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I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

Belz... said:
This is a problem with sophists: you're so used to using reasoning that leads nowhere that you can't fathom that people have successful methodologies that lead to the right conclusions.
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ad hominem
 
LarryS said:
What do you mean by the brain is a 'computer'? Do you mean this as a metaphor, or in the sense that brain as computer answers the how of certain processes such as perception and reasoning, or perhaps as a generalized 'a machine that manipulates symbols'. Or do you mean as a general definition . . . as in the brain is a stand-alone machine - like a computer.
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Not a metaphor; I'm saying this in the precise mathematical sense. The brain is Turing-equivalent (or at least Turing-equivalent) since it can demonstrably emulate the action of a Turing machine or other provably Turing-equivalent mechanism. (Every computer programmer in the world has done this at some point.)

That makes the brain a computer by definition, because our term for devices that are Turing-equivalent is "computer".
 
Belz... said:
Really ? In what way is this an ad hominem ?
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because you are attending to the poster ("so used to using reasoning that leads nowhere") not his argument. And I reckon your use of 'Sophist' is meant as a dig.
 
Belz... said:
It's incredible that people could argue against that bit of unassailable logic.
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Plenty of very smart people have gotten line to argue that the Turing Equivalent model is not sufficient to explain the capacities of the human mind - even if we limit the human mind to mathematics . . . much less qualia.
 
LarryS said:
granted it's not equivalent to an insult . . . but it was an irrelevant opinion re the poster and not his argument.
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It's very relevant. It's an observation about the possible cause of Punshhh's disconnect on this issue, in the (possibly futile) attempt to make them realise that perhaps they should change their approach.
 
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LarryS said:
If I wished to think of 'information' in layman's terms . . . as something my Grandmother could understand . . . . Is it something along these lines? If I pickup an object, like an apple, I can see the color, feel the mass, and shape, I can taste the tartness, and if I also remember past apples I have enjoyed . . . this experience can be described as a collection of data points, IE wavelengths, measurements like mass and etc.
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Despite certain conversationalist assertions it is much more complex, first off you have the actual sense organs, they interact and send signals along neuron channels down a chain, frequently involving cross matching and processing.
And then there is the whole creation of perceptions, you do not 'see' the events that the sense organs transmit, they are created into a perceptual map by the different areas of the brain, each person is similar but each system is idiomatic and learned in place.

To further the computationalist model , it would be more of a democratic consensus model at many levels, due to the fact the neural functions are not strictly on/off, they are more analog and involve considerable cross matching, reverberation and associative structures.

But none the less they are brain processes, and can be demonstrated to eb so.
But the experience is not like a blank stare dispassionate recording as with a camera and mass spectrometer, there also is a sense of apprehension, or knowing . . . not knowing in the sense of right knowledge, or wrong knowledge, but knowing (because I don't know what other word to use) as in the binding of various data points into a useful collection, IE information.
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these are further learned associations and complexes, yes.
Computers can also be 'taught' to bind data points together into information . . . but 'knowing' is more than that, there is also a sense of 'I' . . . and ownership of the experience.
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An interpretative cognitive layer of memory , association and learning, yes.
So, then I will use this as my definition of consciousness: the capacity of 'knowing'. This capacity of knowing is a precondition to all mental states such as perception, memory, and emotive states such as being happy or sad.
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Nope, many people can meet the second set of conditions and not meet the first, in many states and levels.

there is no single point of consciousness, it is a rubric of disparate brain events.
 
LarryS said:
What do you mean by the brain is a 'computer'? Do you mean this as a metaphor, or in the sense that brain as computer answers the how of certain processes such as perception and reasoning, or perhaps as a generalized 'a machine that manipulates symbols'. Or do you mean as a general definition . . . as in the brain is a stand-alone machine - like a computer.
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It is an analog computer using a trillion units, most with at least 7,000 cross conenctions, many prewired structures developed during growth and later development, it is not a digital computer, but it still meets the definition.

the software is mostly associative and learned.
 
punshhh said:
Assumption.
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Son, when you have two separate mutually-exclusive claims about one thing, at least one of them has to be wrong.

You aren't really doing yourself any favors by arguing this.

punshhh said:
Take your blinkers off now. It is you're assertion that an idealist universe would not be identical to the universe we find ourselves in. Philosophically, ontologies all assume the phenomenal universe to be identical in all cases.
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The issue is that, under idealism, there is no reason for the universe to look like it does. In fact, we would expect the universe to look like anything but what it does, so you have to keep adding special clauses saying "oh except here, because blah". And you have to keep doing that until the end result is indistinguishable in any meaningful way from materialism.

punshhh said:
The reality out there is the way it is independent of our thoughts. Idealism and materialism are simply rational perspectives on this
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No.

Materialism is a rational perspective on it. Idealism is the opposite.


punshhh said:
Perhaps you will now tell me the origin of material and how it happens to exist rather than not existing?
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Irrelevant to the question of idealism versus materialism.

punshhh said:
You can only make this assertion by wearing your materialist blinkers, or asserting that idealism would somehow be different than what we observe.
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Idealism needs to assert that the universe would be different from what we observe, or there is literally no difference between it and materialism.

Idealism asserts that matter comes from consciousness, which is not what we observe. Saying that it actually is what we observe, but someone out there is imagining so thoroughly that there is no way to tell, is meaningless waffle.

punshhh said:
This does not address the issue mind you, because our idealist mind (being) may be using physical matter as a vehicle and exploiting the apparatus of the body.
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This is not what we observe. Minds change when matter is altered.

LarryS said:
Plenty of very smart people have gotten line to argue that the Turing Equivalent model is not sufficient to explain the capacities of the human mind - even if we limit the human mind to mathematics .
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Plenty of very smart people also believed in, say, alchemy, or geocentrism.

Who believes it is irrelevant to whether or not it is actually true. Thus far, no actual valid objections have been raised to the brain being a Turing-equivalent computer.

LarryS said:
much less qualia.
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And there we have the word that people have been dancing around for so long in this thread. I was wondering when someone was going to come out and say it.

The concept of qualia is nonsensical and makes no meaningful distinction between types of information processing. It fails in practical application on practically every count. It is worse than useless; if it were true, nothing in the entire universe would be understandable or communicable at all.

All it does is say "I can't easily put this particular sensation into words; therefore, it must be something ineffable".

And that is a hilariously weak argument.
 
Nonpareil said:
Son, when you have two separate mutually-exclusive claims about one thing, at least one of them has to be wrong.

You aren't really doing yourself any favors by arguing this.
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Well, that is the crux of the problem, they aren't (functionally) mutually exclusive. Fundamental materialism excludes functional idealism but fundamental idealism does not exclude functional materialism. So the exclusion is not (at least functionally) mutual.

Nonpareil said:
The issue is that, under idealism, there is no reason for the universe to look like it does. In fact, we would expect the universe to look like anything but what it does, so you have to keep adding special clauses saying "oh except here, because blah". And you have to keep doing that until the end result is indistinguishable in any meaningful way from materialism.
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Well, that does go against Bernardo's "parsimonious" claims for idealism, but one would hardly consider material aspects to be simple, or more specifically simply understandable to us. One of the common trends in crank physics is that the universe should be easily or intuitively understandable to us. Idealism is the ultimate extent of that. It is nothing more than some extent of what you already experience as conciseness.

The problem is, and as I have tried to relate before, that conciseness lies. Probably one of its most defining features, to maintain consistency and continuity at the expense of even itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
 
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