Materialism

[Jethro]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


The content of a human mind is clearly dependent on the physical state of the brain, at least partially. The debate isn't about the content but about the awareness of the content. This is what the Philosophical-zombie formulation of the argument is about. Materialism can only provide evidence that there is a close correlation between the brain state and the subjective experience - it's fatal problem is explaining why the subjective experience exists at all. To understand the situation you need to think carefully about the relationship between what you call "I" and what you call "what I am experiencing". This is all meaningless to the materialist because he is unable even to provide usable definitions to work from - for the materialist the brain state IS the mental state, even though this statement makes no apparent sense.Why not?The materiaist is forced to argue that the P-zombie is an incomprehensible thing which cannot existAssuming I understand what you mean by the p-zombie, I assert no such thing. Have you ever been mostly asleep, and had someone talk to you? To them you are completely aware of the situation and you respond as one would expect, but later when they talk to you about said experience, you have absolutely no recollection of it whatsoever. It's kinda like the conciousness part of your brain hasn't woken up yet.[snip stuff that sounds at least somewhat fair.]
5) When it is explained that assuming your conclusion is not acceptable the materialist will then try to claim that the anti-materialist has done the same thing - that he has "assumed" that materialism is false at the start of his argument. But this is not true because the logical arguments against materialism always start with the observation that subjective consciousness does indeed exist and contains "things" which aren't objectively describable (qualia).When I see red, what has happened is a photon impinges on a receptor cell in my eye. This triggers a nerve cascade and finally a section of my visual cortex is stimulated. Where's the qualia come in? So the mentalist/dualist has assumed nothing at all. He starts what he directly knows to exist exists - he starts with the mental reality which is the very thing which are ultimately trying to explain the existence of.

What it boils down to is that the reality we are ultimately trying to explain the existence of is a mental reality but that the only model which allows science to provide an answer is a model of a physical reality. Therefore accepting the glaringly obvious truth that reality is actually mental implies acceptance that materialistic science cannot fully explain consciousness. Most materialists find this impossible to accept and point blank refuse to do so. Well, when I see the door, feel the door, taste the door, smell the door, and hear the door (as my head bangs against it) I begin to suspect that there actually is a door. While it is true that I can only learn about this door through qualia, that does not make the door any less real, does it?

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot

Steps again, because you must be an evil clone who really wasn't here for the argument that has been going on since I got here..


And the rest. :D

This argument has been going on for about 2 years now. Very slowly it creeps forward from time to time.


HPC exists if we accept materialism.
Evidence suggests that perhaps materialism is not true.
UE offers alternative belief system.

Everyone on this board refuses to accept what UE says, disagrees with it out of obstinance, and refuses to allow their own belief systems to adapt.


Not everyone, fortunately. But the arguments tend to be dominated by those who can't/won't adapt.


I have no idea how he has the constitution to continue posting here. He must enjoy being frustrated.


I have tried to walk away....something keeps drawing me back....masochism maybe. :)

Jethro :


This is all meaningless to the materialist because he is unable even to provide usable definitions to work from - for the materialist the brain state IS the mental state, even though this statement makes no apparent sense.[/quoteWhy not?[quote]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Why not?

Examine what "IS" is supposed to mean in this context. Does it mean "is identical to"? If so, then the materialist is asserting that X is identical to Y even though their descriptions bear no resemblance to each other. If X is not identical to Y then there is a difference between them which materialism cannot even meaningfully define, let alone explain. Arguing that because materialists can't define the problem means it isn't a problem is also a flawed response.



5) When it is explained that assuming your conclusion is not acceptable the materialist will then try to claim that the anti-materialist has done the same thing - that he has "assumed" that materialism is false at the start of his argument. But this is not true because the logical arguments against materialism always start with the observation that subjective consciousness does indeed exist and contains "things" which aren't objectively describable (qualia).
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When I see red, what has happened is a photon impinges on a receptor cell in my eye. This triggers a nerve cascade and finally a section of my visual cortex is stimulated. Where's the qualia come in?


In the model you just descibed? NOWHERE! :D

The qualia is "When I see red." The problem is that "the redness of red" appears nowhere in the physical model, not in the object which appears to be red, not in the wavelength of the light, not in your eye, or in your optic nerve, and not in your visual cortex either. 'Red' only exists in your mind, and your mind is nowhere to be found in that model - all you can say is that certain physical events, existing in our physical model, seem to correlate with the actual experience of red in your mind. We all know the correlations exist. Materialism somehow must account for two things which 'correlate' and are simultaneously identical to each other. If they are identical then they are synonyms, not correlates, but you cannot seriously justify a claim that "brain process" and "mind" are synonymous. If they merely correlate then they must be different. Materialism claims they are the same!



Well, when I see the door, feel the door, taste the door, smell the door, and hear the door (as my head bangs against it) I begin to suspect that there actually is a door. While it is true that I can only learn about this door through qualia, that does not make the door any less real, does it?


Depends what you mean by 'real'. It exists. The question is whether it is a self-existing physical reality which is actually "out there" or whether it is made only of information. Think about quantum non-locality and the 'spooky faster-than-light connections" of quantum entanglement. Somehow two particles becomes entwined in a more fundamental level of reality and even when they are on seperate sides of the Universe they are instantly dependent on each other. Materialists have no explanation for this, even though it is a mathematical theorem which has been subsequently experimentally confirmed. It is just 'a mystery'. Here you have evidence writ large that this 'physical reality' our minds construct isn't really out there i.e. it is non-local. Does that make it any less real? What do you think?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Given that our true existential situation is that the only reality we know is mental and that physics/matter is quite definately an abstract model we have created, how do you justify your claim that "there is no reason not to believe that physics/matter is the true reality and the mental realm is a model."
This simplistic statement sounds weighty, but it's not the statement you're supporting. The critical additional observation is that multiple entities appear to perceive the world in the same way. How do we account for this?

Both the materialistic and mentalistic viewpoints require something else to account for the commonality. Materialism proposes that there is an external material reality that we are perceiving. Mentalism proposes that there is a global mind that governs how each individual mind builds reality. At first blush, the latter proposal sounds cool, because it can eliminate all the difficult problems.

But the latter proposal is vapid. There is no way to verify that the solutions to all the difficult problems are in any way "correct." It's just a giant hand-wave. If you start investigating the latter proposal in a logical and verifiable way, you'll end up with science. Then the question of materialism vs. mentalism becomes purely philosophical and irrelevant. What experiments can we perform to distinguish between the two proposals?

Obviously there is no way for us to know if the British Home Secretary pictures the world the same way we see it. I very much doubt he sees color. Our minds are capable of creating an infinite number of physical world illusions, only one of which matches reality; I just don't see why that's evidence for your position.

The reality you know of, and are trying to explain is a mental experience. It is as much a mental experience as your thoughts are. It is physics, matter, space and time which are THE MODEL. These things are abstract concepts invented by humans to describe the behaviour of their mental experiences. We already know which one of these things is a model and which is the thing being modelled.
I think you mean "We already know which one of these things is a model and which is the thing doing the modeling." In any event, this statement sounds compelling, but it is not an argument for the fundamental reality of the mind. It might be the case that our brains are just struggling to understand an external reality. Occam's Razor doesn't favor either one right now, because neither theory explains all the facts.

I'm annoyed that you won't give me a link to a logical argument against the possibility of mind being an emergent property of the brain. I've read many of the links posted here, but none of them present such as argument.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:The qualia is "When I see red." The problem is that "the redness of red" appears nowhere in the physical model, not in the object which appears to be red, not in the wavelength of the light, not in your eye, or in your optic nerve, and not in your visual cortex either. 'Red' only exists in your mind, and your mind is nowhere to be found in that model - all you can say is that certain physical events, existing in our physical model, seem to correlate with the actual experience of red in your mind.
I challenge you to reword this in a meaningful way. What exactly is "the redness of red" other than a string of four words? Why is it anything more than an association between some portion of the visual cortex and the concept of red? Why is it not explained by the simultaneous triggering of a bunch of red-related areas of the brain: visual cortex, the word red, the definition of red, the letters r-e-d, memories of red things, and so forth? Compel me to realize that redness is more than just the sum of these parts.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Paul, the way I'd try to explain is:

For materialists, HPC is a conundrum.

For dualists, just consider the view, if it effects (or even affects)the material realm, it *is part of* the material realm; i.e. not logical. Ergo, materialism=dualism=HPC.

Yet, *I* think, the one, objective, data point any of us have.

Re brain & human consciousness, science continues to demonstrate a very intimate link -- probably a necessary condition -- that perceived complexity of a human brain is needed to allow *I think* to perceive a *me* & the rest of "what is".

My 2cts anyway...

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

HPC exists if we accept materialism.

This is not true. Every argument I have ever seen for the existence of the "Hard Problem" presupposes dualism in some way. There is no Hard Problem of consciousness under materialism. Consciousness is just another unsolved problem which we are working on.

Evidence suggests that perhaps materialism is not true.

Nobody has ever presented such evidence. Not unless you consider arguments which presuppose the falseness of materialism to be evidence against it.

UE offers alternative belief system.

Yes, him and more than 5 billion other people.

Everyone on this board refuses to accept what UE says, disagrees with it out of obstinance, and refuses to allow their own belief systems to adapt.

This is not true. I, for one, do not disagree out of obstinence. I disagree because just about everything UCE has ever said on this board (with respect to philosophy) has been either logically inconsistent, false, incoherent, or blind speculation. Why should I accept such nonsense?

I have no idea how he has the constitution to continue posting here. He must enjoy being frustrated.

I am inclined to agree.

Perhaps the so-called "materialists" should accept that their are problems with their belief systems (such as no free will) and modify them accordingly.

You may consider the lack of free-will (as you define it) to be a problem. I do not.

No one says it's all or nothing. No one says you either have to have your physicalism or UE's idealism. But UE does say there are problems, and physicalism needs to deal with them.

He can say that there are problems all he wants, but if he wants to convince anybody, then he needs to explain what those problems are. So far, all of the so-called problems he has described are not actually problems with physicalism, but rather with various forms of dualism and ontological materialism, which nobody here is defending.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

If external reality is a product of, or constructed by, the mind, then why can't I picture something I've never sensed? For example, why can't I close my eyes, picture a scene, and "see" all the colors in the visual spectrum, along with, say, the infra-red? What mechanism of the metamind restricts my internal visualization to things that my senses are capable of?

~~ Paul

Paul :


This simplistic statement sounds weighty, but it's not the statement you're supporting.


It is absolutely the statement I am supporting. This is what all of the 'logical proofs' boil down to.


The critical additional observation is that multiple entities appear to perceive the world in the same way. How do we account for this?


Sure, this is the next question. It is usually dismissed with "that is solipsism". In fact nobody is actually proposing solipsism.


Both the materialistic and mentalistic viewpoints require something else to account for the commonality. Materialism proposes that there is an external material reality that we are perceiving. Mentalism proposes that there is a global mind that governs how each individual mind builds reality. At first blush, the latter proposal sounds cool, because it can eliminate all the difficult problems.


There's nothing 'cool' about it. It is cold hard logic. It does eliminate all the difficult problems.


But the latter proposal is vapid. There is no way to verify that the solutions to all the difficult problems are in any way "correct." It's just a giant hand-wave.


You seem to be suggesting that this solution is "so simple it can't be right.". Why not, Paul? That is the very hallmark of the truth. The beautiful thing about Darwinism is that it is so d*mned simple that one always wonders why nobody thought of it before. Same with flat-Earth/round-Earth


If you start investigating the latter proposal in a logical and verifiable way, you'll end up with science. Then the question of materialism vs. mentalism becomes purely philosophical and irrelevant. What experiments can we perform to distinguish between the two proposals?


There are no experiments. All we have is logic. It goes like this:

Given that our true existential situation is that the only reality we know is mental and that physics/matter is quite definately an abstract model we have created, how do you justify your claim that "there is no reason not to believe that physics/matter is the true reality and the mental realm is a model."

You are now claiming that there is no 'default' position as to which is the model and which is the reality, on the grounds that there is commonality between our experienced world. That has got nothing at all to do with it. You can posit a materialist explanation for that commonality or you can posit a mentalist explanation. There are no tests. All there is is the brute fact that the only sort of existence we know exists in mental and the concept of matter we know to be a model. I ask you again, how do you justify assuming the opposite is true? Pointing out that physical reality is common between minds is totally irrelevant since both materialism and mentalism can explain this and no test can distinguish between the explanations.


quote:
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The reality you know of, and are trying to explain is a mental experience. It is as much a mental experience as your thoughts are. It is physics, matter, space and time which are THE MODEL. These things are abstract concepts invented by humans to describe the behaviour of their mental experiences. We already know which one of these things is a model and which is the thing being modelled.
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I think you mean "We already know which one of these things is a model and which is the thing doing the modeling."


I meant what I said. I meant that physics, matter space and time are all parts of an abstract mathematical model. I also meant that thing being modelled can only be our experiences of a physical world.


I'm annoyed that you won't give me a link to a logical argument against the possibility of mind being an emergent property of the brain. I've read many of the links posted here, but none of them present such as argument.


What is wrong with description of the problem I am giving here, now? Experience leads me to believe that simply presenting logical arguments about this leads to the same circular defence based upon an assumption of materialism and an invalid accusation that the anti-materialist has assumed materialism is false. I am bypassing the circular argument and explaining why materialism cannot be reliably assumed as a default position. The default position must be an existential one - it must start from the existence we actually know, not from an assumption that is deemed to be required in order for science to be able to verify the answer.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

UcE said:
I challenge you to reword this in a meaningful way. What exactly is "the redness of red" other than a string of four words?


It's the thing the four words represent. ;)


Why is it anything more than an association between some portion of the visual cortex and the concept of red?


What is a 'concept'?


Why is it not explained by the simultaneous triggering of a bunch of red-related areas of the brain: visual cortex, the word red, the definition of red, the letters r-e-d, memories of red things, and so forth? Compel me to realize that redness is more than just the sum of these parts.


I can't do that. It's your free will.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

If external reality is a product of, or constructed by, the mind, then why can't I picture something I've never sensed?


I don't know. I've seen all sorts of things I've never sensed. Perhaps it was the drugs...... ;)


For example, why can't I close my eyes, picture a scene, and "see" all the colors in the visual spectrum, along with, say, the infra-red? What mechanism of the metamind restricts my internal visualization to things that my senses are capable of?


It is your own level of creativity which restricts it, if anything does. What you are saying is close to the crunch though - I would argue that many of the techniques handed down to us from religious-philosophical traditions of the past are in part intended to increase ones ability to internally visualise realities greater than our 3-dimensional home.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,


You may consider the lack of free-will (as you define it) to be a problem. I do not.

Dr. Stupid


Then come on over to the free will thread and refute my valid arguments.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
I challenge you to reword this in a meaningful way. What exactly is "the redness of red" other than a string of four words? Why is it anything more than an association between some portion of the visual cortex and the concept of red? Why is it not explained by the simultaneous triggering of a bunch of red-related areas of the brain: visual cortex, the word red, the definition of red, the letters r-e-d, memories of red things, and so forth? Compel me to realize that redness is more than just the sum of these parts.

~~ Paul


Mary has never seen red, but has learned everything there is to know about red.

When Mary see's red she still 'learns' something new about red.

How can she learn something new when she has learned everything about red?

OH ****.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Sure, this [commonality of experience] is the next question. It is usually dismissed with "that is solipsism". In fact nobody is actually proposing solipsism.
It's not just the next question, it's the critical question. Science works because we all appear to perceive a similar external environment. Mental monism needs to explain why that is so, with more than just a hand-wave to the metamind.

You seem to be suggesting that this solution is "so simple it can't be right.". Why not, Paul? That is the very hallmark of the truth. The beautiful thing about Darwinism is that it is so d*mned simple that one always wonders why nobody thought of it before.
I'm not saying it can't be right. I'm saying that it provides no means to verify itself. Evolution does.

We already know which one of these things is a model and which is the thing being modelled.
I still don't understand this statement. Those sound like the same thing to me.

What is wrong with description of the problem I am giving here, now? Experience leads me to believe that simply presenting logical arguments about this leads to the same circular defence based upon an assumption of materialism and an invalid accusation that the anti-materialist has assumed materialism is false.
It's not a logical argument why consciousness cannot arise from the brain. This entire masturbatory exercise is based on that assumption, but I've seen no logical argument that convinces me that I need to reject materialism, other than "gee, consciousness is tough."

I can't do that [convince me that qualia are special]. It's your free will.
Perhaps I'm qualia handicapped, although you'd think that people would notice.

I don't know. I've seen all sorts of things I've never sensed.
So have I, but they were mostly obviously products of my imagination.

It is your own level of creativity which restricts it [ability to picture infra-red], if anything does.
Nonsense. If people could picture infra-red in their minds, they'd know it. It would feel as real as picturing red or smooth or garlic. Something in the metamind restricts my mental abilities to match my physical sensory abilities. What and why? You've got problems to solve!

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Mary has never seen red, but has learned everything there is to know about red.

When Mary see's red she still 'learns' something new about red.

How can she learn something new when she has learned everything about red?

OH ****.
The Knowledge Argument is busted. Mary hasn't learned all the facts about red. She has not learned the facts gathered when red light enters her eyes. If somehow she could book-learn these facts, she could probably visualize red just fine.

The KA is a giant argument against mental monism. If Mary's mind creates her external reality, why does she need to learn anything about red to visualize it? It's all there in the metamind for her to enjoy, free of charge.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
The Knowledge Argument is busted. Mary hasn't learned all the facts about red. She has not learned the facts gathered when red light enters her eyes. If somehow she could book-learn these facts, she could probably visualize red just fine.

The KA is a giant argument against mental monism. If Mary's mind creates her external reality, why does she need to learn anything about red to visualize it? It's all there in the metamind for her to enjoy, free of charge.

~~ Paul


I will restate:

Imagine Mary has learned EVERYTHING about red. Do you see that word now? EVERYTHING.

If we assume your physicalism is true then she has to be able to book-learn all the facts about red. If she can't then your physicalism is not valid in it's current form.

So now when we imagine this Mary she still learns something new when she see's red.

This argument suggests a problem with physicalism. I've been told that this problem is called the HCP. Higher Consciousness Problem. Or something like that ;)


A better counter argument is to say that Mary doesn't learn anything new about red, what she does is learn something new about having the experience of seeing red.

Then we counter by saying that the experience still should not provide something new, and the fact that it does basically PROVES qualia, and qualia suggest the HCP.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

This is not true. Every argument I have ever seen for the existence of the "Hard Problem" presupposes dualism in some way. There is no Hard Problem of consciousness under materialism. Consciousness is just another unsolved problem which we are working on.
Ok. Let's go for the "easy problem", life. Can you propose a thought experiment that would prove anything other than "perceived by humans material", in such and such a configuration, is a Sufficient (rather than Necessary) condition for life? I think not.

Once you sort that out, we can worry about your "proof" of material Sufficiency rather than Necessity for human consciousness.

Meanwhile *I* (absolutely & objectively) think, and so do you.


.... So far, all of the so-called problems he has described are not actually problems with physicalism, but rather with various forms of dualism and ontological materialism, which nobody here is defending.

Dr. Stupid

Do you honestly believe your failure to name the ontological basis of materialism makes that ontological commitment disappear?

Paul


It's not just the next question, it's the critical question. Science works because we all appear to perceive a similar external environment. Mental monism needs to explain why that is so, with more than just a hand-wave to the metamind.


Mental monism can explain this. Berkeley explained it. Hegel explained it. This is not a critical question because both mentalism and materialism can both explain it. It is irrelevant.


quote:
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You seem to be suggesting that this solution is "so simple it can't be right.". Why not, Paul? That is the very hallmark of the truth. The beautiful thing about Darwinism is that it is so d*mned simple that one always wonders why nobody thought of it before.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not saying it can't be right. I'm saying that it provides no means to verify itself. Evolution does.


But materialism does not. We cannot experimentally determine between ontologies.


quote:
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We already know which one of these things is a model and which is the thing being modelled.
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I still don't understand this statement. Those sound like the same thing to me.


We KNOW that our experiences exist. We KNOW that the materialist model is a model. What is there to misunderstand?



quote:
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It is your own level of creativity which restricts it [ability to picture infra-red], if anything does.
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Nonsense. If people could picture infra-red in their minds, they'd know it. It would feel as real as picturing red or smooth or garlic. Something in the metamind restricts my mental abilities to match my physical sensory abilities. What and why? You've got problems to solve!


Those problems have been addressed many times by philosophers ancient and modern. Solutions to them exist, and none of them are being contested. You can argue that we cannot objectively distinguish which solution is correct, but there are solutions. None of which really matters - the core of your argument seems to be that mentalism is 'just too much of a cop-out - too easy'. Then in the next breath you argue that it has 'problems to solve'. I think we need to concentrate on the issue about what is a model and what we KNOW exists, specially if you are saying you don't understand this statement.

edited :

I want to understand the real reasons why you choose to assert that the matter is base reality and the qualia are a model. You have said twice that it is because there is a common shared reality. I have now replied twice that both materialism and mentalism can provide an explanation for this. Is there some reason why this reply is invalid or is there some other reason why you cannot accept that the consciousness is what we actually know exists and that matter is a conceptual model?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Imagine Mary has learned EVERYTHING about red. Do you see that word now? EVERYTHING.
Okay then, we'll assume she has book-learned all the facts accumulated by physically experiencing red, in addition to all the objective facts.

If we assume your physicalism is true then she has to be able to book-learn all the facts about red. If she can't then your physicalism is not valid in it's current form.
Nonsense. Who said that experience can't produce subjective facts not attainable from book learning?

So now when we imagine this Mary she still learns something new when she see's red.
On what basis do you claim that she learns something new when she leaves the room?

A better counter argument is to say that Mary doesn't learn anything new about red, what she does is learn something new about having the experience of seeing red.
This contracdicts your first assumption that she has learned everything about red.

Then we counter by saying that the experience still should not provide something new, and the fact that it does basically PROVES qualia, and qualia suggest the HCP.
Again, what is this new thing you claim the experience provides, if we are assuming she has learned everything about red?

~~ Paul

Paul :


Okay then, we'll assume she has book-learned all the facts accumulated by physically experiencing red, in addition to all the objective facts.


Here is the problem with the model and the reality. Everything that Mary can book-learn about red is the model. The experience of red is the brute reality. Given these things (and I think if you look at them closely you will find that they MUST be true) then what have you just claimed that it is possible to place into the model the thing which is being modelled. The problem is that this cannot be done. So you have attempted to refute the knowledge argument by assuming something which cannot be done in real life (the book-learning of the experience of seeing red) but which must be do-able for materialism to be defended. The point is that in reality it is impossible to book-learn the experience of seeing red, therefore materialism must be false. If it were possible to book-learn red then the KA would fail.

edited :

I might add that at the same time you are claiming it is possible to "book-learn the experience of seeing red" you are also claiming that the mind cannot emulate in dreams sensations it has never experienced, which effectively refutes the claim it is possible to book-learn red.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I want to understand the real reasons why you choose to assert that the matter is base reality and the qualia are a model. You have said twice that it is because there is a common shared reality. I have now replied twice that both materialism and mentalism can provide an explanation for this. Is there some reason why this reply is invalid or is there some other reason why you cannot accept that the consciousness is what we actually know exists and that matter is a conceptual model?
I'm not really asserting that matter is the base reality, because, as we seem to agree, there probably isn't any good way to tell. I just don't think that mental monism is any more compelling, even given all I've read about it over the past few months. The argument that "the mind is the one data point we have" just doesn't do it for me.

If you would deign to give me one lousy reference to a good, noncircular argument against the possibility of brain giving rise to consciousness, I might be one step closer to seeing your point. In the long run, however, I doubt any of this matters.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Here is the problem with the model and the reality. Everything that Mary can book-learn about red is the model. The experience of red is the brute reality. Given these things (and I think if you look at them closely you will find that they MUST be true) then what have you just claimed that it is possible to place into the model the thing which is being modelled. The problem is that this cannot be done. So you have attempted to refute the knowledge argument by assuming something which cannot be done in real life (the book-learning of the experience of seeing red) but which must be do-able for materialism to be defended. The point is that in reality it is impossible to book-learn the experience of seeing red, therefore materialism must be false. If it were possible to book-learn red then the KA would fail.

edited :

I might add that at the same time you are claiming it is possible to "book-learn the experience of seeing red" you are also claiming that the mind cannot emulate in dreams sensations it has never experienced, which effectively refutes the claim it is possible to book-learn red.
I am not claiming that it is possible to book-learn the experience of seeing red. I do not think it is possible to book-learn the subjective facts gained when you actually see red light. This is why the KA is flawed.

However, if, for the sake of discussion, we assume that it is possible to book-learn every single objective and subjective fact about red (including the neural connections formed when red light enters the eye), then I see no reason why Mary wouldn't have the same internal experience of redness as everyone else, both in the room and out.

I do not understand what this has to do with materialism. Nowhere does materialism claim that there is no such thing as subjective facts about reality.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm not really asserting that matter is the base reality, because, as we seem to agree, there probably isn't any good way to tell.


I said there was no experimental way to tell. But we still have reason.



If you would deign to give me one lousy reference to a good, noncircular argument against the possibility of brain giving rise to consciousness, I might be one step closer to seeing your point. In the long run, however, I doubt any of this matters.



The knowledge argument is as good as any of the others. They are all valid.


I am not claiming that it is possible to book-learn the experience of seeing red. I do not think it is possible to book-learn the subjective facts gained when you actually see red light. This is why the KA is flawed.


:confused:

You have lost me. If it is not possible to book-learn red then it is materialism which is flawed, not the KA. It is not possible to book-learn the experience of seeing red then this experience can never appear in the materialistic model, all of which can be book-learned because it is an abstract model.

I'm not sure there is anywhere for me to take this discussion. If you don't see the problem by now then nothing I can say will help you to see the problem. I think many other people can see this problem, and I think it is real. I also think that it will never be accepted because of the implications of the solution, not because the problem isn't real, which makes it feel like a waste of time continuing with people who know the arguments and still reject them.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:You have lost me. If it is not possible to book-learn red then it is materialism which is flawed, not the KA. It is not possible to book-learn the experience of seeing red then this experience can never appear in the materialistic model, all of which can be book-learned because it is an abstract model.
Where does materialism say that it should be possible to book-learn everything? Some things are learned by experiencing them. An example is the neural connections formed when red light enters your eye and causes the neural cascade from the eye to the visual cortex and beyond. These connections are (subjective) facts, but I very much doubt they can be book-learned.

I think you have formed an artifical barrier between objective external facts and subjective internal experience. This barrier seems to exclude the possibility of subjective experience arising from subjective facts.

I also think that it will never be accepted because of the implications of the solution, not because the problem isn't real, which makes it feel like a waste of time continuing with people who know the arguments and still reject them.
I'm really not frightened of the implications, because I don't think they would make much difference to me anyway. However, without a logical argument against the possibility that consciousness arises from the brain, I don't see any reason to go with plan B.

One more point: Regardless of how much she can learn about red's material aspects in the room, surely she "knows" all the metamind facts about red. So why, in a mental monism world, would she experience anything novel when she leaves the room?

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

You may consider the lack of free-will (as you define it) to be a problem. I do not.

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

Then come on over to the free will thread and refute my valid arguments.

I have peaked in on that thread from time to time, but had never made any comments, simply because I never saw anything more than assertions that free-will must exist. I will take a look again, though, if it will make you happy.


Hammegk,

This is not true. Every argument I have ever seen for the existence of the "Hard Problem" presupposes dualism in some way. There is no Hard Problem of consciousness under materialism. Consciousness is just another unsolved problem which we are working on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok. Let's go for the "easy problem", life. Can you propose a thought experiment that would prove anything other than "perceived by humans material", in such and such a configuration, is a Sufficient (rather than Necessary) condition for life? I think not.[quote]

I don't understand the question. Could you repeat it more clearly?

[quote]Once you sort that out, we can worry about your "proof" of material Sufficiency rather than Necessity for human consciousness.

What proof are you talking about. I have not claimed to have any proof. Just a potentially falsifiable theory that, up till now, has been working very well.

Meanwhile *I* (absolutely & objectively) think, and so do you.

So what?

.... So far, all of the so-called problems he has described are not actually problems with physicalism, but rather with various forms of dualism and ontological materialism, which nobody here is defending.

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

Do you honestly believe your failure to name the ontological basis of materialism makes that ontological commitment disappear?

Scientific materialism (physicalism) has nothing to do with ontology. There is no ontological commitment, because the concept of ontology is never so much as mentioned anywhere within the formal framework. Ontology is an incoherent concept, and I have no interest in clogging up an otherwise coherent framework with it.

Paul,

I think I am going to employ a policy of not continuing to argue beyond the point where I believe the case has been made sufficiently well to convince an open-minded neutral. It is pointless for me to continue discussing this with you.

Geoff.

[Loki]

uce,

I believe the case has been made sufficiently well to convince an open-minded neutral.
You ain't even close!

[Tricky]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Paul,

I think I am going to employ a policy of not continuing to argue beyond the point where I believe the case has been made sufficiently well to convince an open-minded neutral. It is pointless for me to continue discussing this with you.

Geoff.
I believe this is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. If a person remains unconvinced then there aren't an open-minded neutral (not to be confused with an open minded neuter), right?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


What proof are you talking about. I have not claimed to have any proof. Just a potentially falsifiable theory that, up till now, has been working very well.

Does the word "falsifiable" ring a bell? Note also I asked for a thought experiment.

Finally, do you have a problem understanding Necessary vs Sufficient?


So what?
Only that I refuse to ignore the only objective data point *I* have.


Scientific materialism (physicalism) has nothing to do with ontology. There is no ontological commitment, because the concept of ontology is never so much as mentioned anywhere within the formal framework. Ontology is an incoherent concept, and I have no interest in clogging up an otherwise coherent framework with it.
Stimpy, you are probably beginning to believe that you've said it so many times. Here you do have a problem understanding the difference between implicit and explicit.


Also, answering an old question of yours to me; Second Law of Thermo -- but why do I think you already knew that was the answer?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I think I am going to employ a policy of not continuing to argue beyond the point where I believe the case has been made sufficiently well to convince an open-minded neutral. It is pointless for me to continue discussing this with you.
Probably a wise decision. I have spent the day searching for a compelling argument against the possibility of consciousness arising from the brain, but all I find is blah, blah, blah.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Probably a wise decision. I have spent the day searching for a compelling argument against the possibility of consciousness arising from the brain, but all I find is blah, blah, blah.

~~ Paul

Maybe it depends what eyes you look with.

If there is one thing I have learned in the last 12 months it is that there is no point in trying to force these things on people, regardless of whether they are 'logically provable' or not. The very nature of what we are discussing dictates that the information be made available, but not forcibly imposed. If people are given the arguments, but hear only 'blah, blah, blah' then the information is not for them. I know that some other people who are provided with this information, hear more than 'blah, blah, blah' and choose to verify its truth for themselves. It takes all sorts to make a world. :)

Originally posted by Loki
uce,


You ain't even close!

Don't tell me you are offering yourself as an example of 'an open-minded neutral', Loki! :D

Originally posted by Tricky

I believe this is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. If a person remains unconvinced then there aren't an open-minded neutral (not to be confused with an open minded neuter), right?

The arguments have been presented, Tricky. People can judge for themselves whether the rebuttals held water or not.

NB : At this point, scribble or BillHoyt come in and deliver a tirade about that Charlatan UCE........

I don't know whether it is too late already but as far as I am concerned the lid is going back on Pandoras Box. May that which has been hidden remain hidden, apart from to the eyes of those who choose to seek. :)

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

Unus Mundus --- One World --- The Whole System is a WHOLE SYSTEM.

Adios Amigos. ;)

[Loki]

uce,

Don't tell me you are offering yourself as an example of 'an open-minded neutral', Loki!
Tell you what, why don't you post *just one* message from me in the past 18 months where I have stated that materialism "must be true", or that "I *know* the truth". Just on the P-Zombie topic, it seems to me that I've probably read more Chalmers than you have.

Contrast that to yourself - when I asked you about Dennett you replied "A true believer, I'm afraid". When pressed, you admitted that you'd read "a little" of his work.

Sorry uce, but you don't seem to want to spend much time "examining the evidence". Sure, I understand that's because you already *know* the right answer, so why waste time looking any further.

Tell you what, why not read the links from Sou's "The Reith Lectures 2003: The Emerging Mind" and make some *relevant* comments or rebuttals, rather than just "closing the lid" on Pandoras box so that "that which has been hidden remain hidden"?

[Jethro]

Before you put the lid back on the box, could you please provide that logical proof you keep talking about? A link, a repost, a listing, something please.

And one point, I would say that physics is not a model of qualia, but a model of the external physical reality which we experience through our qualia. A distinction due only to my materialistic bent, but one I would still like to point out.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



I have peaked in on that thread from time to time, but had never made any comments, simply because I never saw anything more than assertions that free-will must exist. I will take a look again, though, if it will make you happy.


Hmm, perhaps I have misunderstood your position.

In any event, my assertion is not that free will exists, it is that free will holds a neccessary condition that there exists an "agent" that will not fit in with physicalism.

If you do not believe free will exists then you won't have a problem, and in fact we will probably be in agreement.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Probably a wise decision. I have spent the day searching for a compelling argument against the possibility of consciousness arising from the brain, but all I find is blah, blah, blah.

~~ Paul

Really, you found blah blah blah?

What do you think the story of Mary and the black/white room is? What about p-zombies? What about consciousness-identity? What about pure ego identity?

You must not be searching 'correctly'.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Hammegk,

What proof are you talking about. I have not claimed to have any proof. Just a potentially falsifiable theory that, up till now, has been working very well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does the word "falsifiable" ring a bell? Note also I asked for a thought experiment.

Finally, do you have a problem understanding Necessary vs Sufficient?

I noticed that the formatting of my response is screwed up, so maybe you missed where I explained that do not understand the question?

I'll repeat it, with proper formatting.

Ok. Let's go for the "easy problem", life. Can you propose a thought experiment that would prove anything other than "perceived by humans material", in such and such a configuration, is a Sufficient (rather than Necessary) condition for life? I think not.

I don't understand the question. Could you repeat it more clearly?

Meanwhile *I* (absolutely & objectively) think, and so do you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So what?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only that I refuse to ignore the only objective data point *I* have.

Nobody is asking you to. Materialism in no way denies the fact that you or I are capable of thought.

Scientific materialism (physicalism) has nothing to do with ontology. There is no ontological commitment, because the concept of ontology is never so much as mentioned anywhere within the formal framework. Ontology is an incoherent concept, and I have no interest in clogging up an otherwise coherent framework with it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimpy, you are probably beginning to believe that you've said it so many times. Here you do have a problem understanding the difference between implicit and explicit.

What are you talking about? What ontological commitment do you claim that I am making?

Also, answering an old question of yours to me; Second Law of Thermo -- but why do I think you already knew that was the answer?

I don't know, why do you? After all, there are no violations of the second law of thermodynamics that I am aware of.


Dr. Stupid

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

I have peaked in on that thread from time to time, but had never made any comments, simply because I never saw anything more than assertions that free-will must exist. I will take a look again, though, if it will make you happy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hmm, perhaps I have misunderstood your position.

In any event, my assertion is not that free will exists, it is that free will holds a neccessary condition that there exists an "agent" that will not fit in with physicalism.

If you do not believe free will exists then you won't have a problem, and in fact we will probably be in agreement.

Perhaps we are finally making some progress. I do not believe that free-will, as you have defined it, exists. On the contrary, I think that the logical argument you have presented, whereby you explain that Libertarian free-will requires the existence of an agent which is neither deterministic nor random, serves as an indirect proof that Libertarian free-will does not exist.


Dr. Stupid

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos


This contracdicts your first assumption that she has learned everything about red.

~~ Paul

Now I'm stuck arguing the counter-argument that I don't believe and I have to do it because you aren't following the original argument. ARGH. :mad:

If we say that Mary learned everything about red, but did not say she has learned everything about the experience of seeing red. That is the flaw in the argument. But you wouldn't know that because you won't objectively look at the argument.

So the claim is that Mary is not learning something new about red when she see's it (because if she did then physicalism is flawed), but what she is learning is something new about the experience of red.

Now there is a counter-argument for this, but it is highly debatable. I can modify the example to say that Mary book-learns everything about red and the experience of red, and still Mary 'experiences' something new.

If Mary experiences ANYTHING new, once she has learned EVERYTHING about red and the experience of red, that means qualia! That means physicalism is false.

Objectively speaking this appears to be a valid argument. Here it is in premise -> conclusion form:


1. Mary learns everything there is to know about the color red.
2. Mary learns everything there is to know about the experience of seeing the color red.
3. Mary has never seen the color red.

4. Mary sees the color red, and gains something she did not have before.

This argument reneders physicalism false in it's current form.

Counter argument:

4. Mary gains the knowledge that she has seen the color red.

Counter-counter argument:

Not only does she gain that knowledge, but she gains some kind of fundamental understanding of the color red that she is unable to learn from books.

THIS RENDERS PHYSICALISM FALSE.


Again, what is this new thing you claim the experience provides, if we are assuming she has learned everything about red?

She is learning the experience. This suggests qualia.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



Perhaps we are finally making some progress. I do not believe that free-will, as you have defined it, exists. On the contrary, I think that the logical argument you have presented, whereby you explain that Libertarian free-will requires the existence of an agent which is neither deterministic nor random, serves as an indirect proof that Libertarian free-will does not exist.


Dr. Stupid


So you wish to redefine free will? Then do so and I will argue about the definition of free will. Perhaps you can read the thread where I state my definition over and over again and request any counter-definitions.

I'll head over there now.

Jethro


A link, a repost, a listing, something please.


If you knew how many times I have been around this merry-go-round with materialists then you'd know why I have to get off. No logical proof will satisfy the materialists - it bounces off them like a little rubber ball. Yet the problem is written all over philosophy, manifests at all the boundaries of physics, and the answer has been known since the dawn of time. Seek and you shall find that the Truth has always been staring you in the face, had you the eyes to see it.


Before you put the lid back on the box.....


Too late. Nothing personal. Franko has gone. It is time for me to leave also.

http://www.ananael.net/images/uhex.jpg

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Aw UcE, don't leave.

Rusty, the p-zombie arguments don't do much for me, since the term p-zombie is so poorly defined.

Now let's get back to Mary. I don't understand your last post, so let's start over.

Are we assuming that Mary can (a) book-learn absolutely every objective and subjective fact about red, or (b) only the facts we might reasonably believe she could learn from books? An example of facts that aren't included in (b) are the neural connections formed when red light enters her eyes.

While you're at it, you might define physicalism, particularly with respect to what it says about book learning.

~~ Paul

[Jethro]

What if Mary is colorblind, does this render physicalism true?

Okay, Mary cannot learn everything about the color red and said experience until she herself experiences it. Why does this eliminate the possibility that said experience is purely physical in nature? The photon hits the retina triggers the nerve activates the visual cortex is interpreted by the frontal lobes.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Objectively speaking this appears to be a valid argument. Here it is in premise -> conclusion form:

1. Mary learns everything there is to know about the color red.
2. Mary learns everything there is to know about the experience of seeing the color red.
3. Mary has never seen the color red.

4. Mary sees the color red, and gains something she did not have before.

This argument reneders physicalism false in it's current form.

If we are to assume (as the above argument implies) that it is possible for Mary to learn everything there is to know about the experience of seeing the color red, without ever having had the experience, then clearly Mary would not gain anything she did not have before when she actually does see red.

The implication would be that she is somehow able to imagine exactly what red would look like, based on the information she has.

Of course, physicalism does not hold that it is possible for Mary to learn everything that there is to know about the experience of seeing red, without having the experience. On the contrary, what we know about neurophysiology would tend to suggest that this is not physically possible. This renders the argument null and void, since it takes as a premise that something physically impossible has happened.

Counter argument:

4. Mary gains the knowledge that she has seen the color red.

Counter-counter argument:

Not only does she gain that knowledge, but she gains some kind of fundamental understanding of the color red that she is unable to learn from books.

THIS RENDERS PHYSICALISM FALSE.

Only if you think that Physicalism implies that it is possible to gain that knowledge from a book. I do not see why you think this is the case.

There is nothing metaphysical about this. It is just a reflection of the fact that the part of your brain that processes abstract information, is not the same as the part of your brain that processes visual input. No amount of book learning is going to teach your visual cortex how to process the color red. The visual cortex can only learn how to do it by doing it. Likewise, no amount of abstract knowledge is going to teach a crippled man how to walk.

Imagine a person who has been crippled from birth. Imagine now that an operation fixes the problem, and is even able to fix up the muscles, so that his bones and muscles are as good as a healthy person. Do you think that any amount of abstract knowledge is going to allow him to simply stand up and walk?

Of course not. He needs to learn how to do it. Likewise, a person who has suffered a stroke can "forget" how to walk. He still has all the abstract knowledge. He still remembers walking. He still knows in theory how it works. But he simply can't get the muscles to do what he wants them to do. A new part of his brain must learn how to control the muscles. This is not abstract knowledge, but it is still a purely physical process occurring in the person's brain.

Perhaps we are finally making some progress. I do not believe that free-will, as you have defined it, exists. On the contrary, I think that the logical argument you have presented, whereby you explain that Libertarian free-will requires the existence of an agent which is neither deterministic nor random, serves as an indirect proof that Libertarian free-will does not exist.

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

So you wish to redefine free will?

Not really. I am happy to say something along the lines of "we don't really have free will, but must behave as though we do". I am also happy with the compatibilist view, which simply defined the term to refer to something that we can meaningfully say we have, even if it is not what we would intuitively think of as free-will.

For me, it is pretty much a non-issue. Reality is the way it is. Consciousness is what it is. I am interested in finding out as much about it as I can. I am not interested in trying to make what I find out fit into some preconceived view that my intuition or social conditioning has given me.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Aw UcE, don't leave.



Republic (http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/kreines/gpq/plato_cave.htm)


§32. Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

§33. To be sure, he said.

§34. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.


Who am I to loose the prisoners?

Who am I to [attempt to] liberate those who have no wish to be liberated?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ah, the old prison gambit.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ah, the old prison gambit.

~~ Paul

http://wwwofe.er.doe.gov/Grant/sun.gif

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Who am I to loose the prisoners?

Who am I to [attempt to] liberate those who have no wish to be liberated?

This is priceless, UCE.

Do you feel a kind of Messiah?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Q-Source


This is priceless, UCE.

Do you feel a kind of Messiah?

Just another prisoner who has gazed on the sun. ;)

Each of us makes his own choice; words, picture & discussions do not show the exit, or walk oneself through it.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



If we are to assume (as the above argument implies) that it is possible for Mary to learn everything there is to know about the experience of seeing the color red, without ever having had the experience, then clearly Mary would not gain anything she did not have before when she actually does see red.

The implication would be that she is somehow able to imagine exactly what red would look like, based on the information she has.

Of course, physicalism does not hold that it is possible for Mary to learn everything that there is to know about the experience of seeing red, without having the experience. On the contrary, what we know about neurophysiology would tend to suggest that this is not physically possible. This renders the argument null and void, since it takes as a premise that something physically impossible has happened.



Only if you think that Physicalism implies that it is possible to gain that knowledge from a book. I do not see why you think this is the case.

There is nothing metaphysical about this. It is just a reflection of the fact that the part of your brain that processes abstract information, is not the same as the part of your brain that processes visual input. No amount of book learning is going to teach your visual cortex how to process the color red. The visual cortex can only learn how to do it by doing it. Likewise, no amount of abstract knowledge is going to teach a crippled man how to walk.

Imagine a person who has been crippled from birth. Imagine now that an operation fixes the problem, and is even able to fix up the muscles, so that his bones and muscles are as good as a healthy person. Do you think that any amount of abstract knowledge is going to allow him to simply stand up and walk?

Of course not. He needs to learn how to do it. Likewise, a person who has suffered a stroke can "forget" how to walk. He still has all the abstract knowledge. He still remembers walking. He still knows in theory how it works. But he simply can't get the muscles to do what he wants them to do. A new part of his brain must learn how to control the muscles. This is not abstract knowledge, but it is still a purely physical process occurring in the person's brain.


Of course you know I would disagree. Physicalism states that everything is reducable to a causally binding law, and that those laws can be percieved by humans. Hence it is possible, although improbable, that someone could learn exactly everything they needed to do to be able to instantly walk.

What is the cripple doing with the experience other then learning it?


For the definition of physicalism I am using:

All things are physical. Physical means all things are reducable ultimately to a material that interacts as both a cause and effect with other things. If something does not interact this way it is not physical, and hence is reducable further still to a point where it will interact in such a way.

So physicalism states that ultimately everything about red is reducable to a material that acts as both a cause and effect, and the law that governs these cause and effects are TLON (or TLOPP if you prefer), and we can perceive these.

So we teach Mary everything about red, then she knows everything about red. Seeing red should not make a difference.

Of course you can claim that seeing red causes a chemical reaction in the brain that forms some bond. But what is this doing? Are we saying that the brain already 'knows' red but the bond doesn't form until we see it?

Mary and the black/white room still illustrates the point. Much better then pzombies, imho.



Not really. I am happy to say something along the lines of "we don't really have free will, but must behave as though we do". I am also happy with the compatibilist view, which simply defined the term to refer to something that we can meaningfully say we have, even if it is not what we would intuitively think of as free-will.

For me, it is pretty much a non-issue. Reality is the way it is. Consciousness is what it is. I am interested in finding out as much about it as I can. I am not interested in trying to make what I find out fit into some preconceived view that my intuition or social conditioning has given me.

Dr. Stupid

That is a perfectly valid. It just does not work for me. So we would agree. I do hope that I'm correct, though, and that one day perhaps science will discover the laws of "agent" causation or some such.

Originally posted by Q-Source


This is priceless, UCE.

Do you feel a kind of Messiah?

Tell me what do you want? And who can you be?
And what do you find when you're looking at me?
Cos I'm just a blind man who thinks he can see,
And I'll never get caught cos I'll never be free.

:)

If I'm a Messiah, then I'm the least effective Messiah there has ever been. But how can you know that the sun shines and not feel a need to tell those souls who remain convinced that the shadow-world is real? Some things never change, though. Plato's allegory is as true as it always was. The prisoners see the mystic as a madman. Perhaps this is the way it will always be.

Messiahs come to change the world. I am not trying to change the world. I did once, but not any more. Regime change begins at home.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Tell me what do you want? And who can you be?
And what do you find when you're looking at me?
Cos I'm just a blind man who thinks he can see,
And I'll never get caught cos I'll never be free.

:)

If I'm a Messiah, then I'm the least effective Messiah there has ever been. But how can you know that the sun shines and not feel a need to tell those souls who remain convinced that the shadow-world is real? Some things never change, though. Plato's allegory is as true as it always was. The prisoners see the mystic as a madman. Perhaps this is the way it will always be.

Messiahs come to change the world. I am not trying to change the world. I did once, but not any more. Regime change begins at home.


I think I'm going to change my pants.

Please stick around though, I have been appreciating your comments since the second day I was here. I would appreciate them in the future. Probably best to stop running your head into a brick wall though. You might get an concusion.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Of course you know I would disagree. Physicalism states that everything is reducable to a causally binding law, and that those laws can be percieved by humans. Hence it is possible, although improbable, that someone could learn exactly everything they needed to do to be able to instantly walk.

I don't see how this follows. The fact that the cripple will not be able to learn how to walk without actually doing it is not a limitation imposed by physicalism, but rather by the way the physical brain and body work.

Maybe this will clarify my position with respect to Mary. I will rephrase the thought experiment in such a way that the idea is the same, but it is actually physically possible.

Imagine that Mary has never seen red, and as a result, she has no memories of seeing red, her visual cortex is not equipped to distinguish red, and of course, she does not know what the experience of seeing red is.

Now imagine that we have a supercomputer, which knows all the physical facts about how visual perception works, and knows all the physical facts about Mary's brain. This computer controls a robotic surgeon, which is capable of performing micro brain surgery. For the sake of this thought experiment, imagine that it is capable of doing pretty much anything to the brain that is physically possible.

Now, imagine that our computer works out exactly what the physical state of Mary's brain would be if she had always been able to see red. Imagine that it also works out what the physical state would be if she had memories of having seen things in full color. The robot then goes in and modifies her brain. It creates the necessary neural connections in the visual cortex. It makes all the necessary connections to modify her memories. When Mary wakes up, she remembers having been able to see red, remembers what it is like to see red, can even visualize the red things she remembers having seen in her mind.

Now we fix Mary's eyes. For the first time ever, Mary actually has the experience of seeing red. According to physicallism, she will not gain anything new by this experience.

In other words, physicalism holds that the experience is a physical process, and that all the facts about the experience are physical. When we say that Mary has all the physical facts, we are not just talking about abstract information, we are talking about the physical state of Mary's brain. So in effect, we should be able to alter the state of Mary's brain is such a way as to give her all the facts about seeing red that somebody who has seen red would have, even though she has never seen red.

Dr. Stupid

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,


...................

In other words, physicalism holds that the experience is a physical process, and that all the facts about the experience are physical. When we say that Mary has all the physical facts, we are not just talking about abstract information, we are talking about the physical state of Mary's brain. So in effect, we should be able to alter the state of Mary's brain is such a way as to give her all the facts about seeing red that somebody who has seen red would have, even though she has never seen red.

Dr. Stupid

So you are saying that there is something about red that is not reducable to the point where human beings can percieve it? Or you are asserting that this thing about red that I have claimed is not reducable to being perceived but has to be experienced, is, in fact, reducable. But the only way to reduce it (other then having the experience) is to make a physical modification to the brain?

So then we are saying that the experience of seeing red causes something in our brain to make a physical modification to our brain and so this 'modification' is the thing we gain?

What does this 'modification' do to give me the 'extra knowledge' about red?

This argument still assumes that there is some part of the brain that already 'knows' red and just hasn't been connected to the rest of the brain.

So what does this part of the brain 'know' and how come we can't teach it to someone?


EDIT I am currently creating a new post so this one will make more sense.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:So then we are saying that the experience of seeing red causes something in our brain to make a physical modification to our brain and so this 'modification' is the thing we gain?
Regardless of what you think about the KA, you have to agree that seeing red causes physical changes in the brain's neural network and other components, right?

What does this 'modification' do to give me the 'extra knowledge' about red?
It changes your neural connections. That's what knowledge is, right?

This argument still assumes that there is some part of the brain that already 'knows' red and just hasn't been connected to the rest of the brain.
How does it assume that? Regardless, what you say is true. There is a "red portion" of the visual cortex that hasn't been exercised until red light is actually seen (or Stimpy's robot does his thing).

So what does this part of the brain 'know' and how come we can't teach it to someone?
For the same reason we can't teach some to be a world champion high jumper. You gotta practice.

You keep thinking off all knowledge/facts as book knowledge. Some knowledge is gained through doing/experiencing/sensing/acting.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Clarification on Mary and the black/white room:


We assume physicalism is true. Hence everything that exists can be reduced to a point where human beings can perceive it in it's relation as both a cause and an effect.

So the color red can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by human beings as both a cause and an effect. If we reduce everything about the color red to the state where it is perceivable as both a cause and an effect and use this knowledge to write a book we will have a way we can learn all there is to know about the color red. This book is called Book of Red-osity.

There is a girl named Mary in a black and white room, with black/white clothes, and everything in the room is black/white. Including her skin. She has never seen any color.

Mary is provided with the Book of Red-osity and reads everything. She reads it all, learns it all, and understands it all. Mary now knows everything about the color red.

We then give Mary another book, the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This book contains all information about experiencing the color red. She reads, learns, and understands this as well. Mary now knows everything about the color red and the experience of the color red.

We then bring Mary a red rose. When Mary see's this rose she gains some kind of knowledge about red that she did not have before. What does she gain? We will call this thing qualia.

Their has been a counter argument that:

Mary doesn't gain qualia, she gains the knowledge that she has had the experience of seeing the color red. But, I say, she already had that knowledge because she read, learned, and understood the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity.

So they say that this knowledge causes a chemical reaction in the brain that causes a bridge to connect between two points. The brain is such that this bridge will not connect unless the experience of seeing red actually takes place.

I reply, how does this bridge give Mary any new knowledge about red? Unless the bridge connects to some part of the brain that already "knows" red, but it "knows" it in such a way that is not reducable under physicalism.


Now there is a new Mary. This Mary is Stimpson J. Cat's Mary, Mary so I will simply copy and paste his story:


Imagine that Mary has never seen red, and as a result, she has no memories of seeing red, her visual cortex is not equipped to distinguish red, and of course, she does not know what the experience of seeing red is.

Now imagine that we have a supercomputer, which knows all the physical facts about how visual perception works, and knows all the physical facts about Mary's brain. This computer controls a robotic surgeon, which is capable of performing micro brain surgery. For the sake of this thought experiment, imagine that it is capable of doing pretty much anything to the brain that is physically possible.

Now, imagine that our computer works out exactly what the physical state of Mary's brain would be if she had always been able to see red. Imagine that it also works out what the physical state would be if she had memories of having seen things in full color. The robot then goes in and modifies her brain. It creates the necessary neural connections in the visual cortex. It makes all the necessary connections to modify her memories. When Mary wakes up, she remembers having been able to see red, remembers what it is like to see red, can even visualize the red things she remembers having seen in her mind.

Now we fix Mary's eyes. For the first time ever, Mary actually has the experience of seeing red. According to physicallism, she will not gain anything new by this experience.


The first story of Mary established that Mary gains some kind of knowledge upon seeing red that she cannot gain from the Book of Red-osity or the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This means that the thing cannot be reduced under physicalism.

Let us accept the second story. Robo-Mary did not gain any new knowledge when she saw red. So somehow Robo-Mary gained this 'qualia' through a physical modification to her brain but regular Mary could not gain this through the books. Again, this is saying that there is something in the brain that already "knows" red but just has to be connected.

We can still ask what this part of the brain "knows" about red and how come it wasn't reducable and put into one of the books. This still remains a problem for physicalism.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:We assume physicalism is true. Hence everything that exists can be reduced to a point where human beings can perceive it in it's relation as both a cause and an effect.
Here is the definition of physicalism from Websters:

"a thesis that the descriptive terms of scientific language are reducible to terms which refer to spatiotemporal things or events or to their properties"

I don't see anything about cause and effect, and I certainly don't see anything about these things all being learnable from books.

So the color red can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by human beings as both a cause and an effect. If we reduce everything about the color red to the state where it is perceivable as both a cause and an effect and use this knowledge to write a book we will have a way we can learn all there is to know about the color red. This book is called Book of Red-osity.
We might be able to learn "all there is to know," but we probably can't learn the perceptual pathways.

. . .

We then give Mary another book, the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This book contains all information about experiencing the color red. She reads, learns, and understands this as well. Mary now knows everything about the color red and the experience of the color red.
She still can't consciously form the perceptual pathways.

We then bring Mary a red rose. When Mary see's this rose she gains some kind of knowledge about red that she did not have before. What does she gain? We will call this thing qualia.
She gains the perceptual pathways.

Their has been a counter argument that:

Mary doesn't gain qualia, she gains the knowledge that she has had the experience of seeing the color red. But, I say, she already had that knowledge because she read, learned, and understood the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity.
Assuming the knowledge that she has had the experience of seeing red is relevant, she did not get that from the books. If the books stated that, they were in error. She had not seen red yet.

So they say that this knowledge causes a chemical reaction in the brain that causes a bridge to connect between two points. The brain is such that this bridge will not connect unless the experience of seeing red actually takes place.
Yes, but that is not the knowledge that she has had the experience, but the experience itself.

I reply, how does this bridge give Mary any new knowledge about red? Unless the bridge connects to some part of the brain that already "knows" red, but it "knows" it in such a way that is not reducable under physicalism.
Now we are merely speculating. I can think of two interesting connections made when Mary actually sees red. First, a cascade of connections between her eye and her visual cortex. Second, a connection between the red portion of the cortex and the concepts of red that she has learned. Both of these are new knowledge.

The first story of Mary established that Mary gains some kind of knowledge upon seeing red that she cannot gain from the Book of Red-osity or the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This means that the thing cannot be reduced under physicalism.
Physicalism does not say that all facts can be learned from books.

Let us accept the second story. Robo-Mary did not gain any new knowledge when she saw red. So somehow Robo-Mary gained this 'qualia' through a physical modification to her brain but regular Mary could not gain this through the books. Again, this is saying that there is something in the brain that already "knows" red but just has to be connected.
What do you mean here? After Mary read the books, there was knowledge of red in her brain. The robot simply programs more knowledge, some of which is certainly connected to the book knowledge.

We can still ask what this part of the brain "knows" about red and how come it wasn't reducable and put into one of the books. This still remains a problem for physicalism.
Perhaps you're suggesting that our brains have knowledge about red even before we experience red or read anything about it. That is undoubtedly true, but why is it a problem?

~~ Paul

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

If I'm a Messiah, then I'm the least effective Messiah there has ever been. But how can you know that the sun shines and not feel a need to tell those souls who remain convinced that the shadow-world is real? Some things never change, though. Plato's allegory is as true as it always was. The prisoners see the mystic as a madman. Perhaps this is the way it will always be.


Yeah, some things never change.

Just a miserable tiny little piece of evidence would make a difference...

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Here is the definition of physicalism from Websters:

"a thesis that the descriptive terms of scientific language are reducible to terms which refer to spatiotemporal things or events or to their properties"

I don't see anything about cause and effect, and I certainly don't see anything about these things all being learnable from books.


If we assume soft-determined world (meaning that all effects stem from causes that are determined or random) then all effects lead to next effects. Effects go on and on and on. This is called a causal chain.

All things are reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive these things.
All things are 'spatiotemporal' things or events or properties.

Can a thing exist without being a cause, even if the cause neccesitates the event of doing nothing? Perhaps the rock on my desk is neccesitating that it remains on my desk over time. TLOP states that the rock sitting on my desk will not spontaneously explode, so the rock sitting on my desk is necessitated to not do many many things and only necessitated to do one thing. Perhaps that thing is to do nothing. So things all have causes.

Events are all causes.

Properties? You are claiming that all things are reducable to properties? You need to define this, because if I can reduce the "agent" down to it's properties and then my "agent" works with physicalism exactly as it works with materialism and renders physicalism into a 'weaker' statement.


We might be able to learn "all there is to know," but we probably can't learn the perceptual pathways.

. . .


She still can't consciously form the perceptual pathways.


She gains the perceptual pathways.


Here is one part of YOUR definition of physicalism put into my words:

All things are reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive these things.

So how come whatever these "perceptual pathways" do is not reducable to things we can perceive? You are killing your own view.




Assuming the knowledge that she has had the experience of seeing red is relevant, she did not get that from the books. If the books stated that, they were in error. She had not seen red yet.


Yes she had not seen red yet, she had only read the books. The books contained all knowledge reduced down to the point where she coudl perceive it and she learned and understood it. How can she then gain MORE knowledge about red when she see's it? Because not all things are reducable in this way.


Yes, but that is not the knowledge that she has had the experience, but the experience itself.


Now we are merely speculating. I can think of two interesting connections made when Mary actually sees red. First, a cascade of connections between her eye and her visual cortex. Second, a connection between the red portion of the cortex and the concepts of red that she has learned. Both of these are new knowledge.


How are they new knowledge? They have to be reducable, and if they are then they were put in the books. Mary read the books. But still Mary gains some new knowledge.


Physicalism does not say that all facts can be learned from books.


Yes it does. Which is why it works so well for science, and continues to work so well. But it must evolve, much like science. Unfortunately we do not know enough about the "agent" yet to make the correct modifications to physicalism. But do not forget that the HCP and the "agent" certainly and strongly suggest that physicalism contains a flaw.


What do you mean here? After Mary read the books, there was knowledge of red in her brain. The robot simply programs more knowledge, some of which is certainly connected to the book knowledge.


Perhaps you're suggesting that our brains have knowledge about red even before we experience red or read anything about it. That is undoubtedly true, but why is it a problem?

~~ Paul

No, that second part can be confuseding. If we have knowledge in our brains about red that is pre-existing (perhaps darwinian evolution caused it to be there) then it must be reducable via physicalism and hence would be in the books. This means that it would not be the new knowledge Mary gains from seeing red.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

So you are saying that there is something about red that is not reducable to the point where human beings can percieve it? Or you are asserting that this thing about red that I have claimed is not reducable to being perceived but has to be experienced, is, in fact, reducable. But the only way to reduce it (other then having the experience) is to make a physical modification to the brain?

The latter. And more to the point, I am saying that what is different about you after you have had the experience, and all that is different about you after you have had the experience, is the physical change to your brain that the process of seeing red has caused. In other words, it doesn't make any difference whether you have actually seen red, or whether your brain has been altered to the state it would be in if you had.

So then we are saying that the experience of seeing red causes something in our brain to make a physical modification to our brain and so this 'modification' is the thing we gain?

Exactly.

What does this 'modification' do to give me the 'extra knowledge' about red?

The modification is the knowledge. Your knowledge is physically stored in the structure of your brain.

This argument still assumes that there is some part of the brain that already 'knows' red and just hasn't been connected to the rest of the brain.

Not at all. Knowledge is physically present in the form of neural connections. Before the connections are made, you do not possess the knowledge.

That is the whole point. No amount of explanation will give Mary the relevant knowledge, because the process of explanation will only result in certain types of neural connections being made. The type of neural connections required for knowledge about seeing red can only be made (naturally) by the process of actually seeing red. The only way Mary could know what it is like to see red, without having seen it, would be to artificially alter her brain.

We assume physicalism is true. Hence everything that exists can be reduced to a point where human beings can perceive it in it's relation as both a cause and an effect.

So the color red can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by human beings as both a cause and an effect. If we reduce everything about the color red to the state where it is perceivable as both a cause and an effect and use this knowledge to write a book we will have a way we can learn all there is to know about the color red. This book is called Book of Red-osity.

You have a hidden assumption in there. That it is possible for a human being to be able to read this hypothetical book, and understand it. This is not reasonable. There are far simpler systems then the brain which are already far to complicated for any human being to be able to understand them completely. This is why I used a super computer in my example.

There is a girl named Mary in a black and white room, with black/white clothes, and everything in the room is black/white. Including her skin. She has never seen any color.

Mary is provided with the Book of Red-osity and reads everything. She reads it all, learns it all, and understands it all. Mary now knows everything about the color red.

We then give Mary another book, the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This book contains all information about experiencing the color red. She reads, learns, and understands this as well. Mary now knows everything about the color red and the experience of the color red.

We then bring Mary a red rose. When Mary see's this rose she gains some kind of knowledge about red that she did not have before. What does she gain? We will call this thing qualia.

You are confounding two types of knowledge here. There is the type of knowledge that Mary can get from reading a book, and the type of knowledge she can get from experience. Both of these types of knowledge are present as physical structure in her brain, but reading a book simply isn't physically capable of teaching her what red looks like. Nothing about Physicalism implies that a person can learn every physical fact about something by reading it. The brain just simply doesn't work that way.

The first story of Mary established that Mary gains some kind of knowledge upon seeing red that she cannot gain from the Book of Red-osity or the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This means that the thing cannot be reduced under physicalism.

Let us accept the second story. Robo-Mary did not gain any new knowledge when she saw red. So somehow Robo-Mary gained this 'qualia' through a physical modification to her brain but regular Mary could not gain this through the books. Again, this is saying that there is something in the brain that already "knows" red but just has to be connected.

It might help for you to read up on how neural networks learn. After all, the brain is a neural network.

There is not something in the brain that already knows, but just has to be connected. The point is that reading information is not sufficient to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge by learning. Learning is a physical process in the brain. Your brain learns different things in different ways. It learns abstract things through contemplation and imagination. Reading a book just gives you the information necessary for the learning process to occur. Likewise, your brain learns what it is like to see red by processing the corresponding visual stimulus.

Reading a book is just the stimulus. The learning process is physical. Seeing a red object is also a stimulus. Different parts of your brain are involved in learning different things, and as such, they require different stimuli.

Remember that Physicalism doesn't say anything about what human beings are capable of. The claim of physicalism is that it should, in principle, be possible to write those books you were talking about. it does not claim that reading those books could teach somebody what it is like to see red.

I think this point is a real conceptual hang-up for many people. We tend to think of knowledge as being some intangible thing that our minds possess. We forget that knowledge cannot be acquired without going through the process of learning it. And one thing that we now know is that learning is a physical process.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Q-Source


Yeah, some things never change.

Just a miserable tiny little piece of evidence would make a difference...

You must find it yourself. You must use your Free Will. ;)

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



The latter. And more to the point, I am saying that what is different about you after you have had the experience, and all that is different about you after you have had the experience, is the physical change to your brain that the process of seeing red has caused. In other words, it doesn't make any difference whether you have actually seen red, or whether your brain has been altered to the state it would be in if you had.



Exactly.



The modification is the knowledge. Your knowledge is physically stored in the structure of your brain.



Not at all. Knowledge is physically present in the form of neural connections. Before the connections are made, you do not possess the knowledge.

That is the whole point. No amount of explanation will give Mary the relevant knowledge, because the process of explanation will only result in certain types of neural connections being made. The type of neural connections required for knowledge about seeing red can only be made (naturally) by the process of actually seeing red. The only way Mary could know what it is like to see red, without having seen it, would be to artificially alter her brain.

You are cleverly asserting that Mary does not gain anything when she see's red. I only agreed that Robo-Mary does not gain anything so you must back up your claim that regular Mary does not.

If all Mary gains after seeing red is a physical change in her brain she still gained something. That something must be reducable to a thing that Mary could perceive and hence would have been in the books.

If it is not reducable then physicalism is false. If it is reducable then it would have been in the books.



You have a hidden assumption in there. That it is possible for a human being to be able to read this hypothetical book, and understand it. This is not reasonable. There are far simpler systems then the brain which are already far to complicated for any human being to be able to understand them completely. This is why I used a super computer in my example.


Immaterial. If Mary gains something new then she obviously is capable of learning it. So how come she can't learn it from the book? Is it becase the thing is not reducable? That means physicalism is false.


You are confounding two types of knowledge here. There is the type of knowledge that Mary can get from reading a book, and the type of knowledge she can get from experience. Both of these types of knowledge are present as physical structure in her brain, but reading a book simply isn't physically capable of teaching her what red looks like. Nothing about Physicalism implies that a person can learn every physical fact about something by reading it. The brain just simply doesn't work that way.

Everything must be reducable. We reduce and we put it in the books. If it cannot go into the books then physicalism is false.

It might help for you to read up on how neural networks learn. After all, the brain is a neural network.

There is not something in the brain that already knows, but just has to be connected. The point is that reading information is not sufficient to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge by learning. Learning is a physical process in the brain. Your brain learns different things in different ways. It learns abstract things through contemplation and imagination. Reading a book just gives you the information necessary for the learning process to occur. Likewise, your brain learns what it is like to see red by processing the corresponding visual stimulus.

Reading a book is just the stimulus. The learning process is physical. Seeing a red object is also a stimulus. Different parts of your brain are involved in learning different things, and as such, they require different stimuli.

You are complicating the issue unnecesarily. I won't let you confuse me with your physics stuff because it is all a non-issue.

Physicalism states that EVERYTHING must be reducable to the point where we can perceive it. So we reduce everything about red and learn all their is to know. Then how come we still gain more knowledge when we see red? Because everything is not reducable, hence physicalism is false.


Remember that Physicalism doesn't say anything about what human beings are capable of. The claim of physicalism is that it should, in principle, be possible to write those books you were talking about. it does not claim that reading those books could teach somebody what it is like to see red.

Even if we assume that we cannot learn everything, Mary obviously can learn what she does learn. So if she learns everything that she can possibly learn, how does she learn MORE when she see's red? Because it is not reducable and physicalism is false!

I think this point is a real conceptual hang-up for many people. We tend to think of knowledge as being some intangible thing that our minds possess. We forget that knowledge cannot be acquired without going through the process of learning it. And one thing that we now know is that learning is a physical process.

Dr. Stupid

So now you are saying that some things are reducable but others must be experienced (or a combination thereof)? So you are a dualist? Then why are you defending physicalism?

I noted that you never actually addressed the point that if Mary learns something new, then whatever she learned was not reducable or it would have been in the books.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty, I really don't care what the definition of physicalism is. I'll let philosophers spend millennia debating the terms.

All things are reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive these things.
If what you're saying is that the knowledge about something should be able to be codified in such a way as to allow a person to read about the thing and gain all possible facts about the thing, then I disagree. That requires Stimpy's robot. There is nothing about physicalism or materialism that asserts this.

Yes she had not seen red yet, she had only read the books. The books contained all knowledge reduced down to the point where she coudl perceive it and she learned and understood it. How can she then gain MORE knowledge about red when she see's it? Because not all things are reducable in this way.
This is getting silly. If you insist on claiming that I should be able to form all possible neural pathways simply by reading about a subject, we might as well just quit.


Physicalism does not say that all facts can be learned from books.
Yes it does.
No, it doesn't. But if you can find a concensus that it does, then I'll reject physicalism in favor of some other poorly-defined ism.

If you would like to continue this discussion under the assumption that Mary can learn from books everything the robot would program, I'm happy to do so.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.

If you cannot accept the truths about what physicalism asserts then perhaps it is not the world view you should accept.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.
Ridiculous. You are assuming that subjective experience requires dualism. You are therefore presupposing dualism before the debate even begins.

If what you say were true, then dualism would be required even to experience the words on the page of Red-everythingosity. It would be a tautology.

You really need to read even just a tiny smidgen about neuroscience.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Ridiculous. You are assuming that subjective experience requires dualism. You are therefore presupposing dualism before the debate even begins.

You really need to read even just a tiny smidgen about neuroscience.

~~ Paul

I am not presupposing dualism. You are the one who believes in dualism, not me. You just can't accept it. It's nice to be part of the group isn't it?

If there is subjective experience that cannot be reduced to an objective state where any human can perceive it then physicalism is false.

By your definition.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:I am not presupposing dualism. You are the one who believes in dualism, not me. You just can't accept it. It's nice to be part of the group isn't it?
Okay then, you're presupposing idealism or some other non-materialism.

If there is subjective experience that cannot be reduced to an objective state where any human can perceive it then physicalism is false.
You've become a broken record. Perhaps we can break this cycle by your posting a link to a description of physicalism that includes this nonsensical requirement?

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Okay then, you're presupposing idealism or some other non-materialism.


You've become a broken record. Perhaps we can break this cycle by your posting a link to a description of physicalism that includes this nonsensical requirement?

~~ Paul

No, I'm not presupposing anything. But that's the problem isn't it? I'm not presupposing physicalism am I? Hot damn, it came up again! You know, if many, many, many people tell you that you have a problem then perhaps, just maybe, you might have a problem. Paul, you have a problem. You presuppose physicalism then you deny anything that may not be physicalism.

If I can have a subjective experience that NO ONE ELSE CAN perceive then there has occured something that can not be rendered to a state where any human can perceive it.

This is a direct contrast to your definition of physicalism.

This is like arguing with a Morman!

Please don't bother to respond, just go back to your 'religion', even though you don't understand what it is.

[Mercutio]

Rustywrote:
Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human
can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a
book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or
possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.




Memory researchers speak of procedural and declarative memories--what you remember you have done, and what you remember you know, to oversimplify a bit. Are you , Rusty, saying that if a procedural memory cannot be experienced as a declarative one, it doesn't exist? (BTW, both are currently viewed as "stored" in neural nets, through new synaptic connections--but different pathways)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty, what is an example of an experience I can have that doesn't require your assumption of non-physicalism?

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Mercutio
Rustywrote:
Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human
can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a
book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or
possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.




Memory researchers speak of procedural and declarative memories--what you remember you have done, and what you remember you know, to oversimplify a bit. Are you , Rusty, saying that if a procedural memory cannot be experienced as a declarative one, it doesn't exist? (BTW, both are currently viewed as "stored" in neural nets, through new synaptic connections--but different pathways)

Unfortunately I don't know what you are talking about. Perhaps you can explain these two types of memories further?

Maybe you can give me a deeper generalization and explain to me how they are applicable to physicalism. Here is physicalism's according to Paul:

"A thesis that the descriptive terms of scientific language are reducible to terms which refer to spatiotemporal things or events or to their properties."

This can be seperated into two premises:

1) All things are reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive these things.
2) All things are 'spatiotemporal' things or events or properties.

I have reservations with the second premise, but we seem to be focused on the first.

How would these two types of memory apply to the first premise? Are both types of memory reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive them?

Now you have to remember that physicalism's claims extend to everything. So everything has to be reducable to the point where human beings can perceive them.

EDIT- Not only all things, but all parts of all things. So all parts of all the memories have to be reducable.


PAUL

Rusty, what is an example of an experience I can have that doesn't require your assumption of non-physicalism?

~~ Paul

I don't understand what you are asking. I'm not assuming non-physicalism. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be correct. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be incorrect.

The story of Mary says that physicalism, as it is now defined, holds a fatal flaw. It is still used because it is so useful. But it needs to be modified. My ultimate assertion is that it needs to be modified to allow an "agent". How, I'm not sure. Stimpson the Cat has given me some thoughts on this and I'll hopefully have a good answer tomorrow.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:I don't understand what you are asking. I'm not assuming non-physicalism. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be correct. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be incorrect.
You said this earlier:
If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.
Notice how you said "gain some things through experience." In order for you not to be presupposing dualism/idealism, you need to name at least one thing that I can gain through something other than experience. Otherwise you're saying that I can only gain things through experience and thus you're requiring dualism/idealism.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

You are cleverly asserting that Mary does not gain anything when she see's red. I only agreed that Robo-Mary does not gain anything so you must back up your claim that regular Mary does not.

I am not asserting anything about regular Mary, because I do not agree with one of the premises of the thought experiment. i do not think it is possible for Mary to know what it is like to see red from reading a book, nor do I think that Physicalism in any way implies that it should be.

If all Mary gains after seeing red is a physical change in her brain she still gained something. That something must be reducable to a thing that Mary could perceive and hence would have been in the books.

Mary could read about the change that experiencing red would have on her brain, but that isn't going to cause the required change to her brain.

If it is not reducable then physicalism is false. If it is reducable then it would have been in the books.

I think you are attributing something to physicalism that I am not. Physicalism implies that all facts about the world are physical facts. Physicalism does not imply that it is possible for a human being to know all of those facts. On the contrary, this is clearly not possible.

You can argue that if Physicalism is true, then it should be possible for a person who has never seen red to know what it is like to see red. I agree, and the thought experiment I gave illustrates a possible mechanism by which a person who has not experienced seeing red could be given that knowledge.

You cannot, however, assert that a person should be able to get that knowledge by reading a book. To do so makes all sorts of assumptions about how people learn. Assumptions which are not valid, and have nothing to do with Physicalism.

Look at it this way. Any knowledge you have is encoded in the physical structure of your brain. This is true whether you are a Physicalist or Dualist. In order for you to know what it is like to see red, your brain's physical structure must be altered accordingly.

Physicalism implies that you should be able to compile all the physical facts into a book (a really huge book). But that does not mean that reading that book, and contemplating its contents, is going to cause the necessary changes to your brain.

You have a hidden assumption in there. That it is possible for a human being to be able to read this hypothetical book, and understand it. This is not reasonable. There are far simpler systems then the brain which are already far to complicated for any human being to be able to understand them completely. This is why I used a super computer in my example.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Immaterial. If Mary gains something new then she obviously is capable of learning it. So how come she can't learn it from the book? Is it becase the thing is not reducable? That means physicalism is false.

It is because there are things which you can learn, which you cannot learn from books. You can only learn them by doing them. This is a limitation of how the brain works, and has nothing to do with Physicalism.

You are confounding two types of knowledge here. There is the type of knowledge that Mary can get from reading a book, and the type of knowledge she can get from experience. Both of these types of knowledge are present as physical structure in her brain, but reading a book simply isn't physically capable of teaching her what red looks like. Nothing about Physicalism implies that a person can learn every physical fact about something by reading it. The brain just simply doesn't work that way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything must be reducible. We reduce and we put it in the books. If it cannot go into the books then physicalism is false.

The problem is not with getting the information into the book. The problem is that information and knowledge are not the same thing. The simple presence of information is not going to cause the required physical changes to Mary's brain.

Reading a book is just the stimulus. The learning process is physical. Seeing a red object is also a stimulus. Different parts of your brain are involved in learning different things, and as such, they require different stimuli.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are complicating the issue unnecesarily. I won't let you confuse me with your physics stuff because it is all a non-issue.

Not Physics, Biology. And the point is that it is an issue. The limitation we are discussing here is a biological one, not a metaphysical one. The human brain is limited in what it can do, and how it can do it. Any thought experiment must take those limitations into account.

Physicalism states that EVERYTHING must be reducable to the point where we can perceive it. So we reduce everything about red and learn all their is to know.

There is the problem. There is a difference between perceiving something that exists, and learning about it. Learning is a physical process, which involves physical changes to the brain. The problem here is not that the information is inaccessible, or irreducible. The problem is that the human brain is limited in the ways that it can learn things.

Remember that Physicalism doesn't say anything about what human beings are capable of. The claim of physicalism is that it should, in principle, be possible to write those books you were talking about. it does not claim that reading those books could teach somebody what it is like to see red.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even if we assume that we cannot learn everything, Mary obviously can learn what she does learn.

The point is how she can learn it. Certainly Mary is capable of learning what it is like to see red, but that does not mean that she is capable of learning it by reading about it in a book. The brain simply doesn't work that way.

So if she learns everything that she can possibly learn, how does she learn MORE when she see's red?

She won't, hence my thought experiment. In my experiment, she truly does learn everything about it that it is possible for her to learn, and as a result does not learn anything new when she sees red. In your experiment, all she has done is read a book. Her brain is simply not physically capable of learning what it is like to see red by reading a book. Reading the book will not cause the necessary changes to her brain.

I think this point is a real conceptual hang-up for many people. We tend to think of knowledge as being some intangible thing that our minds possess. We forget that knowledge cannot be acquired without going through the process of learning it. And one thing that we now know is that learning is a physical process.

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

So now you are saying that some things are reducable but others must be experienced (or a combination thereof)? So you are a dualist? Then why are you defending physicalism?

This has nothing to do with dualism. It has to do with how the brain works.

In some ways, it is like dualism (really a polyism), but not in a metaphysical sense. The brain itself is composed of many connected organs. They all do different things, and learn in different ways. They all learn through a process of stimulus and response, but the stimulus is different for each case. The way you learn how to walk is different from how you learn to walk, or talk, or do algebra, or even see red.

The idea that you could learn what red looks like by reading a book is based on the misconception that the process of reading a book, and contemplating what you have read, could possibly alter the part of your brain that is responsible for you knowing what colors look like. The brain just doesn't work that way.

I noted that you never actually addressed the point that if Mary learns something new, then whatever she learned was not reducable or it would have been in the books.

I did address that point. I agreed that all of the information could be in the book. What I disagreed with is the idea that reading a book magically causes you to learn things. It doesn't work that way.

Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.

Not if the experience is physical. Remember that reading the book is also an experience! The only way you have of learning anything is through experience.

If you cannot accept the truths about what physicalism asserts then perhaps it is not the world view you should accept.

None of this has anything to do with what physicalism asserts. It has to do with the way the brain works. Physicalism does not in any way assert that the brain works in such a way that it is capable of learning anything that it can know simply by reading about it in a book!

If I can have a subjective experience that NO ONE ELSE CAN perceive then there has occured something that can not be rendered to a state where any human can perceive it.

Perhaps this is the source of your confusion. Physicalism only requires that my experience be perceivable by other people. It does not require that other people be able to experience my experience.

In principle, all the facts about my experience could be written down in a book. Somebody could then objective know that I am having the experience. They could not experience it themselves, though, simply because their brains are not physically capable of doing so.

As I said before, there is a difference between knowledge and information. I know what red looks like. That knowledge is a physical configuration in my brain. You could take the information about that configuration, and do all sorts of neat things with it. That doesn't mean you will know what red looks like to me. You will not know that because your brain is not physically capable of experiencing what my brain experiences. This is simply because our brains are different. There is nothing metaphysical about it.

There is no way for you to turn that information into knowledge, any more than you could turn the information into a chicken pot-pie.


Dr. Stupid

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

You must find it yourself. You must use your Free Will.

I start understanding Franko.
So, have you already used your unique Free Will choice?

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
You said this earlier:

Notice how you said "gain some things through experience." In order for you not to be presupposing dualism/idealism, you need to name at least one thing that I can gain through something other than experience. Otherwise you're saying that I can only gain things through experience and thus you're requiring dualism/idealism.

~~ Paul

WTF 4|*\3 u 7@||<1|\|9 ???????


I'm not saying you can only gain things through experience!!! I'm saying that if there are some things that can only be gained subjectively (i.e. they are not reducable to an objective state where all humans can percieve them) then we have demonstrated a flaw in physicalism!!!!!!!

DO YOU SEE THE IF?

Don't make me bold, italic, and underline the ONLY as well!

[spanish accent]Lucy, I'm warning you!!![/spanish accent]

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:I'm not saying you can only gain things through experience!!! I'm saying that if there are some things that can only be gained subjectively (i.e. they are not reducable to an objective state where all humans can percieve them) then we have demonstrated a flaw in physicalism!!!!!!!

DO YOU SEE THE IF?
Yes, I do. Now here's what I'm asking you to do:

Name one thing that we can only gain through some method other than experience.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



I am not asserting anything about regular Mary, because I do not agree with one of the premises of the thought experiment. i do not think it is possible for Mary to know what it is like to see red from reading a book, nor do I think that Physicalism in any way implies that it should be.

I really must go to bed, but this has been interesting.

You want to say that it is not possible for Mary to know what it is like to see red from reading a book but that this is ok with physicalism.

It isn't.

Phsyicalism states that everything must be reducable to a state where it can be perceived by any human. It must be reduced to "physical facts", to borrow from Chalmers. It must be reduced to an objective truth.

Objective truths/physical facts/perceivable things can all be written down into books. What perceivable thing cannot be written down into a book? Are you saying that I cannot write down the exact experience of seeing the color red? Then I have not reduced it to it's perceivable state. For when I say EVERYTHING is reduceable this means EVERYTHING. Inluding all parts of red.

If there is something that cannot be reduced to where it is an Objective truth/physical fact/perceivable thing then physicalism is fasle.

We all agree there are such things!

We all agree physicalism is false!

We all agree Rusty should be president!

Thank you, thank you,

And goodnight!

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not saying you can only gain things through experience!!! I'm saying that if there are some things that can only be gained subjectively (i.e. they are not reducable to an objective state where all humans can percieve them) then we have demonstrated a flaw in physicalism!!!!!!!

DO YOU SEE THE IF?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, I do. Now here's what I'm asking you to do:

Name one thing that we can only gain through some method other than experience.

~~ Paul


Paul, I am saying that IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF

IIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFF

There is something that can only be gained subjectively then there is a problem.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY KEYBOARD?



Now in another post I have asserted that Mary gains something subjectively (qualia). I did that several times in several stories about Mary and the black/white room. I'm not going to repeat them again. You really need to get your memory looked at or something, becasue I've only told the story FOUR TIMES.

Wait, maybe I should say it again. And again. And again. And again.

Weeeeeeeeee!

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

This is a further explanation about how physicalism requires me to be able to write down everything there is to know about red:

Red is a collection of physical particles arranged in such and such a way.

I'll write down the exact way those particles have to be arranged (i.e. the wavelength) and everything else. All perceivable things can be written down. THATS JUST THE WAY IT IS BABY.

:cool: :cool: :cool:

I'n the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity I will write down the arrangment of particles in the brain that occur when I have experienced red. After all, everything is reducable to a perceivable state right?

If it cannot be expressed objectively then it is not objective is it? If it is objective then it can be expressed objectively. If there is something that cannot be expressed objectively then there is something that is not objective. That makes it subjective by default. That means physicalism is flawed.


Please actually TRY to understand what I am saying. Don't pull a Paul and try to understand how you can tell me I'm wrong, try to understand why I think I'm write.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Let me see if I can try to explain where I am coming from in a different way.

First of all, what is knowledge? What does it mean to say I know something?

I would say that it means I have memories of it. For example, if I know that my name is Kevin, it means that I remember that is my name. If I know what red looks like, it means I remember having seen red.

Now one thing we know (thanks to neuroscience) is that memories are physical configurations in the brain.

I must reiterate here that knowledge is not information. A memory can store information, but it is not information itself. It is a physical structure in the brain.

So what does physicalism say about memories? Nothing, other than that they are physical. Physicalism does say that anything that exists must be perceivable (or reducible to the perceivable). This is no problem, since perceiving another person's memories does not imply actually remembering those memories as though they were your own.

As to the Mary problem, in principle, all of the facts about Mary's brain, and about perception of red, should be perceivable by humans. They could then write this down in a book. They could even figure out what Mary's brain would be like if she had memory of seeing red, and put that in the book too.

What they cannot put into the book is the memory itself. They can no more put that in the book than they could put a cat in the book. All they can put in is a description of the memory (or cat). In other words, the information.

Now Mary reads the book. Mary is a supergenius, so she is able to understand it all. She knows what her brain would be like if she had seen red before. She knows exactly what kind of emotional and intuitive responses the color would invoke in her. She can even figure out what her favorite color would be.

What she cannot do, is remember having seen red. That is what it would mean to say that she knows what red looks like. She does not have that knowledge, because that memory cannot be acquired by reading a book. Maybe surgery could do it, as I suggested before, but reading a book? No.

Reading the description of the memory in the book will not create the actual memory, any more than reading a description of a cat will produce a real cat.

I hope that helps.

Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Jethro
What if Mary is colorblind, does this render physicalism true?

Okay, Mary cannot learn everything about the color red and said experience until she herself experiences it. Why does this eliminate the possibility that said experience is purely physical in nature? The photon hits the retina triggers the nerve activates the visual cortex is interpreted by the frontal lobes.

Because the physical world is informational in nature. All information in principle can be learnt from books. If something is learnt (eg the actually experience of seeing red) which is not informational in nature, then materialism is refuted.

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Q-Source


This is priceless, UCE.

Do you feel a kind of Messiah?

What's happened to your cool avatar baby??

God can you believe how kewl my avatar is!??? :p

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Paul, I am saying that IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF

IIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFF

There is something that can only be gained subjectively then there is a problem.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY KEYBOARD?
I believe I recently said that I do understand. Then I asked you a question, to which you've replied with a restatement of the question using more capital letters. I'll ask the question one more time, just in case it helps:

Name one thing that we can only gain through some method other than experience (other than subjectively).

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



I don't see how this follows. The fact that the cripple will not be able to learn how to walk without actually doing it is not a limitation imposed by physicalism, but rather by the way the physical brain and body work.

Maybe this will clarify my position with respect to Mary. I will rephrase the thought experiment in such a way that the idea is the same, but it is actually physically possible.

Imagine that Mary has never seen red, and as a result, she has no memories of seeing red, her visual cortex is not equipped to distinguish red, and of course, she does not know what the experience of seeing red is.

Now imagine that we have a supercomputer, which knows all the physical facts about how visual perception works, and knows all the physical facts about Mary's brain. This computer controls a robotic surgeon, which is capable of performing micro brain surgery. For the sake of this thought experiment, imagine that it is capable of doing pretty much anything to the brain that is physically possible.

Now, imagine that our computer works out exactly what the physical state of Mary's brain would be if she had always been able to see red. Imagine that it also works out what the physical state would be if she had memories of having seen things in full color. The robot then goes in and modifies her brain. It creates the necessary neural connections in the visual cortex. It makes all the necessary connections to modify her memories. When Mary wakes up, she remembers having been able to see red, remembers what it is like to see red, can even visualize the red things she remembers having seen in her mind.

Now we fix Mary's eyes. For the first time ever, Mary actually has the experience of seeing red. According to physicallism, she will not gain anything new by this experience.

In other words, physicalism holds that the experience is a physical process, and that all the facts about the experience are physical. When we say that Mary has all the physical facts, we are not just talking about abstract information, we are talking about the physical state of Mary's brain. So in effect, we should be able to alter the state of Mary's brain is such a way as to give her all the facts about seeing red that somebody who has seen red would have, even though she has never seen red.

Dr. Stupid

Again you beg the question by presupposing materialism. The idea that the robot can do this task presupposes the correctness of materialism. Therefore your argument acheives nothing.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Regardless of what you think about the KA, you have to agree that seeing red causes physical changes in the brain's neural network and other components, right?


It changes your neural connections. That's what knowledge is, right?


How does it assume that? Regardless, what you say is true. There is a "red portion" of the visual cortex that hasn't been exercised until red light is actually seen (or Stimpy's robot does his thing).


For the same reason we can't teach some to be a world champion high jumper. You gotta practice.

You keep thinking off all knowledge/facts as book knowledge. Some knowledge is gained through doing/experiencing/sensing/acting.

~~ Paul

Paul,

For the materialist to gain knowledge means to gain information. Information is not gained on first experiencing red (otherwise it could in principle be learnt from a book).

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


Paul, I am saying that IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF

IIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFF

There is something that can only be gained subjectively then there is a problem.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY KEYBOARD?



Now in another post I have asserted that Mary gains something subjectively (qualia). I did that several times in several stories about Mary and the black/white room. I'm not going to repeat them again. You really need to get your memory looked at or something, becasue I've only told the story FOUR TIMES.

Wait, maybe I should say it again. And again. And again. And again.

Weeeeeeeeee!


Only four times?

Rusty, look at my post-total. At least half of those posts were directly concerned with endlessly explaining to materialists why their belief system doesn't hold water.

A problem with materialism?

WHAT PROBLEM? :D

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]Rusty said:
Here is the definition of physicalism from Websters:

"a thesis that the descriptive terms of scientific language are reducible to terms which refer to spatiotemporal things or events or to their properties"



Which can be described. Anything which can be described is information. All information can in principle be learnt from books.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Again you beg the question by presupposing materialism. The idea that the robot can do this task presupposes the correctness of materialism. Therefore your argument acheives nothing.

I refuse to believe that you could possibly be this clueless. I can only assume that you are not following the conversation, and instead just attacking my statements out of context. please read through the posts leading up to that one again. It should be abundantly clear that the point of that thought experiment was not to serve as a proof that materialism is correct, but rather to describe the mechanism by which, under materialism, a person could know what it is like to see red, without ever having had the experience herself.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian, Stimpy said "According to physicalism ...". Now, you have an interesting point. If the robot did this, would Mary feel as if she had a new experience or would it feel as if she already knew what red was? This is the other problem with the KA. There is no way to know without actually doing the experiment. It's a thought experiment that cries out for a real experiment.

For the materialist to gain knowledge means to gain information. Information is not gained on first experiencing red (otherwise it could in principle be learnt from a book).
Yes, that's what Rusty has been saying all day. So you're saying that the neural connections formed upon seeing red are not information? Or are you saying that they are, and Mary could form those connections by reading a book?

You folks spend a lot of time not answering simple questions.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Ian,



I refuse to believe that you could possibly be this clueless. I can only assume that you are not following the conversation, and instead just attacking my statements out of context. please read through the posts leading up to that one again. It should be abundantly clear that the point of that thought experiment was not to serve as a proof that materialism is correct, but rather to describe the mechanism by which, under materialism, a person could know what it is like to see red, without ever having had the experience herself.

Dr. Stupid

Stimp.....

Do you understand that it is possible, as a biblical literalist, to re-arrange every possible line of thought according to the tenets of biblical literalism, and therefore refute every possible proof that the Bible is false, simply by re-arranging the definitions and the questions so they pre-suppose the Bible is true? Do you understand that by this method it is completely impossible to ever see that the Bible is false, because the literalist never actually thinks about the problem itself because he has re-arranged every problem and every question in order to avoid the Bible being proved false?

Ian isn't being clueless. YOU ARE. You have spent a year defending materialism by pre-supposing its truth and then re-defining all problems according to definitions that are-predestined to exonerate materialism regardless of whether it is true or not.

You are still doing it :

"It should be abundantly clear that the point of that thought experiment was not to serve as a proof that materialism is correct, but rather to describe the mechanism by which, under materialism, a person could know what it is like to see red, without ever having had the experience herself."

We all know d*mned well that it is impossible to prove materialism is correct. We are trying to establish whether the reality we actually find ourselves in is compatible with the tenets of materialism. And we find THAT THEY ARE NOT. So in order to 'defend' materialism you bastardise English, redefine words, re-specify problems, or just make statements which are PURE NONSENSE, but help to solidify your materialistic thought-box e.g. "Under materialism subjective things are actually objective". B***LL**CKS to 'under materialism'. Under Biblical literlaism God made the world in seven days therefore Darwinism is wrong! Whoopee Doo! I've defended Biblical literalism from the theory of evolution!

Why you can't understand this to be a problem is quite beyond me. Well, that's a lie. It's a lie because on those occasions when you have finally run out of arguments you claim that a proof against materialism would deal a fatal blow to science, and herald the end of life as we know it.

I need a drink.

:(

edited :

Just in case you didn;t get that :

It serves no purpose to create an imaginary world where it is possible to book-learn red in order to defend materialism. The TRUTH is that we live in a world where it is NOT POSSIBLE to learn what it is like to see red without seeing red. i.e. IN THE REAL WORLD materialism is false. IN YOUR IMAGINARY WORLD WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE TO BOOK-LEARN RED materialism might be true.

Now I really do need a drink.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Again you beg the question by presupposing materialism. The idea that the robot can do this task presupposes the correctness of materialism. Therefore your argument acheives nothing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I refuse to believe that you could possibly be this clueless. I can only assume that you are not following the conversation, and instead just attacking my statements out of context. please read through the posts leading up to that one again. It should be abundantly clear that the point of that thought experiment was not to serve as a proof that materialism is correct, but rather to describe the mechanism by which, under materialism, a person could know what it is like to see red, without ever having had the experience herself.



But the point I'm making is your "argument" does nothing to counter the refutation of materialism employing the Mary argument. Are you not able to understand this?? :confused:

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Again you beg the question by presupposing materialism. The idea that the robot can do this task presupposes the correctness of materialism. Therefore your argument acheives nothing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I refuse to believe that you could possibly be this clueless. I can only assume that you are not following the conversation, and instead just attacking my statements out of context. please read through the posts leading up to that one again. It should be abundantly clear that the point of that thought experiment was not to serve as a proof that materialism is correct, but rather to describe the mechanism by which, under materialism, a person could know what it is like to see red, without ever having had the experience herself.


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



But the point I'm making is your "argument" does nothing to counter the refutation of materialism employing the Mary argument. Are you not able to understand this??



Yes I'm afraid he truly doesn't understand Ian :) Truly remarkable isn't it! ;)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian, how does the KA refute materialism? Can you just explain that in simple terms we might all understand. Don't just restate the thought experiment, because we all know it.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

Do you understand that it is possible, as a biblical literalist, to re-arrange every possible line of thought according to the tenets of biblical literalism, and therefore refute every possible proof that the Bible is false, simply by re-arranging the definitions and the questions so they pre-suppose the Bible is true? Do you understand that by this method it is completely impossible to ever see that the Bible is false, because the literalist never actually thinks about the problem itself because he has re-arranged every problem and every question in order to avoid the Bible being proved false?

Jesus Christ! Are you people stupid? Let me spell it out for you in simple to understand words:

The above thought experiment was not intended as an argument for physicalism being true.

What part of the above do you not understand?

Rusty has presented an argument that he claims refutes physicalism. I have claimed that his argument assumes that Physicalism makes claims that I do not think Physicalism makes. Exactly how do you propose that I go about explaining this without explaining what I think physicalism does claim?

Are you guys just not paying any attention to context at all? Could you possibly be this stupid?

We all know d*mned well that it is impossible to prove materialism is correct. We are trying to establish whether the reality we actually find ourselves in is compatible with the tenets of materialism. And we find THAT THEY ARE NOT. So in order to 'defend' materialism you bastardise English, redefine words, re-specify problems, or just make statements which are PURE NONSENSE, but help to solidify your materialistic thought-box e.g. "Under materialism subjective things are actually objective". B***LL**CKS to 'under materialism'. Under Biblical literlaism God made the world in seven days therefore Darwinism is wrong! Whoopee Doo! I've defended Biblical literalism from the theory of evolution!

What you have done is attack strawman versions of materialism. If materialism really claimed what people like you, Ian, and Rusty, have claimed it does, then it would clearly be false. But materialism does not claim those things. If my argument is that materialism does not say what you are claiming it says, how could I possibly formulate my argument without making reference to what I claim materialism does say?

If I told you that Idealism was false because it implies things that you do not believe Idealism implies, wouldn't you respond by telling me what Idealism really does imply? Indeed, haven't you done exactly that before?

It serves no purpose to create an imaginary world where it is possible to book-learn red in order to defend materialism. The TRUTH is that we live in a world where it is NOT POSSIBLE to learn what it is like to see red without seeing red. i.e. IN THE REAL WORLD materialism is false. IN YOUR IMAGINARY WORLD WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE TO BOOK-LEARN RED materialism might be true.


Have you completely ignored the argument I have been making? I am agreeing that in the real world, you cannot learn what it is like to see red by reading a book. Where I disagree is the ridiculous assertion that materialism implies that you should be able to!


Ian,

But the point I'm making is your "argument" does nothing to counter the refutation of materialism employing the Mary argument. Are you not able to understand this??

I didn't claim that it did. The point that refutes the Mary argument is the fact that physicalism in no way implies that Mary should be able to learn what it is like to see red by reading a book.

The alternate thought experiment was presented as nothing more than an illustration of a possible mechanism by which she could learn what it is like without having the experience, and was included only to address the point that, although physicalism does not imply that she should be able to learn it by reading a book, it should be possible, in principle, for her to gain that knowledge in some way besides directly experiencing it.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian, how does the KA refute materialism? Can you just explain that in simple terms we might all understand. Don't just restate the thought experiment, because we all know it.

~~ Paul

Thought I'd answer this one, if I may, Ian.

The knowledge argument demonstrates that the full set of physical facts about seeing red doesn't logically entail the facts about the experience of seeing red.

If this is so, materialism is false.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

The knowledge argument demonstrates that the full set of physical facts about seeing red doesn't logically entail the facts about the experience of seeing red.

But as I have explained, the knowledge argument doesn't demonstrate that at all, because having all the facts about the experience of seeing red does not equate to actually having the knowledge of seeing red, anymore than having all the facts about a puppy would equate to actually having a puppy.

If I understand your own position correctly, you agree that the memory of having seen red is a purely physical thing. You only disagree about the physicallity of the experience itself. But this thought experiment does not address that at all. It only addresses the person's knowledge of the experience. According to your own prior arguments, I would think that you would argue that this knowledge is completely explicable under materialism, and that it is only the fact that this knowledge is correct that depends on this non-physical aspect of consciousness.

Dr. Stupid

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
Thought I'd answer this one, if I may, Ian.

The knowledge argument demonstrates that the full set of physical facts about seeing red doesn't logically entail the facts about the experience of seeing red.Win, thanks for that succinct summary. I think I'm finally starting to get a glimpse of the root of the problem.

Facts in books are static. Physiological responses are dynamic processes. Facts about the color RED are static. Seeing red is a dynamic process. This is apples and oranges.

In order to learn to see red, you have to train the response of your nervous system. You can only do this by experience. That experience will tune the weights on your synapses and allow you to differentiate between red, green, blue, and combinations of these colors.

Yes, reading about red is in fact an experience and it will change some areas of your brain. But it will not change the parts of your brain that actually process visual stimui. It's not as if we are "superhumans" who can change any part of our brains at will, just by reading about what those changes should be. That would be a very strange world indeed. Much of our brain is wired up during early childhood development, and we do not have direct access to it (but is is accessable to scientific study, though not as easily as we would like yet).

I think we get hung up on colors because it is difficult to get at their internal representation. Let's take an outwardly measurable response instead. If you rotate your head 20 degrees to the right, your eyes will rotate 20 degrees to the left. This is a reflex. You normally don't have any direct control over this. You can "adapt" this reflex by, for instance, sitting in a chair that is rotating back and forth and staring at a target that is moving the "wrong way" relative to the chair. After about an hour of this you can test your eye movements by rotating the chair in the dark. Your eyes will no longer move 20 degrees in response to a 20 degree chair movement.

Pretty obscure, you say? But this is a type of "learning" that you can only do by "experiencing" it, and it is completely explainable and understandable in scientific terms (you've adjusted the settings of your oculomotor system through experience). You can read about it all day long (in fact, some days that's what I do :)), but you can only "train" it by sitting in the chair with the crazy target.

If this is so, materialism is false.I think we should change that to say that if this is so, then there are physiological responses that cannot be trained by reading about them.

Isn't that all it really says?

[Win]

Stimpy:

But as I have explained, the knowledge argument doesn't demonstrate that at all, because having all the facts about the experience of seeing red does not equate to actually having the knowledge of seeing red, anymore than having all the facts about a puppy would equate to actually having a puppy.

Let me break this down a little.

The puppy first. No one claims that a puppy is logically entailed by all the physical facts about a puppy. People do claim that the experience of seeing red is logically entailed by all the physical facts about seeing red.

OK. The knowledge part now. If you know all the physical facts about seeing red, then necessarily you know what it's like to experience red, if experiencing red is a physical fact. Either you know it by virtue of knowing all the physical facts (and materialism is true), you don't it even though you know all the physical facts (and materialism is false) or the experience of seeing red doesn't contain any information, that is to say, isn't a fact that you can know.

If I understand your own position correctly, you agree that the memory of having seen red is a purely physical thing. You only disagree about the physicallity of the experience itself. But this thought experiment does not address that at all. It only addresses the person's knowledge of the experience. According to your own prior arguments, I would think that you would argue that this knowledge is completely explicable under materialism, and that it is only the fact that this knowledge is correct that depends on this non-physical aspect of consciousness.

Memories are physical, yes. The experience of memories isn't.

From my position, information has a dual quality. The information about the content of qualia isn't physical information, it's phenomenal information. It isn't "contained" in our brains, as it were.

So, Mary does learn a new fact, but the fact isn't physically encoded anywhere. Rather, it's phenomenally realized.

Now, I guess we could ask, what would happen with p-zombie Mary. Emerging from her black and white room, light of the right wavelength will hit zombie Mary's eyes, causing signals to travel along her optical nerves to her geniculate bodies, thence to her visual cortex. New patterns, never before existing in zombie Mary's brain, will cause her to remark, "I can now see red." Those same patterns will create, or perhaps better, are in part, the false belief that she has had the experience of seeing red.

In real Mary, however, those patterns will be accompanied by experience, and the phenomenal information contained in the experience of seeing red is what is not logically entailed by all the physical facts.

[Win]

Chuckie:

Indeed, it's possible to claim that the experience of seeing red isn't a fact, but rather an ability like training your eyes not to counter-rotate with your head.

But, having learned to do that, would you say you've learned a fact?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Please don't introduce p-zombies into this dicussion. It's hard enough to nail the jell-o to the wall without another ill-defined concept.

Win, what is "the experience of memories"? What does it mean to "phenomenally realize" a fact? What is "phenomenal information"?

If Mary is operated upon by Stimpy's robot and then goes outside, exactly what new information does she gather?

Indeed, it's possible to claim that the experience of seeing red isn't a fact, but rather an ability like training your eyes not to counter-rotate with your head.

But, having learned to do that, would you say you've learned a fact?
Oh cripes! Of course you've learned a fact. If this isn't a fact, define fact.

~~ Paul

[Jethro]

Originally posted by Win
Stimpy:



Let me break this down a little.

The puppy first. No one claims that a puppy is logically entailed by all the physical facts about a puppy. People do claim that the experience of seeing red is logically entailed by all the physical facts about seeing red.Then either you are misunderstanding what those people are saying, or those people are stupid and are misrepresenting materialism.

Physicalism does not presuppose that a person can learn absolutely everything about an experience simply by reading a book.

Rather, physicalism would state that learning about "the experience of seeing red" and "experiencing the seeing of red" are two different things. However, they are both physical proceses.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

The puppy first. No one claims that a puppy is logically entailed by all the physical facts about a puppy. People do claim that the experience of seeing red is logically entailed by all the physical facts about seeing red.

The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not logically entailed by the physical facts about the knowledge of what it is like to see red. That is the point.

When we say that the experience is logically entailed by the physical facts about seeing red, we simply mean that the physical process of seeing red logically implies the existence of the experience of seeing red. This does not in any way mean that reading those facts from a book (which is simply a description of the process of seeing red) is going to produce the experience, or the memory of having had the experience.

OK. The knowledge part now. If you know all the physical facts about seeing red, then necessarily you know what it's like to experience red, if experiencing red is a physical fact.

Experiencing red is not a physical fact. It is a physical process. You can know all the physical facts about that process, but this is not the same as actually having the process occur in your brain.

Either you know it by virtue of knowing all the physical facts (and materialism is true), you don't it even though you know all the physical facts (and materialism is false) or the experience of seeing red doesn't contain any information, that is to say, isn't a fact that you can know.

The fact that you know all the physical facts does not imply that you know what it is like to see red. Saying that you know all the physical facts simply means that you have a complete description of the physical brain state that corresponds to you knowing what it is like to see red. It does not equate to you actually possessing that brain state.

Memories are physical, yes. The experience of memories isn't.

But we aren't talking about experience of memories here. We are talking about the memories. Presumably, even under your brand of Dualism, if we were to alter Mary's brain state so that she possessed the memory of having seen red, she would then know what it is like to see red, because she would experience that memory. Under Physicalism, the situation is the same, except that it is also her brain which experiences the memory, rather than something else. The effect is the same though. Either way the knowledge of what it is like to see red is a physical memory, located in the brain. Simply reading all the physical facts about that brain state is not going to cause that brain state to appear in her brain, which is what the Mary experiment is implying should be expected to happen.

From my position, information has a dual quality. The information about the content of qualia isn't physical information, it's phenomenal information. It isn't "contained" in our brains, as it were.

That's fine. The thought experiment is presented within the framework of physicalism, which holds that it is the brain that does the experiencing. The point is that if we accept the premise that the knowledge of what it is like to see red is a physical structure in the brain, then we cannot claim that knowing all of the physical facts about that physical structure is going to cause the physical structure to appear. Thus the argument that physicalism implies that Mary should be able to know what it is like to see red, simply by knowing all the physical facts about, is not valid.

Now, I guess we could ask, what would happen with p-zombie Mary. Emerging from her black and white room, light of the right wavelength will hit zombie Mary's eyes, causing signals to travel along her optical nerves to her geniculate bodies, thence to her visual cortex. New patterns, never before existing in zombie Mary's brain, will cause her to remark, "I can now see red." Those same patterns will create, or perhaps better, are in part, the false belief that she has had the experience of seeing red.

In real Mary, however, those patterns will be accompanied by experience, and the phenomenal information contained in the experience of seeing red is what is not logically entailed by all the physical facts.

Under your brand of Dualism, sure. But not under Physicalism.

You bring up a good point, though. Here is a question for both you and Rusty (since you are both advocating very different brands of dualism).

Imagine that we make a perfect physical copy of Mary. This copy is physically identical to Mary in every way. Several questions:

1) Do you believe this copy would be a p-zombie, or would it possess consciousness?

2) If she does have consciousness, then would she know what it is like to see, or hear, or any of the other things that Mary knows, but which the copy has not yet experienced?

3) If she does know what these things are like, even though she has never had the experiences, doesn't that imply that the knowledge of those experiences (not necessarily the experiences themselves, or the experiences of the memories) is purely physical?

I would assert that under physicalism, the answers would be:

1) She would possess consciousness.

2) She would know what all those things are like.

3) The knowledge of what those things are like is physically stored in her brain.

I would say that this is all that physicalism requires. It does not require that Mary knowing all the physical facts about seeing red, will cause Mary to actually possess the knowledge of what it is like to see red.

Another way to look at it is this. The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not a physical fact about seeing red. Facts are just information. Knowledge is more than just information. Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. It is a physical representation of information.

There are, in fact, physical facts about the knowledge of what it is like to see red. Mary could have those facts as well, but knowing those facts is not the same as having the knowledge, just as having all the facts about a puppy is not the same as having the puppy.

Dr. Stupid

Stimpy :


Jesus Christ! Are you people stupid? Let me spell it out for you in simple to understand words:

The above thought experiment was not intended as an argument for physicalism being true.

What part of the above do you not understand?


I completely accept the above. We are all agreed that nobody is trying to prove physicalism is true. Far from it. You are trying to prove that physicalism isn't false.


Rusty has presented an argument that he claims refutes physicalism. I have claimed that his argument assumes that Physicalism makes claims that I do not think Physicalism makes. Exactly how do you propose that I go about explaining this without explaining what I think physicalism does claim?


You can't "go about explaining it" because it is a valid refutation of materialism. You have never quite grasped this. You have never actually taken a step back and thought "Hmmm. Maybe materialism can actually be proven false." All you have done is try to specify the problem under materialistic presuppositions and then declare it to "not be a problem if you assume materialism is true". What I want you to do is actually think about the problem as it is specified. If all you do is explain it in terms of physicalism you are doing exactly what a biblical literalist does when he "explains it like it is in the Bible".

Think about how you would go about explaining this to a Christian. You would have to try to make them see that in order to find the truth about the situation it is no good just redefining the problem according to the Bible, and that you must examine the problem itself! Now think about the reply the literalist gives which corresponds to yours :

"Exactly how do you propose that I go about explaining this [7-day creation] without explaining what I think the Bible does claim?"

Then he goes on to explain that whilst God was making the world the normal laws of physics didn't apply (Christians do claim this). And at the end of the day he is fully confident that provided you assume the Bible is true, there is no problem with 7-day creationism.

edit :

And he is right! If you assume the bible is true then there is no problem with with 7-day creationism. But there sure is a problem with assuming the Bible is true!


Are you guys just not paying any attention to context at all? Could you possibly be this stupid?


We aren't being stupid, Stimp. We just think outside of the box you think inside. There really is a problem here, and philosophers have been writing about it for thousands of years.


What you have done is attack strawman versions of materialism. If materialism really claimed what people like you, Ian, and Rusty, have claimed it does, then it would clearly be false.


It does! And it is indeed false! Maybe the problem here is that it is so obvious that materialism is false that you can;t quite believe that so many people still support it even though it is so obviously false. Do not be fooled by that.


But materialism does not claim those things.


Materialism claims that everything is reducable to material. Really it does. :(


If I told you that Idealism was false because it implies things that you do not believe Idealism implies, wouldn't you respond by telling me what Idealism really does imply? Indeed, haven't you done exactly that before?


Maybe Stimp. You have claimed that idealism implies solipsism and I have responded that it does not. But I fail to see how materialism does not claim everything is reducable to matter. Idealism has one very conspicuous advantage over materialism, namely that the reality we actually live in is mental, and this is a brute fact. What I think you do not understand is that this brute fact has not gone unnoticed for last 4000 years, and the whole history of philosophy can be viewed as an attempt to reconcile this brute fact with everything else we know. I have tried to encourage you to look to philosophy for a deeper answer. I have told you countless times that Einstein, Schoedinger and most of the founders of modern physics all ran into this problem and all came out of it accepting the falsity of physicalism but nothing I say makes any difference. All you ever do is continue to defend materialism. I have been forced to accept that you cannot understand what I am trying to explain.


Have you completely ignored the argument I have been making?


YES. I have heard it before. :(


I am agreeing that in the real world, you cannot learn what it is like to see red by reading a book. Where I disagree is the ridiculous assertion that materialism implies that you should be able to!


If the experience of seeing red was reducable to material and properties of material then there is no reason why you cannot book-learn red.

[Jethro]

Materialism states that all things are reducible to matter. Yes. But that does not mean that reading about an experience is the same as experiencing it. Learning about something is a pysical process. Experiencing something is a different physical process. They are both physical processes even though they are different physical processes.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

Jesus Christ! Are you people stupid? Let me spell it out for you in simple to understand words:

The above thought experiment was not intended as an argument for physicalism being true.

What part of the above do you not understand?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I completely accept the above. We are all agreed that nobody is trying to prove physicalism is true. Far from it. You are trying to prove that physicalism isn't false.

Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?

Rusty has presented an argument that he claims refutes physicalism. I have claimed that his argument assumes that Physicalism makes claims that I do not think Physicalism makes. Exactly how do you propose that I go about explaining this without explaining what I think physicalism does claim?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can't "go about explaining it" because it is a valid refutation of materialism. You have never quite grasped this. You have never actually taken a step back and thought "Hmmm. Maybe materialism can actually be proven false." All you have done is try to specify the problem under materialistic presuppositions and then declare it to "not be a problem if you assume materialism is true". What I want you to do is actually think about the problem as it is specified.

I am going to try one last time to explain this to you. The Mary thought experiment that Rusty presented is already presented within the framework of materialism. The very first premise of the argument is that materialism is true. It is an attempt at an indirect proof. You assume that what you are trying to prove false is true, and then show that it leads to a contradiction.

It is not possible for me to try to refute the argument without phrasing it within the assumption that materialism is true, because the original argument was presented that way!

Is this sinking in at all? Rusty's argument was:

Premise 1: If Physicalism is true, the A is true.

Premise 2: A is not true.

Conclusion: Physicalism is not true.

My response to this argument was that I disagree with premise one. And you want me to present that argument without making the assumption that Physicalism is true? Are you completely daft?

If all you do is explain it in terms of physicalism you are doing exactly what a biblical literalist does when he "explains it like it is in the Bible".

If I try to argue that Biblical Literalism is false by the following methodology:

Premise 1: Biblical literalism implies A.

Premise 2: A is false.

Conclusion: Therefore Biblical literalism is false.

Then it is perfectly reasonable for that literalist to refute my argument by pointing out that Biblical Literalism does not, in fact, imply A.

What you have done is attack strawman versions of materialism. If materialism really claimed what people like you, Ian, and Rusty, have claimed it does, then it would clearly be false.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It does! And it is indeed false! Maybe the problem here is that it is so obvious that materialism is false that you can;t quite believe that so many people still support it even though it is so obviously false. Do not be fooled by that.

If materialism claims what you guys have been saying it claims, then I am not a materialist. Neither is any other materialist I have ever met. Maybe you should spend less time telling materialists what their position is, and more time listening to them explain what it really is?

But materialism does not claim those things.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Materialism claims that everything is reducable to material. Really it does.

That is not in dispute.

I am agreeing that in the real world, you cannot learn what it is like to see red by reading a book. Where I disagree is the ridiculous assertion that materialism implies that you should be able to!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the experience of seeing red was reducable to material and properties of material then there is no reason why you cannot book-learn red.

We can book learn all of the physical facts about the process of seeing red. That is all. This in no way implies that learning these facts will magically create the process of seeing red in your brain, any more than learning all of the physical facts about a toaster will create a toaster.

You are attacking a ridiculous strawman.

Dr. Stupid

[Jethro]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Maybe Stimp. You have claimed that idealism implies solipsism and I have responded that it does not. But I fail to see how materialism does not claim everything is reducable to matter.It does claim this. Idealism has one very conspicuous advantage over materialism, namely that the reality we actually live in is mental, and this is a brute fact. What I think you do not understand is that this brute fact has not gone unnoticed for last 4000 years, and the whole history of philosophy can be viewed as an attempt to reconcile this brute fact with everything else we know. I have tried to encourage you to look to philosophy for a deeper answer. I have told you countless times that Einstein, Schoedinger and most of the founders of modern physics all ran into this problem and all came out of it accepting the falsity of physicalismI'd argue that this is false. There are certainly some who belived this, but Einstein and Schroedinger are certainly not two of them.If the experience of seeing red was reducable to material and properties of material then there is no reason why you cannot book-learn red. There is a perfectly good reason. Learning about the material changes of the brain which come about by the process of seeing red involves different material changes than the ones you are learning about.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE, Ian, Rusty: Will you acknowledge that subjective facts acquired through experience are not the same sort of facts that can be learned from books, even though both are facts about red? If you will not acknowledge this, then we might as well pack up and go home.

~~ Paul

[Loki]

Win,

There's a very good chance I'm missing something here, but...
(Stimpy wrote) : ...anymore than having all the facts about a puppy would equate to actually having a puppy.

(win Wrote) : The puppy first. No one claims that a puppy is logically entailed by all the physical facts about a puppy.
Actually, I would have thought that a puppy *is* logically entailed if we actually collect and organise matter according to the rules for puppies. Stimpy is saying "I can define a puppy as being 'x' molecules of types 'y', arranged in order 'z'". However, writing down this precise and accurate description on paper does not mean we just placed a puppy on the paper. But if we do indeed collect 'X' molecules of types 'Y', and arrange then in sequence 'Z' then logically we do actually get a puppy.

In the same way, describing the facts and experiences of red is saying "if 'x' neurons of types 'Y' are in sequence 'Z' then Mary sees and experiences red". Mary can read this, and understand it, but it's not until her neurons actually achieve this state than she sees (and experiences) red.

Now, when I read the Knowledge Argument, I interpret "Mary learns all the facts" as meaning "her neurons take on the appropriate state". In this case, she either does see and experience red (materialism is true) or she sees but does not experience red (materialism is false). But since this is purely a thought experiment, why would we draw either conclusion from it?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Loki said:Now, when I read the Knowledge Argument, I interpret "Mary learns all the facts" as meaning "her neurons take on the appropriate state". In this case, she either does see and experience red (materialism is true) or she sees but does not experience red (materialism is false). But since this is purely a thought experiment, why would we draw either conclusion from it?
Yes, yes, thank you! This is a thought experiment where you can't draw any conclusions even if you do accept that Mary can learn every objective and subjective physical fact about red in that damn room. We need a real experiment.

Do a Google search for 'physicalism definition'. The results speak volumes for the state of term definitions in philosophy.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Stimp,

Just picking up on a couple of assertions you've made. You said


The fact that you know all the physical facts does not imply that you know what it is like to see red. Saying that you know all the physical facts simply means that you have a complete description of the physical brain state that corresponds to you knowing what it is like to see red. It does not equate to you actually possessing that brain state.


and also


The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not a physical fact about seeing red. Facts are just information. Knowledge is more than just information.



Two crucial points I'd like to make:

a) You're a strict materialist or a reductionist materialist. This being so a "complete description of the physical brain state" when one experiences redness, logically entails the actual raw experience of seeing redness. This then necessarily entails you do not actually have to experience the redness to know what it is like. What say you to this?

b) I'm curious about the remark that knowledge involves more than information. This seems to me to flat out contradict reductionist materialism. Do you have any links that you can supply which backs up your assertion that reductionist materialists think that knowledge involves more than information?

Thanking you kindly.

[Jethro]

I would say that the KA does not invalidate materialism because:

&ltthe physical brain state of having knowledge of the physical brain state due to having experienced red&gt is different than &ltthe physical brain state due to having experienced red.&gt

Understand?

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
Chuckie:

Indeed, it's possible to claim that the experience of seeing red isn't a fact, but rather an ability like training your eyes not to counter-rotate with your head.

But, having learned to do that, would you say you've learned a fact? I would say that I have trained a reflex.

Now, someone could then go into my head and "read the weights" off of my neurons before and after the experiment and see how the adaptation changed the behavior of the neurons (in fact, people do this by monitoring neural firing rates in animals before and after such adaptations).

Then these people could write up a scientific paper about how training the reflex changes the firing of various neurons. Then we would know the facts about how the process works.

But simply knowing the facts does not train your neurons. It would be silly to assume that it did.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

I don't know what happened to Stimpy and Paul.

Rusty can be pleased and every idealist here would have the proof they want doing a simple experiment wich really capture the esence of physicalism.

First you Rusty forget the Book about Red you claim is sufficent to experience Red according to physicalism. It is nonsense because the only physicalist requeriment is that a physical neural arrange is necessary and sufficent to experience Red . Not a book wich can or can't arrange the neurone matter in the way needed to experiment red.
So the physicalist experiment to demostrate physicalism goes like this:

You store the brain configu¡ration to experience red in a computer. Then you stimulate the PHYSICAL brain of the subject using ONLY the PHYSICAL information in the computer ans...voila!!! the subject should experiment RED if physicalism is true.

Now, go to google and see some actual experiments in this field with blind people or vision research centers like Caltech.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

a) You're a strict materialist or a reductionist materialist. This being so a "complete description of the physical brain state" when one experiences redness, logically entails the actual raw experience of seeing redness. This then necessarily entails you do not actually have to experience the redness to know what it is like. What say you to this?

I would say that this is nonsense. A complete description of the physical brain state does not logically entail the actual experience. The brain state itself does. A complete description of the physical brain state only logically entails a complete description of the experience, not the experience itself.

b) I'm curious about the remark that knowledge involves more than information. This seems to me to flat out contradict reductionist materialism. Do you have any links that you can supply which backs up your assertion that reductionist materialists think that knowledge involves more than information?

Try any of those links to neurobiology that have been posted here. Knowledge is clearly more than just information. Knowledge is a physical representation of information in the brain.

Knowing what it is like to see red is not just the information that completely describes the process of seeing red. It is a specific type of physical brain state.

As always, it is important to keep in mind one of the few things that UCE has said that I agree with: It is very important to not confuse the map with the territory.

I can know all the physical facts about the process of seeing red. But that is just a description of the process. It is a map. The territory is the actual process. Simply having the map does not create the territory. Having a complete description of the process of seeing red, is not going to create the experience of seeing red, nor is it going to create the memory of having seen red (which is all knowing what it is like to see red is).

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Jethro
Materialism states that all things are reducible to matter. Yes. But that does not mean that reading about an experience is the same as experiencing it. Learning about something is a pysical process. Experiencing something is a different physical process. They are both physical processes even though they are different physical processes.

Jethro,

You are relatively new to this so.....

'Experiencing' something correlates to a physical process. To say it IS a physical process begs the question "What does IS mean?" If it means "is identical to" then your statement is clearly wrong, since the experience itself and the correlating process clearly have completely different descriptions. But if "IS" does not mean "is identical to" then it means they must be different. Materialism must claim that the experience and the physical process are both the same thing and different things. Are they the same process? Are they 'different processes'? The problem for materialism is that they are the same process, but viewed from two completely perspectives, but that this perspective shift is totally unaccountable within materialism.

NB : Paul and Stimpson please do not reply to this I want to hear Jethros response.

Stimpson :


UCE :

We are all agreed that nobody is trying to prove physicalism is true. Far from it. You are trying to prove that physicalism isn't false.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimp :

Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?


No. It is a simple statement of the truth. We all know that it is impossible to prove physicalsim is true. You are trying to prove that all the different refutations of physicalism are false. That is precisely what is happening. It isn't a joke.


If materialism claims what you guys have been saying it claims, then I am not a materialist. Neither is any other materialist I have ever met. Maybe you should spend less time telling materialists what their position is, and more time listening to them explain what it really is?


:confused:

**************Materialism states that EVERYTHING is made of matter or is reducable to matter***********

**************Qualia are not reducable to matter***************

**************Therefore materialism is not true****************


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But materialism does not claim those things.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Materialism claims that everything is reducable to material. Really it does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is not in dispute.


:confused: :confused: :confused: :(


UCE:

If the experience of seeing red was reducable to material and properties of material then there is no reason why you cannot book-learn red.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimp :

We can book learn all of the physical facts about the process of seeing red. That is all. This in no way implies that learning these facts will magically create the process of seeing red in your brain, any more than learning all of the physical facts about a toaster will create a toaster.

You are attacking a ridiculous strawman.


I am attacking ***PHYSICALISM***. Physicalism claims that everything....*****EVERYTHING******, including QUALIA, i.e. including "SEEING RED" is reducable to (derivable from) MATTER! You have just used the phrase "the process of seeing red in your brain". Stimp, YOUR BRAIN DOES NOT SEE RED. There is a process in your brain when you see red. The 'process' is explicable by materialism. "SEEING RED", which occurs in your MIND not your BRAIN IS NOT EXPLICABLE BY MATERIALISM.

[Peskanov]

Win said:
----
The knowledge argument demonstrates that the full set of physical facts about seeing red doesn't logically entail the facts about the experience of seeing red.

If this is so, materialism is false.
----

I don't get. It simply does not follow...
Can anybody put this argument in a syllogism? Especially to explain the conection between the facts and the "material is false" conclusion.

Jethro:


I'd argue that this is false. There are certainly some who belived
this, but Einstein and Schroedinger are certainly not two of them.
quote:


Really? Why would you argue that? Have you read what they wrote on the subject? Can you explain to me how the following Schroediniger quote should be interpreted :

"However strange it may seem to us at first, there is only one consciousness, and it is the only thing which exists."

Sounds pretty clear to me, Jethro. Why do you think he said it?

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE, Ian, Rusty: Will you acknowledge that subjective facts acquired through experience are not the same sort of facts that can be learned from books, even though both are facts about red? If you will not acknowledge this, then we might as well pack up and go home.

~~ Paul


Paul,

Yes they are different sorts of facts. Direct subjective knowledge cannot be described in terms of matter. Everything which is part of the material world - the entire material Universe and all processes and 'facts' connected to it CAN BE BOOK-LEARNED. The reason they can be book-learned is that the entire materialistic edifice is an abstract model. It is a model of we have invented to describe the behaviour of a physical world we perceive to exist.

*************All the problems arise as soon as you claim that subjective experiences are themselves reducable to that physical model.************

If they were actually reducable to that physical model then it MUST be possible to describe those subjective experiences in terms of that model! But you cannot! You have just admitted you cannot! They are "different sorts of facts"! i.e. they are NOT "material facts". They are NOT "reducable to material". i.e. Facts exist which cannot be explained in terms of the material model of the Universe.....

...therefore materialism, as I have been telling you for the last two years, IS FALSE. :)

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

**************Materialism states that EVERYTHING is made of matter or is reducable to matter***********

**************Qualia are not reducable to matter***************

**************Therefore materialism is not true****************

You have not in any way demonstrated that qualia are not reducible to matter.

We can book learn all of the physical facts about the process of seeing red. That is all. This in no way implies that learning these facts will magically create the process of seeing red in your brain, any more than learning all of the physical facts about a toaster will create a toaster.

You are attacking a ridiculous strawman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am attacking ***PHYSICALISM***. Physicalism claims that everything....*****EVERYTHING******, including QUALIA, i.e. including "SEEING RED" is reducable to (derivable from) MATTER! You have just used the phrase "the process of seeing red in your brain". Stimp, YOUR BRAIN DOES NOT SEE RED. There is a process in your brain when you see red. The 'process' is explicable by materialism. "SEEING RED", which occurs in your MIND not your BRAIN IS NOT EXPLICABLE BY MATERIALISM.

My position is that it is, in fact, the brain which sees red. That is the position that I am defending. That is the position that is being attacked.

You can attack this position in one of two ways. You can either present evidence that it is false, or you can logically demonstrate that it is self-contradictory. Rusty's argument is that it is self-contradictory. That is the argument which I am attempting to refute.

You replying to every attempt I make to refute this argument by screaming that physicalism is false, serves no purpose. The question at hand is not whether it is false, but whether it is internally self-consistent. If you have evidence that it is false, then present it as a separate argument.

As it is, all you are doing is interfering with the discussion, and making the arguments on both sides more difficult to follow. Please stop.

Dr. Stupid

[davidsmith73]

Stimpy: 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.

David: 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.

Stimpy: 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.


David: the process we call science would be a method for describing relationships between different qualia that have a stable manifestation. The process of eliminating subjective bias and constructing descriptions of underlying mathematical principles would not have to change at all. Only the meaning of what subjective and objective relate to would change. Subjective and objective would be part of the same realm of qualia. However, the way in which they would be described would be different. Objective relates to the qualia that are stable and which approximate to mathematical principles. Subjective relates to qualia that are unstable.

Stimpson


My position is that it is, in fact, the brain which sees red. That is the position that I am defending. That is the position that is being attacked.

You can attack this position in one of two ways. You can either present evidence that it is false, or you can logically demonstrate that it is self-contradictory.


It is simply non-sensical. It is semantic gibberish! It is like saying "My position is that emotions climb walls."

Minds see red.
Brains support physical processes.
Materialism depends upon the claim that mind=brain.

Case closed.


The question at hand is not whether it is false, but whether it is internally self-consistent. If you have evidence that it is false, then present it as a separate argument.


If it depends on a claim that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different then it is not self-consistent.


As it is, all you are doing is interfering with the discussion, and making the arguments on both sides more difficult to follow. Please stop.


OK, Stimp, I'll stop responding to you. I'm quite interested to hear what Paul has to say though. He has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

Isn't that right, Paul?

The 'material world' is an entirely self-contained collection of related concepts - atoms, energy, physical processes. All 'facts' pertaining to the material world are definable/derivable from that collection of concepts. If things exist which are not definable/derivable from that collection of concepts then physicalism must be false. Subjective experiences are not built from that collection of concepts - we know of their existence in a direct way, not in the indirect manner of the material concept. Materialism depends on the claim that the things we know directly (the qualia) are actually reducable to the abstract concepts. In reality, qualia are not actually reducable to anything at all. Therefore physicalism if false!

edit :

Just in case you still don't understand : The reason we KNOW that qualia cannot be reduced to the abstract material concept is that this is precisely what Stimpson is trying to do right now. And the result is the claim that mind=brain. According to materialism "it is the brain which sees red" and "qualia ARE physical processes". Saying they "correlate" to physical processes is correct, but fails to reduce the qualia to the abstract model. Saying that the qualia ARE the physical processes allows you to reduce them to the abstract model but is a totally non-sensical statement!

YES?

[davidsmith73]

David: 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 ?



Stimpy: 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.


David: If qualia can be “fully understood” then this is equivalent to saying that we can provide a complete mathematical description of them. In other words, we would have provided a complete mathematical description of an aspect of objective reality. Under your view it would be the same as saying it is possible, in principle, to fully uderstand protons. Isn’t this impossible according to your views ? You seem to be contradicting yourself here.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Davidsmit73,

Stimpy: 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.

David: the process we call science would be a method for describing relationships between different qualia that have a stable manifestation. The process of eliminating subjective bias and constructing descriptions of underlying mathematical principles would not have to change at all.

They would be rendered meaningless. All of the methods for controlling for subjective bias are logically based on the assumption that reality is objective.

Sure, a solipsist can go through the motions of the scientific process, and it will still work, but if you do this, then science is no longer a logical framework for understanding the world. It is simply a heuristic method for which you have no logical reason for believing should be reliable.

As I have said before, this essentially amounts to saying "the assumptions of the scientific method are really false, but reality behaves exactly as though they were true". This is pure metaphysical nonsense. If reality behaves exactly as though the assumptions of the scientific method were true, then in what meaningful sense are they not true? And if it does not, then clearly science is not going to work!


UCE,

It is simply non-sensical. It is semantic gibberish! It is like saying "My position is that emotions climb walls."

Minds see red.
Brains support physical processes.
Materialism depends upon the claim that mind=brain.

Case closed.

I fail to see how the claim that the mind is a brain process qualifies as gibberish. Simply asserting that it does is not going to convince anybody.

The question at hand is not whether it is false, but whether it is internally self-consistent. If you have evidence that it is false, then present it as a separate argument.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it depends on a claim that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different then it is not self-consistent.

I have explained to you many times that it does not make that claim. Why do you continue to assert that it does?

As it is, all you are doing is interfering with the discussion, and making the arguments on both sides more difficult to follow. Please stop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, Stimp, I'll stop responding to you. I'm quite interested to hear what Paul has to say though. He has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model known describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

If you are so interested in the answer to that question, then why don't you respond to the answer I already gave to it?

Please note that I am not asking you to not respond to me. I am just asking you to respond in a sensible way. If my argument is an attempt to show that physicalism is not contradictory, then it is not sensible for you to say that since my argument is based on the assumption that Physicalism is true, it is begging the question. It would only be begging the question if I was attempting to prove that Physicalism is true. Likewise, repeated assertions that physicalism is false, with nothing more to support them than arguments that take as a premise that it is false, are begging the question, and have no place in a sensible argument.

Dr. Stupid

[Stimpson J. Cat]

DavidSmith73,

David: 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 ?

Stimpy: 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.

David: If qualia can be “fully understood” then this is equivalent to saying that we can provide a complete mathematical description of them. In other words, we would have provided a complete mathematical description of an aspect of objective reality. Under your view it would be the same as saying it is possible, in principle, to fully uderstand protons. Isn’t this impossible according to your views ? You seem to be contradicting yourself here.

This is not a contradiction. I never said that it is impossible to provide a complete mathematical description of an aspect of objective reality. I said that it is not possible to provide a complete mathematical description of reality. There is a difference.

Protons are an observable phenomena. Furthermore, the term "proton" is defined to refer only to a specific set of observable characteristics. This means that it is, in principle, possible to provide a complete mathematical description for them. What we cannot do is logically prove that there isn't stuff out there that cannot be observed. This means that such things cannot be included in our mathematical description of reality. Nor can our mathematical description of reality automatically rule them out. Thus our mathematical description of reality cannot be complete.

If there is more to reality than what can be observed, then our description of reality will be incomplete because there is stuff that it does not describe. If there is not, then our description will be incomplete because it does not tell us that there is not. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Dr. Stupid

Stimpson


I fail to see how the claim that the mind is a brain process qualifies as gibberish. Simply asserting that it does is not going to convince anybody.


Mind : Collection of subjective impressions a which exist only for you:
Brain process : Something happening in a lump of meat which exists for everybody.

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

:(



I have explained to you many times that it does not make that claim. Why do you continue to assert that it does?


You are claiming it right now! You are claiming that the mind and the brain, which have completely different descriptions, are the same thing. You are claiming that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different! It is not ME who is asserting this IT IS YOU!!!!





Likewise, repeated assertions that physicalism is false, with nothing more to support them than arguments that take as a premise that it is false, are begging the question, and have no place in a sensible argument.


Stimp, I'm not just asserting that physicalism is false. I am asserting that anything which depends on a claim that two things with completely different descriptions do not differ is a false thing.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

Mind : Collection of subjective impressions a which exist only for you:
Brain process : Something happening in a lump of meat which exists for everybody.

I do not agree that your mind exists only for you. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Why do you not realize that your assertion that it does, is nothing less than the assumption that Physicalism is false?

I have explained to you many times that it does not make that claim. Why do you continue to assert that it does?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are claiming it right now! You are claiming that the mind and the brain, which have completely different descriptions, are the same thing. You are claiming that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different! It is not ME who is asserting this IT IS YOU!!!!

I have never, ever claimed this. What I have claimed is that the mind is a physical process in the brain.

Likewise, repeated assertions that physicalism is false, with nothing more to support them than arguments that take as a premise that it is false, are begging the question, and have no place in a sensible argument.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimp, I'm not just asserting that physicalism is false. I am asserting that anything which depends on a claim that two things with completely different descriptions do not differ is a false thing.

I agree. Fortunately, Physicalism does not claim this.

Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Ian,



I would say that this is nonsense. A complete description of the physical brain state does not logically entail the actual experience. The brain state itself does. A complete description of the physical brain state only logically entails a complete description of the experience, not the experience itself.



Try any of those links to neurobiology that have been posted here. Knowledge is clearly more than just information. Knowledge is a physical representation of information in the brain.

Knowing what it is like to see red is not just the information that completely describes the process of seeing red. It is a specific type of physical brain state.

As always, it is important to keep in mind one of the few things that UCE has said that I agree with: It is very important to not confuse the map with the territory.

I can know all the physical facts about the process of seeing red. But that is just a description of the process. It is a map. The territory is the actual process. Simply having the map does not create the territory. Having a complete description of the process of seeing red, is not going to create the experience of seeing red, nor is it going to create the memory of having seen red (which is all knowing what it is like to see red is).

Dr. Stupid

I'm not sure a reductionist materialist can maintain this. I can't understand the relevance of any links to neurobiology. It needs to be a link to a philosphy page, explaining that reductionist materialism asserts that knowledge involves more than information. So I say again, could you provide a link or links please??

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,

Let me see if I can try to explain where I am coming from in a different way.

First of all, what is knowledge? What does it mean to say I know something?

I would say that it means I have memories of it. For example, if I know that my name is Kevin, it means that I remember that is my name. If I know what red looks like, it means I remember having seen red.

Now one thing we know (thanks to neuroscience) is that memories are physical configurations in the brain.

I must reiterate here that knowledge is not information. A memory can store information, but it is not information itself. It is a physical structure in the brain.

So what does physicalism say about memories? Nothing, other than that they are physical. Physicalism does say that anything that exists must be perceivable (or reducible to the perceivable). This is no problem, since perceiving another person's memories does not imply actually remembering those memories as though they were your own.

As to the Mary problem, in principle, all of the facts about Mary's brain, and about perception of red, should be perceivable by humans. They could then write this down in a book. They could even figure out what Mary's brain would be like if she had memory of seeing red, and put that in the book too.

What they cannot put into the book is the memory itself. They can no more put that in the book than they could put a cat in the book. All they can put in is a description of the memory (or cat). In other words, the information.

Now Mary reads the book. Mary is a supergenius, so she is able to understand it all. She knows what her brain would be like if she had seen red before. She knows exactly what kind of emotional and intuitive responses the color would invoke in her. She can even figure out what her favorite color would be.

What she cannot do, is remember having seen red. That is what it would mean to say that she knows what red looks like. She does not have that knowledge, because that memory cannot be acquired by reading a book. Maybe surgery could do it, as I suggested before, but reading a book? No.

Reading the description of the memory in the book will not create the actual memory, any more than reading a description of a cat will produce a real cat.

I hope that helps.

Dr. Stupid


Let me see if I can put this into these terms:

Mary knows everything about red.
Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red.

Mary still gains something.

What Mary is gaining is the knowledge that she has gained the experience personally.

This knowledge is present in some physical form in Mary's brain, right?

So what if we add a third book, this book contains all the physical information (which is all the information) about the knowledge that she would gain if she had the experience personally.

Also let us assume that we will add pages to this book to describe the physical information (all the information) about the knowledge of having the knowledge to the Nth power.

I'm assuming we will agree that in the physicalist world there is a logical limit to the levels of knowledge we can posses, right?

So now Mary has all three books, and learns everything she can learn in all three.

This puts us back into the problem.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Jethro
Then either you are misunderstanding what those people are saying, or those people are stupid and are misrepresenting materialism.

Physicalism does not presuppose that a person can learn absolutely everything about an experience simply by reading a book.

Rather, physicalism would state that learning about "the experience of seeing red" and "experiencing the seeing of red" are two different things. However, they are both physical proceses.

Right. But if Mary can only learn X amount about Red then how could she learn more by seeing red? If everything, including seeing red, is reduced to it's physical fact (and that is all that there is) then how can she learn more?

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Win,



The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not logically entailed by the physical facts about the knowledge of what it is like to see red. That is the point.

When we say that the experience is logically entailed by the physical facts about seeing red, we simply mean that the physical process of seeing red logically implies the existence of the experience of seeing red. This does not in any way mean that reading those facts from a book (which is simply a description of the process of seeing red) is going to produce the experience, or the memory of having had the experience.



Experiencing red is not a physical fact. It is a physical process. You can know all the physical facts about that process, but this is not the same as actually having the process occur in your brain.



The fact that you know all the physical facts does not imply that you know what it is like to see red. Saying that you know all the physical facts simply means that you have a complete description of the physical brain state that corresponds to you knowing what it is like to see red. It does not equate to you actually possessing that brain state.



But we aren't talking about experience of memories here. We are talking about the memories. Presumably, even under your brand of Dualism, if we were to alter Mary's brain state so that she possessed the memory of having seen red, she would then know what it is like to see red, because she would experience that memory. Under Physicalism, the situation is the same, except that it is also her brain which experiences the memory, rather than something else. The effect is the same though. Either way the knowledge of what it is like to see red is a physical memory, located in the brain. Simply reading all the physical facts about that brain state is not going to cause that brain state to appear in her brain, which is what the Mary experiment is implying should be expected to happen.



That's fine. The thought experiment is presented within the framework of physicalism, which holds that it is the brain that does the experiencing. The point is that if we accept the premise that the knowledge of what it is like to see red is a physical structure in the brain, then we cannot claim that knowing all of the physical facts about that physical structure is going to cause the physical structure to appear. Thus the argument that physicalism implies that Mary should be able to know what it is like to see red, simply by knowing all the physical facts about, is not valid.


If I didn't address this adequetly in the prior post please let me know.



You bring up a good point, though. Here is a question for both you and Rusty (since you are both advocating very different brands of dualism).

Imagine that we make a perfect physical copy of Mary. This copy is physically identical to Mary in every way. Several questions:

1) Do you believe this copy would be a p-zombie, or would it possess consciousness?

It depends on the "agent". ;)
If the new copy would have an "agent" as well (for any reason) then it wouldn't be a p-zombie. Otherwise it would be a p-zombie in the sense that it would not have an "agent".


2) If she does have consciousness, then would she know what it is like to see, or hear, or any of the other things that Mary knows, but which the copy has not yet experienced?


I suppose I would have to assert that the "agent" has it's own experience. So if the copy of Mary also, somehow, gets a copy of Mary's "agent" then the copy would posses the qualia.

If a new "agent" somehow inhabits the copy of Mary then I don't know what would happen.

3) If she does know what these things are like, even though she has never had the experiences, doesn't that imply that the knowledge of those experiences (not necessarily the experiences themselves, or the experiences of the memories) is purely physical?

Well going by this definition of physical:

"It is physical if it interacts as a cause and an effect"

Then no, even if the "agent" is somehow copied it simply means that a non-physical thing was copied. Of course I don't know if the "agent" could be copied. I hope not :eek:


I would assert that under physicalism, the answers would be:

1) She would possess consciousness.

2) She would know what all those things are like.

3) The knowledge of what those things are like is physically stored in her brain.

I would say that this is all that physicalism requires. It does not require that Mary knowing all the physical facts about seeing red, will cause Mary to actually possess the knowledge of what it is like to see red.

Another way to look at it is this. The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not a physical fact about seeing red. Facts are just information. Knowledge is more than just information. Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. It is a physical representation of information.

There are, in fact, physical facts about the knowledge of what it is like to see red. Mary could have those facts as well, but knowing those facts is not the same as having the knowledge, just as having all the facts about a puppy is not the same as having the puppy.

Dr. Stupid

Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. Under physicalism everything about knowledge can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by Mary. So the new third book with this reduction should address this.

If there is some part of the knowledge that cannot be reduced then it's the same problem.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE, Ian, Rusty: Will you acknowledge that subjective facts acquired through experience are not the same sort of facts that can be learned from books, even though both are facts about red? If you will not acknowledge this, then we might as well pack up and go home.

~~ Paul

Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Jethro
I would say that the KA does not invalidate materialism because:

the physical brain state of having knowledge of the physical brain state due to having experienced red is different than the physical brain state due to having experienced red.

Understand?

Yeah, but now there is a third book addressing this.

And this book is stipulated that it will contain all further levels of knowledge about knowledge.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Morning, all. Gee, here we are again, just like yesterday.

UcE said:If they were actually reducable to that physical model then it MUST be possible to describe those subjective experiences in terms of that model! But you cannot! You have just admitted you cannot! They are "different sorts of facts"! i.e. they are NOT "material facts". They are NOT "reducable to material". i.e. Facts exist which cannot be explained in terms of the material model of the Universe...
Forum moderators: Is there any way to ignore just uppercase, bold, and asterisks?

There are two kinds of physical facts [another ill-chosen philosophical term]. Objective physical facts are what we seem to refer to as physical facts. But there are also subjective physical facts: Facts that are encoded in the brain of an individual as a result of experience/sensing/thinking. The idealists/dualists here will simply not acknowledge the existence of subjective physical facts. I find that interesting.

So what have we got with Mary? We can assume that Mary can only learn objective physical facts in the room, or we can assume she also has a Stimpy-robot operation. Since the entire exercise is pointless without the operation, I think we should assume she has the operation and her brain is equivalent to what it would be if she had seen color.

Now she goes outside. Does she see/experience/feel/learn anything new? Who the hell knows? This is not a refutation of physicalism.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:What Mary is gaining is the knowledge that she has gained the experience personally.
Correct, but that's not all.

Mary gains whatever neural connections arise from seeing red.

Is there something about that statement that is difficult to understand? Do you not understand it, or do you disagree with it?

Right. But if Mary can only learn X amount about Red then how could she learn more by seeing red? If everything, including seeing red, is reduced to it's physical fact (and that is all that there is) then how can she learn more?
Once again: Learning about how a brain process works is not the same as performing the brain process. Learning everything about programming a computer is not the same as programming a computer.

~~ Paul

Stimp


Why do you not realize that your assertion that it does, is nothing less than the assumption that Physicalism is false?


Because my assertion is not the assumption that physicalism is false, Stimp.

My assertion is that two things bearing entirely different descriptions are, in fact, ***DIFFERENT***.

You are asserting that two things with different descriptions are the same.

I am asserting that two things with different descriptions are different.

Which assertion is the valid one?

****STOP****

****EXAMINE YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS****

When confronted with this question your thought process goes :

1) If these things are in fact different then physicalism is false.
2) I am not willing to accept that physicalism is false.
3) Therefore I must claim that saying these two things are different is an assumption that physicalism is false.

****EXAMINE MY THOUGHT PROCESS****

1) "brain process" and "subjective experience" have two completely different descriptions.
2) Therefore they differ.
3) Therefore physicalism is false.

WHO IS THINKING STRAIGHT AND WHO IS BRAINWASHED?


I have never, ever claimed this. What I have claimed is that the mind is a physical process in the brain.


Yes, Stimp. You are claiming that X is identical to Y when the truth is that X correlates with Y!

Which is true :

A) Brain process is identical to subjective experience.
B) Brain process closely correlates with subjective experience.

?

If you answer (A) then you are claiming there is absolutelty no difference between two things which have completely different descriptions. This is prima facie RIDICULOUS because the very fact they have completely different descriptions MEANS THEY DIFFER!!!!!

If you answer (B) then the statement "brain process IS qualia" IS WRONG, and therefore you defence of physicalism collapses.

Which are you gonna choose, Mr Cat?

A?

or B?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).
Nonsense. Can you find any definition of physicalism that requires this?

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

There are two kinds of physical facts [another ill-chosen philosophical term]. Objective physical facts are what we seem to refer to as physical facts. But there are also subjective physical facts: Facts that are encoded in the brain of an individual as a result of experience/sensing/thinking. The idealists/dualists here will simply not acknowledge the existence of subjective physical facts. I find that interesting.


What do you think makes a fact a physical fact, Paul?

Is it because it is a fact derived from out model of PHYSICS?

Or is it because you arbitrarily declare it to be 'physical'?

:(

What do you think 'physical' actually means? :rolleyes:

*****Read my last post again. Try to follow it****** :

Paul has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

Isn't that right, Paul?

The 'material world' is an entirely self-contained collection of related concepts - atoms, energy, physical processes. All 'facts' pertaining to the material world are definable/derivable from that collection of concepts. If things exist which are not definable/derivable from that collection of concepts then physicalism must be false. Subjective experiences are not built from that collection of concepts - we know of their existence in a direct way, not in the indirect manner of the material concept. Materialism depends on the claim that the things we know directly (the qualia) are actually reducable to the abstract concepts. In reality, qualia are not actually reducable to anything at all. Therefore physicalism if false!

Just in case you still don't understand : The reason we KNOW that qualia cannot be reduced to the abstract material concept is that this is precisely what Stimpson is trying to do right now. And the result is the claim that mind=brain. According to materialism "it is the brain which sees red" and "qualia ARE physical processes". Saying they "correlate" to physical processes is correct, but fails to reduce the qualia to the abstract model. Saying that the qualia ARE the physical processes allows you to reduce them to the abstract model but is a totally non-sensical statement!

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Evening Paul :)

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Morning, all. Gee, here we are again, just like yesterday.

UcE said:
Forum moderators: Is there any way to ignore just uppercase, bold, and asterisks?

There are two kinds of physical facts [another ill-chosen philosophical term]. Objective physical facts are what we seem to refer to as physical facts. But there are also subjective physical facts: Facts that are encoded in the brain of an individual as a result of experience/sensing/thinking. The idealists/dualists here will simply not acknowledge the existence of subjective physical facts. I find that interesting.

Well under physicalism the subjective physical facts have to be ultimately reduable to objective physical facts. If they exits only subjectively then physicalism must be false. So we can say that there exists subjective facts but they ultimately exist only as a physical arrangment of particles in the brain.

So it is actually the physicalist that refuses to accept the existence of subjective facts.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:If you answer (A) then you are claiming there is absolutelty no difference between two things which have completely different descriptions. This is prima facie RIDICULOUS because the very fact they have completely different descriptions MEANS THEY DIFFER!!!!!
I'm psyched to examine this assertion. I think we should start by writing down a succinct definition of brain and mind. Then we can see how they "differ."

Here are two descriptions of a flower:
[list=1]
It has a bunch of cells.
It has yellow petals.
[/list=1] Must be two different things, I guess.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Nonsense. Can you find any definition of physicalism that requires this?

~~ Paul

Stimpson J cat ****JUST CLAIMED THIS FIVE MINUTES AGO**** :


I do not agree that your mind exists only for you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Correct, but that's not all.

Mary gains whatever neural connections arise from seeing red.

Is there something about that statement that is difficult to understand? Do you not understand it, or do you disagree with it?


Under physicalism those nerual connections must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. Those facts are in the first book.



Once again: Learning about how a brain process works is not the same as performing the brain process. Learning everything about programming a computer is not the same as programming a computer.

~~ Paul

But the performance of the brain process must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. We will put those facts in one of the books.

[Interesting Ian]

As there appears to be quite a few people who don't understand the Mary problem I have a link (in ppt format). In order to facilitate your understanding I would suggest you crank up the volume.

http://www.hku.hk/philodep/courses/max/phil2022/2022knowagr.ppt

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Stimpson J cat ****JUST CLAIMED THIS FIVE MINUTES AGO**** :




Not to mention that the original definition Paul gave several pages back makes this exact claim with those exact words.

The post was one where Paul says something like:

"Webstesr dictionary defines physicalism as:"

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
I'm psyched to examine this assertion. I think we should start by writing down a succinct definition of brain and mind. Then we can see how they "differ."

Here are two descriptions of a flower:
[list=1]
It has a bunch of cells.
It has yellow petals.
[/list=1] Must be two different things, I guess.

~~ Paul

Wait, so you are a dualist?

:confused:

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:What do you think makes a fact a physical fact, Paul?

Is it because it is a fact derived from out model of PHYSICS?

Or is it because you arbitrarily declare it to be 'physical'?
I would be forever indebted to you if you would clearly define what philosophers mean by physical fact. In particular, can you distinguish it from concept?

Until you've done that, I should probably stop.

Paul has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

Isn't that right, Paul?
No. I am not using "subjective physical fact" to refer to experience. I am using it to refer to physical neural connections in the brain. Not to the knowledge of those connections, but to the connections themselves. They are in the brain, so they are physical. They are facts. But they are per-person, so they are subjective physical facts.

Again, you will not acknowledge that subjective physical facts exist.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
I'm psyched to examine this assertion. I think we should start by writing down a succinct definition of brain and mind. Then we can see how they "differ."

Here are two descriptions of a flower:
[list=1]
It has a bunch of cells.
It has yellow petals.
[/list=1] Must be two different things, I guess.

~~ Paul

Well, this is why I advocate E-Prime and why my signature used to be "whatever you say a thing is, it isn't".

To be clear we must avoid saying "A is B" and must explain how A and B are related.

Let's do this with brain process and subjective experience. What is the correct description of their relationship?

1) Brain process closely correlates with subjective experience.
2) Brain process does not differ at all from subjective experience (which makes them synonymous).

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Well under physicalism the subjective physical facts have to be ultimately reduable to objective physical facts. If they exits only subjectively then physicalism must be false. So we can say that there exists subjective facts but they ultimately exist only as a physical arrangment of particles in the brain.
A description of the subjective physical facts must reduce to objective physical facts. Yes, the subjective physical facts exist physically in the brain.

So it is actually the physicalist that refuses to accept the existence of subjective facts.
Say what?

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
I would be forever indebted to you if you would clearly define what philosophers mean by physical fact. In particular, can you distinguish it from concept?

Until you've done that, I should probably stop.


We've already done this. In fact I did it again on the last page.

Something is physical if it is both a cause and an effect.

It is a cause if it's occurance necessitates the occurance of something else.

It is an effect if it's occurance was necessitated by a prior state.



No. I am not using "subjective physical fact" to refer to experience. I am using it to refer to physical neural connections in the brain. Not to the knowledge of those connections, but to the connections themselves. They are in the brain, so they are physical. They are facts. But they are per-person, so they are subjective physical facts.

Again, you will not acknowledge that subjective physical facts exist.

~~ Paul

Subjective physical facts under physicalism must ultimately be reducable to objective physical facts. So truly 'subjective' facts cannot co-exist with physicalism.

You are not a physicalist Paul. I've been telling you this for pages and pages. You are a dualist!

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So it is actually the physicalist that refuses to accept the existence of subjective facts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Say what?

~~ Paul

A subjective fact cannot be objective.

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


Subjective physical facts under physicalism must ultimately be reducable to objective physical facts. So truly 'subjective' facts cannot co-exist with physicalism.

[/B]


This is correct. Stimpson continually claims that subjective things are 'actually' objective under materialism.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant



This is correct. Stimpson continually claims that subjective things are 'actually' objective under materialism.

Of course, if he accepted that subjective facts actually existed subjectively then he wouldn't be a physicalist. I wonder why Paul keeps insisting that WE recognize subjective facts. Personally I see subjective facts constantly. It's the physicalist who has to assert that we aren't really seeing subjectively, we just think we are.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Stimpson J cat ****JUST CLAIMED THIS FIVE MINUTES AGO**** :

quote:
I do not agree that your mind exists only for you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

What does that have to do with Rusty's statement:
Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).

~~ Paul

Paul


I would be forever indebted to you if you would clearly define what philosophers mean by physical fact. In particular, can you distinguish it from concept?


A physical fact is a part of the objective model of reality built upon the tenets of physicalism. Physicalism starts with a declaration that there exists an objective reality made of atoms/strings/waves/energy and that everything which exists can be explained in terms of this model. Physicalism requires that ALL THINGS are ultimately derived from this proposed objective reality i.e. that all things which exist are ultimately objective. That is why Stimpson claims that his mind does not only exist for him.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

Isn't that right, Paul?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. I am not using "subjective physical fact" to refer to experience. I am using it to refer to physical neural connections in the brain. Not to the knowledge of those connections, but to the connections themselves.
[QUOTE]

There is nothing "subjective" about a neural connection. It is a physical thing. PERIOD.

[QUOTE]
They are in the brain, so they are physical. They are facts. But they are per-person, so they are subjective physical facts.


They are not per-person. Anyone can slice your brain open and verify it for themselves.



Again, you will not acknowledge that subjective physical facts exist.


Well, until today I hadn't heard anyone propose such an idea.... :confused:

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Under physicalism those nerual connections must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. Those facts are in the first book.
Rusty, buddy, slap yourself upside the head. The description of the connections are objective physical facts. The connections themselves are subject physical facts. Even if you could perceive them, you wouldn't have the connections in your own brain.

~~ Paul

Paul :


What does that have to do with Rusty's statement:




1) I do not agree that your mind exists only for you.

2) Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).


You do not see the connection between these two statements? :rolleyes:

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Rusty, buddy, slap yourself upside the head. The description of the connections are objective physical facts. The connections themselves are subject physical facts. Even if you could perceive them, you wouldn't have the connections in your own brain.

~~ Paul

Exactly my point! Exactly! That is why physicalism is false, because those subjective facts must be reducable to objective facts! If they are not then physicalism is false!

Paul, you aren't a physicalist!

Are you a dualist? Idealist of some type?

Welcome to the dark side *BWAHAHAHAHHAHAAHA*

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Wait, so you are a dualist?
Sorry, I forgot the sarcasticon. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:1) Brain process closely correlates with subjective experience.
2) Brain process does not differ at all from subjective experience (which makes them synonymous).

First define subjective experience.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Let me see if I can put this into these terms:

Mary knows everything about red.
Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red.

Mary still gains something.

What Mary is gaining is the knowledge that she has gained the experience personally.

This apparent contradiction is due to an impreciseness of the way it is stated, and nothing more.

Remember that knowledge is not information. It is the physical representation of information in the brain.

Mary knows everything about red:
This means that all of the facts about red are represented in Mary's brain.

Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red:
It could mean that all of the facts about the experience of seeing red are represented in Mary's brain, including the facts about what the physical state of her brain would be if she had the memory of having seen red.

The question is whether this statement also means that she literally has the memory of seeing red. If it does, then I assert that physicalism does not imply that she should be able to get this memory by reading a book. All the book can give her is a description of what her brain would be like if she did have that memory. It cannot alter her brain to be that way.

This knowledge is present in some physical form in Mary's brain, right?

So what if we add a third book, this book contains all the physical information (which is all the information) about the knowledge that she would gain if she had the experience personally.

Sure, but all the book contains is a description of the physical state her brain would have if she possessed that knowledge. Reading that description is not going to alter her brain in such a way for her to have that knowledge.

Also let us assume that we will add pages to this book to describe the physical information (all the information) about the knowledge of having the knowledge to the Nth power.

I'm assuming we will agree that in the physicalist world there is a logical limit to the levels of knowledge we can posses, right?

So now Mary has all three books, and learns everything she can learn in all three.

This puts us back into the problem.

You can take it to as many levels of abstraction as you want. This does not change the fundamental issue, which is that knowledge is a physical state of the brain, and all that can be written in the book is a description of that physical state. Physicalism only requires that it should be possible to construct a description of the physical state. It in no way requires that knowing that description will cause your brain to change to match that description.

Right. But if Mary can only learn X amount about Red then how could she learn more by seeing red? If everything, including seeing red, is reduced to it's physical fact (and that is all that there is) then how can she learn more?

Saying that it can be reduced to the physical facts does not mean that the physical facts are all there is. Reducing something to physical facts just means you have a physical description of it. It does not mean that it is the description. Expecting a description of knowledge to transform into actual knowledge is no different than expecting a description of a toaster to transform into a real toaster.

Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. Under physicalism everything about knowledge can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by Mary. So the new third book with this reduction should address this.

If there is some part of the knowledge that cannot be reduced then it's the same problem.

The problem is that you are thinking of reducing knowledge to information, and then converting that information back to knowledge. Nothing physical can be reduced to information. When we say that something is reducible to the physical facts, we just mean that it can be described in terms of physical facts. Those facts are information. The physical thing being described is not information. knowledge is not just information. Reading information describing knowledge is not going to give somebody that knowledge. A physical process is necessary to alter to brain so that it has the knowledge.

For abstract knowledge (the memory of information), a mechanism is already in place to turn the information into knowledge. For empirical knowledge (the memory of an experience), no such mechanism is in place. This has nothing to do with philosophy. It is simply a statement about how the brain works.

Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).

This is not a problem. A subjective experience is a physical process in somebody's brain. Saying that the subjective experience is reducible to a state where any human can perceive it, just means that a description of that process can be constructed, which another person could see. It does not mean that it must be possible to execute that process in anybody else's brain. That is exactly what it would take for another person to experience your subjective experiences for themselves. Physicalism in no way says that this should be possible.

Yeah, but now there is a third book addressing this.

And this book is stipulated that it will contain all further levels of knowledge about knowledge.

This illustrates the source of our disagreement. A book cannot contain knowledge. It only contains information. The knowledge of what it is like to see read cannot be written down in a book, nor acquired by reading it, any more than a cat could be stored in a book, and then produced by reading it. Only a description of the knowledge can be stored in the book. And this is all that Physicalism requires.

Mary gains whatever neural connections arise from seeing red.

Is there something about that statement that is difficult to understand? Do you not understand it, or do you disagree with it?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Under physicalism those nerual connections must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. Those facts are in the first book.

Those facts are not all there is. The facts are not the neural connections. They are a description of the neural connections. The neural connections are not in the book, only a description of them is. Reading the book will not give Mary those neural connections. It will only give her a description of them.

But the performance of the brain process must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. We will put those facts in one of the books.

Where on Earth did you get the idea that Physicalism claims that physical reality is made of facts? This is absurd!

I can't put a dog into a book, why should I be able to put a brain state in a book?


UCE,

I am not going to respond to you line by line anymore, since I have already responded to all the points you are making before. I will just say once again, that I do not accept your assertion that my mind exists only for me. That is the premise upon which your entire "mind is different from brain" argument depends, and it is completely unjustified.


Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Something is physical if it is both a cause and an effect.

It is a cause if it's occurance necessitates the occurance of something else.

It is an effect if it's occurance was necessitated by a prior state.
Hmm, not sure I understand. Doesn't match my dictionary definition. And I need a definition of physical fact, not simply physical.

Subjective physical facts under physicalism must ultimately be reducable to objective physical facts. So truly 'subjective' facts cannot co-exist with physicalism.
Well, I don't really understand your definition of physical fact, but neural connections in my brain sound like they fit the bill.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Well, I don't really understand your definition of physical fact, but neural connections in my brain sound like they fit the bill.

~~ Paul [/B]


Sure, those are physical facts. They just aren't subjective. Seeing red is subjective. Brain connections are objective.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
First define subjective experience.

~~ Paul

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=subjective

1a) Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.

1b) Particular to a given person; personal: "subjective experience."

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=experience

1) The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.

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

I do not think the term "subjective experience" is in any way ambigious, unless you are a materialist trying to refute the KA.

Seeing red = subjective experience
neural connection = objective fact
subjective != objective

And if anybody tries to claim that the dictionary definitions of these words 'presupposes that materialism is false' I think I am going to kill myself.

Or at least I am going to go mad. :(

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:No. I am not using "subjective physical fact" to refer to experience. I am using it to refer to physical neural connections in the brain. Not to the knowledge of those connections, but to the connections themselves.
[QUOTE]There is nothing "subjective" about a neural connection. It is a physical thing. PERIOD.
The word subjective means personal, per-person, "peculiar to a particular individual" (Websters). If you want me to call them personal physical facts, fine.

They are not per-person. Anyone can slice your brain open and verify it for themselves.
Not sure what you mean.

Well, until today I hadn't heard anyone propose such an idea....
http://neologic.net/rd/chalmers/mdeutsch.html

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Subjective experience:1a) Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.

1b) Particular to a given person; personal: "subjective experience."

2) The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.
Okay, now define mind.

And if anybody tries to claim that the dictionary definitions of these words 'presupposes that materialism is false' I think I am going to kill myself.
Nope, don't think they do. No need to die just yet.

~~ Paul

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale
I don't know what happened to Stimpy and Paul.

Rusty can be pleased and every idealist here would have the proof they want doing a simple experiment wich really capture the esence of physicalism.

First you Rusty forget the Book about Red you claim is sufficent to experience Red according to physicalism. It is nonsense because the only physicalist requeriment is that a physical neural arrange is necessary and sufficent to experience Red . Not a book wich can or can't arrange the neurone matter in the way needed to experiment red.
So the physicalist experiment to demostrate physicalism goes like this:

You store the brain configu¡ration to experience red in a computer. Then you stimulate the PHYSICAL brain of the subject using ONLY the PHYSICAL information in the computer ans...voila!!! the subject should experiment RED if physicalism is true.

Now, go to google and see some actual experiments in this field with blind people or vision research centers like Caltech.

It is odd to quote myself but no one addressed my point above.

Paul


The word subjective means personal, per-person, "peculiar to a particular individual" (Websters). If you want me to call them personal physical facts, fine.


The primary definition of "subjective" mean "in a mind" i.e. it has no meaning to anyone but the subject. It is only true for you. Things in your mind are only true for you, because they are in your mind. Things in your brain are true for everybody because, unlike your mind, your brain is available in objective reality for anyone to examine.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They are not per-person. Anyone can slice your brain open and verify it for themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure what you mean.


How could it be any clearer?

Anything which exists in the physical world MUST BE objective. You are saying it is 'per person' because it is part of your body - but your body is itself part of the objective physical world. Your mind is subjective because it does not matter how carefully anyone disects your brain they will not gain access to your mind!

This is SO SIMPLE! :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Subjective experience:
Okay, now define mind.

~~ Paul

For our purposes here 'mind' is the sum total of all your subjective experiences. "I" is the subject. "Mind" is everything which that subject directly experiences.

These things are most clearly understood if you think about what is meant by "object" and "subject". "subject" is the thing you refer to as "I". Subjective things exist with respect to that subject. "object" is the physical world. Objective things exist with respect to that object.

Easy! :)

(until the materialist bumbles along and starts declaring that subjective things are actually objective, and that minds are not restricted to the subject, and that qualia "are" brain processes, etc....and then declares that the definitions are confused. The definitions are only confused because the materialist MUST confuse them. Our definitions are straight as an arrow and make perfect sense.)

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


For our purposes here 'mind' is the sum total of all your subjective experiences. "I" is the subject. "Mind" is everything which that subject directly experiences.

These things are most clearly understood if you think about what is meant by "object" and "subject". "subject" is the thing you refer to as "I". Subjective things exist with respect to that subject. "object" is the physical world. Objective things exist with respect to that object.

Easy! :)

(until the materialist bumbles along and starts declaring that subjective things are actually objective, and that minds are not restricted to the subject, and that qualia "are" brain processes, etc....and then declares that the definitions are confused. The definitions are only confused because the materialist MUST confuse them. Our definitions are straight as an arrow and make perfect sense.)

Woo-hoo! I re-define everything in subjective terms, nothing up my sleeve, and out pops a wholly subjective universe! Woo-hoo! Its magic.

And yet, somehow, inexplicably, I spend soooo much time trying to tell everybody else how this IS TRUE and MUST BE TRUE. After, of course, explaining that it is all subjective, personal, and therefore different for each of us.

What a pitifully hopeless endeavor! It collapses under its own weight and effort. HEY EVERYBODY! THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH! IT IS ALL SUBJECTIVE!

Good, UCE, then we can ignore you, can't we?

Utterly disgusted,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:The primary definition of "subjective" mean "in a mind" i.e. it has no meaning to anyone but the subject. It is only true for you. Things in your mind are only true for you, because they are in your mind. Things in your brain are true for everybody because, unlike your mind, your brain is available in objective reality for anyone to examine.
None of this requires that mind not derive from brain. A person can examine my brain and even write down a complete neural map. My internal experience is still my own.

If you do not like "subjective physical facts" for personal neural connections, then make up another term. But don't play with the definitions of the three words to try to dismiss the existence of these facts.

Anything which exists in the physical world MUST BE objective. You are saying it is 'per person' because it is part of your body - but your body is itself part of the objective physical world. Your mind is subjective because it does not matter how carefully anyone disects your brain they will not gain access to your mind!
Well, you don't know that for sure. But let's assume so. Why? Because they do not have my brain in theirs. It is so simple!

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:For our purposes here 'mind' is the sum total of all your subjective experiences. "I" is the subject. "Mind" is everything which that subject directly experiences.

Easy!
Not easy, circular! We're trying to define subjective experience. Another definition, please.

~~ Paul

Stimpson :



I am not going to respond to you line by line anymore, since I have already responded to all the points you are making before. I will just say once again, that I do not accept your assertion that my mind exists only for me. That is the premise upon which your entire "mind is different from brain" argument depends, and it is completely unjustified.



Stimp,

If your philosophy demands that you do not recognise there is a difference between a mind and a brain, then how the h*ll do you think it is ever going to be able to explain how a mind arises from a brain?

DOH!

Why can't you see the problem!? :confused:

If you wish to claim that materialism is capable of explaining how a mind arises from a brain, then first you must clearly define what a brain is and what a mind is and how they differ!. But you are here in front of me claiming that they do not differ!

Is the mind the same thing as a brain?
Or are they different things?

Which is it?

If they are the same then materialism cannot explain how one arises from the other.

If they are different then your defence of materialism collapses.

You cannot defend materialism.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

This is correct. Stimpson continually claims that subjective things are 'actually' objective under materialism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, if he accepted that subjective facts actually existed subjectively then he wouldn't be a physicalist. I wonder why Paul keeps insisting that WE recognize subjective facts. Personally I see subjective facts constantly. It's the physicalist who has to assert that we aren't really seeing subjectively, we just think we are.

This is simply a question of definition of terms.

If you define subjective facts as UCE does, to be facts which exist only for an individual person, then as a Physicalist I would say such facts do not exist. I would claim that instead these facts are facts about physical brain states, and that the only thing "private" about them is that they are your brain states.

When a Physicalist talks about "subjective" facts, he is clearly not talking about facts that exist only for that person. He is simply referring to facts which are facts about a person's brain state. In this sense, subjective facts are just a type of objective fact.

Whether you choose to still call them subjective, with the understanding that it has a different meaning, or choose to discard the word subjective entirely, is simply a question of semantics.

It is not just arbitrary, either. Those of us who come from scientific backgrounds are quite used to using the word "subjective" to refer to personal stuff, without any implication that these things are completely inaccessible, or that they do not exist objectively. In philosophical circles, maybe they use the term differently. All this means is that it is important to clearly define our terms.

And of course, both of these definitions work fine with the statement "subjective means in your mind". After all, if the mind is a physical process in the brain, then this just means that subjective means "happening in your brain", which is exactly how physicalists use the term.

Dr. Stupid

BillHoyt has arrived in this thread.

That is my ultimate signal to leave it.

This thread is a joke, anyway. It isn't philosophy. It is psychotherapy for people who are hopelessly brainwashed.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

If your philosophy demands that you do not recognise there is a difference between a mind and a brain, then how the h*ll do you think it is ever going to be able to explain how a mind arises from a brain?

DOH!

Why can't you see the problem!?

I do recognize that there is a difference between the mind and the brain. I have told you several times now that I do not believe the mind is the brain. I claim that the mind is a process in the brain.

Why can't you get that through your think skull? How many times do I have to tell you my position before you stop insisting that it is the opposite?

Jesus Christ, man. What is your problem here? Can you not read? Or are you just deliberately trying to convince me that you are a complete moron?

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Not easy, circular! We're trying to define subjective experience. Another definition, please.

~~ Paul

...in other words you are going to reject any definition that leads to materialism being false.

Go on believing, Paul. But don't kid yourself you are interested in the truth. Your agenda is to defend materialism to the death, just like Stimpsons is. If rationalism is a casualty then you don't seem to mind. How do you want to define 'Mind'? Let me guess : "Part of the physical world" :rolleyes:

This is stupid.

I give up!

Minds ARE brain processes!
Subjective things ARE objective!
Materialism isn't false!

HOW CAN I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID?

Amen.

:D

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



This apparent contradiction is due to an impreciseness of the way it is stated, and nothing more.

Remember that knowledge is not information. It is the physical representation of information in the brain.

Then replace everything I said about knowledge with the word information. Everything must be reducable to the point where any human can perceive it. This renders everything into information

Mary knows everything about red:
This means that all of the facts about red are represented in Mary's brain.

Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red:
It could mean that all of the facts about the experience of seeing red are represented in Mary's brain, including the facts about what the physical state of her brain would be if she had the memory of having seen red.

The question is whether this statement also means that she literally has the memory of seeing red. If it does, then I assert that physicalism does not imply that she should be able to get this memory by reading a book. All the book can give her is a description of what her brain would be like if she did have that memory. It cannot alter her brain to be that way.

So you are saying that if Mary learned everything there is in a book that contains all the 'information' about the knowledge of seeing red she still does not have the memory, correct?

But the memory is part of the knowledge of seeing red, hence it was reduced and included in the book. Mary learned everything in that book. So Mary learned everything there is about the memory unless we assume that there is something that can not be reduced and put in the book. If we do that we no longer have physicalism.



Sure, but all the book contains is a description of the physical state her brain would have if she possessed that knowledge. Reading that description is not going to alter her brain in such a way for her to have that knowledge.


But EVERYTHING about her brain being altered can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. This means that everything about the experience, the knowledge, the way the brain is arranged, everything. So she may not have seen red yet (duh) but she knows everything that can be reduced to a perceivable state. If she knows everything that can be reduced about red, seeing red, knowing red, knowing that she knows red, and onwards, then how can she still learn something new?

Are you saying that she is not learning something new? That is the only logical place for your argument to go.


You can take it to as many levels of abstraction as you want. This does not change the fundamental issue, which is that knowledge is a physical state of the brain, and all that can be written in the book is a description of that physical state. Physicalism only requires that it should be possible to construct a description of the physical state. It in no way requires that knowing that description will cause your brain to change to match that description.

I agree totally with that last sentance. But the change in her brain is reduced in the third book. Everything about that change is reduced to a perceivable state and Mary learns it. If there is something that Mary cannot learn then how does she learn it when she see's red?

The contradiction continues.



Saying that it can be reduced to the physical facts does not mean that the physical facts are all there is. Reducing something to physical facts just means you have a physical description of it. It does not mean that it is the description. Expecting a description of knowledge to transform into actual knowledge is no different than expecting a description of a toaster to transform into a real toaster.

(Emphasis added by me)

I used the word physical fact because Paul began to use it. I've tried to avoid using it in response to you because we haven't been using it.

When I say reducing it to a physical fact all I mean is reducing it to the point where someone can perceive it. That reduction is what I am referring to.

So physicalism most certainly claims that "that is all there is".



The problem is that you are thinking of reducing knowledge to information, and then converting that information back to knowledge. Nothing physical can be reduced to information.

But this is the exact claim that physicalism is making. If everything can be reduced to something that any human can perceive then we are reducing things to information. Anything we can perceive is information, and if everything can be perceived then everything can be reduced to information. I'm still not even clear on how you are differentiating knowledge and information.

You claim that knowledge is a physical state of the brain.

So what is information if it is not the things we perceive?



When we say that something is reducible to the physical facts, we just mean that it can be described in terms of physical facts.

Then why did you object when I made the claim that everything can be reduced to a physical fact?


Those facts are information.

So everything can be reduced to information. Why did you object?

The physical thing being described is not information. knowledge is not just information. Reading information describing knowledge is not going to give somebody that knowledge. A physical process is necessary to alter to brain so that it has the knowledge.

Wait, so ultimately everything about this peanut can be reduced to information. But now you are claiming that the peanut is more then information. But everything can be reduced, so whatever the "more" part is we just need to reduce that part as well. Then we've reduced the peanut to information. There is still a peanut, we have just reduced it to a whole bunch of perceivable facts (information).


For abstract knowledge (the memory of information), a mechanism is already in place to turn the information into knowledge. For empirical knowledge (the memory of an experience), no such mechanism is in place. This has nothing to do with philosophy. It is simply a statement about how the brain works.

Our brain turns information into knowledge. Great.
But experience has no 'brain mechanism' to turn it into knowledge.

This is what you are saying. So then when I have an experience how does it become knowledge? The experience must ultimately be reducable to information and my brain can turn that information into knowledge.

Looks like the contradiction is still there.



This is not a problem. A subjective experience is a physical process in somebody's brain. Saying that the subjective experience is reducible to a state where any human can perceive it, just means that a description of that process can be constructed, which another person could see. It does not mean that it must be possible to execute that process in anybody else's brain. That is exactly what it would take for another person to experience your subjective experiences for themselves. Physicalism in no way says that this should be possible.


See above. Same thing, worded differently.


This illustrates the source of our disagreement. A book cannot contain knowledge. It only contains information.

You claimed our brains can turn information into this knowledge. So the book contains information, Mary learns it, thereby turning it into knowledge.


The knowledge of what it is like to see read cannot be written down in a book, nor acquired by reading it, any more than a cat could be stored in a book, and then produced by reading it. Only a description of the knowledge can be stored in the book. And this is all that Physicalism requires.

No, we are storing the information in the book. Mary then learns the information and it becomes knowledge.



Those facts are not all there is. The facts are not the neural connections. They are a description of the neural connections. The neural connections are not in the book, only a description of them is. Reading the book will not give Mary those neural connections. It will only give her a description of them.


Everything about the neural connections is reduced and put in the book. EVERYTHING. A description and everything else. Mary learns everything in the book. Mary learns everything there is that is these neural connections. If there is some part of these neural connections that cannot be reduced to information then we must discard physicalism.


Where on Earth did you get the idea that Physicalism claims that physical reality is made of facts? This is absurd!

You agreed with me earlier in this post. Now you disagree.


I can't put a dog into a book, why should I be able to put a brain state in a book?

You can reduce everything about the dog into information and put all that information in the book. If there is any part of the dog that can not be reduced then we must reject physicalism.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Not easy, circular! We're trying to define subjective experience. Another definition, please.

~~ Paul

qualia

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



This is simply a question of definition of terms.

If you define subjective facts as UCE does, to be facts which exist only for an individual person, then as a Physicalist I would say such facts do not exist. I would claim that instead these facts are facts about physical brain states, and that the only thing "private" about them is that they are your brain states.

Yes, I am aware of that. That, however, is a different definition then I would prefer to use for subjective.


When a Physicalist talks about "subjective" facts, he is clearly not talking about facts that exist only for that person. He is simply referring to facts which are facts about a person's brain state. In this sense, subjective facts are just a type of objective fact.

Hence you are using the word incorrectly. A fact is either subjective or objective, not both. A physicalist needs to claim that subjective facts do not actually exist, we just have an illusion of subjective facts. We both agree on this point.


Whether you choose to still call them subjective, with the understanding that it has a different meaning, or choose to discard the word subjective entirely, is simply a question of semantics.

It is not just arbitrary, either. Those of us who come from scientific backgrounds are quite used to using the word "subjective" to refer to personal stuff, without any implication that these things are completely inaccessible, or that they do not exist objectively. In philosophical circles, maybe they use the term differently. All this means is that it is important to clearly define our terms.

Agreed :)


And of course, both of these definitions work fine with the statement "subjective means in your mind". After all, if the mind is a physical process in the brain, then this just means that subjective means "happening in your brain", which is exactly how physicalists use the term.

Dr. Stupid

No, subjective must be defined so that nothing can be both subjective and objective.

Objective means that any human can perceive the fact.
Subjective means that the fact is only perceived by one person, and in fact can not be perceived by anyone else.

We use subjective to mean the facts we perceive that others don't, because there are two uses of the word going on.

I would like to agree in this thread to use subjective as I defined it above in contrast with objective.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:...in other words you are going to reject any definition [of subjective experience] that leads to materialism being false.
Me? No, really, I'm just rejecting definitions that are circular.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale
Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale
I don't know what happened to Stimpy and Paul.

Rusty can be pleased and every idealist here would have the proof they want doing a simple experiment wich really capture the esence of physicalism.

Yes, I do hope that one day when we discover more about the brain such an experiment would be possible. I hope I live to that day.


First you Rusty forget the Book about Red you claim is sufficent to experience Red according to physicalism. It is nonsense because the only physicalist requeriment is that a physical neural arrange is necessary and sufficent to experience Red . Not a book wich can or can't arrange the neurone matter in the way needed to experiment red.

Physicalism claims that everything about red can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. So if it can be perceived then we can write it down. Everything was reduced, perceived, then written in the book.


So the physicalist experiment to demostrate physicalism goes like this:

You store the brain configu¡ration to experience red in a computer. Then you stimulate the PHYSICAL brain of the subject using ONLY the PHYSICAL information in the computer ans...voila!!! the subject should experiment RED if physicalism is true.

Now, go to google and see some actual experiments in this field with blind people or vision research centers like Caltech.


You did not follow my example.

Everything is reducable to a state where it can be perceived. We can write down what we perceive. We reduce everything about red to what we perceive and write down everything about red. Mary learns everything about red.

Mary see's red. Mary learns something new.

How could she learn something new if she already learned everything about red?

We did not continue the story about the 'brain augmenting' case. If we say that Mary's brain is augmented such that she believes she has seen red then we are going beyond what the Mary and the black/white room thought experiment does.

You can not force Mary to posses a false belief without doing something different then the though experiment we are discussing.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Me? No, really, I'm just rejecting definitions that are circular.

~~ Paul

How is this:

Objective means that any human can perceive the fact.
Subjective means that the fact is only perceived by one person, and in fact can not be perceived by anyone else.

They are contrasting. Hence nothing can be both, it can only be one or the other or possibly "something else".

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:So you are saying that if Mary learned everything there is in a book that contains all the 'information' about the knowledge of seeing red she still does not have the memory, correct?
"Information about the knowledge"? Reread Stimpy's definitions of information and knowledge.

But EVERYTHING about her brain being altered can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. This means that everything about the experience, the knowledge, the way the brain is arranged, everything.
Rusty, define perceive. You're tossing around the term without understanding it. Perceiving the description of something is not the same as perceiving that thing.

I agree totally with that last sentance. But the change in her brain is reduced in the third book. Everything about that change is reduced to a perceivable state and Mary learns it. If there is something that Mary cannot learn then how does she learn it when she see's red?
By activating portions of her brain that were not involved in the book learning.

You can reduce everything about the dog into information and put all that information in the book. If there is any part of the dog that can not be reduced then we must reject physicalism.
So you're saying that because I cannot open the book and out popeth a dog, physicalism is rejected?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

DavidSmith said:qualia
Define qualia.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Objective means that any human can perceive the fact.
Subjective means that the fact is only perceived by one person, and in fact can not be perceived by anyone else.
Define perceive. And don't forget that we're ultimately trying to define subjective experience.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
"Information about the knowledge"? Reread Stimpy's definitions of information and knowledge.


Paul, Stimpy said knowledge is a physical state of the brain.

I defined information as the things we perceive.

Physiclaism claims we can reduce everything (including the physical state of the brain) to somethign we can perceive. Therefore we can have information about knowledge.


Rusty, define perceive. You're tossing around the term without understanding it. Perceiving the description of something is not the same as perceiving that thing.


Unless you are a physicalist. Paul, you are not a physicalist. Physicalism states that everything must be reducable to a state where it can be perceived. So if we have reduced everything about red to the state where it can be perceived then we perceive all of that reduced state then we have perceived everything about red (according to physicalism).

You keep defending something that is not physicalism. I am no longer going to argue with you because you are not a physicalist. You just don't realize it.



By activating portions of her brain that were not involved in the book learning.


So you're saying that because I cannot open the book and out popeth a dog, physicalism is rejected?

~~ Paul

Ha ha.

I am saying this:

We can write down what we perceive.

Everything can be perceived. (physicalism)

We can write down everything.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


How is this:

Objective means that any human can perceive the fact.
Subjective means that the fact is only perceived by one person, and in fact can not be perceived by anyone else.

They are contrasting. Hence nothing can be both, it can only be one or the other or possibly "something else".

Apologies if this has already been addressed...

How about that the perception of red has one end in the physical world (the photons which cause the sensation of red) and one end in the mental world (the understanding of the perception of the sensation). The physical world component is an objective fact (the photons are unchanged) but the mental world component is subjective according to our subjective understandings of red.

Not that I'm making any claims for a distinction between mental and physical worlds. And come to think of it, we don't actually see "red" anyway; we see everything *but* red... Everything you see is not?

Oh dear. I think I need to lie down for a while.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Define perceive. And don't forget that we're ultimately trying to define subjective experience.

~~ Paul

Ultimately I am not trying to define subjective experience. Ultimately I am trying to force a modification of physicalism so that the "agent" can exist in such a world. I am also enjoying an intelligent discussion about the veracity of physicalism and learning quite a bit.

I do not want to get into a discussion about exactly what "perceive" means. Perhaps you can start a new thread about what is perceivable.

Here it appears to be being used to mean "transferable to knowledge".

I can perceive a red car, hence I have transfered the existence of the red car to knowledge of a red car.

I cannot perceive an invisible, ethereal dragon in my garage, hence I cannot transfer the existence of the invisible, ethereal dragon into knowledge.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
BillHoyt has arrived in this thread.

That is my ultimate signal to leave it.

This thread is a joke, anyway. It isn't philosophy. It is psychotherapy for people who are hopelessly brainwashed.

UcE,

I've been here all along, sir. I am truly sorry you don't see the inherent contradiction in attempting to convince others that reality is subjective. It smacks strongly of the postmodernist conceit that there is no truth.

Your logical muddle is so transparent. If mind is all subjective, then there is no hope of reliably transferring that knowledge to another's mind, is there? You don't how it works. How do you reach understanding? How do you reach agreement? The attempt itself signals a refutation of the assertion.

That now leaves you with the wimpier assertion that most of mind or much of mind or some of mind is subjective. Now you've left yourself a portal through which to attempt to communicate with an other. But now you've also allowed in objective means of determining further truth, and you are back on scientific turf and scientific rules of evidence.

But, of course, I'm "brainwashed." A curious choice of metaphors given you don't think the brain is responsible for the mind. To keep consistent in your views, UcE, I would think you'd need to write "mindwashed." Of course, to keep even more consistent, you need to stop posting. Or change your assertions.

Cheers,

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by BillyTK


Apologies if this has already been addressed...

How about that the perception of red has one end in the physical world (the photons which cause the sensation of red) and one end in the mental world (the understanding of the perception of the sensation). The physical world component is an objective fact (the photons are unchanged) but the mental world component is subjective according to our subjective understandings of red.

Not that I'm making any claims for a distinction between mental and physical worlds. And come to think of it, we don't actually see "red" anyway; we see everything *but* red... Everything you see is not?

Oh dear. I think I need to lie down for a while.

That would come under dualism. Physicalism can not co-exist with dualism so....

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


UcE,

I've been here all along, sir. I am truly sorry you don't see the inherent contradiction in attempting to convince others that reality is subjective. It smacks strongly of the postmodernist conceit that there is no truth.

Your logical muddle is so transparent. If mind is all subjective, then there is no hope of reliably transferring that knowledge to another's mind, is there? You don't how it works. How do you reach understanding? How do you reach agreement? The attempt itself signals a refutation of the assertion.

That now leaves you with the wimpier assertion that most of mind or much of mind or some of mind is subjective. Now you've left yourself a portal through which to attempt to communicate with an other. But now you've also allowed in objective means of determining further truth, and you are back on scientific turf and scientific rules of evidence.

But, of course, I'm "brainwashed." A curious choice of metaphors given you don't think the brain is responsible for the mind. To keep consistent in your views, UcE, I would think you'd need to write "mindwashed." Of course, to keep even more consistent, you need to stop posting. Or change your assertions.

Cheers,

You don't understand UE's assertions. I don't either but at least I've read his posts.

He believes that there is only one conscoiusness, so it doesn't need to communicate with anything else or reach any agreements.

Perhaps you can start at the begining of this massive thread and by the time you've reached here you will have a deep understanding of UE's assertion. Then, perhaps, you can try to offer a compelling refutation.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Then replace everything I said about knowledge with the word information. Everything must be reducable to the point where any human can perceive it. This renders everything into information

Surely you are not going to assert that Physicalism claims that everything is information? That the description is the reality?

That position is easily refuted, and you don't need Mary to do it. You are attacking a strawman here. Physicalism only claims that everything can be mathematically described in terms of our perceptions.

So you are saying that if Mary learned everything there is in a book that contains all the 'information' about the knowledge of seeing red she still does not have the memory, correct?

Yes.

But the memory is part of the knowledge of seeing red, hence it was reduced and included in the book.

Wrong. The memory was not included in the book. A description of the memory was included in the book. You can no more include the memory in the book than you could include Mary's brain in the book. The book only contains descriptions.

Mary learned everything in that book. So Mary learned everything there is about the memory unless we assume that there is something that can not be reduced and put in the book. If we do that we no longer have physicalism.

Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between a thing, and the description of that thing? Do you acknowledge that Physicalism does not claim that things are equivalent their descriptions? If you do not acknowledge these two points, then we have nothing to discuss.

Sure, but all the book contains is a description of the physical state her brain would have if she possessed that knowledge. Reading that description is not going to alter her brain in such a way for her to have that knowledge.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But EVERYTHING about her brain being altered can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. This means that everything about the experience, the knowledge, the way the brain is arranged, everything. So she may not have seen red yet (duh) but she knows everything that can be reduced to a perceivable state. If she knows everything that can be reduced about red, seeing red, knowing red, knowing that she knows red, and onwards, then how can she still learn something new?

I have already answered this question. All you are doing is phrasing it in a counter-intuitive way, so that it sounds contradictory.

It is really simple. Mary cannot learn everything there is to know about seeing red by reading a book. This fact does not contradict Physicalism, because Physicalism in no way claims that she should be able to. Physicalism only claims that a complete description of the process of seeing red should be possible. It in no way implies that knowing that description is equivalent to knowing what it is like to see red.

You can take it to as many levels of abstraction as you want. This does not change the fundamental issue, which is that knowledge is a physical state of the brain, and all that can be written in the book is a description of that physical state. Physicalism only requires that it should be possible to construct a description of the physical state. It in no way requires that knowing that description will cause your brain to change to match that description.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree totally with that last sentance. But the change in her brain is reduced in the third book.

You keep using the word "reduced" as though it somehow implied that the brain state is magically transformed into information, and stored in the book. All it means is that the change in her brain is described in the third book.

Everything about that change is reduced to a perceivable state and Mary learns it. If there is something that Mary cannot learn then how does she learn it when she see's red?

She can learn it. She just can't learn it by reading a book. The book only contains a description of the brain state. For her to learn it, she must acquire that brain state. Physicalism only requires that we be able to describe the brain state. It does not require that we be able to give somebody that brain state.

Saying that it can be reduced to the physical facts does not mean that the physical facts are all there is. Reducing something to physical facts just means you have a physical description of it. It does not mean that it is the description. Expecting a description of knowledge to transform into actual knowledge is no different than expecting a description of a toaster to transform into a real toaster.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Emphasis added by me)

I used the word physical fact because Paul began to use it. I've tried to avoid using it in response to you because we haven't been using it.

When I say reducing it to a physical fact all I mean is reducing it to the point where someone can perceive it. That reduction is what I am referring to.

So physicalism most certainly claims that "that is all there is".

Do you understand that for me to perceive Mary's knowledge of what it is like to see red is not the same as me knowing what it is like when Mary sees red?

In the first case, I am able to perceive her brain state. The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her knowledge of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state.

In the second case, I would have to actually have that brain state. This is impossible.

You are attributing things to Physicalism that it does not say, because you are misunderstanding what it means to say that everything is reducible to a state where I can perceive it. This only means that I can, in principle, describe everything in terms of my perceptions.

The problem is that you are thinking of reducing knowledge to information, and then converting that information back to knowledge. Nothing physical can be reduced to information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But this is the exact claim that physicalism is making. If everything can be reduced to something that any human can perceive then we are reducing things to information. Anything we can perceive is information, and if everything can be perceived then everything can be reduced to information. I'm still not even clear on how you are differentiating knowledge and information.

This is not what any person who calls himself a physicalist is claiming. You are attacking a nonsensical strawman. No physicalist would claim that you can transform a dog into perceivable information. They would only claim that you can provide a description of the dog in terms of perceptions.

You claim that knowledge is a physical state of the brain.

So what is information if it is not the things we perceive?

The things that we perceive objectively exist. We describe them in terms of our perceptions. Those descriptions are information. The things being described are not. Is that clear enough?

When we say that something is reducible to the physical facts, we just mean that it can be described in terms of physical facts.
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Then why did you object when I made the claim that everything can be reduced to a physical fact?

I only objected when you made it clear that by "reduced to a physical fact" you meant something more than just "described in terms of physical facts".

Those facts are information.
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So everything can be reduced to information. Why did you object?

I object to your use of the word "reduced". You are clearly using it to mean something different than what physicalists mean by it.

The physical thing being described is not information. knowledge is not just information. Reading information describing knowledge is not going to give somebody that knowledge. A physical process is necessary to alter to brain so that it has the knowledge.
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Wait, so ultimately everything about this peanut can be reduced to information. But now you are claiming that the peanut is more then information. But everything can be reduced, so whatever the "more" part is we just need to reduce that part as well. Then we've reduced the peanut to information. There is still a peanut, we have just reduced it to a whole bunch of perceivable facts (information).

This is clearly going nowhere. From now on, I am not going to use the word "reduced". It is ambiguous and unclear. I hereby deny that Physicalism claims that anything can be reduced to physical facts, in the sense that you are using the term.

Physicalism only claims that everything can be described in terms of our perceptions. It does not claim that objects can be transformed into perceptions, or that objects are perceptions, or that objects are information.

For abstract knowledge (the memory of information), a mechanism is already in place to turn the information into knowledge. For empirical knowledge (the memory of an experience), no such mechanism is in place. This has nothing to do with philosophy. It is simply a statement about how the brain works.
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Our brain turns information into knowledge. Great.
But experience has no 'brain mechanism' to turn it into knowledge.

No. Our brains can turn information into abstract knowledge. It cannot turn information into empirical knowledge.

This illustrates the source of our disagreement. A book cannot contain knowledge. It only contains information.
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You claimed our brains can turn information into this knowledge.

Only into abstract knowledge.

So the book contains information, Mary learns it, thereby turning it into knowledge.

Into abstract knowledge. She only has the abstract knowledge. The only (natural) way for her to get the empirical knowledge is to actually see red. In principle, it may be possible to artificially give her this empirical knowledge, but reading a book isn't going to do it.

Those facts are not all there is. The facts are not the neural connections. They are a description of the neural connections. The neural connections are not in the book, only a description of them is. Reading the book will not give Mary those neural connections. It will only give her a description of them.
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Everything about the neural connections is reduced and put in the book. EVERYTHING. A description and everything else.

Wrong. Physicalism does not claim that anything more than the description can be put into the book.

Mary learns everything in the book. Mary learns everything there is that is these neural connections. If there is some part of these neural connections that cannot be reduced to information then we must discard physicalism.

You are not using the word "reduced" the way it is used in the definition of Physicalism. You are attacking a strawman.

Where on Earth did you get the idea that Physicalism claims that physical reality is made of facts? This is absurd!
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You agreed with me earlier in this post. Now you disagree.

I never agreed with that. I just foolishly assumed that when you gave the definition for physicalism, you actually understood that was meant by it. I cannot imagine how anybody could seriously maintain that Physicalism claims what you say it is claiming. Do you really think that Physicalists are that stupid?

I can't put a dog into a book, why should I be able to put a brain state in a book?
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You can reduce everything about the dog into information and put all that information in the book. If there is any part of the dog that can not be reduced then we must reject physicalism.

Is the information in that book a dog? Do you think that is what Physicalism implies?

No, subjective must be defined so that nothing can be both subjective and objective.

Why? Are you not aware that the word "subjective" is used in both Psychology and Neurobiology the way I defined it, all the time? Who decided that the dualists should be the final arbiters on what constitutes proper usage of the English language?

Objective means that any human can perceive the fact.
Subjective means that the fact is only perceived by one person, and in fact can not be perceived by anyone else.

Both of those words mean only what they are defined to mean. Not everybody defines them the way you do.

We use subjective to mean the facts we perceive that others don't, because there are two uses of the word going on.

You use it that way. Not everybody does.

I would like to agree in this thread to use subjective as I defined it above in contrast with objective.

Fine with me. Nothing is subjective. Subjective facts do not exist. This does not change the fact that our only source of information is our experiences.

I'll tell you what, just for clarity, I will use the term pseudo-subjective when referring to things which exist as processes in the brain.


Just to reiterate. I claim that everything can be described in terms of our observations. I call this claim Physicalism. you can assert that physicalism claims that everything can be transformed into information. I agree with you that such a claim is nonsensical. What I don't understand is why you would assert that this is what physicalism claims?

It seems awfully conceited for you (who are not a physicalist) to be deciding what Physicalism means, and to be telling other people that they are not physicalists because they don't believe what you say they should.

Did it ever, even once, occur to you that maybe you have misunderstood the definition of Physicalism? That maybe the physicalists who wrote down that definition meant something different by it than what you originally thought?

Did it ever occur to you, when you realized that what you thought it meant was incoherent, to ask the physicalists to clarify what they meant, rather than just assuming that they did mean something incoherent?

Dr. Stupid

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


That would come under dualism. Physicalism can not co-exist with dualism so....

In physicalism, physical things are tangible, ie they are physical in their existence or affect on the physical world (Stimpy help me if I got that wrong). So the "mental" world is physical, not dualistic.

Not that I'm saying physicalism is correct and dualism is false; or vice versa... Everytime I think I've got it either way I realise I don't, so I'm not quite willing to commit to either position yet...

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


You don't understand UE's assertions. I don't either but at least I've read his posts.

He believes that there is only one conscoiusness, so it doesn't need to communicate with anything else or reach any agreements.

Perhaps you can start at the begining of this massive thread and by the time you've reached here you will have a deep understanding of UE's assertion. Then, perhaps, you can try to offer a compelling refutation.

Read what I wrote sir. Don't presume what I have and have not read.

Cheers,

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


David: the process we call science would be a method for describing relationships between different qualia that have a stable manifestation. The process of eliminating subjective bias and constructing descriptions of underlying mathematical principles would not have to change at all.

Stimpy: They would be rendered meaningless. All of the methods for controlling for subjective bias are logically based on the assumption that reality is objective.


You are arguing the inconsistencies of my case from your perspective. If you do this, then of course there are going to be problems. You have to step out of your idea of a separate objective reality for a moment.

The various methods for controlling for subjective bias used by scientists for the last couple of hundred years have been followed through carrying the assumption of objective reality. However, my point is that they may not need to use this assumption. Just because it has been done one particular way in the past doesn't mean that no other way can be found.

Subjective and objective are certainly not meaningless descriptions under my view. As descriptions, they are relationships between qualia. The stable relationships we derive mathematical relationships from. This process is science.


Sure, a solipsist can go through the motions of the scientific process, and it will still work, but if you do this, then science is no longer a logical framework for understanding the world. It is simply a heuristic method for which you have no logical reason for believing should be reliable.

No. It is reliable in the sense that it will provide predictions about my observations (qualia) under certain conditions (also qualia).

I make some observations (qualia) and construct a mathematical description. I get F=ma. My description (qualia) is reliable in the sense that it will provide predictions about how the qualia it refers to can be described further, i.e, under different conditions.


As I have said before, this essentially amounts to saying "the assumptions of the scientific method are really false, but reality behaves exactly as though they were true". This is pure metaphysical nonsense. If reality behaves exactly as though the assumptions of the scientific method were true, then in what meaningful sense are they not true? And if it does not, then clearly science is not going to work!


Your observations do not behave exactly as though assumptions of objective reality were true. This is the meaningful sense in that mathematical relationships are not true knowledge about something other than their own existence (qualia). You have not demonstrated at all how science is not going to work under my philosophy. You are just objecting to the meaning of the mathematical descriptions. I thought there was no room for meaning in materialism. ;)

[Interesting Ian]

Stimp,

So not all knowledge is information. In addition to all possible (physical) information, we need to have particular brain states to know what phenomenological redness is (redness as experienced). Presumably this would apply not only to the experience of redness but to absolutely all qualia.

But this then implies the redness quale, and all other qualia, is within the brain state. It cannot exist independently of your brain state, otherwise the totality of physical information regarding the world would include it; which it doesn't otherwise Mary wouldn't learn anything new in first experiencing red. And remember, the external world in abstraction from any brain states is purely informational (All physical facts = all information from third person perspective + knowledge only existing from the perspective of brain states)

But if all our qualia are not constitutive of the external world this means that all our perceptual experiences are a lie. It also seems to be idealism you are advocating (albeit not subjective idealism) rather than any sort of materialism. What say you to this?

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
As there appears to be quite a few people who don't understand the Mary problem I have a link (in ppt format). In order to facilitate your understanding I would suggest you crank up the volume.

http://www.hku.hk/philodep/courses/max/phil2022/2022knowagr.ppt This is a good link, and it seems to be a clear presentation of the argument. When I look at it, this is pretty much what I get out of it:


Physicalism assumes that any physiological process can be controlled just by reading and thinking about it.
Mary, who is raised from birth in a colorless room, will be able to distinguish between different colors when she leaves the room because she read about how people process colors.
Therefore, materialism is false.
So we have one demonstratably false statement (see my example above about head rotations and eye movements), one highly suspicious statement (Mary will likely not have the proper brain wiring to distinguish between different colors, since she was not exposed to color during her critical early development period), and a nonsequitur.

Seeing red is not something we think about. It is not something we have direct control over. It is not something we choose to do. Seeing red is a reflex. We don't think of it that way because there is no visibly twitching muscle. If you look at a red object, can you force yourself to see it as blue? No? Then seeing red is a reflex.

The eye rotating opposite the head is a reflex. We have a very thorough understanding of how and why the eye rotates opposite the head. The process can be completely described in engineering terms. There are lots of scientific papers written about it (do a Google or PubMed search on "vestibulo ocular reflex" if you are curious). You can read them all and become a world expert on how the eye moves, which neurons are involved, etc. Yet you will not be able to modify the way your eyes move unless you go through some adaptation process. This is because the areas of the brain that perform higher level congnitive thinking do not have direct access to (i.e., cannot necessarily directly modify) the areas of the brain that control lower level stimulus processing and muscle control.

We don't discuss much the "experience" of having your eyes move automatically when you move your head. It just happens. Yet we go on endlessly discussing the "experience" of being able to distinguish between different colors. Yes, it is a more complex process, but not a completely mysterious one.

If I have time later, I'll try to dig up some vision psychology references that show that our "perception" (experience) of color is not as infallible as most people assume. It is probably more complex than most people realize (meaning there are many separate processes going on simultaneously that we are not aware of that allow us to differentiate between colors), and at the same time, there is probably not as much to it as most people think (i.e., that there is something going on that can never be explained).

Listen, I'm not an expert on the Knowledge Argument. Maybe there are some interesting arguments relating to it. But can't we all just agree that this particular example is a poor demonstration of why materialism is false?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

DavidSmith said:Subjective and objective are certainly not meaningless descriptions under my view. As descriptions, they are relationships between qualia. The stable relationships we derive mathematical relationships from. This process is science.
How do you decide which relationships are stable and is that decision-making process part of science?

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Paul
A physical fact is a part of the objective model of reality built upon the tenets of physicalism. Physicalism starts with a declaration that there exists an objective reality made of atoms/strings/waves/energy and that everything which exists can be explained in terms of this model. Physicalism requires that ALL THINGS are ultimately derived from this proposed objective reality i.e. that all things which exist are ultimately objective. That is why Stimpson claims that his mind does not only exist for him.

They are not per-person. Anyone can slice your brain open and verify it for themselves.
I think we should be careful to not mix up "the brain" and "the functioning of the brain". You cannot slice up a working brain and still have it working. You can examine the connections in the brain which control how it works, but this is not the same has somehow being inside the working brain.

Here's what is I'm sure a tired example: What is a song? It is certainly not the sheet music. It is not the instruments. It is not the performers. It is not even the encoded bits of a performance on a CD. The song only exists as it is being listened to. Everything else is just descriptions of the song or devices used to produce the song. Is a song "objective"? I'm not sure what that would mean (but I'm sure there are some philosophers who have answered this question - maybe you have a good answer already?).

Likewise, the mind only exists when the brain is properly functioning. I think this is why it is so hard to get a handle on. I don't pretend to completely understand it, but I think it is a potentially understandable process.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Chuck said:But can't we all just agree that this particular example is a poor demonstration of why materialism is false?
I'll stipulate to that!

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat



The things that we perceive objectively exist. We describe them in terms of our perceptions. Those descriptions are information. The things being described are not. Is that clear enough?




So neither our perceptions, nor the information entering our senses, is constitutive of the thing itself, but rather is somehow representative of the thing itself? And yet you make no ontological commitments :rolleyes:

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

How do you decide which relationships are stable and is that decision-making process part of science?

~~ Paul

How close they fluctuate around/agree with/adhere to the mathematical descriptions. I think we have this decision making process as part of science in the form of statistical analysis.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



Surely you are not going to assert that Physicalism claims that everything is information? That the description is the reality?

That position is easily refuted, and you don't need Mary to do it. You are attacking a strawman here. Physicalism only claims that everything can be mathematically described in terms of our perceptions.



No I am not asserting that physicalism claims everythign is information. I am asserting that the reduction process reduces everything to the point where I will call it information. I did this to define information because you did not. This was in response to you claiming that perceivable things are not knowledge.

So things that are mathematically described are not information?


Yes.



Wrong. The memory was not included in the book. A description of the memory was included in the book. You can no more include the memory in the book than you could include Mary's brain in the book. The book only contains descriptions.


Physicalism states that the totality of everything that is the memory can be reduced to a state where it can be perceived. We all of that down and we have written down everything that memory is.

If we cannot write it all down then physicalism is rendered false.

Again, to make it clear, physicalism asserts that everything is reducable to a state where it is perceived.

We can write down everything we perceive.

We can write down everything about that memory. Everything that it is.


Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between a thing, and the description of that thing? Do you acknowledge that Physicalism does not claim that things are equivalent their descriptions? If you do not acknowledge these two points, then we have nothing to discuss.


Physicalism claims that everything can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. Everything.

So the reduced state (which I am calling information) must be equal to the original state, otherwise we have not included everything!

I understand that physicalism does not claim that things = information. I am claiming that if you have the totallity of information about a thing then it logically follows that you have all the information that there is about that thing.

So how can Mary gain more?


I have already answered this question. All you are doing is phrasing it in a counter-intuitive way, so that it sounds contradictory.

It is really simple. Mary cannot learn everything there is to know about seeing red by reading a book. This fact does not contradict Physicalism, because Physicalism in no way claims that she should be able to. Physicalism only claims that a complete description of the process of seeing red should be possible. It in no way implies that knowing that description is equivalent to knowing what it is like to see red.


Uh, no actually we already agreed that physicalism claims that everything is reducable to the point where it can be perceived. We can write down what we perceive. Everything about red can be written down in the book. Mary learns everything in the book. Mary learns everythng about red.

It's all very simple.



You keep using the word "reduced" as though it somehow implied that the brain state is magically transformed into information, and stored in the book. All it means is that the change in her brain is described in the third book.


Yes, it implies that the brain state is transformed into information. We then store it in the book.

I would say knowledge but you reserved that word for another definition so now I say information.


She can learn it. She just can't learn it by reading a book. The book only contains a description of the brain state. For her to learn it, she must acquire that brain state. Physicalism only requires that we be able to describe the brain state. It does not require that we be able to give somebody that brain state.


No, the book contains all the perceivable information about the memory. All the perceivable information is in the book. All of it. And everything is reducable to perceivable information.



You defined knowledge as the physical state of the brain. So what you are asking me is this:

"Do you understand that to perceive Mary's physical state of her brain when she see's red is not the same as to have the physical state of Mary's brain when she see's red."

Correct. But everything is reducable to perception, and if you have all of that perception then you have the thing.

If Mary's "knowledge" consists of 5 brain dots, and you gain a perception of those 5 brain dots, then you gained Mary's "knowledge". If Mary's "knowledge" is more then the 5 brain dots in any way that cannot be reduced to a perceivable state then physicalism is false.

[quote]
In the first case, I am able to perceive her brain state. The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her knowledge of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state.


Again, you defined knowledge as brain state. So let us re-write your sentance to see what you are truly saying:

"The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her brain state of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state."

According to physicalism there can be nothing more then that brain state. So if I fully learn and understand a description of everything there is then how can I learn MORE when I see the thing?


In the second case, I would have to actually have that brain state. This is impossible.

You are attributing things to Physicalism that it does not say, because you are misunderstanding what it means to say that everything is reducible to a state where I can perceive it. This only means that I can, in principle, describe everything in terms of my perceptions.


No we still agree. It means that we can describe EVERYTHING. So we reduce and describe everything about red, memory of red, knowledge Nth of red, etc.. Mary learns and understands it all. She has now learned and understood everything about red etc.. but when she see's red she learns something MORE.

We still agree, you are just realizing that physicalism is false.


This is not what any person who calls himself a physicalist is claiming. You are attacking a nonsensical strawman. No physicalist would claim that you can transform a dog into perceivable information. They would only claim that you can provide a description of the dog in terms of perceptions.


Exactly, a complete description of everything that dog is. So if we replace dog with red and say that we can provide a complete description of everything that red is then Mary learns that description of what red is then how can she learn something more when she see's red.


The things that we perceive objectively exist. We describe them in terms of our perceptions. Those descriptions are information. The things being described are not. Is that clear enough?


The descriptions are information. Correct. As you progress through your rebuttal we agree again.

Mary possesses all the information about red etc.. but see's red and gains something more. Hence we must discard physicalism.


I only objected when you made it clear that by "reduced to a physical fact" you meant something more than just "described in terms of physical facts".


Wait, now you are saying that a description of the physical fact is different from a physical fact? Those two are the same thing.

It's a fact that my toes are yellow.
It's a description that my toes are yellow.

The same.

The fact that my toes are yellow, however, is not the same as my toes.

Different.


I object to your use of the word "reduced". You are clearly using it to mean something different than what physicalists mean by it.


No I mean what physicalists mean.

Reduced = Rendered

Reduced to a state where any human can perceive = Rendered to a state where any human can perceive.


This is clearly going nowhere. From now on, I am not going to use the word "reduced". It is ambiguous and unclear. I hereby deny that Physicalism claims that anything can be reduced to physical facts, in the sense that you are using the term.


You are changing physicalism! Ok, now we need to come up with something that will allow a non-physical "agent".

I, of course, am using physical to mean both caused and causal.


Physicalism only claims that everything can be described in terms of our perceptions. It does not claim that objects can be transformed into perceptions, or that objects are perceptions, or that objects are information.

Yes, exactly. It is the claim that everything can be 'described'. It is described by rendering it to such a state that it can be perceived. We describe the perceptions.



No. Our brains can turn information into abstract knowledge. It cannot turn information into empirical knowledge.


So there are two types of knowledge? Are they both brain-states?


Only into abstract knowledge.



Into abstract knowledge. She only has the abstract knowledge. The only (natural) way for her to get the empirical knowledge is to actually see red. In principle, it may be possible to artificially give her this empirical knowledge, but reading a book isn't going to do it.

If knowledge is a brain state and the brain state can be completely described and placed in the book then she can gain that knowledge by learning and understanding the description in the book.

If you can only gain the knowledge by seeing red then you can not reduce that knowledge to a complete description.

Changing the terminology will not somehow make physiclism true.


Wrong. Physicalism does not claim that anything more than the description can be put into the book.


Exactly.


You are not using the word "reduced" the way it is used in the definition of Physicalism. You are attacking a strawman.


No, you are changing physiclism which is exactly what I want to do. Hooray.


I never agreed with that. I just foolishly assumed that when you gave the definition for physicalism, you actually understood that was meant by it. I cannot imagine how anybody could seriously maintain that Physicalism claims what you say it is claiming. Do you really think that Physicalists are that stupid?

Is the information in that book a dog? Do you think that is what Physicalism implies?

Why? Are you not aware that the word "subjective" is used in both Psychology and Neurobiology the way I defined it, all the time? Who decided that the dualists should be the final arbiters on what constitutes proper usage of the English language?


First two paragraphs have been covered.

Subjective is used differently in philosphy.

Just like I can say we have the same car if we both drive Honda Civic's but in philosphy that would mean we have the same identical car. It is the way the word is used. This is a different argument, anyway.

No more tangents, let us redefine physicalism so that the "agent" that does exist can be accepted into our belief structures.


Both of those words mean only what they are defined to mean. Not everybody defines them the way you do.



You use it that way. Not everybody does.



Fine with me. Nothing is subjective. Subjective facts do not exist. This does not change the fact that our only source of information is our experiences.


Yes, physiclism requires that subjective facts do not exist.


I'll tell you what, just for clarity, I will use the term pseudo-subjective when referring to things which exist as processes in the brain.


ok


Just to reiterate. I claim that everything can be described in terms of our observations. I call this claim Physicalism. you can assert that physicalism claims that everything can be transformed into information. I agree with you that such a claim is nonsensical. What I don't understand is why you would assert that this is what physicalism claims?


It is what you are claiming.

Anything + perception = description.

Anything can be rendered into a description.

Descriptions are information.

Anything can be rendered into information.


It seems awfully conceited for you (who are not a physicalist) to be deciding what Physicalism means, and to be telling other people that they are not physicalists because they don't believe what you say they should.

Did it ever, even once, occur to you that maybe you have misunderstood the definition of Physicalism? That maybe the physicalists who wrote down that definition meant something different by it than what you originally thought?

Did it ever occur to you, when you realized that what you thought it meant was incoherent, to ask the physicalists to clarify what they meant, rather than just assuming that they did mean something incoherent?

Dr. Stupid


Yes, we are redefining physicalism. I will continue to press for the redefinition of physiclism until it is such that it will accept the "agent".

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Stimp,

So not all knowledge is information. In addition to all possible (physical) information, we need to have particular brain states to know what phenomenological redness is (redness as experienced). Presumably this would apply not only to the experience of redness but to absolutely all qualia.

But this then implies the redness quale, and all other qualia, is within the brain state. It cannot exist independently of your brain state, otherwise the totality of physical information regarding the world would include it; which it doesn't otherwise Mary wouldn't learn anything new in first experiencing red. And remember, the external world in abstraction from any brain states is purely informational (All physical facts = all information from third person perspective + knowledge only existing from the perspective of brain states)

But if all our qualia are not constitutive of the external world this means that all our perceptual experiences are a lie. It also seems to be idealism you are advocating (albeit not subjective idealism) rather than any sort of materialism. What say you to this?

Exactly :)

I figured out how to unblock you btw, sorry about all that tiff and such.

Stimpson certainly is no longer a physiclist in the classic sense.

[ChuckieR]

Paul:
Again, you will not acknowledge that subjective physical facts exist.
UCE:
Well, until today I hadn't heard anyone propose such an idea....

Maybe I can state this differently. Think again about how the eyes rotate left 20 degrees when the head rotates right 20 degrees. There is essentially a "gain factor" between the rotation sensors in my ear and the eye muscle control. I am not aware of that gain factor. I cannot directly control that gain factor. In that sense it is subjective.

Yet, someone could go poking and proding in my brain and determine that in fact that gain factor exists, and could show the physical process that the neurons perform to implement that gain factor. In that sense it is objective.

So you cannot "self reflect" on this gain factor (treating your brain as a "black box"), yet it is absolutely scientifically accessable (it is objective).

Does that clarify it?

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by ChuckieR
Paul:
Again, you will not acknowledge that subjective physical facts exist.
UCE:
Well, until today I hadn't heard anyone propose such an idea....

Maybe I can state this differently. Think again about how the eyes rotate left 20 degrees when the head rotates right 20 degrees. There is essentially a "gain factor" between the rotation sensors in my ear and the eye muscle control. I am not aware of that gain factor. I cannot directly control that gain factor. In that sense it is subjective.

Yet, someone could go poking and proding in my brain and determine that in fact that gain factor exists, and could show the physical process that the neurons perform to implement that gain factor. In that sense it is objective.

So you cannot "self reflect" on this gain factor (treating your brain as a "black box"), yet it is absolutely scientifically accessable (it is objective).

Does that clarify it?

It certainly clarifies that you don't know what subjective and objective mean.

Subjective does not require that you 'directly control' something.

There are many things I do not directly control, have they all become subjective?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

Rusty
You can reduce everything about the dog into information and put all that information in the book. If there is any part of the dog that can not be reduced then we must reject physicalism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Stimp
Is the information in that book a dog? Do you think that is what Physicalism implies?



There seems to be a lot of confusion and talking at cross purposes here. The information isn't literally the dog. That the mistake central state materialism makes (identity theory). Rather the dog is a function of that information. The information entails the dog. Once you are acquanited with that information, and if you're a functionalist (which most materialists are), it should in principle be possible to work out what the dog looks like, and is thinking, purely from the information. Is that correct?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


Yes, I do hope that one day when we discover more about the brain such an experiment would be possible. I hope I live to that day.
[/B]


Are you alive now?


Physicalism claims that everything about red can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived.


So if it can be perceived then we can write it down.




The second statement doesn't follow but I agree that we can codify it. That was my computer example.


Everything was reduced, perceived, then written in the book.



Forget about the book. what is wrong with my example in wich I can perceive the redness using only physical information?


You did not follow my example.

Everything is reducable to a state where it can be perceived. We can write down what we perceive. We reduce everything about red to what we perceive and write down everything about red. Mary learns everything about red.

Mary see's red. Mary learns something new.

How could she learn something new if she already learned everything about red?



Again that is a claim you invented. I stated the requerimentys of physicalism (codificaction of information and replication in a pure physical way)

We did not continue the story about the 'brain augmenting' case. If we say that Mary's brain is augmented such that she believes she has seen red then we are going beyond what the Mary and the black/white room thought experiment does.

You can not force Mary to posses a false belief without doing something different then the though experiment we are discussing.

Please elaborate

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Uh oh, another word I don't understand: ontology.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Davidsmith73,

David: the process we call science would be a method for describing relationships between different qualia that have a stable manifestation. The process of eliminating subjective bias and constructing descriptions of underlying mathematical principles would not have to change at all.

Stimpy: They would be rendered meaningless. All of the methods for controlling for subjective bias are logically based on the assumption that reality is objective.
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You are arguing the inconsistencies of my case from your perspective. If you do this, then of course there are going to be problems.

I am arguing from the perspective of the logical basis of the scientific method.

You have to step out of your idea of a separate objective reality for a moment.

I can step out of this idea, so long as you realize that the scientific method, as it is formally defined, does not exist there.

The various methods for controlling for subjective bias used by scientists for the last couple of hundred years have been followed through carrying the assumption of objective reality. However, my point is that they may not need to use this assumption. Just because it has been done one particular way in the past doesn't mean that no other way can be found.

I already said that they could continue to perform these methods. The point is that they would no longer have any logical justification behind those methods. Science would cease to be a logical framework, and would just become an art, practiced a certain way out of tradition.

Sure, a solipsist can go through the motions of the scientific process, and it will still work, but if you do this, then science is no longer a logical framework for understanding the world. It is simply a heuristic method for which you have no logical reason for believing should be reliable.
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No. It is reliable in the sense that it will provide predictions about my observations (qualia) under certain conditions (also qualia).

Why? When you understand why scientific evidence allows us to logically draw conclusions from our observations, you will understand why it could no longer do so under solipsism.

I make some observations (qualia) and construct a mathematical description. I get F=ma. My description (qualia) is reliable in the sense that it will provide predictions about how the qualia it refers to can be described further, i.e, under different conditions.

The problem is that you are already thinking of science as some heuristic algorithm, so eliminating the axioms of science is no big deal for you.

What you fail to understand is that without those axioms, science is no longer logically coherent.

I realize that within your metaphysical framework, you can invent ad-hoc explanations for why the scientific method should give useful results, and go on using it, but this is not scientific, nor is it logical.

Your observations do not behave exactly as though assumptions of objective reality were true.

Of course they do.

This is the meaningful sense in that mathematical relationships are not true knowledge about something other than their own existence (qualia).

I have no idea what you mean by "true knowledge".

You have not demonstrated at all how science is not going to work under my philosophy.

You are confusing two things: Science, and the scientific method.

Science does not exist under your philosophy at all. You could still use the scientific method under your philosophy, and it will still work. The reason it will still work is because the axioms of science are true, and they remain true regardless of whether you choose to believe in them or not.

You are just objecting to the meaning of the mathematical descriptions. I thought there was no room for meaning in materialism.

I have no idea where you got that idea.

Ian,

So not all knowledge is information. In addition to all possible (physical) information, we need to have particular brain states to know what phenomenological redness is (redness as experienced). Presumably this would apply not only to the experience of redness but to absolutely all qualia.

The qualia are brain states. Clearly you must have the brain state to have the qualia.

But this then implies the redness quale, and all other qualia, is within the brain state. It cannot exist independently of your brain state, otherwise the totality of physical information regarding the world would include it; which it doesn't otherwise Mary wouldn't learn anything new in first experiencing red.

Your brain state is a part of the totality of the physical world. The information about your brain state is a part of the totality of the information regarding the World.

And remember, the external world in abstraction from any brain states is purely informational (All physical facts = all information from third person perspective + knowledge only existing from the perspective of brain states)

I do not agree with that statement.

But if all our qualia are not constitutive of the external world this means that all our perceptual experiences are a lie.

The qualia are brain states, and those brain states are a part of the external World. You are a part of the World, not something separate from it.

It also seems to be idealism you are advocating (albeit not subjective idealism) rather than any sort of materialism. What say you to this?

That it is not an accurate representation of my position.

The things that we perceive objectively exist. We describe them in terms of our perceptions. Those descriptions are information. The things being described are not. Is that clear enough?
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So neither our perceptions, nor the information entering our senses, is constitutive of the thing itself, but rather is somehow representative of the thing itself? And yet you make no ontological commitments

Exactly.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Oh my gosh, yet another one: entail. Ian said:There seems to be a lot of confusion and talking at cross purposes here. The information isn't literally the dog. That the mistake central state materialism makes (identity theory). Rather the dog is a function of that information. The information entails the dog. Once you are acquanited with that information, and if you're a functionalist (which most materialists are), it should in principle be possible to work out what the dog looks like, and is thinking, purely from the information. Is that correct?
Which of the following definition of entail from Webster's are you using?

"1 : to restrict (property) by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof
2 a : to confer, assign, or transmit as if by entail : FASTEN *entailed on them indelible disgrace Robert Browning* b : to fix (a person) permanently in some condition or status *entail him and his heirs unto the crown Shakespeare*
3 : to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result *the project will entail considerable expense"

I suspect you might be able to work out what the dog is like, but I doubt you could experience what it's like to be a dog.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Oh my gosh, yet another one: entail. Ian said:
Which of the following definition of entail from Webster's are you using?

"1 : to restrict (property) by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof
2 a : to confer, assign, or transmit as if by entail : FASTEN *entailed on them indelible disgrace Robert Browning* b : to fix (a person) permanently in some condition or status *entail him and his heirs unto the crown Shakespeare*
3 : to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result *the project will entail considerable expense"

I suspect you might be able to work out what the dog is like, but I doubt you could experience what it's like to be a dog.

~~ Paul

In which case what it is LIKE to be a dog cannot be derived from the totality of physical facts about the world. If it cannot be derived how can you therefore claim reductive materialism is true?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:In which case what it is LIKE to be a dog cannot be derived from the totality of physical facts about the world. If it cannot be derived how can you therefore claim reductive materialism is true?
Please point me to the definition of reductive materialism you are using, just so I can see if I agree with it. Also, please define "what it is like to be." You can use E-prime if it helps. While you're at it, perhaps you could define ontology using E-prime.

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
Please point me to the definition of reductive materialism you are using, just so I can see if I agree with it. Also, please define "what it is like to be." You can use E-prime if it helps. While you're at it, perhaps you could define ontology using E-prime.

~~ Paul

Paul,

E-Prime is UcE's hobby horse. Last go-round on it, he had a horrendous time following the rules. He still maintains that people writing e-prime can't disagree.

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Aw dang, I so much wanted to hear "what it is like to be" defined with E-prime.

People using E-prime can't disagree? I think he means people drinking good beer can't disagree.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
Please point me to the definition of reductive materialism you are using, just so I can see if I agree with it. Also, please define "what it is like to be." You can use E-prime if it helps. While you're at it, perhaps you could define ontology using E-prime.

~~ Paul

E-Prime eliminates both the so-called verb "To Be" and Ontology at the same time. If forces all descriptions of 'things' to explicitly refer to their relationships rather than assigning one thing to be another thing. If you really want to get to the bottom of this problem then I might suggest that instead of trying to have this discussion in E-Prime, you try to determine why it is that E-Prime is so effective at reducing the confusion caused by these issues.

The primary meaning of "to be" is "to exist".

Everything you can name exists in some way or another, otherwise it wouldn't have name. E-Prime forces you to define the relationships of everything which exists with respect to everything else which exists. So the question is what is the relationship between subjective experiences and physical brain processes? What is the relationship between the physical world and the mental world? Specifically is that relationship a side-by-side relationship (dualism) or does one of the realms encompass the other (monism), and how do you reach a conclusion as to which encompasses which?

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Paul,

E-Prime is UcE's hobby horse. Last go-round on it, he had a horrendous time following the rules. He still maintains that people writing e-prime can't disagree.

Cheers,

They can't disagree about ontology, because ontology is about the nature of Beingness and E-Prime stops you using to be. You are prevented form assuming things about the nature of being.

Okay...in E-Prime.

The word "ontology" means the study of the nature of existence and the relationship between the nature of the existence of mental things and the nature of the existence of physical things.

[BillHoyt]

Paul,

UcE makes his broader claim about E-prime in this quote:
Whatever we are discussing E-Prime forces descriptions from the subjective perspective - and in doing so forces language to conform with our subjective perspective. So in E-Prime we cannot disagree.

UcE,

As we continue this discussion, please remain in E-prime.

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:They can't disagree about ontology, because ontology is about the nature of Beingness and E-Prime stops you using to be. You are prevented form assuming things about the nature of being.
So instead you assume things about the nature of existence. The philosophical disagreements across the ages do not evaporate because you stop using a certain verb. Although many of them might evaporate if we could just agree on the definitions of some other words.

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Paul

The primary definition of "subjective" mean "in a mind" i.e. it has no meaning to anyone but the subject. It is only true for you. Things in your mind are only true for you, because they are in your mind. Things in your brain are true for everybody because, unlike your mind, your brain is available in objective reality for anyone to examine.

How could it be any clearer?
I'm not sure what the true in "true for you" and "true for everybody" means. The mind is the "behavior" of the brain. We can certainly observe the behavior of others' brains, and it certainly will not have direct control of our behavior. But as a thought experiment, you could wire more and more direct connections between two brains and eventually, yes, they would "experience" the same things (at least, this is what I would guess would happen).

Remember the split brain experiments? Essentially two "minds" in one head. We normally don't notice any conflict because the two sides of our brain are in constant communication.

Anything which exists in the physical world MUST BE objective. You are saying it is 'per person' because it is part of your body - but your body is itself part of the objective physical world. Your mind is subjective because it does not matter how carefully anyone disects your brain they will not gain access to your mind!

This is SO SIMPLE! :rolleyes: In what sense does a song exist in the physical world? At any "instant" in time, there is no song. The song does not exist in the atoms, or the instruments, or the sheet music. The song is a process that plays out over time. The mind is the behavioral process of the brain that plays out over time.

You can definitely dissect the brain (at least metaphorically, with a super fMRI++ of the future, for instance) and understand how it works and observe the behavior of someone reacting to a particular stimulus.

You will not "experience" what someone else is experiencing if you look at their fMRI++ because that does not have direct internal connections to your brain.

I read your second to last sentence as "Your mind is subjective because it does not matter how carefully anyone disects your brain their brain will not behave identically to your brain!", which is true. Probably the only way to "have access to" someone else's mind is to have your mind wired exactly like theirs, but then you would be a copy of that other person. I'm not sure in what other sense you could "have access to" someone else's mind... the whole "what is it like to be a bat" thing.

Originally posted by BillHoyt
Paul,

UcE makes his broader claim about E-prime in this quote:


UcE,

As we continue this discussion, please remain in E-prime.

Cheers,

In E-Prime the materialist claim that "Qualia ARE brain processes" cannot be used, so we must explicitly declare what replaces the word ARE in this sentence in materialism.

Some suggestions :

Brain processes correlate with qualia.
Brain processes cause qualia.
Brain processes differ in no way from qualia.
The meaning of the term "Brain process" does not differ from the meaning of the term "qualia"
Qualia have no existence at all, only brain processes exist.
Brain processes exist in the physical world and qualia exist in the mental world.

edit to remove the last two for closer examination :

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]UcE said:
So instead you assume things about the nature of existence.


You can't do that either. You must specify the relationship between their respective ways of existing, or you cannot use them in the same sentence together.


The philosophical disagreements across the ages do not evaporate because you stop using a certain verb.


They are one hell of a lot easier to comprehend.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


In E-Prime the materialist claim that "Qualia ARE brain processes" cannot be used, so we must explicitly declare what replaces the word ARE in this sentence in materialism.

Do I already see a violation?

Cheers,

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
[B
They are one hell of a lot easier to comprehend. [/B]

Oops. I see another!

Cheers,

We build a conceptual model of the physical world to describe the behaviour of an external reality we perceive within the mental world, and we test our model with science.


Materialism :

We build a conceptual model of the mental world to describe the behaviour of an internal reality we have posited exists within the physical world which we originally perceived in the mental world. Stimpson has posited that it exists withing the physical world so that we can test this assertion with the scientific method. Can we test it with the scientific method? If we cannot test it with the scientific method then how do we justify positing that it exists within the physical world which we originally perceived within the mental world?

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Oops. I see another!

Cheers,

not very relevant though.....

We can comprehend them more easily.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:We build a conceptual model of the physical world to describe the behaviour of an external reality we perceive within the mental world, and we test our model with science.
I presume this is the definition of mental monism or some such. What are the assumptions of science here?

We build a conceptual model of the mental world to describe the behaviour of an internal reality we have posited exists within the physical world which we originally perceived in the mental world.
You lost me, but perhaps you mean:

We build a conceptual model of the internal world that arises from the brain that we know exists within the physical world that we perceive with that brain, and we test everything with science.

~~ Paul

[Jethro]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
If it means "is identical to" then your statement is clearly wrong, since the experience itself and the correlating process clearly have completely different descriptions. I guess I don't see why this follows. Certainly things can be described in multiple ways, especially if those descriptions address different aspects of the same thing.Materialism must claim that the experience and the physical process are both the same thing and different things. Are they the same process? Are they 'different processes'? The problem for materialism is that they are the same process, but viewed from two completely perspectives, but that this perspective shift is totally unaccountable within materialism.Why?

But at any rate, allow me to be more precise.

Elecromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of approximately 700 nm enters my eye. It strikes a receptor cell. This receptor triggers a nerve cascade. This nerve cascade triggers portions of the visual cortex. Other portions of my brain process the information and do things like distinguish objects from the background and recognize faces. This approximately describes, in terms of the physical events occurring in my brain, the experience of seeing red.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Surely you are not going to assert that Physicalism claims that everything is information? That the description is the reality?

That position is easily refuted, and you don't need Mary to do it. You are attacking a strawman here. Physicalism only claims that everything can be mathematically described in terms of our perceptions.
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No I am not asserting that physicalism claims everythign is information. I am asserting that the reduction process reduces everything to the point where I will call it information. I did this to define information because you did not. This was in response to you claiming that perceivable things are not knowledge.

So things that are mathematically described are not information?

Of course they are not. The mathematical description is information.

Wrong. The memory was not included in the book. A description of the memory was included in the book. You can no more include the memory in the book than you could include Mary's brain in the book. The book only contains descriptions.
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Physicalism states that the totality of everything that is the memory can be reduced to a state where it can be perceived. We all of that down and we have written down everything that memory is.

Once again, you are using the word "reduced" in a completely different way than the physicalists. All the above means, within the context of physicalism, is that a complete description can be made of the memory, in terms of percievable things.

If we cannot write it all down then physicalism is rendered false.

Again, to make it clear, physicalism asserts that everything is reducable to a state where it is perceived.

We can write down everything we perceive.

We can write down everything about that memory. Everything that it is.

You can assert that this is physicalism all you want, but this is not what any physicalist believes or claims. You are attacking a strawman based on a misunderstanding of the description of physicalism you read.

Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between a thing, and the description of that thing? Do you acknowledge that Physicalism does not claim that things are equivalent their descriptions? If you do not acknowledge these two points, then we have nothing to discuss.
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Physicalism claims that everything can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. Everything.

So the reduced state (which I am calling information) must be equal to the original state, otherwise we have not included everything!

Jesus Christ, Man! Can't you just answer the question? Would you at least acknowledge that we disagree about what physicalism claims, rather than just repeating what you think it claims over and over again like a broken record?

I understand that physicalism does not claim that things = information. I am claiming that if you have the totallity of information about a thing then it logically follows that you have all the information that there is about that thing.

Well duh, but having all the information is not the same as having the thing.

So how can Mary gain more?

She can gain the thing itself.

It is really simple. Mary cannot learn everything there is to know about seeing red by reading a book. This fact does not contradict Physicalism, because Physicalism in no way claims that she should be able to. Physicalism only claims that a complete description of the process of seeing red should be possible. It in no way implies that knowing that description is equivalent to knowing what it is like to see red.
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Uh, no actually we already agreed that physicalism claims that everything is reducable to the point where it can be perceived. We can write down what we perceive. Everything about red can be written down in the book. Mary learns everything in the book. Mary learns everythng about red.

We agreed on that first statement, but we do not agree on what it means, or on any of the conclusions you have drawn from it.

She can learn it. She just can't learn it by reading a book. The book only contains a description of the brain state. For her to learn it, she must acquire that brain state. Physicalism only requires that we be able to describe the brain state. It does not require that we be able to give somebody that brain state.
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No, the book contains all the perceivable information about the memory. All the perceivable information is in the book. All of it. And everything is reducable to perceivable information.

You are misrepresenting physicalism, plain and simple.

You defined knowledge as the physical state of the brain. So what you are asking me is this:

"Do you understand that to perceive Mary's physical state of her brain when she see's red is not the same as to have the physical state of Mary's brain when she see's red."

Correct. But everything is reducable to perception, and if you have all of that perception then you have the thing.

Once again, you are using a different meaning of the word reducible than the physicalist are. Why won't you acknowledge this?

If Mary's "knowledge" consists of 5 brain dots, and you gain a perception of those 5 brain dots, then you gained Mary's "knowledge".

Obviously not. If you gain perception of those five dots, then that is what you have. you do not have the five dots.

If Mary's "knowledge" is more then the 5 brain dots in any way that cannot be reduced to a perceivable state then physicalism is false.

Mary's knowledge is not more than the 5 brain dots. But since those 5 brain dots are percievable, this is perfectly fine.

In the first case, I am able to perceive her brain state. The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her knowledge of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state.
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Again, you defined knowledge as brain state. So let us re-write your sentance to see what you are truly saying:

"The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her brain state of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state."

According to physicalism there can be nothing more then that brain state. So if I fully learn and understand a description of everything there is then how can I learn MORE when I see the thing?

Because you can also have the brain state itself. I have already explained this.

If I give you a complete description of a dog, then you still don't have a dog. If I give you a real dog, you have still gained something.

You are attributing things to Physicalism that it does not say, because you are misunderstanding what it means to say that everything is reducible to a state where I can perceive it. This only means that I can, in principle, describe everything in terms of my perceptions.
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No we still agree. It means that we can describe EVERYTHING. So we reduce and describe everything about red, memory of red, knowledge Nth of red, etc.. Mary learns and understands it all. She has now learned and understood everything about red etc.. but when she see's red she learns something MORE.

Why is this a problem!?!?!

Before she sees red she has a complete description of what it is like to see red. After she sees red she has the memory of actually having seen red. What is the problem?

Why do you insist that she should be able to acquire the memory of having seen red just by reading a description of it?

This is not what any person who calls himself a physicalist is claiming. You are attacking a nonsensical strawman. No physicalist would claim that you can transform a dog into perceivable information. They would only claim that you can provide a description of the dog in terms of perceptions.
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Exactly, a complete description of everything that dog is. So if we replace dog with red and say that we can provide a complete description of everything that red is then Mary learns that description of what red is then how can she learn something more when she see's red.

The same way you get something more when you get the real dog. As I already explained, the description can only give her abstract knowledge. Actually seeing read gives her empirical knowledge. Absatract and empirical knowledge are two physically different things, which are acquired through different physical processes. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?

The things that we perceive objectively exist. We describe them in terms of our perceptions. Those descriptions are information. The things being described are not. Is that clear enough?
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The descriptions are information. Correct. As you progress through your rebuttal we agree again.

Mary possesses all the information about red etc.. but see's red and gains something more. Hence we must discard physicalism.

What she gains is not information about red. What she gains is the memory of having seen red. Memories are not information, remember?

I only objected when you made it clear that by "reduced to a physical fact" you meant something more than just "described in terms of physical facts".
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Wait, now you are saying that a description of the physical fact is different from a physical fact? Those two are the same thing.

I didn't say anything about a description of the physical fact. I said "described in terms of physical facts".

I object to your use of the word "reduced". You are clearly using it to mean something different than what physicalists mean by it.
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No I mean what physicalists mean.

Reduced = Rendered

Reduced to a state where any human can perceive = Rendered to a state where any human can perceive.

That is not what physicalists mean by it. Physicalists mean that it can be described in terms of our perceptions.

This is clearly going nowhere. From now on, I am not going to use the word "reduced". It is ambiguous and unclear. I hereby deny that Physicalism claims that anything can be reduced to physical facts, in the sense that you are using the term.
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You are changing physicalism!

No, I am not. I am clarifying it. The problem is that you do not know what physicalism is. All you know is your misconception of it. And for some reason that I cannot fathom, you refuse to allow actual physicalists to correct your misconceptions. Instead you insist that your definition of it is the correct one, even though nobody who calls himself a physicalist believes what you are claiming it means.

Ok, now we need to come up with something that will allow a non-physical "agent".

Go for it. I suggest you start by coming up with a coherent definition of "agent", and a logical reason to believe it exists. Good luck.

, of course, am using physical to mean both caused and causal.

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest, given that physicalists don't define physical that way either. :rolleyes:

Physicalism only claims that everything can be described in terms of our perceptions. It does not claim that objects can be transformed into perceptions, or that objects are perceptions, or that objects are information.
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Yes, exactly. It is the claim that everything can be 'described'. It is described by rendering it to such a state that it can be perceived. We describe the perceptions.

No, we describe the object in terms of our perceptions.

No. Our brains can turn information into abstract knowledge. It cannot turn information into empirical knowledge.
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So there are two types of knowledge? Are they both brain-states?

Of course. I already explained that. Abstract knowledge is the memory of abstract facts (information). Empirical knowledge is the memory of an experience.

Into abstract knowledge. She only has the abstract knowledge. The only (natural) way for her to get the empirical knowledge is to actually see red. In principle, it may be possible to artificially give her this empirical knowledge, but reading a book isn't going to do it.
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If knowledge is a brain state and the brain state can be completely described and placed in the book then she can gain that knowledge by learning and understanding the description in the book.

No, she cannot. The brain state can be completely described, and that description can be placed in the book, but all Mary will get by reading that book is the information. It will not give her the brain state. She will have abstract knowledge of the description of the empirical knowledge, but she will not have the empirical knowledge.

If you can only gain the knowledge by seeing red then you can not reduce that knowledge to a complete description.

If you can only gain a scar by being cut, then you cannot reduce the scar to a complete description.

See the problem with your argument yet?

Reading about being cut isn't going to give you a scar. Reading a complete physical description of the scar isn't going to give you one either. All it gives you is abstract knowledge of the scar.

You are not using the word "reduced" the way it is used in the definition of Physicalism. You are attacking a strawman.
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No, you are changing physiclism which is exactly what I want to do. Hooray.

Your arrogence amazes me. You are not a physicalist. You are basing your arguments entirely on a brief, one-line description of physicalism, and your own interpretation of what was meant by it, and yet you presume to tell people who are physicalists, and who know the complete formal definition of it that leads to the brief one-line description you were told, that they are wrong about what it is.

Just to reiterate. I claim that everything can be described in terms of our observations. I call this claim Physicalism. you can assert that physicalism claims that everything can be transformed into information. I agree with you that such a claim is nonsensical. What I don't understand is why you would assert that this is what physicalism claims?
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It is what you are claiming.

Anything + perception = description.

That is not what I am claiming. The two sides of your equation are not equal. The proper operator would be an arrow, meaning implication, not equality.

Anything can be rendered into a description.

Meaning that a description of anything can be constructed.

Descriptions are information.

They are information about the thing being described.

Anything can be rendered into information.

Anything can be described. That does not mean that it is the description, or that it is equivelent to the information.

It seems awfully conceited for you (who are not a physicalist) to be deciding what Physicalism means, and to be telling other people that they are not physicalists because they don't believe what you say they should.

Did it ever, even once, occur to you that maybe you have misunderstood the definition of Physicalism? That maybe the physicalists who wrote down that definition meant something different by it than what you originally thought?

Did it ever occur to you, when you realized that what you thought it meant was incoherent, to ask the physicalists to clarify what they meant, rather than just assuming that they did mean something incoherent?

Dr. Stupid
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Yes, we are redefining physicalism. I will continue to press for the redefinition of physiclism until it is such that it will accept the "agent".

Am I to assume then that your answers the above questions are "no"? :rolleyes:

If it feeds your ego to believe I am redefining physicalism, rather than simply clarifying that what you thought it was is not what it is, that's fine. Either way, I expect that from now on you will not claim that I, or any other physicalist, is claiming anything other than what they say they are.

I find it particularly tellig that throughout this entire discussion, you never once asked any of the physicalists to explain what they think physicalism means, or even what they think the description of physicalism you posted means.


Ian,

There seems to be a lot of confusion and talking at cross purposes here. The information isn't literally the dog. That the mistake central state materialism makes (identity theory). Rather the dog is a function of that information. The information entails the dog. Once you are acquanited with that information, and if you're a functionalist (which most materialists are), it should in principle be possible to work out what the dog looks like, and is thinking, purely from the information. Is that correct?

Exactly. It certainly doesn't mean that just because I could, in principle, work out what the dog is thinking, that I could somehow experience the dog's thoughts.

I wouldn't say that the dog is a function of the information, though. I would say that the information is a description of the dog. Depending on what precisely you mean by "function", this may or may not be OK.

Oh my gosh, yet another one: entail. Ian said:
Which of the following definition of entail from Webster's are you using?

"1 : to restrict (property) by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof
2 a : to confer, assign, or transmit as if by entail : FASTEN *entailed on them indelible disgrace Robert Browning* b : to fix (a person) permanently in some condition or status *entail him and his heirs unto the crown Shakespeare*
3 : to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result *the project will entail considerable expense"

I suspect you might be able to work out what the dog is like, but I doubt you could experience what it's like to be a dog.

~~ Paul
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In which case what it is LIKE to be a dog cannot be derived from the totality of physical facts about the world. If it cannot be derived how can you therefore claim reductive materialism is true?

Not true. What it is like to be a dog can be derived from the totality of physical facts about the World. Experiencing what it is like to be the dog would be a physical process occuring in your brain. A process which is not physically possible, because you are not a dog.

The fact that you can completely describe the physical state of a dog's ass doesn't mean that your ass could ever be in that state. Why should the fact that you can completely describe the state of a dog's brain imply that your brain could ever be in that state?

Dr. Stupid

[BillHoyt]

...referee blows whistle...

UcE Claimed:They can't disagree about ontology, because ontology is about the nature of Beingness and E-Prime stops you using to be. You are prevented form assuming things about the nature of being.
UcE Defined:The word "ontology" means the study of the nature of existence and the relationship between the nature of the existence of mental things and the nature of the existence of physical things.
I declared the rules of the game, E-prime only, and shot the starter's pistol.
Uce then asserted:We build a conceptual model of the mental world to describe the behaviour of an internal reality we have posited exists within the physical world which we originally perceived in the mental world.
To which Paul posted:We build a conceptual model of the internal world that arises from the brain that we know exists within the physical world that we perceive with that brain, and we test everything with science.
Exercise over. In e-prime, they just discussed an ontological issue. In e-prime, they just disagreed.


Cheers,

Paul :


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We build a conceptual model of the physical world to describe the behaviour of an external reality we perceive within the mental world, and we test our model with science.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I presume this is the definition of mental monism or some such.


You presume wrongly. I have merely stated the facts. We use words to conduct debates. Those words represent concepts. We then use language to express ideas about these concepts. Ultimately, all concepts refer to things which you have experienced in the mental realm, including the concept of the physical world. The process of science involves inventing models to describe the relationships between those concepts and testing them agains the behaviour of the things those concepts refer to.


What are the assumptions of science here?


Science assumes a shared objective reality which behaves according to logical rules.


You lost me, but perhaps you mean:

We build a conceptual model of the internal world that arises from the brain that we know exists within the physical world that we perceive with that brain, and we test everything with science.


Then I would have to ask you why you have stated that the internal world arises from the brain (not that it matters for the KA).

We aim to discover whether the knowledge argument succeeds of fails to falsify materialism. To do this we must ask the following questions :

Do brain processes differ from qualia in anyway?
If they do, then how do they differ?
By what means do we gain knowledge of facts about qualia?
By what means do we gain knowledge of facts about brain processes?
Do the answers to these questions clarify the validity of the KA?

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Exercise over.



Already?

We haven't even started yet. :)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The fact that you can completely describe the physical state of a dog's ass doesn't mean that your ass could ever be in that state. Why should the fact that you can completely describe the state of a dog's brain imply that your brain could ever be in that state?
I just read a big thick book on dogs and I could feel my ass start to twitch. I feel confident that if I could read a more complete book, my ass would turn into a dog's ass. Perhaps they're right, Stimpy.

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

me:
Maybe I can state this differently. Think again about how the eyes rotate left 20 degrees when the head rotates right 20 degrees. There is essentially a "gain factor" between the rotation sensors in my ear and the eye muscle control. I am not aware of that gain factor. I cannot directly control that gain factor. In that sense it is subjective.

Yet, someone could go poking and proding in my brain and determine that in fact that gain factor exists, and could show the physical process that the neurons perform to implement that gain factor. In that sense it is objective.

So you cannot "self reflect" on this gain factor (treating your brain as a "black box"), yet it is absolutely scientifically accessable (it is objective).

Does that clarify it?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


It certainly clarifies that you don't know what subjective and objective mean.

Subjective does not require that you 'directly control' something.

There are many things I do not directly control, have they all become subjective? Thank you, I probably should have said that you don't have direct "access" to that gain factor, not "control". You are not consciously aware of the gain factor. Yet it is in there controlling the movement of your eyes, controlling your behavior. In that sense it is subjective. It is personal to you. Until, that is, we allow the poking and prodding of your brain, then we can describe it objectively in terms of the workings of the neurons. Until then, we can only speculate as to why your eyes move opposite your head.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Then I would have to ask you why you have stated that the internal world arises from the brain (not that it matters for the KA).
I was just trying to understand what you said. Please rephrase if I am wrong.

And the fact that I wrote it in E-prime was an accident! I didn't even know we were in E-prime mode.

We aim to discover whether the knowledge argument succeeds of fails to falsify materialism. To do this we must ask the following questions :
Oh, it's not anywhere near that hard. All we have to do is agree on whether Mary can get her brain in the has-seen-red state by reading books and/or undergoing operations, then agree that if she can, we have no idea what happens when she walks out of the room.

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And the fact that I wrote it in E-prime was an accident! I didn't even know we were in E-prime mode.

~~ Paul

Ah, the sweet irony of it all. And still you managed to demonstrate that the claimed inability to disagree is a boojum.

Cheers,

Paul :

You suggested E-Prime. Why not finish what you started? ;)



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We aim to discover whether the knowledge argument succeeds of fails to falsify materialism. To do this we must ask the following questions :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Oh, it's not anywhere near that hard. All we have to do is agree on whether Mary can get her brain in the has-seen-red state by reading books and/or undergoing operations, then agree that if she can, we have no idea what happens when she walks out of the room.


Well, in order to establish whether she can gain knowledge of seeing red by reading books we need to answer my questions.

Any answer you like in E-Prime will do. You drive this, Paul. We will use your answers to the questions :

Do brain processes differ from qualia in any way?
If they do, then how do they differ?
By what means do we gain knowledge of facts about qualia?
By what means do we gain knowledge of facts about brain processes?

Paul :


All we have to do is agree on whether Mary can get her brain in the has-seen-red state by reading books and/or undergoing operations, then agree that if she can, we have no idea what happens when she walks out of the room.


This marginally changes the knowledge argument. Let us say that by means of a probe in Marys brain, stimulating her visual cortex, we can re-create perfectly the brain processes which usually result from stimulation from the optic nerve due to red light. Thus Mary gains the knowledge of red without leaving the room. But it makes no difference to the knowledge argument because you have just subsituted "leaving the room and experiencing red" with "having her brain stimulated to produce the experience of red". Either way she cannot gain the knowledge of seeing red without experiencing red qualia. If you are positing that it is possible to give her the knowledge of seeing red by means of an operation which does not replicate the brain processes associated with seeing red then you are suggesting we can create the memory of seeing red, without ever having actually seen red . If so I must ask you if "the memory of seeing red" differs at all from "the experience of seeing red". If, so then you gain 'new information' every time you experience red, and you lose it again whenever red goes out of view, in which case the knowledge argument still succeeds because all you can surgically replicate is the memory of the experience of red and not the experience of red itself. For your refutation of the KA to work you must posit that there is no difference between actually seeing red and possessing the memory of having seen red. If you close your eyes and try to remember seeing red, do you see red? I don't. Instead I have a feeling similar to "having a word on the tip of your tongue." You know you would recognise it if you could conjure it up, but you can't actually conjure it up. i.e. you know you have the memory of seeing red, but you can't actually see red, unless you are looking at something red or your brain is being stimulated to replicate the same physical processes that naturally produce red qualia.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
If so I must ask you if "the memory of seeing red" differs at all from "the experience of seeing red".These are certainly different. The memory of seeing red is a static "stored" state. The experience of seeing red is an active process. The experience of seeing red creates the memory of seeing red.
If, so then you gain 'new information' every time you experience red, and you lose it again whenever red goes out of view, in which case the knowledge argument still succeeds because all you can surgically replicate is the memory of the experience of red and not the experience of red itself.
So then if I am not looking at something red, then I look at something red, I have just performed the KA experiment? I thought it was deeper than that?

The surgery can create the stored state of the memory of red. Artificial stimulation can can create the experience of red. One is a static "state" of matter, the other is an active process. I thought it was obvious that memory and experience are not the same thing. I don't see how this applies to the argument.

For your refutation of the KA to work you must posit that there is no difference between actually seeing red and possessing the memory of having seen red. If you close your eyes and try to remember seeing red, do you see red? I don't. Instead I have a feeling similar to "having a word on the tip of your tongue." You know you would recognise it if you could conjure it up, but you can't actually conjure it up. i.e. you know you have the memory of seeing red, but you can't actually see red, unless you are looking at something red or your brain is being stimulated to replicate the same physical processes that naturally produce red qualia. Yes, I too cannot conjure up red (interesting, I can seem to "play back" songs in my head, though). But when I see red the next time, I realize that it is something I have seen before.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Let's agree to talk in short sentences for awhile, okay?

First of all, let's assume Mary can obtain a brain state equivalent to that of a person who has seen red. I'm talking about brain-meat state only, not mind state, not qualia state, not dual or monist state, none of that. We all agree that Mary has a physical brain and that it has a state. Let's assume she can obtain that state through reading and/or surgery.

Let's also agree that, even with that brain state, she is not seeing red in the room, because there is no red.

Now she goes outside and sees red.

Does anyone want to claim anything one way or the other about whether the experience of seeing red would seem old hat or novel? I do not, because we do not know.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:For your refutation of the KA to work you must posit that there is no difference between actually seeing red and possessing the memory of having seen red.
I don't think this is what the KA is talking about, is it? It's talking about whether seeing red will feel novel or old-hat. It's not talking about whether Mary has actually had red light enter her eyes, which we agree she hasn't.

What Mary gets in the room are all the personal/subjective facts about red, including a complete activation of her visual pathways by the robot. Then, when she leaves the room, will red light feel entirely familiar or will she gain some knew knowledge about it? We can't say.

~~ Paul

Not in E-Prime....

Having thought about this a little more (thankyou Paul) it doesn't actually matter whether we are talking about "the experience of red" or "the memory of the experience of red". Both can be demonstrated to be 'new information'. What matters is the context of our acquiring of that information. Mental and physical facts differ in the following way :

Mental facts, including both experienincg qualia and the subjective experience described as "remembering qualia" come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness.

Physical facts, including all brain states, come to us indirectly via means of reasoning and explanation concerning a group of related concepts we call physical reality. No physical facts ever come to us directly via phenomenal conscious - to us they are abstract concepts.

I hope we can agree on those definitions. We might also observe that we have an extremely clear cut division between subjective facts and objective facts here. The objective facts are objective for the simple reason that they exist within the context of a group of concepts (the physical model of the Universe) and that we all understand what those concepts are - they are shared and verifiable. The subjective facts are subjective for the simple reason that they come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness. Because they come us directly they cannot be specified in terms of the physical model because they are not abstract like the physical things - they just EXIST in their own right directly within our phenomenal consciousness.

Now to the KA :

The critical question is "Can Mary ever gain the knowledge of experiencing red (or the knowledge of the memory of red) without actually experiencing red (or experiencing remembering red)?"

Even if you surgically implant the memory of seeing red, Mary still gains knowledge of the memory directly into her phenomenal consciousness. Here is your dualism, and you cannot avoid it. :

All facts about the physical world must come to us via our reason and their meaning must be relative to the abstract model we have built of physical reality. These are objective, physical facts. They are meaningless in the abscence of the physical model.

All facts about qualia and phenomenal experiences must come to us directly via our consciousness. They do not have to be relative to the abstract model we have built of physical reality. Some of them do having meaning with respect to the physical model, but this meaning is always one of correlation i.e. there are some physical facts and mental facts which appear to be closely related even though the mental facts come to us directly and the physical ones indirectly.

"Subjective physical facts" are an oxymoron under these definitions. However, if you want to challenge my definitions of physical and mental facts then you will need to demonstrate why my observation that we have two different means of acquiring information is wrong, but I do not believe there can be even the slightest bit of confusion about this : There are facts which come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness. There are other facts which come to us via reasoning and learning about an abstract physical model. There can be absolutely no confusion between these two methods of gaining knowledge. One is direct and subjective. The other is indirect and objective. Subjective things cannot be physical because they come to us directly, rather than indirectly within the context of the physical model.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

First of all, let's assume Mary can obtain a brain state equivalent to that of a person who has seen red. I'm talking about brain-meat state only, not mind state, not qualia state, not dual or monist state, none of that. We all agree that Mary has a physical brain and that it has a state. Let's assume she can obtain that state through reading and/or surgery.

Let's also agree that, even with that brain state, she is not seeing red in the room, because there is no red.

Now she goes outside and sees red.

Does anyone want to claim anything one way or the other about whether the experience of seeing red would seem old hat or novel? I do not, because we do not know.

~~ Paul [/B]

I don't think your question would provide us with a resolution of the problem, even if you could answer it. And you can't apparently answer it anyway. I think we need to look more closely at our means of gaining subjective facts and our means of gaining objective facts, and whether these things are fundamentally different ways of gaining knowledge.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I don't think this is what the KA is talking about, is it?


The KA is talking about the context within which different facts have meaning. Subjective facts about red only have meaning to Mary because they come to Mary directly. It does not matter how you create the situation where the subjective knowledge of red comes to Mary, all that matters is that it comes to her directly and not via the abstract physical model.

If it comes to her via the physical model then it is objectively verifiable and physical.

If it comes to her directly then is subjective (not objectively verifiable) and mental.

[BillHoyt]

We might also observe that we have an extremely clear cut division between subjective facts and objective facts here. The objective facts are objective for the simple reason that they exist within the context of a group of concepts (the physical model of the Universe) and that we all understand what those concepts are - they are shared and verifiable. The subjective facts are subjective for the simple reason that they come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness. Because they come us directly they cannot be specified in terms of the physical model because they are not abstract like the physical things - they just EXIST in their own right directly within our phenomenal consciousness.

THIS POST IS RATED MA - Mature Audiences Only

Merrily UcE marches from one absolutely trounced assertion to another. Notice that at no time does he stop to cart off the carcasses of his dead assertions. The above is yet another soon-to-be-trounced assertion. Those of you with weaker stomachs, please scroll quickly onto the next post. Be careful to avoid illogical body parts that may be scattered in the next few posts.

UcE, a few questions for you. Try not to cry as you rip your own fecal matter to shreds:

1. What started the first objective concept?
2. How does a new objective concept get into your little fortress?
3. I'm sure that, by now, you've already tried something lame like saying that a subjective fact starts to be shared. Please stop and try again, without the nonsense. Either that or restate your earlier nonsense excluding the nonsense about the clear cut distinction.

We now return you to Comedy Central's UcE Said It, It Ain't Right, but UcE Said it!, already in progress

Cheers,

[Loki]

ChuckieR,

Listen, I'm not an expert on the Knowledge Argument. Maybe there are some interesting arguments relating to it. But can't we all just agree that this particular example is a poor demonstration of why materialism is false?

From Ian's link about the KA :

So, if she learns something new, this something is nonphysical, and, therefore, materialism is false

1st Reply : Refuse to admit that Mary learns something new.
2nd Reply : Mary gains know-how, not knowledge of facts.
3rd Reply : Mary learns an old fact in a new way.
4th Reply : Deny that it is possible for Mary to learn all the physical facts about color and color vision while locked in the Black and White room.
Well, I'm still missing something. The problem is clearly stated above - if she learns, materialism is false. But the presentation then shows at least 4 possible replies that resusitate materialism. The first is "she doesn't learn anything new". WHy would we reject this possibility? What additional evidence makes anyone believe that Mary will learn something new? Nothing in the thought experiment seems to "force" the concluson that she learns, so what value does this experiment have?

As ChuckieR says, this seems a poor demonstration. Or am I missing something? Ian, you seem to think the link was good - can you expand on *why* Mary *must* learn something new?