Materialism

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE, I'd like to discuss this, I really would. But your posts are too long, with too many ideas, many of whose definitions I do not know. I have no idea what phenomenal consciousness is, for example, because I don't know what the definition of consciousness is.

Why can't we take it a step at a time? Let's try it from another direction. Can we agree that without the operation, Mary cannot learn all the physical facts about red, namely the personal physical facts gained when she sees red light? Without the operation, the first premise of the KA is bogus?

Can we agree to that?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Loki said: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?
I think the question made sense to the original discussants of the thought experiment because they failed to realize that some physical facts result from seeing red light. It is these physical facts that they assume Mary will learn when she leaves the room, even though they don't realize that they are, indeed, physical facts that she should have stuffed in her head before she left.

I realize I'm being a pompous ass by belittling the discussants in this manner. :p

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]UcE, I'd like to discuss this, I really would. But your posts are too long, with too many ideas, many of whose definitions I do not know. I have no idea what phenomenal consciousness is, for example, because I don't know what the definition of consciousness is.


I'm not short of time, Paul (I hope not anyway....).

All I mean by 'phenomenal consciousness' is the contents of your consciousness. You know the argument abut solipsism - everything comes to you via your mind. You might be a brain in a VAT. 'Phenomena' simply means that which comes to you directly. 'Noumena' is the proposed external world we reason exists. You MUST understand this difference because the KA depends on it.

I spent ages last night thinking about your posts and trying to restate the KA in terms that will make it clear to you why it works. It will only take you 10 minutes to read my posts, and I think they constitute a completely bulletproof specification of the KA, as well as a clear and easily defendable set of definitions for subjective, objective, physical and mental. Please read what I wrote. Next time I claim that materialism has been demonstrated false I will refer to this thread.


Why can't we take it a step at a time? Let's try it from another direction.


We MUST take it from this direction, because THIS is the problem. The KA is about Knowledge, and how we get it.


Can we agree that without the operation, Mary cannot learn all the physical facts about red, namely the personal physical facts gained when she sees red light? Without the operation, the first premise of the KA is bogus?

Can we agree to that?


I don't know what 'personal physical facts' are. I explained in last nights posts why 'subjective physical fact' was an oxymoron. Please read my posts. If you don't like the definitions then please explain why. Facts are subjective/mental or objective/physical because of the means by which those facts were gained. If you don't understand this then I am not surprised you think the KA fails (although your position now seems to be that you don't know if it fails).

Take all day if you like, but if you want to refute the Knowledge argument you must think about how we get the knowledge. Subjective/mental facts are gained directly. Physical/objective facts are gained indirectly. This difference is absolute, and it is the reason why the KA and all the other proofs against materialism work. Please go back and read my posts. We have been discussing this for over a year now, it would be a shame if we can't cover the final mile because you won't respond to what I have actually posted on the grounds 'it is too complicated'.

Geoff

Originally posted by BillHoyt


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,

Bill,

Ad Hominems = No response from UCE.

:)

Geoff.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Loki said:
I think the question made sense to the original discussants of the thought experiment because they failed to realize that some physical facts result from seeing red light. It is these physical facts that they assume Mary will learn when she leaves the room, even though they don't realize that they are, indeed, physical facts that she should have stuffed in her head before she left.

I realize I'm being a pompous ass by belittling the discussants in this manner. :p

~~ Paul


The question made sense to the original discussants because they understood the nature of physical and mental facts. When Mary finally experiences red, for whatever reasons, then she gains facts about red directly via her own consciousness. Before she has experienced red (or the memory of red) she has gained facts about red still via her conciousness but **indirectly** since they must first be interpreted through her conceptual model of the physical world thus making them objectively verifiable. Please, please, please read my posts and try to understand this difference!

In fact....just read this one and concentrate on the difference between subjective and objective. What makes something objective? What makes something subjective? :


Mental facts, including both experienincg qualia and the subjective experience described as "remembering qualia" come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness (directly into your mind like qualia and emotions).

Physical facts, including knowledge of 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.


I do not believe it is possible to understand the above information and still fail to see why the KA falsifies materialism. Respecifying the problem with garbled definitions of subjective, objective and physical just prolongs the confusion and allows people to go on claiming the KA doesn't work, even though it does. :(

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Nobody is disputing that we have two types of knowledge: Abstract knowledge, and empirical (or subjective) knowledge.

Abstract knowledge is the information that we have encoded in our memories. The same information can be encoded in many different memories, and in many different ways. In fact, it is a well known psychological fact that encoding information in your memory in as many different ways as possible maximizes your ability to retain that information.

Empirical knowledge is the memory of the stuff we have directly experienced.

In effect, all memories contain both empirical and abstract knowledge. The empirical knowledge is the actual memory of the experience, and the abstract knowledge is the information that you can extract from the memory.

Physicalism has absolutely no problem with this. All that physicalism requires is that both forms of knowledge be physical.

Both forms of knowledge exist as memories, which are a physical structure in the brain. The only difference is the physical mechanism by which that knowledge gets there, and the way that the other parts of the brain interpret that knowledge.

None of this in any way falsifies physicalism, unless you make the assumption that some part of this process is non-physical. There is absolutely no reason to think that this must be the case.

Mary can only gain abstract knowledge by reading about red. The physical process of reading is not physically capable of causing the necessary changes to her brain for her to have the actual memory of seeing red.

Does Mary have all the information about red? Sure. When she sees red for the first time, she does not get any new information. She only gets the memory of having seen red. That memory is a physical structure in her brain, not information. That memory contains information about red, but she already has that information in abstract form elsewhere in her brain. The only new thing she gains is the physical memory of having seen red.

Why should this constitute a problem for physicalism?

Dr.Stupid

Somehow I knew this would act as bait for a Stimpson-fish......


Nobody is disputing that we have two types of knowledge: Abstract knowledge, and empirical (or subjective) knowledge.

Abstract knowledge is the information that we have encoded in our memories. The same information can be encoded in many different memories, and in many different ways. In fact, it is a well known psychological fact that encoding information in your memory in as many different ways as possible maximizes your ability to retain that information.

Empirical knowledge is the memory of the stuff we have directly experienced.

In effect, all memories contain both empirical and abstract knowledge. The empirical knowledge is the actual memory of the experience, and the abstract knowledge is the information that you can extract from the memory.


Okay....I can go along with this lot.


Physicalism has absolutely no problem with this. All that physicalism requires is that both forms of knowledge be physical.


Ah.

Well, this is where physicalism falls over then.

You are correct - physicalism claims that everything is physical, including the empirical (subjective) knowledge gained directly. Unfortunately this doesn't work. Let's have a look at the "brain process"/qualia situation. "Brain processes" are objective, abstract non-empirical things which fit naturally into the abstract physical model we have made of the world. Qualia are subjective, non-abstract, empirical things which do not fit naturally into the abstract physical model we have made of the world. Materialism TRIES to claim that qualia fit into the abstract physical model, but suffers fatal problems as soon as it tries to do this. Here's why. We have three options when faced with qualia :

------------------------
Option 1 (Battle of Little Bighorn defence of materialism) :

Claim that qualia don't actually exist. This is Synaesthesias position, which allows materialism to remain standing, but at the cost of denying that qualia exist. I don't know anyone else who prefers this position to abandoning materialism.

Option 2 EXAMINE THIS VERY CAREFULLY. :

Try to insert the qualia into the model with the statement "Qualia ARE brain processes". Materialism has a problem here because there is already something in the physical model taking the place where we would like to put the qualia. i.e. the brain process. So in order to claim that the qualia can go in the physical model the materialist must claim that the qualia and the brain process are the same thing. The trouble with this is that we already know that brain processes and qualia differ because knowledge of qualia can be gained directly and knowledge of brain processes cannot. ***Therefore Brain processes and Qualia CANNOT Be synonyms - they CANNOT 'be the same thing'***. In fact, if you want to claim that they are synonyms then the term 'qualia' is redundant and you are back to option 1.

Option 3 :

Option 3 is to recognise that brain processes and qualia differ, but also claim that they can both go in the physical model, kind of next-to-each-other in the 'slot' currently occupied by 'brain processes'. This is better than options 1 and 2 since it recognises qualia exist, recognises they differ and allows both to go in the model. However, it isn't materialism any more. It is Property Dualism.

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

I suspect you are going to try to defend option 2, which should be interesting.....

Now back to your post :


Both forms of knowledge exist as memories, which are a physical structure in the brain. The only difference is the physical mechanism by which that knowledge gets there, and the way that the other parts of the brain interpret that knowledge.


Since you are using 'physical' to mean 'everything' this part of your post is meaningless. It serves no purpose simply to define everything to be physical and claim that this is a bulletproof defence of materialism. The fact remains that knowledge of qualia come to us subjectively and knowledge of brain processes come to us objectively. I choose to define physical as objective. You choose to define physical as 'everything'. This serves no purpose.

You can use 'abstract' for physical/objective and 'empirical' for non-physical/subjective if you like, Stimp. It makes no difference to me or the KA.


None of this in any way falsifies physicalism, unless you make the assumption that some part of this process is non-physical.


I have not assumed anything, Stimpson. YOU have DEFINED EVERYTHING as PHYSICAL and you are then trying to use that definition to defend materialism. How about NOT ASSUMING anything at all, eh? ;)

Since you have been good enough to recognise that there are two forms of knowledge we can dispense with this baloney.

How about we use two words for these forms of knowledge that everyone can understand? :

Direct knowledge : That which comes directly to your phenomenal consciousness.
Indirect knowledge : That which must be reasoned via the physical conceptual model.


Mary can only gain abstract knowledge by reading about red. The physical process of reading is not physically capable of causing the necessary changes to her brain for her to have the actual memory of seeing red.


Good. She can only get indirect knowledge by reading. She can only get direct knowledge by experiencing it directly.


Does Mary have all the information about red? Sure. When she sees red for the first time, she does not get any new information. She only gets the memory of having seen red.


What the h*ll are you talking about? :confused:

You just said "Mary can only gain abstract knowledge by reading about red." ***So how does she get the empirical/direct knowledge about red????****


That memory is a physical structure in her brain, not information. That memory contains information about red, but she already has that information in abstract form elsewhere in her brain. The only new thing she gains is the physical memory of having seen red.

Why should this constitute a problem for physicalism?


It is a problem for materialism because Mary can only gain empirical/direct/subjective knowledge about red by experiencing that knowledge. Please think carefully about options 1, 2 and 3 above. There is your proof that materialism is false. I have repeatedly tried to get you to tell me whether brain processes and qualia differ or do not differ. You have each time ignored the question. Answer it and I will prove to you that materialism fails. If they do not differ then qualia are redundant and you are an (option 1) eliminative materialist. If they do differ but both fit in the physical model then you are an (option 3) property dualist. What you THINK you are is option 2, but option 2 depends on brain processes and qualia being both different and the same simultaneously WHICH IS WHY YOU WILL NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION :

Do brain processes and qualia differ?

NB : I am starting a new thread. A poll to discuss these three ways of dealing with qualia.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

You are correct - physicalism claims that everything is physical, including the empirical (subjective) knowledge gained directly. Unfortunately this doesn't work. Let's have a look at the "brain process"/qualia situation. "Brain processes" are objective, abstract non-empirical things which fit naturally into the abstract physical model we have made of the world.

Hold it right there. You are confusing the map with the territory again. Brain processes are not abstract. Our description of them is.

Qualia are subjective, non-abstract, empirical things which do not fit naturally into the abstract physical model we have made of the world.

This statement simply assumes that physicalism is wrong. In keeping with the agreement I made with Rusty, I would assert that the qualia is not subjective. The qualia is an objective physical process.

Materialism TRIES to claim that qualia fit into the abstract physical model, but suffers fatal problems as soon as it tries to do this. Here's why. We have three options when faced with qualia :

[quote]I suspect you are going to try to defend option 2, which should be interesting.....

Now back to your post :

I have already told you that this is my position. I am asserting that the qualia is a brain process. If you want that in e-prime, then consider this formal logical statement:

Let set A be the set of all brain processes.

Let x be a qualia.

x is an element of set A.

Note that although I have used the word "is" here, it is perfectly legitimate, since its usage in formal logic is well-defined.

Now back to your post :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both forms of knowledge exist as memories, which are a physical structure in the brain. The only difference is the physical mechanism by which that knowledge gets there, and the way that the other parts of the brain interpret that knowledge.

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

Since you are using 'physical' to mean 'everything' this part of your post is meaningless.

I have not defined the word "physical" to mean everything. Once again, you are confusing the definitions within physicalism with the assumptions.

I define "physical" to be everything that has an effect on me. I assume that these effects are empirically observable, and that they can be mathematically described in terms of my observations.

It is the assumptions of physicalism that are in question when you claim that physicalism is incoherent.

So what are you disagreeing with? The assertion that qualia have an effect on me, or the assertion that those effects can be observed, and mathematically described in terms of those observations?

It serves no purpose simply to define everything to be physical and claim that this is a bulletproof defence of materialism.

Nor do I do that.

The fact remains that knowledge of qualia come to us subjectively and knowledge of brain processes come to us objectively. I choose to define physical as objective. You choose to define physical as 'everything'. This serves no purpose.

So why do you do it? Why do you assert that my position is wrong if it only differs based on definitions?

But of course, it does not. You have just made an assertion: You have asserted that qualia come to us subjectively, after making it quite clear that you define subjective to be non-objective. Indeed, you have defined subjective in such a way that if anything is subjective, then physicalism is false.

Now all you have to do is demonstrate that there is anything which truly qualifies as "subjective", as you have defined it. Simply asserting that there are such things will not accomplish this.

You can use 'abstract' for physical/objective and 'empirical' for non-physical/subjective if you like, Stimp. It makes no difference to me or the KA.

It does make a difference, because "empirical" doesn't have the built-in dualistic baggage that "subjective" does. Saying that it is empirical just means that it is the result of having an experience. As long as the process of having that experience is compatible with physicalism, everything is fine.

Since you have been good enough to recognise that there are two forms of knowledge we can dispense with this baloney.

How about we use two words for these forms of knowledge that everyone can understand? :

Direct knowledge : That which comes directly to your phenomenal consciousness.
Indirect knowledge : That which must be reasoned via the physical conceptual model.

That's fine. This is perfectly compatible with physicalism, since phenomenal consciousness is a physical process in the brain.

Does Mary have all the information about red? Sure. When she sees red for the first time, she does not get any new information. She only gets the memory of having seen red.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What the h*ll are you talking about?

You just said "Mary can only gain abstract knowledge by reading about red." ***So how does she get the empirical/direct knowledge about red????****

She does not have the direct knowledge of red before she sees it. You completely missed my point. knowledge is not information, although it can contain it. Before she sees red, she has all the information about red encoded in her abstract knowledge. She does not have direct knowledge of red, meaning the actual memory of having seen red. That memory is not information. The memory contains information, but she already has that information. What she doesn't have is the actual memory of having seen red.

That memory is a physical structure in her brain, not information. That memory contains information about red, but she already has that information in abstract form elsewhere in her brain. The only new thing she gains is the physical memory of having seen red.

Why should this constitute a problem for physicalism?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is a problem for materialism because Mary can only gain empirical/direct/subjective knowledge about red by experiencing that knowledge.

What makes you think that contradicts materialism?

Please think carefully about options 1, 2 and 3 above. There is your proof that materialism is false. I have repeatedly tried to get you to tell me whether brain processes and qualia differ or do not differ. You have each time ignored the question.

This is simply a lie. I have stated directly, and unambiguously, that qualia are a type of brain process.

Answer it and I will prove to you that materialism fails. If they do not differ then qualia are redundant and you are an (option 1) eliminative materialist.

That does not follow at all, and you know it. They do exist. They are a type of brain process. Why is that so difficult for your brain to grasp?

If they do differ but both fit in the physical model then you are an (option 3) property dualist.

Which is, of course, complete nonsense.

What you THINK you are is option 2, but option 2 depends on brain processes and qualia being both different and the same simultaneously WHICH IS WHY YOU WILL NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION :

In what sense are they different? Can you answer that question, without a-priori assuming a dualistic metaphysic?

Do brain processes and qualia differ?

Qualia are a type of brain process. Not all brain processes are qualia. The brain processes which are qualia clearly do not differ from qualia, because they are qualia. How much more explicit do you want me to be?

Dr. Stupid

Stimpson :

Most of your response is irrelevant. This is the important bit :


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do brain processes and qualia differ?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Qualia are a type of brain process. Not all brain processes are qualia. The brain processes which are qualia clearly do not differ from qualia, because they are qualia. How much more explicit do you want me to be?


So you are saying that qualia and brain processes both differ and do not differ at the same time. You have specified that there are two different types of brain process, one of which is objective/non-empirical/abstract and the other of which is subjective/empirical/non-abstract, but you are also claiming that the subjective/empirical/non-abstract brain processes are simultaneously objective/non-empirical/abstract. You are claiming that qualia are both subjective and objective at the same time, both abstract and empirical at the same time. THIS IS INCOHERENT.

You have already claimed there are two different sorts of knowledge. You are now claiming that qualia qualify as both sorts at the same time. You are a type 2 (incoherent) materialist.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

Do brain processes and qualia differ?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Qualia are a type of brain process. Not all brain processes are qualia. The brain processes which are qualia clearly do not differ from qualia, because they are qualia. How much more explicit do you want me to be?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So you are saying that qualia and brain processes both differ and do not differ at the same time.

No, clearly I am not.

You have specified that there are two different types of brain process, one of which is objective/non-empirical/abstract and the other of which is subjective/empirical/non-abstract, but you are also claiming that the subjective/empirical/non-abstract brain processes are simultaneously objective/non-empirical/abstract.

This is false. Brain processes are neither empirical nor abstract. They are physical processes. Knowledge can be empirical/direct, or abstract/indirect. This is a statement about how the knowledge was acquired. The knowledge itself is simply a memory. Whether it is empirical or abstract simply depends on what it is a memory of.

You are claiming that qualia are both subjective and objective at the same time, both abstract and empirical at the same time. THIS IS INCOHERENT.

No, I am not. Not at all. First of all, qualia are not knowledge. Qualia are experiences. They are neither abstract nor empirical. Those qualifiers only apply to knowledge.

Just to clarify, experiences are a physical process. Memories are a physical state. Experiences cause memories. Those memories can be direct memories of the experience (empirical knowledge), or indirect memories of facts (abstract knowledge). In fact, any given memory is a combination of both.

You have already claimed there are two different sorts of knowledge. You are now claiming that qualia qualify as both sorts at the same time. You are a type 2 (incoherent) materialist.

Qualia are not knowledge. It is your attempt at an argument that is incoherent.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE, you need to be clearer about your objection to Stimpy's description of qualia. Your objection appears to me to be nothing more than wordplay.

When we (if I may) say that there are two different flavors of brain process, abstract and empirical, you appear to immediately partition them into some kind of dualist framework, ignoring the fact that any brain process falls in a spectrum from completely abstract (thinking about math) to completely empirical (the function of the eardrum). The experience of red involves many brain processes, some largely abstract (knowledge of light) to others largely empirical (the light spectrum arrayed out in the visual cortex). Other processes are some of both (the assocation between the light spectrum and the word red).

What you seem to think is that as soon as something falls anywhere other than at the extreme ends of the spectrum, it is violating this dualist requirement you've established.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ah, I see that Stimpy doesn't want to think of processes as abstract or empirical. It is strictly true that the qualifiers can only be applied to memories, but they seem to make sense with processes that largely use/affect abstract or emprical memories. Stimpy, do you think it's "dangerous" to apply those qualifiers to processes?

~~ Paul

Stimpson


Brain processes are neither empirical nor abstract.


All information about brain processes has meaning only within the context of the abstract physical model we build to describe a proposed objective reality.

All information about qualia comes directly to us via phenomenal consciousness without needing to be placed in the context of the abstract physical model.

Physicalism claims that everything which exists can be placed within the physical model, including the qualia (if they exist).

In order to defend physicalism you must therefore claim you can place qualia in the model (if they exist).

If "qualia and brain process" are synonyms then qualia is a redundant term and you are an eliminative materialist.

If "qualia and brain process" are not synonyms then even if you want to make the nonsense claim that "qualia are a type of brain process" you STILL need two different 'slots' your in 'physical' model to account for these two different things (simultaneously subjective/objective brain processes and solely objective brain processes). That makes you a property dualist.

The fact that you can't actually specify what your position is without talking self-refuting dictionary-busting gibberish means you are actually hovering between eliminative materialism and property dualism and you are a type-2 (incoherent) materialist.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Bill,

Ad Hominems = No response from UCE.

:)

Geoff.

No, Geoff, pointed questions = no response. Shall I trot out all the examples of you suddenly going silent when backed against a wall to prove that point? How about the "no disagreement" claims you continue to make about e-prime?

Cheers,

Bill,

This is about the fourth time you have tried this. You fill up your posts with foul-mouthed abuse, mixed with a couple of questions I am perfectly capable of answering. Then, when I refuse to respond to a person who cannot treat me with respect you try to claim I am afraid of answering your questions. Do you think anyone buys this?

I am not interested in discussing this with you. I have given you plenty of chances to control your temper and your mouth. You can't do it. If your arguments stand up then you don't need to be foul-mouthed and abusive. If you need to be foul-mouthed and abusive then I see no need to take any notice of you.

:)

Geoff.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Bill,

This is about the fourth time you have tried this. You fill up your posts with foul-mouthed abuse, mixed with a couple of questions I am perfectly capable of answering. Then, when I refuse to respond to a person who cannot treat me with respect you try to claim I am afraid of answering your questions. Do you think anyone buys this?

I am not interested in discussing this with you. I have given you plenty of chances to control your temper and your mouth. You can't do it. If your arguments stand up then you don't need to be foul-mouthed and abusive. If you need to be foul-mouthed and abusive then I see no need to take any notice of you.

:)

Geoff.

Geoff,

Puh-leeze. "Foul-mouthed"? I didn't cuss - not once. "Control [my] temper?" You're the one stomping out of here. You started this ("bill's here, time to go") before I really engaged you here. Go back to that post and review... Then answer these questions:

1. Do you or do you not acknowledge that you claimed it was not possible to disagree in e-prime and that you have twice engaged in e-prime disagreements?

2. Do you have a revision to your faulty defintions you proffered before?

Cheers,

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

Ah, I see that Stimpy doesn't want to think of processes as abstract or empirical. It is strictly true that the qualifiers can only be applied to memories, but they seem to make sense with processes that largely use/affect abstract or emprical memories. Stimpy, do you think it's "dangerous" to apply those qualifiers to processes?

Only in the sense that UCE has made it abundantly clear that he will use any impreciseness or ambiguity of language in order to construct semantic arguments.


UCE,

Brain processes are neither empirical nor abstract.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All information about brain processes has meaning only within the context of the abstract physical model we build to describe a proposed objective reality.

Yeah, so? Brain processes are not information.

All information about qualia comes directly to us via phenomenal consciousness without needing to be placed in the context of the abstract physical model.

Qualia do not exist (see your other thread). Information about phenomenal experiences come to us the same way any other and information does: Through the context of an abstract physical model. The memory of the phenomenal experience is direct empirical knowledge, but as I have stated several times before, knowledge and information are not the same thing.

Physicalism claims that everything which exists can be placed within the physical model, including the qualia (if they exist).

Physicalism claims that everything which exists can be described by the physical model. Qualia do not exist, because you have defined them to be impossible to physically model. Qualia are not phenomenal experiences. phenomenal experiences can be described by the physical model.

In order to defend physicalism you must therefore claim you can place qualia in the model (if they exist).

They don't.

If "qualia and brain process" are synonyms then qualia is a redundant term and you are an eliminative materialist.

I guess I am an eliminative materialist.

The fact that you can't actually specify what your position is without talking self-refuting dictionary-busting gibberish means you are actually hovering between eliminative materialism and property dualism and you are a type-2 (incoherent) materialist.

The fact that the only types of arguments you can present amount to either circular reasoning, question begging, or pure semantic nonsense, indicates that you not only don't understand what Physicalism is, but don't really understand your own position either.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:If "qualia and brain process" are not synonyms then even if you want to make the nonsense claim that "qualia are a type of brain process" you STILL need two different 'slots' your in 'physical' model to account for these two different things (simultaneously subjective/objective brain processes and solely objective brain processes). That makes you a property dualist.
Please explain. If I say that qualia are a type of brain process involving both abstract and emprical memory, why does that make me a property dualist?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I wonder what would happen if UcE and most of the other philosophers of the world would stop throwing around incomprehensible philosophical terminology and actually discuss the facts of the matter? I know the Knowledge Argument would get a lot simpler. I bet other arguments would, too.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Please explain. If I say that qualia are a type of brain process involving both abstract and emprical memory, why does that make me a property dualist?

~~ Paul

You are describing a position where under the umbrella of 'brain process' exist some things which are purely abstract/physical/objective and some things which as well as being abstract/physical/objective they are also empirical/mental/subjective then you cannot be a materialist. That is a form of property dualism.



I wonder what would happen if UcE and most of the other philosophers of the world would stop throwing around incomprehensible philosophical terminology and actually discuss the facts of the matter? I know the Knowledge Argument would get a lot simpler. I bet other arguments would, too.


Actually, the problem is that most non-philosophers have not examined their own definitions and terminology properly, have not examined their own assumption properly and as a result end up with positions that they think are simple, but are in fact simply illogical. Only after you understand and think about how and why you constructed your belief system do you realise why the philosophers say what they say. Most of the people on this board regard the whole rich history of non-materialistic philosophy as meaningless. It's their loss, really it is.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

Most of the people on this board regard the whole rich history of non-materialistic philosophy as meaningless. It's their loss, really it is.

But what can we do if they are indeed meaningless? "I'm friend of Plato but even more friend of truth"

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Actually, the problem is that most non-philosophers have not examined their own definitions and terminology properly, have not examined their own assumption properly and as a result end up with positions that they think are simple, but are in fact simply illogical.

First case in point:
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.

Cheers,

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
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.
UCE, I think I am seeing the problem. I have re-read your posts from yesterday, slowly, carefully, and a few times each. I realize that I keep responding to the philosophical arguments with scientific responses, but I think this has a direct implication for this particular thought expt.

Your statement: "If it comes to her directly then it is subjective" is a problem. In order for something to "come to her directly", the brain must have specific, physical wiring in order to interpret it. In order to "see red" as something different, she must have physical brain wiring that allows her to distinguish between red, green, and blue. Distinguishing between colors is not completely subjective in some magical way. It requires proper physical brain wiring.

That is where the physical meets the subjective.

I think we can all agree that people with specific physical brain deficits are unable to process certain types of information.

The problem with the KA thought experiment we are discussing is that it apparently assumes that Mary, who is raised from birth in a colorless world, will posess the proper brain wiring to differentiate between red, green, and blue; i.e, that her visual processing "hardware" will be like a "normal" adults. This is highly doubtful.

The way we gain the ability to differentiate between different colors as adults is by exposure to different colors as infants. It is the exposure to different colors during childhood that causes the brain to wire itself so that it can differentiate between colors.. That is why we give little babys all of those brightly colored toys to play with.

This is not a trivial point that "can be safely ignored for the purposes of discussion". This is the heart of the matter. Exposure to different colors in childhood causes objective, measurable, physical changes in the brain, not just subjective, personal changes.

Mary will not have had any exposure to different colors as a child, so it is highly unlikely that she will be able to distinguish between colors as an adult, even after she is let out of the room.

Of course, no one has ever done this experiment in a human, so it may be an interesting scientific question as to what will happen. But this, I believe, is not what they had in mind when this thought expt. was proposed.

Geoff, can you address this issue and maybe explain why you think it can be overlooked, and if it is still possible to use this particular thought expt?

There may very well be a good thought expt. relating to the KA, but I really don't believe that this is it.

Originally posted by Lucifuge Rofocale


But what can we do if they are indeed meaningless? "I'm friend of Plato but even more friend of truth"

I wish I could telepathically communicate to you the profundity of the writings of Hegel. Hegel even went to the lengths of writing from the perspective of two different Hegels, leaving you to try to figure out which one is the real Hegel, and which one is the imposter. Somehow you eventually manage to grasp that each Hegel needed the other Hegel, and that the real Hegel is somehow a synthesis of both Hegels.......meaningless?....I don't think so. ;)

Hello ChuckieR


Your statement: "If it comes to her directly then it is subjective" is a problem. In order for something to "come to her directly", the brain must have specific, physical wiring in order to interpret it. In order to "see red" as something different, she must have physical brain wiring that allows her to distinguish between red, green, and blue. Distinguishing between colors is not completely subjective in some magical way. It requires proper physical brain wiring.


Well...I'm not sure we understand enough about this scientifically to say for sure. We know there are limitations in the retina as to how many colors we percieve but with a new retinal pigment who can say that the brain would not learn to see a new colour? The brain is very good at learning to interpret new sorts of information. I don't actually think that any of this really has much bearing on the situation though. It does not matter how the physical system is specified and how the physical mechanisms work - it remains true that everything that comes to Mary directly into her phenomenal consciousness must be subjective. It may well be closely correlated with physical things, it may even depend on physical things, but the things which come directly are always subjective. You will never EVER be able to verify whether your red is the same as my red. EVER. It will always be subjective. Stimpson claims it is 'actually objective' as well. He can't defend that, apart from to say that it must be in order to defend materialism. It doesn't actually make any sense.


The problem with the KA thought experiment we are discussing is that it apparently assumes that Mary, who is raised from birth in a colorless world, will posess the proper brain wiring to differentiate between red, green, and blue; i.e, that her visual processing "hardware" will be like a "normal" adults. This is highly doubtful.


I think this may be a practical consideration, but I don't see what it has to do with the guts of the problem itself. I don't think it matters whether in reality the lack of red stimulation means bits of her brain don't develop properly - it doesn't effect the thought experiment. Schroedingers cat experiment is cruel to cats - that doesn't make it any less effective a thought experiement.


This is not a trivial point that "can be safely ignored for the purposes of discussion". This is the heart of the matter.
Exposure to different colors in childhood causes objective, measurable, physical changes in the brain, not just subjective, personal changes.


Fair enough, I understand what you are saying, but I can't accept that it is the heart of the thought experiment. What you are saying is true - exposure to different stimuli do indeed cause physical changes in the brain. But it doesn't mean that the absolute difference between direct knowledge and indirect knowledge goes away.


Geoff, can you address this issue and maybe explain why you think it can be overlooked, and if it is still possible to use this particular thought expt?


OK, imagine we find a drug which keeps Marys brain in the state where it is receptive to new colour impressions even when she is old enough to have learned everything about physics. It's a thought experiment - if we can posit someone can learn everything there is to learn about red then we can posit their brain can stay in 'plasticised' mode - these are side-issues, IMO.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE, these are not side issues. If this thought experiment was about Marymorg from the 19th dimension, then they would be side issues. But the KA is about the real world.

To see the problem, you could answer this simple question without resorting to issues of subjectivity or qualia or consciousness or any of those annoying terms:

After Mary learns everything about color from her books, is her physical brain "wiring" equivalent to that of a normal seeing person, or is it not?

This is simply a question we need to answer to establish the meaning of the first premise of the thought experiment.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

To see the problem, you could answer this simple question without resorting to issues of subjectivity or qualia or consciousness or any of those annoying terms:

After Mary learns everything about color from her books, is her physical brain "wiring" equivalent to that of a normal seeing person, or is it not?

This is simply a question we need to answer to establish the meaning of the first premise of the thought experiment.



No two people have the same 'wiring' in their brains. I can't answer your question because I have no idea what you think is implied by 'wiring'. I am deeply suspicious of your assumptions, Paul - that is why I went to such great lengths last night to provide clear definitions, which you seem to have ignored. Perhaps if you tell me why you are asking the question it might help, but I fear you are just going back to what you said last night about "getting her brain into the has-seen-red state", in which case I ask you to go to the bother of reading the lengthy posts I made last night directly as a response to this question, and give me a response to them instead of just complaining that they were too complicated for you. I know you think that answering this question makes it easier to understand, but I don't think you thought properly about how we get information.

PLEASE read my definitions and tell me what is wrong with them.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Hello ChuckieR

Well...I'm not sure we understand enough about this scientifically to say for sure. We know there are limitations in the retina as to how many colors we percieve but with a new retinal pigment who can say that the brain would not learn to see a new colour? The brain is very good at learning to interpret new sorts of information.If you patch an eye throughout childhood, the child/adult will remain blind in that eye, and will never "learn" to see out of that eye, and will never have subjective experience through that eye. The brain is apparently only "plastic" to a point.

I don't actually think that any of this really has much bearing on the situation though.I guess we disagree here. I think it is the situation.

We "learn" all of these things in early childhood, before we can form any real "memories" as such that we can remember as adults, which is probably why it all seems so magical to us. We can't remember what it "is like" to not be able to differentiate between red, green, and blue. All of these "skills" that we have as adults (differentiating between colors, standing up w/out falling) are learned in childhood and create permanent physical changes in our brains. It is only through stimulation of our senses that our brain becomes wired properly.

It does not matter how the physical system is specified and how the physical mechanisms work - it remains true that everything that comes to Mary directly into her phenomenal consciousness must be subjective.But she can only have these subjective experiences because of the physical wiring that occured in her brain as a child, when she was initially exposed to these experiences.

You will never EVER be able to verify whether your red is the same as my red. EVER. It will always be subjective.But we can objectively determine whether you can distinguish between different colors. I am suggesting that it is likely that Mary cannot distinuish between colors. So what does it matter if she sees "red". It will probably look the same as blue and green to her. She will not "experience red, green, or blue" in the same way that you and I will (Colorblind people can't distinguish between certain colors, and we can objectively determine that the colors "look the same" to them. We can even experience their frustration by wearing color filtered glasses). If she could differentiate between the colors, then I would have to scratch my head and agree that the thought experiment is valid (and I'd love to have a look at her brain to determine how she is able to distinguish between colors w/out having being exposed to different colors early on), but I really doubt that she will be able to.

I think this may be a practical consideration, but I don't see what it has to do with the guts of the problem itself. I don't think it matters whether in reality the lack of red stimulation means bits of her brain don't develop properly - it doesn't effect the thought experiment. Schroedingers cat experiment is cruel to cats - that doesn't make it any less effective a thought experiement.But if she can't distinguish between colors, then it isn't very interesting any more to discuss how red appears to her.

Fair enough, I understand what you are saying, but I can't accept that it is the heart of the thought experiment. What you are saying is true - exposure to different stimuli do indeed cause physical changes in the brain. But it doesn't mean that the absolute difference between direct knowledge and indirect knowledge goes away.But to acquire indirect knowledge, our brain has to be wired in a specific, physically measurable way. For me that is the heart of the problem and the misunderstanding.

OK, imagine we find a drug which keeps Marys brain in the state where it is receptive to new colour impressions even when she is old enough to have learned everything about physics. It's a thought experiment - if we can posit someone can learn everything there is to learn about red then we can posit their brain can stay in 'plasticised' mode - these are side-issues, IMO.I don't understand what you mean by "keeps Mary's brain in the state where it is receptive to new colour impressions". In order to keep it in that state, it has to get in that state. In order to get in that state, it has to be exposed to different colors during its developmental phase.

A new thought experiment might be to have Mary exposed to colors only very early on in childhood while her brain is developing, then to isolate her in black and white. But then the problem becomes much less interesting because she has experienced different colors already. So we can't say that she is experiencing red for the first time when she leaves the room.

Maybe we can "fix" this thought experiment, but as stated now I don't believe it properly separates subjective and objective.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
OK, imagine we find a drug which keeps Marys brain in the state where it is receptive to new colour impressions even when she is old enough to have learned everything about physics. It's a thought experiment - if we can posit someone can learn everything there is to learn about red then we can posit their brain can stay in 'plasticised' mode - these are side-issues, IMO. I don't think I answered this well in my last post. Parts of the brain are very plastic early in childhood, then they apparently solidify somewhat. If they never solidified, we could never learn anything. If Mary takes this drug, nothing she experiences will ever "stick".

But let's say we can magically somehow only keep the visual portion of the eye/brain in "plastic" mode (I'm not sure this is possible since there is so much cross wiring in the brain, but whatever...). Mary will be effectively blind during this period. Everything she can learn about "red" will have to be "read" to her (pardon the near-pun). Then when she stops taking the drug, her visual system will start to "learn" as if she was an infant.

But this isn't exactly what the KA folks have in mind either, I think. Because Mary would just go through the same learning experience a child would go through. Yes, when red first hits her retinas, it will be a new "experience", but she will not be able to "see" things like an adult. She will have to "learn" how to see first, which will take awhile. It would be interesting to have an adult perspective on how this process feels, but there would be nothing physically unexplainable. As she learned, her brain would slowly become wired to differentiate between colors.

I think I can now state this in a single statement that sums up my objection to this particular thought experiment: We cannot separate learning how to see red from experiencing red. (except by some difficult surgery which simply wires our brain as if we had already learned how to see red, but this is trivial and uninteresting).

If you can come up with a thought experiment where we can separate the learning process from the "experiencing" process, then we could stop this scientific inquiry and return to our regularly scheduled philosophical discussion. But I think it will be very difficult because the way we learn to differentiate is by exposure to stimulus. Is there a way out of this box?

[Win]

Chuckie:

If you can come up with a thought experiment where we can separate the learning process from the "experiencing" process, then we could stop this scientific inquiry and return to our regularly scheduled philosophical discussion. But I think it will be very difficult because the way we learn to differentiate is by exposure to stimulus. Is there a way out of this box?

Maybe this will help.

Imagine a simple artificial intelligence whose "brain" is about as complex as a dog's. It has the same abilities of sensory discrimination that we have. That is to say, it can pick out red things, blue things and so on.

Does it experience anything at all? Is it's experience of red the same as yours?

We built it. We know all the physical facts about it, yet we don't know, can't know the answers to these questions. The knowledge argument highlights this problem in a way equivalent to Nagel's famous question: What is it like to be a bat?

The knowledge argument demonstrates most of all the non-supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical. Knowing all the physical facts about any given cognitive system can't answer our questions about what it's like to be that system. The phenomenal facts aren't logically entailed by the physical facts.

Failure of supervenience leads to the falsity of materialism.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:PLEASE read my definitions and tell me what is wrong with them.
None of those definitions matter to my question. I want to know whether we are assuming that Mary has learned enough to have a physical brain state equivalent to the one she would have had if she had seen light all her life. It's a simple question about the meaning of the first premise of the KA. We are assuming physicalism in that premise, so we don't have to worry about any complex metaphysical concepts.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

First entail, now supervenience. Sigh.

Win, perhaps you'll be the one do to us the favor of pointing out a definition of physicalism that requires us to be able to experience the mind of another entity. As far as I can tell from reading about 20 statements of the KA, it is the supposed fact that Mary learns something new that refutes physicalism, not merely that we don't know if she does.

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
Chuckie:
Maybe this will help.

Imagine a simple artificial intelligence whose "brain" is about as complex as a dog's. It has the same abilities of sensory discrimination that we have. That is to say, it can pick out red things, blue things and so on.

Does it experience anything at all? Is it's experience of red the same as yours?Yes, I understand that to be the question that philosophers are trying to answer. All I'm saying is that the colorblind scientist thought experiment, as presently stated, does not shed any light on this subject.

We built it. We know all the physical facts about it, yet we don't know, can't know the answers to these questions. The knowledge argument highlights this problem in a way equivalent to Nagel's famous question: What is it like to be a bat?What we can determine objectively is whether the robot will be able to differentiate between colors. I seriously doubt that Mary will be able to. So where does that leave the argument? It becomes much less interesting.

The knowledge argument demonstrates most of all the non-supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical. Knowing all the physical facts about any given cognitive system can't answer our questions about what it's like to be that system. The phenomenal facts aren't logically entailed by the physical facts.

Failure of supervenience leads to the falsity of materialism. I think we all agreed on parts of this a couple hundered posts ago :) No one hear thinks that you will be able to distinguish between colors by reading about how the brain processes colors. You need the proper physical brain wiring in order to distinguish colors. You acquire this brain wiring by exposing yourself to different colors in childhood. Mary will not have this wiring, so this particular thought experiment does not address the philosophical issue at hand.

[Win]

Paul:

First entail, now supervenience. Sigh.

I try to keep my posts here relatively jargon free. Some words are, however, unavoidable. If A supervenes on B, the full set of facts about B determines the full set of facts about A.

Win, perhaps you'll be the one do to us the favor of pointing out a definition of physicalism that requires us to be able to experience the mind of another entity. As far as I can tell from reading about 20 statements of the KA, it is the supposed fact that Mary learns something new that refutes physicalism, not merely that we don't know if she does.

Strictly speaking, the KA demonstrates the non-supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical. Given this, most kinds of materialism (the reductive kinds) are false, because they require supervenience. You can still be a metaphysical materialist, though. And you can be an eliminative materialist by denying that Mary learns anything new.

Nobody here has ever made the argument for metaphysical materialism, however.

What reductive materialism requires is that the facts about what it's like to see red, or whether red is experienced at all, be derivable from the full set of physical facts. So Mary, having the full set of physical facts, won't learn anything when she leaves the room because she's already knows, from the physical facts, exactly what "seeing red" is like, that is to say, she has a full description of the factual content of the experience.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Win
We built it. We know all the physical facts about it, yet we don't know, can't know the answers to these questions. The knowledge argument highlights this problem in a way equivalent to Nagel's famous question: What is it like to be a bat?

Argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Cheers,

[edit: corrected spelling error - bh]

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Davidsmith73,

I am arguing from the perspective of the logical basis of the scientific method.

Well try following what I am saying from the perspective of my assumptions. This way you will not run into any problems that aren't there.


I can step out of this idea (a separate objective reality), so long as you realize that the scientific method, as it is formally defined, does not exist there.

I knew that anyway. However, it may exist in a different form. A form that does not take anything away from its ability to operate but one that brings new meaning to what it is describing.


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.


No. The justification behind the methods would be the same. Specifically, that observation and theory agree. What the theory relates to and the reasons for its limitation in fully describing what it refers to would have changed.



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.

Yet again, you have jumped back into your materialist position. What you are really saying above is:
When you understand why scientific evidence allows us to logically draw conclusions about an objective reality from our, you will understand why it could no longer do so under solipsism.

Of course this is true! Because I have assumed that qualia are the reality that we are describing. Objective reality is not there to draw conclusions from.


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.

Whether I think its a big deal is not relavant. I don't know what you mean by heuristic algorithm.


What you fail to understand is that without those axioms, science is no longer logically coherent.

Only with respect to assuming there is an objective reality.


David: Your observations do not behave exactly as though the assumptions of objective reality were true.

Stimpy: Of course they do.

They clearly do not. Give me an example of an observation that behaved exactly as though the assumptions of objective reality were true. Every observation contains a degree of inexactness to these mathematical relationships.



I have no idea what you mean by "true knowledge".

As I have said before, it is knowing the nature of qualia - the redness of red. I can't put it in more simple terms.


David: You have not demonstrated at all how science is not going to work under my philosophy.

Stimpy: 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.

Ahem. You said this earlier on in the very same post:
"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."

So the scientific method doesn't exist and Science doesn't exist under my philosophy, yet somehow I will be able to work out F=ma !

[Win]

Bill:

Argumentum ad ignorantium.

You obviously missed the "can't."

While cheap references to the latin names of fallacies might amuse the peanut gallery, they're pretty empty of any serious content.

Why not sit back, read and try to learn something instead of exposing your own supercillious ignorance?

[Win]

Chuckie:

Yes, I understand that to be the question that philosophers are trying to answer. All I'm saying is that the colorblind scientist thought experiment, as presently stated, does not shed any light on this subject.

I'm reminded of the joke about the economist trapped at the bottom of a well. How does he get out? Well, first assume a ladder. ;)

The point of the thought experiment is not to ascertain whether Mary will have a well developed ability to distinguish between colors. The question is whether she'll have any new experience at all. We can agree that her ability to see color will be faulty. But if she can make out colors at all, she's learned something new, regardless of how incohate those sensory experiences might be.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:What reductive materialism requires is that the facts about what it's like to see red, or whether red is experienced at all, be derivable from the full set of physical facts. So Mary, having the full set of physical facts, won't learn anything when she leaves the room because she's already knows, from the physical facts, exactly what "seeing red" is like, that is to say, she has a full description of the factual content of the experience.
I'm going to ask one more time: Can you point me to a definition of reductive materialism or physicalism that states this requirement. Here's two that don't:

http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/reduc-body.html

http://www.hfac.uh.edu/phil/garson/IMNotes5.htm

Are you assuming that Mary's full set of physical facts includes the neural connections established when a normal person sees color?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:But if she can make out colors at all, she's learned something new, regardless of how incohate those sensory experiences might be.
Wait a minute. Just because she can make out colors doesn't mean she's learned anything new. Of course she is going to see colors when she hasn't seen them before, by definition. The question is whether the experience feels novel or not.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

I'm going to ask one more time: Can you point me to a definition of reductive materialism or physicalism that states this requirement. Here's two that don't:

They sure do. Read more carefully.

Are you assuming that Mary's full set of physical facts includes the neural connections established when a normal person sees color?

No. Look, I think there's been a serious misunderstanding at work here. When Mary sees red for the first time, if reductive materialism is true, she'll say, yeah, yeah, nothing surprising here; I already knew exactly what this would be like.

Wait a minute. Just because she can make out colors doesn't mean she's learned anything new. Of course she is going to see colors when she hasn't seen them before, by definition. The question is whether the experience feels novel or not.

That's true, if reductive materialism is correct. But it's our intuition that she has, in fact, learned something new. The contradiction of that intuition and the requirements of reductive materialism is what the thought experiment is supposed to highlight.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
Chuckie:
I'm reminded of the joke about the economist trapped at the bottom of a well. How does he get out? Well, first assume a ladder. ;)

The point of the thought experiment is not to ascertain whether Mary will have a well developed ability to distinguish between colors.It isn't? But if she can't distinguish between colors, then what does it mean to see red, or blue, or green? If red, blue and green all look the same to her, then I would have to say that she definately does not experience something new when she sees red, but not for any interesting philosophical reason. Only because her brain does not have the hardware required to distinguish between colors.

Hold up a red filter in front of your eyes (I have a nice translucent red clipboard that I use here). Look at something green. Now look at something blue. Can't tell the difference, eh? That's what it's like to be colorblind. That's what it will "be like" for Mary. Not very interesting philosophically, and competely physically explainable.

The question is whether she'll have any new experience at all. We can agree that her ability to see color will be faulty.I am positing that it will be nonexistant, not just "limited". She won't have the proper brain wiring to distinguish between different colors.

But if she can make out colors at all, she's learned something new, regardless of how incohate those sensory experiences might be. Agreed. So now I think we completely agree, except that you still believe that she will be able to distinguish between colors when she leaves the room, I do not believe that. But that is a scientific question, and not a philosophical one.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
No. Look, I think there's been a serious misunderstanding at work here. When Mary sees red for the first time, if reductive materialism is true, she'll say, yeah, yeah, nothing surprising here; I already knew exactly what this would be like.
And what I'm saying is that when she looks at something red she will say "Gee, it doesn't look any different to me than white. I expected something more. This is nothing new. In fact, the world still looks black and white to me. Everything I read about colors says that normal people can tell red objects from blue objects, but I can't! What a letdown. I guess that bit I read about early childhood development was true, which explains why I dont' see anything different."

So then we have not answered any long-standing philosophical question. We have only verified that if you raise someone in a non-colored environment, they will never be able to see color.

That's true, if reductive materialism is correct. But it's our intuition that she has, in fact, learned something new. The contradiction of that intuition and the requirements of reductive materialism is what the thought experiment is supposed to highlight. It may be your intuition that she learns something new. It is my intuition that she does not. But, again, not for any interesting philosophical reason, but for a simple, physical, completely understandable and explainable reason: her brain does not have the proper wiring to be able to distinguish between.

[Win]

Chuckie:

It isn't? But if she can't distinguish between colors, then what does it mean to see red, or blue, or green? If red, blue and green all look the same to her, then I would have to say that she definately does not experience something new when she sees red, but not for any interesting philosophical reason. Only because her brain does not have the hardware required to distinguish between colors.

The ability to distinguish between colors isn't the same thing as the experience of color. Lacking the ability to discriminate, she still gets some new information, namely that blur of color.

The ability to discriminate is easily distinguishable from the experience of color, simpliciter. Imagine a "red detection machine." It can distinguish between colors. Does it experience red?

Agreed. So now I think we completely agree, except that you still believe that she will be able to distinguish between colors when she leaves the room, I do not believe that. But that is a scientific question, and not a philosophical one.

No, I don't. I think she'll have a new experience that contains color, incohately. That content is the something new she learns.

[BillHoyt]

Peanut Gallery,

We note, with amused irony, that Win is unable to stay within his own assertions. He wishes us to believe that we can't ever know about a bat's experience of being a bat, a mechanical dog's experience of being a mechanical dog or, by extension, BillHoyt's experience of being BillHoyt. Yet he delivers this post (numbers added by me):

1.You obviously missed the "can't."

2. While cheap references to the latin names of fallacies might amuse the peanut gallery, they're pretty empty of any serious content.

3. Why not sit back, read and try to learn something instead of exposing your own supercillious ignorance?

Now number 1 presumes knowledge about what I experienced, doesn't it? It also evinces a misunderstanding of argumentum ad ignorantiam. To argue from ignorance is to claim:
o that if something hasn't been proven true it must be false or
o that if something hasn't been proven false it must be true.

Here is what Win previously asserted:
We know all the physical facts about it, yet we don't know, can't know the answers to these questions.
Even if we accept that we don't yet know something about the dog, that does not imply that we can't know about it in the future.

Number 2, of course, presumes I don't anything about logical fallacies or that I am posing by using latin. Win, of course, knows he was down this road once before with me and was spanked severely. I suggest to Win that he stop the ad homs and debate the issues.

Number 3 is another argumentum ad hominem, and another demonstration of his own disbelief in his claims. Once again, he presumes to know that I (a)haven't previously been reading, and (b) am superciliously ignorant.

That's one 'l' on supercilious, Win. Thought you'd like to know.

Cheers,

[Win]

Bill:

If you can't know X, then reasoning from this epistemological closure isn't an argument from ignorance.

Understand now?

Thanks for the speling tips.

ChuckieR


I think I can now state this in a single statement that sums up my objection to this particular thought experiment: We cannot separate learning how to see red from experiencing red. (except by some difficult surgery which simply wires our brain as if we had already learned how to see red, but this is trivial and uninteresting).

If you can come up with a thought experiment where we can separate the learning process from the "experiencing" process, then we could stop this scientific inquiry and return to our regularly scheduled philosophical discussion. But I think it will be very difficult because the way we learn to differentiate is by exposure to stimulus. Is there a way out of this box?


Let's change it completely. Instead of learning everything about red, Mary learns everything that can be known about sounds and about musical theory. However, she is deprived of all sounds that were created as artistic works, including poetry. She knows how to communicate with speech though. We have now eliminated the need to learn how to interpret auditory signals.

Then we play her Beethovens 5th symphony, Amazing Grace played on the bagpipes and finish off with 'A Day in the Life" by the Beatles.

Has she learned anything new?

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
Chuckie:

The ability to distinguish between colors isn't the same thing as the experience of color. Lacking the ability to discriminate, she still gets some new information, namely that blur of color.Well, I'd say if she is lacking the ability to discriminate, that there would be no "blur" of color. Try the red filter experiment and tell me if you see a blur of blue or a blur of green. If it is a good red filter, you won't (if it is a wider-band filter, then you may still see blue and green differently, but that is a technical issue). Try wiggling the VGA connector on the back of your computer and try to "disconnect" one or two color guns. If you leave only the red color gun on, blue and green objects will be black. All you will have are shades of red. I'm not arguing that "I know what it's like for everyone else when they see red". I'm arguing that Mary won't be able to distinguish red from blue from green, so this particular thought experiment is not very interesting in relation to KA.

The ability to discriminate is easily distinguishable from the experience of color, simpliciter. Imagine a "red detection machine." It can distinguish between colors. Does it experience red?Well, no. A camera that is only sensitive to red will not be able to distinguish between blue and green. Blue and green will just look "black" because the camera is not sensitive to blue and green. So it can only tell the difference between red (bright) and not red (dark). It can tell you when something reflects/emits red, but it can't in any other way distinguish between colors. Again, no philosophical question addressed here.

If you want the machine to be able to distinguish between blue and green, then you have to give it more color receptors.

No, I don't. I think she'll have a new experience that contains color, incohately. That content is the something new she learns. Okay, then we have a scientific disagreement which could be answered by actually performing the experiment. Only if she did in fact "see red" differently from blue and green could we then go on to have a philosophical discussion.

Hasn't someone already done this experiment in animals? Maybe a quick Google could answer this...

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Win
Bill:

If you can't know X, then reasoning from this epistemological closure isn't an argument from ignorance.

Understand now?

Thanks for the speling tips.

Thank you so much for the clarification. So you are now simply in the midst of circular reasoning. How is that any better?

Cheers,

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by Win
Chuckie:
Imagine a "red detection machine." It can distinguish between colors. Does it experience red?
Win, I think I misunderstood your example. So you are saying that in fact the machine does have different color receptors. Okay, fine, so it can tell a red ball from a blue ball (ooch) from a green ball. Now you are asking "Does it experience red?" Now that is a philosophical question. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with Mary and her experiment. Mary does not posess the proper wiring to distinguish between colors, so red, green and blue look the same to her.

[Win]

Chuckie:

Okay, then we have a scientific disagreement which could be answered by actually performing the experiment. Only if she did in fact "see red" differently from blue and green could we then go on to have a philosophical discussion.

Again, I don't think discrimination bewteen colors has anything to do with the thought experiment.

The issue is whether there's any new content in her visual field, regardless of whether she can discriminate between the different colors there.

If, of course, there's no difference, that is to say, on emerging from the room Mary will still see the world in black and white and grey, then we'll have to recast the experiment. But, as you say, that's a scientific question.

I think I recall some studies on people with cataracts from birth who have had the condition corrected. They don't see very well, because they never "learned how to see," but there is still new sensory input.

Did you notice my deliberate mistake? ;)

If we ask Mary to to write an essay to describe the new knoweldge she gained by finally experiencing the emotional power of music she would not be able to do so adequately. Surely she has learned something new, something indescribable. Something that can only ever be subjective but that is nevertheless very real indeed. If the new knowledge cannot be described in terms of the physical model of the Universe then physicalism fails. For materialism to stand you must say that (in theory) it is possible to accurately define the emotional power of music in terms of physical concepts.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:I'm going to ask one more time: Can you point me to a definition of reductive materialism or physicalism that states this requirement. Here's two that don't:

They sure do. Read more carefully.

Cripes, this is like pulling teeth. Could you explain how it does, since I obviously don't understand?

That's true, if reductive materialism is correct. But it's our intuition that she has, in fact, learned something new. The contradiction of that intuition and the requirements of reductive materialism is what the thought experiment is supposed to highlight.
This is all about intuition? Who the hell cares? You've been wasting my time debating whose intuition is correct? Ooh, I think physicalism is false because my intuition tells me that Mary might learn something new, even though I refuse even to reach an agreement about what she knew before she left the room.

Really, people, masturbation is more enjoyable.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Chuckie:

Mary does not posess the proper wiring to distinguish between colors, so red, green and blue look the same to her.

But different than what things looked like in her black and white room?

As I said, it's like the economist at the bottom of the well, but I think i can come up with some form of sensory deprevation that will allow for a fix without rewiring Mary's brain, but still giving new sensory input.

If I can get that, the thought experiment goes through.

Bill:

Thank you so much for the clarification. So you are now simply in the midst of circular reasoning. How is that any better?

For a start, it's not an argument from ignorance, and for the reason I pointed out to you.

Still, I didn't stop you from writing a mocking post where you presumed to lecture me.

Anyway, it's not circular reasoning either.

But let's not fight. I'm sorry I was short with you. I just don't like hit and run posts that make confident but bogus assertions.

Bury the hatchet?

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Really, people, masturbation is more enjoyable.

~~ Paul

This is masturbation to them. You don't want to see the ejaculate. Oh, wait, that's exactly what we've been seeing, isn't it?

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Let's change it completely. Instead of learning everything about red, Mary learns everything that can be known about sounds and about musical theory. However, she is deprived of all sounds that were created as artistic works, including poetry. She knows how to communicate with speech though. We have now eliminated the need to learn how to interpret auditory signals.
Then of course she learns new sounds when she leaves the room. She also learns that there is a large stone to the left of the door of her room. So what?

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

It's hard to reconcile this:

Cripes, this is like pulling teeth. Could you explain how it does, since I obviously don't understand?

with this:

This is all about intuition? Who the hell cares? You've been wasting my time debating whose intuition is correct?

Why should I waste my time explaining things to someone who's going to accuse me of wasting his time because, I guess, I've been forcing him to read my posts.

When you make a post that says unequivocally, this says that, I'm not inclined to help you out. If, on the other hand, you approached it by saying, I've read some descriptions of reductive materialism and I can't see how they related to the Mary thought experiment; can you clarify it for me, I might be more disposed.

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
ChuckieR

Let's change it completely. Instead of learning everything about red, Mary learns everything that can be known about sounds and about musical theory. However, she is deprived of all sounds that were created as artistic works, including poetry. She knows how to communicate with speech though. We have now eliminated the need to learn how to interpret auditory signals.

On her 20th Birthday we ask her to write an essay on the emotive power of music.

Then we play her Beethovens 5th symphony, Amazing Grace played on the bagpipes and finish off with 'A Day in the Life" by the Beatles.

Then we ask to her to write another essay on the emotive power of music.

Will the new essay contain any new information? Absolutely! She has had new experiences that she hadn't had before, and she can distinguish them from her previous experiences. If I hear a new song it may have an emotional effect on me too. Of course, we are assuming that she is exposed to enough different sounds during her development, so that she has the proper neural wiring to at least "hear" sounds and distinguish different notes.

So that demonstrates that reading about music and hearing music are two different things. Is that interesting in some way?

Her early development has allowed her to hear music by wiring her brain for hearing. But it has not allowed her to distinguish between colors. So looking at a rainbow outside the room will seem exactly the same to her as when she looked at black and white photos of rainbows inside the room.

Is this starting to make the problem more clear now?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:I think I recall some studies on people with cataracts from birth who have had the condition corrected. They don't see very well, because they never "learned how to see," but there is still new sensory input.
Of course there is new sensory input. There is always new sensory input. That can't be what the KA is about.

Folks, it's really time to stop, collect our thoughts, and agree on what the premises and conclusion of the KA are all about. First, though, we should agree on a definition of physicalism.

If we don't, this just continues to be a masturbafest.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win, relax. I was using the generic you when complaining about having my time wasted. But really, this can't be just about intuition. If it is, then we should dump it overboard and wait until we know more neuroscience.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Then of course she learns new sounds when she leaves the room. She also learns that there is a large stone to the left of the door of her room. So what?

~~ Paul

The 'new knowledge' I am talking about is not the actual notes of Beethovens 5th, and not the location of actual physical objects - those are both objective items of knowledge. I refered specifically to knowledge of the emotive power of music - i.e. something totally subjective but which should be derivable from the objective world if physicalism is true. If physicalism is true then we should be able to physically describe the experience of red and the experience of being overwhelmed by music..

[Win]

Paul:

Win, relax. I was using the generic you when complaining about having my time wasted. But really, this can't be just about intuition. If it is, then we should dump it overboard and wait until we know more neuroscience.

Sorry. My mistake. I'm a little prickly. ;)

What it's about is the fact that if you want to maintain that Mary learns something new, materialism is false.

So, the though experiment does tell us something. It undermines reductive materialism, and clears the decks, as it were, leaving eliminative materialism, metaphysical materialism and property dualism as the most attractive remaining options.

Oh yeah, and idealism. ;)

Originally posted by ChuckieR
Her early development has allowed her to hear music by wiring her brain for hearing. But it has not allowed her to distinguish between colors. So looking at a rainbow outside the room will seem exactly the same to her as when she looked at black and white photos of rainbows inside the room.

Is this starting to make the problem more clear now?


I'm a bit clearer on your position, yes.

Yes, she has the physical ability to hear sounds, but she has never heard music before. There is a difference between non-musical sound and musical-sound and it has something to do with the subjective state of the musician who wrote the music. When that music is recieved in the listeners mind it also generates something new that non-musical sound does not. When Mary hears music for the first time she learns something totally impossible to describe objectively, but well-known to every music lover. That 'thing' she learns cannot ever be described physically, no matter how much Mary already learned about physics, maths and music theory. This is like the experience of seeing red - you can never objectively, physically describe the experience of seeing red, or of being moved by music.

Any description of the physical processes associated with the neural perception of sound will lack the information about the emotive power of music.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

davidsmith73,

I can step out of this idea (a separate objective reality), so long as you realize that the scientific method, as it is formally defined, does not exist there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knew that anyway. However, it may exist in a different form. A form that does not take anything away from its ability to operate but one that brings new meaning to what it is describing.

I do not deny the possibility that you could construct a different logically framework from which the scientific method would be logically valid. When you come up with one, let me know. At that point we can discuss the relative merits of it versus physicalism.

As it is, none of the various forms of idealism or dualism that I have ever heard of can manage this.

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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. The justification behind the methods would be the same. Specifically, that observation and theory agree. What the theory relates to and the reasons for its limitation in fully describing what it refers to would have changed.

It is not that simple. The very claim that the theory and observation agree can only be made within a logical framework that makes some basic assumptions about both the nature of reality and observation.

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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yet again, you have jumped back into your materialist position. What you are really saying above is:
When you understand why scientific evidence allows us to logically draw conclusions about an objective reality from our, you will understand why it could no longer do so under solipsism.

You do not understand why it allows us to draw any conclusions at all from our observations. The assumption of objectivity is one of those reasons. Without that assumption, we cannot logically conclude anything from our observations.

What we could do is draw conclusions as though the assumption of objectivity were true, even though we don't believe it is, but that would not be logical.

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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whether I think its a big deal is not relevant. I don't know what you mean by heuristic algorithm.

A heuristic algorithm is one that seems to work, but you don't really understand why.

What you fail to understand is that without those axioms, science is no longer logically coherent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only with respect to assuming there is an objective reality.

That is a fundamental axiom of science. Take it away, and none of the conclusions which use it as a premise are valid any more.

David: Your observations do not behave exactly as though the assumptions of objective reality were true.

Stimpy: Of course they do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They clearly do not. Give me an example of an observation that behaved exactly as though the assumptions of objective reality were true. Every observation contains a degree of inexactness to these mathematical relationships.

All of them. I never said anything about observations behaving exactly as though our mathematical theories were 100% accurate.

Ahem. You said this earlier on in the very same post:
"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."

So the scientific method doesn't exist and Science doesn't exist under my philosophy, yet somehow I will be able to work out F=ma !

No, you won't. Not without making assumptions you believe to be false, anyway.

It is really easy to take scientific knowledge that we already have, and say "that is consistent with my philosophy". The question is, could you start with you philosophy, and without making any additional assumptions conclude those scientific facts?

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:The 'new knowledge' I am talking about is not the actual notes of Beethovens 5th, and not the location of actual physical objects - those are both objective items of knowledge. I refered specifically to knowledge of the emotive power of music - i.e. something totally subjective but which should be derivable from the objective world if physicalism is true. If physicalism is true then we should be able to physically describe the experience of red and the experience of being overwhelmed by music.
Wait, I thought you were insisting that we should be able to experience these things, not just describe the experience.

Win, no problem.
So, the though experiment does tell us something. It undermines reductive materialism, and clears the decks, as it were, leaving eliminative materialism, metaphysical materialism and property dualism as the most attractive remaining options.
I don't know what any of those things are, and apparently no one is going to bother to tell me. But anyway, how can we agree whether Mary learns anything new if we can't even agree what she knows when she leaves the room?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:That 'thing' she learns cannot ever be described physically, no matter how much Mary already learned about physics, maths and music theory. This is like the experience of seeing red - you can never objectively, physically describe the experience of seeing red, or of being moved by music.
Are you saying that you can't describe the experience in such a way as to cause another person to have the experience? If so, what does this have to do with reductive materialism?

Hint: I'm trying to get someone to define reductive materialism.

~~ Paul

Chuckie :

Perhaps this might help too.

The important difference between the experience of red and the physical facts about brain processes is that the physical/objective information has meaning with respect to an agreed common set of concepts about the physical world and the "experience" information has meaning with respect to what you refer to as "I" - your inner being if you like. With the musical case then we have a direct correspondence - all of the objective information about sound, music theory, and aural brain processes have meaning with respect to the physical world but carried within the music is some other information which originally had meaning to the aritists "I". This music then goes via the physical world into the mind of another person, who somehow extracts it from the mathematical data and contructs a new internal meaning for it with respect to their own "I". It is the presence of this information that turns it from sound into music. The KA spins not ones ability to learn how to recieve this 'extra information' but on the fact that it only has meaning with respect to the subject i.e. "I". If you look carefully you will find that this "subject" is the thing which is missing from materialism. If you take the eliminative materiaist model, posit the existence of a new perspective on that model, then all the problems go away. If materialism could define "I" then it could explain how a brian process differs from a qualia. But it doesn't. Neither does property dualism for that matter, but some philosophies do.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:If you look carefully you will find that this "subject" is the thing which is missing from materialism.
Why do you think so?

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Are you assuming that Mary's full set of physical facts includes the neural connections established when a normal person sees color?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. Look, I think there's been a serious misunderstanding at work here. When Mary sees red for the first time, if reductive materialism is true, she'll say, yeah, yeah, nothing surprising here; I already knew exactly what this would be like.

No, she wouldn't. Because as I already pointed out, she will not have the memory of seeing red.

Let's look at this another way. Let's imagine this exact same thought experiment under the framework of property dualism.

Mary has never seen red. She is presented with all the physical facts about seeing red. We will assume that she is actually capable of understanding and processing all of this information.

Now may sees red for the first time. Does she gain anything new?

The dualist would clearly say "yes, she gains the knowledge of what it is like to see red". But is that all she gains?

No. Even under property dualism, she will gain the memory of having seen red. And even under property dualism, that memory is a physical structure in her brain. She is still physically different after seeing red than before. Knowing all the physical facts about red doesn't give her the memory of seeing red.

If this is a contradiction under physicalism, then why is it not a contradiction under property dualism?

Let's go a step further. Let's put a p-zombie in the room instead.

You have claimed that a p-zombie is physically identical to a person, except that it does not have phenomenal consciousness. You have also claimed that such critters are logically possible.

So, we do the same experiment, when the p-zombie sees red for the first time, will it gain anything?

Of course it will. It will gain the memory of seeing red.

The apparent dualism here is the fact that there are two types of knowledge: empirical and abstract. Even in property dualism, a person (or zombie) can only get abstract knowledge from a book. They have to actually see red to get the empirical knowledge. Even the p-zombie has empirical knowledge, so the empirical knowledge is not phenomenal.

There are only two conclusions that can be drawn. Either the existence of both empirical and abstract knowledge do not invalidate physicalism, or they invalidate property dualism too.


As I said before, none of this has anything to do with philosophy. It has to do with how the brain works. The thought experiment never even gets to the point of dealing with the phenomenal. It falls apart as soon as it assumes that Mary could possibly gain the memory of seeing red by reading about red in a book.

This is the reason I gave the alternative thought experiment, where a robot alters Mary's brain surgically. After all, the real question this thought experiment is trying to ask is: If Mary was physically identical to somebody who has had the experience of seeing red, would she gain anything new by actually seeing red.

Naturally, I claim she would not. Do you think she would? If so, what? Would her brain be aware of it? Could her brain be aware of it?

If nothing else, I think this highlights the central problem I have with epiphenomenalism. If I altered Mary's brain is such a way as to be identical to the way it would be if she had experienced seeing red, her brain could not possibly tell the difference. But you must assert that she would be able to tell the difference. Could she vocalize that fact? If so, then you must assert that the p-zombie would also claim that it could tell the difference. But that is a contradiction, since the p-zombie is physically identical to the way it would have been if it had actually seen red, in which case it would not claim it could tell the difference.

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Why do you think so?

~~ Paul

Materialism and the physical notions of the world refer to a physical model we just assert exists, because it seems reasonable to us to do so. We define everything with respect to that model, which we all try to agree on the best we can.

In the mental realm, things do not refer ro that physical model - they refer to a hard-to-grasp thing we instinctively call "I" even though we have no real concept of what it is - instead all our mental concepts exist with respect to it. Materialism tries to attach the mental world to the physical world with superglue, and claims that there is no difference between the brain process and the qualia. If it had a concept of "I" which made sense then the problem would go away, but as soon as it admits the existence of something that is more than the sum total of all the physical facts it stops being materialism. The nub of the problem is that whilst there is a correlate of the qualia in the brain processes, there is no correlate of "I", so materialism is caught in an impossible struggle to explain what the qualia are.

NB : Materialism doesn't need a central 'thing' like "I" because we all have to come to agreement about those physical concepts. In other words all our "I"s collectively agree on the thing that the physical world has meaning with respect to. 'physical' things have meaning with respect to an ABSTRACT thing. BUt YOU aren't abstract. are you?

[Win]

Stimpy:

First off, we don't approach these thought experiments "within the framework" of any of the various positions. The Mary thought experiment doesn't have as an implied or explicit step, assume materialism.

Rather, as I've said before, we simply don't assume the truth of any. If Mary learns a new fact, reductive materialism is false, because learning a new fact under the circumstances of the thought experiment is incompatible with the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical.

That being said:

No. Even under property dualism, she will gain the memory of having seen red. And even under property dualism, that memory is a physical structure in her brain. She is still physically different after seeing red than before. Knowing all the physical facts about red doesn't give her the memory of seeing red.

The point is that the memory should have no factual content that wasn't already known to her. She knows all the physical facts.

Being physically different isn't equivalent to learning a new fact.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:If it had a concept of "I" which made sense then the problem would go away, but as soon as it admits the existence of something that is more than the sum total of all the physical facts it stops being materialism.
Why does the "I" have to be more than the sum of the physical parts?

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Have we abandoned the color version of the experiment, realizing its limitations, or are you just trying to convince me indirectly that I am wrong? :)

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Did you notice my deliberate mistake? ;)

If we ask Mary to to write an essay to describe the new knoweldge she gained by finally experiencing the emotional power of music she would not be able to do so adequately. Surely she has learned something new, something indescribable. Something that can only ever be subjective but that is nevertheless very real indeed.It may be difficult for Mary to express herself in words, but that is not KA. We've already agreed that the description of the music is not the same as the experience of the music (which affects a whole different set of neurons). And I am not saying that I can ever know how it felt to Mary when she heard the music, because my brain is not wired identically to Mary's (i.e., I am not Mary and I am not a copy of Mary).

If the new knowledge cannot be described in terms of the physical model of the Universe then physicalism fails. For materialism to stand you must say that (in theory) it is possible to accurately define the emotional power of music in terms of physical concepts. Hmmm, I don't think that the KA says anything at all about the difficulty or impossibility someone describing their own emotions in words. I believe it claims that emotions and feelings cannot be explained physically. But, even with our limited technology, we do have some knowledge of how certain stimuli elicit certain emotions, and there doesn't seem to be any theoretical limit to explaining human emotions in more detail.

We can explain how music affects our emotions. We understand that hearing certain sounds excites certain neurons, which can release certain hormones, etc. That is the physical explanation. But it is certainly not the physical experience.

Certainly we could look at Mary's brain wiring before and after she hears the music and note the new connections that were formed (the physical description of the static, stored "knowledge" in terms of Mary's personal neural wiring). We can even examine her brain with our super fMRI++ machine while she is listening to the music, and we can observe how her neurons are affected, and which hormones are being shot out, etc. We can understand the process physically, even though Mary is the only one who can experience it. I don't think that any materialist would ever claim that Mary should be able to "self reflect" on her own neural wiring and figure out what it is w/out any external equipment, yet that is how we physically explain the knowledge.

One last note, the music example is very different from the color example. In the color experiment, we are questioning her ability to even see red at all. With the music experiment, we are now apparently trying to describe the higher level reactions to hearing, not the low level process of hearing itself. So it gets a bit more wishy-washy.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:First off, we don't approach these thought experiments "within the framework" of any of the various positions. The Mary thought experiment doesn't have as an implied or explicit step, assume materialism.
It does in this statement of it:

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/knowledgeargument.html

and this one:

http://gaffa.mit.edu/philosophy/knowledge-argument/knowledge-argument.html

Being physically different isn't equivalent to learning a new fact.
Wow! It's not? Then please define fact.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

No. Even under property dualism, she will gain the memory of having seen red. And even under property dualism, that memory is a physical structure in her brain. She is still physically different after seeing red than before. Knowing all the physical facts about red doesn't give her the memory of seeing red.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The point is that the memory should have no factual content that wasn't already known to her. She knows all the physical facts.

Being physically different isn't equivalent to learning a new fact.

I agree. In fact, in my explanation of the whole empirical vs abstract issue, earlier in this thread, I pointed out that under physicalism she would not gain any new information (facts) about red. All she would gain is the memory of having seen red. Of course, this memory will contain information about red, but according to the assumptions of the experiment, she already has that information. The only new thing that she gains is the actual memory of having seen red.

Does this mean that we are in agreement on this issue?

Incidentally, I would still be interested in hearing your views on the p-zombie version of the experiment. Am I correct in assuming that your response for the p-zombie would be the same as mine for Mary? Namely that the p-zombie gains no new facts, it only gains the physical memory of having seen red?

Also, under property dualism, what facts do you think Mary will gain? We both seem to agree that she will gain the memory of seeing red, but what else will she gain? Clearly under the epiphenomenalistic point of view you have presented, whatever new information she gains must not be accessible to her brain in any way. In what sense would she have learned anything new? Isn't learning a physical process in the brain, even under property dualism?

And a more puzzling question. If she does learn something new, then the p-zombie must think it learned something new, too. How is this possible? Is it possible to think you have learned something new, when you have not? Either way, you must have the new information, right? If the p-zombie has this new information, then by definition it has learned something new, which is a contradiction. But if it does not have the new information, then how could it possibly think it has learned something new?


Dr. Stupid

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
If physicalism is true then we should be able to physically describe the experience of red and the experience of being overwhelmed by music.[/i]. But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.

Just because you cannot describe your own emotions completely does not mean that we can never understand the physical processes involved in your emotions.

From your description of Mary's music, I get the feeling that you think Mary should be able to completely describe how the music affected her, down to the smallest physical atomic/photonic detail. But I don't think that is what KA is saying. It is saying something much more profound, i.e., that no one could ever explain why Mary "reacted" as she did (with "reactions" including all internal neural activity, etc.), or "experienced" what she did.

We can explain it, but we can't experience it.

To the contrary, we can already describe in some great detail why people react to music. With super fMRI++ we may be able to explain specifically why you reacted/felt a particular way when you heard some music. There is no theoretical limitation here and no interesting philosophical issue.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

Being physically different isn't equivalent to learning a new fact.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wow! It's not? Then please define fact.

In principle, he is right. The issue is not with the word "fact", but with the word "learn". The facts have changed, but Mary has not learned any new facts. She has only gained a memory, and she already has the abstract information about red that is contained in that memory.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Paul:

It does in this statement of it:

No, it doesn't. It states: If physicalism is true, then ... No one is operating within the framework of materialism in order to do the thought experiment. The argument points out the incompatibility of physicalism (more accurately reductive materialism) with Mary learning a new fact. You don't assume the truth of materialism in order to do this.

Please, stop trying to play "gotcha" with me, particularly with links to web sites you don't understand too well.

Wow! It's not? Then please define fact.

No thanks. It's hard to combine being patronizing with claiming you need the definitions of terms central to the arguments. Pick one mode or the other. Either you understand the positions well enough to call me on my "misunderstanding" or you need some help and therefore shouldn't be so unequivocal in your claims about what your sources say. :rolleyes:

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy said:I agree. In fact, in my explanation of the whole empirical vs abstract issue, earlier in this thread, I pointed out that under physicalism she would not gain any new information (facts) about red. All she would gain is the memory of having seen red. Of course, this memory will contain information about red, but according to the assumptions of the experiment, she already has that information. The only new thing that she gains is the actual memory of having seen red.
Hmm. I think it's odd not to call this memory facts. If Mary dies and we do an autopsy, those memories would certainly be facts. It's probably good to distinguish them from conceptual facts by calling them empirical facts or some such, but facts is facts.

Continue . . .

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

Hmm. I think it's odd not to call this memory facts. If Mary dies and we do an autopsy, those memories would certainly be facts. It's probably good to distinguish them from conceptual facts by calling them empirical facts or some such, but facts is facts.

Sure, the fact that she has the memory is a fact. But that is trivial, and not relevant to the thought experiment. After all, even if she had seen red before, she would still gain the fact that she has seen red again. The issue is whether she gains any new facts about red. She does not.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Stimpy:

Does this mean that we are in agreement on this issue?

Yes. I think it's consistent to maintain that Mary, in fact, learns no new fact.

We disagree on whether she does, in fact, learn a new fact.

Incidentally, I would still be interested in hearing your views on the p-zombie version of the experiment. Am I correct in assuming that your response for the p-zombie would be the same as mine for Mary? Namely that the p-zombie gains no new facts, it only gains the physical memory of having seen red?

Basically, yes. I wouldn't say she gains the memory, I'd say she gains the underlying physical correlate of the "experience" of red. But yes, she learns nothing new. But she thinks she does.

Also, under property dualism, what facts do you think Mary will gain? We both seem to agree that she will gain the memory of seeing red, but what else will she gain? Clearly under the epiphenomenalistic point of view you have presented, whatever new information she gains must not be accessible to her brain in any way. In what sense would she have learned anything new? Isn't learning a physical process in the brain, even under property dualism?

Learning can be a physical process in the brain. What Mary learns, however, is the content of the quale, red, and that's not physical.

And a more puzzling question. If she does learn something new, then the p-zombie must think it learned something new, too. How is this possible? Is it possible to think you have learned something new, when you have not? Either way, you must have the new information, right? If the p-zombie has this new information, then by definition it has learned something new, which is a contradiction. But if it does not have the new information, then how could it possibly think it has learned something new?

Zombie Mary gains the underlying physical correlate of the phenomenal experience, which causes her to believe, erroneously, that she has learned a new fact. The impact of that correlate on other parts of her brain will cause her to say things like: "I have seen red, now, and there is content to the quale, which bears information. This information is what I have learned. But zombie Mary's brain, in fact, contains no new information.

Only when the underlying neural correlate is combined with the associated experience is there any new information. And that information is phenomenally realized, not physically realized.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:No, it doesn't. It states: If physicalism is true, then ... No one is operating within the framework of materialism in order to do the thought experiment. The argument points out the incompatibility of physicalism (more accurately reductive materialism) with Mary learning a new fact. You don't assume the truth of materialism in order to do this.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant by "within the framework." But this brings up another question. See below.

Please, stop trying to play "gotcha" with me, particularly with links to web sites you don't understand too well.
This entire conversation is a giant gotcha, isn't it? I'm not playing a game with you.

No thanks. It's hard to combine being patronizing with claiming you need the definitions of terms central to the arguments. Pick one mode or the other. Either you understand the positions well enough to call me on my "misunderstanding" or you need some help and therefore shouldn't be so unequivocal in your claims about what your sources say.
Okay, I'll include a few more IMHOs. Meanwhile, the neural connections formed when Mary sees red are clearly facts. To say they are not just muddies the water.

So we're not working in the physicalist framework. Then what does the statement "If Mary learns something new, physicalism is false" mean? What does learn mean?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy said:Sure, the fact that she has the memory is a fact. But that is trivial, and not relevant to the thought experiment. After all, even if she had seen red before, she would still gain the fact that she has seen red again. The issue is whether she gains any new facts about red. She does not.
I'm not talking about memories of specific sightings of red. I'm talking about the neural connections formed when she sees red for the first time and learns to see red well over time. I think we should call these neural connections facts. It's relevant whether she has these facts before she leaves the room.

Have I lost track of the context? Are we assuming she has the operation before she leaves?

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
The KA spins not ones ability to learn how to recieve this 'extra information' but on the fact that it only has meaning with respect to the subject i.e. "I"....and that that meaning can never be described or understood by anyone else. But it can be described and understood in terms of neurons, etc.

So I think we are officially going around in circles now. I had hoped to explain the problem with the color experiment, and get back to my "real" work :)

I think the circling can be attributed to our having two apparently different views on what KA is saying. I think that it says that if we can't physically describe how and why people experience certain things, then materialism is false. But we clearly can describe how and why people experience things. But, no, we can't "describe in words" the "experience" itself (what it is like to see red).

So then I'm not clear what your version is exactly. Is it that people should be able to completely describe an experience so fully that another person could, just by listening to that description, experience that herself? I think that's probably not it.

Is it that science can never explain how red looks to you? If that's the case, then I have to agree. Science can completely describe how (and why) you will react when you see red. And science would probably say that "seeing red" is part of your reaction to having something red in front of you (a reflex). We can understand and describe the reaction, but we can't "play out" your exact reaction inside someone else's head. Understanding how and why is not the same as experiencing something, but we've been here before.

I guess what KA is saying is that there is more to the experience than can be ever described physically (not just trivially that the person experiencing something can not "completely" describe it to others). Is that roughly the way you might say it? I suppose the scientific reply would be "Show me that there is something that cannot be described", and the philosophical materialist reply might be "Explain the testable implications of how having a physically indescribable experience would affect materialism", and then the circle continues because the non-materialist says that it is not something that I can "show" you because only I can experience it.

Have I demonstrated understanding :) (if not acceptance).

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Does this mean that we are in agreement on this issue?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes. I think it's consistent to maintain that Mary, in fact, learns no new fact.

We disagree on whether she does, in fact, learn a new fact.

Great. Now if we could only convince UCE of this...

Basically, yes. I wouldn't say she gains the memory, I'd say she gains the underlying physical correlate of the "experience" of red. But yes, she learns nothing new. But she thinks she does.

Interesting... This brings up the same problems with the idea of p-zombies I have always had, but this thread is not the place to discuss them.

Learning can be a physical process in the brain. What Mary learns, however, is the content of the quale, red, and that's not physical.

So her brain learns nothing new, it just thinks it has. If her brain were altered surgically, to provide the memory of the experience, without ever having had the experience, would her brain still think that it had learned something new? I guess it would have to.

But this raises an interesting question about cause and effect.

The actual process of seeing red is accompanied by the phenomenal experience. If the brain is artificially stimulated in such a way as to cause the brain to think that it is seeing red, is this also accompanied by the phenomenal experience? Is there any situation in which a real person's brain (not a p-zombie) could be made to think that it has had a phenomenal experience that the person has not actually had?

If not, then doesn't this imply that the phenomenal experience is a logically necessary consequence of the physical brain activity, regardless of whether we are able to actually logically determine why it is?

Zombie Mary gains the underlying physical correlate of the phenomenal experience, which causes her to believe, erroneously, that she has learned a new fact. The impact of that correlate on other parts of her brain will cause her to say things like: "I have seen red, now, and there is content to the quale, which bears information. This information is what I have learned. But zombie Mary's brain, in fact, contains no new information.

Only when the underlying neural correlate is combined with the associated experience is there any new information. And that information is phenomenally realized, not physically realized.

Does Mary possess information processing capabilities other than those performed by her brain? Does she possess any way of storing information, other than physically storing it in her brain?

I guess I don't understand what it means to say that the information is phenomenally realized.

Dr. Stupid

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


I'm a bit clearer on your position, yes.

Yes, she has the physical ability to hear sounds, but she has never heard music before. There is a difference between non-musical sound and musical-sound and it has something to do with the subjective state of the musician who wrote the music. When that music is recieved in the listeners mind it also generates something new that non-musical sound does not. When Mary hears music for the first time she learns something totally impossible to describe objectively, but well-known to every music lover.She experiences something that is totally impossible for her to put into words completely because she does not have direct access to her low-level sensory processes. But that does not mean that her reactions and subsequent changes in her brain wiring are unexplainable physically.

That 'thing' she learns cannot ever be described physically, no matter how much Mary already learned about physics, maths and music theory. This is like the experience of seeing red - you can never objectively, physically describe the experience of seeing red, or of being moved by music.But we could, conceivably, take a "snapshot" of Mary's brain, dump this to our super-brain-simulator, "play" the music to the brain simulator, then dump the new connections back to Mary. Then she would "have the knowledge of having heard the music" without actually ever hearing it, and we could completely explain how and why the music affected her brain the way it did. We could also make sure that any hormones or other chemical changes that would have taken place while listening to the music are also modified in the physical Mary. What more is there?

The only way to "completely describe" the music "in terms of Mary" is to look at the differences in Mary's neural connections and other physical/chemical makeup before and after she hears the music.

Any description of the physical processes associated with the neural perception of sound will lack the information about the emotive power of music. We can completely understand the emotive power of music. Only Mary can experience the emotions that Mary will experience.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This is a sidebar addressed to all. As a humble beginning philosopher, I have a procedural question. Let's say we have something like the KA and we say that we are not operating in any given framework. The argument includes:

If physicalism is true, then Mary can learn all of the facts ...

From which framework do we take the definition of learn and facts? They do not all have the same definitions of the words.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

I'm not talking about memories of specific sightings of red. I'm talking about the neural connections formed when she sees red for the first time and learns to see red well over time. I think we should call these neural connections facts. It's relevant whether she has these facts before she leaves the room.

It is certainly relevant. She will not have those facts before she leaves the room. But since those are not facts about red, it doesn't matter.

Have I lost track of the context? Are we assuming she has the operation before she leaves?

Essentially we have several arguments going on here at once. Win acknowledges that the physical alterations to her brain that occur when Mary sees red do not constitute a violation of physicalism. Only learning new facts about red would do that. In effect, he agrees with us that the thought experiment does not constitute a proof that physicalism is false, although the results if the experiment could actually be performed, potentially could.

It is interesting, though, that any observable result that could falsify physicalism would also necessarily falsify property dualism.

This is a sidebar addressed to all. As a humble beginning philosopher, I have a procedural question. Let's say we have something like the KA and we say that we are not operating in any given framework. The argument includes:

If physicalism is true, then Mary can learn all of the facts ...

From which framework do we take the definition of learn and facts? They do not all have the same definitions of the words.

This is a very important question.

Win, for example, is intellectually honest enough to be willing to discuss the meanings of these terms, which is why He and I were able to resolve the issue of whether the fact that Mary gains the memory of seeing red actually constitutes "learning a new fact about red" within the context of the thought experiment. We have been able to come to the agreement that under physicalism, it does not, and under property dualism, it does.

UCE, on the other hand, refuses to partake in any discussion of the meanings of words. Any word that has a definition under his framework is assumed by him to have that meaning, regardless of whether you explain to him that you mean something else by it. In principle, you could get around this problems by simply making up new words, and providing definitions for them. But when addressing a problem that is phrased in terms of these words, this is not possible. This makes any type of discussion of the problem impossible.


Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Stimpy:

The actual process of seeing red is accompanied by the phenomenal experience. If the brain is artificially stimulated in such a way as to cause the brain to think that it is seeing red, is this also accompanied by the phenomenal experience? Is there any situation in which a real person's brain (not a p-zombie) could be made to think that it has had a phenomenal experience that the person has not actually had?

I'm not sue what you mean by "artificially stimulated ... to think it is seeing red." If you mean, say, pressing on your eye near your nose so that a blue spot appears at the opposite side of your visual field (try it, it's cool) without there being a blue object out there in the world, I think you're really seeing blue.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Looking at it another way, I think it's possible, for example, that I was a p-zombie two minutes ago. So, my brain thinks I was having phenomenal experiences, but it's wrong. Phenomenal consiousness just turned on in the universe right now (of course, I don't think this is so, but it's possible).

If not, then doesn't this imply that the phenomenal experience is a logically necessary consequence of the physical brain activity, regardless of whether we are able to actually logically determine why it is?

Assuming I understand what you're saying, I would say that it implies that phenomenal experience is a naturally necessary consequence of physical brain activity, noy logically necessary.

Does Mary possess information processing capabilities other than those performed by her brain? Does she possess any way of storing information, other than physically storing it in her brain?

Information processing, no. Storing, no.

Briefly, information is physically stored and processed by your brain. That physical instatiation of the information, though, doesn't exhaust the "facts." Every time that information is physically realized in your brain, in fact in any information processing system of a certain class, it is simultaneously phenomenally realized. The phenomenal realization of the information contains a new fact, or perhaps is a new fact.

When I say phenomenally realized, I mean represented within phenomenal consciousness.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy, thanks for clarifying things for me. You said:It is certainly relevant. She will not have those facts before she leaves the room. But since those are not facts about red, it doesn't matter.
Why do you consider the neural connections formed when I see red not to be "facts" about red? They are not conceptual facts about red, but they certainly are empirical facts necessary to see red. Separating them from "facts" seems to confuse matters.

If we all agree that learning these empirical facts does not constitute a violation of physicalism, then my question is only one of definition. But I'm suspicious from reading about the KA over the past few days that many people either do not acknowledge the existence of these facts, or think that their acquisition does violate physicalism. So it's an important issue.

~~ Paul

[Jethro]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
The actual process of seeing red is accompanied by the phenomenal experience. If the brain is artificially stimulated in such a way as to cause the brain to think that it is seeing red, is this also accompanied by the phenomenal experience? Is there any situation in which a real person's brain (not a p-zombie) could be made to think that it has had a phenomenal experience that the person has not actually had?
I took Luci's advice and finally googled up (blind stimulation "visual cortex").

TMS creating spots, including color in some cases, in the vision field of various individuals. (http://cortivis.umh.es/2002/arvo_2002.pdf)

The abstract of a fascinating study which relates to how the brain works. (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v389/n6647/abs/389180a0_r.html)

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
Why does the "I" have to be more than the sum of the physical parts?

~~ Paul

I assume you mean "why does 'I' have to mean more than the sum of the physical parts of the brain?

Because it is a different perspective on the sum of the physical parts of the brain, rather than the totality of the facts themselves. It is defined with respect to YOU instead of with respect to the agreed concepts of physics. Because it is the subject and not the object.

What do you think 'subjective' and 'objective' mean, Paul?

[Loki]

Win,

Running hopelessly behind in this discussion, but...

So Mary, having the full set of physical facts, won't learn anything when she leaves the room because she's already knows, from the physical facts, exactly what "seeing red" is like, that is to say, she has a full description of the factual content of the experience.
Perhaps a minor point (perhaps irrelevant) but wouldn't the "full set of facts" of experiencing red include not only the visual discrimination mechanism, but also the workings of consciousness itself? How could we expect to be able to "teach" the experience of red if we don't understand how consciousness perceives and implements selfwareness? In other words, doesn't the "full set of facts" mean being able to fully describe conscious experience? Since no one thinks we are at this point yet, how can we say with any confidence that this point can't be reached?

That's true, if reductive materialism is correct. But it's our intuition that she has, in fact, learned something new. The contradiction of that intuition and the requirements of reductive materialism is what the thought experiment is supposed to highlight.
Intuitions can be wrong - my intuition tells me that epiphenominalism is wrong, yet I'm assured by several quite intelligent people that I'm wrong about that.

So, the though experiment does tell us something. It undermines reductive materialism, and clears the decks, as it were, leaving eliminative materialism, metaphysical materialism and property dualism as the most attractive remaining options.
Just to clarify, it only undermines reductive materialism if our intuition is correct? If our intuition is faulty here then reductive materialism remains on the table?

If Mary learns a new fact, reductive materialism is false, because learning a new fact under the circumstances of the thought experiment is incompatible with the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical.
There's nothing more to it that this? "If what seems intuitively true is actually true, then reductive materialism falls". Okay - I understand Chalmers point that if you want to argue against intuition then you need to provide some evidence (as in "Flat Earth versus Round Earth" - we needed evidence to overturn the intuition).

'"Reductive Materialism is false' is the correct default position becuase (a) it is supported by intuition and (b) it is *not contradicted* by sufficient eveidence". Is that inteded result of the KA?

Chuckie,

Originally posted by ChuckieR
But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.


The KA depends on the fact that these things are totally and utterly different.


Just because you cannot describe your own emotions completely does not mean that we can never understand the physical processes involved in your emotions.


Also undeniably true.

What I don't is how you can agree with me that these things are true, but still not understand why the KA falsifies materialism. Materialism is false because subjective things are incomprehensible to it. Emotions aren't just physical processes. They are more than just physical processes.

:)

Geoff.

[scribble]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Emotions aren't just physical processes. They are more than just physical processes.


Why do you think that?

Chuckie :


I guess what KA is saying is that there is more to the experience than can be ever described physically (not just trivially that the person experiencing something can not "completely" describe it to others). Is that roughly the way you might say it?


Yeah, I just did say it in a reply I wrote before I read your post. :)


I suppose the scientific reply would be "Show me that there is something that cannot be described", and the philosophical materialist reply might be "Explain the testable implications of how having a physically indescribable experience would affect materialism", and then the circle continues because the non-materialist says that it is not something that I can "show" you because only I can experience it.

Have I demonstrated understanding (if not acceptance).


Yes, but I'm not sure how you can understand it and not accept it.

But I like your style.

Geoff.

:)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Because it is a different perspective on the sum of the physical parts of the brain, rather than the totality of the facts themselves. It is defined with respect to YOU instead of with respect to the agreed concepts of physics. Because it is the subject and not the object.

What do you think 'subjective' and 'objective' mean, Paul?
I think subjective means something like "as experienced by a person." Objective means something like "as common to everyone." I don't see why my subjective experience cannot be a product of my brain. Constant repetition of words like "I," "you," and "not object" doesn't convince me otherwise.


Originally posted by ChuckieR
But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.
The KA depends on the fact that these things are totally and utterly different.
Wait, please explain what you mean by this without relying on the KA being in any particular framework.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Loki:

First of all, let me say how happy I am to see myself quoted in your sig. ;)

Running hopelessly behind in this discussion, but...

Me too. I think you've asked me some other questions that I haven't answered. If you want to ask them again, I'll try to be a little more on top of the discussion.

Perhaps a minor point (perhaps irrelevant) but wouldn't the "full set of facts" of experiencing red include not only the visual discrimination mechanism, but also the workings of consciousness itself? How could we expect to be able to "teach" the experience of red if we don't understand how consciousness perceives and implements selfwareness? In other words, doesn't the "full set of facts" mean being able to fully describe conscious experience? Since no one thinks we are at this point yet, how can we say with any confidence that this point can't be reached?

Look at it this way. Mary doesn't have the physical means, the ability to see red. But, if reductive materialism is true, since she knows all the physical facts, what red looks like isn't something that should surprize her, because it is a consequence of those physical facts. When she first sees red, she'll say, "yeah, just like what I read."

Intuitions can be wrong - my intuition tells me that epiphenominalism is wrong, yet I'm assured by several quite intelligent people that I'm wrong about that.

:D

Just to clarify, it only undermines reductive materialism if our intuition is correct? If our intuition is faulty here then reductive materialism remains on the table?

No, reductive materialism accepts the existence of qualia, and maintains that the phenomena is supervenient on the physical. If Mary learns new fact, then qualia are real and not supervenient on the physical, so reductive materialism is false.

So, you can deny the existence of qualia (be a eliminativist materialist) or deny that supervenience is necessary for materialism to be true (be a metaphysical materialist), but I think reductive materialism is dead, unless you want to say that Mary doesn't learn anything new because the full set of physical facts somehow gives her the facts about the content of the quale, red, which I don't think can be done.

"Reductive Materialism is false' is the correct default position becuase (a) it is supported by intuition and (b) it is *not contradicted* by sufficient eveidence". Is that inteded result of the KA?

The relevant intuition being that qualia exist, and by extension that they have content.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:So, you can deny the existence of qualia (be a eliminativist materialist) ...
What does this mean? Would I be denying the existence of qualia as a separate physical thing, or denying their existence as a convenient term for a collection of brain processes?

... but I think reductive materialism is dead, unless you want to say that Mary doesn't learn anything new because the full set of physical facts somehow gives her the facts about the content of the quale, red, which I don't think can be done.
What are examples of "facts" about the content of the quale that wouldn't be physical facts?

~~ Paul

[ChuckieR]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Chuckie,
...
What I don't is how you can agree with me that these things are true, but still not understand why the KA falsifies materialism. Materialism is false because subjective things are incomprehensible to it. Emotions aren't just physical processes. They are more than just physical processes.

:)

Geoff. I can completely agree with you that only you can experience your experiences, and that your exact experiences are private and that I can never experience them myself.

But, I think it is theoretically possible to completely explain and understand why you experience what you experience. I understand that this is not the same as experiencing what you experience.

What I don't agree with is that it requires something non-physical to explain your experiences or my experiences. I don't pretend to entirely understand consciousness, but having seen so many real-world examples of how people's consciousness and concept of self can become completely messed up due to physical defects in the brain, I realize that there is a lot more to this seeming "magic" of consciousness than I can describe by simply reflecting on how I feel.

I would love to keep on going with this, but I really must get some "real life" work done. It has been a nice discussion, more pleasant that I thought it would be. I have experienced, gained knowlege, and connected a few more brain cells. I hope we can pick this up some day soon.

[ChuckieR]

...and just to show that I've really made some progress, I have an alternative to the original Colorblind Scientist thought experiment that I find scientifically (and maybe even philosophically) interesting, and that might address my concern with the originally stated thought experiment. I think Win's post about the "red detector" machine sparked this idea...

Instead of being raised in white light (which might not allow her to ever distinguish between colors), Mary is indeed raised in Red, Green, and Blue light, but only one color at a time. She has Red days, and Blue days, and Green days. The wavelengths of light are pure and are tuned to the center of her color receptor cell sensitivities. So she is exposed to all of her "primary" colors, but never sees any combinations of them, and never sees them "next to" each other. Of course she does all of the requisite reading (which I still maintain is a wasted exercise: abstract knowlege != experience).

Then she is let out of the room. She sees Yellow, and Orange, and Purple, and all of the other colors "in between" Red, Green, and Blue. Does she experience anything new? Almost certainly. Could she have anticipated what she sees? Almost certainly not. I think this is more what the KA folks had in mind.

Does the brain have to see the colors together to be able to eventually differentiate between them? Some might say that the neural pathways are only strengthened by seeing the color differences simultaneously (or nearly simultaneously). If the lights are alternated more quickly (every second, say), would that make a difference? (if you look at very rapidly alternating red and green lights that are in the same area of your visual field, you will "see yellow", even though they are never on at the same time - maybe due to simple retinal persistance?)

These are scientifically interesting questions. Would she see color in the same way you and I do?

I don't know...

(and I'm not afraid to admit it!) :)

Paul :


I think subjective means something like "as experienced by a person." Objective means something like "as common to everyone." I don't see why my subjective experience cannot be a product of my brain. Constant repetition of words like "I," "you," and "not object" doesn't convince me otherwise.


The reason I asked you this is because I am trying to get you to think about whether subjective and objective are logically mutually exclusive. You've seen my definitions. "Objective" things are "Objective" because they are out there in this abstract physical world we seem to share and can all verify together. Subjective things are "subjective" because they aren't 'out there' - they are 'in here' in your mind and totally unavailable to verification by anyone but you. It seems to me that these things are totally and utterly exclusive. To claim that subjective things 'are actually objective at the same time' is just totally stupid. If it is subjective then it cannot be objective. If it is objective then it cannot to subjective. There is no problem here - no confusion. Until, that is, a materialist is faced with the fact that these things are mutually exclusive. This has been demonstrated time and again by both yourself and Stimpson, who, motivated by a need to defend materialism, insist that subjective is in fact a subset of objective, with no apparent concern that this throws the dictionary in the bin, doesn't make sense and cannot actually be justified when one considers what the words actually mean.

What is the process here? Do we start with useful words with useful, logical, consistent meanings and then use them to carry out our logical investigations and come to some conclusions?

Or do we start from our conclusion (that materialism is true), then set about re-defining all the terms so that we know in advance that we will be able to reach the desired conclusion, regardless of whether or not those terms make sense anymore?


quote:
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Originally posted by ChuckieR
But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The KA depends on the fact that these things are totally and utterly different.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wait, please explain what you mean by this without relying on the KA being in any particular framework.


If 'feeling' and 'seeing' are physical processes then you should be able to describe them as such. In truth it is inconceivable that you could ever describe them as such because they are totally and utterly different.

How many times have you seen this exchange :

Materialist : Qualia ARE brain processes
Non-materialist : How so? They are completely and utterly different.
Materialist : PROVE IT!
Non-materialist : Why should I have to prove that two things which are completely and utterly different aren't the same thing?
Materialist : How do you know they are completely and utterly different?
Non-materialist : Huh? :confused:

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:"Objective" things are "Objective" because they are out there in this abstract physical world we seem to share and can all verify together. Subjective things are "subjective" because they aren't 'out there' - they are 'in here' in your mind and totally unavailable to verification by anyone but you. It seems to me that these things are totally and utterly exclusive. To claim that subjective things 'are actually objective at the same time' is just totally stupid. If it is subjective then it cannot be objective. If it is objective then it cannot to subjective. There is no problem here - no confusion. Until, that is, a materialist is faced with the fact that these things are mutually exclusive. This has been demonstrated time and again by both yourself and Stimpson, who, motivated by a need to defend materialism, insist that subjective is in fact a subset of objective, with no apparent concern that this throws the dictionary in the bin, doesn't make sense and cannot actually be justified when one considers what the words actually mean.
But they are not "totally and utterly exclusive," as demonstrated by people with brain damage, by neurophysiological experiments, by drugs, by alcohol, and so forth. Furthermore, there is a clear interaction between the subjective and objective aspects of a person whenever they react to sensory input, whenever they react to the objective world. So why is it such a stretch to suppose that your subjective life is a product of your objective brain?

I can't find any definitions of subjective that deny all connection to the objective.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

I'm not sue what you mean by "artificially stimulated ... to think it is seeing red." If you mean, say, pressing on your eye near your nose so that a blue spot appears at the opposite side of your visual field (try it, it's cool) without there being a blue object out there in the world, I think you're really seeing blue.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

No, that's pretty much exactly what I was getting at. In other words, would you say that the content of phenomenal consciousness is logically dictated by the physical brain activity, but that the existence of phenomenal consciousness cannot be derived from the physical brain activity?

Such a scenario could be modeled by saying that the physical World is a causally closed set, A. Phenomenal consciousness is a distinct set, B, which is not causally closed, but whose state is determined by the state of A.

One could imagine that the state of B is completely determined by the state of A, according to some set of logical rules, but that the existence of B is not required for the existence of A. In other words, a completely one-way interaction between A and B.

This would also imply that it is not possible, using information only available in set A, to determine the existence of set B, or the nature of the rules that describe how set B depends on set A.

Is this an accurate description of your position?

Does Mary possess information processing capabilities other than those performed by her brain? Does she possess any way of storing information, other than physically storing it in her brain?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Information processing, no. Storing, no.

Briefly, information is physically stored and processed by your brain. That physical instatiation of the information, though, doesn't exhaust the "facts." Every time that information is physically realized in your brain, in fact in any information processing system of a certain class, it is simultaneously phenomenally realized. The phenomenal realization of the information contains a new fact, or perhaps is a new fact.

When I say phenomenally realized, I mean represented within phenomenal consciousness.

The thing I am having a problem with, is the meaning of "phenomenally realized" information.

When you say "physically realized information", I know what that means. It means either storage or processing of the information (or a combination of the two), by some sort of physical process. I would thus be inclined to interpret the phrase "phenomenally realized information" to mean some sort of phenomenal storage or processing of the information.

If this is not what it means, then what does it mean? To put it another way, the word "to realize" is a verb, which describes what is being done to the thing being realized. What is being done to the information when it is "phenomenally realized"?


Paul,

Why do you consider the neural connections formed when I see red not to be "facts" about red? They are not conceptual facts about red, but they certainly are empirical facts necessary to see red. Separating them from "facts" seems to confuse matters.

Strictly speaking, the neural connections are not facts. They are physical thing. Facts are information. There are certainly facts about those neural connections. For example, the fact that Mary has those neural connections are a fact.

That said, the neural connections do encode facts about red, which is to say that there is information about red that Mary could extract from the memory of seeing red. But she already has that information.

If we all agree that learning these empirical facts does not constitute a violation of physicalism, then my question is only one of definition. But I'm suspicious from reading about the KA over the past few days that many people either do not acknowledge the existence of these facts, or think that their acquisition does violate physicalism. So it's an important issue.

Unfortunately, we do not all agree with this. Some of the people here are still trying to assert that the fact that Mary cannot gain the memory of seeing red from reading a book, somehow invalidates physicalism. Each of them seem to have different reasons for thinking this is the case, though.


Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

But they are not "totally and utterly exclusive," as demonstrated by people with brain damage, by neurophysiological experiments, by drugs, by alcohol, and so forth.


Aren't they?

How do any of the above things make subjective/mental/empirical and objective/physical/abstract anything but totally and utterly exclusive?

The only reason I have ever seen anyone EVER claim that subjective and objective were not exclusive opposites was when they were forced into doing so because they trying to defy logic whilst defending materialism. There is no other reason to claim it.


Furthermore, there is a clear interaction between the subjective and objective aspects of a person whenever they react to sensory input, whenever they react to the objective world. So why is it such a stretch to suppose that your subjective life is a product of your objective brain?


No-one is disputing they are related. For the purposes of the proof no-one is even disputing that one can't be a product of the other (at least I don't need to assert that to examine the words). I am merely stating that they are mutually exclusive. I am stating that nothing can be both subjective and objective at the same time. Why can't you just accept that this is the truth? Why the resistance? Try to forget about materialism and dualism for the minute and concentrate on the words themselves, what they mean, why they are defined and how they are related. Make sure the horse is facing in the right direction before you start thinking about the cart.

NB : remember the abstract/empirical difference. Empirical things come DIRECTLY into your mind. Abstract things are reasoned via a collectively-agreed on conceptual model called physics. Is there a difference between direct and subjective (and mental)? Is there a difference between indirect/abstract and objective (and physical)? Why does there need to be any confusion at all between these two classes of things?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy said:Strictly speaking, the neural connections are not facts. They are physical thing. Facts are information. There are certainly facts about those neural connections. For example, the fact that Mary has those neural connections are a fact.

That said, the neural connections do encode facts about red, which is to say that there is information about red that Mary could extract from the memory of seeing red. But she already has that information.
I'm still not catching on. Let me pick a specific set of neural connections that Mary might hypothetically obtain from seeing color: the weights in the visual cortex that specify the relative amount of each color in typical objects. There might not be such a thing, but I think we can agree that there are neural connections like this. Pick one of them.

First of all, referring to this as "memory" seems misleading. It is memory in that all neural encoding is memory, but it is not memory in the common sense of memory of events that can be retreived more or less at will.

That said, I don't understand why we wouldn't call this neural encoding a fact, in particular, a physical fact. Calling it something else confuses the issue when we say "Mary has learned all the physical facts about color." She cannot learn these sorts of facts by reading books (I'm assuming no robot operation here). She can gain the knowledge of how the visual cortex works, but not the personal neural connections.

These kinds of facts are referred to as subjective physical facts by at least one writer (http://neologic.net/rd/chalmers/mdeutsch.html).

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I am stating that nothing can be both subjective and objective at the same time.
I just don't see it. If I think about an apple, that's both at the same time. Perhaps if you defined the two words, I might see your point.

Maybe you mean that an object and my thoughts are mutually exclusive?

If I assume they are mutually exclusive, where does that lead?

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I just don't see it. If I think about an apple, that's both at the same time. Perhaps if you defined the two words, I might see your point.


I defined them in the opening post of the other thread :

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Two different forms of knowledge :

Mental facts, including both experienincg qualia and the subjective experience described as "remembering qualia" come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness (directly into your mind like qualia and emotions).

Physical facts, including knowledge of 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you see it yet?

Subjective refers to things that directly exist in your consciousness.

Objective refers to things that we reason exist using an agreed-upon set of abstract physical concepts.

It doesn't matter if you are a materialist, a dualist or an alien from the planet Zog - subjective and objective cannot be the same thing.


Maybe you mean that an object and my thoughts are mutually exclusive?


It amounts to the same thing.


If I assume they are mutually exclusive, where does that lead?


Do not assume it! Satisfy yourself that it must be true. THEN think about where it leads. It seems to me that its the 'thinking about where it leads' that causes people to refuse to accept what these words are for. I think it is important to accept the meanings of the words, their mutual exclusivity and their independence from assumptions about ontology first so we don't go around in any more circles.

Geoff.

Paul


If I think about an apple, that's both at the same time.


Your thoughts about the apple are subjective. Your visual picture of the apple and your experiences of tasting the apple are all subjective. They have direct meaning to you and no agreed-upon or objectively communicable meaning to anyone else.

If you measure the size and weight of the apple or specify the chemicals it is composed of then these things are objective. They are also abstract, and only have meaning with respect to our collectively agreed-on set of physical concepts.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

I'm still not catching on. Let me pick a specific set of neural connections that Mary might hypothetically obtain from seeing color: the weights in the visual cortex that specify the relative amount of each color in typical objects. There might not be such a thing, but I think we can agree that there are neural connections like this. Pick one of them.

First of all, referring to this as "memory" seems misleading. It is memory in that all neural encoding is memory, but it is not memory in the common sense of memory of events that can be retreived more or less at will.

I would say that the specific neural connections you are talking about is a part of the memory of seeing red. The memory is more than just the abstract information that we can cognitively retrieve from it at will.

That said, I don't understand why we wouldn't call this neural encoding a fact, in particular, a physical fact. Calling it something else confuses the issue when we say "Mary has learned all the physical facts about color." She cannot learn these sorts of facts by reading books (I'm assuming no robot operation here). She can gain the knowledge of how the visual cortex works, but not the personal neural connections.

On the contrary, I would say that calling them physical facts confuses the issue, since these "facts" are not abstract information. Clearly all that Mary can be expected to learn from reading a book is abstract information.

These kinds of facts are referred to as subjective physical facts by at least one writer (http://neologic.net/rd/chalmers/mdeutsch.html).

I think what we are dealing with here is primarily a semantic issue. We can call them facts, or not call them facts. This only determines which of the statements in the original though experiment is false. If we call them facts, then the claim that after reading a complete description of red, Mary will have all the facts about red, is false. If we don't call them facts, then the claim that when she sees red, she will learn new facts about red, is false.

Either way, the problem is that two statements in the thought experiment use the word "fact" in ways that must mean different things, in order for those statements to both be true under physicalism.

One approach would be to say that there is no contradiction, because the word "fact" means something different in the two statements. Another approach would be to say that she doesn't learn all the facts from reading the book. And a third approach would be to say that she does not learn any new facts when she sees red. It all depends on what you mean by "facts".

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Do you see it yet?
Nope. Maybe it makes more sense if you think of the subjective as the only thing that exists, and that the objective is a product of it. Of course, then there is only one thing, so objective and subjective are the same.

Maybe you mean that an object and my thoughts are mutually exclusive?
It amounts to the same thing.

No more than the fact that two rocks are mutually exclusive.

I'm willing to call thoughts and feelings subjective, and other stuff objective. But I can't get the mutually exclusive part in my head.

~~ Paul

Paul :


Nope. Maybe it makes more sense if you think of the subjective as the only thing that exists, and that the objective is a product of it.


Well, from our existential point of view, which is the only point of view we have and the point of view from which we are condemned to communicate this is the truth. Subjective things are the only thing that have direct existence to you and the objective things are a product of :

a) Assuming that solipsism is false
b) Positing that there is a shared external reality
c) Investigating that reality and talking to each other about it and agreeing on a set of verifiable concepts.

So, yes - if you want to make sure that the way you think about exisence actually matches up with the existential position you find yourself in then you must accept that this is the relationship between subjective and objective.


Of course, then there is only one thing, so objective and subjective are the same.


That's not true though. If solipsism is true then there is only one thing and it is subjective and nothing is objective. If solipsism is rejected (and we can agree to reject it) then we can posit that there is a shared objective reality out there (the 'noumenon') and we can go about conducting experiments to learn about the behaviour of this objective noumenon. But regardless of what your ontological leaning it remains the truth that the subjective things directly exist in your mind and the objective things have to be the abstract products of reasoning, experimenting and communicating with other people who are presumed to be conscious like you are. What is important here is that the meanings of subjective and objective depend on our actual existential predicament, and do not change because you have a desire to assert that a particular ontological position is true or false.


I'm willing to call thoughts and feelings subjective, and other stuff objective. But I can't get the mutually exclusive part in my head.


Why subjective things cannot be objective :

Thoughts and feelings are subjective because they occur directly in your mind. The only way you could make them objective was if someone else could experience what was going on in your mind and then you could both come to an agreement on how to measure and define those mental experiences. So unless you can build a telepathy machine those thoughts and feelings cannot ever be objective. Therefore subjective things cannot be objective.

Why objective things cannot be subjective :

Objective things are objective because they do not exist in anybodies mind - they exist in a proposed shared reality that we agree how to define and measure. As soon as we have defined them and measured them then anyone else can come along, learn the concepts and methods and also measure them and verify them. However - that external reality is still just something we have proposed exists - it never enters your mind directly - you never get to experience the noumenon. Therefore objective things can never be subjective.

If objective things can never be subjective and subjective things can never be objective then subjective and objective are mutually exclusive.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpson said:On the contrary, I would say that calling them physical facts confuses the issue, since these "facts" are not abstract information. Clearly all that Mary can be expected to learn from reading a book is abstract information.
I'm belaboring the point here, because your conclusion summarizes the issues just peachily.

I guess my problem is with using fact to mean abstract information. Part of the book learning might be something like "In a normally sighted person, the weight of red in the neural representation of an apple is .85" That is certainly a fact, but it's not really abstract information. Even less abstract, because it only pertains to one person, would be: "When Jane Doe was autopsied, her red weight was only .45"

I think we're drawing an artificial distinction between conceptual information and specific data, then calling the former facts. No?

But moving along . . .

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE,

Okay, where do we go from here?

However - that external reality is still just something we have proposed exists - it never enters your mind directly - you never get to experience the noumenon.
Does it enter my senses directly?

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Does it enter my senses directly?



The noumenon can only ever be known indirectly. I am not sure that introducing the term 'senses' is going to do anything but confuse things again.


Okay, where do we go from here?


I'm still waiting for you to tell me that you understand why subjective and objective must be mutually exclusive. If we can agree on that then we can proceed with a pair of definitions we both understand and accept. This is progress in itself.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:I'm still waiting for you to tell me that you understand why subjective and objective must be mutually exclusive. If we can agree on that then we can proceed with a pair of definitions we both understand and accept. This is progress in itself.
I'll agree for the sake of discussion. If you want a religious conversion, I'm not your man.

In particular:Objective things are objective because they do not exist in anybodies mind - they exist in a proposed shared reality that we agree how to define and measure.
Does this mean that these objective things are necessarily not a product of the subjective, in order to ensure their mutual exclusivity?

~~ Paul

Paul :


I'll agree for the sake of discussion. If you want a religious conversion, I'm not your man.


Religion is about faith. This is philosophy. I should hope by now you should have realised that the one thing I am specifically demanding you DO NOT DO is just 'assume', just 'believe' or 'just agree for the sake of discussion'. That is what you do at the moment when you assume materialism is true. Have I asked you to assume anything? I am trying to stop you from depending on faith, not switch your faith to a new one. I am trying to show you why my own philosophical position is based on LOGIC, not faith. Why does it need a religious conversion for you to agree on these definitions of subjective and objective? Why does it need faith? Why are you only 'agreeing for the sake of discussion'? Why won't you commit yourself to acceptance of it? The logic is solid as a rock. If you don't think so then why don't you think so?

Finding philosophical truth requires the courage to follow the logic wherever it leads. There is no point in me continuing this with you if when I take you where the logic leads you turn around and start quibbling with the definitions again. We have done that for the last year or more. I want to move on from there.


In particular:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Objective things are objective because they do not exist in anybodies mind - they exist in a proposed shared reality that we agree how to define and measure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this mean that these objective things are necessarily not a product of the subjective, in order to ensure their mutual exclusivity?


Provided you believe that solipsism is false and other people are conscious then it logically follows that the objective things have some sort of collective existence independent of our individual minds.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Provided you believe that solipsism is false and other people are conscious then it logically follows that the objective things have some sort of collective existence independent of our individual minds.
So if the objective is not a product of the subjective, and if the two are mutually exclusive, how does the subjective perceive the objective?

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
So if the objective is not a product of the subjective, and if the two are mutually exclusive, how does the subjective perceive the objective?

~~ Paul

The subjective doesn't perceive the objective (the noumenon). The subjective only ever perceives the subjective (the phenomenon). The subjective uses reason, logic, intuition and experimentation to learn about the behaviour of the objective. In other words we assume that what we perceive to be an objective reality is indeed an objective reality, we invent abstract models to describe the behaviour of that objective reality and then we conduct experiments to test the predictions of our models. We then talk to other people and come to agreement about the models and the experiments. But all we ever actually have is the phenomenon and the models and the experiments and the agreements - we never actually get our mittens on the noumenon itself - it is the agreement and the ability to reach that agreement that makes the objective things objective.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

So if the objective is not a product of the subjective, and if the two are mutually exclusive, how does the subjective perceive the objective?

~~ Paul
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The subjective doesn't perceive the objective (the noumenon). The subjective only ever perceives the subjective (the phenomenon). The subjective uses reason, logic, intuition and experimentation to learn about the behaviour of the objective. In other words we assume that what we perceive to be an objective reality is indeed an objective reality, we invent abstract models to describe the behaviour of that objective reality and then we conduct experiments to test the predictions of our models. We then talk to other people and come to agreement about the models and the experiments. But all we ever actually have is the phenomenon and the models and the experiments and the agreements - we never actually get our mittens on the noumenon itself - it is the agreement and the ability to reach that agreement that makes the objective things objective.

(Emphasis mine.) If we assume that what we percieve is an objective reality, and "we" are subjective, then how can you claim that the subjective is not percieving the objective? This is nothing less than rejecting the assumption that you just claimed to make.

Furthermore, if your perceptions are not of objective reality, then you cannot possibly draw any logical conclusions about objective reality from your perceptions.

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Stimpy:

No, that's pretty much exactly what I was getting at. In other words, would you say that the content of phenomenal consciousness is logically dictated by the physical brain activity, but that the existence of phenomenal consciousness cannot be derived from the physical brain activity?

I wouldn't say logically dictated, in the sense of logically necessitated, because I can conceive that instead of experiencing the quale, red, I experience instead the qualitatively different quale, gred, such that the content, per se, of phenonomenal consciousness isn't determined by the physical state of my brain.

That being said, I think that every given phenomenal state has a corresponding physical information state. Every time you have physical state A, you also have phenomenal state A*. So, in that sense, the content of a phenomenal state is related to the physical state by virtue of both being realizations of the same information by different means. What the particular qualitative content of the phenomenal state is, however, is independent of the physical state.

This would also imply that it is not possible, using information only available in set A, to determine the existence of set B, or the nature of the rules that describe how set B depends on set A.

As to the first, yes. We do, however, have knowledge of the existence of set B, the phenomenal set, by virtue of our direct access.

As to the second, I don't think so. One thing we can do is define the properties that any set B, and any relation between set A and set B, must necessarily have. Another is that, simply because set B is physically unobservable doesn't mean that we can't look for some Ur-set on which the properties of both sets A and B depend, then test our predictions using the A set only. Of course, this depends on there being an Ur-set and on there being competing theories of the Ur-set such that by experimentally confirming one, we can reject others and thereby draw conclusions about set B.

Ultimately, it is these considerations, and stubborness, that prevent me from adopting mysterianism as a position.

When you say "physically realized information", I know what that means. It means either storage or processing of the information (or a combination of the two), by some sort of physical process. I would thus be inclined to interpret the phrase "phenomenally realized information" to mean some sort of phenomenal storage or processing of the information.

I see what you mean. When I said no storage, I meant to indicate that I don't think there is a "phenomenal memory bank," as it were, in which phenomenal experiences are stored.

As to processing, I agree that there must be a mechanism for the realization of information phenomeally, and we might call the operation of that mechanism, the "processing" of information phenomenally. I don't know what that mechanism is.

When I say physically realized information, I mean that there is a representation of a set of facts, in our case in our brains as, presumably, weightings of and connections between neurons. The phenomenal realization consists of the same facts represented within phenomenal consciousness, for example, the phenomenally experienced visual field.

Again, I don't like the word "stored" because that suggests a persistence across time that I'm not willing to commit to.

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
[B]UCE,
(Emphasis mine.) If we assume that what we percieve is an objective reality, and "we" are subjective,


"We" aren't subjective. "We" are the subject. Subjective things are subjective with respect to us.


....then how can you claim that the subjective is not percieving the objective? This is nothing less than rejecting the assumption that you just claimed to make.


OK - confusion over the term 'perceive'. We percieve subjective things directly. We percieve the objective things indirectly. We reason about their existence, and by means of our reason we can be said to indirectly perceive the noumenon. I don't think I have contradicted myself. Does that clarify?


Furthermore, if your perceptions are not of objective reality, then you cannot possibly draw any logical conclusions about objective reality from your perceptions.


The whole reason we have to use reason to perceive the objective is because the only things we can directly percieve are subjective. If this wasn't so, we wouldn't need science because we would directly know the objective world.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:I see what you mean. When I said no storage, I meant to indicate that I don't think there is a "phenomenal memory bank," as it were, in which phenomenal experiences are stored.
I think I have the wrong idea of what phenomenal experiences are. I think of phenomenal as meaning sensory, in which case it would seem that there is a memory of sensory experiences. What do you mean by "phenomenal experience"?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:OK - confusion over the term 'perceive'. We percieve subjective things directly. We percieve the objective things indirectly. We reason about their existence, and by means of our reason we can be said to indirectly perceive the noumenon. I don't think I have contradicted myself. Does that clarify?
I'm afraid not. Do we perceive the objective, or do we reason about it? If all we do is reason about it, then it would seem to be nothing more than a subset of the subjective, in which case the two are not mutually exclusive.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

I think I have the wrong idea of what phenomenal experiences are. I think of phenomenal as meaning sensory, in which case it would seem that there is a memory of sensory experiences. What do you mean by "phenomenal experience"?

On the assumption that you're using the particular "you" here, here's what I think. ;)

"Phenomenal experience" refers to the raw feels, as it were, of what's going on in your brain. It's not confined to sensory processing, although some of the most usual examples, what red looks like, what strawberries taste like, are the phenomenal experience of sensory processing.

Other phenomenal experiences include the experience of emotions, what love is like, or the experience of thinking, what considering these questions is like.

There is a memory of sensory input and processing, but no memory of sensory phenomenal experience. As I've said before, we have experiences of memories, not memories of experiences.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Wow, okay. That seems to be almost the opposite of the dictionary definition of phenomenal, but I'll go with it.

So phenomenal experiences are the experiences of the phenomena going on in our brains?

Why do you think we can't record memories of such experiences? I realize that such memories would be markedly different from the memories of an external event, but I don't see what precludes them. Many of my strongest emotional memories "feel" as if they are memories of previous internal experiences, not memories of events.

As I've said before, we have experiences of memories, not memories of experiences.
But what is a memory?

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

Wow, okay. That seems to be almost the opposite of the dictionary definition of phenomenal, but I'll go with it.

Many of the terms used in this discussion are philosophical terms of art. Try a dictionary of philosophy. Also, some of terms are ones the long standing participants in these discussions have come to agree on.

So phenomenal experiences are the experiences of the phenomena going on in our brains?

Yes. But replace phenomena with information processing. It's less confusing that way.

Why do you think we can't record memories of such experiences? I realize that such memories would be markedly different from the memories of an external event, but I don't see what precludes them. Many of my strongest emotional memories "feel" as if they are memories of previous internal experiences, not memories of events.

Because they're not physical. There's no place to record them.

And the distinction isn't that memories are only of external events. You can have a memory of an emotional state. You just can't have a memory of a phenemenal experience of an emotional state.

But what is a memory?

A pattern in your brain, containing a record of a previous state of your brain.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]UcE said:
I'm afraid not. Do we perceive the objective, or do we reason about it? If all we do is reason about it, then it would seem to be nothing more than a subset of the subjective, in which case the two are not mutually exclusive.



Isn't the whole point of science to objectify the subjective? It is the very fact that we reason about it that makes it objective. But once it has becomes objective it isn't subjective any more, so it isn't a 'subset' of the subjective, no.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

As to the second, I don't think so. One thing we can do is define the properties that any set B, and any relation between set A and set B, must necessarily have.

But we don't have access to any information about set B. Keep in mind that when I say that, I mean that our brains, which ultimately are going to have to do all of the work of figuring this stuff out, do not have access to any information about set B.

Another is that, simply because set B is physically unobservable doesn't mean that we can't look for some Ur-set on which the properties of both sets A and B depend, then test our predictions using the A set only. Of course, this depends on there being an Ur-set and on there being competing theories of the Ur-set such that by experimentally confirming one, we can reject others and thereby draw conclusions about set B.

Doesn't this violate the premise that set A is causally closed?

In other words, let's imagine that we did have two competing theories about the Ur-set. Could they possibly make different predictions about observations made in set A? If set A is causally closed, then nothing that is not a part of set A can have any affect on it. By claiming that set A is causally closed, you are saying that set A could be exactly the way it is without there being anything else at all. In fact, this is exactly what you are saying when you say that p-zombies are logically possible.

Ultimately, it is these considerations, and stubborness, that prevent me from adopting mysterianism as a position.

If set A is causally closed, then by definition, no observation made within set A could possibly reveal whether or not there is anything besides set A, or any information about it. This means that as long as you accept that it is possible that materialism is correct, property dualism is, at best, a competing theory which makes no additional testable claims. It must therefore be rejected in favor of the more parsimonious theory, materialism.

After all, you could postulate an infinite number of such additional layers of reality, with an unlimited degree of complexity of relationships. Why bother?

When you say "physically realized information", I know what that means. It means either storage or processing of the information (or a combination of the two), by some sort of physical process. I would thus be inclined to interpret the phrase "phenomenally realized information" to mean some sort of phenomenal storage or processing of the information.
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I see what you mean. When I said no storage, I meant to indicate that I don't think there is a "phenomenal memory bank," as it were, in which phenomenal experiences are stored.

As to processing, I agree that there must be a mechanism for the realization of information phenomenally, and we might call the operation of that mechanism, the "processing" of information phenomenally. I don't know what that mechanism is.

OK. A more pertinent question would be, do you think it is possible, at least in principle, to find out?

When I say physically realized information, I mean that there is a representation of a set of facts, in our case in our brains as, presumably, weightings of and connections between neurons. The phenomenal realization consists of the same facts represented within phenomenal consciousness, for example, the phenomenally experienced visual field.

Again, I don't like the word "stored" because that suggests a persistence across time that I'm not willing to commit to.

Fair enough. This raises another subtlety about the Mary problem, though. If there is no storage of this "phenomenal information", then I would assert that Mary "gains something new" everytime she experiences red, regardless of whether she has experienced it before or not, and then immediately loses it again.

In other words, I do not think that you can meaningfully say that Mary "learns" any new phenomenal facts when she sees red for the first time, because "learning" implies that the information is stored in some way.


UCE,

"We" aren't subjective. "We" are the subject. Subjective things are subjective with respect to us.

So, are "we" subjective, or objective? Neither?

....then how can you claim that the subjective is not percieving the objective? This is nothing less than rejecting the assumption that you just claimed to make.
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OK - confusion over the term 'perceive'. We percieve subjective things directly. We percieve the objective things indirectly. We reason about their existence, and by means of our reason we can be said to indirectly perceive the noumenon. I don't think I have contradicted myself. Does that clarify?

Crystal clear. It is still a contradiction, though, because by asserting that objective and subjective are completely distinct things, there is no way to logically justify drawing conclusions about objective things from subjective things.

There must be a relationship. And as soon as you assert the existence of a relationship, it is no longer possible to draw this absolute distinction you insist on.

For example, if subjective things and objective things are different, distinct things, then in order for there to be any relationship between them, they must either interact, or both be products of the same thing.

If they interact, then the interaction must be both objective and subjective. What's more, this would cause aspects of the subjective things (those that interact with the objective things) to become indirectly observable, by means of the objective things they interact with. That is, unless you assume a one-way interaction, in which case you end up with essentially the same position Win is advocating, and the same problem I am addressing with him.

On the other hand, if they are both products of the same thing, then that thing must be both subjective and objective. In this case, you end up with essentially the same situation. That thing just adds another level of abstraction to the problem.

By the way, this is all dualism. I thought you said you were an idealist?

Furthermore, if your perceptions are not of objective reality, then you cannot possibly draw any logical conclusions about objective reality from your perceptions.
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The whole reason we have to use reason to perceive the objective is because the only things we can directly percieve are subjective. If this wasn't so, we wouldn't need science because we would directly know the objective world.

You missed my point. If we accept your premises, then we can't use reason to perceive the objective, because we cannot possibly draw any logical conclusions about objective reality from our perceptions of subjective things.

Isn't the whole point of science to objectify the subjective? It is the very fact that we reason about it that makes it objective. But once it has becomes objective it isn't subjective any more, so it isn't a 'subset' of the subjective, no.

I think I may see what you are trying to get at here. You are essentially saying that the objective does not exist at all, but rather that it is simply an abstract model of our subjective experiences, right?

Dr. Stupid

[Win]

Stimpy:

But we don't have access to any information about set B. Keep in mind that when I say that, I mean that our brains, which ultimately are going to have to do all of the work of figuring this stuff out, do not have access to any information about set B.

I agree that our brains have no access, in particular, to information about set B. Nevertheless, I still think that we can reason about the properties that any possible set B must necessarily have. This is independent of any particular properties set B might have.

Doesn't this violate the premise that set A is causally closed?

I don't think so, because the properties of set A, while independent of any properties of set B, could still be dependent on the properties of the Ur-set.

In other words, let's imagine that we did have two competing theories about the Ur-set. Could they possibly make different predictions about observations made in set A? If set A is causally closed, then nothing that is not a part of set A can have any affect on it. By claiming that set A is causally closed, you are saying that set A could be exactly the way it is without there being anything else at all. In fact, this is exactly what you are saying when you say that p-zombies are logically possible.

It would depend on the content of the theories.

Let's consider two mutually exclusive possible Ur-set theories, in the extreme, one of which makes prediction X about the state of (sub)set A, the other making prediction Y. At the same time, theory X predicts the existence of phenomenally realized information, giving a certain property X* for it; theory Y doesn't.

We confirm prediction X. Now we have reason to believe theory X, and with it the property X*.

If set A is causally closed, then by definition, no observation made within set A could possibly reveal whether or not there is anything besides set A, or any information about it. This means that as long as you accept that it is possible that materialism is correct, property dualism is, at best, a competing theory which makes no additional testable claims. It must therefore be rejected in favor of the more parsimonious theory, materialism.

Causally closed with respect to set B.

The problem with the argument from parsimony here, as I see it, is that materialism requires the rejection of the existence of phenomenal consciousness. Property dualism accepts the existence of phenomenal consciousness, and gives the best possible explanation under the assumption that phenomenal consciousness exists. Parsimony can't be invoked because property dualism explains something that materialism must deny the existence of.

After all, you could postulate an infinite number of such additional layers of reality, with an unlimited degree of complexity of relationships. Why bother?

Because it's necessary in this case to take the existence of phenomenal consciousness into account.

OK. A more pertinent question would be, do you think it is possible, at least in principle, to find out?

Yes, in the ways I set out above.

Fair enough. This raises another subtlety about the Mary problem, though. If there is no storage of this "phenomenal information", then I would assert that Mary "gains something new" everytime she experiences red, regardless of whether she has experienced it before or not, and then immediately loses it again.

I think I can accept this formulation.

In other words, I do not think that you can meaningfully say that Mary "learns" any new phenomenal facts when she sees red for the first time, because "learning" implies that the information is stored in some way.

But I don't think I can accept this one, because I don't accept the implication.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Doesn't this violate the premise that set A is causally closed?
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I don't think so, because the properties of set A, while independent of any properties of set B, could still be dependent on the properties of the Ur-set.

Set A is a subset of set Ur, right? If set A depends on any properties of set Ur that are not also properties of set A, then set A cannot be causally closed.

In other words, let's imagine that we did have two competing theories about the Ur-set. Could they possibly make different predictions about observations made in set A? If set A is causally closed, then nothing that is not a part of set A can have any affect on it. By claiming that set A is causally closed, you are saying that set A could be exactly the way it is without there being anything else at all. In fact, this is exactly what you are saying when you say that p-zombies are logically possible.
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It would depend on the content of the theories.

Let's consider two mutually exclusive possible Ur-set theories, in the extreme, one of which makes prediction X about the state of (sub)set A, the other making prediction Y. At the same time, theory X predicts the existence of phenomenally realized information, giving a certain property X* for it; theory Y doesn't.

We confirm prediction X. Now we have reason to believe theory X, and with it the property X*.

I would assert that this scenario is not compatible with the assumption that set A is causally closed. If set A is causally closed, then any observation you make must be consistent with the hypothesis that there is nothing more than set A. This means that any theory that makes a prediction about an observation in set A, could be formulated entirely within set A. So even though your two theories, X and Y, both make predictions about set A, I could replace them with theories X' and Y', which make the same predictions, but which make no reference at all to anything that is not in set A.

Since theory X' is more parsimonious than theory X, it must be accepted as the explanation for observation X.

In other words, even if we assume that set Ur exists, we cannot attribute anything we observe in A to it, because we can always find a simpler explanation that does not make reference to set Ur.

If set A is causally closed, then by definition, no observation made within set A could possibly reveal whether or not there is anything besides set A, or any information about it. This means that as long as you accept that it is possible that materialism is correct, property dualism is, at best, a competing theory which makes no additional testable claims. It must therefore be rejected in favor of the more parsimonious theory, materialism.
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Causally closed with respect to set B.

Aha. Well, that is quite a bit different. It raises the obvious question, though. If set A is not causally closed with respect to set Ur, then what criteria have been used to designate what is in set A, and what is not?

If we observe an effect which we can determined to be caused by property X*, as you described above, then by what criteria do we say that property X* is a member of set Ur (non-physical) instead of set A (physical)?

In other words, if A and B are both subsets of set Ur, and A is causally closed with respect to Ur, but not with respect to B, then some other subset of Ur must exist, which we will call A', which contains set A, and is causally closed.

In what sense does the entire set A' not qualify as being physical? You have already claimed that we should be able to employ the scientific method, and through observation determine what the properties of this set A' are. So in what sense is set A' not the set of all physical things? What characteristic distinguishes the elements of set A from the elements of set A' that are not in set A?

That said, we are back to where we started. If set B is not included in set A', then we have no way of knowing anything about it, and must accept materialism as the more parsimonious explanation. If set B is included in set A', then we just have materialism.

The problem with the argument from parsimony here, as I see it, is that materialism requires the rejection of the existence of phenomenal consciousness. Property dualism accepts the existence of phenomenal consciousness, and gives the best possible explanation under the assumption that phenomenal consciousness exists. Parsimony can't be invoked because property dualism explains something that materialism must deny the existence of.

That is only a valid argument if you claim that materialism is not a possible explanation. If you can logically reject materialism as a possibility, then it is not the most parsimonious explanation, because it is not an explanation at all. But as long as you accept the possibility of it, the parsimony argument is valid.

I would argue that the existence of phenomenal consciousness (and here I assume you are referring to something that is defined to be non-physical), is not a given. It may or may not exist. If your only reason for believing it exists is intuitive, then that is not a valid justification for rejecting the more parsimonious explanation. Note that the direct access argument does not apply here, because what is in question is not whether we have direct access to our experiences, but whether phenomenal consciousness is, in fact, what we have direct access to. Under materialism, we still have direct access to our experiences. Those experiences are just brain processes, and the "we" that has direct access to them is just other brain processes.

After all, you could postulate an infinite number of such additional layers of reality, with an unlimited degree of complexity of relationships. Why bother?
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Because it's necessary in this case to take the existence of phenomenal consciousness into account.

Is it really necessary? If you cannot reject the possibility that they don't exist, then it is not necessary.

Fair enough. This raises another subtlety about the Mary problem, though. If there is no storage of this "phenomenal information", then I would assert that Mary "gains something new" everytime she experiences red, regardless of whether she has experienced it before or not, and then immediately loses it again.
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I think I can accept this formulation.

quote:
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In other words, I do not think that you can meaningfully say that Mary "learns" any new phenomenal facts when she sees red for the first time, because "learning" implies that the information is stored in some way.
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But I don't think I can accept this one, because I don't accept the implication.

I am not sure what you mean. Do you mean that you accept the premise (that the information is not stored), but reject the conclusion (that this means she can not be meaningfully said to have learned something)?

What is the implication that you do not accept?

Dr. Stupid

Stimpson :

I think you are closer to understanding what I am saying. Many of the questions you are asking now are the crucial ones, IMO.


So, are "we" subjective, or objective? Neither?


I have to be careful about what I mean by 'we'. I am using it in its strictest sense here - I am refering to the thing we refer to as "I", rather than the contents of our minds. That thing - "I" is both subjective and objective. It is the only thing which is both subjective and objective.



UCE :

OK - confusion over the term 'perceive'. We percieve subjective things directly. We percieve the objective things indirectly. We reason about their existence, and by means of our reason we can be said to indirectly perceive the noumenon. I don't think I have contradicted myself. Does that clarify?
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Stimpson :

Crystal clear. It is still a contradiction, though, because by asserting that objective and subjective are completely distinct things, there is no way to logically justify drawing conclusions about objective things from subjective things.


Well, there is if we can agree on mathematics. We can compare predictions to outcomes and we can think using maths and logic. We need the objective characteristics of logic and mathematics in order to be able to justify drawing conclusions about our subjective experiences.


For example, if subjective things and objective things are different, distinct things, then in order for there to be any relationship between them, they must either interact, or both be products of the same thing.


They are both products of the same thing. This is absolutely essential. They share a common source.


If they interact, then the interaction must be both objective and subjective.


Yes, WE are the interaction. There are some clues here to the riddles of QM, but they are only clues right now.


On the other hand, if they are both products of the same thing, then that thing must be both subjective and objective.


Correct.


In this case, you end up with essentially the same situation.


Which is?


By the way, this is all dualism. I thought you said you were an idealist?


I am. :)


If we accept your premises, then we can't use reason to perceive the objective, because we cannot possibly draw any logical conclusions about objective reality from our perceptions of subjective things.


Well, we are lucky that the outside world that seems to be there also seems to behave logically. But we can't draw very many absolute conclusions. Only tentative conclusions.


I think I may see what you are trying to get at here. You are essentially saying that the objective does not exist at all, but rather that it is simply an abstract model of our subjective experiences, right?


Close, but I'd contest "the objective does not exist at all". Yes, it does exist, otherwise I'd be a solipsist, but its existence is logically equivalent to a fiction. Our abstract model is an abstract model of a noumenal world that really does exist, but it exists in a form that we can only barely comprehend. We see images of it and we try to make predictive models about its behavior but we don't know it. Having rejected solipsism we must at least conclude that from your perspective as an individual human being it does exist, and it exists externally to the contents of your mind. But at the end of the day I am an idealist, not a dualist, so I say that the noumenon equates to the contents of higher level mental realm. The root of that higher level mental realm is also the root of your own mental realm and the root of mathematics and the root of the mathematically-behaving noumenon.

I have tried to explain a lot of things here, if something isn't clear it is probably because we have to work some more on synchronising our terminology. Also, there are issues with time and QM that need to be considered at the same time. However we re-interpret the metaphysics, everything relevant we know about the scientific model needs to be accounted for.

[Win]

Stimpy:

Set A is a subset of set Ur, right? If set A depends on any properties of set Ur that are not also properties of set A, then set A cannot be causally closed.

I agree that set A can't be causally closed with respect to the Ur-set. Set A can be casually closed with respect to Set B.

I would assert that this scenario is not compatible with the assumption that set A is causally closed. If set A is causally closed, then any observation you make must be consistent with the hypothesis that there is nothing more than set A. This means that any theory that makes a prediction about an observation in set A, could be formulated entirely within set A. So even though your two theories, X and Y, both make predictions about set A, I could replace them with theories X' and Y', which make the same predictions, but which make no reference at all to anything that is not in set A.

Again, I agree.

But I'm only committed to the assertion that set A is causally closed with respect to set B, that is to say that the physical is causally closed with respect to the phenomenal.

In other words, even if we assume that set Ur exists, we cannot attribute anything we observe in A to it, because we can always find a simpler explanation that does not make reference to set Ur.

But we require reference to the Ur-set to explain phenomenal consciousness.

Aha. Well, that is quite a bit different. It raises the obvious question, though. If set A is not causally closed with respect to set Ur, then what criteria have been used to designate what is in set A, and what is not?

For the purposes of the current discussion, let's say that what is not in set A is phenomenal consciousness. Everything else is.

If we observe an effect which we can determined to be caused by property X*, as you described above, then by what criteria do we say that property X* is a member of set Ur (non-physical) instead of set A (physical)?

I wouldn't say that prediction X, about set A, has been caused by phenomenal property A*. Rather, theory X makes prediction X about the physical world and also has as a consequence the attribution of property X* to the phenomenal world, which is otherwise unobservable.

And the Ur-set, strictly speaking, isn't physical. It subsumes both set A (physical) and set b (phenomenal).

In other words, if A and B are both subsets of set Ur, and A is causally closed with respect to Ur, but not with respect to B, then some other subset of Ur must exist, which we will call A', which contains set A, and is causally closed.

Set A is causally closed with respect to set B, not to the Ur-set.

In what sense does the entire set A' not qualify as being physical? You have already claimed that we should be able to employ the scientific method, and through observation determine what the properties of this set A' are. So in what sense is set A' not the set of all physical things? What characteristic distinguishes the elements of set A from the elements of set A' that are not in set A?

I don't see the distinction between A and A'.

That is only a valid argument if you claim that materialism is not a possible explanation. If you can logically reject materialism as a possibility, then it is not the most parsimonious explanation, because it is not an explanation at all. But as long as you accept the possibility of it, the parsimony argument is valid.

I do reject reductive materialism as a possible explanation for phenomenal consciousness. I allow that elliminative materialism is a possible explanation, but only at the cost of denying the existence of phenomenal consciousness.

That's why I think parsimony is inapplicable.

Of course, metaphysical materialism is still possible, but it has it's problems too, namely that it doesn't make any sense, to me at least. ;)

I would argue that the existence of phenomenal consciousness (and here I assume you are referring to something that is defined to be non-physical), is not a given. It may or may not exist. If your only reason for believing it exists is intuitive, then that is not a valid justification for rejecting the more parsimonious explanation. Note that the direct access argument does not apply here, because what is in question is not whether we have direct access to our experiences, but whether phenomenal consciousness is, in fact, what we have direct access to. Under materialism, we still have direct access to our experiences. Those experiences are just brain processes, and the "we" that has direct access to them is just other brain processes.

I haven't defined phenomenal consciousness to be non-physical. I've concluded that it is, in part from the failure of reductive materialism.

Given the choice between elliminative materialism and property dualism, I chose the latter because it takes the existence of phenomenal consciousness into account.

Is it really necessary? If you cannot reject the possibility that they don't exist, then it is not necessary.

But I can reject it. My direct access demonstrates the existence of phenomenal consciousness. Because I accept the fact of the existence of phenomenal consciousness, I am compelled to adopt a property dualistic position.

What is the implication that you do not accept?

Learning implies storage.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win, I'm confused. In response to my question about why we can't record memories of phenomenal experiences, you replied:Because they're not physical. There's no place to record them.
Did you mean that the experiences aren't physical, or that the memories of them aren't physical?

Then, in a response to Stimpson, you said:I haven't defined phenomenal consciousness to be non-physical. I've concluded that it is, ...
Is phenomenal consciousness the same as phenomenal experience?

If I have no memory of phenomenal experiences, then why doesn't each one seem unique?

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

Did you mean that the experiences aren't physical, or that the memories of them aren't physical?

Memories are physical. The phenomenal experience of having a memory isn't physical.

Is phenomenal consciousness the same as phenomenal experience?

The phenomenal experience of something is an instance of phenomenal consciousness.

If I have no memory of phenomenal experiences, then why doesn't each one seem unique?

Take a memory, your mother's face say. The phenomenal experience of having that memory should be substantially similar each time you have it, because it's the phenomenal experience of the same memory.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

So, are "we" subjective, or objective? Neither?
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I have to be careful about what I mean by 'we'. I am using it in its strictest sense here - I am refering to the thing we refer to as "I", rather than the contents of our minds. That thing - "I" is both subjective and objective. It is the only thing which is both subjective and objective.

Hang on a minute. So now you are saying that objective and subjective are not mutually exclusive? That it is possible for something to be both objective and subjective?

This after your repeated assertions that physicalism makes no sense because it asserts that experiences are both subjective and objective. But for some reason it is perfectly reasonable for you to assert that "we" are both objective and subjective?

This is exactly what I was talking about before. Under any monistic framework, objective and subjective cannot be mutually exclusive. The argument you have used to try to refute materialism presumes dualism, and as such, equally refutes Idealism.

Of course, it really refutes neither, because it is simply begging the question of dualism.

Crystal clear. It is still a contradiction, though, because by asserting that objective and subjective are completely distinct things, there is no way to logically justify drawing conclusions about objective things from subjective things.
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Well, there is if we can agree on mathematics. We can compare predictions to outcomes and we can think using maths and logic. We need the objective characteristics of logic and mathematics in order to be able to justify drawing conclusions about our subjective experiences.

I didn't say anything about drawing conclusions about our subjective experiences. I said that the only way we could draw conclusions about objective reality from our subjective experiences, is if there is some sort of relationship between the two, and such a relationship requires there to be something that is both subjective, and objective, which you have argued is impossible.

For example, if subjective things and objective things are different, distinct things, then in order for there to be any relationship between them, they must either interact, or both be products of the same thing.
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They are both products of the same thing. This is absolutely essential. They share a common source.

Then your claim that objective and subjective are completely distinct is false, and your so-called refutation of materialism is nonsense.

If we accept your premises, then we can't use reason to perceive the objective, because we cannot possibly draw any logical conclusions about objective reality from our perceptions of subjective things.
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Well, we are lucky that the outside world that seems to be there also seems to behave logically. But we can't draw very many absolute conclusions. Only tentative conclusions.

This is the old "reality isn't reality objective, it just behaves as if it were" argument. Is it not painfully obvious why such a position is nonsensical?

I think I may see what you are trying to get at here. You are essentially saying that the objective does not exist at all, but rather that it is simply an abstract model of our subjective experiences, right?
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Close, but I'd contest "the objective does not exist at all". Yes, it does exist, otherwise I'd be a solipsist, but its existence is logically equivalent to a fiction.

That doesn't make any sense. If it is logically equivalent to a fiction, then you are saying that it is not real. It does not exist.

Our abstract model is an abstract model of a noumenal world that really does exist, but it exists in a form that we can only barely comprehend. We see images of it and we try to make predictive models about its behavior but we don't know it.

If you claim that we see images of it, then you are agreeing that our perceptions are perceptions of this objective reality. This is not consistent with your prior claim that objective reality is just an abstract model for our subjective perceptions.

Having rejected solipsism we must at least conclude that from your perspective as an individual human being it does exist, and it exists externally to the contents of your mind. But at the end of the day I am an idealist, not a dualist, so I say that the noumenon equates to the contents of higher level mental realm. The root of that higher level mental realm is also the root of your own mental realm and the root of mathematics and the root of the mathematically-behaving noumenon.

All of this ad-hoc speculation has nothing to do with whether or not subjective and objective are truly mutually exclusive. In the logical framework you have just constructed, they are not. In fact, the only difference between the framework you have just described, and physicalism, is that you have made the additional ontological assumption that objective reality is some sort of mental realm.

I have tried to explain a lot of things here, if something isn't clear it is probably because we have to work some more on synchronising our terminology. Also, there are issues with time and QM that need to be considered at the same time. However we re-interpret the metaphysics, everything relevant we know about the scientific model needs to be accounted for.

Re-interpret the metaphysics? Metaphysics itself is an interpretation of the reality we observe, and an unnecessary and unjustifiable one at that.

Why bring metaphysics into it at all? Why not just attempt to describe reality in terms of our observations, and admit to ourselves that we simply don't have the information required to answer questions about things that cannot be observed?


Dr. Stupid

Stimp :


Hang on a minute. So now you are saying that objective and subjective are not mutually exclusive? That it is possible for something to be both objective and subjective?


No. :D

I should have been clearer. There is one special case where subjective and objective meet and that place is INFINITY. I am not talking about a mathematical concept here, I am talking about INFINITY itself, which must exist. Try to just accept that for the moment. This INFINITY is the source of both the subject and the object. It is everything-that-is. It isn't subjective, and it isn't objective - it is the subject and it is the object (or at least the object is sourced from it).


This after your repeated assertions that physicalism makes no sense because it asserts that experiences are both subjective and objective.


Well actually it was yourself that kept defining experiences to be both subjective and objective.


But for some reason it is perfectly reasonable for you to assert that "we" are both objective and subjective?


Well, I hope I've clarified that. I suspect you will have 101 more questions but for the minute I think I may have explained why 'we' are a special case. 'We' are not finite.


Well, there is if we can agree on mathematics. We can compare predictions to outcomes and we can think using maths and logic. We need the objective characteristics of logic and mathematics in order to be able to justify drawing conclusions about our subjective experiences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I didn't say anything about drawing conclusions about our subjective experiences.


Erm...yes you did :

"by asserting that objective and subjective are completely distinct things, there is no way to logically justify drawing conclusions about objective things from subjective things."


I said that the only way we could draw conclusions about objective reality from our subjective experiences, is if there is some sort of relationship between the two, and such a relationship requires there to be something that is both subjective, and objective, which you have argued is impossible.


The answer is right before you!

We are the relationship between the two.
We are both the subject and the object!

The whole thing pivots on this "I" thing which is missing from physics! It is this "I" thing which provides the bridge between the subjective and the objective, and it does it by being the non-finite source of both!


Then your claim that objective and subjective are completely distinct is false, and your so-called refutation of materialism is nonsense.


Well...no. Subjective and Objective are still completely distinct. Subjective things cannot be objective and objective things cannot be subjective. But the subject and the object are ultimately the same thing. Everything meets at Infinity.


Well, we are lucky that the outside world that seems to be there also seems to behave logically. But we can't draw very many absolute conclusions. Only tentative conclusions.
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This is the old "reality isn't reality objective, it just behaves as if it were" argument. Is it not painfully obvious why such a position is nonsensical?


Well, I'm not sure what you mean, so no it isn't obvious at all.


Close, but I'd contest "the objective does not exist at all". Yes, it does exist, otherwise I'd be a solipsist, but its existence is logically equivalent to a fiction.
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That doesn't make any sense. If it is logically equivalent to a fiction, then you are saying that it is not real. It does not exist.


No I'm not. I'm saying it's not 'actually out there'. But this should hardly be news to you, since Bells Theorem and faster-then-light connections pretty much proved that anyway. It does not exist in the way materialists think it is - which is why non-locality is such a deep mystery to them. But it surely does exist. Think about the evidence from physics for the moment. Can't you see how this actually leaves quantum physics making more sense instead of being a mystery? Saying that it isn't actually 'out there' like it seems to be is exactly what Kant PROVED and exactly what Bell PROVED. So why do you find it so astonishing?


quote:
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Our abstract model is an abstract model of a noumenal world that really does exist, but it exists in a form that we can only barely comprehend. We see images of it and we try to make predictive models about its behavior but we don't know it.
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If you claim that we see images of it, then you are agreeing that our perceptions are perceptions of this objective reality. This is not consistent with your prior claim that objective reality is just an abstract model for our subjective perceptions.


There are two things being confused here. There is the noumenon itself and there is our scientific model which is an approximation of some of the behavioural characteristics of that noumenon which manifest in our subjective perceptions.


In fact, the only difference between the framework you have just described, and physicalism, is that you have made the additional ontological assumption that objective reality is some sort of mental realm.


I haven't made ANY assumptions (apart from that solipsism is false). I am just starting at the existential predicament we find ourselves in and applyiing logic. You must have acused me of making assumptions at least a thousand times now and I do not do it!

I posit that the noumenon is a higher mental realm because it is the only way I can make the whole thing logically hold together. But in a way you are right - what I am saying is not all that different from materialism - materialism almost comprises one side of a two-sided truth. I've also told you that countless times before, but you wouldn't believe me!



Re-interpret the metaphysics? Metaphysics itself is an interpretation of the reality we observe, and an unnecessary and unjustifiable one at that.


The evidence of this thread says otherwise. A good long look at metaphysics is long overdue.


Why bring metaphysics into it at all? Why not just attempt to describe reality in terms of our observations, and admit to ourselves that we simply don't have the information required to answer questions about things that cannot be observed?


This has been one of the most corrosive lies I have been on a mission debunk. Materialism/skepticism/scientism likes to claim that it has the only method that works and that all of the big questions of philosophy are unanswerable and meaningless. Well, they are dead wrong. The truth is that if we examine the logic without fear and without preconcieved answers then those answers are sitting their ready to be understood.

In other words Philosophy isn't meaningless after all. But it is complicated.

Geoff.

[slimshady2357]

By UCE:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, are "we" subjective, or objective? Neither?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to be careful about what I mean by 'we'. I am using it in its strictest sense here - I am refering to the thing we refer to as "I", rather than the contents of our minds. That thing - "I" is both subjective and objective. It is the only thing which is both subjective and objective.
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By Stimpson:

Hang on a minute. So now you are saying that objective and subjective are not mutually exclusive? That it is possible for something to be both objective and subjective?

Sure he does. Maybe you missed this quote from the other thread:

By UCE
There's only one thing I would accept as being both subjective and objective but that comes much later in the discussion

I don't know why his killer dictionary definition argument doesn't destroy his own beliefs, but perhaps he'll share that with us.

Adam

edited to add that I was too slow. It's infinity that is both subjective and objective. Or rather, INFINITY.

Now how does this get around your argument that subjective and objective cannot overlap? It always amazes me when someone agrues so vigorously that something cannot possibly be true and then claims that same thing later. Like someone claiming that it's just impossible that the universe could have always existed, that it's nonesense, and then claiming that God has always existed :eek:

Adam

Adam,


Now how does this get around your argument that subjective and objective cannot overlap?


Easily!

EVERYTHING overlaps at INFINITY. It is All-That-Is. There is no other way to make this work. No other way to resolve the apparent paradoxes.

:)

Geoff.

edit : and it isn't 'subjective' and 'objective' that overlap. I'm responsible for that confusion. It is 'subject' and 'object'. This is subtley but crucially different.

[Jethro]

So first you decide there is a paradox, and then you pull a handy deus ex machina out of your pocket to resolve the paradox.

Originally posted by Jethro
So first you decide there is a paradox, and then you pull a handy deus ex machina out of your pocket to resolve the paradox.

Forget the deus-ex-machina. I am neither a deist or a theist or an anything-ist.

Grasping the answers that philosophy is trying to provide is like juggling with a paradox. Right at the heart of existence lies the mother and father of all paradoxes. Something must come from nothing! The Ouroborous must eat its own tail. Zero must equal Infinity. How can this be? How can it not be?

Or as it once was written by Lao Tse :

-----------------------------------------------
Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficulty and ease bring about each other.
Long and short delimit each other.
High and low rest on each other.
Sound and voice harmonize each other.
Front and back follow each other.
-----------------------------------------------

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:Take a memory, your mother's face say. The phenomenal experience of having that memory should be substantially similar each time you have it, because it's the phenomenal experience of the same memory.
Yes, it would be substantially similar, but what would make it feel substantially similar? For a phenomenal experience to feel/seem/appear similar, I have to notice that I've had the experience before. Without some kind of memory of having had the experience before, each experience would feel new. It would be jamais vu [love that word].

The phenomenal experience of something is an instance of phenomenal consciousness.
You said that phenomenal consciousness is physical. So a phenomenal experience is an instance of the process of phenomenal consciousness. Why couldn't that process, as a side effect, record a memory of the trace of the process? Then, later, I can notice that I'm having the same phenomenal experience.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

Yes, it would be substantially similar, but what would make it feel substantially similar? For a phenomenal experience to feel/seem/appear similar, I have to notice that I've had the experience before. Without some kind of memory of having had the experience before, each experience would feel new. It would be jamais vu [love that word].

The feeling of substantial similarity, such as it is, is a consequence of the substantial similarity of the underlying physical correlate.

You said that phenomenal consciousness is physical.

No, I didn't.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:EVERYTHING overlaps at INFINITY. It is All-That-Is. There is no other way to make this work. No other way to resolve the apparent paradoxes.
Does the word INFINITY mean anything here, I could we just as well say that EVERYTHING overlaps at GORZNOGBOOF?

Being and non-being produce each other.
Huh?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:The feeling of substantial similarity, such as it is, is a consequence of the substantial similarity of the underlying physical correlate.
I don't see how. For something to feel similar, I must be comparing it to something else, yet there is no previous memory of the phenomenal experience to compare the current one to.

I think you have to say that the phenomenal experience tricks me into a feeling of similarity, no? But then every phenomenal experience would feel familiar.

No, I didn't [say that phenomenal consciousness is physical].
Yes, my mistake. I misinterpreted this statement:I haven't defined phenomenal consciousness to be non-physical. I've concluded that it is, ...

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Aha. Well, that is quite a bit different. It raises the obvious question, though. If set A is not causally closed with respect to set Ur, then what criteria have been used to designate what is in set A, and what is not?
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For the purposes of the current discussion, let's say that what is not in set A is phenomenal consciousness. Everything else is.

This is exactly what I have done in my explanation of set A'. If the only distinction between set A, and set A', is that set A does not include phenomenal consciousness, and set A' does, and is causally closed, then why create the arbitrary distinction between set A and set A' at all?

If we observe an effect which we can determined to be caused by property X*, as you described above, then by what criteria do we say that property X* is a member of set Ur (non-physical) instead of set A (physical)?
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I wouldn't say that prediction X, about set A, has been caused by phenomenal property A*. Rather, theory X makes prediction X about the physical world and also has as a consequence the attribution of property X* to the phenomenal world, which is otherwise unobservable.

How is this different from what is done in modern physics all the time? We construct a theory which makes observable predictions, and includes some otherwise unobservable thing like an electron or a quark. Then we conclude the physical existence of that electron or quark from the success of that theory.

And the Ur-set, strictly speaking, isn't physical. It subsumes both set A (physical) and set b (phenomenal).

It seems to me that the only difference between your property dualism, and physicalism,is how you define "physical". If I define physical to be anything that can be described in terms of our observations, through the application of the scientific method, then clearly my definition of physical includes the entire causally closed set A', which includes both what you are calling physical (set A), and what you are calling phenomenal (set B).

In what sense does the entire set A' not qualify as being physical? You have already claimed that we should be able to employ the scientific method, and through observation determine what the properties of this set A' are. So in what sense is set A' not the set of all physical things? What characteristic distinguishes the elements of set A from the elements of set A' that are not in set A?
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I don't see the distinction between A and A'.

Set A' includes anything in set Ur that can be detected and described through the process you listed before, of constructing a theory that predicts an observation X in set A, and also attributes a property X* to the phenomenal World. Set A' is defined to include set A, as well as all such properties X*.

Set A' is then clearly causally closed, and is, in fact, exactly what is meant by "physical" in science (and physicalism).

Put in plain English, if you claim that it is possible to use the scientific method to describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations, then this is exactly what physicalists mean when they say that phenomenal consciousness is physical.

That is only a valid argument if you claim that materialism is not a possible explanation. If you can logically reject materialism as a possibility, then it is not the most parsimonious explanation, because it is not an explanation at all. But as long as you accept the possibility of it, the parsimony argument is valid.
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I do reject reductive materialism as a possible explanation for phenomenal consciousness. I allow that elliminative materialism is a possible explanation, but only at the cost of denying the existence of phenomenal consciousness.

But what is it that is really being eliminated? It is not the experience. It is not your direct access to the experience. It is simply the notion that there is anything non-physical to it. We (eliminative materialists) are pretending that something we have does not exist. We are simply not making the assumption that what we have is non-physical.

That's why I think parsimony is inapplicable.

Parsimony is only inapplicable if you can logically argue that there must be some non-physical aspect to the experience. That is, that the part of the experience you have "direct access" to is not also a part of the physical world.

In what sense can you do this? You know only that you have direct access to your experiences, but what is the nature of the "you" that has this direct access? If the "you" is simply a function of your brain, then the thing you have direct access to is also physical.

Of course, metaphysical materialism is still possible, but it has it's problems too, namely that it doesn't make any sense, to me at least.

It doesn't make any sense at all. Like metaphysical dualism, and metaphysical idealism, it is incoherent. It is thus meaningless to say that it is possible or impossible.

I would argue that the existence of phenomenal consciousness (and here I assume you are referring to something that is defined to be non-physical), is not a given. It may or may not exist. If your only reason for believing it exists is intuitive, then that is not a valid justification for rejecting the more parsimonious explanation. Note that the direct access argument does not apply here, because what is in question is not whether we have direct access to our experiences, but whether phenomenal consciousness is, in fact, what we have direct access to. Under materialism, we still have direct access to our experiences. Those experiences are just brain processes, and the "we" that has direct access to them is just other brain processes.
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I haven't defined phenomenal consciousness to be non-physical. I've concluded that it is, in part from the failure of reductive materialism.

What failure? In what way is reductive materialism not possible?

Given the choice between eliminative materialism and property dualism, I chose the latter because it takes the existence of phenomenal consciousness into account.

I don't really see the distinction between eliminative and reductive materialism. It seems to me to simply depend on how you define "phenomenal consciousness". If you define it to be "the raw experience, independent of any physical process", then I would say that it does not exist, because I do not think that the experience has any existence independent of the physical process, just as there is no such thing as "raw computation". But if you define it to be the part of the experience that we have direct access to, then I would say that it is physical.

They are both the same position, as far as I can tell.

Is it really necessary? If you cannot reject the possibility that they don't exist, then it is not necessary.
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But I can reject it. My direct access demonstrates the existence of phenomenal consciousness. Because I accept the fact of the existence of phenomenal consciousness, I am compelled to adopt a property dualistic position.

It seems to me like you are defining "phenomenal consciousness" in one way to reject reductive materialism, and then defining it in a different way to reject eliminative materialism.

If phenomenal consciousness is what you have direct access to, then you can only eliminate reductive materialism by demonstrating that it could not possibly be physical. If phenomenal consciousness is the raw experience, then you can only reject eliminative materialism by demonstrating that the raw experience exists, and is what we have direct access to.

If you simultaneously define phenomenal consciousness to be both what we have direct access to, and the "raw experience", then you are simply begging the question that what we have direct access to is not physical.

What is the implication that you do not accept?
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Learning implies storage.

Then I am afraid I have no idea what you mean by the word "learning".

Here's another way to look at it. Certainly you would agree that learning something implies that you are in some way different after you have learned it, right?

So what is different after you have learned a phenomenal fact? Your body is not any different, and you seem to have defined phenomenal consciousness in such a way that it cannot meaningfully be said to be different.

If I have no memory of phenomenal experiences, then why doesn't each one seem unique?
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Take a memory, your mother's face say. The phenomenal experience of having that memory should be substantially similar each time you have it, because it's the phenomenal experience of the same memory.

But if there is no storage of phenomenal information, then how can a comparison be made? For that matter, if there is no phenomenal information processing, then in what sense can any sort of evaluation of the phenomenal information be made?

It sounds like you are defining phenomenal consciousness to literally be nothing. So far the only characteristic you have attributed to it is that we have direct access to it. But what has direct access to it, if not our brains?

Dr. Stupid

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Does the word INFINITY mean anything here, I could we just as well say that EVERYTHING overlaps at GORZNOGBOOF?


:D

What's in a name? It's had thousands of names, and they are all just names. It is All-That-Is. It is BEINGNESS and NO-THING. "Neti, Neti, Neti." - "Not this, Not that,...."


----------------------------
Being and non-being produce each other.
----------------------------

Huh?



A different translation......

--------------------------------------------
That the social world knows to deem the beautiful as 'beautiful' simply creates the 'ugly. '

That the social world knows to deem worth as 'worthy' simply creates 'worthlessness. '

Thus 'exists' and 'not-exists' mutually sprout. 'Difficult' and 'easy' are mutually done.

'Long' and 'short' are mutually gauged. 'High' and 'low' mutually incline.

'Sound' and 'tone' mutually blend. 'Before' and 'after' mutually supervene.
----------------------------------------------

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

should have been clearer. There is one special case where subjective and objective meet and that place is INFINITY. I am not talking about a mathematical concept here, I am talking about INFINITY itself, which must exist. Try to just accept that for the moment.

Try to accept what? I don't have the slightest idea what you mean by "INFINITY", so how am I supposed to accept that it constitutes a special case where subjective and objective meet, much less your assertion that it must exist?

This INFINITY is the source of both the subject and the object. It is everything-that-is.

Sorry, this doesn't help. You have just defined INFINITY to be a set, namely the set of everything that is. But you also said that INFINITY exists. This is a contradiction.

Put simply, the set A cannot be an element of the set A. Either INFINTIY is the set of everything that exists, or set A exists. Not both.

It isn't subjective, and it isn't objective - it is the subject and it is the object (or at least the object is sourced from it).

So it is neither, not both?

Do I exist or not? If you claim that I am everything that exists (INFINITY) then that is solipsism.

This after your repeated assertions that physicalism makes no sense because it asserts that experiences are both subjective and objective.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well actually it was yourself that kept defining experiences to be both subjective and objective.

So what's the problem? Why is it OK for you to claim that something can be both subjective and objective, but not me? If dualism is not true, then objective and subjective can not be mutually exclusive.

But for some reason it is perfectly reasonable for you to assert that "we" are both objective and subjective?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I hope I've clarified that. I suspect you will have 101 more questions but for the minute I think I may have explained why 'we' are a special case. 'We' are not finite.

You have not clarified anything. What you have done is present a logical contradiction.

I didn't say anything about drawing conclusions about our subjective experiences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erm...yes you did :

"by asserting that objective and subjective are completely distinct things, there is no way to logically justify drawing conclusions about objective things from subjective things."

Read that sentence again. I said something about drawing conclusions about objective things, not subjective things.

I said that the only way we could draw conclusions about objective reality from our subjective experiences, is if there is some sort of relationship between the two, and such a relationship requires there to be something that is both subjective, and objective, which you have argued is impossible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The answer is right before you!

We are the relationship between the two.
We are both the subject and the object!

You have defined "we" to be everything that exists. This still does not provide some thing which is both subjective and objective, because "we" are a set, and not simething that exists.

To put it another way, in order for there to be an relationship between the objective and subjective, there must be things which exist which are both objective and subjective. "we" do not fit that criteria, because "we" are the set, and not an element of the set.

If you don't like it phrased in terms of set theory, then how about this:

The metamind is everything that exists. It has both subjective and objective characteristics. In order for there to be a relationship between those charactersitics, it must have characteristics which are both objective and subjective.

So you have not solved the problem. All you have done is reduce your position to solipsism in an attempt to solve the problem.

The whole thing pivots on this "I" thing which is missing from physics! It is this "I" thing which provides the bridge between the subjective and the objective, and it does it by being the non-finite source of both!

You did not define it to be the source of both. You defined it to be the Union of two disjoint sets.

Then your claim that objective and subjective are completely distinct is false, and your so-called refutation of materialism is nonsense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well...no. Subjective and Objective are still completely distinct. Subjective things cannot be objective and objective things cannot be subjective. But the subject and the object are ultimately the same thing. Everything meets at Infinity.

This position only differs from dualism when you claim that this "Infitiy" actually exists, which is a logical contradiction. The subject and object are things that exist. If they are the same thing, then you have contradicted your assertion that subjective things cannot be both subjective and objective. If they are not, then you just have ontological dualism, and there can be no relationship between the subject and the object.

This is the old "reality isn't reality objective, it just behaves as if it were" argument. Is it not painfully obvious why such a position is nonsensical?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I'm not sure what you mean, so no it isn't obvious at all.

If you claim that reality behaves exactly as though it were objective, then it is not meaningful to say that it is not objective. And if you claim that reality does not behave exactly as though it were objective, then science is invalid.

Close, but I'd contest "the objective does not exist at all". Yes, it does exist, otherwise I'd be a solipsist, but its existence is logically equivalent to a fiction.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That doesn't make any sense. If it is logically equivalent to a fiction, then you are saying that it is not real. It does not exist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No I'm not. I'm saying it's not 'actually out there'. But this should hardly be news to you, since Bells Theorem and faster-then-light connections pretty much proved that anyway.

As usual, you are misinterpreting and misrepresenting science that you do not understand.

It does not exist in the way materialists think it is - which is why non-locality is such a deep mystery to them.

Do you mean ontological materialists, because I have no idea what you think I think the way objective reality exists is? In fact, the very notion of having an opinion on how objective reality exists, is an ontological one. I think ontology is incoherent and meaningless.

But it surely does exist. Think about the evidence from physics for the moment. Can't you see how this actually leaves quantum physics making more sense instead of being a mystery?

No. Quantum Physics makes perfect sense. It is just counter-intuitive. That doesn't bother me at all, though. It would be incredibly naive and arrogant for me to assume that reality must function in a way consistent with my intuition.

Saying that it isn't actually 'out there' like it seems to be is exactly what Kant PROVED and exactly what Bell PROVED. So why do you find it so astonishing?

I never said anything about it being "out there". I don't even know what you mean by that. As usual, I think you are confusing me for an ontological materialist.

If you claim that we see images of it, then you are agreeing that our perceptions are perceptions of this objective reality. This is not consistent with your prior claim that objective reality is just an abstract model for our subjective perceptions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are two things being confused here. There is the noumenon itself and there is our scientific model which is an approximation of some of the behavioural characteristics of that noumenon which manifest in our subjective perceptions.

Well, I am certainly not the one confusing them. I recognize that our abstract description of reality is not reality itself. You are the one who has asserted that reality is really subjective, and that it is only our model of it that is objective.

In fact, the only difference between the framework you have just described, and physicalism, is that you have made the additional ontological assumption that objective reality is some sort of mental realm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I haven't made ANY assumptions (apart from that solipsism is false). I am just starting at the existential predicament we find ourselves in and applyiing logic. You must have acused me of making assumptions at least a thousand times now and I do not do it!

I am amazed that you can actually believe this. The entire ontological fantasy world you have built up here, from the existence of this "metamind", to the relationship you have postited between the subjective and the objective, to the implications that this all has on science, are pure assumption. There is no way that you could possibly logically deduce all of this from the simple assumption of rejecting solipsism.

Why bring metaphysics into it at all? Why not just attempt to describe reality in terms of our observations, and admit to ourselves that we simply don't have the information required to answer questions about things that cannot be observed?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This has been one of the most corrosive lies I have been on a mission debunk. Materialism/skepticism/scientism likes to claim that it has the only method that works and that all of the big questions of philosophy are unanswerable and meaningless. Well, they are dead wrong. The truth is that if we examine the logic without fear and without preconcieved answers then those answers are sitting their ready to be understood.

In other words Philosophy isn't meaningless after all. But it is complicated.

I didn't say philosophy was meaningless. i said that metaphysics is meaningless. And it is. No amount of logical examination is going to allow you to select from the infinite number of possible metaphysical hypotheses that are all consistent with observed reality. That is a simple fact.

Dr. Stupid

Stimp :



I didn't say philosophy was meaningless. i said that metaphysics is meaningless. And it is. No amount of logical examination is going to allow you to select from the infinite number of possible metaphysical hypotheses that are all consistent with observed reality. That is a simple fact.



You're right, Stimp. Metaphysics is meaningless. :D

I think I have explained this as best I can. Certainly I've gone as far as I am willing to go with a person who is not actively seeking a solution to the philosophical problems being addressed here. The answers are not simple, the concepts are not clearly specifiable in the way materialistic ones are, and there are a whole plethora of new terms and new ways of thinking required to grasp this. As a result of this it is not possible to explain it to a person who is not genuinely interested in understanding the answers e.g. someone who is trying to defend an illogical belief system. If we want to get to the answers, then our answer itself must somehow cope with the paradoxical nature of existence. You cannot answer a question like "How does something come from nothing." without somehow including the paradox in your answer. You currently have a piece of string with two loose ends - "why does the Universe exist?" and "What is this 'I'?". The only answer there will ever be, however paradoxical it may seem to you, is to take those two ends, place them next to each other and create a completed circle. You can only know this is the right answer if you actually try to do it, re-assess everything you thought you know in the light of it, and see whether at the end of it you have a better idea what is going on. If all you are interested in doing is finding reasons why putting the two ends of the rope together is a stupid thing to do then at the moment that is the way you are meant to stay.

Geoff

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

If we want to get to the answers, then our answer itself must somehow cope with the paradoxical nature of existence.

If you truly believe that the nature of existence is paradoxical, then you are fool for looking for an answer. No answer exists.

You cannot answer a question like "How does something come from nothing." without somehow including the paradox in your answer.

If it is a paradox, it has no answer. You are trying to answer questions that don't mean anything.

You have chosen to assume that the World is not a logically self-consistent thing, and in doing so, you have abandoned reason. I said before that this way lies madness.

Dr. Stupid

[Jethro]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Forget the deus-ex-machina. I am neither a deist or a theist or an anything-ist.You misunderstand the term deus-ex-machina (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=deus%20ex%20machina). In this case I'd say your INFINITY falls under definition 3.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Win
Paul:



Memories are physical. The phenomenal experience of having a memory isn't physical.




Memories are physical??? What possible conceivable meaning could this assertion have?? A memory is a recollection of past events. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything physical! :rolleyes:

I'm sorry Win, but I'm not going to agree with you simply because you're not a materialist. Materialists might automatically agree with each other. But sorry, I've got more integrity than that.

[Win]

Ian:

Memories are physical??? What possible conceivable meaning could this assertion have?? A memory is a recollection of past events. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything physical!

Well, your computer has a memory. It's physical. Similarly, you have a memory and it's physical. Your phenomenal experience of memory isn't.

I'm sorry Win, but I'm not going to agree with you simply because you're not a materialist. Materialists might automatically agree with each other. But sorry, I've got more integrity than that.

Don't think that you should, Ian. Agree with me 'cause I've convinced you, or not 'cause I haven't.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Win
Memories are physical??? What possible conceivable meaning could this assertion have?? A memory is a recollection of past events. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything physical!
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Well, your computer has a memory. It's physical. Similarly, you have a memory and it's physical. Your phenomenal experience of memory isn't.



We use the same word. But that doesn't mean to say it has the same meaning whatsoever. As I have insinuated, saying memory is physical is simply an abuse of the English language. Memory is an experience by the very definition of the word.

[Jethro]

Do you agree with the statement that memories are stored in physical form in certain locations in the brain? And if not, how do you explain the fact that brain damage can remove memories from access by our conciousness?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

I'm sorry Win, but I'm not going to agree with you simply because you're not a materialist. Materialists might automatically agree with each other. But sorry, I've got more integrity than that.

Your insinuation that materialists always agree with each other is demonstrated false in this very thread, where not long ago I was disagreeing with Paul, and agreeing with Win, on a point of this Mary discussion.

Materialists may agree on the big points, but we often disagree on the details. The same goes for any other group. Of course, often times these disagreements have more to do with different definitions of words, then with an actual difference of position, as was the case in my disagreement with Paul.

Likewise, I think this is the case with this memory issue. What Win is calling the memory is what you would call the physical correlate of the memory. Likewise, what you are calling the memory is what Win is calling the experience of the memory.

Neither one is an "abuse of the English language". The fact that you don't agree on the word usage is just a reflection of the fact that the English language is somewhat vague and ill-suited to such discussions. In order to have a logical discussion using the English language, it is necessary to provide specific definitions for the terms you use. The fact that you and Win have chosen different sets of definitions says nothing at all about the content of your arguments.

Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
[b]Ian,



Your insinuation that materialists always agree with each other is demonstrated false in this very thread, where not long ago I was disagreeing with Paul, and agreeing with Win, on a point of this Mary discussion.

Materialists may agree on the big points, but we often disagree on the details. The same goes for any other group. Of course, often times these disagreements have more to do with different definitions of words, then with an actual difference of position, as was the case in my disagreement with Paul.



But of course. People spend half their time arguing at cross purposes.



Likewise, I think this is the case with this memory issue. What Win is calling the memory is what you would call the physical correlate of the memory. Likewise, what you are calling the memory is what Win is calling the experience of the memory.



Yes.



Neither one is an "abuse of the English language". The fact that you don't agree on the word usage is just a reflection of the fact that the English language is somewhat vague and ill-suited to such discussions. In order to have a logical discussion using the English language, it is necessary to provide specific definitions for the terms you use. The fact that you and Win have chosen different sets of definitions says nothing at all about the content of your arguments.



I'll disagree with that last one. It is quite clear what the word memory means, and it doesn't mean information, or anything else physical. I would say that you are particularly guilty of not assigning the correct meaning to words. Indeed people have told me in paltalk that this is the reason why they do not read my posts when I get into arguments with people. Namely because it's all about arguing the meaning of words. I suspect they particularly had in mind my arguments with you. I find it quite remarkable that scientists (not just you but apparently all of them) fail to understand what words such as "evidence", "causality" and "memory" etc etc mean.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:I'll disagree with that last one. It is quite clear what the word memory means, and it doesn't mean information, or anything else physical.
Oh Ian, get real. Here's the first definition from Websters:
1 a : the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms b : the store of things learned and retained from an organism's activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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I'll disagree with that last one. It is quite clear what the word memory means, and it doesn't mean information, or anything else physical.
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Oh Ian, get real. Here's the first definition from Websters:

quote:
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1 a : the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms b : the store of things learned and retained from an organism's activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition
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How does that contradict my definition?? :confused: We normally need a mechanism to remember, sure. But if there is an afterlife, and we still have memories, perhaps we could have memories without any associative mechanisms. What do you think?

(or as Win would say, the phenomenal experience of memories without any associative mechanisms. ;) )

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:How does that contradict my definition?? We normally need a mechanism to remember, sure. But if there is an afterlife, and we still have memories, perhaps we could have memories without any associative mechanisms. What do you think?
That's a nypothesis we could discuss, but it shouldn't taint the general definition of memory, which includes both the store and the process. If we want to be specific, we could say memory store and memory recall or some such.

I don't care who or what is having the memory, be they dead, alive, or in between: There has to be a store.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
That's a nypothesis we could discuss, but it shouldn't taint the general definition of memory, which includes both the store and the process. If we want to be specific, we could say memory store and memory recall or some such.

I don't care who or what is having the memory, be they dead, alive, or in between: There has to be a store.

~~ Paul

Why?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:Why?
Because the definition of memory recall is that it is recalling a stored memory. That's what memory means. If the experience consists of conjuring up an image from nothing, that is not memory recall, but hallucination.

You might propose that the ghost is recalling a memory stored somewhere other than a physical brain, but it has to be stored somewhere.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
Because the definition of memory recall is that it is recalling a stored memory. That's what memory means. If the experience consists of conjuring up an image from nothing, that is not memory recall, but hallucination.

You might propose that the ghost is recalling a memory stored somewhere other than a physical brain, but it has to be stored somewhere.

~~ Paul

Well you can define memory like that if you like. But the pertinent point is why can't it be a natural attribute of the soul, or essential self, that it is aware not of just present occurrences, but of everything that has ever happened? Moreover, maybe the brain "filters out" memories rather than storing them.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:Well you can define memory like that if you like. But the pertinent point is why can't it be a natural attribute of the soul, or essential self, that it is aware not of just present occurrences, but of everything that has ever happened? Moreover, maybe the brain "filters out" memories rather than storing them.
Sure, the memories could be stored in some kind of global matrix, but that is still a store. And my brain could be a complex addressing mechanism that finds "my memories" in the matrix. I think there is sufficient evidence that my memories are really stored in my brain, though, don't you?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
Sure, the memories could be stored in some kind of global matrix, but that is still a store. And my brain could be a complex addressing mechanism that finds "my memories" in the matrix. I think there is sufficient evidence that my memories are really stored in my brain, though, don't you?

~~ Paul

No, I don't think there is any evidence. And I still don't see anything wrong with the hypothesis that memory (or the phenomenological experience of memory if you prefer) is an intrinsic attribute of the essential self.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

You might propose that the ghost is recalling a memory stored somewhere other than a physical brain, but it has to be stored somewhere.

~~ Paul

Thanks, Paul.

What is the ??? that recalls the memory stored -- say in the brain?

An algorithm? Thinking about the physical changes needed to update the algorithm, what controls that? Don't you just keep postulating a new (in your case physical) control mechanism?

At the minimum we would arrive at dualism being a "possibility", but why not go the last step? I'm more & more certain the choice of mind rather than body is the most defendable as representing the "real world". Obviously, science says unequivocably that our old & current perceptions are very very very correct as to predictions of a future perception. :)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:No, I don't think there is any evidence. And I still don't see anything wrong with the hypothesis that memory (or the phenomenological experience of memory if you prefer) is an intrinsic attribute of the essential self.
Wow, so all the ways in which memory is affected by brain damage, drugs, alcohol, stroke, trauma, and so forth is a result of changes to the matrix addressing mechanism, not to the actual memory itself? I'm surprised that damage to the addressing mechanism so perfectly mimics what we'd expect from damage to the memory. In particular, I'm surprised that the results would be selective rather than pervasive.

Even if the "essential self" is the source of memory experiences, there still needs to be a store. Otherwise, where does this essential self dredge up the memories? Perhaps the essential self has access to all of history, so it's not recalling from a store but rather from history itself. Then history is just the store. Also consider how complicated that would be. If I was recalling an idea I'd had a year ago, it would not only have to scan back and find the source of the idea, but it would have to scan back to find out whether I'd ever had the thought before, so it could make the thought feel familiar.

If you want my ghost to have my memories after I die, wouldn't it be easier to just figure out a way to extract the memories from my brain and haul them around?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hammegk said:What is the ??? that recalls the memory stored -- say in the brain?
Some brain mechanism that can activate the memory, thus causing various other brain mechanisms to "relive" their aspects of the memory. Obviously we don't understand the entire mechanism yet, but see my sig.

An algorithm? Thinking about the physical changes needed to update the algorithm, what controls that? Don't you just keep postulating a new (in your case physical) control mechanism?
Yes, a new control mechanism. But I don't need an infinite stack of them, so what's the problem?

At the minimum we would arrive at dualism being a "possibility", but why not go the last step? I'm more & more certain the choice of mind rather than body is the most defendable as representing the "real world". Obviously, science says unequivocably that our old & current perceptions are very very very correct as to predictions of a future perception.
Why go the last step if we don't need to? And when we do, we have the horribly sticky issue of how the nonphysical portion interacts with the physical brain without itself being physical. No one seems willing to address that problem. I don't understand your final sentence.

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
Wow, so all the ways in which memory is affected by brain damage, drugs, alcohol, stroke, trauma, and so forth is a result of changes to the matrix addressing mechanism, not to the actual memory itself? I'm surprised that damage to the addressing mechanism so perfectly mimics what we'd expect from damage to the memory. In particular, I'm surprised that the results would be selective rather than pervasive.

Even if the "essential self" is the source of memory experiences, there still needs to be a store. Otherwise, where does this essential self dredge up the memories? Perhaps the essential self has access to all of history, so it's not recalling from a store but rather from history itself. Then history is just the store. Also consider how complicated that would be. If I was recalling an idea I'd had a year ago, it would not only have to scan back and find the source of the idea, but it would have to scan back to find out whether I'd ever had the thought before, so it could make the thought feel familiar.

If you want my ghost to have my memories after I die, wouldn't it be easier to just figure out a way to extract the memories from my brain and haul them around?

~~ Paul

The only two ways I can see for someone who wants to assert that memories are not a physical part of the brain would be to assert that when the non-physical self experiences a memory it makes it's own copy that is not accessible at the time.

Or you can assert that the brain does not store the memories but simply processes them and brain damage just causes strange processing behaviors.

Neither are likely, there have just been too many accidents, experiments, and studies that show physical modifications to the brain having direct effects on the memory.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos


Yes, a new control mechanism. But I don't need an infinite stack of them, so what's the problem?

If it's all hard code -- dna level at minimum -- quite a sophisticated program, huh? The ultimate, operational, Turing machine as a matter of fact. And even better it has a strange side effect that in humans is human consciousness. If you can buy that, so be it.


Why go the last step if we don't need to? And when we do, we have the horribly sticky issue of how the nonphysical portion interacts with the physical brain without itself being physical. No one seems willing to address that problem. I don't understand your final sentence.

~~ Paul
Now you have at least made it to the point where the best logical conclusion is "dualism is not a practical answer". Ergo, you go with the "dna does it" answer mentioned above, or choose idealism. ;)

[Win]

Stimpy:

This is exactly what I have done in my explanation of set A'. If the only distinction between set A, and set A', is that set A does not include phenomenal consciousness, and set A' does, and is causally closed, then why create the arbitrary distinction between set A and set A' at all?

Because it's not an arbitrary distinction.

One way that the contents of set A, the physical, may be defined is that all members are particles, fields, space, time or their interactions.

Another way is that members of set A stand in causal relations to each other, while no member of set B is a cause of anything in set A.

How is this different from what is done in modern physics all the time? We construct a theory which makes observable predictions, and includes some otherwise unobservable thing like an electron or a quark. Then we conclude the physical existence of that electron or quark from the success of that theory.

I think this analogy is inapt because quarks and electrons play causal roles.

A better analogy might be the existence and properties of the universe beyond our visual horizon, about which our theories of the visible universe allow us to draw meanigful conclusions.

It seems to me that the only difference between your property dualism, and physicalism,is how you define "physical". If I define physical to be anything that can be described in terms of our observations, through the application of the scientific method, then clearly my definition of physical includes the entire causally closed set A', which includes both what you are calling physical (set A), and what you are calling phenomenal (set B).

I'd have to quibble with your use of the phrase "described in terms of our observations." Surely that's not even what we're doing with quarks. Rather, we acept the existence of quarks because, in part, our observations confirm our theories, and the quarks are described in terms of those theories.

As to the rest, see the above two paragraphs.

Put in plain English, if you claim that it is possible to use the scientific method to describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations, then this is exactly what physicalists mean when they say that phenomenal consciousness is physical.

First of all, as I note above, I don't think it's possible to "describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations."

Secondly, I don't think that even were we to recast that statement, perhaps as, "describe the phenomenal world in terms of our theories," that would be exactly what all, or even most physicalists mean when they say phenomenal consciousness is physical. I'd say most mean "has an effect on the physical" or "interacts with the physical" or even "is a consequnce of particles, fields and their interactions in space and time."

But what is it that is really being eliminated? It is not the experience. It is not your direct access to the experience. It is simply the notion that there is anything non-physical to it. We (eliminative materialists) are pretending that something we have does not exist. We are simply not making the assumption that what we have is non-physical.

On the contrary, an eliminative materialist, such as, say, Dennett, would argue that "qualia" is a meaningless term without a referent. Once you've explained a p-zombie, you've exhausted explanation. There is simply nothing left to explain.

Nobody is conscious in the sense of possessing phenomenal consciousness.

Parsimony is only inapplicable if you can logically argue that there must be some non-physical aspect to the experience. That is, that the part of the experience you have "direct access" to is not also a part of the physical world.

And that's exactly what I've been arguing. That's what the knowledge argument, the arguments from conceivability, the argument from the epistemlogical uniqueness of phenomenal consciousness and the argument from the inconceivability of materialism are all about.

In what sense can you do this? You know only that you have direct access to your experiences, but what is the nature of the "you" that has this direct access? If the "you" is simply a function of your brain, then the thing you have direct access to is also physical.

The nature of that "you" is a combination of physical and phenomenal properties. It's not a function, solely, of my brain. My brain has no access to phenomenal consciousness. Only *I* do.

What failure? In what way is reductive materialism not possible?

As a consequence of the failure of the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical.

If you simultaneously define phenomenal consciousness to be both what we have direct access to, and the "raw experience", then you are simply begging the question that what we have direct access to is not physical.

Actually, I think you may be begging the question, namely by asuming that *we* are physical, and that phenomenal consciousness affects the physical world. I don't think either is true.

So what is different after you have learned a phenomenal fact? Your body is not any different, and you seem to have defined phenomenal consciousness in such a way that it cannot meaningfully be said to be different.

In the moment that Mary first experiences red, there is a novel feature in her phenomenal consciousness. That novelty constitutes her learning a new fact.

It sounds like you are defining phenomenal consciousness to literally be nothing. So far the only characteristic you have attributed to it is that we have direct access to it. But what has direct access to it, if not our brains?

To be nothing physical, at any rate.

*We* have direct access to phenomenal consciousness, by virtue of being partly phenomenal.

This, though, is why I said earlier that I thought you were question begging, by assuming that it is our brains that have access to phenomenal conscousness. They're physical and they don't. *We* do.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hammegk said:If it's all hard code -- dna level at minimum -- quite a sophisticated program, huh? The ultimate, operational, Turing machine as a matter of fact. And even better it has a strange side effect that in humans is human consciousness. If you can buy that, so be it.
It's amazing what a few billion years of evolution can do. It's not all that astonishing that the brain is equivalent to a Turing machine.

If you postulate that "something else" is needed to get the brain to work, you're just pushing the problem to another place.

Now you have at least made it to the point where the best logical conclusion is "dualism is not a practical answer". Ergo, you go with the "dna does it" answer mentioned above, or choose idealism.
I'll go with DNA, because in the direction of idealism lies madness. :D

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
...
I'll go with DNA, because in the direction of idealism lies madness. :D

~~ Paul

I think you have it bass-ackwards; bad (re)wiring & bad biochem -- in what your *I* perceives as the brain in your *me* -- is where madness lies. :)

Would anyones' *I* do such a recode of the *me* on purpose do you suppose? Even if Atman=Brahman it's still mysterious, no? :confused: ;)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:In the moment that Mary first experiences red, there is a novel feature in her phenomenal consciousness. That novelty constitutes her learning a new fact.
Without any memory, how does phenomenal consciousness know it's the first sighting of red? Do you mean that she learns a new fact by storing it in her physical memory? I'm not sure what you mean by "constitutes."

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hammegk said:I think you have it bass-ackwards; bad (re)wiring & bad biochem -- in what your *I* perceives as the brain in your *me* -- is where madness lies.

Would anyones' *I* do such a recode of the *me* on purpose do you suppose? Even if Atman=Brahman it's still mysterious, no?
My brain just exploded. Hold on until I reassemble it. :eek:

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

This is exactly what I have done in my explanation of set A'. If the only distinction between set A, and set A', is that set A does not include phenomenal consciousness, and set A' does, and is causally closed, then why create the arbitrary distinction between set A and set A' at all?
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Because it's not an arbitrary distinction.

One way that the contents of set A, the physical, may be defined is that all members are particles, fields, space, time or their interactions.

I would say that, given the way these things are themselves defined, and discovered, that distinction is arbitrary. Science (an physicalism) certainly don't define "physical" this way. On the contrary, they both allow for the possibility that these things may only be a subset of the physical.

Another way is that members of set A stand in causal relations to each other, while no member of set B is a cause of anything in set A.

Those two definitions are not the same thing. This also contradicts your claim that set A is not causally closed with respect to Ur.

In Science, "physical" refers to anything that can be detected and understood by applying the scientific method to our observations.

If you assert that there are properties in Ur that are not in A, but which meet the above requirement, then scientifically, those things are physical, and set A' (which includes all of these things, as well as A), is the set of physical things, and is causally closed. Set A, whatever it may be, is just a subset of what is physical.

How is this different from what is done in modern physics all the time? We construct a theory which makes observable predictions, and includes some otherwise unobservable thing like an electron or a quark. Then we conclude the physical existence of that electron or quark from the success of that theory.
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I think this analogy is inapt because quarks and electrons play causal roles.

If A is not causally closed with respect to Ur, then those properties in Ur that can be detected through observations in A also play causal roles.

Saying that nothing outside of A plays a causal role on A, is exactly equivalent to saying that A is not causally closed.

A better analogy might be the existence and properties of the universe beyond our visual horizon, about which our theories of the visible universe allow us to draw meanigful conclusions.

But that is the whole problem. If it is possible to construct a theory to explain the observation that does not make reference to anything outside of set A, then we cannot logically conclude that the observation has anything to do with anything outside of A.

The only the above would work, even with respect to cosmology, would be to show that no theory which does not make reference to stuff outside of the visible Universe could possibly explain the observation. But in the case of the phenomenal, you have already said this is not the case. The p-zombie argument requires this.

It seems to me that the only difference between your property dualism, and physicalism,is how you define "physical". If I define physical to be anything that can be described in terms of our observations, through the application of the scientific method, then clearly my definition of physical includes the entire causally closed set A', which includes both what you are calling physical (set A), and what you are calling phenomenal (set B).
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I'd have to quibble with your use of the phrase "described in terms of our observations." Surely that's not even what we're doing with quarks. Rather, we acept the existence of quarks because, in part, our observations confirm our theories, and the quarks are described in terms of those theories.

That theory (the standard model of QM) is defined entirely in terms of observations. It is a mathematical description of the probabilities of making specific observations, and nothing more.

Put in plain English, if you claim that it is possible to use the scientific method to describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations, then this is exactly what physicalists mean when they say that phenomenal consciousness is physical.
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First of all, as I note above, I don't think it's possible to "describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations."

Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.

Secondly, I don't think that even were we to recast that statement, perhaps as, "describe the phenomenal world in terms of our theories," that would be exactly what all, or even most physicalists mean when they say phenomenal consciousness is physical.

It would also be pointless, because we can always describe things in terms of theories. In order to be useful, the theory must be falsifiable. The only way such a theory can be falsifiable is if we could make observations that prove it wrong. If the phenomenal world is not affected in any way by the phenomenal world, then this is simply not possible.

I'd say most mean "has an effect on the physical" or "interacts with the physical" or even "is a consequnce of particles, fields and their interactions in space and time."

The first two are exactly what they would say. The last one is metaphysical nonsense. In any event, if, as you have said, set A is not causally closed with respect to set Ur, then set A is not the set of all physical things. Set Ur, or some subset of it, is. Hence my explanation of set A'.

Being able to describe something in terms of our observations requires that the thing have an effect on what we are observing (it must be physical). That is a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement.

But what is it that is really being eliminated? It is not the experience. It is not your direct access to the experience. It is simply the notion that there is anything non-physical to it. We (eliminative materialists) are pretending that something we have does not exist. We are simply not making the assumption that what we have is non-physical.
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On the contrary, an eliminative materialist, such as, say, Dennett, would argue that "qualia" is a meaningless term without a referent. Once you've explained a p-zombie, you've exhausted explanation. There is simply nothing left to explain.

See what you just did? "meaningless term without referent". If you define qualia to be "without referent", then you are not just defining it to be "what we have direct access to". You are defining qualia to be something that can be meaningfully said to exist without the referent.

Like I said before, if you define "phenomenal consciousness" to be what I have direct access to, then I am a reductionist materialist. If you define it to be something that has an existence independent of my access to it, then I an eliminative materialist. You cannot define it to mean both, without making a-priori assumptions about the nature of whatever it is that I have "direct access to".

Nobody is conscious in the sense of possessing phenomenal consciousness.

Only if you define it to be something that can exist independently of the referent. If you define it to be what I have direct access to, then we still have it.

Parsimony is only inapplicable if you can logically argue that there must be some non-physical aspect to the experience. That is, that the part of the experience you have "direct access" to is not also a part of the physical world.
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And that's exactly what I've been arguing. That's what the knowledge argument, the arguments from conceivability, the argument from the epistemlogical uniqueness of phenomenal consciousness and the argument from the inconceivability of materialism are all about.

That is where you run into a real problem, though. Let's consider the p-zombie argument.

You say that it is conceivable that the physical World could exist exactly as it does, without there being any phenomenal consciousness. From this, you say that it is logically possible for such a physical world to exist, and from this you claim that phenomenal consciousness cannot affect the physical World in any way, or be a logically necessary consequence of it.

Let's imagine your conclusion is correct. If this is the case, then even if we assume that phenomenal consciousness exist, we cannot ever learn anything about it. No observation we make can be attributed, in any way, to phenomenal consciousness. Any theory like the ones you suggested, whereby some observation could be used to infer something about phenomenal consciousness, would necessarily have to contradict the claim that this observation would have been made without phenomenal consciousness.

You see, the problem is that there are really three possibilities here.

1) That phenomenal consciousness doesn't exist. You reject this due to your direct access to it.

2) That phenomenal consciousness exists, and some specific observation tells you something about it, through some theory.

3) That phenomenal consciousness exists, but has nothing at all to do with the observation you made in (2), meaning that your theory is wrong.

Do you see the problem? Even if you assume that phenomenal consciousness exists, you cannot attribute any observed phenomena to it. And since your observations are your brain's only source of information, your brain can never know anything about it!

You can imagine some scenario by which both A and B come from Ur, so that if you knew what the (non-causal) logical relationships between A and B are, you could determine the properties of B from observations in A. But you would have to know those logical relationships first. If A is causally closed, you have no method for determining what they are. You can only guess, and have no way to verify that the guess is right.

In what sense can you do this? You know only that you have direct access to your experiences, but what is the nature of the "you" that has this direct access? If the "you" is simply a function of your brain, then the thing you have direct access to is also physical.
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The nature of that "you" is a combination of physical and phenomenal properties. It's not a function, solely, of my brain. My brain has no access to phenomenal consciousness. Only *I* do.

This comes back to my question about storage and processing.

Look at it another way. It is one thing to say that things have both physical and phenomenal properties. But when you get to the *I* this becomes problematic. The physical part of *I* stores and processes physical information. What does the phenomenal part of the *I* do? How does it work? How can it be meaningfully said to "know" things, or "learn" things, when these things all imply information storage and information processing?

What failure? In what way is reductive materialism not possible?
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As a consequence of the failure of the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical.

When has this been demonstrated? If phenomenal consciousness is defined to be what I have direct access to, and I am by brain processes, then clearly what I have direct access to is physical. Where is the problem?

You only have a problem if you define phenomenal consciousness to be something that can be meaningfully said to exist independently of my access to it. And if you do that, then you are presuming that materialism is false.

If you simultaneously define phenomenal consciousness to be both what we have direct access to, and the "raw experience", then you are simply begging the question that what we have direct access to is not physical.
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Actually, I think you may be begging the question, namely by asuming that *we* are physical, and that phenomenal consciousness affects the physical world. I don't think either is true.

If I claimed those things being true as proof that materialism was true, that would be begging the question. I do not. You claiming that those things being false disproves materialism is begging the question.

So what is different after you have learned a phenomenal fact? Your body is not any different, and you seem to have defined phenomenal consciousness in such a way that it cannot meaningfully be said to be different.
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In the moment that Mary first experiences red, there is a novel feature in her phenomenal consciousness. That novelty constitutes her learning a new fact.

How is it novel? If her phenomenal consciousness does not store any phenomenal information, then every time she experiences red, it is equally novel.

It sounds like you are defining phenomenal consciousness to literally be nothing. So far the only characteristic you have attributed to it is that we have direct access to it. But what has direct access to it, if not our brains?
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To be nothing physical, at any rate.

*We* have direct access to phenomenal consciousness, by virtue of being partly phenomenal.

This, though, is why I said earlier that I thought you were question begging, by assuming that it is our brains that have access to phenomenal conscousness. They're physical and they don't. *We* do.

Do you see the problem yet? You have defined "phenomenal" to be "what we have direct access to", and you have defined "we" to be our brain processes, plus something phenomenal.

This conveys absolutely zero meaning. If I don't know how "we" differs from our brains, then I don't know what "phenomenal" means. And if I don't know what phenomenal means, then I don't know how "we" differ from our brains.

The assertion that the phenomenal is an empty set is perfectly consistent with what you have told me so far. What I need to know is how it differs from an empty set. Simply telling me that it is not empty is not going to do it.

Anyway, it seems like this all goes back to the p-zombie thing. Would you agree that if you were not sure that phenomenal consciousness wasn't physical, that physicalism would be the most reasonable approach? If so, then the only real issue is why you are so sure this is the case. So far, the only reason you have cited for believing this, is the p-zombie argument.

Dr. Stupid

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Win,



I would say that, given the way these things are themselves defined, and discovered, that distinction is arbitrary. Science (an physicalism) certainly don't define "physical" this way. On the contrary, they both allow for the possibility that these things may only be a subset of the physical.


In philosophy something is physical if it is both a cause and an effect. It would be said that TLOP are explanations of the cause/effects that we see over time.


Those two definitions are not the same thing. This also contradicts your claim that set A is not causally closed with respect to Ur.

In Science, "physical" refers to anything that can be detected and understood by applying the scientific method to our observations.


In philosphy physical refers to something that holds the properties of cause and effect.


If you assert that there are properties in Ur that are not in A, but which meet the above requirement, then scientifically, those things are physical, and set A' (which includes all of these things, as well as A), is the set of physical things, and is causally closed. Set A, whatever it may be, is just a subset of what is physical.


It seems Win is saying set A is defined by it's properties of cause, effect. Set B is defined by it's property of effect.

Hence set A is physical, set B is not.

If we want to make a catagory C and define it as things that posses the property of human beings are able to theorize about then we have a different set that is not addressed specifically by dualism (AFAIK).



If A is not causally closed with respect to Ur, then those properties in Ur that can be detected through observations in A also play causal roles.

Saying that nothing outside of A plays a causal role on A, is exactly equivalent to saying that A is not causally closed.


So you are claiming that if we have two catagories:

A = cause, effect
B = effect

Then A is an effect?

I think everyone would agree.


But that is the whole problem. If it is possible to construct a theory to explain the observation that does not make reference to anything outside of set A, then we cannot logically conclude that the observation has anything to do with anything outside of A.

The only the above would work, even with respect to cosmology, would be to show that no theory which does not make reference to stuff outside of the visible Universe could possibly explain the observation. But in the case of the phenomenal, you have already said this is not the case. The p-zombie argument requires this.


I have no comment on the p-zombie argument as I feel it is one of the weaker arguments but:

If we add

set C = cause

then we still have dualism (even with three sets) and open possibilities for set D being:

set D = something else

Set C being what I am interested in and the reason I am interested in QP.

I would assert that the KA and p-zombie suggests the existence of set B and free will suggests the existence of set C. Hopefully if I can gain a better grasp of QP I can eventually assert that QP suggests the existence of set C.


That theory (the standard model of QM) is defined entirely in terms of observations. It is a mathematical description of the probabilities of making specific observations, and nothing more.


Yes, but if you change the definition of physical from cause, effect to anything that can be observed or rendered to such a state that it can be observed then you are no longer a physicliast. Dualism, however, would require their exist a faucet that is not explainable.

To give an example of set B (which I am less comfortable with):

A occurs causally necessitating B to occur. B occurs but does not causally necessitate anything. Non-causal laws may or may not rule over B, all that matters is that B occurs and does not causally necessitate anything. Since existence is actually a string of causal occurances over time it could be argued that the existence of B would be such that it never exists in time, but must exist outside of time. Hence it can not be explained in terms of our observations in set A.

To give an example of set C:

C occurs causally necessitating A or B to occur. If you were to eliminate everything from set A, C in the time < timeC then C would still have occured. The idea that C would occur without a prior necessitation is a violation of the laws of thermodynamics which seem to govern set A. Cs occurance can not be explained. That is not to say it can not be predicted. It is a logical possibility that someone, even everyone, would predict every occurance of C. I'm sure you are familiar with Hume et. al.


Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.


Which is an assertion I could argue against. If Win believes that 'we' are not the thing which observes but are something else, and the observing thing is perhaps a machine filtering information into 'us' then there is nothing inherently flawed in claiming that information could come from other sources in addition to this source.


It would also be pointless, because we can always describe things in terms of theories. In order to be useful, the theory must be falsifiable. The only way such a theory can be falsifiable is if we could make observations that prove it wrong. If the phenomenal world is not affected in any way by the phenomenal world, then this is simply not possible.


You can say that a theory must also be proven falsifiable. If you believe that everything can eventually be rendered to a state of perceivability then every false theory can be proven false. I'm not sure what else you are trying to assert. Theories involving set B cannot be proven false? How so?

What if I assert that when I drop my rock onto the floor the occurance of the rock hitting the floor causes a set B effect on the floor and rock. Today you could tell me that I am incorrect, and that it is a set A effect that has the cause of distributing force (assume) 'evenly' over the floor. But a thousand years ago you may not have been able to 'prove' that theory false.

Now if set B truly did exist and dropping the rock onto the floor truly did cause a set B effect then of course you wouldn't be able to prove me false, because I wansn't false.


More later, I have to get back to work :)

[Win]

Stimpy:

I would say that, given the way these things are themselves defined, and discovered, that distinction is arbitrary. Science (an physicalism) certainly don't define "physical" this way. On the contrary, they both allow for the possibility that these things may only be a subset of the physical.

Fair enough. I don't disagree.

Those two definitions are not the same thing. This also contradicts your claim that set A is not causally closed with respect to Ur.

Not necessarily the same thing. As to the second sentence, I have not claimed that set A is causally closed with respect to the Ur set; I've claimed it's causally closed with respect to set B.

In Science, "physical" refers to anything that can be detected and understood by applying the scientific method to our observations.

You've spent too much time in Germany. Science isn't capitalized. ;)

If you assert that there are properties in Ur that are not in A, but which meet the above requirement, then scientifically, those things are physical, and set A' (which includes all of these things, as well as A), is the set of physical things, and is causally closed. Set A, whatever it may be, is just a subset of what is physical.

This is to miss the point, I think, which is that set A and set B are non-intersecting subsets of the Ur set.

If A is not causally closed with respect to Ur, then those properties in Ur that can be detected through observations in A also play causal roles.

I agree. The point is that we may conceive of a theory of the Ur set that makes predictions about the properties of set B and of set A, and is mutually exclusive with other theories, such that, without observing anything in set B, we may still draw conclusions about it from the confirmation of theories of the Ur set, exclusively made in set A. Our theories of the Ur set would have logically necessitated implications about set B, none of which could be independently observationally confirmed.

You might ask, why then not simply excise the portions of the theory of the Ur set that refer to set B? Because those are necessary to explain phenomenal consciousness, which we know exist by virtue of our direct access.

Saying that nothing outside of A plays a causal role on A, is exactly equivalent to saying that A is not causally closed.

To saying A is causally closed?

Assuming that's what you meant, I haven't asserted that. I've said nothing in set B plays a causal role on A.

But that is the whole problem. If it is possible to construct a theory to explain the observation that does not make reference to anything outside of set A, then we cannot logically conclude that the observation has anything to do with anything outside of A.

The only the above would work, even with respect to cosmology, would be to show that no theory which does not make reference to stuff outside of the visible Universe could possibly explain the observation. But in the case of the phenomenal, you have already said this is not the case. The p-zombie argument requires this.

I don't agree. If say, our best theory has the implication that the universe is infinite with matter uniformly distributed throughout, we can draw conclusions about what's happening beyond our visible volume of space.

The case of the phenomenal is analogous, by virtue of the fact that both it and the universe beyond our visible universe have no causal connection to the physical universe.

The p-zombie argument requires the conceivability of explaining every action, statement, belief and so on of a person without the existence of phenomenal consciousness. This is conceivable. What isn't conceivable, or possible, is explaining the existence of phenomenal consciousness without reference to phenomenal consciousness.

We don't, strictly speaking, "observe" phenomenal consciousness.

That theory (the standard model of QM) is defined entirely in terms of observations. It is a mathematical description of the probabilities of making specific observations, and nothing more.

Only if you're an instrumentalist. Not being one, myself, I take QM to be a desription, and explanation, of the world.

Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.

Not so. *We* have direct access to phenomenally realized information, which cannot be "observed."

It would also be pointless, because we can always describe things in terms of theories. In order to be useful, the theory must be falsifiable. The only way such a theory can be falsifiable is if we could make observations that prove it wrong. If the phenomenal world is not affected in any way by the phenomenal world, then this is simply not possible

Well, I disagree. Again, if we have a theory of the Ur set that makes predictions about the physical world, and has logically necessited implications about the phenomenal world, even though the phenomenal is unoberservable, our observations that confirm the theory of the Ur set will confirm also its predictions about phenomenal properties.

See what you just did? "meaningless term without referent". If you define qualia to be "without referent", then you are not just defining it to be "what we have direct access to". You are defining qualia to be something that can be meaningfully said to exist without the referent.

Well, I don't define it that way. Eliminative materialists conclude that that's what it is. Namely, nothing.

Like I said before, if you define "phenomenal consciousness" to be what I have direct access to, then I am a reductionist materialist. If you define it to be something that has an existence independent of my access to it, then I an eliminative materialist. You cannot define it to mean both, without making a-priori assumptions about the nature of whatever it is that I have "direct access to".

Again, you're begging the question of whether *you* are physical.

Only if you define it to be something that can exist independently of the referent. If you define it to be what I have direct access to, then we still have it.

I don't, and haven't. And you're begging the same question.

Let's imagine your conclusion is correct. If this is the case, then even if we assume that phenomenal consciousness exist, we cannot ever learn anything about it. No observation we make can be attributed, in any way, to phenomenal consciousness. Any theory like the ones you suggested, whereby some observation could be used to infer something about phenomenal consciousness, would necessarily have to contradict the claim that this observation would have been made without phenomenal consciousness.

In p-zombie world, the same observation would be made, but the appeal to the Ur set would be ruled out by Ockham's razor. It's a needless extra level of abstraction that exists only to explain phenomenal consciousness, which doesn't exist.

In fact, in our world, the same argument will be made, by eliminative materialists.

Who is right is determined by which world we live in, p-zombie world or our world.

Do you see the problem? Even if you assume that phenomenal consciousness exists, you cannot attribute any observed phenomena to it. And since your observations are your brain's only source of information, your brain can never know anything about it!

I agree, my brain can never know anything about phenomenal consciousness. But *I* can.

In the end, everything in p-zombie world and our world is the same, except that in p-zombie world the eliminative materialists are right, and in our world I am.

You can imagine some scenario by which both A and B come from Ur, so that if you knew what the (non-causal) logical relationships between A and B are, you could determine the properties of B from observations in A. But you would have to know those logical relationships first. If A is causally closed, you have no method for determining what they are. You can only guess, and have no way to verify that the guess is right.

Actually, the best you'll be able to get is a statement of the form: Assuming phenomenal consciousness exists, then ...

Either it does or it doesn't. The only "guess" you have to make is that it does.


Look at it another way. It is one thing to say that things have both physical and phenomenal properties. But when you get to the *I* this becomes problematic. The physical part of *I* stores and processes physical information. What does the phenomenal part of the *I* do? How does it work? How can it be meaningfully said to "know" things, or "learn" things, when these things all imply information storage and information processing?

What does the phenomeal part do? Have phenomenal experiences. Or perhaps better, be phenomenal experiences.

How does it "learn" or "know?" Phenomenally, of course.

When has this been demonstrated? If phenomenal consciousness is defined to be what I have direct access to, and I am by brain processes, then clearly what I have direct access to is physical. Where is the problem?

I deny the assumption, "I am my brain processes."

You only have a problem if you define phenomenal consciousness to be something that can be meaningfully said to exist independently of my access to it. And if you do that, then you are presuming that materialism is false.

I don't so define it.

If I claimed those things being true as proof that materialism was true, that would be begging the question. I do not. You claiming that those things being false disproves materialism is begging the question.

By begging the question, I mean assuming your conclusion. Since you're assuming that "you" are physical, you're begging the question of physicalism's truth, and applying that conclusion to your definition of "you."

And I don't make the claim that you attribute to me.

How is it novel? If her phenomenal consciousness does not store any phenomenal information, then every time she experiences red, it is equally novel.

Depends on how you define "novel," I guess. If you had global anteriograde amnesia, you could experience something for the first time, that experience being novel in an absolute sense. You, of course wouldn't form a long term memory of it, so each subsequent exposure would be "novel to you," yet still not "absolutely novel."

Do you see the problem yet? You have defined "phenomenal" to be "what we have direct access to", and you have defined "we" to be our brain processes, plus something phenomenal.

This conveys absolutely zero meaning. If I don't know how "we" differs from our brains, then I don't know what "phenomenal" means. And if I don't know what phenomenal means, then I don't know how "we" differ from our brains.

But you do know what phenomenal means, through your direct experience of it. You don't require my definition.

Anyway, it seems like this all goes back to the p-zombie thing. Would you agree that if you were not sure that phenomenal consciousness wasn't physical, that physicalism would be the most reasonable approach? If so, then the only real issue is why you are so sure this is the case. So far, the only reason you have cited for believing this, is the p-zombie argument.

As to the first question, yes.

As to the assertion that "the only reason I have cited for believing this is the p-zombie argument," that's just not so. You yourself have quoted me, in the very post I am no responding to, as citing:

And that's exactly what I've been arguing. That's what the knowledge argument, the arguments from conceivability, the argument from the epistemlogical uniqueness of phenomenal consciousness and the argument from the inconceivability of materialism are all about.

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


Secondly, I don't think that even were we to recast that statement, perhaps as, "describe the phenomenal world in terms of our theories," that would be exactly what all, or even most physicalists mean when they say phenomenal consciousness is physical.
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It would also be pointless, because we can always describe things in terms of theories. In order to be useful, the theory must be falsifiable. The only way such a theory can be falsifiable is if we could make observations that prove it wrong. If the phenomenal world is not affected in any way by the phenomenal world, then this is simply not possible.


We can always describe things in terms of theories apart from phenomenal consciousness surely? If phenomenal consciousness is causally inefficaceous it surely cannot constitute part of any theory?

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by The One called Neo


We can always describe things in terms of theories apart from phenomenal consciousness surely? If phenomenal consciousness is causally inefficaceous it surely cannot constitute part of any theory?

If we put phenomental conscoiusness into set B, giving it the property of being an effect but not the property of being a cause, then we certainly can make theories about it. I did so above by asserting that me dropping my rock onto the floor caused a set B occurance.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:Depends on how you define "novel," I guess. If you had global anteriograde amnesia, you could experience something for the first time, that experience being novel in an absolute sense. You, of course wouldn't form a long term memory of it, so each subsequent exposure would be "novel to you," yet still not "absolutely novel."
So, since phenomenal consciousness has no memory, every phenomenal experience should feel novel. But that isn't the way it feels.

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

In Science, "physical" refers to anything that can be detected and understood by applying the scientific method to our observations.
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In philosphy physical refers to something that holds the properties of cause and effect.

That's fine, because that is a requirement for the scientific definition to be valid. Basically, science just rules out the possibility of physical stuff that cannot be observed or analyzed with the scientific method. This is not pertinent to the discussion, though, because what is in question here is not whether there are physical things that cannot be observed, but rather whether there could be non-physical things that can be observed.

If you assert that there are properties in Ur that are not in A, but which meet the above requirement, then scientifically, those things are physical, and set A' (which includes all of these things, as well as A), is the set of physical things, and is causally closed. Set A, whatever it may be, is just a subset of what is physical.
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It seems Win is saying set A is defined by it's properties of cause, effect. Set B is defined by it's property of effect.

Hence set A is physical, set B is not.

I understand that. My point is that if A is defined to be physical, using that definition, then A must be causally closed. Win's assertion that A is not causally closed with respect to Ur is not compatible with the assertion that A is, in fact, the set of everything that is physical.

If we want to make a catagory C and define it as things that posses the property of human beings are able to theorize about then we have a different set that is not addressed specifically by dualism (AFAIK).

We can theorize about anything. That is beside the point. In order for those theories to provide any actual knowledge, they must be testable. And that means that what is being theorized about must have some effect on stuff that can be observed. It must be physical.

If A is not causally closed with respect to Ur, then those properties in Ur that can be detected through observations in A also play causal roles.

Saying that nothing outside of A plays a causal role on A, is exactly equivalent to saying that A is not causally closed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So you are claiming that if we have two catagories:

A = cause, effect
B = effect

Then A is an effect?

I think everyone would agree.

I don't see your point. If B is not also a cause, then no information about B can be inferred from observations in A. If B is truly just effect, and no cause, then we have no way of knowing it is there at all, much less anything about it.

The only other possibility would be if the properties of B could be logically deduced from A. But this is exactly what is meant by "reducible to the physical". Furthermore, this possibility is rejected by property dualism.

If we add

set C = cause

then we still have dualism (even with three sets) and open possibilities for set D being:

set D = something else

Set C being what I am interested in and the reason I am interested in QP.

I would assert that the KA and p-zombie suggests the existence of set B and free will suggests the existence of set C. Hopefully if I can gain a better grasp of QP I can eventually assert that QP suggests the existence of set C.

I don't follow this reasoning at all. How can there be cause without effect, or effect without cause? What does that even mean?

You can assert that C causes both physical and phenomenal effects, but any causes in C that cause physical effects are, by definition, physical causes.

That theory (the standard model of QM) is defined entirely in terms of observations. It is a mathematical description of the probabilities of making specific observations, and nothing more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, but if you change the definition of physical from cause, effect to anything that can be observed or rendered to such a state that it can be observed then you are no longer a physicliast.

Sure you are. The second definition above is just more restrictive than the first. If everything physical can be observed, directly or indirectly, then it must have an effect on things which can be observed.

Dualism, however, would require their exist a faucet that is not explainable.

Agreed. That is one reason why it is a pointless endeavor.

A occurs causally necessitating B to occur.

If B is causally necessitated by A, then B is reducible to A.

B occurs but does not causally necessitate anything.

If B does not causally necessitate anything, then it is meaningless to say it exists. What is the difference between something that exists, but has no effect on anything, and something that doesn't exist at all?

Non-causal laws may or may not rule over B, all that matters is that B occurs and does not causally necessitate anything. Since existence is actually a string of causal occurances over time it could be argued that the existence of B would be such that it never exists in time, but must exist outside of time. Hence it can not be explained in terms of our observations in set A.

A more accurate statement would be to say that it does not exist at all. You have just described B to literally be something that does not exist!

To give an example of set C:

C occurs causally necessitating A or B to occur. If you were to eliminate everything from set A, C in the time < timeC then C would still have occured. The idea that C would occur without a prior necessitation is a violation of the laws of thermodynamics which seem to govern set A.

This is not true. There are all sorts of acausal events in the physical world. Thermodynamics says nothing about this. You have misunderstood thermodynamics.

Cs occurance can not be explained. That is not to say it can not be predicted. It is a logical possibility that someone, even everyone, would predict every occurance of C. I'm sure you are familiar with Hume et. al.

One could say that all quantum events are set C. So what? This has no relevance to consciousness or free-will.

Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.
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Which is an assertion I could argue against. If Win believes that 'we' are not the thing which observes but are something else, and the observing thing is perhaps a machine filtering information into 'us' then there is nothing inherently flawed in claiming that information could come from other sources in addition to this source.

Our brains are physical things. The only source of information our brains have is our observations. Win has already stated that the information processing takes place in the brain, so the only information that "we" can process comes from our observations.

Please note that if you are endorsing a different type of dualism than Win, then responding to my comments to Win are just going to confuse the issue.

It would also be pointless, because we can always describe things in terms of theories. In order to be useful, the theory must be falsifiable. The only way such a theory can be falsifiable is if we could make observations that prove it wrong. If the phenomenal world is not affected in any way by the phenomenal world, then this is simply not possible.
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You can say that a theory must also be proven falsifiable. If you believe that everything can eventually be rendered to a state of perceivability then every false theory can be proven false.

This does not logically follow. On the contrary, even if physicalism is true, it is always possible to construct theories which cannot, even in principle, ever be falsified.

I'm not sure what else you are trying to assert. Theories involving set B cannot be proven false? How so?

If set B has no effect on set A, then any theory about set B that makes predictions about set A can necessarily be split into two parts.

1) A theory which only makes reference to set A, and makes all the predictions about set A that the theory originally made.

and

2) A theory which makes no predictions about set A, but makes reference to set B.

The first part is falsifiable, but says noting about set B. The second part is unfalsifiable. Furthermore, since this split can be made, falsifying the first part does not falsify the second part.

In other words, if we had such a theory, and it was falsified, we could construct a new theory which makes exactly the same claims about the phenomenal world, but is consistent with our observations in set A.

What if I assert that when I drop my rock onto the floor the occurance of the rock hitting the floor causes a set B effect on the floor and rock. Today you could tell me that I am incorrect, and that it is a set A effect that has the cause of distributing force (assume) 'evenly' over the floor. But a thousand years ago you may not have been able to 'prove' that theory false.

This is what I am talking about. Even today you could claim that some sort of set B effect is present. There is just no longer any reason to think so.

I can never prove that there isn't something more to any given phenomenon than the physical. The thing is that once we get to the point of being able to completely describe everything about the phenomenon that we think there is, we no longer see any reason to imagine nonphysical stuff is present as well.

It is the classic argument from ignorance. As long as there is any aspect of consciousness that we don't completely understand in terms of physical descriptions, people will argue that there is something non-physical going on. But such a claim is pointless. If there is, we can never hope to explain it, and if there is not, we can never prove that there is not.

Dr. Stupid

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Not much time but if something is philisopihcally acausal then it certainly does violate the laws of thermo-dynamics.

If something is philosophically acausal then it doesn't necessitate it's own occurance, hence it would not exist in the very-next smallest slice of time.

no time, I'll be back.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:If we put phenomental conscoiusness into set B, giving it the property of being an effect but not the property of being a cause, then we certainly can make theories about it. I did so above by asserting that me dropping my rock onto the floor caused a set B occurance.
You can make all the theories you want, but how are you going to verify or falsify them? Since B isn't causal, it can't cause anything you can observe. You can only observe it within phenomenal consciousness itself, which has no memory. Heck, without any memory, I'm not sure how you could have any coherent phenomenal experience longer than an instant.

And speaking of no memory, how do you remember the phenomenal experience of dropping a rock on your foot? Since B has no memory, it must write into the brain's memory. But it isn't causal, so it can't do that.

It seems the only way out is to postulate that my physical brain, upon sensing the rock, invokes phenomenal consciousness and passes it all the memories about dropping-rock-on-foot, including whether this is the first time or not. Phenomenal consciousness thus becomes some kind of slave process of the physical brain. But why do we need it at all?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Put in plain English, if you claim that it is possible to use the scientific method to describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations, then this is exactly what physicalists mean when they say that phenomenal consciousness is physical.
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First of all, as I note above, I don't think it's possible to "describe the phenomenal world in terms of our observations."
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Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.



Well well well, contradicting yourself yet again!

You asserted earlier in this thread that knowledge involves more than information. You maintained that, in addition, there is the knowledge supplied by actual experience. So when Mary actually experiences redness, she gains new knowledge, but no extra information.

This directly contradicts what you say above when you equate knowledge with information.

Clueless tit.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
You can make all the theories you want, but how are you going to verify or falsify them? Since B isn't causal, it can't cause anything you can observe. You can only observe it within phenomenal consciousness itself, which has no memory. Heck, without any memory, I'm not sure how you could have any coherent phenomenal experience longer than an instant.

And speaking of no memory, how do you remember the phenomenal experience of dropping a rock on your foot? Since B has no memory, it must write into the brain's memory. But it isn't causal, so it can't do that.

It seems the only way out is to postulate that my physical brain, upon sensing the rock, invokes phenomenal consciousness and passes it all the memories about dropping-rock-on-foot, including whether this is the first time or not. Phenomenal consciousness thus becomes some kind of slave process of the physical brain. But why do we need it at all?

~~ Paul

Well Paul, I don't necessarily believe that set B exists. I am just saying that if I assert that an occurance of X does not necessitate any occurance of an effect then you can prove I'm wrong by demonstrating the occurance of an effect and proving that it is necesary by repeated observation.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Well Paul, I don't necessarily believe that set B exists. I am just saying that if I assert that an occurance of X does not necessitate any occurance of an effect then you can prove I'm wrong by demonstrating the occurance of an effect and proving that it is necesary by repeated observation.
Assuming that I can design the experiment in such as way that I'm sure it causes X and not Y, and that I'm sure I can enumerate all possible potential effects of X so I can check for them. Both of these requirements sound difficult for something that we postulate has no effects in the first place.

I postulate that whenever I sneeze, an undetectable pink hamster orbiting Neptune tallies my sneeze on his chalkboard.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Look at it another way. It is one thing to say that things have both physical and phenomenal properties. But when you get to the *I* this becomes problematic. The physical part of *I* stores and processes physical information. What does the phenomenal part of the *I* do? How does it work? How can it be meaningfully said to "know" things, or "learn" things, when these things all imply information storage and information processing?



It only implies information storage and information processing from the physical perspective. From the mental perspective this needn't be so.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:Clueless tit.
Stimpson J. Cat is a tit? Well now, that sheds a whole new light on the situation!

It only implies information storage and information processing from the physical perspective. From the mental perspective this needn't be so.
Why?

~~ Paul

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



That's fine, because that is a requirement for the scientific definition to be valid. Basically, science just rules out the possibility of physical stuff that cannot be observed or analyzed with the scientific method. This is not pertinent to the discussion, though, because what is in question here is not whether there are physical things that cannot be observed, but rather whether there could be non-physical things that can be observed.



I understand that. My point is that if A is defined to be physical, using that definition, then A must be causally closed. Win's assertion that A is not causally closed with respect to Ur is not compatible with the assertion that A is, in fact, the set of everything that is physical.

I'm not following this. It seems you are saying that the definition of physical is:

1) A cause
2) An effect
3) only interacts with other things that are both a cause and an effect.

If I have something that is a cause but not an effect then it has to cause something. So unless it is causing an effect that will have no cause then it must cause something physical.

What I mean is:

Assume that X occurs. X was not an effect (it was not caused) but it does cause Y to occur. Now if Y is an effect but if it does not cause something to occur then it is not physical. But if Y does cause Z then Y is physical, X is not, and Z is undecided at this time.

If this is the case then we can rule out the third clause above.


[/quote]
We can theorize about anything. That is beside the point. In order for those theories to provide any actual knowledge, they must be testable. And that means that what is being theorized about must have some effect on stuff that can be observed. It must be physical.
[/quote]

We can observe something that is an effect with no cause by observing an effect and seeing that there is no cause. I would assert that this is proven by Libertarian free will, but we would disagree.

We can observe something that is a cause but not an effect by demonstrating something occuring without any prior cause. I don't assert this, but that is what I demonstrated with my Rock theory. I theorized about a set B occurance, someone proved me wrong.

But these are not physical because they are not both a cause and an effect.


I don't see your point. If B is not also a cause, then no information about B can be inferred from observations in A. If B is truly just effect, and no cause, then we have no way of knowing it is there at all, much less anything about it.

Well in the smallest slice of time possible it would be there as an effect. But yeah, it doesn't seem like we will be 'discovering' any of these set B's any time soon. That isn't to say they can't exist though.


The only other possibility would be if the properties of B could be logically deduced from A. But this is exactly what is meant by "reducible to the physical". Furthermore, this possibility is rejected by property dualism.

I'm not sure what property dualism is. If we "reduce" the properties of B from A and somehow reach the conclusion that B will have no effect then we have somehow proven that B is not physical by definition. We have also proven that we need to rewrite physics. I'm not saying we need to though! I'm not asserting that set B exists. All I'm doing is presenting an argument that set B 'could' exist. So 'could' set A. If they did, then we certainly would need to change physics. This, ultimately, is why I would love to learn about QP. Maybe if I ate your brains... ;)



I don't follow this reasoning at all. How can there be cause without effect, or effect without cause? What does that even mean?

You can assert that C causes both physical and phenomenal effects, but any causes in C that cause physical effects are, by definition, physical causes.

What do you mean phenomenal effects? I never claimed such things existed, that was Win.

I don't know how there could be effect without cause. I can assume that there must be something non-physical that can introduce new causal chains into the physical world (the "agent") but I don't know how that would happen. I'm hoping that I'll live long enough for someone to figure it out. Not likely.



Sure you are. The second definition above is just more restrictive than the first. If everything physical can be observed, directly or indirectly, then it must have an effect on things which can be observed.



Agreed. That is one reason why it is a pointless endeavor.


You can observe the effect but not the cause. Therefore the occurance is observable but it is not physical because it had no cause.

I would assert that everytime you make a decision you (in the "agent" sense) are ultimately introducing new uncaused-causal chains into the world. So I would assert that every decision is an observable occurance of set C.

I don't know how to set up an experiment to prove this true or false. Hopefully one day a man of science will come up with such an experiment. Until that time I have my reasons for believing that men have free will which leads directly to the valid conclusion that set C must exist.


If B is causally necessitated by A, then B is reducible to A.

If B does not causally necessitate anything, then it is meaningless to say it exists. What is the difference between something that exists, but has no effect on anything, and something that doesn't exist at all?


It exists but only for the smallest slice of time possible. After that time it ceases existing, hence it violates the laws of thermodynamics. I don't necessarily agree that set B exists, I'm just saying that it can. I don't know what consequences it would have. It certainly follows that things in set B (other then causing us to rewrite the laws of thermodynamics) would have no effect at all. That is not to say that they cannot happen, just that they would cease existing.

I'm not sure what Win would assert happens after that smallest slice of time where a set B occurance would exist.


A more accurate statement would be to say that it does not exist at all. You have just described B to literally be something that does not exist!



This is not true. There are all sorts of acausal events in the physical world. Thermodynamics says nothing about this. You have misunderstood thermodynamics.



One could say that all quantum events are set C. So what? This has no relevance to consciousness or free-will.

Really?!! That is what I am trying to understand! Because if set C can exist and the "agent" must be set C then the "agent" could, possibly, maybe exist! Too bad I can't just grok the essence of your brain. Perhaps I ought to just get some calculus and physics books and start learning. They do say that it's never too late!

But if set C exists then materialism is rendered false.


Our brains are physical things. The only source of information our brains have is our observations. Win has already stated that the information processing takes place in the brain, so the only information that "we" can process comes from our observations.

Please note that if you are endorsing a different type of dualism than Win, then responding to my comments to Win are just going to confuse the issue.


My apologies, I should have made it clear. I *believe* that I am endorsing a different type of dualism then Win.


This does not logically follow. On the contrary, even if physicalism is true, it is always possible to construct theories which cannot, even in principle, ever be falsified.


If it is possible to render everything to a state where it can be understood in principle then it logically follows that in principle it is possible to understand everything. It may not be possible, but in principle it is.

What would be an example of something you think we coudl not prove false even if we have rendered everything to a state where it can be understood then proceeded to understand it?


If set B has no effect on set A, then any theory about set B that makes predictions about set A can necessarily be split into two parts.

1) A theory which only makes reference to set A, and makes all the predictions about set A that the theory originally made.

and

2) A theory which makes no predictions about set A, but makes reference to set B.

The first part is falsifiable, but says noting about set B. The second part is unfalsifiable. Furthermore, since this split can be made, falsifying the first part does not falsify the second part.

In other words, if we had such a theory, and it was falsified, we could construct a new theory which makes exactly the same claims about the phenomenal world, but is consistent with our observations in set A.

If a set B item did occur, then in that smallest slice of time possible it occured. There it is, but in the next smallest slice of time possible it would not be there and would not have changed anything.

So if I assert that X occurs causing Y causing nothing you simply have to prove that Y did cause something, thereby making Y a physical thing.

Win seems to be asserting that X occurs causing Y AND Z. Y then causes A. So anything that you show occuring from Y/Z, Win will say that it was caused by Y not Z.

This is what the whole KA is about. We put everything A into a book, teach it to Mary, then do X to her and somehow she 'gains' Z.


This is what I am talking about. Even today you could claim that some sort of set B effect is present. There is just no longer any reason to think so.

I can never prove that there isn't something more to any given phenomenon than the physical. The thing is that once we get to the point of being able to completely describe everything about the phenomenon that we think there is, we no longer see any reason to imagine nonphysical stuff is present as well.

It is the classic argument from ignorance. As long as there is any aspect of consciousness that we don't completely understand in terms of physical descriptions, people will argue that there is something non-physical going on. But such a claim is pointless. If there is, we can never hope to explain it, and if there is not, we can never prove that there is not.

Dr. Stupid


I would agree that the set B things certainly appear pointless. But it is the set C things I am truly interested in.

Again I apologize for not making this clear at the onset and possibly just confusing the issue.

-Rusty

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
Assuming that I can design the experiment in such as way that I'm sure it causes X and not Y, and that I'm sure I can enumerate all possible potential effects of X so I can check for them. Both of these requirements sound difficult for something that we postulate has no effects in the first place.

I postulate that whenever I sneeze, an undetectable pink hamster orbiting Neptune tallies my sneeze on his chalkboard.

~~ Paul


Obviously you can assert whatever you want and no one will have any reason to believe you. But if we have an argument to back it up like the KA that 'suggest' that 'perhaps' set B 'could' be possible then we shouldn't discard the possibility.

Basically the argument is that X occurs and causes nothing physical BUT does have a non-physical consequence. This consequence cannot be cause, so it must be 'something else' hence you get the claims that we are unable to comprehend the 'something else'.

But arguments like KA and p-zombie do suggest that these set B occurance could exist.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Another way is that members of set A stand in causal relations to each other, while no member of set B is a cause of anything in set A.
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Those two definitions are not the same thing. This also contradicts your claim that set A is not causally closed with respect to Ur.
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Not necessarily the same thing. As to the second sentence, I have not claimed that set A is causally closed with respect to the Ur set; I've claimed it's causally closed with respect to set B.

I interpreted your statement that set A stand in causal relations to each other to mean that set A is causally closed. If not, I have no idea how you define set A. You clearly are not defining it to mean what physicalists mean by "physical". Hence my introduction of set A', which includes anything that has an effect on something in set A.

If you assert that there are properties in Ur that are not in A, but which meet the above requirement, then scientifically, those things are physical, and set A' (which includes all of these things, as well as A), is the set of physical things, and is causally closed. Set A, whatever it may be, is just a subset of what is physical.
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This is to miss the point, I think, which is that set A and set B are non-intersecting subsets of the Ur set.

I didn't miss that point at all. The question is whether or not set A is causally closed. If it is, then nothing about set B can be inferred from facts about set A. If it is not, then it is not the set of everything that is physical, and furthermore is not "physical" in the sense that you use the term in the p-zombie argument.

If A is not causally closed with respect to Ur, then those properties in Ur that can be detected through observations in A also play causal roles.
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I agree. The point is that we may conceive of a theory of the Ur set that makes predictions about the properties of set B and of set A, and is mutually exclusive with other theories, such that, without observing anything in set B, we may still draw conclusions about it from the confirmation of theories of the Ur set, exclusively made in set A.

The problem is that we can construct an infinite number of such theories which all say different things about set B, but which all make the same predictions about what we should observe in A.

Our theories of the Ur set would have logically necessitated implications about set B, none of which could be independently observationally confirmed.

The theory can only logically necessitate a conclusion about B if it is the only possible explanation for the observations made. You p-zombie argument requires that this not be the case. Indeed, the very arguments you have made in the past made this point. For example, your argument that a given physical process could be accompanied by a different phenomenal experience than the one it is.

Your entire reason for believing that phenomenal consciousness is non-physical (the conceivability argument) requires that it be impossible to infer anything about phenomenal consciousness from physical observations.

You might ask, why then not simply excise the portions of the theory of the Ur set that refer to set B? Because those are necessary to explain phenomenal consciousness, which we know exist by virtue of our direct access.

Yes, I understand that. You are saying that we can reject the alternative theory that set B doesn't exist at all, because you are certain that it does. That is not the problem. The problem is that I can also construct an alternative theory that just makes different claims about set B, but makes the same predictions about set A.

Saying that nothing outside of A plays a causal role on A, is exactly equivalent to saying that A is not causally closed.
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To saying A is causally closed?

Assuming that's what you meant, I haven't asserted that. I've said nothing in set B plays a causal role on A.

But as I have already explained, you can just construct set A', which is causally closed. Is it causally closed with respect to B, or not?

If it is, then is set B reducible to A'? If it is, then you have reductionist materialism. If set B is not reducible to A', then it is impossible to infer anything about B from our observations.

If set A' is not causally closed with respect to B, then B is part of set A', and phenomenal consciousness is physical.

The only the above would work, even with respect to cosmology, would be to show that no theory which does not make reference to stuff outside of the visible Universe could possibly explain the observation. But in the case of the phenomenal, you have already said this is not the case. The p-zombie argument requires this.
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I don't agree. If say, our best theory has the implication that the universe is infinite with matter uniformly distributed throughout, we can draw conclusions about what's happening beyond our visible volume of space.

If that is truly the best theory, that means that no theory which does not make reference to stuff beyond visible space, can explain the observed phenomena. Either that, or it would have to claim that stuff which is currently outside of our visible Universe once had an effect on stuff that is not.

The case of the phenomenal is analogous, by virtue of the fact that both it and the universe beyond our visible universe have no causal connection to the physical universe.

The p-zombie argument requires the conceivability of explaining every action, statement, belief and so on of a person without the existence of phenomenal consciousness. This is conceivable. What isn't conceivable, or possible, is explaining the existence of phenomenal consciousness without reference to phenomenal consciousness.

If every observable phenomena is consistent with the hypothesis that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, then even if you assume that phenomenal consciousness does exist, you cannot infer anything about it from the physical observations.

As I already said, you could construct an infinite set of possible logical relationships between the physical and the phenomenal. For each theory, you could make a set of inferences about the phenomenal from your observations. But there is no way to determine which of those theories is the right one.

That theory (the standard model of QM) is defined entirely in terms of observations. It is a mathematical description of the probabilities of making specific observations, and nothing more.
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Only if you're an instrumentalist. Not being one, myself, I take QM to be a desription, and explanation, of the world.

I am talking about the scientific theory, not metaphysical interpretations of it.

Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.
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Not so. *We* have direct access to phenomenally realized information, which cannot be "observed."

I thought we already agreed that it is our brains that do our thinking, and thus our brains which are going to have to construct the description. If our brains do not have access to the relevant information, then they cannot construct a description.

It would also be pointless, because we can always describe things in terms of theories. In order to be useful, the theory must be falsifiable. The only way such a theory can be falsifiable is if we could make observations that prove it wrong. If the phenomenal world is not affected in any way by the phenomenal world, then this is simply not possible
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Well, I disagree. Again, if we have a theory of the Ur set that makes predictions about the physical world, and has logically necessited implications about the phenomenal world, even though the phenomenal is unoberservable, our observations that confirm the theory of the Ur set will confirm also its predictions about phenomenal properties.

Only if not other theory that makes the same predictions about A is possible. An infinite number of such theories will exist. Indeed, they must exist.

See what you just did? "meaningless term without referent". If you define qualia to be "without referent", then you are not just defining it to be "what we have direct access to". You are defining qualia to be something that can be meaningfully said to exist without the referent.
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Well, I don't define it that way. Eliminative materialists conclude that that's what it is. Namely, nothing.

Eliminative materialists do not claim that the aspect of the experience we have direct access to does not exist. They just say that there is no aspect of consciousness that can be meaningfully said to exist independent of the physical process of having the experience.

Like I said before, if you define "phenomenal consciousness" to be what I have direct access to, then I am a reductionist materialist. If you define it to be something that has an existence independent of my access to it, then I an eliminative materialist. You cannot define it to mean both, without making a-priori assumptions about the nature of whatever it is that I have "direct access to".
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Again, you're begging the question of whether *you* are physical.

How is this begging the question? I am not saying that phenomenal consciousness cannot be both what we directly experience, and have existence independent of of the process. What I am saying is the you cannot a-priori assume that this is the case. Nor can you a-priori assume that it is not. What you have to do is define it to be what we have direct access to, and then determine whether or not that thing can be meaningfully said to exist independently of the process.

Let's imagine your conclusion is correct. If this is the case, then even if we assume that phenomenal consciousness exist, we cannot ever learn anything about it. No observation we make can be attributed, in any way, to phenomenal consciousness. Any theory like the ones you suggested, whereby some observation could be used to infer something about phenomenal consciousness, would necessarily have to contradict the claim that this observation would have been made without phenomenal consciousness.
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In p-zombie world, the same observation would be made, but the appeal to the Ur set would be ruled out by Ockham's razor. It's a needless extra level of abstraction that exists only to explain phenomenal consciousness, which doesn't exist.

In fact, in our world, the same argument will be made, by eliminative materialists.

Who is right is determined by which world we live in, p-zombie world or our world.

If the physical World is not causally closed to set Ur, then the existence of set Ur will be necessary to describe the physical World, regardless of whether we assume set B exists at all. Indeed, it is meaningless to say that those aspects of set Ur that effect our observations are not physical.

If set B is reducible to these physical aspects of Ur, then materialism is true. If set B is not, then we cannot possibly infer anything about it from our observations, no matter what theories we concoct.

Do you see the problem? Even if you assume that phenomenal consciousness exists, you cannot attribute any observed phenomena to it. And since your observations are your brain's only source of information, your brain can never know anything about it!
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I agree, my brain can never know anything about phenomenal consciousness. But *I* can.

In the end, everything in p-zombie world and our world is the same, except that in p-zombie world the eliminative materialists are right, and in our world I am.

If this is the case, then it is fundamentally impossible for a description of phenomenal consciousness to exist in the physical world.

You can imagine some scenario by which both A and B come from Ur, so that if you knew what the (non-causal) logical relationships between A and B are, you could determine the properties of B from observations in A. But you would have to know those logical relationships first. If A is causally closed, you have no method for determining what they are. You can only guess, and have no way to verify that the guess is right.
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Actually, the best you'll be able to get is a statement of the form: Assuming phenomenal consciousness exists, then ...

You can't even get that. Because in order to get that far, you would need to know the logical relationship between the physical and the phenomenal. how do you propose we go about acquiring that information? By definition, it cannot be found scientifically!

Look at it another way. It is one thing to say that things have both physical and phenomenal properties. But when you get to the *I* this becomes problematic. The physical part of *I* stores and processes physical information. What does the phenomenal part of the *I* do? How does it work? How can it be meaningfully said to "know" things, or "learn" things, when these things all imply information storage and information processing?
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What does the phenomenal part do? Have phenomenal experiences. Or perhaps better, be phenomenal experiences.

How does it "learn" or "know?" Phenomenally, of course.

These statements are meaningless. The only definition you have given for "phenomenal" is "what we have direct access to". I have no idea what it means to say that we learn or know something phenomenally. And like I said before, the definition you did give is circular, because you define "we" to be partially phenomenal.

When has this been demonstrated? If phenomenal consciousness is defined to be what I have direct access to, and I am by brain processes, then clearly what I have direct access to is physical. Where is the problem?
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I deny the assumption, "I am my brain processes."

Denying it doesn't make it not true.

If I claimed those things being true as proof that materialism was true, that would be begging the question. I do not. You claiming that those things being false disproves materialism is begging the question.
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By begging the question, I mean assuming your conclusion. Since you're assuming that "you" are physical, you're begging the question of physicalism's truth, and applying that conclusion to your definition of "you."

If I were trying to assert that since I am physical, physicalism is true, this would be true. But I am not. I am not trying to prove that physicalism is true here. All I am trying to do is refute your claim that it can not possibly be true.

Do you see the problem yet? You have defined "phenomenal" to be "what we have direct access to", and you have defined "we" to be our brain processes, plus something phenomenal.

This conveys absolutely zero meaning. If I don't know how "we" differs from our brains, then I don't know what "phenomenal" means. And if I don't know what phenomenal means, then I don't know how "we" differ from our brains.
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But you do know what phenomenal means, through your direct experience of it. You don't require my definition.

I know only that it is what I have direct access to. I do not know anything else about it. And if it is non-physical, it is not possible for me to know anything more about it.

Anyway, it seems like this all goes back to the p-zombie thing. Would you agree that if you were not sure that phenomenal consciousness wasn't physical, that physicalism would be the most reasonable approach? If so, then the only real issue is why you are so sure this is the case. So far, the only reason you have cited for believing this, is the p-zombie argument.
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As to the first question, yes.

As to the assertion that "the only reason I have cited for believing this is the p-zombie argument," that's just not so. You yourself have quoted me, in the very post I am no responding to, as citing:

quote:
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And that's exactly what I've been arguing. That's what the knowledge argument, the arguments from conceivability, the argument from the epistemlogical uniqueness of phenomenal consciousness and the argument from the inconceivability of materialism are all about.
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I though we agreed that the knowledge argument does not contradict materialism? As for the epistemological uniqueness and inconceivability of materialism, I don't recall you ever presenting these arguments. Or if you did, I did not recognize them as such.

In any event, if your only reason for believing that property dualism is true is because you are convinced that materialism is false, then perhaps we should concentrate on your arguments for why materialism must be false?


Dr. Stupid

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot
We can always describe things in terms of theories apart from phenomenal consciousness surely? If phenomenal consciousness is causally inefficaceous it surely cannot constitute part of any theory?
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If we put phenomental conscoiusness into set B, giving it the property of being an effect but not the property of being a cause, then we certainly can make theories about it. I did so above by asserting that me dropping my rock onto the floor caused a set B occurance.



I'm afraid I don't understand you :( Do you agree with me that an entity cannot play a role in any theory if that entity is causally inefficaceous? In which case what would be the purpose of hypothesising an entity which is both causally inefficacious and cannot be observed? This is what we have with phenomenal consciousness it seems to me.

You see I reject Stimpy's idea that we observe phenomenal consciousness. I also reject that it can play any role in any theory seeing that if the world is physically closed, phenomenal consciousness is also causally inefficacious (it is not needed to describe our behavior in addition to third person facts). We know of the existence of phenomenal consciousness because we are directly immediately acquainted with it.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by The One called Neo


I'm afraid I don't understand you :( Do you agree with me that an entity cannot play a role in any theory if that entity is causally inefficaceous? In which case what would be the purpose of hypothesising an entity which is both causally inefficacious and cannot be observed? This is what we have with phenomenal consciousness it seems to me.

You see I reject Stimpy's idea that we observe phenomenal consciousness. I also reject that it can play any role in any theory seeing that if the world is physically closed, phenomenal consciousness is also causally inefficacious (it is not needed to describe our behavior in addition to third person facts). We know of the existence of phenomenal consciousness because we are directly immediately acquainted with it.

This certainly sounds like a matter of working from different definitions :).

I do not agree that an causally inefficaceous occurance cannot take part in a theory. I believe that it can.

If we assume that an occurance that is caused but is not causal itself actually occures, then it only occurs in that smallest slice of time.

So X causes Y, but Y is causally inefficaceous so it doesn't cause anything.

Therefore if I theorize that X causes Y causes nil, and you show that X causes Y causes Z then you have proven my theory incorrect.

I do agree that the existence of Y is basically pointless because it, by definition, can not have any effect. Meaning it cannot even have the effect of necessitating it's own existence in the next smallest slice of time. Hence it only exists in the single smallest slice of time in which it occured.

If we want to assume that it somehow continues occuring, all future occurances would have to take place outside of time (as we know it).

I agree that at any time after the smallest slice of time where Y occurs, we can not formulate any falsifiable theories about that occurance of Y because that occurance of Y no longer exists.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Neo said:You see I reject Stimpy's idea that we observe phenomenal consciousness. ... We know of the existence of phenomenal consciousness because we are directly immediately acquainted with it.
What does it mean to be acquainted with it, if we cannot observe it?

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
....What does it mean to be acquainted with it, if we cannot observe it?

~~ Paul

And what? Is observing some type of interaction? Are you back to dualism?

What could possibly observe itself, and be made of "matter"? Kool program, that's for sure. Do you predict computer tech will ever achieve this? You still propose that's what you and I actually are?

What is "life"?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So let me see if I have this right. We have the physical world and phenomenal consciousness. There is something we call *I* that straddles these two things. There is a one-way flow of information from the physical brain to phenomenal consciousness.

When I experience a memory, the "qualia" portion of the experience is a result of phenomenal consciousness, which presumably has access to my physical memory so it can produce a phenomenal experience appropriate to the memory. There is no memory of the phenomenal experience, leaving the question of how the experience can feel familiar.

However, any physical aspects of replaying the memory must occur solely in my brain, since phenomenal consciousness has no effect on my brain. If I get nervous, edgy, sweaty, or have a change in blood pressure from the memory, this is all happening in my brain. The qualia and the physical reactions happen in parallel, with no synchronization.

I'm having some trouble with this.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Yeah, me too. That's why I'm more & more convinced idealism has the fewest problems of at possible explanations that are at least logical.

I was a dualist when I first started posting here.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by hammegk
Yeah, me too. That's why I'm more & more convinced idealism has the fewest problems of at possible explanations that are at least logical.

I was a dualist when I first started posting here.


Perhaps you weren't considering dualism from the right side. It's difficult to form a strong argument for physical + non-causal dualism, but a stronger argument can be formed for physical + non-caused dualism.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:Perhaps you weren't considering dualism from the right side. It's difficult to form a strong argument for physical + non-causal dualism, but a stronger argument can be formed for physical + non-caused dualism.
Wow! So you mean the phenomenal experience isn't caused by the physical experience? How does it know when to happen? It's like we've got asynchronous phenomenal consciousness. This would surely lead directly to madness!

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Neo,

We can always describe things in terms of theories apart from phenomenal consciousness surely? If phenomenal consciousness is causally inefficaceous it surely cannot constitute part of any theory?

It is not causally inefficacious. If it was, your brain wouldn't know it exists, and you wouldn't be talking about it right now.

Even if you argue for some bizarre scenario where both the physical and phenomenal come from some third source, thereby allowing your brain to know about it without it being causally efficacious, it certainly hasn't been demonstrated that this is the case.


Rusty,

If we put phenomental conscoiusness into set B, giving it the property of being an effect but not the property of being a cause, then we certainly can make theories about it. I did so above by asserting that me dropping my rock onto the floor caused a set B occurance.

People have been making such theories since the dawn of time. That is where religion comes from. Maybe Thor really does cause the lighting bolts? Can you prove he doesn't? Maybe all those fancy laws of physics we use to describe lighting are just how he does it, but he is the real ultimate cause?

Unfalsifiable theories are completely and utterly pointless.

Not much time but if something is philisopihcally acausal then it certainly does violate the laws of thermo-dynamics.

If something is philosophically acausal then it doesn't necessitate it's own occurance, hence it would not exist in the very-next smallest slice of time.

It might not. Welcome to the world of QM, where even conservation of mass and energy only happen "on average".

Anyway, I think you should give some thought to the difference between saying that some set of events are acausal, and saying that the existence of something is not necessitated by anything else. Existence is just one property that something can have.

I understand that. My point is that if A is defined to be physical, using that definition, then A must be causally closed. Win's assertion that A is not causally closed with respect to Ur is not compatible with the assertion that A is, in fact, the set of everything that is physical.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not following this. It seems you are saying that the definition of physical is:

1) A cause
2) An effect
3) only interacts with other things that are both a cause and an effect.

Physical does not mean cause and effect. Something is physical if it has an effect on something else that is physical. You could imagine something that has an effect on other things, but which is not affected by anything. Such a thing would still be physical, for example, atomic decay.

Something which is effected by something physical, but which does not effect anything physical, would not be physical. Of course, we know of no such thing, because such a thing is necessarily not observable.

If I have something that is a cause but not an effect then it has to cause something. So unless it is causing an effect that will have no cause then it must cause something physical.

What I mean is:

Assume that X occurs. X was not an effect (it was not caused) but it does cause Y to occur. Now if Y is an effect but if it does not cause something to occur then it is not physical. But if Y does cause Z then Y is physical, X is not, and Z is undecided at this time.

No, in this case, if Z is physical, then both X and Y are physical. If Z is not physical, then neither X nor Y are physical.

Not all causal relationships have to be physical. We could imagine entire sets of causal relationships that do not have any effect on anything physical. The key issue here is observibility. In order to be a physical system, the system itself must have observable effects.

We can observe something that is an effect with no cause by observing an effect and seeing that there is no cause. I would assert that this is proven by Libertarian free will, but we would disagree.

I would say that it is proven by QM, and that this has nothing to do with free-will.

But these are not physical because they are not both a cause and an effect.

That is not what is meant by physical scientifically, or materialistically. I am sorry if I misunderstood you before, and gave the impression that it is.

I'm not sure what property dualism is. If we "reduce" the properties of B from A and somehow reach the conclusion that B will have no effect then we have somehow proven that B is not physical by definition.

No, just the opposite. What we will have proven is that B is nothing more than another way of describing something in A. For example, when I say that the laws of chemistry are reducible to quantum mechanics, what I am saying is that there are no distinct "laws of chemistry". They are just a specific example of the laws of QM.

We have also proven that we need to rewrite physics. I'm not saying we need to though! I'm not asserting that set B exists. All I'm doing is presenting an argument that set B 'could' exist. So 'could' set A. If they did, then we certainly would need to change physics. This, ultimately, is why I would love to learn about QP. Maybe if I ate your brains...

Not likely to work. :p

One could say that all quantum events are set C. So what? This has no relevance to consciousness or free-will.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really?!! That is what I am trying to understand! Because if set C can exist and the "agent" must be set C then the "agent" could, possibly, maybe exist!

C, as you have defined it, can and does exist. It is simply the set of uncaused effects. Quantum events are such effects. Such effects may or may not be random.

Before you get all excited about the possibility of the agent being non-causal and non-random, though, keep in mind that non-causal determinism is still inconsistent with Libertarian free-will, as you have defined it. A-causal determinism is still a form of fatalism.

Too bad I can't just grok the essence of your brain. Perhaps I ought to just get some calculus and physics books and start learning. They do say that it's never too late!

It is never too late. Go for it. Knowledge is power.

But if set C exists then materialism is rendered false.

Not at all. Materialism does not require that everything be causal, or even deterministic. Some older forms of ontological materialism did, but such naive notions had to be abandoned when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were discovered.

Please note that if you are endorsing a different type of dualism than Win, then responding to my comments to Win are just going to confuse the issue.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My apologies, I should have made it clear. I *believe* that I am endorsing a different type of dualism then Win.

I think this is clear. I did not mean to be rude. it is just that in order to have a conversation, everybody involved must agree on the definitions being used. In this particular discussion, I am trying to use the definitions that Win provided. These definitions are different than the ones I was using in our discussion in the other thread. This makes things I say here sound like they mean something other than what I mean, if you interpret them with the other definitions. It also makes it incredibly confusing for me to try to keep all the terminology straight.

Basically, physicalism uses one set of definitions. Win's property dualism uses another. Ian and UCE, who are both idealists, each have their own slightly different definitions. And you have definitions different to Win's. It all becomes very confusing, especially since I am still not entirely clear on what the definitions are in each of these systems. Even if I knew each of these systems inside and out, it would be almost impossible to keep the conversation straight with four different people all using different definitions. Not to mention completely unintelligible to somebody reading it, who is not familiar with the positions or definitions each of these people is using.

This does not logically follow. On the contrary, even if physicalism is true, it is always possible to construct theories which cannot, even in principle, ever be falsified.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it is possible to render everything to a state where it can be understood in principle then it logically follows that in principle it is possible to understand everything. It may not be possible, but in principle it is.

This is not the point. The unfalsifiable theories are ones which make reference to hypothetical unobservable entities. If we accept the scientific assumption that everything is observable, then this means that such theories are meaningless, because they refer to things that don't exist.

The point being that even if physicalism is true, somebody who does not believe it is true can always construct an unfalsifiable hypothesis about unobservable things. The physicalist would say that these things don't exist. But he can't prove it. Physicalism cannot be proven true. Like any scientific theory, it can only be demonstrated to be false, either by showing that it is inconsistent, or that it is not consistent with our observations.

What would be an example of something you think we coudl not prove false even if we have rendered everything to a state where it can be understood then proceeded to understand it?

For one thing, the claim that we had not, in fact, rendered everything to a state where it can be understood. The best we can do is say that we know of nothing that has not been rendered to such a state. That does not prove that no such thing exists. That is impossible to prove.

If set B has no effect on set A, then any theory about set B that makes predictions about set A can necessarily be split into two parts.

1) A theory which only makes reference to set A, and makes all the predictions about set A that the theory originally made.

and

2) A theory which makes no predictions about set A, but makes reference to set B.

The first part is falsifiable, but says noting about set B. The second part is unfalsifiable. Furthermore, since this split can be made, falsifying the first part does not falsify the second part.

In other words, if we had such a theory, and it was falsified, we could construct a new theory which makes exactly the same claims about the phenomenal world, but is consistent with our observations in set A.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If a set B item did occur, then in that smallest slice of time possible it occured. There it is, but in the next smallest slice of time possible it would not be there and would not have changed anything.

I think you are misunderstanding what we are referring to when we talk about sets A and B. We are not talking about objects. We are talking about events and properties. When we talk about something being causal, we are not talking about an object that continues to exist indefinitely. We are talking about an event or property that is caused by, or causes, some other event or property.

For example, The appearance of a particle is an event. So is the disappearance. In QM, such events are acausal. So it is possible for particles to appear and disappear at random. That does not mean that a particle that appears will only be there for one minimal unit of time. On the contrary, there are set of rules that such acausal events seem to obey. These rules are the rules described by Quantum Theory.

So if I assert that X occurs causing Y causing nothing you simply have to prove that Y did cause something, thereby making Y a physical thing.

Saying that Y causes something is not sufficient for Y to be physical. It must cause something physical. And the only way we could ever know it did, is if that physical thing is observable, or in turn has some observable effect on something else that is observable.

This is what the whole KA is about. We put everything A into a book, teach it to Mary, then do X to her and somehow she 'gains' Z.

This problem has been addressed at length in this thread. All that can be put into a book is abstract information. All Mary can learn from the book is abstract information. This in no way contradicts materialism. Materialism says that everything can be described in terms of our observations. Those descriptions are abstract information, and nothing more.

Mary does not gain any new information about red when she sees it. All she gains is the physical memory of having seen red.


Ian,

Then it is not possible to describe it at all, or to know anything about it. Our observations are the only source of information we have.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well well well, contradicting yourself yet again!

You asserted earlier in this thread that knowledge involves more than information. You maintained that, in addition, there is the knowledge supplied by actual experience. So when Mary actually experiences redness, she gains new knowledge, but no extra information.

This directly contradicts what you say above when you equate knowledge with information.

Try to stay in context, Ian. If you were actually following this discussion, rather than just looking for apparent contradictions, you would see that this is not a contradiction on two counts.

1) When I said that there was both abstract and empirical knowledge, I made it quite clear that I was referring to physical knowledge. Empirical knowledge is physically represented in the brain, and is solely a result of the physical process of perception. It is, to use your lingo, a result of the physical correlate of the experience, and not the experience itself. In other words, our empirical knowledge (as I have defined it) is not affected by phenomenal consciousness either.

2) I also made it quite clear when I started this train of conversation with Win, that I am talking about what our brains can know. When I say I know something I mean my brain knows it. After all, the point of all this is whether or not a description of phenomenal consciousness can be constructed, and as I already said, it is our brains which must come up with this description.

Nice try though.

Clueless tit.

One of us clearly is.


Dr. Stupid

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


Perhaps you weren't considering dualism from the right side. It's difficult to form a strong argument for physical + non-causal dualism, but a stronger argument can be formed for physical + non-caused dualism.

And an even stronger one for monism (idealism) in that there are no inconsistencies remaining, and even more fun, libertarian free will is possibly back on the table. Stimpy's basic argument -- if it effects or affects the physical it also *is* physical -- to me seems bulletproof.

Unfortunately, under idealism, there is still a terrain, and we can see from the world of human perception & science that matter-as-we-perceive-it follows very very if not exactly the laws of that terrain. That is, is a human consciousness still just a maximum-perceived-benefit algorithm?


As to solipsism, I will agree all humans think at human consciousness level.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by hammegk


And an even stronger one for monism (idealism) in that there are no inconsistencies remaining, and even more fun, libertarian free will is possibly back on the table. Stimpy's basic argument -- if it effects or affects the physical it also *is* physical -- to me seems bulletproof.

Unfortunately, under idealism, there is still a terrain, and we can see from the world of human perception & science that matter-as-we-perceive-it follows very very if not exactly the laws of that terrain. That is, is a human consciousness still just a maximum-perceived-benefit algorithm?


As to solipsism, I will agree all humans think at human consciousness level.

True, but I have a hard time accepting many of the ideas in idealism. I do have a book I purchased that I will get around to reading that may sway me more. Right now, though, all I am concerned with is wedging the "agent" into physicalism.

Stimpy can argue that anything that is a cause OR an effect is physical but that isn't be true. It has to be a cause AND an effect, by definition.

All the "agent" needs is to be a cause and not an effect.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about idealism right now. I'll have to get back to you once I'm educated enough to participate in a (semi) coherent discussion :)

I'd just like to make a book recomendation to anyone reading this thread who thinks they may recognise that there is a problem, but is having trouble understanding/accepting the problem, understanding how and why the problem has become so entrenched and is interested in possible routes towards a logical solution to the problem.

The book is called "The taboo of subjectivity", and the entire book is dedicated to the problems we have been discussing for the past week - i.e. how does scientific materialism cope with the problem of the existence of a subjective realm which it appears to have logical difficulties even defining (hence the claims that qualia either do not exist or are nothing more than brain processes).

/www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195132076/qid=1050322845/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0888590-0120167?v=glance&s=books

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Rusty,



People have been making such theories since the dawn of time. That is where religion comes from. Maybe Thor really does cause the lighting bolts? Can you prove he doesn't? Maybe all those fancy laws of physics we use to describe lighting are just how he does it, but he is the real ultimate cause?

Unfalsifiable theories are completely and utterly pointless.


But according to physicalism the theory must be falsifiable in principle.

Someone theorized that 'Thor' was creating the lightning bolts, it was later demonstrated that static buildup creates the lightning bolts. Theory asserted, disprove, and dismissed.

Just like my assertion of an "agent". In principle it must be possible to discover the causer of every effect, and if we can't do that (in principle) then physicalism must be false.


It might not. Welcome to the world of QM, where even conservation of mass and energy only happen "on average".

Anyway, I think you should give some thought to the difference between saying that some set of events are acausal, and saying that the existence of something is not necessitated by anything else. Existence is just one property that something can have.


This is a different argument, the one that existence is an effect. I assert that existence is an effect and not a property. What makes my rock continue existing through time? Why the prior state of the universe, or the rock itself, causes the effect of the rocks existence in the next slice of time. It may sound wacky but its nothing earth-shattering. I'm just saying that my rock, assuming no one moves it or blows it up etc.., continues to exist because it existed before. But it is a cause and effect chain.

Existence being property (and not an effect) would be an idealist view.


Physical does not mean cause and effect. Something is physical if it has an effect on something else that is physical. You could imagine something that has an effect on other things, but which is not affected by anything. Such a thing would still be physical, for example, atomic decay.

No, if it's a cause and not an effect then by definition it is not physical. That is the definition of an "agent". Perhaps in physics that makes it physical but in philosophy it is no longer physical.

To ignore any QP examples which may cause biased connotations here is a quickie example.

In an empty universe:

X happens. Y happens. Z happens.

We are interested in Y. If Y is physical then it follows that Z was caused by Y. Hence in the three slices of time the connection between Y and Z exists and it is a causal connection. Now what about X? It also follows that X must have caused Y. This can be demonstrated by removing X and seeing if Y still occurs. Let us theorize:

X doesn't happen. Y happens. Z happens.

Again this is in our empty universe. If this happens then Y is not caused (because NOTHING happened before Y), and hence Y is not physical.

So what is happening is that we have nothing and suddenly Y happens. It's obvious that Y cannot be physical, and by definition Y is not physical.

At the other end if nothing follows Z (including the continued existence of Z, which is an effect) then Z is an effect but not a cause. Also not physical.


Something which is effected by something physical, but which does not effect anything physical, would not be physical. Of course, we know of no such thing, because such a thing is necessarily not observable.



No, in this case, if Z is physical, then both X and Y are physical. If Z is not physical, then neither X nor Y are physical.

Not all causal relationships have to be physical. We could imagine entire sets of causal relationships that do not have any effect on anything physical. The key issue here is observibility. In order to be a physical system, the system itself must have observable effects.


You are mistaken as I have pointed out several times. See the above example for a further explanation of this one.



I would say that it is proven by QM, and that this has nothing to do with free-will.

This has everything to do with free will. Come on over to the free will thread and explain to me how it has nothing to do with free will. I've posted a proof of LFW there.


That is not what is meant by physical scientifically, or materialistically. I am sorry if I misunderstood you before, and gave the impression that it is.


That is what it is. Simply saying that something must cause is not enough. If things spontaneously caused but had no effects we are in violation of TLOP. Why do you think there is TLOQP? Because TLOQP is in violation of TLOP.

You do not appear to be a physicalist, rather you appear to be a skeptical scientist. In philosophy the definition of physical is what I have given.


No, just the opposite. What we will have proven is that B is nothing more than another way of describing something in A. For example, when I say that the laws of chemistry are reducible to quantum mechanics, what I am saying is that there are no distinct "laws of chemistry". They are just a specific example of the laws of QM.

When I say the "laws of rusty" are reducable to TLOP I'm not saying anything meaningful..

When I prove that something had no cause it is no longer physical. That is the definition of physical.

Please don't introduce semantic arguments to complicate the issue, it's not necessary and won't disasway me.



Not likely to work. :p



C, as you have defined it, can and does exist. It is simply the set of uncaused effects. Quantum events are such effects. Such effects may or may not be random.

By definition they are random. Random means not caused. If they are not caused then they are random.


Before you get all excited about the possibility of the agent being non-causal and non-random, though, keep in mind that non-causal determinism is still inconsistent with Libertarian free-will, as you have defined it. A-causal determinism is still a form of fatalism.

That's called soft determinism.

An "agent" requires two clauses be satisfied. These "set C" things existing is one of them.



It is never too late. Go for it. Knowledge is power.



Not at all. Materialism does not require that everything be causal, or even deterministic. Some older forms of ontological materialism did, but such naive notions had to be abandoned when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were discovered.

So you no longer believe physicalism but something else? Perhaps this is that ontological monism that UE was talking about then.



I think this is clear. I did not mean to be rude. it is just that in order to have a conversation, everybody involved must agree on the definitions being used. In this particular discussion, I am trying to use the definitions that Win provided. These definitions are different than the ones I was using in our discussion in the other thread. This makes things I say here sound like they mean something other than what I mean, if you interpret them with the other definitions. It also makes it incredibly confusing for me to try to keep all the terminology straight.

Basically, physicalism uses one set of definitions. Win's property dualism uses another. Ian and UCE, who are both idealists, each have their own slightly different definitions. And you have definitions different to Win's. It all becomes very confusing, especially since I am still not entirely clear on what the definitions are in each of these systems. Even if I knew each of these systems inside and out, it would be almost impossible to keep the conversation straight with four different people all using different definitions. Not to mention completely unintelligible to somebody reading it, who is not familiar with the positions or definitions each of these people is using.

Maybe it's time for me to just start a new thread and make everything clear from the get-go instead of pushing myself into a different argument and presenting a third (or fourth, fifth) argument.



This is not the point. The unfalsifiable theories are ones which make reference to hypothetical unobservable entities. If we accept the scientific assumption that everything is observable, then this means that such theories are meaningless, because they refer to things that don't exist.

The point being that even if physicalism is true, somebody who does not believe it is true can always construct an unfalsifiable hypothesis about unobservable things. The physicalist would say that these things don't exist. But he can't prove it. Physicalism cannot be proven true. Like any scientific theory, it can only be demonstrated to be false, either by showing that it is inconsistent, or that it is not consistent with our observations.


Yes but if I assert that we are an "agent" that is an uncaused (unobservable) occurance but who's results can be observed then we at least have something to work towards. In principle, if we disprove all other possibilities, then we have proven the "agent". Perhaps not possible in application, but in principle. Just like the Mary KA.


For one thing, the claim that we had not, in fact, rendered everything to a state where it can be understood. The best we can do is say that we know of nothing that has not been rendered to such a state. That does not prove that no such thing exists. That is impossible to prove.

You need to change your last sentance to "That is impossible to prove in application." And it is only impossible if there are infinite things in the universe. Otherwise it certianly is plausable to believe that eventually we will have rendered everything to a state of our understanding.



I think you are misunderstanding what we are referring to when we talk about sets A and B. We are not talking about objects. We are talking about events and properties. When we talk about something being causal, we are not talking about an object that continues to exist indefinitely. We are talking about an event or property that is caused by, or causes, some other event or property.

For example, The appearance of a particle is an event. So is the disappearance. In QM, such events are acausal. So it is possible for particles to appear and disappear at random. That does not mean that a particle that appears will only be there for one minimal unit of time. On the contrary, there are set of rules that such acausal events seem to obey. These rules are the rules described by Quantum Theory.

I'm not talking about any of that stuff, I'm talking about occurances. I believe I have made this clear above in this post so I will skip this one.



Saying that Y causes something is not sufficient for Y to be physical. It must cause something physical. And the only way we could ever know it did, is if that physical thing is observable, or in turn has some observable effect on something else that is observable.
[/quote]

We agree totally. Y has to cause something physical. But you have failed to realize that the definition of physical is "it" has the two properties cause and effect. So if Y causes something and is caused then Y is physical. But if Y is caused but causes nothing then it is not physical.


This problem has been addressed at length in this thread. All that can be put into a book is abstract information. All Mary can learn from the book is abstract information. This in no way contradicts materialism. Materialism says that everything can be described in terms of our observations. Those descriptions are abstract information, and nothing more.


No I had to be away from the thread for the end of the argument but you reached the same point every physicalist reaches. You asserted that if we actually did the experiment then Mary wouldn't learn anything.

Don't confuse that with asserting that it is NOT possible to render all physical occurances into a state where they can be observed (and hence recorded). You cannot assert that and remain a physicalist, so please STOP asserting it or stop asserting physicalism.


Mary does not gain any new information about red when she sees it. All she gains is the physical memory of having seen red.


You just contradicted yourself. If information is being used to say the recorded observations we made when we reduced everything to obersvable states and mary doesn't gain any new information then she doesn't gain ANYTHING. If she gains anything (including "the physical memory") then one thing has happened:

1) We can't reduce some part of the "physical memory of having seen red" to an observable state.

This renders physicalism false.

What a physicalist has to assert (as I said many pages ago at the begining of the Mary KA discussion) is that if we do render everything to such a state and feed it to Mary then she won't gain anything. It also has to be possible in principle to do so.


It is starting to sound like you are not a physicalist either.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
I'd just like to make a book recomendation to anyone reading this thread who thinks they may recognise that there is a problem, but is having trouble understanding/accepting the problem, understanding how and why the problem has become so entrenched and is interested in possible routes towards a logical solution to the problem.

The book is called "The taboo of subjectivity", and the entire book is dedicated to the problems we have been discussing for the past week - i.e. how does scientific materialism cope with the problem of the existence of a subjective realm which it appears to have logical difficulties even defining (hence the claims that qualia either do not exist or are nothing more than brain processes).

/www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195132076/qid=1050322845/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0888590-0120167?v=glance&s=books




Thanks!

Here is a quote from a review:

Science, he suggests, has fallen under the spell of scientific materialism, a philosophical interpretation of science, based on Newton's mechanical model of the universe: if something can't be measured objectively, it doesn't exist. This view maintains a hold on both the public and many scientists despite its having been debunked over 100 years ago. The quantum physics pioneered by Max Planck reintroduced subjective human consciousness into nature, emphasizing the importance of the observer and questioning the existence of a universe made up of solid particles unconnected to human perception.

This certainly appears to be what is happening in this very thread. Sounds like an excellent read. :)

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot



Thanks!

Here is a quote from a review:



This certainly appears to be what is happening in this very thread. Sounds like an excellent read. :)


It does go into a level of detail that is quite painful to behold, but given the amount of confusion exhibited in this thread then maybe this is neccesary. I have loaned my copy to Q-Source.

Another quote :


B. Alan Wallace's new book, The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness, makes the provocative claim that science has become, in many ways, a modern cult, which promotes certain ways of knowing and metaphysical beliefs to the exclusion of others. Subjectivity, an integral aspect of our experience, has been neglected to the point that its existence is in doubt.


The whole of the first chapter is PDF'ed here :

http://www.oup-usa.org/sc/0195132076/

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:You just contradicted yourself. If information is being used to say the recorded observations we made when we reduced everything to obersvable states and mary doesn't gain any new information then she doesn't gain ANYTHING. If she gains anything (including "the physical memory") then one thing has happened:

1) We can't reduce some part of the "physical memory of having seen red" to an observable state.

This renders physicalism false.
It is clear that I am not the only one who is having difficulties with the definitions of fact, information, knowledge, and learn. Stimpy and I have exchanged a few PMs about this and I'm still uncomfortable. Maybe it's just me, but could someone post definitions of those terms and then could we make sure we agree? That is, agree to use those definitions even if we don't agree with them?

~~ Paul

[Loki]

Paul,


It is clear that I am not the only one who is having difficulties with the definitions of fact, information, knowledge, and learn
Well, for me, it's even worse. This exchange from the 'other' materialism thread (nice move uce - two threads on the same topic yet again) seems to muddy the waters even more...

(loki wrote) : ... I though we had agreed that when we take poor color-blind P-Zombie Mary and run her through the "DeZombifer" (thus miraculously granting her true/real "direct acess to qualia") she would gasp "Ah! Now I understand! I always thought I had qualia, but now I perceive the difference!". Doesn't this clearly show that qualia really do impact on the physical?

(win wrote) : No. At least I didn't agree to that. Remember that in the original Mary thought experiment, Mary isn't a p-zombie. She just lacks the phenomenal experience of color. And it's not her reaction that's important; it's that she's learned a new fact. To complicate the thought experiment now, p-zombie Mary would believe she'd learned a new fact, but she would be mistaken.

If we had all been p-zombies up until now, and phenomenal consciousness just turned on in the universe a second ago, we wouldn't know the difference.
Note the last bit. Apparently, when Mary exits the B&W room and finally sees 'red' for the first time she *does* gain phenomenal experience of seeing red, but is not aware of this! In fact, it would seem to her that this is exactly what she was expecting, and she has gained nothing - except she's wrong about that, and she has gained. So the Knowledge Argument asserts that Mary gains something that she has "direct access" to, but which - to her - feels no different to what she 'learned' while in the B&W room. So if we actually set this experiment up, Mary would actually be leading the "I learned nothing new!" faction upon leaving the B&W room, but she'd be wrong. I find it hard to grasp what sense of the term "Mary learns a new fact" is fulfilled by this situation.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Rusty said:
It is clear that I am not the only one who is having difficulties with the definitions of fact, information, knowledge, and learn. Stimpy and I have exchanged a few PMs about this and I'm still uncomfortable. Maybe it's just me, but could someone post definitions of those terms and then could we make sure we agree? That is, agree to use those definitions even if we don't agree with them?

~~ Paul

From chapter 1 of "The Taboo of Subjectivity"


Objectivism.

As noted earlier, perhaps the most central ideal of science has
been the pure objectification of the natural world, and, implicitly, the exclusion of subjective contamination from the pursuit of scientific knowledge. This ideal has so captured the modern mind that scientific knowledge is now often simply equated with objective knowledge. The principle of objectivism demands that science deals with empirical facts testable by empirical methods and verifiable by third-person means. This principle has proven to be very useful in revealing a wide range of facts that are equally accessible to all competent observers. Such facts must be public rather than private;that is to say, they must be accessible to more than one observer. However, there are many other empirical facts—most obviously, our own subjective mental
events—that are accessible only by first-person means and of which the only competent observer is oneself. Another aspect of this principle is that scientific knowledge must be epistemically
objective, that is, observer independent. In its most defensible
guise, this ideal demands that scientists strive to be as free as possible of bias and prejudice in their collection and interpretation of empirical data. In its least defensible form, it demands that scientific knowledge must be free of any subjective, nonscientific influences. This, of course, has never
been true of science or any other branch of human inquiry, as has been amply demonstrated in Thomas Kuhn’s provocative work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Even the renowned biologist Jacques Monod, a staunch advocate of scientific materialism, acknowledges that the postulate of objectivity as a condition for true knowledge constitutes what he calls an ethical choice, rather than a matter of fact. This assertion of Monod’s
implies that this principle is not the result of research but is rather a premise that guides a certain kind of research, while prohibiting other types of research from being conducted.
The principle of objectivism, in the sense of the demand for observer independence, simply cannot accommodate the study of subjective phenomena, for it directs one’s attention only to those objects that exist independently of one’s own subjective awareness. It is no wonder then that science presents us with a view of a world in which our own subjective existence is not acknowledged and the notion of the meaning of our existence cannot even be raised.


So there are different classes of knowledge. There is objective knowledge and there is subjective knowledge.

Investing 30 minutes to read chapter 1 of this book may prove worthwhile.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I suspect we better add phenomenal experience to the list of words we don't agree on.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The principle of objectivism, in the sense of the demand for observer independence, simply cannot accommodate the study of subjective phenomena, for it directs one’s attention only to those objects that exist independently of one’s own subjective awareness. It is no wonder then that science presents us with a view of a world in which our own subjective existence is not acknowledged and the notion of the meaning of our existence cannot even be raised.
He is conflating two things. He may be right that science cannot directly study the experience of subjective phenomena, but it certainly can study the effects of subjective phenomena, including such personal effects as people's descriptions of their subjective world. He makes it sound as if the subjective is totally inaccessible, but it is not. In fact, in the future we might be able to study the experience, too.

If science could suddenly study the experience of subjective phenomena, I'm not sure what that would have to do with the meaning of life.

This sounds like the old "science won't study what I want it to" bemoanathon. Doesn't say much for his opinion of psychology.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

He is conflating two things. He may be right that science cannot directly study the experience of subjective phenomena, but it certainly can study the effects of subjective phenomena, including such personal effects as people's descriptions of their subjective world. He makes it sound as if the subjective is totally inaccessible, but it is not. In fact, in the future we might be able to study the experience, too.

If science could suddenly study the experience of subjective phenomena, I'm not sure what that would have to do with the meaning of life.

This sounds like the old "science won't study what I want it to" bemoanathon. Doesn't say much for his opinion of psychology.

~~ Paul

Perhaps you should consider reading it before you make your mind up what he is saying and why he is saying it? The author of this book isn't conflating anything. He is untangling the knots of the very same logical quagmire you are currently having problems understanding. This book actually tries to provide an answer as to how we might study the subjective realm. It was offered as a means to clarify what is currently unclear. If you have what you think is a better way out of the impasse then go for it.

:)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You're right, UcE, I should read it. I've added it to my to-read list, but I probably won't get to it for years. Meanwhile, what does he offer as a means for studying the subjective?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
[B]I'd just like to make a book recomendation to anyone reading this thread who thinks they may recognise that there is a problem, but is having trouble understanding/accepting the problem, understanding how and why the problem has become so entrenched and is interested in possible routes towards a logical solution to the problem.

The book is called "The taboo of subjectivity", and the entire book is dedicated to the problems we have been discussing for the past week - i.e. how does scientific materialism cope with the problem of the existence of a subjective realm which it appears to have logical difficulties even defining (hence the claims that qualia either do not exist or are nothing more than brain processes).

/www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195132076/qid=1050322845/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0888590-0120167?v=glance&s=books



Yes it sounds great. Can you get it from amazon uk? Have you got any other recommendations?

Edited to add: Actually I might just order it from my local library

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Off topic: I was reading reviews of the book UcE mentioned, and I came across a long paper that includes this:Combining First- and Third- Person research
This is a short section. I just wish to say that we should clone a human being and I volunteer for the job as long as it is under the correct monetary and humane conditions. The ethical concerns against cloning a human are far removed from the practicality of actually doing it. The general populace will not have access to the technology to clone humans. But if we just clone one of us, think of all we can learn! With the same brain, will the clone and the original be able to share memories? If not, the brain has much more to do with environment than most scientists are willing to allow. If so, then memory is definitely outside of the body, or at least holographic. Would the clone and the original feel, according to their own words, that they were the same person? Or would they merely feel like an innovative set of twins? The possibilities are boggling. Cloning a human will be the quintessential experiment in studying the connection between our biology and our consciousness.
WTF?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot
Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
I'd just like to make a book recomendation to anyone reading this thread who thinks they may recognise that there is a problem, but is having trouble understanding/accepting the problem, understanding how and why the problem has become so entrenched and is interested in possible routes towards a logical solution to the problem.

The book is called "The taboo of subjectivity", and the entire book is dedicated to the problems we have been discussing for the past week - i.e. how does scientific materialism cope with the problem of the existence of a subjective realm which it appears to have logical difficulties even defining (hence the claims that qualia either do not exist or are nothing more than brain processes).

/www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195132076/qid=1050322845/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0888590-0120167?v=glance&s=books


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




Thanks!

Here is a quote from a review:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Science, he suggests, has fallen under the spell of scientific materialism, a philosophical interpretation of science, based on Newton's mechanical model of the universe: if something can't be measured objectively, it doesn't exist. This view maintains a hold on both the public and many scientists despite its having been debunked over 100 years ago. The quantum physics pioneered by Max Planck reintroduced subjective human consciousness into nature, emphasizing the importance of the observer and questioning the existence of a universe made up of solid particles unconnected to human perception.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



This certainly appears to be what is happening in this very thread. Sounds like an excellent read.



Yes indeed! Will you be reading it as well Stimpy?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
[B]

It does go into a level of detail that is quite painful to behold, but given the amount of confusion exhibited in this thread then maybe this is neccesary. I have loaned my copy to Q-Source.


Huh? So you know her personnally? You live right near each other?

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Yes it sounds great. Can you get it from amazon uk? Have you got any other recommendations?

Edited to add: Actually I might just order it from my local library

Whaddyawannaknow? ;)

Actually, for someone like yourself who knows exactly what the author is talking about I think you may simply find yourself nodding all the way through it - although some of the historical context is interesting. The real challenge with this book is trying to convince the people who really need to read it to read it, like Stimpson.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Yes it sounds great. Can you get it from amazon uk? Have you got any other recommendations?



Since you asked, yes :

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679723005/qid=1050334653/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0888590-0120167?v=glance&s=books)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0679723005.01._PE20_PIdp-schmoo2,TopRight,7,-26_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I just read the first chapter of The Taboo of Subjectivity. The final section, "Scientism," is bizarre. He begins the section by describing scientism and showing how it is basically a strawman as far as scientists' view of their work is concerned. By the end of the section, 2 1/2 pages later, he seems to have integrated scientism and its supposed taboos right into his overall view of science.

I guess you have to read the entire book. Or, you could spend the time meditating.

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I just read the first chapter of The Taboo of Subjectivity. The final section, "Scientism," is bizarre. He begins the section by describing scientism and showing how it is basically a strawman as far as scientists' view of their work is concerned. By the end of the section, 2 1/2 pages later, he seems to have integrated scientism and its supposed taboos right into his overall view of science.

~~ Paul

Huh?

The author goes to great lengths to make sure he demonstrates the differences between science, materialism and scientism.

From chapter 1 :



[deleted due to moderator request

http://www.oup-usa.org/sc/0195132076/



It isn't the author who can't tell the difference between science, materialism, realism and scientism. It is people like Stimpson J Cat who can't seperate these things. Yes - perhaps reading the rest of the book might help. When it becomes clear why scientism is a WESTERN disease and how the history of Christianity and the history of science are intertwined then not only does the author recognise the differences between these things, but he shows us why they got mixed up together in the first place!

Paul :


.....or you could just spend your time meditating.


Part of the problem here seems to be that you have got a pretty good idea where all this is going and you have already decided that you don't want to go there. I don't meditate. I am hyperactive and find it impossible. But I consider myself a seeker of philosophical truth and someone who wants to understand humanity and history from more than just one perspective. Reading the book is likely to be more productive than meditating.

edited :

There is a difference between philosophy and religion. All I have done in this thread is try to present a logical philosophical argument against materialism and in doing so I have had to suggest some alternatives with fewer logical holes. As soon as one starts telling other people how to behave, or that they should meditate, then it stops being philosophy and starts being religion. If that were to happen you would find me defending humanism just as passionately as I currently challenge materialism. I do not want to appear as a religious proselyte. This is about cold, hard logic.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


From chapter 1 :



Could you please respect copyright law and the author's rights and not post boatloads of his writing? That appears to be his entire first chapter!

Cheers,

[BillHoyt]

Advocates of scientism commonly overlook the subjective, human role of choosing which natural phenomena to investigate, the means of investigating them, and the diversity of human interpretations of research data. Science is presented, like a religious doctrine, as being essentially a complete, integrated, internally consistent whole whose origin in nature transcends human subjectivity.
This is part of the postmodernist conceit. While there is a subjective role in choosing which phenomena to investigate, thats about as much as we can grant the author. The means of investigating are sometimes determined by the availability of resources such as money, people and time, but this is only true in the most limited sense. If the wrong tools are used, other researchers in the area will pounce on that weakness and put together the right tools to see if the original published results were correct. If the interpretations go beyond the available facts, the article is unlikely to pass the peer review process.

What he is arguing is the same postmodernist crap we've been hearing for decades. The implicit claim that science does not transcend human subjectivity further implies the existence of an alternative science that is discoverable by other researchers, that is also internally consistent and yet with utterly different results. This claim is balderdash, but postmodernists keep presenting it as truth.

Where is this magical, internally consistent science that is utterly at odds with what we know today as science? This phsyics without friction? This biology without cells? This chemistry without atoms? This sky without stars?

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Bill, there is no copyright in the PDF file of the first chapter. I think Oxford wants people to quote it.

UcE, what I don't like about the final section is that I cannot tell where it transitions from the opinion of writers on scientism to the opinion of the author himself. It starts with statements likeAlthough signs of scientism can be found in writings as early as the seventeenth century, they have become far more prevalent since the nineteenth century
andThe term ‘‘scientism’’ is invariably used in a pejorative sense,
which make it sound even-handed. The author doesn't say if he agrees with this definition of scientism or whether he thinks there are many scientists who really hold this view. But by the end of the section he's talking as if he buys the whole scientism thing; he's integrated it into the overall view of science presented in the chapter. He assumes that the charicature of scientism and scientists is correct.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Part of the problem here seems to be that you have got a pretty good idea where all this is going and you have already decided that you don't want to go there. I don't meditate.
I've been there and done it for five years. It was nice (well, except when you did it too much). I just don't think it's a new facet of science that will let us throw off the oppressive yoke of scientism.

You know, you probably can meditate just fine, as long as you don't use one of those whacky concentration techniques.

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Bill, there is no copyright in the PDF file of the first chapter. I think Oxford wants people to quote it.

Paul,

A work is implicitly copyrighted. Modern law provides for copyright protection even without an explicit notice. (BTW, the chapter 1 I viewed through Amazon did have an explicit notice. )

Unless the pdf you viewed gives explicit permission to copy large sections of the work, you can't assume such permission has been granted.


Cheers,

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Could you please respect copyright law and the author's rights and not post boatloads of his writing? That appears to be his entire first chapter!

Cheers,

Strange that people only ever complain about quoting other people who are expressing views in opposition to what most people in these forums believe. I wonder why that could be? :rolleyes:

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Strange that people only ever complain about quoting other people who are expressing views in opposition to what most people in these forums believe. I wonder why that could be? :rolleyes:

Subject / Motive shift. The subject is the copyright infringement.

Cheers,

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
UcE said:
I've been there and done it for five years. It was nice (well, except when you did it too much). I just don't think it's a new facet of science that will let us throw off the oppressive yoke of scientism.

You know, you probably can meditate just fine, as long as you don't use one of those whacky concentration techniques.

~~ Paul

I just hate sitting there and doing nothing. Not for me!

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Paul,

A work is implicitly copyrighted. Modern law provides for copyright protection even without an explicit notice. (BTW, the chapter 1 I viewed through Amazon did have an explicit notice. )

Unless the pdf you viewed gives explicit permission to copy large sections of the work, you can't assume such permission has been granted.


Cheers,

You really are a complete DICKHEAD aren't you???

SCUMBAG

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Well, so much for meditation curing the problems of the world. I can't get any of the nonmaterialists to do it! :D

Bill, you're probably right about the implicit copyright, although I have worked with publishers who effectively removed the copyright from sample chapters for purposes of review. I think I'll ask Oxford, just for the heck of it.

You really are a complete DICKHEAD aren't you???

SCUMBAG
:confused: :eek: :rolleyes:

~~ Paul

[Girl 6]

Yes, please just provide a link to the source. I would rather be on the safe side regarding intellectual property.

I would edit it, but I'd like UCE to have the right to do that. I've sent UCE a PM regarding this.

thanks!
G6

[Girl 6]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


You really are a complete DICKHEAD aren't you???

SCUMBAG

Ian!!! :eek:

G6

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Girl 6
Yes, please just provide a link to the source. I would rather be on the safe side regarding intellectual property.

I would edit it, but I'd like UCE to have the right to do that. I've sent UCE a PM regarding this.

thanks!
G6

Utterly preposterous. I'd refuse if I was Geoff.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Utterly preposterous. I'd refuse if I was Geoff.

You know, Ian, flip your biases about for a second and think about this. Here I am, working to protect the copyright of an author whose views I abhor. An author whose views you and UcE admire. And what is your response to that effort? To imply I have ulterior motives, to shout profanities at me and to encourage UcE not to comply with the law.

The irony, I'm sure, eludes you.

Cheers,

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Bill, there is no copyright in the PDF file of the first chapter. I think Oxford wants people to quote it.

UcE, what I don't like about the final section is that I cannot tell where it transitions from the opinion of writers on scientism to the opinion of the author himself. It starts with statements like
and
which make it sound even-handed. The author doesn't say if he agrees with this definition of scientism or whether he thinks there are many scientists who really hold this view. But by the end of the section he's talking as if he buys the whole scientism thing; he's integrated it into the overall view of science presented in the chapter. He assumes that the charicature of scientism and scientists is correct.

~~ Paul

Is this unjustified? His portrayal of scientism reads like a collection of Stimpson soundbites.

[Yahzi]

If we had all been p-zombies up until now, and phenomenal consciousness just turned on in the universe a second ago, we wouldn't know the difference.
Doesn't this statement render the entire concept of p-zombies useless?

The quantum physics pioneered by Max Planck reintroduced subjective human consciousness into nature, emphasizing the importance of the observer and questioning the existence of a universe made up of solid particles unconnected to human perception.
This is simply false. Collapsing a wave function requires an observer, true: but it does not require a conscious observer. You can collapse wave functions while asleep, or even dead. Rocks count as observers in quantam physics.

Cloning a human will be the quintessential experiment in studying the connection between our biology and our consciousness.
Is it possible to go through your life without ever meeting identical twins? Or, more to the point, is it possible to be this silly about cloning if you do know twins? Sadly, the answer seems to be yes: probably some of the people promoting this kind of idiocy are themselves identical twins.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


You know, Ian, flip your biases about for a second and think about this. Here I am, working to protect the copyright of an author whose views I abhor. An author whose views you and UcE admire. And what is your response to that effort? To imply I have ulterior motives, to shout profanities at me and to encourage UcE not to comply with the law.

The irony, I'm sure, eludes you.

Cheers,

Oh please!! :rolleyes: The chapter is freely available over the net. Anyone can click the link. Therefore there can be nothing whatsoever unethical about quoting the source.

Maybe it is illegal, I don't know. There are a lot of crazy laws out of there. Do you obey all of them??

No, I suspect you are whining because the autjhor is expressing a viewpoint which you find abhorrent. Don't give me all this cr@p. I find you a thoroughly obnoxious person and thick as f--k to boot.

Oh yes, and you're still quoting me out of context I see.
How dare you suggest that I am acting in anyway unethical in any shape or form!!

[hammegk]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Subject / Motive shift. The subject is the copyright infringement.

Cheers,

Thanks for clearing that up. Glad that your motive is not to make it as difficult as possible to disseminate any thoughts that don't agree with your Religion.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahzi



This is simply false. Collapsing a wave function requires an observer, true: but it does not require a conscious observer. You can collapse wave functions while asleep, or even dead. Rocks count as observers in quantam physics.
[/B]

oh yes? Kindly inform me how you could possibly know this.

Yahzi



Rocks count as observers in quantam physics.


So does a one-atom rock count as an observer? :D

"I" am an observer.

[Girl 6]

Just provide the link, already. :mad:

I'm not going to sit here and argue about copyright infringement and so on. Just because things are available "freely" on the web does not mean that we should blatantly assume that we can copy and paste whole sections of articles or books, etc...

G6

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Is this unjustified? His portrayal of scientism reads like a collection of Stimpson soundbites.
Stimpy thinks that science can solve all of humanity's problems?

Scientism is a spectrum and the number of scientists who adhere to each point on the spectrum varies widely. The author has reduced the spectrum to one point and implied that many scientists agree with that point, with no justification of the assumption. And even if they did, what about everyone else? What about politicians, policymakers, teachers, military people, philosophers, and authors? Are they all conspiring to prevent us from studying the pithy sayings and EEGs of master meditators? This is the standard moanus groanus from people who want science to support their favorite idea, yet rail against science as a methodology incapable of investigating it.

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by hammegk


Thanks for clearing that up. Glad that your motive is not to make it as difficult as possible to disseminate any thoughts that don't agree with your Religion.

Apparently you are still light in the understanding logic department.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Oh yes, and you're still quoting me out of context I see.
How dare you suggest that I am acting in anyway unethical in any shape or form!!
Apparently the meaning of the entire post eluded you. I made no such suggestion. Neither did I quote you out of context.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

The author has reduced the spectrum to one point
and implied that many scientists agree with that point, with no justification of the assumption.


Huh?

That chapter was all about there being FOUR different viewpoints which some people mix together. The most extreme view is scientism.


What about politicians, policymakers, teachers, military people, philosophers, and authors?

Are they all conspiring to prevent us from studying the pithy sayings and EEGs of master meditators?


No! We are talking about the scientific world in particular here. I do not think society in general is scientistic - in fact it is obvious that the reverse is true. That is precisely what the scientistic people are paranoid about.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Girl 6
Just provide the link, already. :mad:

I'm not going to sit here and argue about copyright infringement and so on. Just because things are available "freely" on the web does not mean that we should blatantly assume that we can copy and paste whole sections of articles or books, etc...

G6

I've already explained that I have zero interest in crazy pointless laws. I wouldn't remove it. It's as simple as that.