Consciousness

Now a question, to see whether I am talking to a human or a dalek.

What is ontological materialism founded on?

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
You are correct! Materialism IS NOT FOUNDED ON ANYTHING AT ALL!

It is a........***TOTALLY*** ***UNFOUNDED*** ***ASSUMPTION***!

Go on Pixy....say it isn't....make my day.

Are you feeling OK, Mister Elephant? Getting enough peanuts and all that?

Yes. Materialism is based on an assumption. This is necessary. Without such an assumption you are stuck with solipsism, which as I have pointed out, is not very useful. Whether the assumption is unfounded or not is questionable. It is certainly based on observation.

Idealism makes a different assumption, based on a different observation.

Dualism makes two assumptions based on two sets of observations.

Did you actually have a point you wished to make?

Pixy

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Yes. Materialism is based on an assumption. This is necessary. Without such an assumption you are stuck with solipsism, which as I have pointed out, is not very useful.

No, Pixy. Idealism isn't the same thing as solipsism. Solipsism is a belief that "My mind is the only thing which exists." Idealism is a belief that "Minds are the only thing whch exist."

Do you understand the difference?

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Whether the assumption is unfounded or not is questionable. It is certainly based on observation.

Which observation suggests that materialism is true which is not just as compatible with both dualism and idealism?

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Idealism makes a different assumption, based on a different observation.

Dualism makes two assumptions based on two sets of observations.

Did you actually have a point you wished to make?

Yes, my point is that you should stick to talking about science, because your understanding of philosophy is very limited indeed, and your capacity for realising when you are in deep doo-da and should stop digging is even more limited. Why do you think none of the materialists here have intervened to help you, Pix? Have considered it might be because they can see you are in deep doo-da and don't fancy joining you?

All three of the above ontologies are compatible with the observed physical world. There are absolutely ZERO observations which allow us to distinguish between them. If there were, we would not be having this discussion.

If you think that the fact that materialism has provided an excellent model for examining the physical world is grounds for claiming a that it is an ontological reality then you quite simply do not have the first idea what you are talking about.

[PixyMisa]

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Originally posted by Franko
You provided Me with a “whole class of examples”?

Yup.

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You must have me confused with one of your other figments.

Nope.

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Without begging the question, why don’t you just present me with ONE SINGLE example of a non-useful (non-beneficial) Truth?

Any tautology will do. Here's a nice shiny one: Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.

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I just like hearing you repeat it A-Theist.

Darn. Back to just being an "A-Theist", am I? Not long ago I was your God.

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Yeah, according to you they imply NOTHING

Wrong. I never said that, and nothing I ever said suggeted that.

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because the Laws of Physics (according to YOU) do NOTHING.

Wrong again, Franko my dear. Again, I never said that, and nothing I ever said suggeted that.

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(TLOP doesn’t control anything

Right.

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if it did Pixy wouldn’t have Her precious magic “free willy” powers!

No magic, Franko darling. And if the laws of physics did control things, free will might or might not exist. I'm not sure. Irrelevant, since your premise is false anyway.

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and Pixychix just can’t exist without Her “special” magic powers!

No magic. Just free will, like all humans, cats, dogs, bunny rabbits... Not you, of course. You're just a mindless zombie.

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Yeah, but according to Tricky (another evil A-Theist) Dictionaries aren’t required to be Logical.

So?

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No, but since I am a figment of your mind, I know that you imagine 95+% of the overall population disagrees with you, and does not call themselves “A-Theists”.

That is a very interesting argument, and is wrong in so many ways I don't know where to start addressing it.

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What figure are you imagining are A-Theist now “god”? Everyone but me?

Nope. There are other confused people in the world. You are just a particularly bright star in the firmament of the bewildered.

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There is no Me.

Ah. Good.

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I don’t exist beyond your imagination.

I have stopped imaginining you... Now.

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
No, Pixy. Idealism isn't the same thing as solipsism.

Yes, Mister Elephant. I know that. I have stated as much.

Why do you never debate what I have actually said rather than what you wish I had said?

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Solipsism is a belief that "My mind is the only thing which exists."

Yes.

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Idealism is a belief that "Minds are the only thing whch exist."

Well, in fact Idealism is the belief that Mind is the only thing that exists. Not Minds. That's different.

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Do you understand the difference?

Better than you do, it would seem.

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Which observation suggests that materialism is true which is not just as compatible with both dualism and idealism?

Well, it's a choice of observations. Pick one, add an assumption, and you have your system. Dualism of course cheats and takes two slices of the cake.

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Yes, my point is that you should stick to talking about science, because your understanding of philosophy is very limited indeed

Superior to yours, though.

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and your capacity for realising when you are in deep doo-da and should stop digging is even more limited.

If my position is wrong, why do you not show it rather than blithering? Why do you persistently attack strawmen rather than my position? Why do you repeatedly make baseless claims rather than demonstrating their truth? Why do you never respond to what I actually say?

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Why do you think none of the materialists here have intervened to help you, Pix?

Because they've written you off as a hopeless case? If they thought I was wrong, they'd say so.

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Have considered it might be because they can see you are in deep doo-da and don't fancy joining you?

Nope.

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All three of the above ontologies are compatible with the observed physical world.

More or less. Idealism and Dualism have to make some pretty severe contortions to maintain compatibility.

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There are absolutely ZERO observations which allow us to distinguish between them.

Show me a disembodied consciousness, and then I'll doubt materialism.

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If there were, we would not be having this discussion.

Given the depth of your bewilderment, I somehow doubt that.

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If you think that the fact that materialism has provided an excellent model for examining the physical world is grounds for claiming a that it is an ontological reality then you quite simply do not have the first idea what you are talking about.

I didn't say that. I simply said that it has proven extremely useful, and so I will continue using it until I find a reason not to do so.

Have you looked at my logical statement of the situation yet, Mister Elephant? Any comments?

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
edited.....

Materialism is not founded on any facts.

Check.

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Materialism is not founded on any evidence.
Materialism is not founded on any observations.
Materialism is not founded on any reasoning.
Materialism is not founded on ANYTHING.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

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Materialism is just a model which is used to investigate the physical world.

It is a model that makes a specific statement about the nature of the physical world.

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As a model for investigating the physical world it has proven highly effective.

A property remarkably lacking in Dualism and Idealism.

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Models employed to investigate the physical world are not the same as ontological realities.

Dum de dum. Now you are discussing the truth value of these models, which you have already said cannot be demonstrated.

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As an ontological reality Materialism IS NOT FOUNDED ON ANYTHING AT ALL.

Wrong. We observe the universe. Observation. We then assume that it actually exists. That is the assumption of materialism: That the material world is what exists. If we didn't observe a material world, we would not make such an assumption, which is why it is not entirely correct to say the assumption is unfounded.

Are you sitting comfortably Pixy?

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quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As an ontological reality Materialism IS NOT FOUNDED ON ANYTHING AT ALL.
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Wrong. We observe the universe.

Correct. We OBSERVE the universe. We are aware of an OBSERVATION of the universe. We are aware of a CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE of the universe.

Which of the following is a fact, and which is an assumption?

A) The Universe is real.
B) Our Observation of the Universe is real.

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We then assume that it actually exists.

Correct.

Materialism assumes a physical Universe exists, even though the only thing we have any direct evidence for is that our experience of a physical Universe exists.

A) is an assumption (that the physical Universe exists as we percieve it to exist)
B) is a directly knowable fact, since our experience (observation) of the Universe is the one thing we can know directly.

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That is the assumption of materialism: That the material world is what exists. If we didn't observe a material world, we would not make such an assumption, which is why it is not entirely correct to say the assumption is unfounded.

It is entirely correct to say the assumption is unfounded. You just claimed materialism was based upon THE OBSERVATION of a physical Universe.

That the observation is real is an undeniable fact.
That the physical world is actually real is a totally unfounded assumption.

[Upchurch]

Wow. I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this fast and furious (and very intellegent) debate between Misa and UCE.

Very educational and interesting. I don't know who to route for! I'm eager to see how it turns out.

Upchurch

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Are you sitting comfortably Pixy?

Correct. We OBSERVE the universe. We are aware of an OBSERVATION of the universe. We are aware of a CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE of the universe.

Which of the following is a fact, and which is an assumption?

A) The Universe is real.

Assumption.

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B) Our Observation of the Universe is real.

Um. This is factual if you skew the definition of "real" appropriately. To say that we observe a universe is certainly a fact.

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Correct.

Yay! What do I win?

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Materialism assumes a physical Universe exists, even though the only thing we have any direct evidence for is that our experience of a physical Universe exists.

A) is an assumption (that the physical Universe exists as we percieve it to exist)
B) is a directly knowable fact, since our experience (observation) of the Universe is the one thing we can know directly.

It is entirely correct to say the assumption is unfounded. You just claimed materialism was based upon THE OBSERVATION of a physical Universe.

That the observation is real is an undeniable fact.
That the physical world is actually real is a totally unfounded assumption.

Finished blathering now? OK.

Nope.

To assume the the universe exists in the minds of a pair of giant squirrels named Bip and Bop is a totally unfounded assumption.

Materialism, Idealism, even Dualism are based on assumptions with some foundation. That's why we don't just reject them as nonsense right away.

Edited to turn a the into a that.

[Tricky]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
That the observation is real is an undeniable fact.
That the physical world is actually real is a totally unfounded assumption.

If I may intrude on this excellent dialogue,

I don't think that "the universe is real" is a totally unfounded assumption. Either it is real, or you are the only consciousness in the universe. If others make the same observations about the objects, then either those objects are real and have those observable qualities, or the "others" only exist in your mind. The independantly verifiable nature of observations makes the reality of the universe quite well founded, IMO. By UCE's logic, the only alternative to the reality of the universe is solipsism. I don't think that is what he is intending to promote.

It's been a pleasure, Pix.

So far you have claimed, in this thread......

That the thesis is about language and is therefore irrelevant to ontology/consciousness.
That the thesis is very relevant to ontology/consciousness.
That the thesis, although about language, flips between being true and not true depending on your belief system
That the experience of pain is a physical thing rather than a mental thing.
That there is a mental/physical linguistic dualism.
That there isn't a mental/physical linguistic dualism.
That it doesn't matter whether there is a mental/physical linguistic dualism or not.
That it does matter whether there is a mental/physical linguistic dualism or not, and that English should be restructured to account for this.
That you never claimed the structure of the English language should be altered to account for this.
That ontological belief systems are not falsifiable by verifiable facts about language anyway.
That you don't care about any philosophies other than materialism.
That it took you only 30 seconds for you to figure out your position on this.
That I am deeply confused.

and my absolute favourite.....

That the historical accuracy of the claimed resurection of Jesus Christ flips between being true or false dependent on your belief system.

In other words THAT THE BIBLE BECOMES TRUE IF YOU BELIEVE IT!

Quote:

Originally posted by Tricky

If I may intrude on this excellent dialogue,

I don't think that "the universe is real" is a totally unfounded assumption. Either it is real, or you are the only consciousness in the universe. If others make the same observations about the objects, then either those objects are real and have those observable qualities, or the "others" only exist in your mind. The independantly verifiable nature of observations makes the reality of the universe quite well founded, IMO. By UCE's logic, the only alternative to the reality of the universe is solipsism. I don't think that is what he is intending to promote.

Tricky,

I am not proposing solipsism. Idealism does not not imply solipsism. It can imply a hierarchy of minds which all have access to the same information.

[Tricky]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


Tricky,

I am not proposing solipsism. Idealism does not not imply solipsism. It can imply a hierarchy of minds which all have access to the same information.

They all have access to the same information, but that information is about something that is not necessarily real? That seems a bit farfetched.

As an example, you take a piece of sandpaper and observe that it is rough. You hand it to another person and he agrees it is rough... repeat as necessary. After a number of independant observations, I would say that there is a very large foundation for the reality of the sandpaper and for the its characteristic roughness.
I agree you could argue that this is an illusion shared by many, but why would you? It seems a lot of effort just so you can deny the reality of the physical world, a concept only useful in philosophy.

[Franko]

Quote:

They all have access to the same information, but that information is about something that is not necessarily real? That seems a bit farfetched.

Is 2 + 2 = 4 “real”? I’d say that it depends on your definitions of ‘2”, “4”, “+”, ‘and “=”.


II + II = IV

Quote:

Originally posted by Tricky

They all have access to the same information, but that information is about something that is not necessarily real? That seems a bit farfetched.

It is real in the same way that Sherlock Holmes is real, or a mathematical structure is real. They do exist, but they aren't physically 'out there'.

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As an example, you take a piece of sandpaper and observe that it is rough. You hand it to another person and he agrees it is rough... repeat as necessary. After a number of independant observations, I would say that there is a very large foundation for the reality of the sandpaper and for the its characteristic roughness.

Many independent people can observe that Sherlock Holmes solved the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles, or that a mandelbrot set is beautiful. It doesn't make them exist independently of an observing mind.

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I agree you could argue that this is an illusion shared by many, but why would you? It seems a lot of effort just so you can deny the reality of the physical world, a concept only useful in philosophy.

It is not something one would normally propose. But then the Hard Problem, which this philsophy solves, is not a normal problem.

[Franko]

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Many independent people can observe that Sherlock Holmes solved the ridlle of the Hound of the Baskervilles, or that a mandelbrot set is beautiful. It doesn't make them exist independently of an observing mind.

Do colors (like "red") exist independantly of an observing mind? Does "red" as you see it exist in reality?

Does that mean that "red" does not exist within this Universe?

Without consciousness is what way does red exist as we perceive it? ... it doesn't.

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Originally posted by Franko

Do colors (like "red") exist independantly of an observing mind?

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Does "red" as you see it exist in reality?

If you are an idealist it does.
If you are a materialist it does not.

i.e. it depends on your definition of what 'reality' is.

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Does that mean that "red" does not exist within this Universe?

Red is a property of ones perception of an object in the physical Universe, not a property of the object.

"The House is red" is a fallacy.
"I perceive the house to be red" is not a fallacy.
A dog perceives the house to be grey.
A bat perceives the house with its radar and doesn't have any concept of colours at all.

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Without consciousness is what way does red exist as we perceive it? ... it doesn't.

Correct.

[Tricky]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
It is real in the same way that Sherlock Holmes is real, or a mathematical structure is real. They do exist, but they aren't physically 'out there'.

Sorry, Sherlock Holmes is fictional. You cannot observe him to exist. You can only read a (real) book about him.

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Many independent people can observe that Sherlock Holmes solved the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles, or that a mandelbrot set is beautiful. It doesn't make them exist independently of an observing mind.

They can not observe that Sherlock Holmes solved any cases. They can only read about them. You cannot have a number of different people observe Sherlock Holmes. You can only read one person's description. He is not a physical object. Sandpaper is.

I can see what you are saying. Mental concepts are just as real as the physical world, or perhaps that the physical world is just as unreal as mental concepts. But I find this incorrect, or at least useless as far as figuring out anything about how the universe works. Can you take Sherlock Holmes and have him find Osima Bin Laden? No. He is not a real person and not a material object (Holmes, I mean). Can you take a piece of sandpaper and smooth some wood. Yes. It is a material object. I think that it is pointless to deny the physical reality of the material world. If you doubt this, try this simple test.

1) Write down a short story about hitting your thumb with a hammer.

2) Hit your thumb with a hammer.

3) Compare and contrast.

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
It is not something one would normally propose. But then the Hard Problem, which this philsophy solves, is not a normal problem.

No, unlike most problems it is a problem that needs no solution. It will not change the way in which you deal with the world in any important way.

Tricky,

This is what is meant by the physical world being intrinsically fictional. Sorry about the length, but if you want to understand what is being proposed, and why, you will have to read it.

NB : edited so I just post the summary - please read the whole paper if you want to understand what I am saying.



http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~ursa/philos/ty99.htm

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1.9 Summary of the argument

The argument presented above pivots on a linguistic point: how we actually use words that denote physical things. This does not mean that I am concerned merely with language and not with reality. On the contrary, I think the mind-body problem poses a substantive question that is very serious and worth while trying to answer. Language is, nevertheless, the medium in which we articulate and then examine our thoughts, and it is therefore possible that an incorrect use of our language could have led us to an incorrect understanding of reality. This, in turn, could have created the mind-body problem. If this is so, a good way to look for an answer is to take a close look at how our language works when we articulate statements about the mental and physical worlds. My claim is that our misunderstanding of what we are actually doing when we talk about the mind and the brain has trapped us into holding an incoherent metaphysical view. Specifically, the superficial similarity of physical and mental statements has led us to think that those statements refer successfully to mental and physical things respectively, and this creates the profound mystery of how those different kinds of thing relate to each other. Stated thus, my claim coincides up to this point with that of the linguistic philosophers of the 1950s - such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle - but after this point my argument goes in the direction opposite to theirs. Whereas their claim is that statements about the physical world are canonical and statements about the mental world are, in some sense, derivative, my claim is the reverse: that statements about the contents of our mind make genuine reference to the mind, whereas those about the contents of the physical world function in a different way. Wittgenstein made the analogy of a railway engine’s cab, in which a number of levers are installed, each with the same kind of handle. A cursory inspection of these levers might suggest that they all work in the same way, but in fact their actions are completely different. Their similarity of form is due only to the engineer’s need to handle them in the same manner, irrespective of their resulting action. Likewise, statements about the mental and physical worlds are similar in form, since they must fit into our conventional grammatical and linguistic practices, but their underlying actions are wholly different.
The crux of the difference concerns reference. In short, with mental statements we can succeed in referring to things, whilst with physical statements we cannot. Thus the functioning of mental statements is much closer to our expectations of how language serves us. The terms of physics do not - and cannot - succeed in reaching out of the symbolic, self-contained system of physics and engaging with some self-subsistent reality.


1.10 Corollary: consciousness is not physical

David Chalmers has drawn a lot of fresh interest to what has historically been known as the mind-body problem. He has renamed it the ‘Hard Problem’, to separate the philosophical problem of accounting in principle for how consciousness can arise in a physical world, from the ‘Soft Problem’ of scientifically studying the detailed correlation of mental and neural activity.
Under the Berkeleian theory of mental monism, of course, the Hard Problem becomes an easy problem, as the physical world is no longer considered to exist.

Nevertheless, the reasoning that has been presented in this section as an argument for mental monism can also be used independently to argue that consciousness is not reducible to the physical world. So, if you feel too uncomfortable with the radical claim that reality is primarily mental, you might nonetheless settle for the intermediate claim that reality is not exclusively physical.

The world that is described by physics consists of entities and operations that are defined wholly by their logical relations with other entities and operations within that world. A number of fundamental terms are allowed, such as mass and space, and all others are derived from them by declaring formulaic relationships between them.

Terms which denote things that are defined by their intrinsic qualities, as opposed to being defined by logical relations, do not and cannot feature in the language of physics. The immediate conscious sensation of seeing the colour red, for instance, is not something that is defined by its relationship to other things. There is a qualitative aspect that cannot be captured by relations. The terms that denote things of this kind can be defined only ostensively, not formally. We can do no more than say, "There! Look at that - that’s what I mean by ‘red’!"

Hence qualitative mental experiences can, by definition, never exist in the physical world. This is a metaphysical claim, but it is also a claim about language - the deeper reason for this is that the physical world itself is a fiction, a verbal construct.

A more concrete way of looking at the situation is to consider that all the physical facts of the world could be printed in black and white in a huge library of books. Somebody who read and understood all these books still would not be informed of the experience of red. Likewise, consider Frank Jackson’s thought-experiment of the neuroscientist Mary: she somehow lives, studies, and works in an exclusively black-and-white world. There, she studies the neurophysiology of human vision, and acquires all physical facts about human colour vision. She knows all about different wavelengths of light, and how they are labelled as "red" and "green", and so on, by people with colour vision. Then, one day, she escapes and sees colours for the first time. Now, she has acquired some new knowledge that she did not previously possess: what the colour red looks like. This, as Chalmers argues, shows that the world of conscious experience contains facts other than those of the physical world.

As we have seen, the reason that the voluminous description of the physical world, or Mary’s laboratory notebooks, can capture all relevant physical facts without mentioning conscious experience is that they need only mention things that have been defined within the closed verbal system of the physical sciences. They include no ostensively defined terms that refer to the contents of conscious experience.

This situation is more radical than some people think.

Some people, such as Chalmers himself, want to integrate consciousness into the natural sciences by making it out to be another fundamental element of reality, alongside mass and space. This misses the point. Consciousness is an ontologically different kind of thing from mass or space. We know this because words that denote things in the conscious world (including the word "consciousness" itself) perform a function of a different kind from words that denote physical things. The former can be given only ostensive definitions, the latter only formal definitions. Consequently, as I have argued above, the physical terms are incapable of bearing any referential meaning: the only meaning they have is a formalistic meaning constituted by their use as tokens within a closed language-game. Hence, the things they denote cannot exist. Contrariwise, the terms that denote things within the world of consciousness can and do bear referential meaning, and what they denote can exist. So, for Chalmers to suggest that consciousness could be a basic part of reality alongside mass and other physical primitives is to make a category-mistake (in Ryle’s celebrated phrase). The physical world is, necessarily, derived by construction from the conscious world.

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
It's been a pleasure, Pix.

Likewise, I'm not sure at all.

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So far you have claimed, in this thread......

Oh goody, another demonstration of Mister Elephant's F- score in reading comprehension.

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That the thesis is about language and is therefore irrelevant to ontology/consciousness.

Hmm. Yes. Yes I said both those things.

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That the thesis is very relevant to ontology/consciousness.

Nope. I said that ontology is relevant the the HPC statement, and that HPC is not relevant to ontology.

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That the thesis, although about language, flips between being true and not true depending on your belief system

Nope. I said that its truth value depends on the truth value of materialism.

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That the experience of pain is a physical thing rather than a mental thing.

Nope. I said that pain has clear physical attributes as well as mental ones.

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That there is a mental/physical linguistic dualism.

Actually, I have pointed out that this is fuzzy at best. English at least is not dualistic so much as messy.

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That there isn't a mental/physical linguistic dualism.

No. I never once said that.

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That it doesn't matter whether there is a mental/physical linguistic dualism or not.

I did not say this as a general comment, but only as it relates to the question of consciousness.

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That it does matter whether there is a mental/physical linguistic dualism or not, and that English should be restructured to account for this.

Nope. I said that English can be restructured, and that languages are indeed structured to take account of similar situations.

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That you never claimed the structure of the English language should be altered to account for this.

Nope. I have said that it is not necessary.

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That ontological belief systems are not falsifiable by verifiable facts about language anyway.

No- Hey! That one's right! What the hell happened? Mind you, you haven't presented any facts, only unsupported statements with visible holes in them.

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That you don't care about any philosophies other than materialism.

Darn tootin'.

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That it took you only 30 seconds for you to figure out your position on this.

Maybe 35 seconds. So I exaggerated a little.

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That I am deeply confused.

Heh. I'll give you full marks for spotting that one, even though it was pretty easy.

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and my absolute favourite.....

Drum roll please...

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That the historical accuracy of the claimed resurection of Jesus Christ flips between being true or false dependent on your belief system.

Damn. Wrong again. I explicitly and repeatedly stated that it depends on the truth value of your belief system. Sorry, you lose ten points on this one because you selected it as your special bonus error.

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In other words THAT THE BIBLE BECOMES TRUE IF YOU BELIEVE IT!

Nope. Never said that or anything like it.

Let's tally up your score:

HPC irrelevance 1: 5/5
HPC irrelevance 2: 0/5
HPC truth flipping: 0/5
Purely physical pain: 0/5
Linguistic dualism 1: 3/5
Linguistic dualism 2: 0/5
Linguistic dualism doesn't matter: 2/5
Linguistic dualism does matter: 0/5
Never said English should change: 4/5
Ontology not falsifiable by language: 4/5
Don't care about non-material philosophies: 5/5
Only took me 30 seconds to spot flaws in HPC: 5/5
Elephant deeply confused: 5/5
Christ flips on belief: -10/10
Bible true if believed: 0/5

Grand total: 23/80. Works out to a nearly 29%. That's almost an F!

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by Franko
Is 2 + 2 = 4 “real”? I’d say that it depends on your definitions of ‘2”, “4”, “+”, ‘and “=”.

II + II = IV

Not, uh, really. 2, 4, + and = are all rigidly defined in mathematics. What is at question is the definition of "real".

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Red is a property of ones perception of an object in the physical Universe, not a property of the object.

Nope.

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"The House is red" is a fallacy.

It's only a fallacy if the house isn't red.

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"I perceive the house to be red" is not a fallacy.

It is a fallacy if you don't perceive the house to be red. If the house isn't red and you perceive it to be red, you have a problem.

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A dog perceives the house to be grey.

Which does not make it grey. Also, cats do not have this problem, showing once again their superiority to dogs.

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A bat perceives the house with its radar and doesn't have any concept of colours at all.

Bats do not have radar. They have echolocation. They also have working eyes.

Was there a point to this or did you just decide consciousness was too difficult a subject and you wanted to talk about red houses instead?

[PixyMisa]

Oh, and one more time:

Have you looked at my logical statement of the situation yet, Mister Elephant? Any comments?

[crocodile deathroll]

Quote:

Originally posted by Franko


Do colors (like "red") exist independantly of an observing mind? Does "red" as you see it exist in reality?

Does that mean that "red" does not exist within this Universe?

Without consciousness is what way does red exist as we perceive it? ... it doesn't.

What do mean by "red" if you mean a wavelength on the spectrum then I can only assume it does have ontological existence. I am sure some objects give us a red sensation because of the physical properties of absorbing photons and only reflecting the wavelengths (within a narrow frequency) that gives us our "red sensation". The "red" snooker ball may also reflect UV light and infra-red light as well and if our eyes were sensitive to that frequency, so we are not seeing the true color of that snooker ball
If it is a warm snooker ball it will also reflect black body radiation which may give yet another color sensation again that eyes are not sensitive to. So in reality there is also the color X-ray, the color Gamma-ray, the color infra-red, the colors utra-low frequency, etc as well as the color visible red.
Ontologically speaking the color red is not a red sensation it is just a wavelength on the spectrum.

[Tricky]

I read the long post you made, UCE, and I still am no more convinced that the "hard problem" is any kind of relevant problem. No one would attempt to describe "red" without trying to compare it to other "red" things. In this sense, it makes no differerence what you are actually seeing, only that when two people see this thing, they both recognize it as "red". You both perceive a wavelength of light and you both call it red.

Like the "hard problem" this seems to be making a problem out of nothing. There is no useful information that can be obtained by identifyiny colors as qualia (if I am using the term correctly). This would be different, of course, if a person could not actually discern certain wavelengths from another, as in color blindness. But even then, you are still essentially comparing colors to other colors. "Does this apple look the same color to you as this orange?" Whatever their answer, it yeilds no evidence that there is a thing called "red" which is different from light of a certain wavelength as perceived by the eye.

I actually do understand what you're saying, UCE (althought your terminology throws me for a loop sometimes), but I just think most of it is not useful other than in a discussion of philosophy. What discoveries do you see Dualism leading to? What can it do to help us make predictive theories about the world? To me, it seems like a philosophical platypus. Interesting, but not likely to evolve further.

Pixy,

As I said, it's been a pleasure. People as thoroughly dependent on their belief system as you are can never be convinced that anything is wrong with it, which is why they are able to completely contradict themselves repeatedly without seeing it as a problem. Since I cannot be bothered to repeat my own consistent and logical position for a fifth time, I am more than happy to "declare". I am not here to de-convert you from your religious materialism. This thread was for the benefit of the audience, and I'm sure they enjoyed it as much as I have.



Geoff.

Quote:

Originally posted by PixyMisa
Oh, and one more time:

Have you looked at my logical statement of the situation yet, Mister Elephant? Any comments?

Yes....

What logical statement?

Quote:

Originally posted by Tricky
I read the long post you made, UCE, and I still am no more convinced that the "hard problem" is any kind of relevant problem. No one would attempt to describe "red" without trying to compare it to other "red" things. In this sense, it makes no differerence what you are actually seeing, only that when two people see this thing, they both recognize it as "red". You both perceive a wavelength of light and you both call it red.

Like the "hard problem" this seems to be making a problem out of nothing. There is no useful information that can be obtained by identifyiny colors as qualia (if I am using the term correctly). This would be different, of course, if a person could not actually discern certain wavelengths from another, as in color blindness. But even then, you are still essentially comparing colors to other colors. "Does this apple look the same color to you as this orange?" Whatever their answer, it yeilds no evidence that there is a thing called "red" which is different from light of a certain wavelength as perceived by the eye.

I actually do understand what you're saying, UCE (althought your terminology throws me for a loop sometimes), but I just think most of it is not useful other than in a discussion of philosophy. What discoveries do you see Dualism leading to? What can it do to help us make predictive theories about the world? To me, it seems like a philosophical platypus. Interesting, but not likely to evolve further.

I couldn't disagree more. I think that spiritual evolution is the ultimate destiny of humanity.

[urstardust]

YES, I AGREE WITH "PIXY" We are zombies. We just think we aren't." NOT YET? Anyway......................

WE ARE Ants That can't see your size in thought, yet we think we do....

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
As I said, it's been a pleasure. People as thoroughly dependent on their belief system as you are can never be convinced that anything is wrong with it, which is why they are able to completely contradict themselves repeatedly without seeing it as a problem.

And as I have said before, you are entirely oblivious to irony.

Quote:

Since I cannot be bothered to repeat my own consistent and logical position for a fifth time, I am more than happy to "declare".

I have never seen you take a consistent and logical position. Should you ever wish to do so, I'd be interested and happy to discuss it

Quote:

I am not here to de-convert you from your religious materialism.

I do not have any religious attachment to materialism. It is because your own position is so deeply flawed that you think this.

Quote:

This thread was for the benefit of the audience, and I'm sure they enjoyed it as much as I have.

Fine. Mister Elephant, you were wrong in the beginning, you were wrong for the entirety of our discussion, and you are wrong now.

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Yes....

What logical statement?

Since your continued use of LSD appears to have damaged your eyesight as well as your brain, I will repeat it for you:

We have a descriptive system L. We have two sets of phenomena, X and Y.

We can make the following initial statements regarding the relationship of L to X and Y:

L can describe phenomena in X and the results of such phenomena.
L can describe phenomena in Y and the results of such phenomena.

Now, we have two hypotheses. Hypothesis H states:

No phenomenon in X can be described using system L purely in terms of phenomena in Y.

Hypothesis M states:

All phenomena, including but not limited to those in X, are actually the result of the phenomena in Y.

Given M and our statements about L, H is clearly false.

Got it now?

Let's translate it into English, eh?

Quote:

We have a descriptive system L.

The English language.

Quote:

We have two sets of phenomena, X and Y.

What are the two sets of phenomena you are talking about?
The experience of 'mental' things and the experience of 'physical things'?

Quote:

We can make the following initial statements regarding the relationship of L to X and Y:

L can describe phenomena in X and the results of such phenomena.
L can describe phenomena in Y and the results of such phenomena.

The English language can describe 'mental' things.
The English language can descrive 'physical' things.

Quote:

Now, we have two hypotheses. Hypothesis H states:

No phenomenon in X can be described using system L purely in terms of phenomena in Y.

"No mental thing can be described using the English language purely in terms of physical things"

I'm with you here.

Quote:

Hypothesis M states:

All phenomena, including but not limited to those in X, are actually the result of the phenomena in Y.

According to materialism mental things are the result of physical things.

Quote:

Given M and our statements about L, H is clearly false.

So if materialism is true then H is false.

*YAWN*

What was the point in writing out as logic? It still suffers from the same idiotic fallacy.....

You have missed out something critical from your logic.

'H' is not a hypothesis.

****We have a FACT "F" that all human languages express a mutually exclusive dualism between X and Y!*****

And if fact F (which you have conceded is true) IS TRUE then 'H' IS TRUE.

So by the time we reach the end of the logic it looks a bit different - it reads like this....

Given that we have established that fact H is true if we try to claim that hypothesis M is true then we have a logical contradiction.
Given that we have established that fact H is true if we try to claim that hypothesis M is false then we do not have a logical contradiction.

That is the wonderful thing about hypotheses - we can test them against facts!

M is a hypothesis.
F is a FACT you have conceded is true.
H depends solely only on F, not on any hypotheses (F---->H).
M is therefore false.

Your belief system is not impervious to facts that falsify it, even though you think it is.

Please don't ask me to explain this to you again.

My version :

M is a hypothesis.
F is a FACT you have conceded is true.
H depends solely only on F, not on any hypotheses (F---->H).
M is therefore false.

Your version :

H doesn't depend solely on F, it also ***secretly*** depends on M being false!

Why can't you grasp the simple truth that H does not depend on M!? It has nothing to do with M! You just keep trying to claim it does depend on M because you will say absolutely anything to avoid M being false! You cannot keep claiming that H secretly depends on hypothesis M! Whether or not M is true is a CONSEQUENCE of the rest of the logic. You keep trying to feed "M is true" in, and the logic keeps coming back and going....

Segmentation fault! CORE DUMPED!

H does not "secretly" depend on M
M does depend on H

[crocodile deathroll]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Pixy,

As I said, it's been a pleasure. People as thoroughly dependent on their belief system as you are can never be convinced that anything is wrong with it, which is why they are able to completely contradict themselves repeatedly without seeing it as a problem. Since I cannot be bothered to repeat my own consistent and logical position for a fifth time, I am more than happy to "declare". I am not here to de-convert you from your religious materialism. This thread was for the benefit of the audience, and I'm sure they enjoyed it as much as I have.



Geoff.

Materialism is a highly evolutionary philosophy, it adapts with new paradigms. We know in a block universe we all have a material interconnectedness as all our worldlines converge on one great ontological hierarchy, and ultimately to the big bang event itself.

Pixy,

The reason I posted that 2think.org essay was to point out that finding the truth requires starting from fearless questions instead of starting from a conclusion which must be defended. You keep trying to start from the conclusion "M is true" and you will attempt to attack any part of the logic you can to defend the conclusion "M is true". You have even tried to claim that the logic depends on a "hidden" conclusion that "M is False", when in fact the logic does not depend on any assumed conclusions at all, hidden or otherwise.

We do not need to start from any conclusion.

Why can't we just examine the facts and stop trying to feed the conclusion into the logic?

The logic actually starts with a FACT F. That fact is that English, and all other languages, contain a mutually exclusive dualism between subjective and objective. Do you think it might help if we took a close look at this claimed FACT F, and see if we can

(a) make sure it is true

and

(b) try to figure out WHY it is true

Would that help?

When we have done that we can move on to closely examining how the thesis you have called 'hypothesis H' is related to the claimed fact F.

We can do all this without making any assumptions at all, and without assuming our conclusions at the start of the logic, just like the 2think essay suggests. Start from a fearless question, not from a conclusion which must be defended at all costs.

Shall we do this?

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Let's translate it into English, eh?

Why? The whole point of translating it into statements of logic in the first place was to cut out all of the vagueness. Apparently you like vagueness, because it gives you somewhere to hide. And you need to use a lot of it because elephants are so big.

Quote:

The English language.

No. Any descriptive system. If all you can discuss is the English language then your hypothesis is even more useless than I thought.

Quote:

What are the two sets of phenomena you are talking about?

X and Y.

Quote:

The experience of 'mental' things and the experience of 'physical things'?

Doesn't matter. That's why I reduced it to statements of logic.

Quote:

The English language can describe 'mental' things.

So what?

Quote:

The English language can descrive 'physical' things.

Again, so what?

Quote:

"No mental thing can be described using the English language purely in terms of physical things"

Is your hypothesis.

Quote:

I'm with you here.

Hooray. I'm sure you'll fall over soon and land in the mud, though.

Quote:

According to materialism mental things are the result of physical things.

Yes. That's what materialism claims, and is a specific recasting of my hypothesis M.

Quote:

So if materialism is true then H is false.

If M is true then H is false. If materialism is true then the HPC statement is false.

Quote:

*YAWN*

Not getting enough sleep, eh?

Quote:

What was the point in writing out as logic?

To make it totally clear why you are wrong.

Quote:

It still suffers from the same idiotic fallacy.

Which is?

Quote:

You have missed out something critical from your logic.

Really? Where?

Quote:

'H' is not a hypothesis.

But that's precisely what it is. It's sloppily stated, but that's not my fault.

Quote:

****We have a FACT "F" that all human languages express a mutually exclusive dualism between X and Y!*****

Uh, no. You've refuted this yourself with your example of "thought".

Quote:

And if fact F (which you have conceded is true) IS TRUE then 'H' IS TRUE.

First, I have conceded that language - at least English - contains a separation of terms that discuss mental states and terms that discuss physical states. The two sets of terms quite clearly overlap. You've said so yourself. So F is only "sort of" true.

And you are still missing out the key assumption that links hypotheis F to hypothesis H. I'll give you one last chance to spot it for yourself.

Quote:

So by the time we reach the end of the logic it looks a bit different - it reads like this....

I expect you to make a complete fool of yourself here. Let's see if I'm right.

Quote:

Given that we have established that fact H is true

Bang. My prediction is correct. You have not even begun to establish hypothesis H. You haven't even established F. And you still haven't spotted the hidden assumption A.

Quote:

if we try to claim that hypothesis M is true then we have a logical contradiction.

Actually, no. If both H and M are true, all it means is that L is broken, that the statements we made about how L relates to X and Y are in fact false. L can then be fixed, which will the restore the link which falsifies H. And since you haven't established H, and have shown no ability to do so, it doesn't matter.

Quote:

Given that we have established that fact H is true

See above. Before you can claim that you have established hypothesis H, you are first required to actually do so. We are still waiting for you to attempt this. And you still haven't spotted A.

Quote:

if we try to claim that hypothesis M is false then we do not have a logical contradiction.

No. So what?

Quote:

That is the wonderful thing about hypotheses - we can test them against facts!

Yes. Now go away and find some.

Quote:

M is a hypothesis.

Indeed.

Quote:

F is a FACT you have conceded is true.

"Sort of" true. Not much of a fact. More of a factlet. And languages can change, as you well know.

Quote:

H depends solely only on F, not on any hypotheses (F---->H).

False. To establish H you must first establish that F is both true and necessary, and that A is also true. You haven't addressed these problems with F. You can't even see A. So H remains an empty statement.

Quote:

M is therefore false.

No. An empty statement cannot falsify anything.

Quote:

Your belief system is not impervious to facts that falsify it, even though you think it is.

I do not claim it is. I do not believe it is. I ask merely that you present facts, and reason logically. Feel free to do so. You may start at any time.

Quote:

Please don't ask me to explain this to you again.

I didn't ask you to explain this the first time. I already understood your position, and why it is wrong. Go back and try again. Or admit that you are wrong. Or admit that you are unable to coherently argue your case.

[PixyMisa]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
The reason I posted that 2think.org essay was to point out that finding the truth requires starting from fearless questions instead of starting from a conclusion which must be defended.

So what?

That essay is doubletalk and unexamined assumptions. It doesn't demonstrate anything at all.

Quote:

You keep trying to start from the conclusion "M is true"

It's my default position. I am willing to question it, given reason. I have shown this.

Quote:

and you will attempt to attack any part of the logic you can to defend the conclusion "M is true".

False. You have claimed that M cannot falsify H. You are wrong.

Quote:

You have even tried to claim that the logic depends on a "hidden" conclusion that "M is False"

And that's precisely what it contains.

Quote:

when in fact the logic does not depend on any assumed conclusions at all, hidden or otherwise.

Except that it does depend precisely on such an assumption.

Quote:

We do not need to start from any conclusion.

Then why is that what you do?

Quote:

Why can't we just examine the facts and stop trying to feed the conclusion into the logic?

Because you refuse to present any facts. You refuse to examine your own position. You wave unsupported statements about as though they were established mathematical theorems.

Quote:

The logic actually starts with a FACT F.

Which as we have established, is not really a fact at all.

Quote:

That fact is that English, and all other languages, contain a mutually exclusive dualism between subjective and objective.

Which you yourself have said is not entirely true.

Quote:

Do you think it might help if we took a close look at this claimed FACT F, and see if we can

(a) make sure it is true

and

(b) try to figure out WHY it is true

Would that help?

Feel free. As I said, to establish hypothesis H you need to establish that F is both true (a) and that it is necessary (b). You also need to establish your hidden assumption A.

Quote:

When we have done that we can move on to closely examining how the thesis you have called 'hypothesis H' is related to the claimed fact F.

Yes. First show that all possible languages contain this dualism, and then we can move on.

Quote:

We can do all this without making any assumptions at all, and without assuming our conclusions at the start of the logic, just like the 2think essay suggests.

Ow. That hurt. It's so funny!

Quote:

Start from a fearless question, not from a conclusion which must be defended at all costs.

Go for it. You may find it a novel experience. I'll sit here and wait for you. Might play a little SimCity 4 to fill in the time.

Quote:

Shall we do this?

Go right ahead. Don't mind me.

Pixy:

Super! So we can just look at the facts and not feed the conclusion in?

Excellent!



First I need you to give me some definitions, so we can not end up arguing about what words mean.

Please give me a short definition of

subjective
mental

objective
physical

and then a very brief summary of how you feel these things relate to the scientific method.

Pixy....

Here we go : I've been to dictionary.com and extracted some definitions :

Quote:

Subjective :

Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.

Mental :

Of or relating to the mind.

Objective :

Of or having to do with a material object.
Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices.
Based on observable phenomena.

Physical :

Of or relating to the body as distinguished from the mind or spirit.
Of or relating to material things: our physical environment.
Of or relating to matter and energy or the sciences dealing with them, especially physics.

Of course if you'd like to alter them then please feel free to do so, because as you say - languages change. But I do also need you to explain how you think the above words influence the scientific method, and specifically the need for the SM to remain objective. Presumably you understand that the SM is not subject to being changed because of language, so we can use it as a common test for the usefulness of language. The SM is the same in English, in Swedish, in Urdu, in Chinese and in ancient egyptian. And the SM does require that we define these sorts of words in a way that genuinely reflects the reality we find ourselves in - that is the sort of words we are talking about, and that is the nature of the scientific method. In other words - the above definitions seem to me to be about right for preserving the integrity of the SM, and I think we can probably agree that making alterations to them that compromise the SM would not be an acceptable thing to do. Therefore we can agree that these definitions aren't just arbitrary, but are neccesarily fixed - both because they accurately describe the reality we experience and because they are needed to accurately describe that reality in order for science to retain its integrity.

Follow all that?

Any time you're ready.......

Pixy,

Remember we are here discussing fact F. Fact F is that there is a linguistic dualism between mental and physical things. According to the dictionary defs, mental things are things in a mind (they are subjective). And also according to the dictionary defs, physical things are part of material reality, as distinguished from the mind (they are objective).

Finally, we both know that the scientific method is, by definition, objective. It deliberately excludes subjective things. It needs to do this because if it allowed subjectivity to creep in then it wouldn't be objective. So we need to be able to make a clear distinction between subjective/mental things and objective/physical things for two reasons.

1) This is the way we experience reality - that is why the dictionary definitions are the way they are.

2) The scientific method is critically dependent upon our ability to make a clear distinction between the two different sorts of things.


So it looks like we have established that fact F is indeed a FACT.

We haven't assumed anything about any ontologies in order to arrive at this FACT, but instead we have established that the both the accuracy of language to describe the reality we experience AND the integrity of the scientific method are dependent on this FACT being true.

So far we haven't examined the thesis H, we are still trying to agree on whether FACT F is really a FACT and why that FACT must remain a FACT independent of which language we are using, and that FACT F must remain a FACT or we compromise the scientific methods ability to remain objective.


Can we agree that FACT F is a FACT?