Materialism

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I've already explained that I have zero interest in crazy pointless laws. I wouldn't remove it. It's as simple as that. And how is your opinion on this matter of the slightest import?

[Girl 6]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I've already explained that I have zero interest in crazy pointless laws. I wouldn't remove it. It's as simple as that.

You may have no interest in crazy pointless laws. I, unfortunately do have to protect the JREF from the crazy, pointless laws.

So, I'm asking, once again politely before I swoop down and edit the post. Please provide the link.

G6

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:That chapter was all about there being FOUR different viewpoints which some people mix together. The most extreme view is scientism.
Yes, I understand that. I suppose I should just let this drop, but I think that his definition of scientism is a charicature of the extreme end of scientism. The dictionary definition of scientism is:an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities
To say, as the author did, that "Scientism unjustifiably extends the authority of science beyond its proper limits, and it assumes that science can solve all of humanity's problems." is just over the top. I don't know anyone who thinks science is going to solve all our problems.

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.
Well, to hell with scientistic people then! For crying out loud, they don't have a hold on authority. If other people want to investigate subjective things and figure out how to glean the ultimate truth from master meditators, then they should do it. If it's only the scientistic bastards who are objecting, what difference can they make? The vast majority of people are open minded, as you say, and they have the power.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Apparently the meaning of the entire post eluded you. I made no such suggestion. Neither did I quote you out of context.

Your sig says this


"A rational person does not dismiss all evidence other than scientific evidence. Only retards do that. -Interesting Ian

" I want to make it clear that I have absolutely zero interest in research design, nor have I any interest in correlational studies."-Interesting Ian


The second quote is blatently taken out of context. As I made absolutely clear, I have absolutely zero interest in research design, nor have I any interest in correlational studies within the context of them being able to shed any light on what consciousness is! Consciousness simply does not lie within the purview of science. It is utterly pointless providing any links to ******** scientists pontificating about consciousness when in fact they only ever refer to the neural correlates of consciousness. I keep saying this to you lot, but it goes in one ear and comes out of the other.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes, the sample chapters posted at the Oxford site are copyrighted. I suggested that they include a copyright notice on each Web page with links to sample chapters.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Girl 6


You may have no interest in crazy pointless laws. I, unfortunately do have to protect the JREF from the crazy, pointless laws.

So, I'm asking, once again politely before I swoop down and edit the post. Please provide the link.

G6

Girl 6,

I haven't quoted anything. And I wouldn't quote anything without supplying a link in anycase.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
I've already explained that I have zero interest in crazy pointless laws. I wouldn't remove it. It's as simple as that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And how is your opinion on this matter of the slightest import?



I don't know. Why is the opinion of anyone on any matter of any import.? Are you going to forever ignore the opinions of those whom you dislike or disagree with?

[Interesting Ian]

OK, Girl 6 and I have kissed and made up :)

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Your sig says this



The second quote is blatently taken out of context. As I made absolutely clear, I have absolutely zero interest in research design, nor have I any interest in correlational studies within the context of them being able to shed any light on what consciousness is! Consciousness simply does not lie within the purview of science. It is utterly pointless providing any links to ******** scientists pontificating about consciousness when in fact they only ever refer to the neural correlates of consciousness. I keep saying this to you lot, but it goes in one ear and comes out of the other.

Oh, certainly, Ian. I will, forthwith, modify the quote to make the context clear. That will greatly improve its rationality.

Cheers,

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Oh, certainly, Ian. I will, forthwith, modify the quote to make the context clear. That will greatly improve its rationality.

Cheers,

Oh, yes, that's it. Much better.

[Girl 6]

Just popping in to say thanks to UCE for providing a link. :)

Carry on.

G6

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Oh, certainly, Ian. I will, forthwith, modify the quote to make the context clear. That will greatly improve its rationality.

Cheers,

It's no better. I think research into consciousness is extremely important. But it has nothing whatsoever to to with explaining what consciousness is, or what phenomenal consciousness is if you prefer. The most that scientists can ever hope to explain are p-zombies, not real people.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:It's no better. I think research into consciousness is extremely important. But it has nothing whatsoever to to with explaining what consciousness is, or what phenomenal consciousness is if you prefer. The most that scientists can ever hope to explain are p-zombies, not real people.
Wait, haven't we concluded that there is no discernable difference? That would make the explanation just as good for one as the other.

I'm so confwoozd!

~~ Paul

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I don't know. Why is the opinion of anyone on any matter of any import.? Are you going to forever ignore the opinions of those whom you dislike or disagree with? I only ignore those who perpetually have nothing new to add.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Well, to hell with scientistic people then! For crying out loud, they don't have a hold on authority. If other people want to investigate subjective things and figure out how to glean the ultimate truth from master meditators, then they should do it. If it's only the scientistic bastards who are objecting what different can they make? The vast majority of people are open minded, as you say, and they have the power.



Perhaps society works best with all viewpoints represented. I didn't call anyone a bastard because of their philosophical position.

:)

[DanishDynamite]

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos:Well, to hell with scientistic people then! For crying out loud, they don't have a hold on authority. If other people want to investigate subjective things and figure out how to glean the ultimate truth from master meditators, then they should do it. If it's only the scientistic bastards who are objecting, what different can they make? The vast majority of people are open minded, as you say, and they have the power.

~~ Paul Well said, Paul. I feel likewise.

I just find it odd that these pervayours of new insight not only can't all agree but can't show the slightest reason why their unagreedupon results should be seriously considered.

Seriously, how do these gurus expect the World to notice them if they can't produce any new convincing results? Guru1 will claim A, guru2 will claim B, etc. And since they all claim that the scientific method has no relevance, why don't they suggest another referee?

One would almost think that they were all just a bunch of crackpots (perish the thought).

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:Perhaps society works best with all viewpoints represented. I didn't call anyone a bastard because of their philosophical position.
That's pronounced "bah-starrrds," with a sort of French accent. :D

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
I don't know. Why is the opinion of anyone on any matter of any import.? Are you going to forever ignore the opinions of those whom you dislike or disagree with?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I only ignore those who perpetually have nothing new to add.



If you're being truly serious then put me on ignore. Otherwise quit your childishness.

[Socrates]

Originally posted by Dark Cobra
It seems to me that...

1. Humans are made up of what is in the universe.

2. Ideas and thoughts are processed in the brain.

3. The brain is made up of what is in the universe.

So then, ideas and thoughts of humans are the result of biological processes.

I'm not certain that you have identified all that makes up the universe. And, can we be certain that the whole of the Universe is not greater than the sum of it's parts?

I am often baffled by the notion that a Subjective sense of being can arise from objective biochemical reactions. The observed forces of the universe are scientifically described as a mindless dance of cause and effect. I have yet to see anyone convincingly demonstrate how mind can magically appear simply by virtue of the volume of chemical reactions in a given period of time or by the complexity of said chemical reactions.

Furthermore, Naturalists insist that there is no scientific evidence for the idea that the Universe is a Living Intelligent Entity. If we accept this at face value, then we must assume that mind is created Ex Nihilo (from nothing). Through the magic of biochemistry (or should I say Alchemy), mind arises from the Mindless and life arises from the Lifeless. Is this any less nonsensical than the Christian notion of Ex Nihilo Creation? Can you show me how mind can arise from the mindless? Can you show me how mind arises from biochemical processes? What is that crucial chemical reaction that separates a sentient being from a really complicated jellyfish?

Clearly, without proof of this critical chemical reaction there is little convincing evidence that the phenomenology of conscience and mind are solely created by and contained within the brain. Without that crucial scientific proof, the notion that mind is created by and contained within the brain is merely a gratuitous assertion and may, therefore, be just as gratuitously rejected.

What are we left with? If the Christian notion of Ex Nihilo Creation of mind and the Naturalist's notion of Ex Nihilo creation of mind are both with out scientific proof, then what are our options?

It seems to me that our options are to speculate about the possibilities based upon what we know.

We know that the conservation of energy and laws of relativity reject the notion that something can be created Ex Nihilo. Therefore, it may be possible that the Universe indeed has parts that you have not yet identified. It may be that the Universe has Mind.

Could it be anything less than neurotic to insist that mind arising from Mind and life arising from Life is less probable than the mind arising from the Mindless and life arising from the Lifeless?

Why can't the brain be the biological interface between Mind and Body? Hummmm? Until the Naturalists empirically identify that magical chemical process which creates the seed of Subjectivity, I maintain that the logical probability lies with the Living Intelligent Universe because the likelihood of mind arising from a Mindless Universe is slim to none.

Love,
Socrates

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Socrates, the not really very old Greek guy, said:I maintain that the logical probability lies with the Living Intelligent Universe because the likelihood of mind arising from a Mindless Universe is slim to none.
How did you compute that likelihood?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Socrates


I'm not certain that you have identified all that makes up the universe. And, can we be certain that the whole of the Universe is not greater than the sum of it's parts?

I am often baffled by the notion that a Subjective sense of being can arise from objective biochemical reactions. The observed forces of the universe are scientifically described as a mindless dance of cause and effect. I have yet to see anyone convincingly demonstrate how mind can magically appear simply by virtue of the volume of chemical reactions in a given period of time or by the complexity of said chemical reactions.

Furthermore, Naturalists insist that there is no scientific evidence for the idea that the Universe is a Living Intelligent Entity. If we accept this at face value, then we must assume that mind is created Ex Nihilo (from nothing). Through the magic of biochemistry (or should I say Alchemy), mind arises from the Mindless and life arises from the Lifeless. Is this any less nonsensical than the Christian notion of Ex Nihilo Creation? Can you show me how mind can arise from the mindless? Can you show me how mind arises from biochemical processes? What is that crucial chemical reaction that separates a sentient being from a really complicated jellyfish?

Clearly, without proof of this critical chemical reaction there is little convincing evidence that the phenomenology of conscience and mind are solely created by and contained within the brain. Without that crucial scientific proof, the notion that mind is created by and contained within the brain is merely a gratuitous assertion and may, therefore, be just a gratuitously rejected.

What are we left with? If the Christian notion of Ex Nihilo Creation of Mind and the Naturalist's notion of Ex Nihilo creation of mind are both with out scientific proof, then what are our options?

It seems to me that our options are to speculate about the possibilities based up what we know.

We know that the conservation of energy and laws of relativity reject the notion that something can be created Ex Nihilo. Therefore, it may be possible that the Universe indeed has parts that you have not yet identified. It may be that the Universe has Mind.

Could it be anything less than neurotic to insist that mind arising from Mind and life arising from Life is less probably than the mind arising from the Mindless and life arising from the Lifeless?

Why can't the brain be the biological interface between mind and Body? Hummmm? Until the Naturalists empirically identify that magical chemical process which creates the seed of Subjectivity, I maintain that the logical probability lies with the Living Intelligent Universe because the likelihood of mind arising from a Mindless Universe is slim to none.

Love,
Socrates

A very intelligent and insightful post.

[Socrates]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Socrates, the not really very old Greek guy, said:
How did you compute that likelihood?

~~ Paul

LOL!

Interesting Ian says what I wrote was, "A very intelligent and insightful post." Are you guys reading the same post?

Or, do you actually expect me to cut and paste the previous post, so you can read it again?

Love,
Socrates

[Socrates]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


A very intelligent and insightful post.

Thank you. It feels good to be appreciated.

[wraith]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


A very intelligent and insightful post.

roger!
I second that...

Originally posted by Socrates

Could it be anything less than neurotic to insist that mind arising from Mind and life arising from Life is less probable than the mind arising from the Mindless and life arising from the Lifeless?

Why can't the brain be the biological interface between mind and Body? Hummmm? Until the Naturalists empirically identify that magical chemical process which creates the seed of Subjectivity, I maintain that the logical probability lies with the Living Intelligent Universe because the likelihood of mind arising from a Mindless Universe is slim to none.

Love,
Socrates

Welcome to the thread, and to the board, Socrates.

:)

[Win]

Wow. Easy to get behind here.

A few comments. Stimpy, I realize I owe you a fuller response to your comments, which I'll get around to sometime soon. Sorry.

Now then. To clarify my property dualist position a little, with regard to the interaction of physical and phenomenal properties: Phenomenal properties have no effect on physical properties. A complete description of the physical world is possible which makes no reference whatsoever to phenomenal properties. Along with the behaviour of the more conventially considered physical world, every action, thought, belief, emotion or memory of a person can be explained, in principle, without reference to the phenomenal.

Why not just be an eliminative materialist, then?

For clarity's sake, let me point out that an eliminative materialist is not someone who holds that phenomenal properties just are physical properties. Rather, she denies their existence. It is for this reason that I say that the knowledge argument allows the truth of the eliminative materialist position. The knowledge argument suggests that reductive materialism is false.

To answer my question, the only reason not be an elliminative materialist is that you accept the existence of phenomenal consciousness as a feature of the world that requires explanation.

How do you know it exists? *You* know because *you* are in part defined by your phenomenal properties. Although my p-zombie twin would be doing, and believing, everything I am, nevertheless there is a difference between him and me, between his world and ours, namely the existence of phenomenal consciousness. The difference between our two worlds is the truth value of certain statements.

Now, Stimpy has suggested that, 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." This, I believe, is not so. Imagine two theories, one which predicts the existence of phenomenal consciousness, as well as things about the phsyical world, the other which makes the same physical predictions, but does not predict a phenomenal world. Which is a better theory? Depends on whether you think phenomenal consciousness is a feature of the world.

Which brings me to the idea that observations are the only way to distinguish between competing theories. I also think that this is not so. We pick betwen theories of the world based on other considerations than confirmation by observation. Is the theory parsimonious, for example.

The idea that there are an infinite number of theories for any given set of observations, and we can have no position of which one is correct strikes me as wrong. There isn't an infinite number of good theories.

Which brings me to my final point, about instrumentalism versus realism in science. I think it necesssary (in the sense of desireable) that we accept that science is telling us something about the real world. To say that science is just a mechanism to make predictions about future observations, and beyond that makes no claim to be explaining the "real" world is to abdicate the point of science, which is to understand the world.

Instrumentalist positions, which dismiss as mere metaphysics the idea that our theories of the world are actually teliing us something about what it is "really like," are the legacy of a bankrupt positivism. In any event, it is not the case that to understand what science really is, or to have a scientific worldview, you have to be an instrumentalist, though many instrumentalists would make that claim.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Socrates


I'm not certain that you have identified all that makes up the universe. And, can we be certain that the whole of the Universe is not greater than the sum of it's parts?

I am often baffled by the notion that a Subjective sense of being can arise from objective biochemical reactions. The observed forces of the universe are scientifically described as a mindless dance of cause and effect. I have yet to see anyone convincingly demonstrate how mind can magically appear simply by virtue of the volume of chemical reactions in a given period of time or by the complexity of said chemical reactions.

Furthermore, Naturalists insist that there is no scientific evidence for the idea that the Universe is a Living Intelligent Entity. If we accept this at face value, then we must assume that mind is created Ex Nihilo (from nothing). Through the magic of biochemistry (or should I say Alchemy), mind arises from the Mindless and life arises from the Lifeless. Is this any less nonsensical than the Christian notion of Ex Nihilo Creation? Can you show me how mind can arise from the mindless? Can you show me how mind arises from biochemical processes? What is that crucial chemical reaction that separates a sentient being from a really complicated jellyfish?

Clearly, without proof of this critical chemical reaction there is little convincing evidence that the phenomenology of conscience and mind are solely created by and contained within the brain. Without that crucial scientific proof, the notion that mind is created by and contained within the brain is merely a gratuitous assertion and may, therefore, be just as gratuitously rejected.

What are we left with? If the Christian notion of Ex Nihilo Creation of Mind and the Naturalist's notion of Ex Nihilo creation of mind are both with out scientific proof, then what are our options?

It seems to me that our options are to speculate about the possibilities based up what we know.

We know that the conservation of energy and laws of relativity reject the notion that something can be created Ex Nihilo. Therefore, it may be possible that the Universe indeed has parts that you have not yet identified. It may be that the Universe has Mind.

Could it be anything less than neurotic to insist that mind arising from Mind and life arising from Life is less probable than the mind arising from the Mindless and life arising from the Lifeless?

Why can't the brain be the biological interface between mind and Body? Hummmm? Until the Naturalists empirically identify that magical chemical process which creates the seed of Subjectivity, I maintain that the logical probability lies with the Living Intelligent Universe because the likelihood of mind arising from a Mindless Universe is slim to none.

Love,
Socrates

Well if I assert that there is such a particle or group of particles that give rise to consciousness (calling this particle or group the C-particle) then which seems more likely?

If I can modify your brain to elicit different emotions from you (prozac does this to millions every day), if I can modify your brain to eliminate or even change your memories, if I can modify your brain to render you un-consciouss, then what seems more likely? That consciousness is not produced by the brain or that it is?

The idea that the self = consciousness is to shaky to adequately defend, unless we give up distinct identity. Then what is the point of having a self.

Now the "agent" being the self is a much stronger argument, and I believe that it is (most likely) similar or the same argument that Win would put forward.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Socrates said:LOL!

Interesting Ian says what I wrote was, "A very intelligent and insightful post." Are you guys reading the same post?

Or, do you actually expect me to cut and paste the previous post, so you can read it again?
We're reading the same post. How did you come to the conclusion that "the likelihood of mind arising from a Mindless Universe is slim to none"?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:For clarity's sake, let me point out that an eliminative materialist is not someone who holds that phenomenal properties just are physical properties. Rather, she denies their existence.
What does it mean to deny their existence? I found this definition:eliminativism - The view that, because mental states and properties are items posited by a protoscientific theory (called folk psychology), the science of the future is likely to conclude that entities such as beliefs, desires, and sensations do not exist.
That sounds nonsensical. What are they trying to say?

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Win said:
What does it mean to deny their existence? I found this definition:
That sounds nonsensical. What are they trying to say?

~~ Paul

It is nonsensical. What it means is that materialism doesn't make sense.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Gosh, UcE, do you think so? I'm trying to understand what they mean before I accept or reject the notion.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

That sounds nonsensical. What are they trying to say?

I think the definition you found is somewhat misleading. An eliminativist accepts the existence of entities like beliefs, desires, and sensations in a psychological sense, which is to say as descriptions of functional components of the mind. What an eliminativist doesn't accept is that these entities have any phenomenal component, as folk psychology would suggest. So, once you've explained, say, what's going on in the brain, nervous system and body when you cut your finger, you've exhausted explanation. There's no point in asking, let alone explaining, what the pain feels like to you, because the phenomenal experience of the pain is an "illusion."

There's no such thing as phenomenal experience. We may think that there is, but we're mistaken, and an explanation can be provided for why we have this mistaken belief.

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Originally posted by Win
Paul:



I think the definition you found is somewhat misleading. An eliminativist accepts the existence of entities like beliefs, desires, and sensations in a psychological sense, which is to say as descriptions of functional components of the mind. What an eliminativist doesn't accept is that these entities have any phenomenal component, as folk psychology would suggest. So, once you've explained, say, what's going on in the brain, nervous system and body when you cut your finger, you've exhausted explanation. There's no point in asking, let alone explaining, what the pain feels like to you, because the phenomenal experience of the pain is an "illusion."

There's no such thing as phenomenal experience. We may think that there is, but we're mistaken, and an explanation can be provided for why we have this mistaken belief.

Wouldn't you have to conclude that beliefs are simply a side effect of a chemical reaction and do not exist either. I believe that is what is being asserted. You don't actually "believe" anything in a meaningful way, the "beliefs" are just side effects of the input/output processing taking place in the brain. Ditto for desires.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:I think the definition you found is somewhat misleading. An eliminativist accepts the existence of entities like beliefs, desires, and sensations in a psychological sense, which is to say as descriptions of functional components of the mind. What an eliminativist doesn't accept is that these entities have any phenomenal component, as folk psychology would suggest. So, once you've explained, say, what's going on in the brain, nervous system and body when you cut your finger, you've exhausted explanation. There's no point in asking, let alone explaining, what the pain feels like to you, because the phenomenal experience of the pain is an "illusion."
Okay, two more questions. What you describe is what I thought reductive materialism is. What is it, then?

Now, about this phenomenal thing. Not to gripe :p, but I looked up phenomenal experience in seven philosophy dictionaries. None had it. About half had phenomenal, but uniformly defined it as meaning sensory. We seem to be using it to mean the experience of memories or some such. What exactly do you mean when you say "... doesn't accept is that these entities have any phenomenal component"?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Win

Which brings me to my final point, about instrumentalism versus realism in science. I think it necesssary (in the sense of desireable) that we accept that science is telling us something about the real world. To say that science is just a mechanism to make predictions about future observations, and beyond that makes no claim to be explaining the "real" world is to abdicate the point of science, which is to understand the world.

Instrumentalist positions, which dismiss as mere metaphysics the idea that our theories of the world are actually teliing us something about what it is "really like," are the legacy of a bankrupt positivism. In any event, it is not the case that to understand what science really is, or to have a scientific worldview, you have to be an instrumentalist, though many instrumentalists would make that claim. [/B]

I find the instrumentalist vs realism debate extremely interesting. Would you say that subjective idealism is incompatible with realism for example? I certainly don't. Perhaps you could start a thread sometime in the near future exploring the realism/instrumentalism debate? Or perhaps I will although I suspect you'll probably know more about it than I do.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
What does it mean to deny their existence? I found this definition:
That sounds nonsensical. What are they trying to say?

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



It is nonsensical. What it means is that materialism doesn't make sense.



Well, eliminative materialism is utterly non-sensical, and I suspect that the vast majority of materilists on this forum would agree here. But this doesn't necessarily have any implications for other materialist positions eg reductive materilism.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot


Wouldn't you have to conclude that beliefs are simply a side effect of a chemical reaction and do not exist either. I believe that is what is being asserted. You don't actually "believe" anything in a meaningful way, the "beliefs" are just side effects of the input/output processing taking place in the brain. Ditto for desires.

Rusty,

Simply because beliefs are a "side effect" of chemical reactions, doesn't mean to say they don't exist! :eek:

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Okay, two more questions. What you describe is what I thought reductive materialism is. What is it, then?


Paul,

I said the below in the other materialism thread. Don't know if it's entirely correct, but it's my understanding as I see it. No-one particularly commented on it in the other thread :(

In my opinon the various forms of materialism and property dualism are confusing and people tend to be very careless with these terms. I admit I have a far from perfectly understanding, and I'll need to do some reading, but this is my own interpretation so far.

As far as I am able to understand these things, it seems that astonishingly there are some people who maintain that conscious experiences do not exist! These people are termed eliminitivist materialists. If you're wondering how anyone can deny the existence of conscious experiences, then join the club! However most materialists would reject eliminitivist materialism. Rather they would embrace either reductive materialism or functionalism, both of which are very similar.

Now a reductionist materialist would either say that brain states and mind states are one and the same thing, or that mental states can be reduced to physical states. To say that they are one and the same thing is arguably not self-evidently absurd. For example, think about a pen you might hold in your hand. If you look at it lengthways, it will look completely different from looking at it end on. But nevertheless you are still looking at one and the same object! Alternatively they subscribe to the idea that mind is reducible to matter, in much the same way that water is really H2O, or heat is really only molecular motion , or light is really only electromagnetic radiation, and so on. Thus a glass of water just is, i.e. is identical with, a very great number of hydrogen and oxygen atoms composed into H2O molecules, and silicon and oxygen atoms composed into glass-molecules.

Now property dualism of which I think epiphenomenalism is the most popular sub-branch, maintains that the mind is to the body, as roughly a shadow is to an object casting that shadow. When physical matter is organized into a brain, it develops emergent properties, ie the mind, that cannot be explained by physical science . The mind is dependent on the brain, and it couldn't exist without a brain, but nevertheless it can't be explained by science. All we have is a correlation between brain states and mental states. But no explanation is possible to scientifically explain the existence of the mind in the same way we can explain and show that water is nothing but H2O.

Of course I reject all these positions as I emphatically reject the idea that consciousness requires a brain ;) But I hope that my explanations were of some use. And I certainly don't know if I got it all right . . after all I'm giving definitions of positions in the mind/body problem, all of which I think are ludicrous! But anyway :)

[Win]

Rusty:

Wouldn't you have to conclude that beliefs are simply a side effect of a chemical reaction and do not exist either. I believe that is what is being asserted. You don't actually "believe" anything in a meaningful way, the "beliefs" are just side effects of the input/output processing taking place in the brain. Ditto for desires.

Well, I don't think you can have it both ways, nor do I think that eliminativists try to. That is to say, if something is a "side effect," quite clearly it exists.

See my comment to Paul immediately following.

Paul:

Now, about this phenomenal thing. Not to gripe , but I looked up phenomenal experience in seven philosophy dictionaries. None had it. About half had phenomenal, but uniformly defined it as meaning sensory. We seem to be using it to mean the experience of memories or some such. What exactly do you mean when you say "... doesn't accept is that these entities have any phenomenal component"?

The phenomenal component of consciousness, or phenomenal experience, is just what it feels like to you to have, say, a belief or a desire. We can contrast this with the psychological component of consciousness, which is a description of what beliefs and desires do or cause.

Eliminativists have no problem with the psychological component of consciousness.

So, what's the difference between an eliminativist and a reductionist? Reductionists accept that phenomenal consciousness exists, but argue that it is supervenient on, or logically entailed by, the physical.

I find the instrumentalist vs realism debate extremely interesting. Would you say that subjective idealism is incompatible with realism for example? I certainly don't. Perhaps you could start a thread sometime in the near future exploring the realism/instrumentalism debate? Or perhaps I will although I suspect you'll probably know more about it than I do.

I think it's an interesting question, too. I also think that it's been pretty conclusively settled in favour of realism. Instrumentalists, of course, disagree.

And no, I don't think idealism is incompatible with realism, in principle.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by The One called Neo
But no explanation is possible to scientifically explain the existence of the mind in the same way we can explain and show that water is nothing but H2O.


Completely specious reasoning! Water is H₂O. You raised this issue before, I addressed it. I went on to address the question of emergent properties as well as the difference between object and process.

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It can't be the case that eliminative materialists claim there is no such thing as emotions or sensations. Maybe what they are saying is that there are brain processes that give rise to the physical correlates of emotions, but that all the descriptive and mental baggage that we associate with emotions is just learned culturally. So a person raised without any cultural influence would have a simple mechanical/physical reaction to an emotional event.

Whereas reductive materialists say that the descriptive and mental baggage is real, but a side product of the brain processes.

Is this a reasonable distinction? (Gee, I wonder if both might be true?)

~~ Paul

[Win]

Bill:

Completely specious reasoning! Water is H2O. You raised this issue before, I addressed it. I went on to address the question of emergent properties as well as the difference between object and process.

I don't read this:

But no explanation is possible to scientifically explain the existence of the mind in the same way we can explain and show that water is nothing but H2O.

as suggesting that water isn't H20. Why do you?

Perhaps, though, you'd like to explain the nature of the identity relationship between water and H20. For example, is the identity necessary or contingent?

[The One called Neo]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
But no explanation is possible to scientifically explain the existence of the mind in the same way we can explain and show that water is nothing but H2O.

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



Completely specious reasoning! Water is H2O. You raised this issue before, I addressed it. I went on to address the question of emergent properties as well as the difference between object and process.


Bill,

I was giving what I believe is the property dualists belief. It was not necessarily an expression of my own belief, although I do happen to agree that mind cannot be scientifically explained in the same way we can explain and show that water is nothing but H2O. Maybe a property dualist would claim that mind can be scientifically explained if he supposes that systematic correlations between brain events and mind events constitute a scientific explanation. I'm not sure precisely what they would claim.

Now we agree that water is H2O. But it would be wrong to say that water emerges from H2O wouldn't it?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I propose that we drop the term emergent property. Look at the dictionary definition of [i]emergent:[i/]
1 a : arising unexpectedly b : calling for prompt action : URGENT
2 : rising out of or as if out of a fluid
3 : arising as a natural or logical consequence
4 : newly formed or prominent
Gee, you think definitions 1a and 3 are confusing?

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by The One called Neo
I was giving what I believe is the property dualists belief. It was not necessarily an expression of my own belief, although I do happen to agree that mind cannot be scientifically explained in the same way we can explain and show that water is nothing but H2O. Maybe a property dualist would claim that mind can be scientifically explained if he supposes that systematic correlations between brain events and mind events constitute a scientific explanation. I'm not sure precisely what they would claim.

Now we agree that water is H2O. But it would be wrong to say that water emerges from H2O wouldn't it?

Yes, it would be wrong to say water emerges from H₂O. It is a necessary identity: H₂O is water. There is no emergent property here. The contrast you drew between this example and the brain/mind example was specious.

Cheers,

[Win]

Bill:

In your comments to Neo you say:

The contrast you drew between this example and the brain/mind example was specious.

How so?

Oh, and what's heat?

[Jethro]

Originally posted by Win
Oh, and what's heat? A transfer of energy between bodies which are not in thermal equilibrium.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Jethro
A transfer of energy between bodies which are not in thermal equilibrium.

What is energy?

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by Win
Now then. To clarify my property dualist position a little, with regard to the interaction of physical and phenomenal properties: Phenomenal properties have no effect on physical properties. A complete description of the physical world is possible which makes no reference whatsoever to phenomenal properties. Along with the behaviour of the more conventially considered physical world, every action, thought, belief, emotion or memory of a person can be explained, in principle, without reference to the phenomenal.


How so?

Can you explain how (under property dualism) is possible to explain phenomenal properties without reference to the phenomenal?

Do physical properties have an effect on phenomenal properties?

[Win]

Q:

Can you explain how (under property dualism) is possible to explain phenomenal properties without reference to the phenomenal?

Perhaps my use of the phrase, "without reference to," was inartful. It might be better to say, "without recourse to."

That being said, my point is that it is possible to explain our beliefs about phenomenal consciousness, our utterances regarding phenomenal consciousness and so on, without recourse to phenomenal properties as part of the explanation.

The eliminative materialist says, well, then, that explains everything. But it doesn't. The existence of phenomenal consciousness, itself, is unexplained.

If you insist that phenomenal consciousness is a feature of the world, you are, I think, compelled to accept a dualistic position.

Do physical properties have an effect on phenomenal properties?

This is a difficult question, in that causation isn't a completely understood concept. But if you mean, does a particular physical state logically necessitate a particular phenomenal state, then no. If you mean, does a particular physical state naturally correlate with a phenomenal state, then yes.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win, I still don't understand how a phenomenal experience can feel familiar, if phenomenal consciousness has no memory.

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I propose that we drop the term emergent property. Look at the dictionary definition of [i]emergent:[i/]

Gee, you think definitions 1a and 3 are confusing?

~~ Paul

Think of it in terms of a reductionist approach. If we identify the subcomponents and their properties completely, the properties of an assemblage can still be unexpected (1a) and yet, a posteriori make sense (3).

Examine three line segments. Put them together to form a triangle. ASA, SAS, all interior angles summing to 180 all suddenly emerge. They are not properties of the lines. They are properties of three lines arranged into a triangle.

Cheers,

[Imaginist]

My thesis is that materialism is a faith-based worldview.

Now 'scuse me while I ramble! :cool:

The whole problem of materialism boils down to the assumption that if it can't be sensed with the five senses, then it doesn't exist. That is simply a statement of faith, and it too easily bleeds over into the assumption that if we haven't sensed it *yet*, then it doesn't exist. Certainly this faith is based in part upon experience, but it is nonetheless a faith.

There was a time when people were closed to the idea of subatomic particles, like quarks and neutrinos, only because we didn't yet recognize any physical evidence that showed they might actually exist. There were yet others who acknowledged the mathematical possibility or probablity, and adjusted their theories accordingly. In either case, that means that there were people walking around consciously choosing to form worldviews based upon incomplete evidence. Almost sounds like religion, doesn't it?

Taking a different tangent, saying that if you alter or destroy the gray meat in a person's head you also alter or destroy the person seems to be a good point on the surface. It certainly appears that way, but we also know that appearances can be deceiving. How many great scientific "truths," accepted for centuries, turned out to be false constructions based upon appearances combined with insufficient knowledge? This argument is just as weak as someone who knows nothing about how a TV really works concluding that the person they see on the screen has died when the TV is unplugged. I can manipulate the image and sound in many ways, but that doesn't have any effect at all on the actual transmission.

Of course, nearly all of these materialists offhandedly dismiss any paranormal phenomena like telepathy, precognition, remote viewing, past-life memories, and so on. Rather than admit there are unsettled questions in this regard, they'll say that there hasn't been sufficient scientifically valid documentation, and that all the anecdotal accounts are misperceptions, delusions, or lies of one form or another. This also reveals that materialism is a
position based on faith.

Ultimately, materialists are convinced that the senses and logic are the ultimate tools for discerning truth. In one way this seems to have some validity. If all you are concerned about is analyzing, qualifying, and quatifying sensory perceptions, then what other tools do you need? Unfortunately, even here the phenomenology of perception plays a role.

We are not merely sensors and analyzers with complete conscious control of all our faculties. Plenty of research has shown that we unconsciously respond to our sensations in countless ways - prioritizing, filtering, forming associations with latent memories from other experiences, and so on. There is also plenty of research that shows that we aren't perfectly consistent in qualifying or quantifying what should be the same sensations from the same stimulus. This is not only true from one individual to the next, but within the same individual over repeated trials.

So, I continue to think of materialism as a faith, but that in itself isn't a bad thing in my book. Life pretty much forces us to respond to it with something other than a simple "I don't really know." We have to form assumptions and working theories just to get us through an ordinary day, much less deal with the big questions about reality and existence! My only gripe with some materialists is their attitude that they really have a lock on the actual, undeniable, and ultimate truth. Sorry, I'm just not a convert.

Well, that's my rambling for today!

The Imaginist

[Win]

Paul:

Win, I still don't understand how a phenomenal experience can feel familiar, if phenomenal consciousness has no memory.

Well, phenomenal consciousness is the experience of the underlying neural correlate, what pain feels like, what it's like to be thinking about these questions, what red looks like, being the phenomenal realization of the same information physically realized in the neural correlate.

But, I guess you're asking, why doesn't phenomenal experience feel novel, that is to say, why aren't we surprized to have phenomenal experiences, moment to moment? And the answer is, because phenomenal experiences are experiences of the information processing going on in the underlying correlate, if there's no novelty there, there's no feeling of novelty in the phenomenal experience.

All the same, you only have access to your phenomenal consciousness in the moment. And that raises some interesting questions concerning the flow of time and the relationship between phenomenal time and physical time. In what sense is the you of ten minutes ago "still" phenomenally conscious?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
Think of it in terms of a reductionist approach. If we identify the subcomponents and their properties completely, the properties of an assemblage can still be unexpected (1a) and yet, a posteriori make sense (3).

Examine three line segments. Put them together to form a triangle. ASA, SAS, all interior angles summing to 180 all suddenly emerge. They are not properties of the lines. They are properties of three lines arranged into a triangle.
But the triangle isn't an "unexpected" result of the lines, is it?

Edited to clarify: I think there are some things we would certainly agree are emergent properties in the sense of surprising yet logically resulting. I just think we can overuse this term for all sorts of unsurprising things.

Then again, maybe I should be more easily surprised.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:But, I guess you're asking, why doesn't phenomenal experience feel novel, that is to say, why aren't we surprized to have phenomenal experiences, moment to moment? And the answer is, because phenomenal experiences are experiences of the information processing going on in the underlying correlate, if there's no novelty there, there's no feeling of novelty in the phenomenal experience.
Aha! I hadn't realized that you were saying that phenomenal experience is so tightly correlated with brain processing. I had gotten the impression they were almost two separate streams of experience.

However, that still doesn't explain it. Sure, the physical experience can feel familiar this way. But the phenomenal experience itself often feels familiar. I feel as if I've had these feelings/qualia/emotions before. That requires the phenomenal process to have memory, too, because my brain has no memory of the previous phenomenal experiences.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

Aha! I hadn't realized that you were saying that phenomenal experience is so tightly correlated with brain processing. I had gotten the impression they were almost two separate streams of experience.

Well, they are two separate "streams." But, as they are simultaneous realizations of the same information by different means, they are correlated.

However, that still doesn't explain it. Sure, the physical experience can feel familiar this way. But the phenomenal experience itself often feels familiar. I feel as if I've had these feelings/qualia/emotions before. That requires the phenomenal process to have memory, too, because my brain has no memory of the previous phenomenal experiences.

There is no such thing as the "physical experience."

And there is no information in the qualia that isn't also physically realized. If you feel as if you've had an experience of red before, it's because you've had the physical correlate of the experience of red before.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

But the triangle isn't an "unexpected" result of the lines, is it?

Edited to clarify: I think there are some things we would certainly agree are emergent properties in the sense of surprising yet logically resulting. I just think we can overuse this term for all sorts of unsurprising things.

Then again, maybe I should be more easily surprised.

~~ Paul

Yes, I see the term over-used, and, yes, mis-used, and, yes, a-bused. The point is: science views mind as a set of processes in the brain, it doesn't view the mind as the brain.

Cheers,

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:There is no such thing as the "physical experience."
Of course there is. All the brain processes that occur when I see red are the physical experience of red. I guess you don't like using the word experience here, but what else is it? I suppose we could call it the physical processing of red.

And there is no information in the qualia that isn't also physically realized. If you feel as if you've had an experience of red before, it's because you've had the physical correlate of the experience of red before.
I'm focusing specifically on having had the phenomenal experience of red before. When I see red again, or think about red, I get the sense that I've had the feeling of red, the redness of red, the emotion of red, before.

If you don't think that the phenomenal experience of red can be explained by the brain alone, then I do not see how you can claim that the memory of having had these phenomenal experiences can be explained by the brain alone. Phenomenal consciousness must have memory.

~~ Paul

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by Win
The existence of phenomenal consciousness, itself, is unexplained.

Who says so?
Is it a fact?
Is it an assumption?
Is it a conclusion?


If you insist that phenomenal consciousness is a feature of the world, you are, I think, compelled to accept a dualistic position.

IMO (unless I am misunderstanding), the problem has nothing to do to with accepting that phenomenal consciousness exists but with the explanation or description of its cause and origin.


This is a difficult question, in that causation isn't a completely understood concept. But if you mean, does a particular physical state logically necessitate a particular phenomenal state, then no. If you mean, does a particular physical state naturally correlate with a phenomenal state, then yes.

What answer does dualism give to explain by which means physical and phenomenal states correlate?

Q-S

[Win]

Q:

Is it a fact?

Yes.

IMO (unless I am misunderstanding), the problem has nothing to do to with accepting that phenomenal consciousness exists but with the explanation or description of its cause and origin.

My exchange with you has been within the context of explaining eliminative materialism. Eliminative materialists, as I've explained, don't accept that phenomenal consciousness exists.

Reductive materialists, of various stripes, do accept that it exists, and maintain that it supervenes on the physical, one way or the other.

Metaphysical materialists accept that phenomenal consciousness exists, and that it does not supervene on the physical, but maintain that, as a consequence of strong metaphysical necessity, it's physical anyway.

Property dualists accept that phenomenal consciousness exists, and that it doesn't supervene on the phsyical, reject metaphysical materialism and maintain that therefore phenomenal consciousness is an additional fundamental feature of the world.

What answer does dualism give to explain by which means physical and phenomenal states correlate?

As a consequnce of further laws of nature.

Paul:

Of course there is. All the brain processes that occur when I see red are the physical experience of red. I guess you don't like using the word experience here, but what else is it? I suppose we could call it the physical processing of red.

Yes, we could. And I do.

I'm focusing specifically on having had the phenomenal experience of red before. When I see red again, or think about red, I get the sense that I've had the feeling of red, the redness of red, the emotion of red, before.

As a consequence of having the physical correlate, the physical memory, of having sen red before.

If you don't think that the phenomenal experience of red can be explained by the brain alone, then I do not see how you can claim that the memory of having had these phenomenal experiences can be explained by the brain alone. Phenomenal consciousness must have memory.

You have no "memory of the phenomenal experience." Rather, you have a memory of the information processing. Experiencing the memory contains an experience of familiarity that comes from the physical correlate.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win, so what you seem to be saying is that the entire phenomenal experience of red is simply an "interpretation" of my physical memories and other neural connections. Phenomenal consciousness adds nothing new to the equation, it just interprets all the little details stored in my brain. The interpretation generates no new information stored anywhere. Somehow, all the myriad nuances of redness really are stored in my brain, including all the nuances that seem to be part of the phenomenal experience of red, not simply facts about red.

I do not see what a separate phenomenal consciousness does that a separate chunk of brain couldn't do. The idea doesn't enlighten me about the functioning of consciousness. Indeed, it doesn't seem to present any explanation of consciousness at all, although it certainly does add a facet of mystery to the project.

~~ Paul

[Win]

Paul:

Win, so what you seem to be saying is that the entire phenomenal experience of red is simply an "interpretation" of my physical memories and other neural connections. Phenomenal consciousness adds nothing new to the equation, it just interprets all the little details stored in my brain. The interpretation generates no new information stored anywhere. Somehow, all the myriad nuances of redness really are stored in my brain, including all the nuances that seem to be part of the phenomenal experience of red, not simply facts about red.

Well, yes and no. I wouldn't say that "all the nuances of redness" are already stored in your brain. In fact, all the facts concerning the phenomenal realization of realization, for example "what red looks like," aren't stored there at all.

I do not see what a separate phenomenal consciousness does that a separate chunk of brain couldn't do. The idea doesn't enlighten me about the functioning of consciousness. Indeed, it doesn't seem to present any explanation of consciousness at all, although it certainly does add a facet of mystery to the project.

Bear in mind that we've only been discussing the answer to your question, "why aren't we surprized to be having phenomenal experiences, moment to moment." The complete property dualist position is a little more expansive than that.

As to the mystery, I agree. But the universe is a mysterious place, as it were. Not that I'm a mysterian, though, which is another position on consciousness. ;)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:Well, yes and no. I wouldn't say that "all the nuances of redness" are already stored in your brain. In fact, all the facts concerning the phenomenal realization of realization, for example "what red looks like," aren't stored there at all.
Oh my. What is "phenomenal realization of realization"? What are these facts and where are they stored? How do these facts effect the phenomenal experience of red?

How can we even talk about this? If the phenomenal experience of red doesn't affect my brain in any way, how can I even remember that I had the phenomenal experience and talk about it here? Perhaps even though my brain isn't affected by phenomenal consciousness, it knows that there is such a thing and that PC experiences redness and enough about what that experience is like to discuss it intelligently?

~~ Paul

[c4ts]

I thought qualities belonged to the objects themselves, not the observers. An object will have qualities regardless of whether or not these qualities are percieved. A green sign seen only by colorblind people is still green, even though nobody can see that it's green.

[Win]

Paul:

Sorry. Not paying attention. That should read, "phenomenal realization of red ..."

How can we even talk about this? If the phenomenal experience of red doesn't affect my brain in any way, how can I even remember that I had the phenomenal experience and talk about it here? Perhaps even though my brain isn't affected by phenomenal consciousness, it knows that there is such a thing and that PC experiences redness and enough about what that experience is like to discuss it intelligently?

Even though your brain isn't affected by phenomenal consciousness, you are. Because you can be sure that you are phenomenally conscious, we have a basis for having this conversation.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:Even though your brain isn't affected by phenomenal consciousness, you are. Because you can be sure that you are phenomenally conscious, we have a basis for having this conversation.
But the part of me that is on the far side of the brain/phenomenal consciousness line has no way to influence my brain here on the near side, so I can't think about phenomenal consciousness or talk about it. I can't get my tongue to move and form words about it. I can't type about it.

Both sides must know about what the phenomenal experience is like. The brain side must know enough to have this conversation. But does it know everything about it? If not, then my phenomenal experience might actually be different from what we are discussing. Perhaps what we're discussing is only the brain side of the puzzle, and we can't talk about the phenomenal experience at all. :eek:

~~ Paul

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Win said:
But the part of me that is on the far side of the brain/phenomenal consciousness line has no way to influence my brain here on the near side, so I can't think about phenomenal consciousness or talk about it. I can't get my tongue to move and form words about it. I can't type about it.

Both sides must know about what the phenomenal experience is like. The brain side must know enough to have this conversation. But does it know everything about it? If not, then my phenomenal experience might actually be different from what we are discussing. Perhaps what we're discussing is only the brain side of the puzzle, and we can't talk about the phenomenal experience at all. :eek:

~~ Paul Ahhhh. You have reached one of the interesting points regarding Win's dualism. His answer to this question is that it is coincidental! Although your brain knows nothing about phenomenal experiences and although it is your brain which is controlling your fingers as you type, it is just coincidental that what your fingers type regarding phenominal experiences is right! And I am not kidding.

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Huh?

Let's look at those lines again.

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.

Imagine for a moment you have a pile of bricks. The pile of bricks
exists as a form of being. Now imagine assembling those bricks
into a house. The house exists as a form of being. What happened
to the being form of bricks? It became non-being whilst the house
became being. This process of change from one form into another
answers in part the question of how something can come from
nothing and the question of how something can turn back into nothing.

P.S. Mostly, the rest of the poem is a meditation on the nature
of opposites and how one defines and needs the other.

:)

[DanishDynamite]

Synchronicity:This process of change from one form into another answers in part the question of how something can come from nothing and the question of how something can turn back into nothing.Thanks for reminding me. I seem to recall that UCE said somewhere upstream that he had problems with Something coming from Nothing. Well, as usual, science is on the job and has (or is close to having) the answer. Please see inflationary theory (http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Guth/Guth3.html) as explained by its inventor.

An extract:This borrowing of energy from the gravitational field gives the inflationary paradigm an entirely different perspective from the classical Big Bang theory, in which all the particles in the Universe (or at least their precursors) were assumed to be in place from the start. Inflation provides a mechanism by which the entire Universe can develop from just a few ounces of primordial matter. Inflation is radically at odds with the old dictum of Democritus and Lucretius, "Nothing can be created from nothing" If inflation is right, everything can be created from nothing, or at least from very little. If inflation is right, the Universe can properly be called the ultimate free lunch.

[Win]

Danish:

You probably know you're misconstruing my position on the coincidence of phenomenal and physical properties through a combination of equivocation and oversimplification, so I'll restrict myself to commenting on your poor understanding of creation ex nihilo and the infaltionary cosmological model. Clearly, the something from nothing comment in your excerpt (presumably by Alan Guth, although by no means clear from your post or link) is tongue in cheek.

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by Win
Danish:

You probably know you're misconstruing my position on the coincidence of phenomenal and physical properties through a combination of equivocation and oversimplification, so I'll restrict myself to commenting on your poor understanding of creation ex nihilo and the infaltionary cosmological model. Clearly, the something from nothing comment in your excerpt (presumably by Alan Guth, although by no means clear from your post or link) is tongue in cheek. Hi Win.

No, I wasn't trying to misconstrue your position. Admittedly it's been a while since we've had this discussion or, in fact, since I've engaged in 'ism debate here, so it may be my memory isn't quite accurate as to your view. Please correct me, if this is the case.

And no, my posting of a link by Guth (follow the Previous links to see that it is in fact written by him) was not tongue in cheek. At least not much. If the total energy - matter plus gravitational - is in fact zero, then I think it is fair to say that Something came from Nothing. I realize that some may ask: Yes, but the properties of the Nothing, which made the Something possible, are in their own way a Something. Fair enough. Science has more to do and is on the job.

[Win]

Hi Danish:

Well, I'll get into the specifics of how "it's all just a coincidence, ha, ha" doesn't quite capture my position, probably tomorrow.

And I didn't mean to suggest that your posting of Guth's comments was tongue in cheek; I meant that Guth's comments were. Getting something from almost nothing isn't the same thing as getting something from nothing, and Guth explicitly qualifies his remarks to take that into account. And as far as I know, the inflationary model doesn't require total energy for the universe to be zero. In any event, the inflationary model isn't intended as an answer to the problems of creation ex nihilo.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Synchronicity:Thanks for reminding me. I seem to recall that UCE said somewhere upstream that he had problems with Something coming from Nothing. Well, as usual, science is on the job and has (or is close to having) the answer. Please see inflationary theory (http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Guth/Guth3.html) as explained by its inventor.

An extract:

Personnally I have no problem with the idea that something can come from nothing, wholly acausally as it were (or not acausally if we take Stimpy's definition of "acausal"). But is this somehow supposed to vindicate materialism?? :confused: Or do you have another point which I haven't grasped?

[Loki]

Win,

You'll probably cover this, but...

Well, I'll get into the specifics of how "it's all just a coincidence, ha, ha" doesn't quite capture my position, probably tomorrow.
Both you (a long time ago) and Neo ahve used the 'shadow' analogy. Staying within this analogy (and hoping it's not about to collapse), the problem I have, and which Paul seems to be getting at, is that the shadow may exist but you simultaneously want to say that :

(a) The 'physical brain processes' cannot see the shadow
(b) The *I* which is my total consciousness *can* see the shadow
(c) My 'physical brain processes' can discuss the shadow

When we try to explore "(b)" you say "direct access" is the way in which *I* see the shadow. Yet this access in no way changes or adds to the physical brain processes. This seems to say that a person's "*I*" (the totality, and that which does the "accessing" in direct access) is at least partially non-physical. Haven't we just introduced a 'soul' (for want of a better word)?

[DanishDynamite]

Win:Well, I'll get into the specifics of how "it's all just a coincidence, ha, ha" doesn't quite capture my position, probably tomorrow.Looking forward to it.
And I didn't mean to suggest that your posting of Guth's comments was tongue in cheek; I meant that Guth's comments were. Getting something from almost nothing isn't the same thing as getting something from nothing, and Guth explicitly qualifies his remarks to take that into account. Yes and no. What he says is:During inflation, while the energy of matter increases by a factor of 10^75 or more, the energy of the gravitational field becomes more and more negative to compensate. The total energy - matter plus gravitational - remains constant and very small, and could even be exactly zero.
Notice my highlighting.
And as far as I know, the inflationary model doesn't require total energy for the universe to be zero. It doesn't require it, that's true. However, it allows it.
In any event, the inflationary model isn't intended as an answer to the problems of creation ex nihilo. Correct. It is intended to solve other outstanding questions. The fact that it allows for answering the question of Something for Nothing, is just a bonus.

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Personnally I have no problem with the idea that something can come from nothing, wholly acausally as it were (or not acausally if we take Stimpy's definition of "acausal"). But is this somehow supposed to vindicate materialism?? :confused: Or do you have another point which I haven't grasped? No, it doesn't vindicate materialism. I was just responding to a comment by UCE, regarding all the outstanding questions which the evil materialism/science hadn't answered.

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
No, it doesn't vindicate materialism. I was just responding to a comment by UCE, regarding all the outstanding questions which the evil materialism/science hadn't answered.

There is nothing evil about materialism or science.

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


There is nothing evil about materialism or science. Glad to hear you agree. One occasionaly gets the impression that certain posters have a distinct disliking of materialism.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I was about to suggest that one way the brain could talk about phenomenal experience is because it has enough hardwired knowledge about it to carry on a seemingly intelligent discussion. However, then I realized that no such knowledge could evolve, or that would violate the assumption that phenomenal consciousness has no way to affect the brain.

I suppose we could assume the hardwired knowledge just appeared by magic, but that isn't very satisfying.

Standing by for Win . . .

~~ Paul

[Win]

OK, then, I'm going to ramble a little.

This comment by Danish caught my eye:

I was just responding to a comment by UCE, regarding all the outstanding questions which the evil materialism/science hadn't answered.

It struck me that many defenders of materialism here take this blanket view of those who maintain that materialism is false, namely that a consequence of that position is the belief that science is "wrong" or that materialism is "evil." I think this is a strawman.

On balance, and after reflecting on the arguments, thought experiments and facts concerning phenomenal consciousness, in some small detail, I've concluded that materialism is false. Others disagree with this conclusion, for a variety of reasons. I don't think that all those who hold materialistic positions are deluded or that all their arguments are absurd or that they are all in favor of a materialistic position out of some sort of ulterior motive, either nefarious or pathetic.

That being said, I do find some materialistic positions to be, well, a stretch, like eliminative materialism. And, what's more, I do find many here to be fairly unfamiliar with the geography of the issue, as it were, while still acting as if non-materialistic positions were facially absurd or wrong headed. Often times I'll see absolute certainty as to the falsity of dualism seemingly based on such, frankly, half-arsed objections as "that's an argument from ignorance" or, and this a frequent one, "you're assuming your conclusion." These positions have the unfortunate quality of being both smug and meretricious.

So, while finding the whole "you think materialism is evil" charge to be a strawman, I also think it's ironic, in that it would seem that the opposite is true: Many defenders of materialism think a belief in the falsity of materialism is evil, or perhaps (and maybe worse) obviously stupid, and that proponents of the falsity of materialism are acting out of some other motive than wanting to explain the world. Combined with this attitude is the implication that allowing the falsity of materialism is but one step removed from asking John Edwards to contact your loved ones on "the other side."

And that's frustrating.

Whcih brings me to this comment by Loki:

When we try to explore "(b)" you say "direct access" is the way in which *I* see the shadow. Yet this access in no way changes or adds to the physical brain processes. This seems to say that a person's "*I*" (the totality, and that which does the "accessing" in direct access) is at least partially non-physical. Haven't we just introduced a 'soul' (for want of a better word)?

Well, no.

The implication, however, seems to me something akin to this: A property dualist position introduces a feature that can be compared to a "soul;" we know "souls" are bunk, or at least religious baggage; therfore, property dualism is bunk, or at least carries religious baggage.

To which I can only reply, to the extent that the baggage is there, you've brought it with you.

That being said, you can, of course, make an analogy between "souls" and phenomenal consciousness. For example, I think it can be argued that having phenomenal consiousness defines a "person" for the purposes of moral and ethical argument, like having a "soul" does. At the same time, nothing about phenomenal consciousness necessarily implies that one's phenomenal consciousness survives one's death, so the analogy breaks down.

In the end, while I guess the analogy between "souls" and phenomenal consciousness could be the basis for an exploration of folk ethics, most often it seems a polemical instrument.

Now, let me address the "coincidence" issue.

Do I think physical and phenomenal properties are coincidental? In the sense of happening at the same time, yes. Do I think they are coincidental in the stronger sense of the word, namely happening together "by chance?" From the point of view of the physical, yes. At the same time, I believe that there must be some reason for the coincidence, in the first sense, it just isn't a reason that can be explained with recourse to the physical.

Finally, let me address the idea that, because our brains don't have access to phenomenal consciousness, there's no point talking about phenomenal consciousness. All that the lack of our brain's access to phenomenal consciousnes implies is that, in some sense, the eliminativist position is tenable. For me, everything about you could be explained without reference to phenomenal consciousness. But for you, it can't be.

So, if we want to take phenomenal consciousness into account as a feature of the world, and because materialism is false, we make some foundational assumptions, and start developing a theory of the world that contains, and explains, phenomenal consciousness as an independent fundamental feature.

At the very far extreme, one could argue that the brain's lack of access renders our foundational assumptions suspect, and to avoid that, we must adopt a mysterian position. This, however, doesn't invalidate any of the arguments about the falsity of materialism.

And, what's more, I don't think it's necessary. We make other foundational assumptions in science. If we have to make some with regard to phenomenal consciousness as an irreducible, so be it.

Ultimately, the whole "if dualism is true, we don't know what we're talking about" line seems to me to be more often motivated by a desire to reach the conclusion, "so dualism is false," than to be concerned with the question of the basis for foundational assuptions.

[Loki]

Win,

To which I can only reply, to the extent that the baggage is there, you've brought it with you.
Guilty as charged! The use of the term "soul" was intended to serve two purposes.

One of these (as you point out) was to add a little "baggage" to the discussion. The sole purpose of this bagdage is to add a little "spice" to the conversation. To the degree that this sidetracks the topic, and "lowers" the tone, I'm sorry. Sometimes my need to 'brighten' (euphemistically speaking) the conversation gets the better of me. Sorry!

The other, however, was quite on topic - that "soul" is often thought of as "aware" and "thinking". I wanted to convey this aspect of your position, because it still seems to me that the thing doing the direct accessing must be doing some perceiving, and some thinking. Hence the choice of term.

Anyway, I'll try to stay more focused! Now, where did my shadow go....

[Win]

Loki:

Anyway, I'll try to stay more focused! Now, where did my shadow go....

If I came across as annoyed with you, I'm sorry. Generally speaking, you're pretty reasonable. ;)

To address your point, I think the "soul" analogy also breaks down when attempting to look at phenomenal cosciousness as an "entity" that "is aware" and "has perceptions," like a "soul." In my view, phenomenal consciousness is the collection of phenomenal properties. While it's possible to ascribe those properties to *you,* such that you can be said to "have" them, I don't think that there's a disembodied "you," as it were, to which phenomenal consciousness is projected.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:Do I think physical and phenomenal properties are coincidental? In the sense of happening at the same time, yes. Do I think they are coincidental in the stronger sense of the word, namely happening together "by chance?" From the point of view of the physical, yes. At the same time, I believe that there must be some reason for the coincidence, in the first sense, it just isn't a reason that can be explained with recourse to the physical.
I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying here, but I don't see how it explains our ability to discuss phenomenal consciousness. How does the brain obtain the knowledge it needs to carry on this conversation?

And, what's more, I don't think it's necessary. We make other foundational assumptions in science. If we have to make some with regard to phenomenal consciousness as an irreducible, so be it.
I think phenomenal consciousness is a quite different sort of foundational assumption than those currently made by science. In fact, it seems to contradict some of the existing assumptions.

Ultimately, the whole "if dualism is true, we don't know what we're talking about" line seems to me to be more often motivated by a desire to reach the conclusion, "so dualism is false," than to be concerned with the question of the basis for foundational assuptions.
I don't know squat about the basis for foundational assumptions. I just want to know how we're having this conversation without any feedback from phenomenal consciousness to the brain.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Win
[B]OK, then, I'm going to ramble a little.

This comment by Danish caught my eye:



It struck me that many defenders of materialism here take this blanket view of those who maintain that materialism is false, namely that a consequence of that position is the belief that science is "wrong" or that materialism is "evil." I think this is a strawman.

On balance, and after reflecting on the arguments, thought experiments and facts concerning phenomenal consciousness, in some small detail, I've concluded that materialism is false. Others disagree with this conclusion, for a variety of reasons. I don't think that all those who hold materialistic positions are deluded or that all their arguments are absurd or that they are all in favor of a materialistic position out of some sort of ulterior motive, either nefarious or pathetic.

That being said, I do find some materialistic positions to be, well, a stretch, like eliminative materialism. And, what's more, I do find many here to be fairly unfamiliar with the geography of the issue, as it were, while still acting as if non-materialistic positions were facially absurd or wrong headed. Often times I'll see absolute certainty as to the falsity of dualism seemingly based on such, frankly, half-arsed objections as "that's an argument from ignorance" or, and this a frequent one, "you're assuming your conclusion." These positions have the unfortunate quality of being both smug and meretricious.

So, while finding the whole "you think materialism is evil" charge to be a strawman, I also think it's ironic, in that it would seem that the opposite is true: Many defenders of materialism think a belief in the falsity of materialism is evil, or perhaps (and maybe worse) obviously stupid, and that proponents of the falsity of materialism are acting out of some other motive than wanting to explain the world. Combined with this attitude is the implication that allowing the falsity of materialism is but one step removed from asking John Edwards to contact your loved ones on "the other side."

And that's frustrating.



Yes, I'm in absolute entire agreement with you here. And people wonder why I'm sometimes occasionally rude! :eek:

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Yes, I'm in absolute entire agreement with you here. And people wonder why I'm sometimes occasionally rude!

Sometimes ? :eek:

Occasionally ? :eek:

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Rusty_the_boy_robot



If I can modify your brain to elicit different emotions from you (prozac does this to millions every day), if I can modify your brain to eliminate or even change your memories, if I can modify your brain to render you un-consciouss, then what seems more likely? That consciousness is not produced by the brain or that it is?



Lets say I were to give a radio set to my friend Bob who has never encountered one and who does not know about electromagnetism. I then set him the task of coming up with a theory about how the output of the radio is produced. Some time later I check how he is getting on and he looks perplexed. Bob says, "well, I removed this funny looking bit from all the other bits inside and the speaker made no sound. When I put that bit back the music returned". I asked him "what do you conlclude from this". He replied, "Its obvious that the special arrangement of bits produces the output of the radio. The music is therefore a product of this arrangement".

Bob is right on the one hand. The arrangement of matter does produce the music. However, as much as Bob's conclusion seems to follow a logical argument, the source of the music has been overlooked. Bob does not know anything about radio waves so it would be wrong for him to conclude that when he takes the radio apart completely, the source of the music has been destroyed.

This is how I feel our understanding of consciousness stands at the moment. I am in no way comparing the brain to some kind of radio receiver. I am saying that just because we can manipulate consciousness and describe those manipulations in local physical terms does not mean that the local components are the source of the phenomenon per se. They could just as well be regarded as allowing a particular form of consciousness to manifest.

[Imaginist]

Originally posted by davidsmith73


This is how I feel our understanding of consciousness stands at the moment. I am in no way comparing the brain to some kind of radio receiver. I am saying that just because we can manipulate consciousness and describe those manipulations in local physical terms does not mean that the local components are the source of the phenomenon per se. They could just as well be regarded as allowing a particular form of consciousness to manifest.

Hello friend! Your analogy speaks to me. As we all know, in themselves they prove nothing, but this one certainly points out how consciousness as a mere epiphenomenon of nature could well be mistaken.

There are a few of us here that have absolutely no problem with healthy skepticism of scientistic explanations of consciousness, but there are plenty of members in the materialist congregation for whom this is going to make no difference - they're true believers.

Have fun!

Win posted :


And, what's more, I do find many here to be fairly unfamiliar with the geography of the issue, as it were, while still acting as if non-materialistic positions were facially absurd or wrong headed.


This has been a problem for me ever since I first stated that I believed materialism was false - and at the time I was still part of the admin team at www.infidels.org. It seemed to me that there were a lot of people whose main line of defence from what I was arguing was organised and intensive ridicule - as if enough people piling into a thread with posts which just dismiss non-materialistic positions as absurd, pointless and backwards would somehow count as a rebuttal. When I refused to allow this to deflect me the level of abuse reached the point where I had no choice but to attack back in the same manner, attack being the most effective form of defence. The result of that was that I was banned from www.infidels.org and came here. There was no moderation here, which was a good thing, but precisely the same scenario played out - large numbers of people who appeared to have little or no knowledge of philosophy simply filled up my threads with ridicule and abuse and treated me as if nothing I said had any merit. The sad truth is that scientifically-minded people have come to view materialism as the only metaphysical position that a rational person can take. So when faced with someone who makes a claim that materialism is logically impossible to defend it is assumed that the position must be wrong, and that the person holding it must be an idiot. Even now, 18 months later, there seems to be a 'believability gap'. By that I mean that even after the materialists have been forced to look at the logical problem itself they still can't quite bring themselves to believe that it is a real problem - after all how could so many highly intelligent and rational people believe something to be true if it is actually logically impossible?. Finally, when it begins to dawn that it might be true that materialism has been logically falsified then the accusations start flying that people are attacking materialism 'because they think it is evil'.

I don't think materialism is evil. I don't think materialists are evil, or stupid. I just think it must be wrong and I think it is important that people are made aware of why it must be wrong. 400 years ago Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for upsetting the status quo by speaking the truth. The scientific establishment doesn't burn people at the stake - but it can break someones career - and any young scientist who takes a metaphysical position like mine would risk having their career instantly terminated. I think we need a new reformation - a reformation of science. I think that the scientific establishment, instead of defending materialism like the Pope defended the Bible from Bruno, needs to accept that materialism was actually falsified 100 years ago and needs to look again at the absurdities produced by 'materialistic quantum physics', needs to look again at what is implied by Bells theorem and non-locality, needs to accept that a materialistic theory of consciousness is a non-starter. If instead all that happens is that materialism is defended as if it were a religion, even though it is wrong, then science risks making the same mistakes as the religious hegemony it was originally instrumental in bringing down. 400 years ago Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by the Inquisition. There can be no "New Inquisition".

http://www.kbuxton.com/discordia/new_inquisition.html

...and before anyone attacks Robert Anton Wilson for being another 'just another woo-woo' perhaps they'd like to consider what he is doing next to Randi, Shermer and Dawkins on a list of freethinkers, described as the sanest person on the planet :

http://www.nobeliefs.com/freethinkers.htm

freethinker n. One who has rejected authority and dogma, especially in his religious thinking, in favor of rational inquiry and speculation.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

DavidSmith said:This is how I feel our understanding of consciousness stands at the moment. I am in no way comparing the brain to some kind of radio receiver. I am saying that just because we can manipulate consciousness and describe those manipulations in local physical terms does not mean that the local components are the source of the phenomenon per se. They could just as well be regarded as allowing a particular form of consciousness to manifest.
Well, perhaps. But the more manipulative abilities we gain, and the more we understand how those abilities work, the less likely it is that there is some external source. To continue your analogy, if Bob spends more time with the radio, making little changes, probing here, metering there, he is eventually going to understand that there is an external signal and how it interacts with the equipment. If we do the same thing with the brain, yet never find the external signal, then perhaps there isn't one.

Imaginist said:There are a few of us here that have absolutely no problem with healthy skepticism of scientistic explanations of consciousness, but there are plenty of members in the materialist congregation for whom this is going to make no difference - they're true believers.
The problem is that there is no scientific explanation yet, so we have no reason to reject it. You're begin skeptical of a 5%-complete explanation. That's fine, because skepticism is swell, but let's talk again in 200 years.

~~ Paul

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
davidsmith73,

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.


You have changed the argument slightly here. I am saying that under my philosophy, the scientific method would not have the same assumptions (objective and subject would no longer be mutually exclusive) so it would be different from its current form. So I am constructing a different framework of reality and therefore science would have different assumptions.


David: 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stimpy: 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.

Erm, I have made assumptions about the nature of reality and observation. Can you be more specific about these assumptions ?
I am assuming that a mathematical description does not reflect an objective reality separate from our experience. It merely embodies a description of qualia that have a degree of stability. If the description is a good one then its descriptive predictions about other qualia (observations made under different conditions) will roughly agree.


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.


No. You have again displayed the inability to view reality from outside your materialistic perspective. Without the assumption of objective reality, we cannot conclude anything about an objective reality. This is logical. If we drop this assumption then our mathematical descriptions become just that - descriptions of our qualia. And of course, these descriptions are qualia themselves since they reside within the confines of our experience (under my philosophy).



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


How ironic that you have paraphrased materialism. :D


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

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

David: 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.

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


Assumptions of objective reality - it is logical and consistent

For an observation to exactly adhere to these assumptions it must be exactly logical and consistent. Show me how every observationion is exactly logical and consistent (whatever that means :rolleyes:)



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?



Yes. All I have to do is to change the meaning of what a theory relates to.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
DavidSmith said:
Well, perhaps. But the more manipulative abilities we gain, and the more we understand how those abilities work, the less likely it is that there is some external source. To continue your analogy, if Bob spends more time with the radio, making little changes, probing here, metering there, he is eventually going to understand that there is an external signal and how it interacts with the equipment. If we do the same thing with the brain, yet never find the external signal, then perhaps there isn't one.



Or perhaps we might suggest we are applying the wrong method to search for the "signal". Consciousness per se may not be describable in mathematical terms. We may need to re-assess our assumptions about the nature of matter vs qualia, which is what I, UCE and a few others have been suggesting in this thread.

[Imaginist]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
The problem is that there is no scientific explanation yet, so we have no reason to reject it. You're begin skeptical of a 5%-complete explanation. That's fine, because skepticism is swell, but let's talk again in 200 years.

~~ Paul

Agreed. It's a date!

In the meantime, let's investigate all the possibilities and not simply dismiss the evidence that doesn't fit our preconceptions, or ignore the arguments that threaten our own pet theories. (Paul, I'm not saying that you as an individual are doing that.)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

DavidSmith said:Or perhaps we might suggest we are applying the wrong method to search for the "signal". Consciousness per se may not be describable in mathematical terms. We may need to re-assess our assumptions about the nature of matter vs qualia, which is what I, UCE and a few others have been suggesting in this thread.
That may be a compelling thing to suggest in a few hundred years, if we're still having trouble explaining consciousness using only the brain. Of course, my prediction is that some people will always say we don't understand consciousness, no matter how much progress we make, because they will insist that the "me-ness" of consciousness isn't explained by the neuroscience. The special place that consciousness has in the brain of the investigator will always be a reason to suggest that it is so special that it can't be physical.

Imaginist said:In the meantime, let's investigate all the possibilities and not simply dismiss the evidence that doesn't fit our preconceptions, or ignore the arguments that threaten our own pet theories.
Agreed! What was that evidence again? :p

~~ Paul

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Agreed! What was that evidence again? :p

~~ Paul [/B]

Paul,

What does Bells theorem mean to you?

How do you think it is possible for two particles on opposite sides of the Galaxy to be so 'entangled' that the state of one is instantly dependent on the state of the other?

I asked Stimpson this question and he replied that "It is a mystery."

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/BellsTheorem/BellsTheorem.html

Geoff.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE, we're talking about consciousness. I forget the evidence that should convince me that materialism is impossible. But, by all means, as Imaginist says, let's investigate all the possibilities.

If you can show that information is transmitted faster than the speed of light, you've got my attention.

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Paul,

What does Bells theorem mean to you?

How do you think it is possible for two particles on opposite sides of the Galaxy to be so 'entangled' that the state of one is instantly dependent on the state of the other?

I asked Stimpson this question and he replied that "It is a mystery."

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/BellsTheorem/BellsTheorem.html

Geoff.

UcE,

Does the phrase "argument from ignorance" ring a "Bell"?

Cheers,

[Win]

Bill:

Does the phrase "argument from ignorance" ring a "Bell"?

Does "you clearly don't bother to read posts that might cause you to realize that you're an ignoramus" ring a bell?

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Win
Does "you clearly don't bother to read posts that might cause you to realize that you're an ignoramus" ring a bell?
Win,

Of course. You know me. Just a bouncer at a local strip club. But to this bouncer mind of mine, it seems Paul asked for evidence of materialism being false, and UcE brought up quantum entanglement and Stimpy's answer that it is still a mystery.

Sorry, I can't actually follow the logic here. Sorry, I don't have time to actually read the posts. I have to attend to the ladies and make sure they're all safe. I'll just drop in and make a random, utterly impertinent comment from time to time, uninformed by the content of the posts. Of course.

Cheers,

[Win]

Bill:

Sorry, I can't actually follow the logic here. Sorry, I don't have time to actually read the posts. I have to attend to the ladies and make sure they're all safe. I'll just drop in and make a random, utterly impertinent comment from time to time, uninformed by the content of the posts. Of course.

As is your nature.

Nevertheless, you're inability to grasp the logic of the positions should have no bearing on your tendency to be smug.

Recognise your limitations.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I, too, would be interested to know what Bell's Theorem has to do with consciousness. Was it just an example of something we don't completely understand?

~~ Paul

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Win
Bill:



As is your nature.

Nevertheless, you're inability to grasp the logic of the positions should have no bearing on your tendency to be smug.

Recognise your limitations.

Gee, Win,

You're just not helping me here. I don't have a lot of time, in between handling the customers at this joint. Just what about citing Bell's Theorem and Stimpy's explanation that it is still a mystery is not an argument from ignorance in the context of a request for evidence about the non-material nature of consciousness?

Your very kind ad homs, you realize, don't logically address the question.

Back to work. Candy's up next. Somebody always gets out of control when she dances.

Cheers,

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

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 quantum physics.

Oh yes? Kindly inform me how you could possibly know this.

From the way that the theory defines an observer we say the rock registers the quantum event re-entangling it with the rest of the universe.

Assuming a human observer leads to a strange universe, for example
an experiment that puts an elephant in a box along with a sinister device.
The device consists of an atom of a radioactive substance that if it decays,
it triggers a hammer to fall smashing a bottle of cyanide killing the elephant.
After a half hour has passed the atom has half a chance of decaying. What
state will the elephant be in - alive, dead, or a superposition of both alive
and dead?

If we make the assumption that the elephant exists in a state of both
alive and dead at the same time until a human observer peers into the
box then we get a strange universe. When the elephant dies it falls over
sending out seismic waves that propagates into the surrounding world,
it no longer gives off heat also affecting the environment, even it's position
gravitationally affects to some small degree other bodies around it. In other
words a macroscopic superposition leaks out of the box throwing the entire
universe into superposition including the observer who has not yet peered
into the box.

If on the other hand you realize that the observer in the box is in fact the
detector then the way out of this unpleasant state of affairs becomes clear.
The detector’s recording of the even results in a definite alive or dead state
for the elephant. What the human observer does not know about the state
no longer matters and the universe become consistent.

If you want, you can sink deep into the quantum philosophy of John G.
Cramer and the Transactional Interpretation. See also: Wigber's Friend (http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI_toc.html).

[Jethro]

Also, in the so-called Schroedinger's Cation experiment, the investigators were able to put an atom (which in a quantum sense is fairly huge) into a superposition of two states, but once the seperation of the two states got large enough the wave function collapsed before a measurement was made. References available upon request (i.e. once I find them again. Google up NIST schroedinger. The latest part of the experiment took place in 2001).

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I, too, would be interested to know what Bell's Theorem has to do with consciousness. Was it just an example of something we don't completely understand?

~~ Paul

READ THE LINK.

My time here is done, folks. If you want your evidence then read the link I posted yesterday on Bells theorem, and then give it a good long think, and while you are doing it think about your own thought process - are you seeking the truth or are you trying to defend your pet beliefs?.

Seek and ye shall find.

I have asked Hal to permanently disable my accounts.

This is UndercoverElephant signing off.

:)

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win, Rusty, and David,

I have been away for a few days, and have not been able to access the Net. It will take me a while to go through all of these posts, and address all of the comments and questions you have made to me.

Dr. Stupid

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant

This is UndercoverElephant signing off.

:)

The UcE function collapses whenever it gets entangled with rational particles.

[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.

Not true. Indeed, physicalism directly implies that it must be possible to construct unfalsifiable theories.

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.

This is where you are wrong. It is not possible to disprove the theory that Thor was creating the lightning bolts. All that has been demonstrated is that the existence of Thor is not necessary to explain the existence of lighting. One can always claim that Thor just uses the build-up of static in the atmosphere, in order to do it. Maybe the way Thor creates lighting bolts is by influencing QM in some subtle way, in order to cause lightning to occur exactly when and where he wants it to? Do you see now why it is also pointless to try to use QM as a way for your agent to influence the physical World? It is exactly the same type of unfalsifiable hypothesis.

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.

Physicalism does not claim that every effect has a cause. You are confusing yourself about what physicalism is, by trying to apply a definition of physical to it that is not consistent with the one that physicalism is based on.

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.

I am not even sure what you mean by the word "effect". Existence is clearly a property, as evidenced by the fact that I can say "my car has the property of existing, and my imaginary friend, Bob, does not".

What makes my rock continue existing through time?

Where did you get the bizarre notion that something has to "cause" things to keep existing through time? This is certainly not an assumption of science, or of physicalism.

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.

You are making a big assumption about the nature of reality here. It may be an intuitively compelling assumption, but it is nevertheless an assumption, and one which contrary to available evidence.

Existence being property (and not an effect) would be an idealist view.

Once again, I don't understand what you mean by "effect". When I say "effect", I mean an event that was caused by some other event. In science, everything is defined in terms of events. Some events are causes, because they cause effects. Some events are not effects, because they were not caused. All observable events are causes, because they affect other things (they have to, in order to be observed).

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.

In physicalism, which is a philosophy, it is also physical. I think you are being somewhat naive in your assertion that "philosophy" has one set definition for "physical", or anything else, for that matter. I know that you, Win, UCE, and Ian, all seem to define "physical" differently. And of them, only Win seems to willing to entertain the notion that somebody else might actually define the term differently than he does.

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.
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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.

Huh? I am not talking about things being causes without an effect. That would just be self-contradictory. A cause has to cause something in order to be a cause. What I am talking about is events which are not caused, but which act as causes for other events.

Why do you think there is TLOQP? Because TLOQP is in violation of TLOP.

You are confused. QM violates classical mechanics, but that is ok, because classical mechanics is wrong. Quantum Mechanics is physics.

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.

I am most definitely a skeptical scientist. But what makes you think you are more qualified than me to say what physicalism is? Do you think there are any people in the world who call themselves physicalists (or materialists) who define "physical" the way you do? I have certainly never met any. Maybe not "all" philosophers define physical the way you do?

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.

Do you not realize that your claim that physicalism is false because the definition of "physical" is "X", is nothing more than a semantic argument?

You are attacking a strawman. Physicalism simply does not mean what you think it means.

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.
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By definition they are random. Random means not caused. If they are not caused then they are random.

Once again, that is your definition. I have never met anybody who agrees with that definition. Regardless, it is not the physicalist or scientific definition, and therefore of zero relevance to the question of the validity of materialism/physicalism.

We can debate the meaning of the word "random" in your randomness thread, if you want, but it has no place here.

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.
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That's called soft determinism.

Call it what you want. It is still incompatible with LFW.

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.
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So you no longer believe physicalism but something else? Perhaps this is that ontological monism that UE was talking about then.

Do you have any idea how arrogant that sounds? I am a physicalist. Physicalism just doesn't mean what you think it means. You can either let people who are physicalists explain to you what it really means, or you can insist it means something that nobody actually believes, and simply be ignored. The choice is yours.

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.
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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.

The Universe being finite is not sufficient. We would have to know that it is. That is impossible. The best we could do is claim that everything we have observed is explicable in terms of a finite Universe.

Remember that no scientific theory can ever be proven true. All we can do is demonstrate that the theory is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena.

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.
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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.

I asserted that she does not learn any new information.

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.

I never asserted that. What makes you think I have? Physicalism holds that all physical events are, at least in principle, observable.

Mary does not gain any new information about red when she sees it. All she gains is the physical memory of having seen red.
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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.

This is simply nonsense. If I gave Mary a book with all the information about a rock, and she reads it all, and knows everything there is to know about that rock, and then I give her the rock, does she gain anything? Of course she does. She just doesn't gain any new information.

She can know exactly what her brain will be like after she has seen red. That information isn't going to magically transform her brain to that state, any more than it will magically cause a rock to appear in her hand.

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.

The physicalists only has to assert that she will not gain any new information, since that is all she can get from reading a book. And a physicalists certainly doesn't have to assert that it is possible to do the experiment. On the contrary, the idea that a person could even know all that information is ludicrous.

It is starting to sound like you are not a physicalist either.

Nobody is. There is probably not a single person on this planet who actually believes what you are claiming physicalism is. :rolleyes:

Dr. Stupid

[Stimpson J. Cat]

DavidSmith73,

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.
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You have changed the argument slightly here. I am saying that under my philosophy, the scientific method would not have the same assumptions (objective and subject would no longer be mutually exclusive) so it would be different from its current form. So I am constructing a different framework of reality and therefore science would have different assumptions.

That's fine, but it is not enough to simply say that you are constructing such a framework. You need to explain exactly what those assumptions are, and show the chain of logic that leads from those assumptions to the scientific method.

Good luck.

David: 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.
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Stimpy: 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.
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Erm, I have made assumptions about the nature of reality and observation. Can you be more specific about these assumptions ?
I am assuming that a mathematical description does not reflect an objective reality separate from our experience. It merely embodies a description of qualia that have a degree of stability. If the description is a good one then its descriptive predictions about other qualia (observations made under different conditions) will roughly agree.

How stable? Under what conditions can they be expected to be stable, and not-stable? Why those conditions? What control methods can be used to assess the reliability of an observation, and on what logical basis are those methods derived?

These are all questions that physicalism can, and has, answered. Your alternative framework must answer them as well.

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.
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No. You have again displayed the inability to view reality from outside your materialistic perspective. Without the assumption of objective reality, we cannot conclude anything about an objective reality. This is logical. If we drop this assumption then our mathematical descriptions become just that - descriptions of our qualia. And of course, these descriptions are qualia themselves since they reside within the confines of our experience (under my philosophy).

Read what I said again, particularly the first sentence. You must understand why the scientific method allows us to logically draw conclusions from our observations. Your own framework must also provide a logical basis for drawing conclusions from our observations. You can strip away the axioms of science, and replace them with other ones, but those new axioms must also allow us to logically draw conclusions from our observations.

A heuristic algorithm is one that seems to work, but you don't really understand why.
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How ironic that you have paraphrased materialism.

It would be, if that were true. But it is not.

Assumptions of objective reality - it is logical and consistent

For an observation to exactly adhere to these assumptions it must be exactly logical and consistent. Show me how every observationion is exactly logical and consistent (whatever that means :rolleyes: )

Our observations are not logical and consistent. Objective Reality is. Fortunately, reliable information about Objective Reality can be extracted from those observations.

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?
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Yes. All I have to do is to change the meaning of what a theory relates to.

If you do that, you change the meaning of the theory. You are no longer talking about science. You are talking about something else. Something else which has not been demonstrated to be reliable (as science has). You must therefore demonstrate that it is reliable too.

Dr. Stupid

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

For clarity's sake, let me point out that an eliminative materialist is not someone who holds that phenomenal properties just are physical properties. Rather, she denies their existence.

This makes no sense to me. If you define "phenomenal" properties to be those properties we have direct access to, then there would be no "eliminative materialists". One would only endorse that position if "phenomenal" were defined in such a way as to presume more than just "direct access".

It is for this reason that I say that the knowledge argument allows the truth of the eliminative materialist position. The knowledge argument suggests that reductive materialism is false.

How so? I don't see how the fact that Mary will gain the memory of seeing red, but not any new information, in any way invalidates reductive materialism.

In fact, you could replace Mary with a computer, and get exactly the same results.

You could have a computer which takes visual input from a camera, and does preprocessing on this input with one processor. The results of that preprocessor are set to the CPU, which does information processing.

Give the computer memory which stores the input from its visual preprocessor, and give it the ability to store the results of its information processing by encoding it in the same format as the visual input. That way, the only way it can remember things is by reprocessing the remembered "experience".

Now, teach this computer how to read, and name it Mary. Stick it in the black and white room.

The situation will be the same as Mary. From reading its books, it will learn everything about red, and about how its camera sees red, and how its preprocessor treats that information, and about how it (the CPU) deals with that information. It has all of the relevant information.

Now take it outside, and show it something red. It does not learn any new information. It just gains the memory of having seen red. Just like Mary. Any information that the CPU could potentially extract from that memory, is already there in other memories. But the memory is new. The computer has changed, just as Mary will change.

How does this violate reductive materialism? If reductive materialism is true, then it should be possible to make the computer so sophisticated that it possesses phenomenal consciousness too. But that doesn't change the experiment one iota, because that phenomenal consciousness is nothing more than a set of physical processes occurring in the computer's CPU.

Now, Stimpy has suggested that, 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." This, I believe, is not so. Imagine two theories, one which predicts the existence of phenomenal consciousness, as well as things about the phsyical world, the other which makes the same physical predictions, but does not predict a phenomenal world. Which is a better theory? Depends on whether you think phenomenal consciousness is a feature of the world.

That depends. If the second theory predicts that there is no phenomenal world at all, then you reject it, because you believe in the phenomenal world. But what if it simply doesn't make any claim either way? It is still consistent with the existence of a phenomenal world, it just doesn't require it. You have no grounds for rejecting this theory, and it is more parsimonious than the first one.

What's more, if your p-zombie argument is valid, then such a neutral alternative theory must exist.

Which brings me to the idea that observations are the only way to distinguish between competing theories. I also think that this is not so. We pick betwen theories of the world based on other considerations than confirmation by observation. Is the theory parsimonious, for example.

Exactly. If the p-zombie argument is valid, then the most parsimonious theory will always be one which makes no reference at all to the phenomenal world. That doesn't mean it is inconsistent with the existence of the phenomenal world. Just the opposite, it will be consistent both with the existence and non-existence of the phenomenal world.

The idea that there are an infinite number of theories for any given set of observations, and we can have no position of which one is correct strikes me as wrong. There isn't an infinite number of good theories.

Irrelevant. The p-zombie argument requires that the best theory will be one which makes no reference to the phenomenal world at all, and also requires that such a theory must exist.

Which brings me to my final point, about instrumentalism versus realism in science. I think it necesssary (in the sense of desireable) that we accept that science is telling us something about the real world. To say that science is just a mechanism to make predictions about future observations, and beyond that makes no claim to be explaining the "real" world is to abdicate the point of science, which is to understand the world.

I don't see the conflict. Science does tell us something about the "real" world. It just doesn't tell us anything more than what we should expect our future observations of it to be. This isn't just a philosophical position. Science is not capable of telling us any more than this. We can make up interpretations of our scientific theories that say more than this, but that is just speculation, and in any event, science is not providing those interpretations.

Instrumentalist positions, which dismiss as mere metaphysics the idea that our theories of the world are actually teliing us something about what it is "really like," are the legacy of a bankrupt positivism.

Nevertheless, it is the truth about the way science works. If you extract anything more from a scientific theory than predictions about observations, then those additional things are not being logically concluded from the theory. They are being made up by you. That is fantasy, not science.

In any event, it is not the case that to understand what science really is, or to have a scientific worldview, you have to be an instrumentalist, though many instrumentalists would make that claim.

Even if you are not an instrumentalist, if you understand what science really is, then you know that any metaphysical interpretations you attach to scientific theories is not part of science.

An eliminativist accepts the existence of entities like beliefs, desires, and sensations in a psychological sense, which is to say as descriptions of functional components of the mind. What an eliminativist doesn't accept is that these entities have any phenomenal component, as folk psychology would suggest. So, once you've explained, say, what's going on in the brain, nervous system and body when you cut your finger, you've exhausted explanation. There's no point in asking, let alone explaining, what the pain feels like to you, because the phenomenal experience of the pain is an "illusion."

There's no such thing as phenomenal experience. We may think that there is, but we're mistaken, and an explanation can be provided for why we have this mistaken belief.

Saying that it is an illusion is not equivalent to saying it doesn't exist. On the contrary, it is saying that it does exist, but just isn't what we are led by our intuition to believe it is.

I think that the distinction you are making between eliminative and reductive materialism is a purely artificial and semantic one.

Dr. Stupid

[Dub]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
My time here is done, folks. If you want your evidence then read the link I posted yesterday on Bells theorem, and then give it a good long think, and while you are doing it think about your own thought process - are you seeking the truth or are you trying to defend your pet beliefs?.

Seek and ye shall find.

I have asked Hal to permanently disable my accounts.

This is UndercoverElephant signing off.

:)

Back inside your box you go.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy said:Now take it outside, and show it something red. It does not learn any new information. It just gains the memory of having seen red. Just like Mary. Any information that the CPU could potentially extract from that memory, is already there in other memories. But the memory is new. The computer has changed, just as Mary will change.
I must not be reading this right. Let's talk about Mary. The data stored in Mary's visual pathways as a result of seeing red is not available from her book-learned memories. We've agreed on that before. You seem to be saying that the visual pathways have memory, but that the data in that memory is non-information. What does that mean?

~~ Paul

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

Now take it outside, and show it something red. It does not learn any new information. It just gains the memory of having seen red. Just like Mary. Any information that the CPU could potentially extract from that memory, is already there in other memories. But the memory is new. The computer has changed, just as Mary will change.
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I must not be reading this right. Let's talk about Mary. The data stored in Mary's visual pathways as a result of seeing red is not available from her book-learned memories. We've agreed on that before.

Careful. There is data, and there is the neural pathways themselves. The information about what those neural pathways will be like was in the book. She knows exactly what the physical condition of her brain will be after she sees red. Her brain will just not have that physical condition until after she sees red.

You seem to be saying that the visual pathways have memory, but that the data in that memory is non-information. What does that mean?

Not exactly. The memory itself is not information. It is a physical state. She already knows everything about that physical state. She just doesn't have that physical state, until she actually sees red.

That new memory does have information in it, just like any memory. But she already has that information encoded in other memories.

Also, don't confuse the memory of seeing red with the physical changes to her visual cortex that are necessary for processing red. That is a whole other issue. It is also somewhat irrelevant. Your brain changes everytime you have an experience. So in that sense, all experiences are "novel". You always get "something new". The only really relevant question is whether she gains any new abstract information, since as I have said before, that is all she can get from the book anyway.

Put simply, the physical changes to her brain are irrelevant. The only relevant question is whether she gains any new abstract information from actually having the experience. I say that if we accept the ludicrous premise that she is actually capable of learning all of the abstract information from a book, then she will not gain any new abstract information from the experience. Any abstract information she could potentially extract from her memory of the experience, will be information she already has.

The entire thought experiment is, in my opinion, little more than a deliberate attempt to use misleading language in order to make materialism appear less intuitively reasonable. By using vague terms like "facts", "learn", and "know", in ways that refer to different things in different parts of the explanation, it creates what appears to be a contradiction, but is really nothing more than deliberately obfuscated semantic nonsense.

If they really wanted to present it clearly, they would do so using the terminology of materialism. Something like the following:

Mary lives all her life in a black and white room. A complete description of how perception of color works, is compiled into a book, along with a complete description of the workings of Mary's brain, and even a complete description of what the state of Mary's brain will be after she sees the color red. Mary reads this book, and for the purposes of this thought experiment, we will assume that Mary is able to completely understand all of the information therein.

After doing so, she sees red for the first time. Does she get any new information from this experience?

The answer, if physicalism is true, is clearly no.

Of course, when presented this way, the experiment no longer seems very interesting. It amounts to no more than saying "If we imagine somebody had all the information about something, would it be possible for them to get more?".

Phenomenal stuff doesn't even enter into it. Neither does dualism. Under both materialism and dualism, we would say that the physical state of her brain changes when she sees red. If that is not a contradiction for dualism, then why would it be one for materialism?

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy said:Careful. There is data, and there is the neural pathways themselves. The information about what those neural pathways will be like was in the book. She knows exactly what the physical condition of her brain will be after she sees red. Her brain will just not have that physical condition until after she sees red.
I basically agree, but if any of the neural encodings are stochastic, she doesn't know exactly the physical condition. But the important point is that knowledge of the physical condition isn't the physical condition itself.

That new memory does have information in it, just like any memory. But she already has that information encoded in other memories.
No way!

Also, don't confuse the memory of seeing red with the physical changes to her visual cortex that are necessary for processing red. That is a whole other issue. It is also somewhat irrelevant. Your brain changes everytime you have an experience. So in that sense, all experiences are "novel". You always get "something new". The only really relevant question is whether she gains any new abstract information, since as I have said before, that is all she can get from the book anyway.
Aha, this is the source of our confusion. All along I've been talking about the changes in her visual pathways/cortex, not her memory of red. The weights and other values in the neurons in her visual pathways is the data she doesn't have from book reading, nor does she even have a good guess at it, because it is surely stochastic.

I agree she gains no abstract information, but I think if we refer to the pathway data as facts/information, we make it stunningly clear that she does gain information when she leaves the room, information that she clearly cannot get from books. So the premise that she's learned all the information about red is incorrect.

Well, I feel much better now. Even if we don't agree on the exact definition of some terms, I now understand the source of our confusion.

The entire thought experiment is, in my opinion, little more than a deliberate attempt to use misleading language in order to make materialism appear less intuitively reasonable. By using vague terms like "facts", "learn", and "know", in ways that refer to different things in different parts of the explanation, it creates what appears to be a contradiction, but is really nothing more than deliberately obfuscated semantic nonsense.
Yeah! :D

~~ Paul

[Loki]

Paul/Stimpy,

Lately I've been thinking about Mary and the KA in computer terms - when we say that Mary has "all the facts" about red, we mean that she has access to the complete source code of the "red" program. She's a very clever programmer, so reading the source code she can see *exactly* what will happen, when, why, and how. She can confidently state that the "red' program will produce the answer "42".

But it's not until she actually leave the B&W room that the program runs. She doesn't actually *learn* anything, since the program performs exactly as she knew it would, and the answer is "42", exactly as expected. But the one thing that has changed is that a program that had never run before has now run. It seems to me that this "new fact" is still very much a physical fact.

By using vague terms like "facts", "learn", and "know", in ways that refer to different things in different parts of the explanation, it creates what appears to be a contradiction, but is really nothing more than deliberately obfuscated semantic nonsense.
Hopefully I haven't confused the issue, because this is essentually how I see it - *if* she gains something new, it's only in the sense of having run a program that had never run before. Why this would constitute a fatal flaw for materialism escapes me.

[Loki]

davidsmith73,

Lets say I were to give a radio set to my friend Bob who has never encountered one and who does not know about electromagnetism. I then set him the task of coming up with a theory about how the output of the radio is produced. Some time later I check how he is getting on and he looks perplexed. Bob says, "well, I removed this funny looking bit from all the other bits inside and the speaker made no sound. When I put that bit back the music returned". I asked him "what do you conlclude from this". He replied, "Its obvious that the special arrangement of bits produces the output of the radio. The music is therefore a product of this arrangement".

Bob is right on the one hand. The arrangement of matter does produce the music. However, as much as Bob's conclusion seems to follow a logical argument, the source of the music has been overlooked.
I know this is just an analogy, not a concerted effort at a full explanation or proof, but I find the analogy "weak" in two important details.

First, every radio on the planet is, apparently, receiving it's own private channel.

Second, the communication appears to be two way, rather than one way. For some reason, the "radio broadcast" is often aware of any damage to the reciever, and is able to make statements like "the quality of my output is poor ever since the speaker cone was damaged".

Any analogy that doesn't address these two points seems weak, in my opinion.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Loki
davidsmith73,


I know this is just an analogy, not a concerted effort at a full explanation or proof, but I find the analogy "weak" in two important details.

First, every radio on the planet is, apparently, receiving it's own private channel.


Perhaps because each radio is subtly different in physically descriptive terms. Also, the privateness of each channel may not be so private after all. When the radios are coherent enough to recieve the same channel we may observe phenomena that you will find being discussed over on the paranormal forum. But that is another topic of debate. I don't want to push this radio/receiver analogy because to take it too literally would be naive.


Second, the communication appears to be two way, rather than one way. For some reason, the "radio broadcast" is often aware of any damage to the reciever, and is able to make statements like "the quality of my output is poor ever since the speaker cone was damaged".

Any analogy that doesn't address these two points seems weak, in my opinion.

You are right but I wasn't intending to theorise about any particular aspects of consciousness. I was merely illustrating how we may be limiting our thinking about it.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
DavidSmith73,

Our observations are not logical and consistent. Objective Reality is. Fortunately, reliable information about Objective Reality can be extracted from those observations.



This is where I am having troubles. You say that our observations behave exactly as if the assumptions about an objective reality were true, namely that the reality is logical and consistent.

Now, here we agree that our actual observations are not logical and consistent in an exact way, a characteristic which has failed to pass them for our criterion of behaving exactly as if the objective assumptions were true.

So I'm still not sure precisely what you mean when you say our observations behave exactly as if the assumptions about objective reality were true ?

You said this does not mean the observations adhere exactly to logically consistent mathematical descriptions, so what else do you mean ?

I'm not trying to play word games or anything, I am just genuinely perplexed.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

davidsmith73,

Our observations are not logical and consistent. Objective Reality is. Fortunately, reliable information about Objective Reality can be extracted from those observations.
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This is where I am having troubles. You say that our observations behave exactly as if the assumptions about an objective reality were true, namely that the reality is logical and consistent.

Now, here we agree that our actual observations are not logical and consistent in an exact way, a characteristic which has failed to pass them for our criterion of behaving exactly as if the objective assumptions were true.

So I'm still not sure precisely what you mean when you say our observations behave exactly as if the assumptions about objective reality were true ?

You said this does not mean the observations adhere exactly to logically consistent mathematical descriptions, so what else do you mean ?

I'm not trying to play word games or anything, I am just genuinely perplexed.

Look at it this way. In order to understand reality (whatever it is), we must assume it is logical and consistent. I think we are in agreement on that point, right?

The simplest hypothesis we could start with, is that our perceptions are reality. This hypothesis, however, is easily falsified, when we see that our perceptions are, in general, neither logical nor consistent.

So now we have to change an assumption of our hypothesis. If we reject the "logical and consistent" assumption, then we are essentially giving up. So we move the next, more complicated possibility: That our perceptions are not reality itself, but instead we assume that reliable information about reality can be extracted from these perceptions.

Now, this hypothesis is still falsifiable. To see how, look at a simpler example that we see all the time in science. Measurement.

When we make any kind of measurement, there is always some kind of error involved. Does this mean that the quantity being measured does not actually have any consistent well-defined value? Not necessarily (forget QM for now).

Instead, we can construct the hypothesis that there is, in fact, an actual value which we are measuring, and that the error is due to various types of external bias that can be controlled for. We can then attempt to control for them, for example, by making repeated measurements, and looking at their statistical distribution.

Note that we can never rule out the possibility that, on some scale, the measured quantity is not consistent. What we can do is show that the average of repeated measurements seem to converge towards a specific value. More importantly, we can say that if our hypothesis of the measured quantity having a specific, consistent value, were false, then we could not expect repeated measurements to converge to a specific value.

This is what I mean when I say that our observations behave exactly as though the hypothesis were true. I mean that our observations are consistent with a falsifiable hypothesis, and that if the hypothesis were false, thy would not have to be.

The use of the term "exactly" here may be somewhat misleading. I was not trying to imply that the hypothesis of an objective reality somehow predicts exactly what every observation should be. It does not. My point is simply that the set of all observations is consistent with the hypothesis that reality is objective, logical, and consistent.

Dr. Stupid

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Loki said:Lately I've been thinking about Mary and the KA in computer terms - when we say that Mary has "all the facts" about red, we mean that she has access to the complete source code of the "red" program. She's a very clever programmer, so reading the source code she can see *exactly* what will happen, when, why, and how. She can confidently state that the "red' program will produce the answer "42".
Some of the source code is missing. There are data tables that the code needs to operate, which are not populated until Mary actually sees red. The data tables aren't program statements, but they are part of the code.

Heck, some of those data tables might encode another language which is interpreted by the static program statements, in which case they really are program statements.

All the bits aren't there until Mary sees red.

~~ Paul

[DanishDynamite]

A comment regarding my use of "evil". I was replying to Interesting Ian, who usually refers to materialists as idiots, stupid, *ssholes, etc. It is fairly clear that he considers materialism/science beneath contempt. Hence my sarcastic use of "evil materialism/sarcastic".

Win, in regard to your explanation of your position on the "coincidence question", I'll have to side with Paul. I don't see how your explanation deviates substantially from my portrayal of same.

In regard to UCE signing off again, well, it is kind of sad. He was usually worth reading. Course, judging by previous behaviour, there is a fair chance that he'll be back.

[Dancing David]

Using Mary raised in the b&w room, she has all the intellectual information needed understand 'red', but she does not have the nueral pathways that percieve the red until she steps out of the room, she does aquire new experience.

Axiom A: she still has the nueral pathways capable of percieving red after the passage of time. Ofetn nueral pathways die if they aren't used.

The last time I heard (nueropsychology along time ago) colors were percieved directly through this little reverberating loops where you have a red receptor surrounded by green receptors in a layer of loops and green receptors surrounded by reds in another layer and then I think that there were interconecting layers beween the reds and greens: in the retina so each receptor feeds into four sperate information chanels, those opposing the color and those matching the color.
Then this is passed through the optic nerves to the nueral visual area where it is processied in these columns strips that sort out the 'true/coherent/ from the "false/incoherent".
So the first time that Mary sees 'red' her brain needs to process the fact that the green middle loops are in the 'off' postion, the red middle loops are in the 'on' postion , the green similar loop are 'off' and the red similar loops are 'on'. This occurs at the retinal level and then the information is passed on to the visual cortex.
The cortex takes time for it to figure out what is going on and then we begin to percieve 'red', it is a learning reverberation through the whole system. It is also why babies should be exposed to colors when they are young.
I imagine that it may take hours to days for her to actualy percieve the color 'red', was she exposed to gray tones? She would most likely percieve the 'red' as black for a while (due to the fact that her rods have already learned to see black and white and her cones have learned to see black and white), if she was exposed to grey tones she would most likely see 'red' as grey and then begin to see the red as 'red'.

So she does have a learning experience based upon the actual sensation of the new color.

Sorry , it is along post.

Peace
dancing david

[DanishDynamite]

(bump)

[kuroyume0161]

Dancing David,

Those pathways would not wither because gray still requires all three color receptors to "see" gray. Light is light and the eyes see light (a particular band of energies of the electromagnetic spectrum), not colors per se.

Not arguing with you, just explaining my take on how Mary can still see "red" even if raised in a totally grayscale environment. She wouldn't have lost the ability, just the cognition until enough stimulation caused neurons to start connecting. Evolution within such an environment is another story altogether.