Must all materialists subscribe to supervenience physicalism as a minimum?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Quote:

No mechanism exists in the human brain for building the brain structures which constitute knowledge of what it is like to see red, from sensory input of words written on a page. That does not mean that the knowledge is not reducible to such brain structures, nor does it mean that all of the information needed to construct those brain structures is not there in the book. It just means that no physical mechanism is present in the brain to actually build those structures. That is all it means. In principle, she could build a machine which would modify her brain to give her those structures. Her brain just does not have the mechanism built-in.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's interesting. For absolutely everything apart from qualia there exists such a mechanism, but for qualia there doesn't. Sounds mighty strange to me!

Wrong again. For learning abstract facts there exists a mechanism. For everything else, such as learning what a color looks like, or learning how to walk, or learning how recognize voices, or learning how to recognize faces, or learning how play the piano, and so on, there does not. Most things which you "know", you learn by doing. That is the physical mechanism which the brain has evolved for building the neural structures which constitute the knowledge. Memorization of abstract facts is the exception. And it is only an exception because you have already done the hard part, which is learning how to read and extract information from what is written. Yet another thing which your brain can only learn by doing.

Quote:

So the information about the experience of redness and other qualia cannot modify your brain, but the totality of all other information can?? Don't you find this rather implausible?

Information does not do jack squat to your brain. Physical processes do. What, do you think that when you read a bunch of facts in a book, the information somehow magically flows into your memory? A physical process extracts that information from your sensory input, and constructs physical structures in your brain which store the information. That is how memory of abstract information works. Memory of other things, such as memory of how to play the piano, or memory of what red looks like, work differently. Those memories are also constructed in the brain through physical processes, but they are different processes. There is simply no mechanism in the brain for taking abstract information about what your brain state would be if you did know how to play the piano, and creating that brain state. It just doesn't work that way.

Quote:

Your position also necessitates that an appropriately programmed android or robot could get to know what the experience of redness is like just from reading a book.

Yes, in principle it could.

Quote:

What is it about algorithms that could give such knowledge??

Nothing. Algorithms don't do anything. They describe physical processes. A computer is not just algorithms, nor is a brain. They are physical processes which can be described algorithmically. Since the knowledge is just a physical structure, and algorithm can describe that physical structure, and describe how to construct it.

Quote:

Why don't they achieve it in our case?

Having the algorithm which describes how to construct the relevant brain structures is not enough. You need a physical process to actually do it. No such process exists in the brain.

Quote:

Also you would need to maintain that appropriate alteration of Mary's brain would give her the "memory" of seeing redness.

Absolutely. I do maintain that. Like I said before, she can't learn what it is like to see red by reading a book, but she could build a machine that would modify her brain in such a way as to give her the knowledge.

Quote:

You have no logical argument or evidence to justify this claim. Only your intuitive preconceptions about the nature of experiences.
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This is a lie. Allow me to repeat my argument.

It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

But what is the physical? I think we need to define it as being everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments. In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernible from the third person perspective exists. This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

Now it seems to me that there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. My contention is that it cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments! Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Why am I saying it cannot be observed or detected? Well let's take the arbitrary example of a toothache. As a toothache means a certain characteristic sensation, I submit one cannot perceptually observe that toothache, all one can observe is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Thus the actual toothache can only be experienced by the subject. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

This is not a logical argument. It is an assertion.

Quote:

Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least that the toothache supervenes on the neural activity. But from an objective examination of the neural activity there is nothing about such physical processes whereby we could logically derive the sensation of pain. The actually sensation of pain is only experienced by the subject; it does not, and indeed cannot be experienced by anyone else. All anyone else will observe are the neural correlates of the pain. You cannot perceptually perceive pain, because pain is defined by a particular inner qualitative experience.

Irrelevant. Nobody else can experience your experiences, but they don't need to. If experiences are simply processes, as materialism claims, then I only need to observe the process. Your entire argument presupposes your intuitive notion that there is something more to the experience than an observable process.

Quote:

But what about inferring that someone has the sensation of pain? So what we're now considering is that pain per se has physical effects and that there are no neural correlates of this pain to explain these effects. Consider: the pain cannot be detected from the third person perspective, not does it share any characteristics in common whatsoever with the rest of the physical realm eg it does not have mass, charge, momentum or any other attribute which could be bestowed upon it by science.

This is a nonsense argument. You have simply compiled a list of so-called "physical characteristics", and are asserting that the characteristics of pain are not physical because they are not on the list. This line of argumentation demonstrates only that you have no conception of emergent properties, and no understanding of what the criteria are than make a characteristic qualify as being "physical".

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Indeed it is only known through its qualitative experience and possible causal power. I submit therefore that if the pain per se has causal effects in the world as well as, or instead of its neural correlates, then this will be flat our interactionist dualism. This is in contrast to, say, something like an electron. The electron has physical attributes and its reality can be confirmed by anyone with suitable instruments and unimpaired senses. To elucidate, in saying that an electron exists I mean that it plays some fruitful role in a theory describing the world, or part of the world, and that this theory can be integrated with our other scientific theories regarding the world. But the crucial point is this: there is nothing to an electron apart from some role in a scientific theory describing the world, but there is something else to consciousness apart from the causal role it plays in some scientific theory.

Again, this is simply an assertion. You have presented no evidence that any of the properties of consciousness are causally inefficacious, and if they are all causally efficacious, then it is logically impossible to have a complete scientific description of all physical effects in the world which leaves any of these properties out.

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In other words there is something else to consciousness apart from our behaviour, and this is the raw feel of experience (or phenomenological consciousness as some people put it, and what Chalmer's refers to as the "hard problem" of consciousness).

Something which is, by definition, causally inefficacious. Neither you nor Chalmers have any evidence that such a thing exists. You have only assertions based on intuition.

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Please provide some references justifying your claim that folk psychology does not refer to mental terms as used in popular English usage.

Stimpy
No. This is stupid. Philosophy deals with formal definitions.
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Hang on a sec, we're talking about folk psychology. What do you think the word "folk" means??

This is quite possibly one of the most stupid arguments I have ever seen you present. I'll tell you what. If you want to know what the word "folk" means in this context, go find an eliminativist and ask him. There is no point in me wasting any more time trying to explain to you what eliminativism is, since you are obviously not going to believe anything I say anyway.

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You can't have a theory about that which is immediately given to us. It's simply meaningless to say the experience of pain is a theory.

Stimpy
See, this is what I mean by your entire way of thinking about the issue being bogged down in intuitive preconceptions.
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No, it's not intuition. It simply follows from the fact that the experience is immediate.

Sorry, but I do not accept your axiomatic assertion that experiences are immediate.

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A theory cannot get a look in because when I experience redness, there is nothing for my mind to form a theory about.

I am not talking about consciously formulating theories. I am talking about there being a lot of brain processes involved at a non-conscious level, before you are ever consciously aware of the experience. What makes it to that level already has a lot of intuitive preconceptions tied up in it.

Your notion of the mind as some single thing which directly experiences sensory input, is simply not consistent with reality. This is one of those intuitive preconceptions which need to be discarded. But it clearly forms the basis for the entire way you think about the mind. Unless you are willing to set aside these preconceptions, and accept the possibility that your intuition on such things may be wrong, you are never going to understand any of the scientific approaches to the mind.

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This is in contrast to the information provided by my 5 senses, whereby I can construct a certain interpretational theory to make sense of my perceptual experiences. But such a theoretical iinterpretation cannot get a foothold with that which is immediately given as in the raw experience of redness.

Nothing is immediately given to us. By the time you experience redness, a huge amount of brain processing has already been done. Your view of how the mind works is simply wrong, Ian.

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The whole point is that not everybody agrees with your assertion that what we think of as our experiences are immediately given to us.
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Well, they're just flat out wrong. If I experience redness, I cannot think to myself that the experience is not what it seems to be, or that the experience could be construed to be other than what it seems. It's just nonsensical. Saying it is a vague intuitive feeling on my part just doesn't cut it I'm afraid.

This is pointless. You are so close-minded with respect to this issue that you cannot even recognize the possibility that you might be wrong. I might as well be talking to a brick wall.

The simple fact is that materialism is unintelligible to you because you are incapable of understanding anything at any more than an intuitive level. You do not even recognize the distinction between logical and intuitive reasoning, because to you they are apparently the same thing. My position is counter-intuitive, so to you, it must be wrong. No amount of explanation on my part is going to change that. I give up.


Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
All right, now we're getting somewhere! What is a fart, then?

~~ Paul

It is what it seems.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Ian said:
Maybe, but then her brain wouldn't simply be an information processor. The fact that information cannot make her realise what redness is, but either seeing red, or messing around with her brain makes her see red, are prima facie incompatible with materialism.

Then I think I can categorically state that one or both of the following propositions is true:

(a) You have no idea what the definition of materialism is.

(b) The definition of materialism is an utter crock.

~~ Paul

[TLN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Because either one acknowledges the existence of consciousness or one does not. If the latter then I say you are flat out false because I know that at least *I* am conscious. If the former then it is subject to my refutation which I have posted many times. Indeed it is subject to the refutation by the "knowledge argument" too (the neuroscientist Mary who is colour blind).

Basically if materialism is unintelligible, then necessarily so are all the differing versions of it.

Ian, simply stating that you know something to be true is absolutely worthless. You might be mistaken. It's really that simple.

Your refutations have been thoroughly demolished time and time again, but you just ignore them.

You have no definition of materialism, but you're positive it's false. This is the single stupidest statement I've ever heard.

You have no evidence, only your continued assertion that you know. Then you make matters worse by further asserting that anyone who disagrees is stupid.

Seriously, what the f#ck is wrong with you?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Ian said:
You ought to be aware that this interpretation is hugely controversial. Apart from that it can't be right anyway, because then it would be a refutation of free will. Mind numbingly extraordinary claims require mind numbingly extraordinary evidence. It's how science works.

If that bothers you, blindsight should make you positively apoplectic:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindsight.html

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
quote:No mechanism exists in the human brain for building the brain structures which constitute knowledge of what it is like to see red, from sensory input of words written on a page. That does not mean that the knowledge is not reducible to such brain structures, nor does it mean that all of the information needed to construct those brain structures is not there in the book. It just means that no physical mechanism is present in the brain to actually build those structures. That is all it means. In principle, she could build a machine which would modify her brain to give her those structures. Her brain just does not have the mechanism built-in.
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II
That's interesting. For absolutely everything apart from qualia there exists such a mechanism, but for qualia there doesn't. Sounds mighty strange to me!


Stimpy
Wrong again. For learning abstract facts there exists a mechanism. For everything else, such as learning what a color looks like, or learning how to walk, or learning how recognize voices, or learning how to recognize faces, or learning how play the piano, and so on, there does not.

As I said before, replace Mary with an android, then all of these things apart from the first, the android could do, without ever having experienced them before. All it requires are the execution of the appropriate algorithms. In other words qualia is different from all other things as all these other things can be achieved in principle from simply reading a book.

Quote:

So the information about the experience of redness and other qualia cannot modify your brain, but the totality of all other information can?? Don't you find this rather implausible?


Stimpy
Information does not do jack squat to your brain.

Right, so when I read a text book, and I acquire knowledge, my brain state is not changed? Right.

Quote:

Physical processes do.

Reading the book containing all possible information is a physical process. Why can I learn absolutely everything apart from qualia??

Quote:

What, do you think that when you read a bunch of facts in a book, the information somehow magically flows into your memory? A physical process extracts that information from your sensory input, and constructs physical structures in your brain which store the information. That is how memory of abstract information works. Memory of other things, such as memory of how to play the piano, or memory of what red looks like, work differently.

Why do you keep conflating the performance of a task with qualia?? See above about my point regarding the android. An android could carry out all tasks perfectly, but it wouldn't know what the experience of redness is like. A task such as piano playing, and the experience of redness are not the same.

Quote:

II
What is it about algorithms that could give such knowledge??

Stimpy

Nothing. Algorithms don't do anything. They describe physical processes. A computer is not just algorithms, nor is a brain. They are physical processes which can be described algorithmically. Since the knowledge is just a physical structure, and algorithm can describe that physical structure, and describe how to construct it.

Yes yes, it's the execution of an algorithm we're talking about, obviously!

Please answer my question.

Quote:

II

quote:Why don't they achieve it in our case?


Stimpy
Having the algorithm which describes how to construct the relevant brain structures is not enough. You need a physical process to actually do it. No such process exists in the brain.

I think we're getting off the point here. Let's imagine that our brains did allow such processes. What part of the book containing all possible information would initiate this process and allow us to know what redness is like?

Or let's take the android example again. Would an android understand what redness is like from reading the book supposing its "brain" allows for all appropriate processes to take place??

Quote:

Stimpy
quote:You have no logical argument or evidence to justify this claim. Only your intuitive preconceptions about the nature of experiences.
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II
This is a lie. Allow me to repeat my argument.

It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

But what is the physical? I think we need to define it as being everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments. In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernible from the third person perspective exists. This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

Now it seems to me that there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. My contention is that it cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments! Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Why am I saying it cannot be observed or detected? Well let's take the arbitrary example of a toothache. As a toothache means a certain characteristic sensation, I submit one cannot perceptually observe that toothache, all one can observe is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Thus the actual toothache can only be experienced by the subject. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.


Stimpy
This is not a logical argument. It is an assertion.

What? That no-one can experience my toothache? You are seriously disputing it?

Quote:

II
quote:Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least that the toothache supervenes on the neural activity. But from an objective examination of the neural activity there is nothing about such physical processes whereby we could logically derive the sensation of pain. The actually sensation of pain is only experienced by the subject; it does not, and indeed cannot be experienced by anyone else. All anyone else will observe are the neural correlates of the pain. You cannot perceptually perceive pain, because pain is defined by a particular inner qualitative experience.

Stimpy
Irrelevant. Nobody else can experience your experiences, but they don't need to. If experiences are simply processes, as materialism claims, then I only need to observe the process.

As I mentioned earlier on in this thread. What you and other materialists are doing is presupposing materialism is correct, going blah blah blah, then saying therefore materialism is correct. But you are begging the question!

If you take it as an axiom that the experience of toothache is a physical process then {shrugs} obviously I cannot by definition show that your position is false. You're assuming materialism is definitely correct at the outset!



Jesus!!

Quote:

Your entire argument presupposes your intuitive notion that there is something more to the experience than an observable process.

Oh God!!

Quote:

II
But what about inferring that someone has the sensation of pain? So what we're now considering is that pain per se has physical effects and that there are no neural correlates of this pain to explain these effects. Consider: the pain cannot be detected from the third person perspective, not does it share any characteristics in common whatsoever with the rest of the physical realm eg it does not have mass, charge, momentum or any other attribute which could be bestowed upon it by science.

Stimpy
This is a nonsense argument. You have simply compiled a list of so-called "physical characteristics", and are asserting that the characteristics of pain are not physical because they are not on the list.

Well, if qualia have no characteristics whatsoever in common with any other physical thing, then it seems mighty strange to call it physical anyway. No mass? Information cannot tell us what qualia are like? But still physical??

Quote:

This line of argumentation demonstrates only that you have no conception of emergent properties,

The paragraph concerned was not addressing emergent properties! It rhymes with clucking bell.

Quote:

Indeed it is only known through its qualitative experience and possible causal power. I submit therefore that if the pain per se has causal effects in the world as well as, or instead of its neural correlates, then this will be flat our interactionist dualism. This is in contrast to, say, something like an electron. The electron has physical attributes and its reality can be confirmed by anyone with suitable instruments and unimpaired senses. To elucidate, in saying that an electron exists I mean that it plays some fruitful role in a theory describing the world, or part of the world, and that this theory can be integrated with our other scientific theories regarding the world. But the crucial point is this: there is nothing to an electron apart from some role in a scientific theory describing the world, but there is something else to consciousness apart from the causal role it plays in some scientific theory.

Stimpy
Again, this is simply an assertion.

The assertion being that we are not p-zombies. If you dispute this, and there is nothing to me apart from my behaviour, thus there are no inner experiences, then we are all p-zombies. It is an assertion, but it is an assertion about something which is transparently true. We know in the most immediate sense that we have inner experineces. I can say nothing to someone who denies this. Nor would I want to as I would feel no inclination to discuss things with p-zombies.

Quote:

Stimpy

You have presented no evidence that any of the properties of consciousness are causally inefficacious,

Naturally, as this is not my argument.

Quote:

and if they are all causally efficacious, then it is logically impossible to have a complete scientific description of all physical effects in the world which leaves any of these properties out.

Clearly not, as my consciousness is not exhausted by its causal efficacy. As well as my free will, I also have qualitative experiences. As I said, if you're defending the notion that we are all p-zombies, then I have no interest in discussing this with you.

Quote:

In other words there is something else to consciousness apart from our behaviour, and this is the raw feel of experience (or phenomenological consciousness as some people put it, and what Chalmer's refers to as the "hard problem" of consciousness).

Stimpy
Something which is, by definition, causally inefficacious.

Not at all. I'm *not* defining consciousness as causally efficacious. But from the fact that it is causally efficacious, this does not mean its reality is exhausted by its causal efficacy!

Quote:

Neither you nor Chalmers have any evidence that such a thing exists. You have only assertions based on intuition.

Well, you can say it's simply my intuition that I am conscious. I say that anyone who denies it is insane. Either insane or a p-zombie.

Quote:

Please provide some references justifying your claim that folk psychology does not refer to mental terms as used in popular English usage.

Stimpy
No. This is stupid. Philosophy deals with formal definitions.
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II
Hang on a sec, we're talking about folk psychology. What do you think the word "folk" means??


Stimpy
This is quite possibly one of the most stupid arguments I have ever seen you present. I'll tell you what. If you want to know what the word "folk" means in this context, go find an eliminativist and ask him. There is no point in me wasting any more time trying to explain to you what eliminativism is, since you are obviously not going to believe anything I say anyway.

Right, so you still maintain that folk psychology is not the psychology held by folk. o . . k

Quote:

II
You can't have a theory about that which is immediately given to us. It's simply meaningless to say the experience of pain is a theory.

Stimpy
See, this is what I mean by your entire way of thinking about the issue being bogged down in intuitive preconceptions.

{sighs} Why don't you address my argument as to why we cannot have theories about qualia??

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Quote:

II
No, it's not intuition. It simply follows from the fact that the experience is immediate.

Stimpy
Sorry, but I do not accept your axiomatic assertion that experiences are immediate.

You're still quoting isolated sentences without addressing my whole argument.

Quote:

II
A theory cannot get a look in because when I experience redness, there is nothing for my mind to form a theory about.

Stimpy
I am not talking about consciously formulating theories.

And neither am I. It makes absolutely no difference if it is overt or an implicit low level theory.

Quote:

I am talking about there being a lot of brain processes involved at a non-conscious level, before you are ever consciously aware of the experience. What makes it to that level already has a lot of intuitive preconceptions tied up in it.

Yes, and as I explained this is all wholly irrelevant.

Quote:

Your notion of the mind as some single thing which directly experiences sensory input, is simply not consistent with reality. This is one of those intuitive preconceptions which need to be discarded. But it clearly forms the basis for the entire way you think about the mind. Unless you are willing to set aside these preconceptions, and accept the possibility that your intuition on such things may be wrong, you are never going to understand any of the scientific approaches to the mind.

This is all a complete non-sequitur. I do not have to believe the mind as a single thing. I just have to accept the existence of qualia or raw experiences. I have explained why you're wrong. Read and understand.

Quote:

II
This is in contrast to the information provided by my 5 senses, whereby I can construct a certain interpretational theory to make sense of my perceptual experiences. But such a theoretical iinterpretation cannot get a foothold with that which is immediately given as in the raw experience of redness.


Stimpy
Nothing is immediately given to us.

Of course it is. Qualia is. The nature of the qualia might be moulded by our implicit expectations and low level theory, but the existence and nature of the quale itself cannot be interpreted for anything other than what it is. Forget about the physical processes or mind processes before the experience of the quale. That's not what we're talking about.

Quote:

By the time you experience redness, a huge amount of brain processing has already been done. Your view of how the mind works is simply wrong, Ian.

Maybe, but not for that reason as I absolutely agree with you. The problem here is that you don't understand its irrelevance.

Quote:

Stimpy
The whole point is that not everybody agrees with your assertion that what we think of as our experiences are immediately given to us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
Well, they're just flat out wrong. If I experience redness, I cannot think to myself that the experience is not what it seems to be, or that the experience could be construed to be other than what it seems. It's just nonsensical. Saying it is a vague intuitive feeling on my part just doesn't cut it I'm afraid.

Stimpy
This is pointless. You are so close-minded with respect to this issue that you cannot even recognize the possibility that you might be wrong. I might as well be talking to a brick wall.

I don't recognise the possibility that I am wrong about the fact that I am now having a certain characteristic experience of redness, sure. But there again, I'm not insane.

Quote:

The simple fact is that materialism is unintelligible to you because you are incapable of understanding anything at any more than an intuitive level. You do not even recognize the distinction between logical and intuitive reasoning, because to you they are apparently the same thing. My position is counter-intuitive, so to you, it must be wrong. No amount of explanation on my part is going to change that. I give up.

I have given you my arguments. You in turn have replied with a load of irrelevant waffle. All your arguments amount to is taking as an axiom that materialism is correct, saying any questioning of that axiom on my part is driven by intuition, and then you concluding that materialism is correct.

Have you no idea how completely stupid and question begging your whole approach is??

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
If that bothers you, blindsight should make you positively apoplectic:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindsight.html

~~ Paul

I know about blindsight. I have no idea why you should believe it would send me apoplectic.

[TLN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Have you no idea how completely stupid and question begging your whole approach is??

As opposed to what that jackass in the mirror does, right?

See above...

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

I said:
All right, now we're getting somewhere! What is a fart, then?

Quote:

and Ian responded:
It is what it seems.

Seems like chemicals to me.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Ian said:
I know about blindsight. I have no idea why you should believe it would send me apoplectic.

Because it's not merely muscle movement before awareness, it's muscle movement with no awareness whatsoever.

Oh, wait a minute! Maybe that's what free will means: the freedom to do something with no will whatsoever.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Ian said:
Of course it is. Qualia is. The nature of the qualia might be moulded by our implicit expectations and low level theory, but the existence and nature of the quale itself cannot be interpreted for anything other than what it is.

What does that statement mean, exactly? A person with synaesthesia experiences redness completely different than we do. Why does a gray patch surrounded by green elicit the redness quale? How can a person distinguish a red glass from a green one while at the same time saying he does not see a glass at all?

So the nature of qualia is completely variable. What you're left with that supposedly "cannot be interpreted for anything other than what it is" is the mere existence of qualia. With this I agree. In fact, I don't know how to interpret the mere existence of anything as anything other than its existence.

~~ Paul

[Z]

Now I remember why I stopped bothering with Ian: he's too stubborn AND mind-numbingly stupid to discuss anything with.

Case in point:

Quote:

You ought to be aware that this interpretation is hugely controversial. Apart from that it can't be right anyway, because then it would be a refutation of free will. Mind numbingly extraordinary claims require mind numbingly extraordinary evidence. It's how science works.

But obviously it IS right - because this is the observable truth. Hence, by your logic, free will is refuted.

Sorry that you think it can't be right, because it apparently is.

Quote:

h well this is easily tested. Set up an experiment and tell a subject that he will be given a £1,000,000 if he doesn't press the button in front of him. Ask him if he wants the million. Let's imagine he says yes. Let's imagine further that he agrees he will not press the button because he does indeed want the million. Then manipulate his brain so that he "voluntarily" does push the button. He cannot voluntarily press the button without being blatantly inconsistent.

But, you see, he will think he is voluntarily pressing it - and won't understand why.

Again, provable scientific fact... and just because you don't like the implications, you're trying to deny them.

And peppering your posts with veiled profanity, to boot.

Well, Ian, you're back on my Gentle Reader list - you are too ignorant and childish, boorish, and stubborn to be bothered with.

Gentle Reader, if ever you wanted to know what's wrong with idealists, just give Ian's posts a read.

[hammegk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Because it's not merely muscle movement before awareness, it's muscle movement with no awareness whatsoever.

I call bs. Neither of us believe that all the "awareness" that is *you* resides where only the ego is actively involved.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Hammegk said:
I call bs. Neither of us believe that all the "awareness" that is *you* resides where only the ego is actively involved.

Whoa! We're talking about qualia, arent' we? Do we now have nonconscious qualia? And nonconscious will?

You ask someone if they see a glass. He says no. You then ask him to pick up the red glass. He does so.

He has no redness quale. He has no will to pick up the glass.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Whoa! We're talking about qualia, arent' we? Do we now have nonconscious qualia? And nonconscious will?

Interesting question, as to what is a quale.

Do you "think" for each heartbeat? And I'd argue for "yes", *you* actually do. Does the fact that ego-think isn't required suggest absence of this 'will' you mentioned?

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Because it's not merely muscle movement before awareness, it's muscle movement with no awareness whatsoever.

Oh, wait a minute! Maybe that's what free will means: the freedom to do something with no will whatsoever.

~~ Paul

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Ian said:
Of course it is. Qualia is. The nature of the qualia might be moulded by our implicit expectations and low level theory, but the existence and nature of the quale itself cannot be interpreted for anything other than what it is.

Paul
What does that statement mean, exactly?

It means that a quale is just given. The experience of redness is the experience of redness is the experience of redness. Oh yes, and it's not the experience of anything else.

Quote:

A person with synaesthesia experiences redness completely different than we do.

Oh yes? Why is it described as redness then?

Quote:

Why does a gray patch surrounded by green elicit the redness quale?

Huh?? It doesn't.

Quote:

How can a person distinguish a red glass from a green one while at the same time saying he does not see a glass at all?

Red glass? Green glass?? What on earth are you talking about. I'll stick to responding to posts which make the remotest sense I think.

[TLN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I'll stick to responding to posts which make the remotest sense I think.

Cool... try this one:

Quote:

Originally posted by TLN
Ian, simply stating that you know something to be true is absolutely worthless. You might be mistaken. It's really that simple.

Your refutations have been thoroughly demolished time and time again, but you just ignore them.

You have no definition of materialism, but you're positive it's false. This is the single stupidest statement I've ever heard.

You have no evidence, only your continued assertion that you know. Then you make matters worse by further asserting that anyone who disagrees is stupid.

Seriously, what the f#ck is wrong with you?

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Now I remember why I stopped bothering with Ian: he's too stubborn AND mind-numbingly stupid to discuss anything with.

Case in point:



II
You ought to be aware that this interpretation is hugely controversial. Apart from that it can't be right anyway, because then it would be a refutation of free will. Mind numbingly extraordinary claims require mind numbingly extraordinary evidence. It's how science works.


zaayrdragon
But obviously it IS right - because this is the observable truth. Hence, by your logic, free will is refuted.

Sorry that you think it can't be right, because it apparently is

WOW! One experiment proves we have no free will. Materialists believe in free will, so that must be refuted too. Do you actually understand it refutes your beloved materialism too?? So we have epiphenomenalism. Still so keen on this experiment?

Get it through your head that the results of this experiment is one of heated debate as to its implications. It is very very far from obvious that it has in any way refuted the notion of free will. Go do a search on the Net. For a kick off the ability to veto ones actions, which was possible in these experiments, makes absolutely no sense if free will is refuted.

Read this for a taste of the controversy
http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume...d=495_0_25_0_C

Quote:

II
well this is easily tested. Set up an experiment and tell a subject that he will be given a £1,000,000 if he doesn't press the button in front of him. Ask him if he wants the million. Let's imagine he says yes. Let's imagine further that he agrees he will not press the button because he does indeed want the million. Then manipulate his brain so that he "voluntarily" does push the button. He cannot voluntarily press the button without being blatantly inconsistent.

zaayrdragon
But, you see, he will think he is voluntarily pressing it - and won't understand why.

I do not understand what the word voluntary means if it is not a desire to fulfil an intention. He doesn't want to press the button, yet he does. How pray can this therefore be voluntary? Admittedly he might suddenly have this irrational irresistible desire to move his arm and press the button, but if he cannot prevent himself, not even for the sake of a £1,000,000, then I would question whether it could reasonably be referred to as exercising his intentions and therefore be a voluntary action. Anyway, I would like this experiment to be performed on me. I very much doubt I would press the button, but if I did, I very much doubt I would describe it as voluntary. With the stimulation of my brain you would need to obliterate my desire for this money; otherwise it simply wouldn't make sense calling it voluntary. It might feel like a voluntary action, but it would be caused by an irrational desire where I am acting contrary to what I actual want.

Quote:

Again, provable scientific fact...

and just because you don't like the implications, you're trying to deny them.

I certainly reject these experiments, and I agree I would reject any scientific evidence against free will (either libertarian or compatibilist). We immediately experience our free will; we immediately experience our own causal agency. Such free actions might conceivably be the very same as physical processes in the brain, but I a priori reject that all my actions are caused by brain processes. This is effectively epiphenomenalism, and it is incoherent. See here for example. One can refute this notion of this idea we are hapless puppets of physical laws of nature simply by observing that I wouldn't need to make an effort to do anything ever, as my body would do everything for me! This is what your experiments suggest since you're saying I would "voluntarily" perform actions which I do not want to do. Sorry, but it's simply preposterous.

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by TLN
Cool... try this one:

Right, I've had it up to here with you. On my ignore list you go.

[TLN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I certainly reject these experiments, and I agree I would reject any scientific evidence against free will (either libertarian or compatibilist).

End of conversation! You're of your opinion and nothing can change it.

Why do you insist on wasting our time then? Jesus friggin' Christ, could you be any thicker?!

[Interesting Ian]

Could anyone tell me what Paul is talking about with this "red glass" issue??

[TLN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Right, I've had it up to here with you. On my ignore list you go.

Just like a believer to put blinders on that which he doesn't want to face.

Ian, you're a joke.

[Interesting Ian]

I told you TLN, I've put you on ignore, so you might as well stop addressing me. And no, I have not looked at your last post. I know you're addressing me, because 95% of the time, that's the only reason why you contribute to a thread ie to whine about me.

[TLN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I told you TLN, I've put you on ignore, so you might as well stop addressing me. And no, I have not looked at your last post. I know you're addressing me, because 95% of the time, that's the only reason why you contribute to a thread ie to whine about me.

[Eleatic Stranger]

Quote:

You ought to be aware that this interpretation is hugely controversial. Apart from that it can't be right anyway, because then it would be a refutation of free will.

In fairness to Ian, who I still suspect should do far more reading on the topic (though his inability to strictly define materialism is certainly understandable, as what exactly we mean by it is a matter of serious debate), this statement is actually quite defensible, though perhaps not in the way he intended it.

First off, the interpretation is quite controversial - and there are plenty of reasons to suggest (while still holding even a strong materialist position) that the conclusions people are drawing here are nonsensical. (For instance, if consciousness or any other higher brain faculty is an emergent property of brains any eliminativist conclusions drawn from this experiment are unmotivated.)

What I'm more interested in is the statement that any supposed refutation of free will is automatically falsified by virtue of the fact that it refutes free will. I think there is in fact something to this claim - if you'll allow me to pull out a couple things, at any rate.

The real question, I think, which I'm not entirely sure Ian is accurately answering, has to do with the nature of free will - and more importantly what free will is for. Now clearly there are ways of construing free will that are, frankly, overly naive and completely nonsensical. Any account of the will that fails to take into account the fact that we are all, to my knowledge, physical beings with certain definitive traits (I cannot, for example, freely choose to fly long distances - or at least not on any account that allows reason to act as a constraint on the will). Furthermore, it strikes me as somewhat obvious that, as humans, we come with various psychological tendencies which would further act to constrain our wills (whatever those are).

If we are to accept a conception of free will, then, it has to be one which isn't 'free' in the sense of unbounded or unconstrained (and here is where the entire notion starts to look somewhat implausible - what exactly are we doing in the first place by calling it "free will" if "free" is precisely something that it is not?)

I think, however, that if we look closer there is something important to the conception of free will that can be easily overlooked - namely the idea of responsibility. The intuition I am attempting to call attention to here is that, simply enough, we do distinguish between cases where someone does something for which they are responsible, and cases where someone does something for which they are not responsible (reflex actions, perhaps). (Of course, this cannot sensibly be taken as a straightforward distinction - most cases fall somewhere in between the two alternatives.) If there is something to the notion that there are actions for which we are responsible(and reading this in ethical terms may be the most appropriate way at the moment), however, it strikes me that some conception of choice must also be involved. This could be debated, certainly, but aside from granting it I'm not sure how we could properly make sense of the fact that we would hold someone responsible for striking someone normally, but not if their arms were being manipulated by someone else using a cleverly designed set of strings and weights.

It could, of course, easily be argued that this tendency we have to make these sorts of distinctions and our tendency to attribute choices and responsibilities to others and ourselves is mistaken. However, I think that at this point something can be said in favor of the above point. In particular, what I'd like to call attention to is the fact that the above sort of attribution is in fact crucial to how we understand the utterances (specifically) of others - and how we understand those utterances as meaningful utterances. (Language tokens, I want to point out, are not generally taken to have meaning all by themselves. We might plausibly deny that if human beings had never evolved the token "I am going to the store" would not actually represent anything, even if the sounds or characters did appear in some medium on the earth.) The extent to which we are able to understand various utterances, and so forth, is directly related to the extent to which we are able to understand them as stemming from the actions of agents - and by agents of course I mean simply entities which are responsible for their actions (to a certain extent - as qualified above).

In other words, what I am pointing out is that in some sense responsibility is connected with choice in a reasonably straightforward way, and that, also, meaning is connected with responsibility. The reason why Ian's statement is not, on its face, absurd, then, should be relatively apparent at this point. If the capability to understand utterances of others as meaningful utterances is dependant upon the capability to correctly understand others as choosing (in the qualified sense above, and tied to the idea of responsibility) to make those utterances, then any statement denying precisely that there are agents (as defined above) is - if it is true - meaningless and if it is meaningful, false.

None of this, of course, threatens materialism as such - or at least not directly, and the extent to which it threatens eliminativism is fairly minor. It does point out, I think, that eliminativism commits one, perhaps, to a far more extensive elimination than might at first be recognized, however (which is one of the reasons it is not as popularly endorsed among philosophers as among others).

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Hammegk said:
Do you "think" for each heartbeat? And I'd argue for "yes", *you* actually do. Does the fact that ego-think isn't required suggest absence of this 'will' you mentioned?

Yes.

Quote:

Ian said:
Oh yes? Why is it described as redness then?

Because the person with synaesthesia learned that his experience was supposed to be called redness.

Quote:

Huh?? It doesn't.

Yes, a neutral gray patch surrounded by green elicits the redness quale.

Quote:

Red glass? Green glass?? What on earth are you talking about. I'll stick to responding to posts which make the remotest sense I think.

Some people with blindsight can obey an order to select a glass by color even though they say they cannot see any glasses at all.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Eleatic, I believe Ian is talking about libertarian free will. I have yet to see a coherent definition of it.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Eleatic, I believe Ian is talking about libertarian free will. I have yet to see a coherent definition of it.

~~ Paul

No, I'm talking about the compatibilist concept of free will too. It is conceivable we still have free will, even though our behaviour can be reduced to physical laws governing micro-physics.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Hammegk,

Quote:

My Ed, Stimpy. Do you, and science, conclude your ego-awareness is all the 'consciousness' *you* possess?

As usual, I do not have the slightest idea what you are trying to ask here.


Ian,

Quote:

I am talking about scientific knowledge showing how many of our most basic and deeply held intuitive preconceptions about the mind are wrong. Things like experiments showing that neural activity in the motor cortex which causes muscle movement actually begins before the person is consciously aware that he is about to move.
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You ought to be aware that this interpretation is hugely controversial.

I have not stated any interpretation. I have stated the measured facts, that the brain activity which causes the muscular movement begins before the subject is consciously aware that he is going to move. Interpret that fact however you like.

Quote:

Apart from that it can't be right anyway, because then it would be a refutation of free will.

Such a dogmatic and closed-minded attitude makes it impossible to try to discuss possibilities with you. Anything which contradicts your own beliefs is just rejected outright. You have no interest in looking at the evidence, because you are already absolutely certain that it can't be right.

Quote:

Mind numbingly extraordinary claims require mind numbingly extraordinary evidence. It's how science works.

Being counter-intuitive does not make a claim "extraordinary". Not in the scientific sense of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.

Quote:

And experiments showing that when specific parts of the brain are stimulated properly, a person will be convinced that he willfully performed a movement, even though the movement was directly caused by stimulation.
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Oh well this is easily tested. Set up an experiment and tell a subject that he will be given a £1,000,000 if he doesn't press the button in front of him. Ask him if he wants the million. Let's imagine he says yes. Let's imagine further that he agrees he will not press the button because he does indeed want the million. Then manipulate his brain so that he "voluntarily" does push the button. He cannot voluntarily press the button without being blatantly inconsistent.

We don't need to perform your silly experiment. The experiments have already been performed. The inconsistency issue you mention is irrelevant. The person may not have the slightest idea why he suddenly decided to push the button, but will nevertheless feel like he did it of his on free-will, even if he knows that he didn't.

Quote:

Wrong again. For learning abstract facts there exists a mechanism. For everything else, such as learning what a color looks like, or learning how to walk, or learning how recognize voices, or learning how to recognize faces, or learning how play the piano, and so on, there does not.
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As I said before, replace Mary with an android, then all of these things apart from the first, the android could do, without ever having experienced them before. All it requires are the execution of the appropriate algorithms. In other words qualia is different from all other things as all these other things can be achieved in principle from simply reading a book.

How do you know it would not be possible to give it the ability to gain knowledge of what it's like to see red by reading abstract facts? I would say that it should be possible. Just build in the necessary circuitry for the robot to modify it's own brain according to the information in the book. A human brain cannot do this, but there is no reason the android brain could not be designed to be able to do it. You simply asserting that it cannot proves nothing. Certainly nothing about physicalism implies that it could not be done.

Quote:

Information does not do jack squat to your brain.
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Right, so when I read a text book, and I acquire knowledge, my brain state is not changed? Right.

Are you even bothering to read what I said? I just got through explaining that the information itself doesn't do anything. What changes your brain structures, thereby giving the knowledge, is the physical process of reading the words and thinking about what they mean. A physical process in your brain causes those structures to form. Likewise a physical process in your brain is needed to form the structures which constitute knowledge of things like how to play a piano, or what red looks like. Those are different types of brain structures than memories of abstract knowledge, and therefore require different physical processes to form them. The brain simply does not have any physical processes which construct those types of structures from abstract information.

Quote:

Physical processes do.
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Reading the book containing all possible information is a physical process. Why can I learn absolutely everything apart from qualia??

You can't. You can't learn how to play a piano, or how to walk, or how to recognize faces, or a huge number of other things. The only thing that you can learn by reading a book is abstract facts. That's it.

Quote:

What, do you think that when you read a bunch of facts in a book, the information somehow magically flows into your memory? A physical process extracts that information from your sensory input, and constructs physical structures in your brain which store the information. That is how memory of abstract information works. Memory of other things, such as memory of how to play the piano, or memory of what red looks like, work differently.
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Why do you keep conflating the performance of a task with qualia??

I am not conflating them. I am saying that they are both examples of knowledge which cannot be gained by reading a book.

Quote:

See above about my point regarding the android. An android could carry out all tasks perfectly, but it wouldn't know what the experience of redness is like.

You keep asserting this, but have offered no evidence or argument to support the claim. I say that the android could be designed to be able to do this.

Quote:

A task such as piano playing, and the experience of redness are not the same.

No, they are not. Nor are such tasks the same thing as learning abstract information. The point is that there are many different types of learning. Some can be accomplished by reading a book, and others can not. That does not, in any way, imply that any of these forms of knowledge consist of anything more than brain structures.

Quote:

II
What is it about algorithms that could give such knowledge??

Stimpy
Nothing. Algorithms don't do anything. They describe physical processes. A computer is not just algorithms, nor is a brain. They are physical processes which can be described algorithmically. Since the knowledge is just a physical structure, and algorithm can describe that physical structure, and describe how to construct it.
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Yes yes, it's the execution of an algorithm we're talking about, obviously!

Please answer my question.

I just did. The execution of the algorithm is a physical process. That process causes the construction of the physical structures which constitute the knowledge.

Quote:

Having the algorithm which describes how to construct the relevant brain structures is not enough. You need a physical process to actually do it. No such process exists in the brain.
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I think we're getting off the point here. Let's imagine that our brains did allow such processes. What part of the book containing all possible information would initiate this process and allow us to know what redness is like?

The book would contain a detailed description of what the structure of our brain would be like if we had the knowledge. Our brains would then use this knowledge to alter its own structure to match what the book says it should be. We would then know what redness is like.

Quote:

Or let's take the android example again. Would an android understand what redness is like from reading the book supposing its "brain" allows for all appropriate processes to take place??

Absolutely.

Quote:

This is not a logical argument. It is an assertion.
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What? That no-one can experience my toothache? You are seriously disputing it?

No. I am disputing your assertion that no-one can observe your experiences. I have already explained that it is not necessary for other people to be able to experience your experiences.

Quote:

Irrelevant. Nobody else can experience your experiences, but they don't need to. If experiences are simply processes, as materialism claims, then I only need to observe the process.
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As I mentioned earlier on in this thread. What you and other materialists are doing is presupposing materialism is correct, going blah blah blah, then saying therefore materialism is correct. But you are begging the question!

Complete BS. Nobody here is attempting to prove that materialism is correct. What we are doing is attempting to explain to what materialism actually claims. Materialism does not claim that one person should be able to experience another person's experiences.

Quote:

If you take it as an axiom that the experience of toothache is a physical process then {shrugs} obviously I cannot by definition show that your position is false. You're assuming materialism is definitely correct at the outset!

No, we are presenting a possible way things could work. If you want to show that this possibility is wrong, then you need to present evidence. Simply asserting that it is, and then accusing us of circular reasoning when we try to explain to what our position actually is, accomplishes nothing.

Quote:

This is a nonsense argument. You have simply compiled a list of so-called "physical characteristics", and are asserting that the characteristics of pain are not physical because they are not on the list.
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Well, if qualia have no characteristics whatsoever in common with any other physical thing, then it seems mighty strange to call it physical anyway.

You have not, in any way, shown that they have no characteristics in common with other physical things. On the contrary, they clearly do. For example, the characteristic of being causally efficacious. Anyway, the hypothesis is that they are an emergent phenomena, in which case their properties are emergent properties of a particular type of complex physical process.

Quote:

No mass? Information cannot tell us what qualia are like? But still physical??

Physical properties like temperature, viscosity, and tensile strength, are not identical to any of the low-level properties in your arbitrary list either. Like the properties of the mind, they are emergent properties. But they are still physical properties, and are still quite reducible to those low-level properties. Your argument is nothing more than the composition fallacy.

Quote:

This line of argumentation demonstrates only that you have no conception of emergent properties,
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The paragraph concerned was not addressing emergent properties! It rhymes with clucking bell.

The position you are claiming your argument shows to be wrong holds that mental properties are emergent properties. The fact that you do not realize that your post was not addressing emergent properties just proves that you don't understand the position you are claiming you have refuted.

Quote:

Indeed it is only known through its qualitative experience and possible causal power. I submit therefore that if the pain per se has causal effects in the world as well as, or instead of its neural correlates, then this will be flat our interactionist dualism. This is in contrast to, say, something like an electron. The electron has physical attributes and its reality can be confirmed by anyone with suitable instruments and unimpaired senses. To elucidate, in saying that an electron exists I mean that it plays some fruitful role in a theory describing the world, or part of the world, and that this theory can be integrated with our other scientific theories regarding the world. But the crucial point is this: there is nothing to an electron apart from some role in a scientific theory describing the world, but there is something else to consciousness apart from the causal role it plays in some scientific theory.

Stimpy
Again, this is simply an assertion.
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The assertion being that we are not p-zombies.

No, the assertion being that there is something else to consciousness apart from the causal role it plays. Rejecting this assertion would only imply that we are p-zombies if we accepted the obviously false claim that phenomenal consciousness is causally inefficacious, and we don't. If phenomenal consciousness is not causally inefficacious, then p-zombies are logically impossible. End of story.

Quote:

and if they are all causally efficacious, then it is logically impossible to have a complete scientific description of all physical effects in the world which leaves any of these properties out.
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Clearly not, as my consciousness is not exhausted by its causal efficacy. As well as my free will, I also have qualitative experiences. As I said, if you're defending the notion that we are all p-zombies, then I have no interest in discussing this with you.

Your reasoning here is completely incoherent. If you believe that consciousness is causally efficacious, then p-zombies are impossible. They don't even enter into it. You do not even seem to realize that claiming that your qualitative experiences do not play any causal role is the same as saying that they are causally inefficacious.

Quote:

In other words there is something else to consciousness apart from our behaviour, and this is the raw feel of experience (or phenomenological consciousness as some people put it, and what Chalmer's refers to as the "hard problem" of consciousness).

Stimpy
Something which is, by definition, causally inefficacious.
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Not at all. I'm *not* defining consciousness as causally efficacious.

Not you. Chalmers. If you do not agree with him that it is causally inefficacious, you should not be bringing up his arguments.

Quote:

But from the fact that it is causally efficacious, this does not mean its reality is exhausted by its causal efficacy!

I don't know what you mean by "exhausted by" here. If there is no aspect of it which is causally inefficacious, then a complete description of its causal effects is a complete description of it.

Quote:

This is quite possibly one of the most stupid arguments I have ever seen you present. I'll tell you what. If you want to know what the word "folk" means in this context, go find an eliminativist and ask him. There is no point in me wasting any more time trying to explain to you what eliminativism is, since you are obviously not going to believe anything I say anyway.
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Right, so you still maintain that folk psychology is not the psychology held by folk. o . . k

Yes, I do. Jesus christ, Ian. If you are going to discuss a subject, at least try to learn a little about it first. This kind of nonsense just make you look ridiculous.

Quote:

You can't have a theory about that which is immediately given to us. It's simply meaningless to say the experience of pain is a theory.

Stimpy
See, this is what I mean by your entire way of thinking about the issue being bogged down in intuitive preconceptions.
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{sighs} Why don't you address my argument as to why we cannot have theories about qualia??

What argument? You just stated that we can't. What am I supposed to respond to?

Quote:

Sorry, but I do not accept your axiomatic assertion that experiences are immediate.
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You're still quoting isolated sentences without addressing my whole argument.

I am showing where the flaws in your argument are. Your argument is based on assumptions which I do not agree with, and which you have presented no justification for. That renders your argument invalid.

Quote:

I am talking about there being a lot of brain processes involved at a non-conscious level, before you are ever consciously aware of the experience. What makes it to that level already has a lot of intuitive preconceptions tied up in it.
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Yes, and as I explained this is all wholly irrelevant.

It is not irrelevant. It means that what you think of as your "immediate experiences" already have a lot of intuitive baggage attached to them, whether you are consciously aware of that fact or not.

Quote:

Your notion of the mind as some single thing which directly experiences sensory input, is simply not consistent with reality. This is one of those intuitive preconceptions which need to be discarded. But it clearly forms the basis for the entire way you think about the mind. Unless you are willing to set aside these preconceptions, and accept the possibility that your intuition on such things may be wrong, you are never going to understand any of the scientific approaches to the mind.
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This is all a complete non-sequitur. I do not have to believe the mind as a single thing. I just have to accept the existence of qualia or raw experiences. I have explained why you're wrong. Read and understand.

You have not explained anything. You have merely stated what you believe.

Quote:

Nothing is immediately given to us.
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Of course it is. Qualia is. The nature of the qualia might be moulded by our implicit expectations and low level theory, but the existence and nature of the quale itself cannot be interpreted for anything other than what it is. Forget about the physical processes or mind processes before the experience of the quale. That's not what we're talking about.

This is exactly what I am talking about. It is painfully obvious from this paragraph that your entire concept of what qualia are has all sorts of intuitive preconceptions tied up in it. These preconceptions are so deeply ingrained into your way of thinking about the subject that you don't even recognize them as being there.

Quote:

This is pointless. You are so close-minded with respect to this issue that you cannot even recognize the possibility that you might be wrong. I might as well be talking to a brick wall.
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I don't recognise the possibility that I am wrong about the fact that I am now having a certain characteristic experience of redness, sure. But there again, I'm not insane.

Again, this response just demonstrates that you do not understand the position which I am advocating.

Quote:

The simple fact is that materialism is unintelligible to you because you are incapable of understanding anything at any more than an intuitive level. You do not even recognize the distinction between logical and intuitive reasoning, because to you they are apparently the same thing. My position is counter-intuitive, so to you, it must be wrong. No amount of explanation on my part is going to change that. I give up.
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I have given you my arguments. You in turn have replied with a load of irrelevant waffle. All your arguments amount to is taking as an axiom that materialism is correct, saying any questioning of that axiom on my part is driven by intuition, and then you concluding that materialism is correct.

Have you no idea how completely stupid and question begging your whole approach is??

Again, I have made no attempt to prove that my position is correct. I have offered no claim of proof. I am not begging the question, because I have not at any point concluded that materialism is correct. I am just explaining what materialism is, and refuting your arguments which claim to show it to be false. I have not, anywhere in this thread presented anything along the lines of "blah blah blah... therefore materialism is correct". The very fact that you would accuse me of this shows that you have profound reading comprehension problems.

Quote:

WOW! One experiment proves we have no free will. Materialists believe in free will, so that must be refuted too. Do you actually understand it refutes your beloved materialism too?? So we have epiphenomenalism. Still so keen on this experiment?

Dude, materialists do not believe in the type of free-will that is refuted by this. Materialism is not compatible with that type of free-will in the first place.


Dr. Stupid

[Eleatic Stranger]

Quote:

Some people with blindsight can obey an order to select a glass by color even though they say they cannot see any glasses at all.

But I think if you'll look closer they won't actually believe they're doing it. In fact, they'll think they're randomly guessing - it just turns out that their random guesses are statistically significant (though not, importantly as well, perfect). Blindsight has a tendency to be over interpreted in some literature....

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Eleatic Stranger
In fairness to Ian, who I still suspect should do far more reading on the topic (though his inability to strictly define materialism is certainly understandable, as what exactly we mean by it is a matter of serious debate), this statement is actually quite defensible, though perhaps not in the way he intended it.

Do you get off on making disparaging remarks about my intellect all the time? Due to my frank and uncompromising opinions, I've had people saying I'm incredibly stupid from my earliest recollections (about 5 years old). I've had it all my life. It still happens now, at least with people on here. No doubt I'll always get people saying I'm incredibly stupid. In short I'm used to it. So you're wasting your time if your only purpose is to make me feel small.

But anyway, my statement is indeed very defensible. Indeed I would go so far as to claim I can provide proof that we necessarily have free will; even if only of the materialist variety.

Now Zaayrdragon maintains that these experiments proves that a mental decision to do something is actually the brain deciding for you half a second earlier (the Libet experiment). And the decision to voluntarily act is purely due to an event in the brain (other experiment). Combining these 2 conclusions the brain always decides what my behaviour will be, and my mental states such as my intentions and decisions to act, are wholly causally inefficacious. That is to say my mental decisions are wholly caused by preceding brain activity, and such mental decisions are wholly causally inefficacious to boot. In short, even if this does not imply epiphenomenalism, certainly I have no more free will than under epiphenomenalism; namely absolutely none at all.

So given that my decision to behave is wholly provided by the brain half a second earlier then the conscious decision, then presumably this is also the case for all our mental activity such as our thoughts. But this means that in principle we could interfere with the communication parts of the brain so that we never have any mental experiences; the brain following physical laws can simply do everything by itself! Thus our behaviour would be exactly the same even if we had no conscious experiences whatsoever. In other words it is possible that we could be p-zombies, and moreover this would be the case for this world!

But ok, no paradox yet. Now the next part of my argument is that I would claim that we have incorrigible certitude of our own consciousness. That is to say, from my perspective, the possibility that I might not be conscious is nonsensical. This is because consciousness is defined precisely by this immediate feeling of consciousness. Note here that I am certainly not saying there is incorrigible certitude of the self. But I am certainly aware that there is a distinction between me and an unconscious automaton (p-zombie).

Now, all my thoughts, all my reasoning, simply follows what my brain does. When I think to myself "I am immediately acquainted with my own consciousness", this is simply due to the prior brain process half a second earlier. So whether or not I am actually immediately acquainted with my own consciousness, I would think that I am anyway!.

In other words I, on the one hand, concluded that I have incorrigible certitude of my own consciousness, but if we take what Zaayrdragon thinks these experiments imply, I could very well be incorrect in my conviction that I am conscious.

Thus we have a paradox. We either need to reject that I had incorrigible certitude of the existence of my conscious, or Zaayrdragon's interpretation of these experiments is incorrect. But by definition, as rational beings, we cannot reject that which is known with incorrigible certitude, therefore we are obliged to reject Zaayrdragon's interpretation of these experiments.

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Apart from that it can't be right anyway, because then it would be a refutation of free will.



Such a dogmatic and closed-minded attitude makes it impossible to try to discuss possibilities with you. Anything which contradicts your own beliefs is just rejected outright. You have no interest in looking at the evidence, because you are already absolutely certain that it can't be right.

Stimp, I can't even be bothered to read your whole post, never mind respond to it. You just keep repeating the same inanities. Case in point. Look at my above post. I have given proof that we necessarily have free will. I rather think philosophical proof trumps scientific evidence, don't you?

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

Dude, materialists do not believe in the type of free-will that is refuted by this. Materialism is not compatible with that type of free-will in the first place.

Spotted this at the end of your post and I feel that I should mention we've already had a huge argument over this a couple of months ago on skepticalcommunity.

I say again what I said there. Our behaviour can be described by some rules, even though very convoluted and even if libertarian free will. Conceivably those rules might be the same as physical laws, and I think that this is the position that materialists are obliged to adopt given the tenets of their metaphysic.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

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Eleatic said:
But I think if you'll look closer they won't actually believe they're doing it. In fact, they'll think they're randomly guessing - it just turns out that their random guesses are statistically significant (though not, importantly as well, perfect). Blindsight has a tendency to be over interpreted in some literature....

Oh yes, I realize they don't believe they are doing it. My only interpretation of blindsight is that there are nonconscious pathways from the visual cortex to motor control. I suspect these are the more primitive pathways. Visual consciousness came later.

I highly recommend The Quest for Consciousness by Kristof Koch if you haven't read it yet.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Ian said:
Now Zaayrdragon maintains that these experiments proves that a mental decision to do something is actually the brain deciding for you half a second earlier (the Libet experiment). And the decision to voluntarily act is purely due to an event in the brain (other experiment). Combining these 2 conclusions the brain always decides what my behaviour will be, and my mental states such as my intentions and decisions to act, are wholly causally inefficacious. That is to say my mental decisions are wholly caused by preceding brain activity, and such mental decisions are wholly causally inefficacious to boot. In short, even if this does not imply epiphenomenalism, certainly I have no more free will than under epiphenomenalism; namely absolutely none at all.

Hold on, man! You're jumping to the conclusion that the feeling of intention is causally inefficacious. If that were the case, it would not have evolved. The feeling of intention must serve a purpose, perhaps as a marker that an important action decision has been made, so that future planning can take that into account:[list=1][*]Spot a predator.[*]Immediately begin to run, purely nonconsciously.[*]Note the marker "intention to run."[*]Form a plan to change direction to escape optimally.[/list=1]
Watch a chipmunk on the road sometime. I think perhaps it doesn't have the marker.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Hold on, man! You're jumping to the conclusion that the feeling of intention is causally inefficacious. If that were the case, it would not have evolved. The feeling of intention must serve a purpose, perhaps as a marker that an important action decision has been made, so that future planning can take that into account:[list=1][*]Spot a predator.[*]Immediately begin to run, purely nonconsciously.[*]Note the marker "intention to run."[*]Form a plan to change direction to escape optimally.[/list=1]
Watch a chipmunk on the road sometime. I think perhaps it doesn't have the marker.

~~ Paul

I agree that intention, thoughts etc can't be causally inefficacious. But these experiments suggest otherwise.

[Z]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Stimp, I can't even be bothered to read your whole post, never mind respond to it. You just keep repeating the same inanities. Case in point. Look at my above post. I have given proof that we necessarily have free will. I rather think philosophical proof trumps scientific evidence, don't you?

And here, Gentle Reader, he sums up the totality of his stupidity: he believes that philosophy trumps science - that a mental 'proof' trumps physically sound evidence; further, he 'cannot be bothered' to read.

Do you see, my friends, the pitfalls of willful ignorance?

Quote:

Now Zaayrdragon maintains that these experiments proves that a mental decision to do something is actually the brain deciding for you half a second earlier (the Libet experiment). And the decision to voluntarily act is purely due to an event in the brain (other experiment). Combining these 2 conclusions the brain always decides what my behaviour will be, and my mental states such as my intentions and decisions to act, are wholly causally inefficacious. That is to say my mental decisions are wholly caused by preceding brain activity, and such mental decisions are wholly causally inefficacious to boot. In short, even if this does not imply epiphenomenalism, certainly I have no more free will than under epiphenomenalism; namely absolutely none at all.

Actually, the brain is not deciding for you - the brain and you are one. The decision to do enters your conscious thoughts but are first processed by the non-conscious portions of the brain.

So, yes, your brain ALWAYS decides what your behaviour will be. Why? Because YOU are your brain. Intentions and decisions are all part of the brain in action, and all have physical correlates within the brain itself. There is absolutely no part of the mind, no thought or feeling or idea, that does not PHYSICALLY take place within the grey matter in some form or other. There is no hidden watcher, no radio set, no matter what Ian thinks is true. There is only the brain, obeying physical laws.

So a "P-zombie" is absolutely no different from a "Conscious Individual" - Two words for exactly the same creature. Every wild idea you ever have, no matter how strange it may seem, is simply physical laws playing out within the old grey matter.

...Now, to be fair, an awful lot of it might even be reducible to quantum states - in which case I would say we are Q-Zombies, rather than P-Zombies.

However, none of this matters to Ian - He has already claimed, quite outright, that he will flatly ignore any scientific evidence that disproves him. Well, Gentle Reader, that sums it up - no point discussing with him, as he has stuck his metaphysical fingers in his ears and is no longer listening to reason.

---Which is probably why he has been called stupid his whole life - given that he's STILL acting 5 years old.

Notice, Gentle Reader, that he cannot even understand the simplest expressions of the blindsight concept?

What a strange and pathetic creature Ian is. Surely, Readers, there is some idealist out there who is a shining example of the breed, rather than this blot, this poor example of idealistic thinking?

[Interesting Ian]

Quote:

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
And here, Gentle Reader, he sums up the totality of his stupidity:

Pity some of these gentle readers don't contribute. I get a tad sick of being called stupid all the time.

Quote:

he believes that philosophy trumps science - that a mental 'proof' trumps physically sound evidence; further, he 'cannot be bothered' to read.

Of course a logical proof trumps scientific evidence. Are ya daft??

Quote:

Do you see, my friends, the pitfalls of willful ignorance?



Actually, the brain is not deciding for you - the brain and you are one.

Not according to these experiments. You cannot claim the identity theory if the mental decison occurs 0.5 sec after the corrlated physical process!

Quote:

The decision to do enters your conscious thoughts but are first processed by the non-conscious portions of the brain.

So your consciousness has no input into your "decision". It's exactly the same as epiphenomenalism, if not epiphenomenalism itself.

Quote:

So, yes, your brain ALWAYS decides what your behaviour will be. Why? Because YOU are your brain. Intentions and decisions are all part of the brain in action, and all have physical correlates within the brain itself. There is absolutely no part of the mind, no thought or feeling or idea, that does not PHYSICALLY take place within the grey matter in some form or other. There is no hidden watcher, no radio set, no matter what Ian thinks is true. There is only the brain, obeying physical laws.

Oh God. Could you address my argument which refutes your position please??

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So a "P-zombie" is absolutely no different from a "Conscious Individual"

A p-zombie is not conscious at all.

I think you're getting confused with the materialists contention that p-zombies are logically impossible. But you cannot likewise claim this, as I explained in my other post.

Quote:

However, none of this matters to Ian - He has already claimed, quite outright, that he will flatly ignore any scientific evidence that disproves him.

Yes that's right. Conscousness necessarily has to be able to affect the world. Now arguably materialists can allow for this possibility (although I disagree) since consciousness and certain physical activity in the brain are the same or logically necessitate each other, but your position is that consciousness definitely doesn't affect the world. You're saying that conscious decisions follow the decision made by the brain!

[davidsmith73]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


The scientific method requires only assumptions about the observable world, and only assumptions which, if false, could potentially result in observations which would be inconsistent with those assumptions. So no, they are not metaphysical.

How would you falsify the notion that there is more to reality than your experiences?