idealism is the only basis of a TOE. How sad. Materialism turned into sciences sacred cow. :(


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And I have told you again and again that human minds are sub-divisions of the Metamind.

"There is only One Consciousness, and it is all that exists." (Shroedinger)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I said before, this tells me nothing. You still need to explain how the Meta-Mind creates reality.


I offered you a book, Stimp....


Simply pointing out that human minds create the illusion of matter in dreams does not do this. All you have is an unsupported, and unsupportable, assertion.


I offered you a book, Stimp. You say you don't want it!


And all the Universe needs to do is store the information. You are just playing word games here. How is your Meta-Mind different than the Materialistic conception of the Universe?


It exists in an eternal present instead of an illusory linear time, and it is made of mind. Matter is mere information.


What additional characteristics does it have? And why do you think it has them?


It would take me 10 pages to answer that. One step at a time.


If that is all it is, then you just have Materialism. Your Meta-Mind is just the universe. What else do you claim about it, that makes it an actual mind, instead of just "all that exists"?


All that exists is a mind.


You still haven't told me what the Meta-Mind is!


It is ISNESS. It is all BEING. It is 'I' - every "I".

I believe its self-definition in the OT was "Tell them that I am sent you".


Don't bother sending me the book. I am not interested in pointless metaphysical speculation.


You are pretty desperate to go on being able to deride it as pointless, continually accuse me of not being able to define it, but when I offer to supply you with the information you claim does not exist you decline my offer.

Originally posted by davidsmith73

The very notion of suggesting that we "feel a physical process" necessarily puts us in a dualistic position does it not ?

(edited because something I wrote didn't make sense!)

I'm begining to see the problem (perhaps :( )


Perhaps you are..... :)

Yes, "I feel a physical process" is the equivalent to "I can see a 650nm wavelength". But you do not see a wavelength. You see red.


The materialist view is advocating one realm. It says that the dualistic categories of qualia vs physical belong to one realm but instead of creating a philosophy that encompases both categories, it choses to retain the dualistic interpretation of physical reality and discards the qualia which leaves us with the hard problem.

Absolutely correct. I have said many times that materialism is effectively a denial that mental states even exist. Most materialists reject this although a few have been forced to claim the non-existence of qualia or that consciousness is an illusion. Those that reject it and subsequently attempt to provide a materialistic explanation of the relationship between brain processes and qualia always end up in a logical quagmire known as the hard problem. They have to state "qualia IS a brain process" although "IS" cannot mean "identical" (since they have completely different descriptions) and if "IS" does not mean "identical" then brain processes and qualia MUST differ but the materialist is logically prevented from providing an explanation as to the nature of the difference. Dualism simply accepts the difference but runs into the binding problem explaining how they interact. Which leaves platonistic idealism to suggest that the matter is made of mathematical information existing in the realm of 'Mind'.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Q-Source
My point is that all your philosophy relies on nothing else than a belief. And this belief cannot be proved because its mental by nature.

Q

Er, Q, that's exactly what UCE has been saying. :eek:

What isn't "mental by nature". *I* think sure is. ;)

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by hammegk


Er, Q, that's exactly what UCE has been saying.

Yeah. What I was trying to say is that he holds that position but at the same time he wants to give the impression that is not based on a mere unsupported belief.

To me, this is the easiest answer to the Hard Question

UCE:
if the Universe is really made of 'Mind' then claiming that your mind is part of the Universe poses not the slightest problem at all!

Of course :rolleyes:

What isn't "mental by nature". *I* think sure is.

Everything outside our minds. *I* sure is mental.

Just to clarify :

Any understanding of metaphysics rests on a mixture of experience, intuition and belief (and logic of course), neccesarily so because we are talking about the realm of the subjective. But the basic root tenet that consicousness is the true root of reality I believe to be logically inevitable, and indeed it was not until I fully accepted and felt I had publicly demonstrated its logical inevitablility did anything really change for me. I felt I had proved this to myself, and I believe that this certainty was required for further progress. Maybe for others faith alone suffices to get them through the conceptual door, but it wasn't enough for me. That is how I see it, anyhow.

[Jethro]

Well, call me a silly materialist, but I still fail to see why conciousness and awareness cannot be emergent properties of physical systems.

The physical state of the brain most certainly affects one's mental state. Anyone who has ever sustained a brain injury, hallucinated while suffering from a fever, taken a psychotropic drug, experienced TMS, or even dated a woman for more than a month ;) can verify that. Well, if the "mind" is so influenced by the purely physical, why cannot it be purely physical?

So, what about the universe resulting from conciousness? Well, I am a concious being. I observe the universe. I also apparantly observe other concious beings. From what I can gather, these concious beings observe pretty much the same universe that I do. Well, if the universe is a product of the mind, why have all our minds come up with pretty much the same thing? Not to mention the fact that said universe contains evidence that it has existed independently of our conciousnesses. If it is because, as I think you say, we all share the same conciousness, why is there no evidence for this shared conciousness? Surely if we did share conciousness things like ESP and remote viewing would have claimed the million dollars by now?

Well, if the physical universe appears to exist independently of conciousness, and conciousness does NOT appear to exist independently of the physical universe, that would indicate to me that the conciousness is part of the physical universe, not the other way around.

Originally posted by Jethro

Well, call me a silly materialist, but I still fail to see why conciousness and awareness cannot be emergent properties of physical systems.


You're a silly materialist.... :D


The physical state of the brain most certainly affects one's mental state. Anyone who has ever sustained a brain injury, hallucinated while suffering from a fever, taken a psychotropic drug, experienced TMS, or even dated a woman for more than a month ;) can verify that. Well, if the "mind" is so influenced by the purely physical, why cannot it be purely physical?


You've read this thread and you're asking me that?

You might think of it like two sides of a coin - bend one of them and the other bends with it - but there are still two sides to the coin....


So, what about the universe resulting from conciousness? Well, I am a concious being. I observe the universe. I also apparantly observe other concious beings.


Which means we can agree to dispense with solipsism (for humans).


From what I can gather, these concious beings observe pretty much the same universe that I do. Well, if the universe is a product of the mind, why have all our minds come up with pretty much the same thing?


Nobody is contesting that we share the same perceived objective reality. We are talking about how it exists.


Not to mention the fact that said universe contains evidence that it has existed independently of our conciousnesses.


That depends upon your conception of time. From the piint of view of consciousness it is always "now", always has been and always will be.


If it is because, as I think you say, we all share the same conciousness, why is there no evidence for this shared conciousness?


Many people argue that there is, and it has been ignored. e.g. the "hundredth monkey effect", not that I want to take the thread off-topic. The proof is logical, not experimental.


Surely if we did share conciousness things like ESP and remote viewing would have claimed the million dollars by now?


It isn't that simple......


Well, if the physical universe appears to exist independently of conciousness, and conciousness does NOT appear to exist independently of the physical universe, that would indicate to me that the conciousness is part of the physical universe, not the other way around.

Things aren't always the way they seem. Understanding the relationships between time, matter, consciousness, past, future and present can reveal more than one way of looking at it.

[Valmorian]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

Many people argue that there is, and it has been ignored. e.g. the "hundredth monkey effect", not that I want to take the thread off-topic. The proof is logical, not experimental.



As you said, not to take this off topic, but it should be pointed out that the so-called "hundredth monkey" effect is based upon a lie:

There's some information about it here:
http://www.skepdic.com/monkey.html

There MAY be some sort of shared consciousness, but the hundredth monkey 'phenomenon' is not good evidence to support it.

[Jethro]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


You're a silly materialist.... :D
:DNobody is contesting that we share the same perceived objective reality. We are talking about how it exists.Right, and I (and many others) would argue that it exists as an independent objective reality independent of any conciousness observing it.That depends upon your conception of time. From the piint of view of consciousness it is always "now", always has been and always will be.Okay, but surely you would agree that there is evidence, even just in the form of one's own memories, that something other than now exists. We call this something "the past," and there is a great deal of evidence that at some point in the past, the universe existed and human conciousness as we know it did not. Not to mention the fact that, in the macroscopic world anyway, things appear to exist independent of their being observed.Many people argue that there is, and it has been ignored. e.g. the "hundredth monkey effect",You are aware that the hundredth monkey effect is a myth? e:f,b. But anyway, as you said, let's keep this on topic. Perhaps then a new thread or links to old ones that contain such evidence? not that I want to take the thread off-topic. The proof is logical, not experimental.Link to said proof?It isn't that simple......okey.Things aren't always the way they seem. Understanding the relationships between time, matter, consciousness, past, future and present can reveal more than one way of looking at it. Well, one way I would describe materialism is the assumption that things are as they seem, more or less.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Valmorian



As you said, not to take this off topic, but it should be pointed out that the so-called "hundredth monkey" effect is based upon a lie:

There's some information about it here:
http://www.skepdic.com/monkey.html

There MAY be some sort of shared consciousness, but the hundredth monkey 'phenomenon' is not good evidence to support it. [/B]

Gosh! Oh well! So much for the hundredth monkey phenomenon! One would be ill-advised to question what Skep Dick asserts!

[Jethro]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Gosh! Oh well! So much for the hundredth monkey phenomenon! One would be ill-advised to question what Skep Dick asserts! Since I am fairly certain that's sarcasm I smell, perhaps another source (http://www.neiu.edu/~team/ripple/2001/keyes.htm):* We were just informed that Ken Keyes, Jr. in the early 1970's, after reading Joe Campbell's works extensively, decided to see how far this story he developed, would evolve. It's a story that he made up; however, isn't this really how things work. We can learn from this story's metaphor about what needs to happen in order for a community to change.
More sources to follow as I find them, if necessary.

Okay, here's a good one (http://www.fastcompany.com/online/23/cdu.html):Confronted with this information, myth creator Watson responded with a monkey mea culpa (Whole Earth Review, Fall 1986): "It is a metaphor of my own making, based . . . on very slim evidence and a great deal of hearsay."

But anyway, howabout some linkages to real evidence and/or that logical proof that UCE mentioned? I apologize for my neediness, but the JREF forums are not my usual hangout.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Jethro
Since I am fairly certain that's sarcasm I smell, perhaps another source (http://www.neiu.edu/~team/ripple/2001/keyes.htm):
More sources to follow as I find them, if necessary.

I never said I believed in the hundredth monkey phenomenon. But one would be ill-advised not to believe in it because of Robert Todd Carroll say so. He's as thick as f*ck and a liar to boot.

But by all means supply more sources.

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Peskanov
I have no direct experience of anyone else's consciousness, but I know of no
way to gather convincing indirect evidence. There is no physical observation
or measurement that I know of whose results would constitute evidence for
or against the hypothesis that anyone besides me has (or does not have)
consciousness. (This is because, due to the fact that I have only a single
data point to infer from, I have no reliable knowledge about the correlation
between physical facts and subjective consciousness.)
[HR SIZE = 50%]
It does not seem true to me. If I know of a drug that alter consciousness,
and give it to other person, then I will able to hear a description of it's effects
and test it in myself. If the effects in my consciousness are similar this is a
pretty good indirect evidence of consciousness in the other side!

I does not do so because I can derive another solution. If the physical
brain through evolution evolves similar brain processes across individual's
then taking a drug alters both brains in similar ways. Thus, the evidence
proves materialism.

A way to solve this little dilemma involves the transfer of information.
Person A meets person B on the street and they exchange information.
If I give a coded message to person A and person B returns from his trip
giving me the same coded message then I conclude, with a certain degree
of certainty, they met and exchange the message.

If person B while physically separated from person A returns the coded
message I gave person A whilst both on the mind altering drug, then I
would say, “Let’s try that again.” If not then we go with the default case.

Jethro :

To be honest, I've been around this loop too many times before....the more obvious it becomes that materialism can be shown to be false the higher goes the level of emotional outbursts, ad hominems and general chaos. I think the problem has been clearly enough specified already in this thread, and if you don't then we will have to agree to disagree.

But I'll reply to the rest of your post.


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That depends upon your conception of time. From the piint of view of consciousness it is always "now", always has been and always will be.
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Okay, but surely you would agree that there is evidence, even just in the form of one's own memories, that something other than now exists. We call this something "the past," and there is a great deal of evidence that at some point in the past, the universe existed and human conciousness as we know it did not. Not to mention the fact that, in the macroscopic world anyway, things appear to exist independent of their being observed.


As I said, nothing is as it appears. What is the difference between the microscopic world and the macroscopic world? Why do we think about them as if there is some critical point where what we know about quantum physics stops being the way this objective reality works? I am with Schroedinger, who was also an idealist. The cat is both dead and alive till observed. The Universe may 'exist' unobserved, but it exists in a quantum superposition where the unobserved past is as indeterminate as the future. I believe the whole of reality works like this. From the point of view of materialism and linear time then one has to conclude that somehow there was a 'beginning of time' in an inexplicable 'big bang'. I see that as simply the Universe 'inventing' a past that is logically consistent with the present. If you believe that materialism is wrong then your concept of the Universe must come from the POV of consciousness, not matter. If you want more detail about what I am describing then PM me.


quote:
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Many people argue that there is, and it has been ignored. e.g. the "hundredth monkey effect",
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are aware that the hundredth monkey effect is a myth? e:f,b. But anyway, as you said, let's keep this on topic. Perhaps then a new thread or links to old ones that contain such evidence?


I would disagree that this effect is a myth. I think this is typical of the problems created by materialistic science. To the materialist mainstream this phenomena must be false. So all evidence is dismissed - 'the damned data of science' as Charles Fort put it. Until you let go of materialism, you dismiss it - and enough people dismissing it allows people like yourself to claim it is a myth. I don't think the 'evidence' is the problem. I think it is the believability under materialism which is the problem. Therefore more links won't help. You will find no shortage of people willing to passionately 'debunk' it, just as with the PEAR results. Those people have an agenda, and at the top of the agenda is that anything which makes no sense under materialism must be DEBUNKED.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Things aren't always the way they seem. Understanding the relationships between time, matter, consciousness, past, future and present can reveal more than one way of looking at it.
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Well, one way I would describe materialism is the assumption that things are as they seem, more or less.


Which explains a great deal. Materialism is institutinalised confusion regarding the difference between "The world as it really is" and "The world as we perceive it". The materialist believes the world actually IS as he percieves it. Kant must be turning in his grave.

Note to all :

I am thinking of retiring from this thread, and taking a long, maybe permanent break from this board. I'm not sure what remains to be said. It's spring, and I think I wish to return to the real world. ;)

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Jethro
Well, call me a silly materialist, but I still fail to see why conciousness and awareness cannot be emergent properties of physical systems.

The physical state of the brain most certainly affects one's mental state. Anyone who has ever sustained a brain injury, hallucinated while suffering from a fever, taken a psychotropic drug, experienced TMS, or even dated a woman for more than a month ;) can verify that. Well, if the "mind" is so influenced by the purely physical, why cannot it be purely physical?


Remember that the important issue is whether the "primary stuff" of reality is our description of matter or our experience of qualia. When you say that the "mind" (I presume that you mean qualia) is purely physical you are in fact reducing the two concepts to equivalence. So we start with a dualistic interpretation of "matter" and "mind" and reduce them to a single realm. After all, physical is just a label applied to both descriptions. However, its interesting that you have chosen to retain the word "physical" as a label because this implies that you have retained the original dualistic meaning of physcical and somehow stuck on the "mind" with celotape. Sorry, I'm being facetious just to make a point.

If we are really talking about a single realm then it seems much more natural to use our experience of qualia as the starting point. From our experience of qualia we derive our descriptions of matter and create a conceptual outside world. And this is actually quite apparent if one takes the time to break out of a dualistic world view, which I think many of us hold without even realising it. This way, everything we describe from science still holds true because it is still "matter" but "matter" now has a different origin. There is no "out there" or "in your mind" because these phrases carry connotations of a dualistic conception of reality which we have just rejected.

So with regards to the "mind" being affected by "matter", I find this a little harder to reconcile with what I've just said. I'm still working on this but...
Under the one-realm conception I've just mentioned, qualia becomes the "stuff" of reality. In the same sense that a conception of a physcal reality might not merely be a specific arrangement of matter at any one time but be described as infinite, perhaps dimensionless is the right word, then we can use the same meaning to describe our qualia reality. In other words, our individual experience at any one time is not a reflection of reality, because we experience things as separate qualia (i.e. red and yellow) when the true reality (qualia per se) is infinite. So when we take LSD all we can do is to describe the "physical" changes that take place in our brain and as I have said, the "physical" no longer exists as separate from the "mental". Quantitative observations are still qualia (they're just dressed smartly ;) ). So qualia has interacted with qualia which is the same as saying physical interacts with physical except that the meaning of the words has changed dramatically and I am starting to think this difference in meaning can only be realised through introspection not through science.

[Loki]

UCE,

I am thinking of retiring from this thread, and taking a long, maybe permanent break from this board.
Try some music again, Geoff - ultimately, it's probably more rewarding than debating philosphy on the internet!

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Davidsmith73,

So my first question to Stimpy would be - do you think that secondary qualities like wetness and redness are real in the same sense as mathematical descriptions like position and momentum are real ? or do you think there is a difference between them and if so what is the difference ?

Absolutely they are real in the same sense as position and momentum, and other mathematically quantifiable things. Materialism does not hold that these things are not real, or that they do not exist, but rather that they are reducible to such mathematical descriptions.

We are used to describing things in terms of other things we already understand. Science is no different in this regard. Ultimately, the foundation upon which everything else is described, is a mathematical one. Right now it is QM. QM is a purely mathematical description of observed phenomena. This is very unsatisfying for many people, because they are used to having mechanistic explanations, in terms of other things they already understand. But at the most fundamental level, the explanations must all boil down to a purely mathematical description. Maybe someday we will find something more fundamental than QM, which we can mechanistically describe QM in terms of, but then whatever that is will just be a mathematical description.

Ultimately, the only tool we have for understanding concepts is logic, and mathematics is a language for expressing logic. So when you get down to the fundamentals, any explanation amounts to a mathematical description. Ultimately, that is all we can ever reasonably expect to have.

I'm begining to see the problem (perhaps )
The materialist view is advocating one realm. It says that the dualistic categories of qualia vs physical belong to one realm but instead of creating a philosophy that encompases both categories, it choses to retain the dualistic interpretation of physical reality and discards the qualia which leaves us with the hard problem.

One thing that has become very clear to me in debating with dualists, is that what dualists and materialists mean by "physical reality" are subtly, but significantly different things. I would not say that it is accurate to claim that materialists retain the dualistic interpretation of physical reality. On the contrary, I think that many of the things which dualists define to be non-physical are clearly physical under the materialistic definition of the term.


UCE,

That's exactly how I define "Universe". Now, is that it? Does it have any other characteristics, or is it just synonymous with Universe?
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It is not synonymous with Universe, since 'Universe' is already a label for the perceived physical Universe. 'Mind' is a container for that physical Universe. Refering to the mental level of existence as 'Universe' may have its uses, but it is likely to complicate this debate.

That may be how you define "Universe", but it is not how I define it. In any event, my question still stands: What characteristics, besides being the "container for everything that exists", does this "Mind" which you posit have?

Your mind is a sub-division of the metamind. Your mind is part of the metamind. The seperation is an illusion.
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I could as easily say that your mind is a part of the Universe, and that the separation that dualists are always talking about is an illusion. What's the difference, other than the fact that under my framework, the scientific method can be used to try to understand how the mind works, and under yours, it (for some as yet unexplained reason) cannot?
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The reason, Stimp, is that you claim mind is part of the physical Universe on the grounds that this enables science to investigate it with no regard for the fact that science itself eliminates mind from its method!!!!

No, I claim that human minds are a part of the physical Universe on the grounds that the clearly interact with it. And you are profoundly incorrect when you claim that science eliminates the mind from its method.

By contrast I claim mind is the context within which the Physical Universe exists in the first place....****thus providing a philosophical answer to a philosophical question instead of sticking my head in the sand and trying (hopelessly) to use science to answer a non-scientific question****

This provides no answers at all, because you can't explain what "Mind" is. Simply giving the same name to "Everything that exists" that you typically use to refer to your own consciousness, does not answer any questions! All it does is introduce unnecessary conceptual baggage.

In addition, if the Universe is made of matter you have great difficulties explaining what 'mind' is, as has been painfully demonstrated on this board almost continually for the last 2 years!

1) I define "matter" to mean "What the Universe is made of", so there is no "if" about it. If Idealism is correct, then "matter" is just a synonym for the metamind.

2) I have no more difficulty explaining what mind is than you do. Ether way, we can only explain what minds are by observing their properties. no amount of philosophical speculation is going to get around that fact. Naming the set of everything that exists "Mind" doesn't magically tell you anything about human consciousness.

Yes, we know that my solution means science can't touch it. That does not prevent my answer being the logical one and yours being a load of non-sensical materialistic gibberish. If the Universe is made of mind, then more mind is easy to explain. If it is made of matter then you are left with the Hard Problem. YAWN.

What does it mean to say that the Universe is made of mind? That doesn't tell us anything, because we don't know yet what minds are!!! All you are doing is taking some aspect of the World we don't yet understand, and claiming that the whole world is made up of it, as though that somehow provided an understanding of it!

No, you demonstrated that human minds can create the illusion of reality. You have demonstrated absolutely nothing about "Mind".
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'Mind' does the same thing.

That is not an explanation. It is ********. I reiterate: Mind is not the same thing as my human mind, and reality is not the same thing as my dreams. Therefore, no matter how analogous the two processes may be, they are not the same process. This is just blatant hand-waving, not an actual explanation.

Besides, since you don't know how human minds produce dreams, saying that the Metamind creates reality in the same way is just a fancy way of saying that you don't know how it does it.

You and the Meta-mind are One. Atman=Brahman. All our minds are as leaves, the metamind is the tree. We share the same root.
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This is nonsense. It amounts to nothing more than the Solipsistic argument that reality is just my dream. Is it my dream, or the Meta-Mind's dream?
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The metamind provides the environment and the data. You dream your dream.

More meaningless analogies. :rolleyes:

If I am the Meta-Mind, then your Idealism is just Solipsism wearing a funny hat.
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Mysticism is indeed Solipsism wearing a funny hat - but you have to understand it first. All these questions have answers for those who bother to go looking for them.

Your "answers" amount to nothing more than just saying "see, it does it".

If I am a part of the Meta-Mind, then your argument falls apart, because the fact that my mind can create an illusion of reality which it alone observes bears absolutely no relevance to the argument that the Meta-Mind can create an objective reality that all minds observe.
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Well, your confusion is due to the fact that you do not understand the way idealistic metaphysics works. I have offered to send you a book about it. You say you aren't interested.....

That's right. You have made it quite clear that you don't really understand it, so why should I think that reading it is going to do me any good? You have not made a convincing argument that your philosophy is anything more than incoherent nonsense. There is tons of literature on such nonsense out there. I can't waste my time reading it all. So you tell me, why is yours any different?

You are still playing word games. There is a difference between a human mind and this "Mind" you keep talking about.
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Is there?

You tell me. Define your terms. So far the only explanation you have given for "Mind" is "the container for the physical Universe". That doesn't sound anything like human consciousness to me.

Trika Shaivism is a form of Hindu religion that believes in one God, which they call ParamaShiva, who creates the universe within Himself out of his own pure cosmic conscious Being.

Do I need to even ask where he came from? Or how he created the Universe? Or what evidence there is that this is true? This is just standard theistic nonsense.

ParamaShiva literally means "Supreme Auspiciousness". He is considered to be essentially pure infinite featureless consciousness (called Shiva). But this Shiva aspect has an active creative side called Shakti. It is this ever-active Shakti that creates, operates, and destroys endless universes.

More incoherent nonsense. What does "pure infinite featureless consciousness" mean?

Our own consciousness, which appears so tiny and limited, is not just a part of the cosmic consciousness, but actually is the supreme consciousness in total! It just appears small and limited due to creative activity of supreme conscious Shakti which has a veiling deluding aspect (Maya Shakti). It is through this veiling deluding power that Shakti then transforms the supreme conscious experience into the experience of infinite finite conscious beings inhabiting different limited non-sentient universes. The discovery and overcoming of this Maya Shakti is then the key to spiritual liberation - the realization of one's own true nature and complete liberation from the wheel of Karma - of life and death. This process whereby the Supreme Consciousness hides from itself through its own veiling power, and then liberates itself through seeing itself as it really is, is described in 36 steps.....
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And by what reasoning do you conclude that this is anything more than fantasy?

I have, actually. It encompasses all that exists, including your mind. Your mind can be the metamind. That is what happens during 'mystical Union'.
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Once again, this tells me nothing. So the Meta-Mind encompasses all that exists. How do you go from this to the claim that it is, in fact, a "mind".That is, how do you conclude that it is capable of dreaming up a reality? All you are doing is assuming that reality is a dream in some mind.
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Yes, I am pointing out that a relationship between mind and matter as described here provides a means whereby mind can create the illusion of matter,

No, you have just pointed out that human minds do create the illusion of matter. You have made no attempt to explain how, or why they do it. You have just made the assertion that there is some sort of Mind that created reality in the same way. you have no explanation, only unjustified assertions, and vague analogies.

by contrast to the materialists who just flap around in a quagmire of logical backwardness.

No, the materialists start by trying to understand how things actually work. you are the on is working logically backwards, by assuming the answer, and then trying to fit the evidence to it.

Not in a basic outline form like this it doesn't, but these answers are available to those who seek them. There is a whole world of literature and traditions that deal with these things. The fact that you and the other materialists write them off as meaningless even though you know little or nothing about them is your loss. But do not assume these things are not known. And don't expect me to ram them down your unwelcoming throat just to prove they exist.

I think we are confusing terms here. Unjustified assertions are not answers. Blind speculation is not an answer. You don't have any real answers. All you have are claims, which you cannot back up, which you assert are the answers.

Real answers are verifiable. unless you have a method for verifying your answers, you have no answers.

No, we already agree that human minds have the ability to create the illusion of a material world. This bears absolutely no relevance to the question of whether reality is a dream in some Meta-Mind.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doesn't it?

Your memory is short and selective, Stimp. We were discussing whether 'mind creates matter' or 'matter creates mind' makes more sense.

No, we weren't, because that is a stupid dichotomy. It is also meaningless nonsense, since you won't define what you mean by "mind". Sometimes you use it to refer to human consciousness, and other times to refer to something else.

We have now agreed that mind creates the illusion of matter when you dream, and that your perceptions of a material world when awake is also an illusion. You have a 2 and a 2. Why such a struggle to make 4?

Maybe because matter is not the same as an illusion of matter, and because we have no reason to believe that the objective reality that we all seem to share is, itself, and illusion generated by some mystical mind?

You are offering completely blind speculation here. Why should I be impressed?

And unlike your idealism, materialism provides a method for trying to figure out how human minds create dreams.
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Your bottom line, as usual. Science can't use this hypothesis so I will reject it, even if materialism is illogical and idealism is the only basis of a TOE.

You have not demonstrated that materialism is illogical, and it is quite clear that Idealism cannot provide a theory of everything, because it lacks the capability of verification.

How sad. Materialism turned into sciences sacred cow.

Nothing is sacred. Science, unlike idealism, is useful.

As I said before, this tells me nothing. You still need to explain how the Meta-Mind creates reality.
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I offered you a book, Stimp....

I don't want a book. I want the "simple explanation" that you claimed you have.

Simply pointing out that human minds create the illusion of matter in dreams does not do this. All you have is an unsupported, and unsupportable, assertion.
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I offered you a book, Stimp. You say you don't want it!

That is because your book is just more of the same. Nothing but unsupported and unsupportable assertions. Or are you going to claim that this book actually documents reliable evidence in support of its claims? Does it provide a demonstrably reliable method for verifying what it claims? If not, then I am not interested.

And all the Universe needs to do is store the information. You are just playing word games here. How is your Meta-Mind different than the Materialistic conception of the Universe?
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It exists in an eternal present instead of an illusory linear time, and it is made of mind. Matter is mere information.

Get with the program, UCE. Modern materialism does not have anything to do with linear time, and also approaches matter from the point of view of information. It just doesn't muck around with a bunch of silly metamind nonsense.

What additional characteristics does it have? And why do you think it has them?
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It would take me 10 pages to answer that. One step at a time.

Then just name some of them. So far, you haven't named any.

If that is all it is, then you just have Materialism. Your Meta-Mind is just the universe. What else do you claim about it, that makes it an actual mind, instead of just "all that exists"?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All that exists is a mind.

Is that a definition of the word mind? Or a description of all that exists? If the former, then you are just using the word mind where I would use the word matter. If the latter, then you need to define mind.

You still haven't told me what the Meta-Mind is!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is ISNESS. It is all BEING. It is 'I' - every "I".

I believe its self-definition in the OT was "Tell them that I am sent you".

I cannot extract any meaning from any of this.

Don't bother sending me the book. I am not interested in pointless metaphysical speculation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are pretty desperate to go on being able to deride it as pointless, continually accuse me of not being able to define it, but when I offer to supply you with the information you claim does not exist you decline my offer.

We haven't gotten to that stage yet. If you want me to study your religion, then you need to convince me that it is worth studying. You have not done that.

So far, what you saying looks like the standard theistic nonsense to me. Do you have any evidence to support it, or just vague analogies and metaphors?


Dr. Stupid

[Q-Source]

Geoff,

Don't say you're leaving the board permanently.

When you say that materialism is false, you're only referring to its explanation provided to the Mind/body problem, aren't you?.
Don't say you're leaving the board permanently.

However, it still works pretty well to describe interactions in what we interpret as physical reality.
Don't say you're leaving the board permanently.

Q

Stimpson :

We have taken this as far as it is possible to take it. In amongst your indignation there were some pertinent questions, but I feel uncomfortable about providing answers in this sort of environment, and as part of a debate such as this. I'd provide these answers only to a person who I felt was genuinely interested, and actually wanted to know them. And they would be no more than signposts - we have left the world of objectively verifiable scientific truth behind and entered the admittedly murky world of mystical philosophy in search of the secrets of existence. These things have remained hidden (http://www.noteaccess.com/RELATIONSHIPS/Occult.htm) for very good reasons. I told you before that all I could do was show you the door, but that you must walk through it yourself. You replied that you knew already that only madness lay on the other side, and among other things, madness does lie on the other side.

But then so does the only true escape from an increasingly insane world lie beyond that door.


Real answers are verifiable. unless you have a method for verifying your answers, you have no answers.


Real answers are indeed verifiable. If the model of Reality described by Hinduism, mysticism in general (and most explicitly expressed in Trika Shaivism) is correct then these answers can be verified in the most profound, most certain way possible - it can be experienced directly. What better way can there be of verifying that your mind is capable of Union with the Metamind than to experience that Union directly. Just for a moment, consider that it might be true. If you yourself had direct knowledge that this was the truth how would you go about trying to convince others that it was true? Even if you thought you could logically prove it, would that be the right way to do it? Or would it be better just to try to lead an exemplary life and do what you could to convince others to seek those answers themselves? Here lies my apprensiveness to go further down this line of debate, and my insistence that no scientific proof can be had. I do not want to live in a world where this has been objectively or scientifically proven to the wider world. And in no way would I claim to have led an exemplary life. I must leave mystical teaching to those who have that calling. I am only of use to describe my own process of discovering the flaws in the scientific materialism I ascribed to for so long, in the hope that others will also get to grips with the problem, and hopefully be provoked into seeking an understanding of the solution.

Geoff.

Originally posted by Q-Source

Don't say you're leaving the board permanently.


Well, I didn't say that because then I would have been guaranteed to come back......but I'm really not sure what there is left for me to say.


When you say that materialism is false, you're only referring to its explanation provided to the Mind/body problem, aren't you?.

However, it still works pretty well to describe interactions in what we interpret as physical reality.


When I say it is false I mean it is an incomplete description of reality. It works as a model for the behaviour of what we interpret as physical reality, with certain specific exceptions. Those exceptions are to do with randomness (or the lack of) and time (or the lack of) and the relationship between mind and physical reality. Only at the extremes of the material existence does this matter - in interpreting quantum physics, in understanding the nature of time, in getting to grips with consciousness and in finding answers to the ultimate questions about why the Universe exists, why it appears to be engineered, what we should make of Free Will and Determinism and the existence and nature of Infinity.

I think much of this has been known since the dawn of civilisation in one way or another, and that in a perfect world it could be known far more widely. Unfortunately the human race has barely progressed above the status of wild animals. We are not even civilised, let alone ready for the long-predicted day when humanity collectively grows up and recognises what it truly is. If Franko was still here he would try to convince you that such a day should never come. And maybe he would be right.

[LeFevre]

or the door you went through UCE was the wrong one, you went into the one that leads to madness. I'm not sure there is even a half ass way to tell, for you personally with your own personal experiences, if you have decended into madness (and not just you UCE, basically anyone. Think Franko).

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

We have taken this as far as it is possible to take it. In amongst your indignation there were some pertinent questions, but I feel uncomfortable about providing answers in this sort of environment, and as part of a debate such as this. I'd provide these answers only to a person who I felt was genuinely interested, and actually wanted to know them. And they would be no more than signposts - we have left the world of objectively verifiable scientific truth behind and entered the admittedly murky world of mystical philosophy in search of the secrets of existence. These things have remained hidden for very good reasons. I told you before that all I could do was show you the door, but that you must walk through it yourself. You replied that you knew already that only madness lay on the other side, and among other things, madness does lie on the other side.

But then so does the only true escape from an increasingly insane world lie beyond that door.

I know for certain that madness lies beyond the door, and I have only the say-so of people who appear to have embraced madness to assure me that there is anything else beyond it. Unfortunately, such people are ill equipped to distinguish between madness and enlightenment.

Real answers are verifiable. unless you have a method for verifying your answers, you have no answers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Real answers are indeed verifiable. If the model of Reality described by Hinduism, mysticism in general (and most explicitly expressed in Trika Shaivism) is correct then these answers can be verified in the most profound, most certain way possible - it can be experienced directly. What better way can there be of verifying that your mind is capable of Union with the Metamind than to experience that Union directly.

Unfortunately, we already know that such direct experience is unreliable. Or more precisely, our subjective interpretations of such experiences are unreliable. That renders verification impossible. This is true whether materialism is true or false. Either way, your philosophy leads nowhere.

Just for a moment, consider that it might be true. If you yourself had direct knowledge that this was the truth how would you go about trying to convince others that it was true?

I have no idea what direct knowledge is supposed to be. The only kind of knowledge I am aware of is conditional, and the result of interpreting my experiences within a logical framework.

I am afraid that what you are calling knowledge is nothing more than your unreliable subjective interpretations of your experiences. That is not knowledge, in any meaningful sense of the term. Not unless you completely reject the notion of objective reality, and resort to some sort of Solipsism.

Even if you thought you could logically prove it, would that be the right way to do it? Or would it be better just to try to lead an exemplary life and do what you could to convince others to seek those answers themselves? Here lies my apprensiveness to go further down this line of debate, and my insistence that no scientific proof can be had. I do not want to live in a world where this has been objectively or scientifically proven to the wider world.

What does what you want have to do with anything?

And in no way would I claim to have led an exemplary life. I must leave mystical teaching to those who have that calling. I am only of use to describe my own process of discovering the flaws in the scientific materialism I ascribed to for so long, in the hope that others will also get to grips with the problem, and hopefully be provoked into seeking an understanding of the solution.

Whatever. I still say that all of the so-called flaws in materialism that you have pointed out amount to begging the question that it is false.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by LeFevre
or the door you went through UCE was the wrong one, you went into the one that leads to madness. I'm not sure there is even a half ass way to tell, for you personally with your own personal experiences, if you have decended into madness (and not just you UCE, basically anyone. Think Franko).

Oh I am thinking Franko alright (see my post to Q). Nobody on this board understands Franko like I do, and nobody on this board understands me like Franko does. We have both been through that door and we have both tasted madness. My problem was that having discovered the door I charged through like an Elephant in through the door of a china shop. The door is real. The truth lies behind it. But it is not for the faint-hearted, and it is not for those who seek for personal power.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


I have no idea what direct knowledge is supposed to be.

When you experience redness you have direct knowledge that you are experiencing redness (whether you are hallucinating or looking at traffic lights!)

[hammegk]

Originally posted by LeFevre
or the door you went through UCE was the wrong one, you went into the one that leads to madness. I'm not sure there is even a half ass way to tell, for you personally with your own personal experiences, if you have decended into madness (and not just you UCE, basically anyone. Think Franko).

There is no "wrong" door. Your *I* will accept whatever part of the experience it can accept.

At the scientistic level think of exploring the less likely probabilities; that's all. TLON will not care.

Does a materialist just experience a wavicle impinging on the optic nerve & neurons/biochem reacting?

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


Absolutely they (qualia) are real in the same sense as position and momentum, and other mathematically quantifiable things. Materialism does not hold that these things are not real, or that they do not exist, but rather that they are reducible to such mathematical descriptions.

I define redness as an aspect of qualia. I don't think I have to define redness any further in order to understand what we are talking about, and I assume you experience it just like me. If your branch of materialism defines physical reality (the only realm) by mathematical descriptions then consider this:

all our mathematical descriptions are derived from what we call our experience of qualia which includes the redness of red. An observation must manifest as qualia. Therefore the ultimate "stuff" that these mathematical descriptions refer to is our qualia. It is obvious that redness can be symbolised by mathematics but this description is just another form of qualia. The ultimate reality that this mathemaical description is linked to is our experience of redness. The mathematical description alone is our experience of exactly that - not redness. The two are merely correlated (whatever that means ;) )



Ultimately, the only tool we have for understanding concepts is logic, and mathematics is a language for expressing logic. So when you get down to the fundamentals, any explanation amounts to a mathematical description.

But even under your materialism, a mathematical explanation is not the nature of reality so what do you think it is ?

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


What does it mean to say that the Universe is made of mind? That doesn't tell us anything, because we don't know yet what minds are!!! All you are doing is taking some aspect of the World we don't yet understand, and claiming that the whole world is made up of it, as though that somehow provided an understanding of it!



Lets replace "mind" with "qualia" to make things a little easier, a form of which is the redness of red. You know what redness is without the need for any other reference. In the absense of language you would not even label it with a word. In the same sense that you would say matter is the stuff that constitutes electrons, protons etc, I think UCE is using Mind to refer to the stuff that constitutes redness, yellowness, pain, joy or any qualia you choose to pick. These things are the reality.

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

......but I'm really not sure what there is left for me to say.

If you know something that we don't know then you have a lot of things to say.


When I say it is false I mean it is an incomplete description of reality. It works as a model for the behaviour of what we interpret as physical reality, with certain specific exceptions. Those exceptions are to do with randomness (or the lack of) and time (or the lack of) and the relationship between mind and physical reality.

Those exceptions are a moot point, but in general I think that you are correct. Materialism provides an incomplete explanation of reality (subjective and objective), however you should recognise that -even with its shortcomings- Materialism is the only frame of reference that has been proved to be coherent with the physical reality.

I am not defending a belief system, but it is the only one that seems to work pretty well. Has any alternative been provided?

From the site www.nobeliefs.com (http://www.nobeliefs.com/MapandTerritory.htm) I got this interesting quote:

If we fail to understand the difference between what occurs in our minds and what occurs outside our minds, we can confuse the symbols for the things they represent; we have the capacity to act on things that exist only in our heads while believing they exist outside our heads.
...

Symbols of belief that do not interact with outside objects, either though our bodies or artificial sensors, lead to no such understanding of the world.

You were a materialist skeptic before, you should understand how the understanding of the Universe works.


I think much of this has been known since the dawn of civilisation in one way or another, and that in a perfect world it could be known far more widely. Unfortunately the human race has barely progressed above the status of wild animals. We are not even civilised, let alone ready for the long-predicted day when humanity collectively grows up and recognises what it truly is. If Franko was still here he would try to convince you that such a day should never come. And maybe he would be right.

I just wonder why those civilisations and those people who really know what's behind the door are not capable of explainging themselves coherently and objectively.

Why everything has to be obscure, hidden, secret, magical, mental and mystical...?
Have any technological advance and human's understanding been achieved through their frame of reference? Maybe you think that this is not what it matters, that's why you say that we're still wild animals.

You people have a lot of work to do then.

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by davidsmith73

Lets replace "mind" with "qualia" to make things a little easier, a form of which is the redness of red. You know what redness is without the need for any other reference. In the absense of language you would not even label it with a word. In the same sense that you would say matter is the stuff that constitutes electrons, protons etc, I think UCE is using Mind to refer to the stuff that constitutes redness, yellowness, pain, joy or any qualia you choose to pick. These things are the reality.

So, explain to me what the Universe was before any conscious human existed.

There was no reality?

It was neccesary to wait millions of years for human's conciousness to develop in order to get a Universe?

[Valmorian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Gosh! Oh well! So much for the hundredth monkey phenomenon! One would be ill-advised to question what Skep Dick asserts!

Perhaps you should check the references following the article, instead of indulging your favourite passtime of frothing at the mouth?

Originally posted by Q-Source


So, explain to me what the Universe was before any conscious human existed.

There was no reality?

It was neccesary to wait millions of years for human's conciousness to develop in order to get a Universe?

Participatory Anthropic Principle (http://home.btclick.com/scimah/anthropism.htm)

[Stimpson J. Cat]

DavidSmith73,

I have no idea what direct knowledge is supposed to be.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you experience redness you have direct knowledge that you are experiencing redness (whether you are hallucinating or looking at traffic lights!)

I would say that is quite a different usage of the word "knowledge" than what UCE and I were referring to. In this case, you are talking about an experience. Sure, in some sense I "know" that I am having the experience, but I do not necessarily have any knowledge of what that experience means, what its significance is, or anything else about it, for that matter.

The fact that we experience things is not, and never has been, in question. The question is how do we interpret those experiences? What information can be extracted from them? The scientific method is the only method we have for reliably extracting information from our experiences. When UCE talks about having "direct knowledge that his philosophy is right, due to his experiences", this is nonsense. Somehow he must extract the information that his philosophy is correct, from those experiences.

UCE's argument seems to be that it is somehow possible to extract reliable information about the nature of reality from mystical experiences, but when asked what the method for this extraction is, he says that it is direct experience. He is essentially ignoring the fact that experiences alone do not provide any information. Those experiences must be interpreted, and that interpretation must be made within some logical framework. And most importantly of all, there must be some way to verify that the interpretation is correct. He is essentially claiming that the experience itself is the verification for the interpretation of the experience. Once again, this is nonsensical.

Absolutely they (qualia) are real in the same sense as position and momentum, and other mathematically quantifiable things. Materialism does not hold that these things are not real, or that they do not exist, but rather that they are reducible to such mathematical descriptions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I define redness as an aspect of qualia. I don't think I have to define redness any further in order to understand what we are talking about, and I assume you experience it just like me. If your branch of materialism defines physical reality (the only realm) by mathematical descriptions then consider this:

all our mathematical descriptions are derived from what we call our experience of qualia which includes the redness of red. An observation must manifest as qualia. Therefore the ultimate "stuff" that these mathematical descriptions refer to is our qualia. It is obvious that redness can be symbolised by mathematics but this description is just another form of qualia. The ultimate reality that this mathemaical description is linked to is our experience of redness. The mathematical description alone is our experience of exactly that - not redness. The two are merely correlated (whatever that means )

If you look into logical positivism, you will find that this is exactly how it works. The entire mathematical language of science is constructed in terms of experiences, although they typically refer to observations, rather than qualia or experiences, by virtue of the fact that subjective bias must be controlled for before any reliable information can be extracted from the experience.

The only thing "materialistic" about it, is the implicit assumption that the experience is not all there is, but rather that there is an objective reality that we are experiencing.

Keep in mind that these are essentially semantic arguments, having to do with how we label things, and how we must describe things in terms of other things. The fact that the only language we have for describing reality is one which uses our experiences as its basic components, is a reflection of the way we acquire information about reality, and not necessarily a reflection of the nature of reality itself. It would be both premature and extremely egotistical, to assume that just because we must describe reality in terms of our experiences, that reality is somehow ontologically dependent on our consciousness.

Ultimately, the only tool we have for understanding concepts is logic, and mathematics is a language for expressing logic. So when you get down to the fundamentals, any explanation amounts to a mathematical description.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But even under your materialism, a mathematical explanation is not the nature of reality so what do you think it is ?

Are you asking me what I think the fundamental nature of reality is? I don't know. More importantly, I don't have any way to find out. I don't have to like it, that's just the way it is. What I can do is build up as complete and accurate a description of reality as is possible given the tools I have. Blind speculation and philosophical pontificating aren't going to get me any closer to the truth. That is why I consider ontology to be a meaningless concept.

What does it mean to say that the Universe is made of mind? That doesn't tell us anything, because we don't know yet what minds are!!! All you are doing is taking some aspect of the World we don't yet understand, and claiming that the whole world is made up of it, as though that somehow provided an understanding of it!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lets replace "mind" with "qualia" to make things a little easier, a form of which is the redness of red.

OK, fine. In that case, we have "The Universe is made of qualia". This is nothing more than a rejection of objective reality. It is solipsism, and is totally pointless.

Materialism, and indeed any philosophy which is not just a fancy form of Solipsism, requires that the World not be made of qualia. Under Materialism, the assumption is that our subjective experiences (qualia) are our source of information about reality, and not reality itself.

You know what redness is without the need for any other reference.

Not really. You learn how to experience redness, just as you learn anything else. How you experience redness depends on all sorts of things, including the other types of stimuli that you were exposed to, along with the color red. All of these associations contribute to that experience. The idea that human beings possess some innate ability to experience things like redness, has been demonstrated to be wrong through science. Even very basic things like experiencing redness are learned. you just don't remember learning them.

In the absense of language you would not even label it with a word. In the same sense that you would say matter is the stuff that constitutes electrons, protons etc, I think UCE is using Mind to refer to the stuff that constitutes redness, yellowness, pain, joy or any qualia you choose to pick. These things are the reality.

I agree that this is what UCE is doing. That is why I have said that his philosophy is equivalent to Solipsism.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Q-Source

I just wonder why those civilisations and those people who really know what's behind the door are not capable of explainging themselves coherently and objectively.


Understanding something is one thing. Explaining it to someone else is another thing entirely, especially if you have no common frame of reference. How could Captain Cook have ever understood aboriginal Dreamtime?


Why everything has to be obscure, hidden, secret, magical, mental and mystical...?


Why has that which has been hidden been hidden?

You have to find it to understand why it has been hidden. ;)


Have any technological advance and human's understanding been achieved through their frame of reference? Maybe you think that this is not what it matters, that's why you say that we're still wild animals.


I'm not sure I understand this question.

G.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
It would be both premature and extremely egotistical, to assume that just because we must describe reality in terms of our experiences, that reality is somehow ontologically dependent on our consciousness.

Dr. Stupid

Another way to look at it is "Our" consciousnesses are the highest expression of conciousness we perceive(via our bag-o-bones), but this is the top level. UCE et al are proposing the lowest level.

Human consciousness is not the key, it is a current end-point.

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

Understanding something is one thing. Explaining it to someone else is another thing entirely, especially if you have no common frame of reference.

And here relies the main problem that Stimpson has pointed out.
If we cannot share the same frame of reference to interpret reality, then the "knowledge" that you have reached through your experiences is useless (except to you, of course).

Hey, maybe you are right. Maybe, everything around us is just a mental representation, an illusion in our minds that are part of a huge Metamind. I don't think that Stimpson is questioning your conclusion, he wonders what method we could use to arrive to the same conclusion and how we could verify that this is true.

I am sure that you are convinced for some reason.

Originally posted by Q-Source

And here relies the main problem that Stimpson has pointed out.
If we cannot share the same frame of reference to interpret reality, then the "knowledge" that you have reached through your experiences is useless (except to you, of course).


Frames of reference exist for at least some of these things. The problem might be described as The Inexpressibility of the Truth. What you can describe isn't it. Whatever you say something is, it isn't. The tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao. You have to build your own frame of reference from the inadequate descriptions others have provided of theirs.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
DavidSmith73,

When you experience redness you have direct knowledge that you are experiencing redness (whether you are hallucinating or looking at traffic lights!)

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

In this case, you are talking about an experience. Sure, in some sense I "know" that I am having the experience,


Then, by definition, this is direct knowledge about redness. The important point is - you cannot describe it fully in any other terms. You have to experience the qualia itself to know what is really is. Direct knowledge and experience are synonymous under this definition.

You say mathematical descriptions cannot describe the ultimate reality of redness.

I agree, but under the philosophy I refer to, mathematical descriptions are made of different qualia than redness. This is why they cannot give us direct knowledge of redness - because they are different qualia. The ultimate "stuff", the reality of redness (or anything for that matter), is the experience they give which, as UCE has just pointed out, is inexpressible.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

davidsmith73,

In this case, you are talking about an experience. Sure, in some sense I "know" that I am having the experience,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, by definition, this is direct knowledge about redness. The important point is - you cannot describe it fully in any other terms. You have to experience the qualia itself to know what is really is. Direct knowledge and experience are synonymous under this definition.

Which was exactly my point. I was objecting to UCE's claim that he could have direct knowledge that his mysticism is true, because experiences alone are not sufficient to reach that conclusion. An interpretation of those experiences is necessary, and without some method for verifying that the interpretation is correct, it is unreliable.

You say mathematical descriptions cannot describe the ultimate reality of redness.

Actually, I did not say that. What I said is that we cannot construct a mathematical description for "ultimate reality" at all, because we have no access to the necessary information. Instead, our description of reality must be based on our observations of it.

I agree, but under the philosophy I refer to, mathematical descriptions are made of different qualia than redness. This is why they cannot give us direct knowledge of redness - because they are different qualia. The ultimate "stuff", the reality of redness (or anything for that matter), is the experience they give which, as UCE has just pointed out, is inexpressible.

If you believe that the "ultimate reality" is, in fact, the qualia, then there is no point in going any further. That is Solipsism. If, on the other hand, you accept that there is an objective reality, which our minds are a part of, and that our experiences are the interaction of our minds with other parts of the reality, then it is possible to make progress. That is scientific materialism.


Dr. Stupid

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
davidsmith73,

Actually, I did not say that. What I said is that we cannot construct a mathematical description for "ultimate reality" at all, because we have no access to the necessary information. Instead, our description of reality must be based on our observations of it.

Can you explain why you cannot have access to the necessary information under a materialistic philosophy ?

If you are indeed advocating one realm then how do you account for the apparent separation between subjective experience and an objective reality. It seems that the very notion of "objective reality" is returning to a dualistic interpretaion of the physical and mental realms as is your use of the phrase "we (mental realm) have no access to the necessary information (physical realm)".


If you believe that the "ultimate reality" is, in fact, the qualia, then there is no point in going any further.

I'm not sure I agree. Saying that the redness of red is the "stuff" of reality gives a neat explanation as to why a mathematical description seems to make us unable to gain access to the "necessary information". We have already agreed that we cannot have knowledge about redness in any other terms other than experiencing redness (which is the direct knowledge). So it makes sense that a mathematical description of redness, which is not the actual reality it refers to (i.e, redness) cannot have access to the actual reality. This is because the mathematical description is composed of different qualia.

Its becoming more and more clear to me that the "necessary information" you refer to is our experience of redness. So we do have direct access to it (at least I know I have access to it). We just cant describe it completely in terms other than the direct knowledge of redness.



If, on the other hand, you accept that there is an objective reality, which our minds are a part of, and that our experiences are the interaction of our minds with other parts of the reality, then it is possible to make progress. That is scientific materialism.


I think you are making distinctions here when there aren't any. In the sense we have been talking about, "mind" and"experiences" are the same thing. I'll call them qualia. Since we are both advocating one realm, your use of the term "objective reality" is the same as mine.

So to re-phrase what you said:

If, on the other hand, you accept that there is one realm, which our qualia are a part of, and that our qualia are the interaction of our qualia with other parts of the reality (back to dualism again ?), then it is possible to make progress.

I don't know what to make of that !?

[Mercutio]

Quote:
If you are indeed advocating one realm then how do you account for the apparent separation between
subjective experience and an objective reality. It seems that the very notion of "objective reality" is
returning to a dualistic interpretaion of the physical and mental realms as is your use of the phrase "we
(mental realm) have no access to the necessary information (physical realm)".


The apparant separation between subjective and objective is not one of mental and physical, but of private and public. All are physical, but the public things we can point to and to some extent share the experience of. The difficulties we have in understanding each other's private experiences are purely because we do not have the publicly shared reference. From James to Wittgenstein to Skinner, you can see smarter people than me arguing that we learn about our own internal states by inference from what people tell us (we act in a particular way, our parents say "you must be angry", we infer that this state is anger). The problem is, while we can point to "red" and be relatively consistent, we may be told we look "angry" when in fact we are sad, or hungry, or perplexed, in addition to angry.

We are not born understanding red or understanding anger, or love, or hunger. We learn the labels for external things by shared agreement with a language community (the rules of the language game, I think Wittgenstein called it); we learn the labels for private events the same way, but much less accurately.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

davidsmith73,

Actually, I did not say that. What I said is that we cannot construct a mathematical description for "ultimate reality" at all, because we have no access to the necessary information. Instead, our description of reality must be based on our observations of it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can you explain why you cannot have access to the necessary information under a materialistic philosophy ?

The only source of information we have is our experiences. This means that one can always speculate that there is something more to reality than what we experience, or what we can deduce from our experiences. Such additional things are simply unknowable.

If you are indeed advocating one realm then how do you account for the apparent separation between subjective experience and an objective reality.

I don't. What separation are you talking about? Under materialism, our subjective experiences are a part of objective reality. Specifically, they are physical processes.

It seems that the very notion of "objective reality" is returning to a dualistic interpretaion of the physical and mental realms as is your use of the phrase "we (mental realm) have no access to the necessary information (physical realm)".

Not at all. Such dualism only pops in when you think of your mind as being something separate from objective reality, "on the outside looking in". This is simply not what materialism suggests. The human mind is one small part of objective reality, which is trying to understand its relationship to the rest of objective reality, based on the limited information that it acquires through its interactions with it.

If you believe that the "ultimate reality" is, in fact, the qualia, then there is no point in going any further.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure I agree. Saying that the redness of red is the "stuff" of reality gives a neat explanation as to why a mathematical description seems to make us unable to gain access to the "necessary information".

I don't follow you. Saying that the experience is the "stuff" of reality leads absolutely nowhere. It tells us absolutely nothing. If you want a logical description of reality, then you need to assume that there is a reality there to begin with, and that it is possible for you to acquire information about it. If we assume that our experiences are all there is, then we can go no further, because verification becomes impossible.

We have already agreed that we cannot have knowledge about redness in any other terms other than experiencing redness (which is the direct knowledge). So it makes sense that a mathematical description of redness, which is not the actual reality it refers to (i.e, redness) cannot have access to the actual reality.

I don't know what you mean. What does it mean to say that the description has access to the actual reality?

Mathematics is a language for describing logical relationships between things. Science uses this language to describe the logical relationships between the components of objective reality that we experience, and does so in terms of those experiences.

This is because the mathematical description is composed of different qualia.

Huh? Mathematical descriptions are not composed of qualia. Mathematical descriptions describe reality in terms of qualia.

Its becoming more and more clear to me that the "necessary information" you refer to is our experience of redness. So we do have direct access to it (at least I know I have access to it). We just cant describe it completely in terms other than the direct knowledge of redness.

That is not what I am referring to. When I say that we do not have access to the necessary information to describe "ultimate reality", I am talking about the information that we would need to describe the hypothetical aspects of it which are not observable. I do not believe that my experiences are the ultimate reality, remember?

If, on the other hand, you accept that there is an objective reality, which our minds are a part of, and that our experiences are the interaction of our minds with other parts of the reality, then it is possible to make progress. That is scientific materialism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think you are making distinctions here when there aren't any. In the sense we have been talking about, "mind" and"experiences" are the same thing. I'll call them qualia. Since we are both advocating one realm, your use of the term "objective reality" is the same as mine.

I think that it is absolutely necessary to make a distinction between experiences and mind. As I have already said, experiences are an interaction between your mind, and other things.

This is, in my opinion, one of the conceptual barriers that idealists and dualists cannot seem to get around. Experiences are not "things", they are processes. It is meaningless to talk about an experience as though it were some ontologically independent thing. It has no existence independent of the process of being experienced.

So to re-phrase what you said:

If, on the other hand, you accept that there is one realm, which our qualia are a part of, and that our qualia are the interaction of our qualia with other parts of the reality (back to dualism again ?), then it is possible to make progress.

There is no dualism here. Just one part of objective reality (your mind), interacting with other parts of objective reality. The experience is the interaction. Things only become confused when you refuse to distinguish between the experience (a process), and the thing doing the experiencing (an object).

In other words, the qualia are the interaction itself. They are not one of the "things" taking part in the interaction.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by davidsmith73

So it makes sense that a mathematical description of redness, which is not the actual reality it refers to (i.e, redness) cannot have access to the actual reality. This is because the mathematical description is composed of different qualia.


I'm not sure I'd say the mathematical description is made of 'different qualia', although I think I know what you mean. I'd say it was just 'made' of information. If you include abstract mathematical ideas in a mind within the term 'qualia' then I'd agree.

[Q-Source]

Stimpson,

Could you give your opinion about this quote?:


Quantum theory states that any physical system remains in a superposed state of all possibilities until it interacts with the mind of an observer. From the participatory anthropic principle (http://home.btclick.com/scimah/anthropism.htm)


Is it true?

Or is it just a vulgar misinterpretation of the Many Worlds interpretation?

Q-S

Q :

This is just the "Schroedingers cat" situation taken to its ultimate conclusion - an entire Universe in an 'uncollapsed' state until somewhere in the ocean of possibilities arises the first structure capable of collapsing the wave-function - the first conscious physical creature. It is MWI only until the arrival of consciousness. After that it isn't MWI any more. But it provides an interesting new perspective on evolution and abiogenesis because it does not matter how incredibly improbable it was for life to get started, so long as it is not impossible it will happen. Under this scheme life had an infinite number of chances to get going and evolution had an infinite number of chances of producing consciousness, but both life and consciousness were always inevitable.

:)

G.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Mercutio
Quote:


The apparant separation between subjective and objective is not one of mental and physical, but of private and public. All are physical, but the public things we can point to and to some extent share the experience of. The difficulties we have in understanding each other's private experiences are purely because we do not have the publicly shared reference.


Yes, but this is not telling us anything about the nature of the private experience. You are just stating that my "redness" cannot be experienced by anyone else but me (according to a materialitic view anyway).


We are not born understanding red or understanding anger, or love, or hunger. We learn the labels for external things by shared agreement with a language community (the rules of the language game, I think Wittgenstein called it); we learn the labels for private events the same way, but much less accurately.

this is not the issue. Learning a label for red is purely that. This tells us nothing about the nature of the qualia the label refers to.
Maybe I'm missing the relevance of this. Can you explain further ?

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Q :

This is just the "Schroedingers cat" situation taken to its ultimate conclusion - an entire Universe in an 'uncollapsed' state until somewhere in the ocean of possibilities arises the first structure capable of collapsing the wave-function - the first conscious physical creature. It is MWI only until the arrival of consciousness. After that it isn't MWI any more. But it provides an interesting new perspective on evolution and abiogenesis because it does not matter how incredibly improbable it was for life to get started, so long as it is not impossible it will happen. Under this scheme life had an infinite number of chances to get going and evolution had an infinite number of chances of producing consciousness, but both life and consciousness were always inevitable.


But where did the first conscious physical creature come from?

Your link says nothing about the answer to this question. However, it jumps to assert that:

The bottom line of the participatory anthropic principle is that minds can exist independently of matter, and they create their actual environments from the potentialities around them.

Q

Q


But where did the first conscious physical creature come from?


Imagine the Universe prior to the arrival of the first conscious creature as just an infinite set of potential Universal histories ala MWI, all existing in superposition within the Metamind. Somewhere in all these parallel histories will be the timeline where abiogenesis occurs and where a conscious creature has 'evolved'. From our POV we just see the history belonging to that timeline as 'our history'. In effect every possible history existed in parallel until one of those histories produced a physical body capable of supporting consciousness. At least this is the best way to describe it in terms of quantum physics and evolution. From the POV of consciousness one might describe it differently.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


The only source of information we have is our experiences. This means that one can always speculate that there is something more to reality than what we experience, or what we can deduce from our experiences. Such additional things are simply unknowable.

this problem only occurs if you adopt your particular philosophy. If you accept that our experience of red is the true nature of red then this problem disappears. In other words there is no something else to speculate about.


I don't. What separation are you talking about? Under materialism, our subjective experiences are a part of objective reality. Specifically, they are physical processes.

Your problem is that you cannot fully define objective reality (eg, redness). Indeed, under my proposed philosophy I cannot define, i.e, give a true description of, the reality of redness. The difference is that I have access to the reality through qualia which are undefinable, i.e., cannot be fully described. Do you not find it compelling that the nature of reality that you say we can never have the necessary informaiton to describe fully, is exactly the characteristic that qualia hold ?

It seems that materialism is in a state of denial.


I don't follow you. Saying that the experience is the "stuff" of reality leads absolutely nowhere. It tells us absolutely nothing. If you want a logical description of reality, then you need to assume that there is a reality there to begin with,

I have assumed that there is a reality. It is our qualia. One realm. Why can't logical descriptions then follow ?


and that it is possible for you to acquire information about it. If we assume that our experiences are all there is, then we can go no further, because verification becomes impossible.

Verification of what ?


I don't know what you mean. What does it mean to say that the description has access to the actual reality?

The description does not have access to the actual reality. A description of redness in terms of a mathematical contruct that we call electromagnetic waves or a description of a pattern of neural activity or whatever description you choose, is not the reality, which is exactly what you are saying too. The difference is that you say the actual reality is not attainable. I say that the redness is the actual reality. Under both our philosophies, the actual reality is not describable so ther is no conflict with regards to how far mathematics can describe reality.


Mathematics is a language for describing logical relationships between things. Science uses this language to describe the logical relationships between the components of objective reality that we experience, and does so in terms of those experiences.

Whic is exactly how I define it. Science uses mathematics for describing the logical relationships between the components of reality that we experience - the qualia - and does so in terms of those experiences - other qualia !


Huh? Mathematical descriptions are not composed of qualia. Mathematical descriptions describe reality in terms of qualia.

Since I am defining reality to be our qualia then they must be composed of qualia. They are just a different form of qualia than qualia we associate with our sensory experiences such as redness. In other words, they would be the"feeling"or "meaning" (you see how difficult it is to fully describe them) of addition, subtraction or any other mathematical description. It seems odd to say this but I believe it to be a consistent philosophy.


When I say that we do not have access to the necessary information to describe "ultimate reality", I am talking about the information that we would need to describe the hypothetical aspects of it which are not observable. I do not believe that my experiences are the ultimate reality, remember?

Which is why you run into this problem. I realise that the above is what you are refering to, but this problem occurs because you hypothesise that there is something more to reality than our experiences. So, since we can't experience it, it follows that we can never have direct knowledge about it. However, if you start with the idea that qualia is the nature of reality then this problem does not arise. Qualia are the direct knowledge that you refer to.



I think that it is absolutely necessary to make a distinction between experiences and mind. As I have already said, experiences are an interaction between your mind, and other things.

Could you explain this further ?


This is, in my opinion, one of the conceptual barriers that idealists and dualists cannot seem to get around. Experiences are not "things", they are processes. It is meaningless to talk about an experience as though it were some ontologically independent thing. It has no existence independent of the process of being experienced.


I can't give you a description of qualia. I can only induce you to bring your attention to a certain aspect of qualia (redness) and hope that you experience it for yourself. They are indescribable "outside" of their own existence so any descriptive term is going to have problems.


There is no dualism here. Just one part of objective reality (your mind), interacting with other parts of objective reality. The experience is the interaction. Things only become confused when you refuse to distinguish between the experience (a process), and the thing doing the experiencing (an object).
In other words, the qualia are the interaction itself. They are not one of the "things" taking part in the interaction.


Perhaps I should be adding a qualifier. I would differentiate between an experience (qualia) and to experience something - the process, which is a description and not the reality it refers to.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

davidsmith73,

The only source of information we have is our experiences. This means that one can always speculate that there is something more to reality than what we experience, or what we can deduce from our experiences. Such additional things are simply unknowable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this problem only occurs if you adopt your particular philosophy. If you accept that our experience of red is the true nature of red then this problem disappears. In other words there is no something else to speculate about.

Yes, I already acknowledged that. Unfortunately, such a solipsistic philosophy is completely useless. If there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.

I don't. What separation are you talking about? Under materialism, our subjective experiences are a part of objective reality. Specifically, they are physical processes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your problem is that you cannot fully define objective reality (eg, redness).

I can fully define objective reality. I just cannot give a complete description of it. There is a difference.

Indeed, under my proposed philosophy I cannot define, i.e, give a true description of, the reality of redness. The difference is that I have access to the reality through qualia which are undefinable, i.e., cannot be fully described.

Do you have access to reality through the qualia, or are the qualia reality?

Do you not find it compelling that the nature of reality that you say we can never have the necessary informaiton to describe fully, is exactly the characteristic that qualia hold ?

No, because that is not the case. Under my paradigm, the qualia should be possible, at least in principle, to fully understand. It is the hypothetical stuff that does no contribute to our experiences, and which is therefore not represented by qualia, which cannot be understood. This is precisely why I take the logical positivistic view that such hypothetical things cannot be meaningfully said to exist.

It seems that materialism is in a state of denial.

That is because you are grossly misinterpreting what materialism is.

I don't follow you. Saying that the experience is the "stuff" of reality leads absolutely nowhere. It tells us absolutely nothing. If you want a logical description of reality, then you need to assume that there is a reality there to begin with,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have assumed that there is a reality. It is our qualia. One realm. Why can't logical descriptions then follow ?

Because we know that subjective bias exists. If reality is logical and consistent, then our direct experiences cannot be an accurate representation of it, because our experiences simply are not logical and consistent. We must either assume that our experiences are an imperfect representation of reality, or that reality itself cannot be understood at all.

Consider that all of the various methods for eliminating subjective bias, and thereby extracting reliable information from our experiences, are fundamentally based on the assumption of reality being something that we experience, rather than the experience itself.

and that it is possible for you to acquire information about it. If we assume that our experiences are all there is, then we can go no further, because verification becomes impossible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Verification of what ?

Verification that the information we have extracted from the experience is accurate. Remember that the experience itself doesn't tell us anything useful. It must be interpreted, regardless of your philosophical position.

I don't know what you mean. What does it mean to say that the description has access to the actual reality?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The description does not have access to the actual reality. A description of redness in terms of a mathematical contruct that we call electromagnetic waves or a description of a pattern of neural activity or whatever description you choose, is not the reality, which is exactly what you are saying too. The difference is that you say the actual reality is not attainable. I say that the redness is the actual reality. Under both our philosophies, the actual reality is not describable so ther is no conflict with regards to how far mathematics can describe reality.

The difference is that under your philosophy, the reality cannot be mathematically described at all, where as under mine, it can be described in terms of the experience, and that description can be as complete as is possible given the information available.

Without 100% of the information, a complete description is not possible. Under materialism, we are able to get some information, and construct the best description we can with the information available. If we assume that the experience itself is all there is, then we have no method for extracting any reliable information at all!

Mathematics is a language for describing logical relationships between things. Science uses this language to describe the logical relationships between the components of objective reality that we experience, and does so in terms of those experiences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whic is exactly how I define it. Science uses mathematics for describing the logical relationships between the components of reality that we experience - the qualia - and does so in terms of those experiences - other qualia !

This is wrong, for two important reasons.

1) Qualia have been defined to be the experience. One of the axioms of science is that our experiences are not the reality itself. This means that science describes the reality we experience in terms of qualia, but the reality we experience is not qualia.

2) Science can only describe reality in terms of our experiences by extracting reliable information from those experiences, and this can only be done by assuming that the experience is an interaction with reality, and not the reality itself. Thus the above axiom is a necessary one for science to function.

Huh? Mathematical descriptions are not composed of qualia. Mathematical descriptions describe reality in terms of qualia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since I am defining reality to be our qualia then they must be composed of qualia.

You can define reality to be qualia if you want, but that it solipsism, and the scientific method is not compatible with such a position. No mathematical description of reality is possible under your philosophy, because no method exists for extracting reliable information about reality.

They are just a different form of qualia than qualia we associate with our sensory experiences such as redness. In other words, they would be the"feeling"or "meaning" (you see how difficult it is to fully describe them) of addition, subtraction or any other mathematical description. It seems odd to say this but I believe it to be a consistent philosophy.

I don't know whether it is consistent or not, because you cannot fully define it. That means it is incoherent. But in any event, it is incompatible with science, and thus of absolutely no use.

When I say that we do not have access to the necessary information to describe "ultimate reality", I am talking about the information that we would need to describe the hypothetical aspects of it which are not observable. I do not believe that my experiences are the ultimate reality, remember?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Which is why you run into this problem. I realise that the above is what you are refering to, but this problem occurs because you hypothesise that there is something more to reality than our experiences. So, since we can't experience it, it follows that we can never have direct knowledge about it.

I don't see it as a problem, but rather as a fundamental epistemological limitation. Obviously I can only have knowledge of that which I have information. At least my philosophy gives me access to reliable information. Yours does not.

However, if you start with the idea that qualia is the nature of reality then this problem does not arise. Qualia are the direct knowledge that you refer to.

But under your paradigm, the knowledge is unreliable. There is no method for extracting reliable information about reality from your experiences. Your "knowledge" is nothing more than your subjective interpretation of your experiences, which is demonstrably unreliable.

I think that it is absolutely necessary to make a distinction between experiences and mind. As I have already said, experiences are an interaction between your mind, and other things.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Could you explain this further ?

It's simple. Your mind is a part of reality. Your mind interacts with other parts of reality, as well as with itself. Some of these interactions are what we think of as "experiences". By eliminating subjective bias, through a variety of methods employed by the scientific method, we are able to extract information both about those other parts of reality, and about our mind itself, from those experiences. That is what science is, a method for extracting reliable information from our experiences. The method is based on the assumption that reality is something that our mind interacts with, and is a part of, and that our experiences are those interactions.

This is, in my opinion, one of the conceptual barriers that idealists and dualists cannot seem to get around. Experiences are not "things", they are processes. It is meaningless to talk about an experience as though it were some ontologically independent thing. It has no existence independent of the process of being experienced.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't give you a description of qualia. I can only induce you to bring your attention to a certain aspect of qualia (redness) and hope that you experience it for yourself. They are indescribable "outside" of their own existence so any descriptive term is going to have problems.

I disagree. I think that what you have described is a practical problem, having to do with everybody's brain being different, rather than a metaphysical one.

There is no dualism here. Just one part of objective reality (your mind), interacting with other parts of objective reality. The experience is the interaction. Things only become confused when you refuse to distinguish between the experience (a process), and the thing doing the experiencing (an object).
In other words, the qualia are the interaction itself. They are not one of the "things" taking part in the interaction.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps I should be adding a qualifier. I would differentiate between an experience (qualia) and to experience something - the process, which is a description and not the reality it refers to.

As I said, that is the problem. I do not think that the experience exists as a "thing" at all. There is only the process. It is the belief that the experience is actually some "thing" that leads to dualism, and all the various problems entailed by it. Materialism suffers from no such problems. It simply requires you to get of the intuitive notion of your experiences being some "thing", rather that simply the process of your brain doing what it does.

Dr. Stupid

[Q-Source]

Stimpson,

Do you mind answering my question to you (see post above)?

Thanks

Q

Stimpson :


Yes, I already acknowledged that. Unfortunately, such a solipsistic philosophy is completely useless. If there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.


How long are you going to go on pushing the lie that idealism is the same thing as solipsism? You must have been told fifty times why it isn't. Solipsism involves the denial that other humans are conscious in the way you are. Nobody here is proposing that, and you know perfectly well that nobody here is proposing it. :(

As for 'a reliable method of understanding reality' - science is the reliable method for understanding reality. You can still posit materialism as a working tool in order to explain the behaviour of what we perceive as an external world. Nothing has changed except that you have to acknowledge that materialism is just a useful working assumption and not absolute truth. In other words, nothing has changed apart from materialism and science must relinquish their claims to be able to fully explain all of reality. Interestingly enough, in an article in this weeks New Scientist entitled "The Mind of God - Hawkings Epiphany", Mr Hawking has explained precisely this - That a TOE may be forever unacheivable and that science must accept that religion and philosophy may have to take precedence over science in some areas of thought. Even more interestingly it was the existence of Infinity, rather than the problem of consciousness, that led him to make this statement.




quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems that materialism is in a state of denial.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is because you are grossly misinterpreting what materialism is.


Is he?

Actually I see a man who has seen materialism for precisely what it is : institutionalised denial of truths which lead to conclusions considered unacceptable by the materialists.





2) Science can only describe reality in terms of our experiences by extracting reliable information from those experiences, and this can only be done by assuming that the experience is an interaction with reality, and not the reality itself. Thus the above axiom is a necessary one for science to function.



*****It makes no difference to science whether the physical Universe self-exists as matter or exists as information in the realm of Mind. All that matters is that it behaves in an objective manner and is shared.*****

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Stimpson:
How long are you going to go on pushing the lie that idealism is the same thing as solipsism? You must have been told fifty times why it isn't. Solipsism involves the denial that other humans are conscious in the way you are. Nobody here is proposing that, and you know perfectly well that nobody here is proposing it.

But, you told me that when we realised that reality is composed of synchronicities, then "solipsism becomes true". In fact, the Metamind resembles solipsism, but I could be wrong in my interpretation.



Interestingly enough, in an article in this weeks New Scientist entitled "The Mind of God - Hawkings Epiphany", Mr Hawking has explained precisely this - That a TOE may be forever unacheivable and that science must accept that religion and philosophy may have to take precedence over science in some areas of thought. Even more interestingly it was the existence of Infinity, rather than the problem of consciousness, that led him to make this statement.

Ummm..... I don't want to be nasty but Mr Hawking did not make any reference or implied that religion and philosophy could substitute Science's role in some areas of thought. He just said that black holes information has a limit and this eliminates the possibility that a theory of everything could use an infinite density of information.


Q

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Q-Source,

Stimpson,

Do you mind answering my question to you (see post above)?

Thanks

Sorry, I missed it. Do you mean this one?

Could you give your opinion about this quote?:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quantum theory states that any physical system remains in a superposed state of all possibilities until it interacts with the mind of an observer. From the participatory anthropic principle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is it true?

Or is it just a vulgar misinterpretation of the Many Worlds interpretation?

I would say it is a misrepresentation of QM. It is simply not true. That is one possible interpretation of QM, but it is by no means a statement of Quantum Theory, nor is there any evidence that it is true, nor could there ever be, since it is unfalsifiable.

I didn't comment on this before, because UCE has been presenting the "consciousness causes the wave-collapse" idea as evidence for his beliefs as long as I have been here, and continues to do so no matter how many times it is pointed out to him that Quantum Theory does not actually say that at all.


UCE,

Yes, I already acknowledged that. Unfortunately, such a solipsistic philosophy is completely useless. If there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How long are you going to go on pushing the lie that idealism is the same thing as solipsism? You must have been told fifty times why it isn't.

I have made no such statement about Idealism in general. I have merely pointed out that if you hold that all consciousnesses are one, then the belief that everything is a dream in the mind of that one consciousness, is logically equivalent to Solipsism.

Solipsism involves the denial that other humans are conscious in the way you are. Nobody here is proposing that, and you know perfectly well that nobody here is proposing it.

No, instead you are proposing that we are all, in fact, the same person, and that reality is our dream, and that our belief that we are different people is an illusion. The effect is the same, though. Instead of saying "those other people are figments of my imagination", you are saying "we are all figments of God's imagination". Either way, my above comment holds. If you hold that there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.

As for 'a reliable method of understanding reality' - science is the reliable method for understanding reality. You can still posit materialism as a working tool in order to explain the behaviour of what we perceive as an external world.

No, you can't. This is something I have been trying to get you to understand for a long time now.

If you assume that there are influences on the Physical World that cannot be described by science, then how do you decide which observations are describable by science, and which are not? You want to arbitrarily designate some aspect of the World as being beyond science, but how do you respond to somebody else, who wants to designate some other aspect of the World to be beyond science?

You cannot use science to determine which phenomena are subject to science, because to do so would be to assume a-priori that science can be applied to them. But if science is your only tool for getting reliable information about the World, then you have no other way of deciding either. ultimately it comes to exactly what you, and every other supernaturalist, does. You arbitrarily designate some aspect of the World to be "off limits" scientifically, based entirely on your unjustified beliefs.

Nothing has changed except that you have to acknowledge that materialism is just a useful working assumption and not absolute truth.

What is changed is that you completely undermine any validity science could possibly have. If you do not assume that the axioms of the scientific method are true, then you cannot draw any logical conclusions from scientific evidence!

In other words, nothing has changed apart from materialism and science must relinquish their claims to be able to fully explain all of reality.

They do not make such a claim.

Interestingly enough, in an article in this weeks New Scientist entitled "The Mind of God - Hawkings Epiphany", Mr Hawking has explained precisely this - That a TOE may be forever unacheivable and that science must accept that religion and philosophy may have to take precedence over science in some areas of thought.

To say that a TOE may be forever unachievable is nothing extraordinary. If the nature of reality is at least as complicated as arithmetic, then Godel's incompleteness theorem guarantees this. but this says absolutely nothing about the viability of materialism. Nor does it in any way imply that philosophy or religion could possibly fill in the missing parts.

Even more interestingly it was the existence of Infinity, rather than the problem of consciousness, that led him to make this statement.

You are reading your own confused beliefs into what he said. Infinity is not a thing that exists. It is a cardinality. If reality is sufficiently complex, then the number of logical statements whose truth value can be derived from any finite set of axioms and observations, is necessarily a countable infinity, whereas the number of statements that can be made is an uncountable infinity.

It seems that materialism is in a state of denial.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is because you are grossly misinterpreting what materialism is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is he?

Actually I see a man who has seen materialism for precisely what it is : institutionalised denial of truths which lead to conclusions considered unacceptable by the materialists.

That is because you too, are grossly misinterpreting what it is.

2) Science can only describe reality in terms of our experiences by extracting reliable information from those experiences, and this can only be done by assuming that the experience is an interaction with reality, and not the reality itself. Thus the above axiom is a necessary one for science to function.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****It makes no difference to science whether the physical Universe self-exists as matter or exists as information in the realm of Mind. All that matters is that it behaves in an objective manner and is shared.*****

Saying that it exists as matter is an empty statement, since matter is just defined to be what exists. If it exists as information in the realm of Mind, then matter just means information in the realm of mind. The point at which your philosophy becomes inconsistent with materialism, and the scientific method, is when you assert that Mind is simply your consciousness, which you have done. If all minds are one, and the information exists only in that mind, then in what sense is it objective or shared?

This amounts to nothing more than the Solipsistic argument that reality is all a figment of your imagination, and that it just behaves as though it were an independently existing objective reality. The only difference is that rather than claiming that other people are thing you are imagining, your are claiming that we are all part of one mind, which is doing the imagining. The difference is only a semantic one.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Q-Source

But, you told me that when we realised that reality is composed of synchronicities, then "solipsism becomes true". In fact, the Metamind resembles solipsism, but I could be wrong in my interpretation.


The metamind is a Solipsist. THE Solipsist. That is not the same as saying that all the subcomponents are also solipsistic, rather that solipsism becomes progressively more true for people who choose to take their minds closer to that of the Metamind. The Metamind 'sees' that everything is connected together - and how it is connected together. We mainly just see chaos.





... Mr Hawking did not make any reference or implied that religion and philosophy could substitute Science's role in some areas of thought.


No....but he's retracted an important claim which appeared at the end of ABHOT - namely that it is likely that there is a TOE and that science can find it. Hawking is much less certain that science can ever know 'the mind of God.'


He just said that black holes information has a limit and this eliminates the possibility that a theory of everything could use an infinite density of information.




The problem with Black Holes (and the big bang and various other problems) is that they introduce infinity somewhere it cannot really go. This problem with infinity also appears in M-Theory as a manifestation of Godels incompleteness theorem - which also ultimately tries to deal with infinity. If Infinity exists, we can never understand it completely.

:)

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


I didn't comment on this before, because UCE has been presenting the "consciousness causes the wave-collapse" idea as evidence for his beliefs as long as I have been here, and continues to do so no matter how many times it is pointed out to him that Quantum Theory does not actually say that at all.


I would argue that this is down to interpretation, and that the vast majority of the founders of QM tended towards the interpretation I choose to use at this point.


I have made no such statement about Idealism in general. I have merely pointed out that if you hold that all consciousnesses are one, then the belief that everything is a dream in the mind of that one consciousness, is logically equivalent to Solipsism.


Not for normal humans it isn't.


No, instead you are proposing that we are all, in fact, the same person


Not 'person'. All our consciousness are part of the same Consciousness. We are different people. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Individuality is our right as humans.


Either way, my above comment holds. If you hold that there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.


There is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding the totality of reality. That part of reality we call "physical reality" can be understood, and can continue to be understood in terms of the material model. Only metaphysics cannot be scientifically probed. That is its nature.



If you assume that there are influences on the Physical World that cannot be described by science, then how do you decide which observations are describable by science, and which are not?


The ones describable by science are the ones which are describable by materialism.


You want to arbitrarily designate some aspect of the World as being beyond science,


The difference between the internal realm and the abstract mathematical world of physics is not arbitrary, is it?

If it were, then science wouldn't work.


You cannot use science to determine which phenomena are subject to science, because to do so would be to assume a-priori that science can be applied to them.


No, so you use philosophy.


But if science is your only tool for getting reliable information about the World, then you have no other way of deciding either.


Maybe we have to accept that there are parts of reality science cannot describe. If it is true, then we should accept it. What would be the purpose in denying it?


What is changed is that you completely undermine any validity science could possibly have.


In what way?

Science will remain our tool for investigating physics.


If all minds are one, and the information exists only in that mind, then in what sense is it objective or shared?


It is the medium by which parts of it which manifest as seperate from each other communicate with each other. It exists directly in the Metamind as a shared body of information which behaves according to mathematical laws. You really need a whole book to explain this stuff, and how you arrive at what you arive at.

I do not see this as in any way terminal for science. I see it as a clarification of the fundamental relationship between philosophy, science and religion - something which can only be a good thing IMO.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:It is the medium by which parts of it which manifest as seperate from each other communicate with each other. It exists directly in the Metamind as a shared body of information which behaves according to mathematical laws.
What is this "communicating with each other" that you refer to?

~~ Paul

Maybe I should go further. I think it would be a disaster of indescribable magnitude if science were to be in any way damaged by an ontologial re-assesment. Assuming materialism is the only way of coming to intellectual agreement about the behaviour or the physical world - and the physical world remains our perceived environment. I see new avenues opening up both for reinterpretation of existing data gathered from the physical world and new ways of understanding how our minds and bodies function with respect to each other. I also see potential for great social changes that I think are needed - this sort of re-assessment of the relationship between science and religion might have beneficial effects to both sides. The bulk of religious people who are not extremist and are welcoming to people of other beliefs will be supported whilst the extemists will find their positions further undermined. Meanwhile the world of philosophy and religion will be more accessible to people who up till now felt the only rational course was materialistic skepticism. All of these things can only help to bring together a divided world.

:)

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
What is this "communicating with each other" that you refer to?

~~ Paul

The Metamind must act as a 'communications hub'. It stores information about objects in the physical world and your mind is connects to the information about these objects, via the metamind, when your consciousness interacts with them. The whole theory can be found here :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1902987004/qid=1049477110/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_0_2/202-8446490-8308664


Given the radical nature of mental monism, the author recognises that any presentation of the theory raises questions about the purpose of philosophical argumentation. It is implausible to suppose that anybody would revise their fundamental notion of reality just on the basis of a piece of reasoning. Revising one's beliefs and concepts at such a deep level can be achieved only by apprehending a new perspective: the world must be seen anew. Whilst the philosophical arguments must be given, and must be rigorous, nevertheless it they are impotent to change people's fundamental view of reality. That insight, that new vision, can be achieved only by contemplation of one's personal encounter with reality. The author hopes that this book will help to steer the reader's contemplation in that direction.

Whilst mental monism solves the philosophical mind-body problem at a stroke, it nonetheless encounters substantial technical problems, because it must give an explanatory account of the structure and function of the natural world, including the mind itself. The author outlines an approach to modelling the mind purely in the mental domain, without any physical substrate to fall back on.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Maybe I should go further. I think it would be a disaster of indescribable magnitude if science were to be in any way damaged by an ontologial re-assesment. Assuming materialism is the only way of coming to intellectual agreement about the behaviour or the physical world - and the physical world remains our perceived environment. I see new avenues opening up both for reinterpretation of existing data gathered from the physical world and new ways of understanding how our minds and bodies function with respect to each other. I also see potential for great social changes that I think are needed - this sort of re-assessment of the relationship between science and religion might have beneficial effects to both sides. The bulk of religious people who are not extremist and are welcoming to people of other beliefs will be supported whilst the extemists will find their positions further undermined. Meanwhile the world of philosophy and religion will be more accessible to people who up till now felt the only rational course was materialistic skepticism. All of these things can only help to bring together a divided world.

:)

How charitable, UCE, that would be so kind as to include science into your framework of ways of knowing. Unfortunately, what is needed to mend the divide is exactly the opposite. What is needed is for you & yours to proffer proper proof of this "some non-thing out there" you keep carping about

What unimaginable benefits there would be from relaxing standards of proof. From accepting flights of fancy and fantasy as proper hypothesizing, and then to have the lack of intellectual rigor to simply proclaim facts rather than the hard work of testing, analyzing and retesting them.

O frabjous day, Calloo, callay! We are free! No study of reality needed! We have the Cliff Notes version!!!!

UCE, I dub your post The Sermon on the Muddleheaded

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Whilst mental monism solves the philosophical mind-body problem at a stroke, it nonetheless encounters substantial technical problems, because it must give an explanatory account of the structure and function of the natural world, including the mind itself.
Doesn't the second half of this sentence contradict the first half?

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by davidsmith73

quote:
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Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

The only source of information we have is our experiences. This means that one can always speculate that there is something more to reality than what we experience, or what we can deduce from our experiences. Such additional things are simply unknowable.
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this problem only occurs if you adopt your particular philosophy. If you accept that our experience of red is the true nature of red then this problem disappears. In other words there is no something else to speculate about.
Alright, I'm bored with red. How about yellow. The block below is yellow, right? That is what you perceive, right? Nothing more to speculate about? Right?

Of course, we all know that your monitor is putting out equal amounts of red and green, which you then perceive as yellow. Get out a magnifier and verify this.

So it looks like there was something more to speculate about after all. Using a device to enhance our experience shows us that our initial experience was not what we thought it was.

There is NO YELLOW coming out of your monitor. The yellow is a fiction created in your brain. In fact, you could not distinguish between an object that is yellow (emitting a single wavelength between red and green) and one that is emitting equal amounts of red and green. But someone (or some thing) with different color perception hardware could distinguish them, and could then inform you that your perception of the situation is incorrect.

Perception/Experience != Reality.

How hard is this to understand?

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by ChuckieR
Alright, I'm bored with red. How about yellow. The block below is yellow, right? That is what you perceive, right? Nothing more to speculate about? Right?

Of course, we all know that your monitor is putting out equal amounts of red and green, which you then perceive as yellow. Get out a magnifier and verify this.

So it looks like there was something more to speculate about after all. Using a device to enhance our experience shows us that our initial experience was not what we thought it was.

There is NO YELLOW coming out of your monitor. The yellow is a fiction created in your brain. In fact, you could not distinguish between an object that is yellow (emitting a single wavelength between red and green) and one that is emitting equal amounts of red and green. But someone (or some thing) with different color perception hardware could distinguish them, and could then inform you that your perception of the situation is incorrect.

Perception/Experience != Reality.

How hard is this to understand?

How hard is it for you to understand you just further described a perceptual excercise to determine that the yellow is composed of red and green and that the monitor image is composed of dots? Now please explain to me how I do this without perception?

Cheers,

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
How hard is it for you to understand you just further described a perceptual excercise to determine that the yellow is composed of red and green and that the monitor image is composed of dots? Now please explain to me how I do this without perception? Cheers, Okay, gladly. There are any number of ways that you could determine that the "yellow" you see is composed of red and green, without actually "seeing" red and green: You could have me look at the monitor with a magnifier and I could describe what I see.
You could use a spectrometer to get a numerical description of the brightnesses of each wavelength.
You could look up the manufacturers specs for the monitor and realize that there was no yellow involved, and that yellow is produced by combining red and green.
My point is that your perception of reality does not define reality. In none of these cases do you actually need to directly perceive the red and green to come to an understanding that there is no yellow there - your red and green "qualia" (or whatever) never need to be invoked. The red and the green are there whether or not you perceive them.

Scientific observations use these "indirect" methods all the time. Without them, we would be left in davesmith73's shoes, assuming that reality is just what we experience, and that there is no more correct reality than our experiences.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by ChuckieR
Okay, gladly. There are any number of ways that you could determine that the "yellow" you see is composed of red and green, without actually "seeing" red and green: You could have me look at the monitor with a magnifier and I could describe what I see.
You could use a spectrometer to get a numerical description of the brightnesses of each wavelength.
You could look up the manufacturers specs for the monitor and realize that there was no yellow involved, and that yellow is produced by combining red and green.
My point is that your perception of reality does not define reality. In none of these cases do you actually need to directly perceive the red and green to come to an understanding that there is no yellow there - your red and green "qualia" (or whatever) never need to be invoked. The red and the green are there whether or not you perceive them.

Scientific observations use these "indirect" methods all the time. Without them, we would be left in davesmith73's shoes, assuming that reality is just what we experience, and that there is no more correct reality than our experiences.

My bad, Chuckie, I didn't make my objection clear. What you are saying is correct. My quibble is with the one line, "Perception/Experience != Reality" In the specific context of refuting davidsmith73's claim, this is right. In the broader context of your refutation, the bald assertion fails because you returned to perception and experience to correct the original misperception. This is exactly what we do in science. It is just that that line makes it seem as if science eschews perception. Science organizes a non-naive approach to perception. Our senses are, after all, all we have to work with.

Cheers,

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

The metamind is a Solipsist. THE Solipsist. That is not the same as saying that all the subcomponents are also solipsistic, rather that solipsism becomes progressively more true for people who choose to take their minds closer to that of the Metamind. The Metamind 'sees' that everything is connected together - and how it is connected together. We mainly just see chaos.

That doesn't change the fact that your philosophy is ultimately solipsistic. Science requires the rejection of solipsism. Simply hiding it under a layer of abstraction is not sufficient.

I didn't comment on this before, because UCE has been presenting the "consciousness causes the wave-collapse" idea as evidence for his beliefs as long as I have been here, and continues to do so no matter how many times it is pointed out to him that Quantum Theory does not actually say that at all.
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I would argue that this is down to interpretation, and that the vast majority of the founders of QM tended towards the interpretation I choose to use at this point.

Which is irrelevant, since interpretation of QM is not science, and not a part of Quantum Theory. You therefore cannot claim that Quantum Theory supports your beliefs. And either way, whoever wrote that page you linked to was simply dead wrong.

I have made no such statement about Idealism in general. I have merely pointed out that if you hold that all consciousnesses are one, then the belief that everything is a dream in the mind of that one consciousness, is logically equivalent to Solipsism.
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Not for normal humans it isn't.

Irrelevant. The problem with Solipsism, with respect to science, is that science requires that reality be something external to our perceptions, rather than the perceptions themselves. The specific differences between your philosophy and classical solipsism don't make any difference.

No, instead you are proposing that we are all, in fact, the same person
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not 'person'. All our consciousness are part of the same Consciousness. We are different people. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Individuality is our right as humans.

This is just semantics. It is also extremely unparsimonious. I assume that reality is objective, and conclude that other people possess consciousness like me, because it is the simplest explanation for my observations. You, on the other hand, hold that your perceptions are a dream in some mind. On what basis do you then conclude that other people have conscious minds? You can't conclude it from your observations, because you have already assumed that your observations are an illusion. Why conclude that those other people have minds just like yours, which are all part of the same metamind? Why not just conclude that your own mind is the only one in the metamind, and that you just dreamed up the other ones to keep you company?

Of course, this is the problem with metaphysics. You can dream up an infinite number of scenarios, but you have no way to determine which, if any of them, is correct. Every detail of your philosophy is an untestable assumption. Doesn't it make more sense to just make the minimum number of assumptions necessary to produce a method for learning about the World, and go from there?

Either way, my above comment holds. If you hold that there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.
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There is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding the totality of reality. That part of reality we call "physical reality" can be understood, and can continue to be understood in terms of the material model. Only metaphysics cannot be scientifically probed. That is its nature.

See my previous explanation of why this does not work. How do you draw the line? If you draw the line by saying that anything that has an effect on physical reality is addressable by science, as I do, then you end up having no reason to believe that there is anything else anyway. If you hold that some phenomena which affect the physical World cannot be addressed by science, then you need some way to determine which can, and which cannot. How do you do this? What method do you use to decide? From what I can see, your method amounts to nothing more than making the a-priori assumption based on your metaphysical beliefs.

If you assume that there are influences on the Physical World that cannot be described by science, then how do you decide which observations are describable by science, and which are not?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ones describable by science are the ones which are describable by materialism.

You should have a chat with your fellow Idealist Ian. He seems to think that science and materialism have nothing to do with each other.

Anyway, the above is a non-statement, since saying that it is describable by materialism is equivalent to saying that it is describable by science. The question is, how do you decide whether it is or not? Are you saying that any phenomena which we are able to describe with science falls into the category of physical, and only those which cannot don't? If so, then this is just a God of the gaps type argument. What makes you think that anything at all lies in the second set?

Keep in mind that if the scientific method is the only reliable source of information you have, then you can never have reliable evidence that a particular phenomenon is not addressable by science. Not without falsifying science, anyway.

And of course, that is the entire point. Under the scenario you have suggested, the only way we would ever have any reason to believe that a particular phenomenon was not describable by science, would be to show that any scientific explanation for the observed phenomenon would be self-contradictory. In other words, you would have to demonstrate that it is supernatural.

Since no supernatural phenomena has ever been reliably shown to exist, this means that we have no reason to believe that this "non-physical realm" actually includes anything. In particular, since nobody has ever demonstrated anything supernatural about consciousness, there is no reason to think that it belongs in the non-physical realm.

You want to arbitrarily designate some aspect of the World as being beyond science,
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The difference between the internal realm and the abstract mathematical world of physics is not arbitrary, is it?

If it were, then science wouldn't work.

What are you talking about? Certainly there is a difference between the real World, and the abstract mathematical description of it. But I do not think that there is any distinction between our so-called "internal realm", and the objective reality that is described by science. On the contrary, I think that my "internal realm" is simply a part of objective reality.

You cannot use science to determine which phenomena are subject to science, because to do so would be to assume a-priori that science can be applied to them.
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No, so you use philosophy.

How? What is your method for making the decision? How do you verify that the decision you have made is correct?

But if science is your only tool for getting reliable information about the World, then you have no other way of deciding either.
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Maybe we have to accept that there are parts of reality science cannot describe. If it is true, then we should accept it. What would be the purpose in denying it?

Even if, as you believe, there are parts of reality that science cannot describe (the supernatural), that doesn't mean that you can describe them some other way. If science is the only reliable method for describing reality, then any parts of reality that science cannot describe, simply cannot be described.

Fortunately, nobody has ever demonstrated that any supernatural phenomena actually exist, so it is a moot point.

If all minds are one, and the information exists only in that mind, then in what sense is it objective or shared?
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It is the medium by which parts of it which manifest as separate from each other communicate with each other. It exists directly in the Metamind as a shared body of information which behaves according to mathematical laws. You really need a whole book to explain this stuff, and how you arrive at what you arive at.

OK, let's forget the whole solipsism thing, and just focus on this point. Like a materialist, you assume that reality obeys logical rules, and that we all experience that reality in some way.

The pertinent questions are:

1) Why make the additional assumptions about a metamind, or about our minds all being a part of it? Why not simply assume that this reality exists, and then rely on science to tell us about it?

2) Since you posit the existence of stuff that cannot be described by science, what method do you propose for describing it, and determining which stuff is describable by science and which isn't? Remember that in order to be useful, there must be some form of verification built in.

I do not see this as in any way terminal for science. I see it as a clarification of the fundamental relationship between philosophy, science and religion - something which can only be a good thing IMO.

Any philosophy which posits the existence of phenomena which affect the physical World, but which cannot be described scientifically, are fatal for science.

Maybe I should go further. I think it would be a disaster of indescribable magnitude if science were to be in any way damaged by an ontologial re-assesment. Assuming materialism is the only way of coming to intellectual agreement about the behaviour or the physical world - and the physical world remains our perceived environment. I see new avenues opening up both for reinterpretation of existing data gathered from the physical world and new ways of understanding how our minds and bodies function with respect to each other. I also see potential for great social changes that I think are needed - this sort of re-assessment of the relationship between science and religion might have beneficial effects to both sides. The bulk of religious people who are not extremist and are welcoming to people of other beliefs will be supported whilst the extemists will find their positions further undermined. Meanwhile the world of philosophy and religion will be more accessible to people who up till now felt the only rational course was materialistic skepticism. All of these things can only help to bring together a divided world.

I am confused. Are you saying that we should believe this stuff, even though there is no evidence to support it, because you think it will bring people together, and make them more comfortable with reality?

Aren't you aware that the majority of religious people would consider the beliefs you have presented to be every bit as heretical as atheism? Indeed, many would say that it is worse than atheism. And since what you are offering is just another religion, what makes you think that it is going to be any more successful than any other in bringing people together?

Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by ChuckieR
[B]Alright, I'm bored with red. How about yellow. The block below is yellow, right? That is what you perceive, right? Nothing more to speculate about? Right?

Of course, we all know that your monitor is putting out equal amounts of red and green, which you then perceive as yellow. Get out a magnifier and verify this.



And the very fact that we need to get our a magnifier in order to see this is telling. Does this somehow make our experience of yellowness illegitimate? If we follow your reasoning then everything we ever perceptually experience is a delusion. Why not just accept that what we directly experience is real; that for example the yellowness really exists, but it's just that by carrying out certain operations that, in an appropriate sense, reality changes.



So it looks like there was something more to speculate about after all. Using a device to enhance our experience shows us that our initial experience was not what we thought it was.



How so? We experience yellow. How can this experience not be what we think it is? What you are asserting is gibberish.



There is NO YELLOW coming out of your monitor. The yellow is a fiction created in your brain.



More accurately it is an interpretation by the brain or mind. Everything we perceptually perceive is filtered through the lens of low level theory. The idea of an atheoretical perception of the world is a naive one which needs to be discarded. But simply because all our perceptions are dictated by theory does not make what we perceive as unreal!

In an appropriate sense the monitor is outputting yellow. In a scientific sense it doesn't, sure. But then to scientifically describe reality is to abstract from reality.




In fact, you could not distinguish between an object that is yellow (emitting a single wavelength between red and green) and one that is emitting equal amounts of red and green. But someone (or some thing) with different color perception hardware could distinguish them, and could then inform you that your perception of the situation is incorrect.

Perception/Experience != Reality.

How hard is this to understand?

It's easy to understand. After all, all of us have grown up believing this. it takes some insight to move away from your position :)

(BTW the above is only my own views, I'm not at all suggesting that DavidSmith and UCE have similar beliefs. They may or may not do).

[BillHoyt]

The idea of an atheoretical perception of the world is a naive one which needs to be discarded. But simply because all our perceptions are dictated by theory does not make what we perceive as unreal!

What we are discussing is quite the opposite of this theory-ladenness tripe. Here we have a situation where we have perceived something that is quite against theory. We see yellow when, in fact, it is separate dots of red and green.

Care to have another go at it?

Cheers,

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


What we are discussing is quite the opposite of this theory-ladenness tripe. Here we have a situation where we have perceived something that is quite against theory. We see yellow when, in fact, it is separate dots of red and green.

Care to have another go at it?

Cheers,

Which only resolves itself as separate dots of red and green by carrying out certain operations. Any interpretation by the mind/brain is to implicitly impose a theory and everything we perceive is the result of interpretation.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
My bad, Chuckie, I didn't make my objection clear. What you are saying is correct. My quibble is with the one line, "Perception/Experience != Reality" In the specific context of refuting davidsmith73's claim, this is right. In the broader context of your refutation, the bald assertion fails because you returned to perception and experience to correct the original misperception. This is exactly what we do in science. It is just that that line makes it seem as if science eschews perception. Science organizes a non-naive approach to perception. Our senses are, after all, all we have to work with.Cheers, Okay, I understand that... the only way we can experience anything about the world around us is through perception. But I was just trying to make the point, relative to ds73's argument, that physical properties exist separately from one person's perception of them. Our internal models of the world do not equal the world, they are built by our limited measurements of the world (our experiences).

I know, I jumped into the deep end of a philosophical discussion, and everything I say has deeper implications than I realize. They're discussing the definition of "reality" and the limits of perception in principle, and I am bringing up a simple practical point relating to a trivial example that will probably not deflect the philosophical discussion in the least. But on I blather :)

I just have a problem with ds73's qualia defining reality. If he claims that his perceptions shape his internal model of reality, that I have no problem with. And "red" as a concept is certainly a human one that exists only in our brains, so in that trivial sense, yes, our perception of red defines our internal model of redness... but that's a trivial, circular definition of what red is, and I still don't understand what ds73's "true nature" of red is.

I would say (and I suspect that ds73 would not say) that there are red objects out there and that (under the right conditions) our eyes and brains are able to give us an idea of how much red is in an object, and that people who can perceive color well have a collective definition/catagorization of what red is.

But other devices, beings, whatever, can also measure the amount of red in an object. The human eye/brain does not have a monopoly on RED. And there are many things in the world that cannot be percieved directly through anything like qualia at all. All we can do is analyze them maybe through pages of numbers, or graphs or charts. I can have an understanding of a concept without directly experiencing it. I understand that there are objects that emit infrared or x-rays, and that I can use instruments to "translate" these wavelengths into wavelengths that I can perceive, but just because a particular device translates a particular x-ray wavelength into red does not mean that x-rays are "red" in any sense at all. Yet, x-rays exist and if my eye was sensitive to x-rays then I would be able to "see" them directly and we would be discussing the "x-ray ness" of things instead of the "redness" of things.

x-rays exist independant of any direct internal representation of them in the human brain.

The summary: There are things in nature that we know to exist only indirectly, that we have no direct internal "qualia" to represent them, yet they exist. So the idea that every aspect of nature must give us a qualitative "feeling" inside in order to be "real" (whatever "real" means) is, I think, a dead end.

Thanks for the opportunity to blather on about things that I have no qualia to represent :)

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Doesn't the second half of this sentence contradict the first half?

~~ Paul

Not the way I read it. What contradiction do you see?

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
And the very fact that we need to get our a magnifier in order to see this is telling. Does this somehow make our experience of yellowness illegitimate?Well, in a word, yes. There is no yellow there, yet you perceive yellow. I would say it is just a limitation of our system, I don't know if I would say illegitimate. There are a zillion examples of optical illusions. The 3-color monitor is just one that we take for granted. Here are some others: Optical Illusions (http://www.scientificpsychic.com/graphics/) Are the lines parallel: yes. Are there fuzzy dots between the corners of the squares: no. My perceptions mislead me.

If we follow your reasoning then everything we ever perceptually experience is a delusion.I guess I'd say everything we experience is an imperfect internal representation of an imperfect measurement.Why not just accept that what we directly experience is real; that for example the yellowness really exists, but it's just that by carrying out certain operations that, in an appropriate sense, reality changes.Yikes, reality changes? I'm not sure I follow. What if I look through the magnifier with one eye and keep the other eye open. One eye sees yellow, the other sees red and green, and they see them simultaneously. Where is "reality"?
How so? We experience yellow. How can this experience not be what we think it is? What you are asserting is gibberish.See the simple optical illusions above. Or maybe you are using wording here in a strange way. Certainly our internal "experience" is "what we think it is" (a circular statement?) but our experience misleads us as to what is really going on. A "better" measurement system (in some sense that I will leave undefined :) ) would see parallel lines and no fuzzy dots.

More accurately it is an interpretation by the brain or mind. Everything we perceptually perceive is filtered through the lens of low level theory. The idea of an atheoretical perception of the world is a naive one which needs to be discarded. But simply because all our perceptions are dictated by theory does not make what we perceive as unreal!

In an appropriate sense the monitor is outputting yellow. In a scientific sense it doesn't, sure. But then to scientifically describe reality is to abstract from reality.The monitor is outputting a stimulus that your eye/brain perceives as yellow under certain conditions. But it is definately not putting out a single "yellow" wavelength in any sense.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Whilst mental monism solves the philosophical mind-body problem at a stroke, it nonetheless encounters substantial technical problems, because it must give an explanatory account of the structure and function of the natural world, including the mind itself.
It seems to say that the mind/body problem is solved, then goes on to say that there are still problems explaining how the body (and the rest of the natural world) are constructed by the mind. Doesn't sound solved to me.

In other words, we replaced "how does the body produce the mind?" with "how does the mind produce the body?" We be getting nowhere fast.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

It seems to say that the mind/body problem is solved, then goes on to say that there are still problems explaining how the body (and the rest of the natural world) are constructed by the mind. Doesn't sound solved to me.

In other words, we replaced "how does the body produce the mind?" with "how does the mind produce the body?" We be getting nowhere fast.

~~ Paul

Not quite true. The first problem is completely unsolvable - it is logicaly unsolvable. The second problem is just difficult, not logically impossible. Minds turn information into something which appears to us as matter. We are left with questions about the role of that part of the physical world we call the brain gives rise to analytical thought. It is the analytical bit of it the 'brain' provides - not the Beingness part of it, if you follow.

Stimpson


That doesn't change the fact that your philosophy is ultimately solipsistic. Science requires the rejection of solipsism. Simply hiding it under a layer of abstraction is not sufficient.


I don't see why this is true. I don't see how it makes any difference to science provided solipsism isn't true for you.



Which is irrelevant, since interpretation of QM is not science, and not a part of Quantum Theory. You therefore cannot claim that Quantum Theory supports your beliefs. And either way, whoever wrote that page you linked to was simply dead wrong.


Well....I think that is a matter of opinion and I am going to leave it at that. :)


Irrelevant. The problem with Solipsism, with respect to science, is that science requires that reality be something external to our perceptions, rather than the perceptions themselves. The specific differences between your philosophy and classical solipsism don't make any difference.


They do if the same objective reality is shared between us, but I've already explained this.....



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No, instead you are proposing that we are all, in fact, the same person
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Not 'person'. All our consciousness are part of the same Consciousness. We are different people. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Individuality is our right as humans.
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This is just semantics.


I couldn't disagree more. It is a very important philosophical point because it is the basis of Humanism. My right to be an individual is very important to me, and to you.


You, on the other hand, hold that your perceptions are a dream in some mind. On what basis do you then conclude that other people have conscious minds? You can't conclude it from your observations, because you have already assumed that your observations are an illusion......


I think I've already demonstrated with it isn't an assumption, and I am happy to allow others to decide for themselves whether that claim stands up.


Why conclude that those other people have minds just like yours, which are all part of the same metamind? Why not just conclude that your own mind is the only one in the metamind, and that you just dreamed up the other ones to keep you company?


Because I would go mad very quickly.


See my previous explanation of why this does not work. How do you draw the line?


Exactly the same place you draw the line now, Stimp. The scientific method remains unchanged.


Anyway, the above is a non-statement, since saying that it is describable by materialism is equivalent to saying that it is describable by science. The question is, how do you decide whether it is or not?


I don't understand the problem. If you cannot design an objective test for something (e.g. detecting internal consciousness in somebody else) then it is de facto not a scientific question.


Are you saying that any phenomena which we are able to describe with science falls into the category of physical, and only those which cannot don't? If so, then this is just a God of the gaps type argument. What makes you think that anything at all lies in the second set?


Logic, experience and history.


What are you talking about? Certainly there is a difference between the real World, and the abstract mathematical description of it. But I do not think that there is any distinction between our so-called "internal realm", and the objective reality that is described by science. On the contrary, I think that my "internal realm" is si