“Materialism” is an empty word. An incendiary article.

[Dancing David]

You are out to lunch if you think I am having an argument about how to define a sentence.

But anyway, what you think of as "semantic word games" are what others might call "conceptual analysis". This is not at all restricted to philosophy, but is also important in such things as biology, psychology, linguistics and other subjects.

If such things are unimportant for you then maybe it is best not to wade into the discussions about those things.

It is also the basis of most discussion on this forum outside of US Politics

 

[phiwum]

Yes, I am in fact not interested in semantic word games, so I am certainly dismissing that. And I'm not buying the whole "what do you mean by semantic word games"? You may be right that looking up the definition of individual words doesn't always add up to understand the meaning of all those words in a sentence... But in this cases , I think it's pretty obvious.

In fact, the very fact that we are having this discussion, illustrates my point about what I mean. Now you and I are having a discussion about how to define a sentence, which definition is pretty easy to figure out. Regardless of the context, that sentence has a very clear meaning. And in this forums, This is not the first time that someone accuses philosophers of playing semantic games, so to even claim that the concept needs definition is a joke.

First, let me explicitly agree with angrysoba's suggestion that if this sort of discussion isn't your cup of tea, then you should feel free to attend to other threads.

Now, that said, I have some vague idea of what one might mean by "semantic word games", but I have really very little understanding why that phrase might apply to this thread, which was motivated by the question of whether one might clearly define materialism so that it is both meaningful and plausible. Yes, of course, this thread is fundamentally semantic. It is not, however, a "word game". It's a genuine question which genuinely interests some persons.

If you think that any of the persons here are actually engaged in mere semantic games, feel free to call them out and point out the rhetorical offenses they commit. Otherwise, do please feel free to leave those who are content to engage in conversations beneath you well enough alone.

Thanks much. And I promise that we will take as granted that every philosophical topic is something you regard as "semantic word games" without requiring you to pop by and say so.

Ever so pleasantly yours.

 

[phiwum]

You are right and I was wrong. It turns out that 'cognitive' no longer applies only to people.

how cognitive robots will change the world

If'n I may make a humble suggestion without being dragged too far into this part of the thread:

Dennett famously suggested that what it means to have beliefs, etc., is to be a system which is best explained by the presumption that it has certain beliefs, desires, etc. For instance, a chess-playing program is well-predicted in terms of its desire to win, its valuation of the rook over the knight, and so on. From a purely third-person perspective, it is advantageous to interpret the behavior of the system in terms of its beliefs and goals. Neither a purely physical nor design stance is as effective.

Meanwhile others, and in particular Searle, think of this issue in terms of a first-person perspective. Does it make any sense to suppose that the chess-playing computer "really" has desires and beliefs in the same sense as the chess-playing person in front of me? In all honesty, with some familiarity with programming, I tend to agree with Searle that it is bizarre to imagine that meaning can arise from purely formal symbol manipulation -- but this is merely my intuition, and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Far as I can see, the central conflict is the first-person/third-person view. If we approach matters from a purely scientific perspective, where consistent observability takes precedence over subjective experience, I tend to think that Dennett's approach is useful. It naturally, of course, supports the Turing test as a test of intelligence, and not mere mimicry, and it also gibes with our intuitive notions of a test for third party intelligence.

 

[barehl]

Moral emotions, also called "self-conscious", are the emotions implied in the evaluation of the self and moral judgements.

This statement made very little sense to me. To be honest, I'm not sure I could even figure out what you are trying to say well enough to ask a question about what you meant. Where are you saying that these emotions come from?

Main examples: shame, guilt, pride, embarrassment.
I can assure you that the majority of experts agree in that the moral emotions are not securely recognizable by means of corporal expressions.

Well, people often blush when they are embarrassed or feel guilty. People avoid eye contact when they feel shame. People typically pull their shoulders back and lift their chin when they feel proud. These are pretty well known.

No. I am not dualist in the classical sense of this word. I don’t believe in the existence of a kind of independent substance called spirit or soul. In general, we have sufficient evidence of the mind dependence on the brain. But I think that we have not means to translate our concepts about mind in the terms of biological or neurological concepts.

The concepts don't exist; there is no predictive theory about how to build a thinking machine. How can you apply what you don't have?

 

[David Mo]

Now, that said, I have some vague idea of what one might mean by "semantic word games", but I have really very little understanding why that phrase might apply to this thread, which was motivated by the question of whether one might clearly define materialism so that it is both meaningful and plausible. Yes, of course, this thread is fundamentally semantic. It is not, however, a "word game". It's a genuine question which genuinely interests some persons.

I agree. I have proposed a discussion about the explanation of the sense of the word "materialism". This is a task for semantics. In what sense is this a "game"? I suspect that "game" is used here in a persuasive way. This is to say, Ron uses this word instead of "investigation" or similar because it has a pejorative connotation.

Maybe Ron can clarify how he is using "word games". Maybe Ron doesn't like this kind of discussion because it is too complicated or because he thinkns that the understanding of the sense of words we use is irrelevant. But one of the main requisites of rationality is to clarify the words one is using. And if he thinks I am in a mistake he should have to explain the reasons of his negative evaluation. This is how rationality and dialectics work.

Thank you, Ron.

 

[barehl]

So you see, it is impossible for a computer, or an animal, or anything else except a person to have cognition - by definition!

Well, I wasn't trying to discuss this on such a remedial level. So, I'll leave you to it.

 

[David Mo]

This statement made very little sense to me. To be honest, I'm not sure I could even figure out what you are trying to say well enough to ask a question about what you meant. Where are you saying that these emotions come from?

I don’t understand what you don’t understand. According what you have written below you understand pretty well. Don’t you understand what is evaluating the self? Some problem with “evaluate”? Or some problem with the self?

I suppose these emotions are caused by brain activity. Damasio has located some parts of the brain implicated in this kind of emotions. Perhaps you think this is a big blow against the idealist, but he is not KO. Anyway, my problem is not the metaphysical idealism but the impossibility of using a materialist language to describe all our mental activities.

Well, people often blush when they are embarrassed or feel guilty. People avoid eye contact when they feel shame. People typically pull their shoulders back and lift their chin when they feel proud.

"Often" = not in any circumstances. This implies the equation emotion=corporal expression is not true.

The concepts don't exist; there is no predictive theory about how to build a thinking machine. How can you apply what you don't have?

The possibility of building a thinking machine is an argument usually used by materialists. There is a big controversy about thinking machines, but a normal computer reproduces many of the brain activities, the use of categories included. I don’t understand your argument.

Concepts exist in the same way that exist love or pain. They are mental/cerebral –as you like- activities. You are using concepts when you speak. They exist in a different way of substances.

 

[Nick227]

So you are saying that people are not aware of anything they perceive? Are we all zombies?

No. I'm saying there is not a self that is perceiving. Everything "you" see is there, but it's not actually being seen by anyone.

It is rather that the brain constructs, through various ruses, this sense of someone that perceives. It's so adaptively advantageous that it builds in heaps of defences to try and ensure this perspective is never challenged.

Wrong. The reason for putting the point of observation 'some inches back from the eyes' is because that is where the body is. Putting the locus somewhere else doesn't make sense. Not only would the perspective be all wrong, but the brain knows where the body is from other clues (so you can't get away with imagining that your eyes have been plucked from their sockets and put on the bookshelf!).

It creates the sense of a locus in the most adaptively advantageous position.

Placing it outside the body would not aid survival.

And be aware that there is not an actual point of observation, merely the visual field is constructed to create the sense of one.

 

[Myriad]

And be aware that there is not an actual point of observation, merely the visual field is constructed to create the sense of one.

Meh.

"There is no post in my browser window. In fact there is no browser window on my screen. Merely the pixels constructed by the forum database and browser software to create the sense of one."

"There is no burrito on my plate. Merely the starch, protein, and fat molecules constructed to create the sense of one."

"There is no clock on the mantel. Merely the gears, wood, springs, armatures, and other parts constructed to create the sense of one."

"There is no poem on that page. Merely the ink marks constructed to create the sense of one."

That's not materialism; it's some flavor of mereological nihilism. Materialism acknowledges processes, patterns, and arrangements.

 

[Nick227]

That's not materialism; it's some flavor of mereological nihilism. Materialism acknowledges processes, patterns, and arrangements.

No. This is a completely different argument. It's not about "grain size" or layers of abstraction. It's not even about emergent phenomena.

It's about the brain assembling the visual field to suggest a point of observation back from the eyes.

It cannot create an actual point of observation. That simply can't exist under materialism. But constantly assembling neural representations this way creates the impression that there's a point of observation. When of course there cannot be... unless that is, you're a dualist.

sent using rogue memeplex 1.1 via Sony and Tapatalk

 

[Myriad]

In any ambiently lit space, at every point there are photons moving in every direction, moving between every object and every other object in line of sight from that point.

But a visual sensor (any kind, crude or complex) can only detect the photons that converge upon it from the surroundings. A photon on its way from reflecting off a tree, to be absorbed by a rock, goes undetected because it does not strike the sensor. That's the vast majority of the ambient photons in the environment. You don't see them because your eyes aren't in their path.

The sensor itself defines a region of observation: the area where all the photons it does detect are converging toward. (A smaller sensor, or one with better focusing capabilities, will define a smaller area or "point" of observation.)

The visual point of observation behind our eyes does not come about because of anything our brain does. It originates from the fact that every single photon we see is one that is in fact converging on a small area just behind our eyes.

That point. Not one on your navel, or in your teacup, or over there on the shelf, or in a bird's nest on a window ledge of an insurance agency in Duluth.

 

[Nick227]

The visual point of observation behind our eyes does not come about because of anything our brain does.

Then why does it shift if we interfere with certain parts of our brain?

Why can we induce OOBEs by applying electrical stimulation to the temporo-parietal junction? Are you saying this causes the outside world to shift around?

How do dissociative anesthestics change the apparent locus of attention?

sent using rogue memeplex 1.1 via Sony and Tapatalk

 

[Myriad]

Then why does it shift if we interfere with certain parts of our brain?

Why can we induce OOBEs by applying electrical stimulation to the temporo-parietal junction? Are you saying this causes the outside world to shift around?

How do dissociative anesthestics change the apparent locus of attention?

Those manipulations disrupt the functioning of the visual sensory system, replacing actual vision with imagined vision. Imagined vision does not depend on incident photons, or the actual presence or existence of any of the things being seen, so geometry and optics don't limit it. The disrupted system is free to imagine an arbitrary viewpoint for its imaginary vision.

 

[Nick227]

Those manipulations disrupt the functioning of the visual sensory system, replacing actual vision with imagined vision. Imagined vision does not depend on incident photons, or the actual presence or existence of any of the things being seen, so geometry and optics don't limit it. The disrupted system is free to imagine an arbitrary viewpoint for its imaginary vision.

I'm sorry but even to someone in neuroscientific infancy school that perspective would be utter fantasy. The visual system is creating representations that serve the organism's adaptive functionality with minimum effort. There is simply no such thing as "actual" and "imagined" vision. Your notions here are pure fantasy.

 

[Myriad]

Sorry, dude, I haven't taken nearly enough illegal recreational drugs to find merit in the hypothesis that normal vision and hallucinations are equivalent.

 

[Nick227]

Sorry, dude, I haven't taken nearly enough illegal recreational drugs to find merit in the hypothesis that normal vision and hallucinations are equivalent.

Well, any time you feel like addressing the actual argument...

... or maybe read something about the subject written in the last decade. I think you will find that your perspective here has been well and truly demolished

 

[annnnoid]

I'm sorry but even to someone in neuroscientific infancy school that perspective would be utter fantasy. The visual system is creating representations that serve the organism's adaptive functionality with minimum effort. There is simply no such thing as "actual" and "imagined" vision. Your notions here are pure fantasy.

I’d say I would be trivially easy to demonstrate two explicitly differentiated visual paradigms. There is what occurs when you have your eyes open, and what occurs when you have your eyes closed. Imaginary vision, as far as I know, simply does not occur when the eyes are open (but don’t quote me on that). When they’re closed though, it seems it can occur in a number of ways with varying degrees of relevance. Dreams would, I suppose, be the most obvious example of such a thing. Outside of dreams we have everything from simple visualization / imagination all the way up to hallucinations and visions.

 

[Nick227]

I’d say I would be trivially easy to demonstrate two explicitly differentiated visual paradigms. There is what occurs when you have your eyes open, and what occurs when you have your eyes closed. Imaginary vision, as far as I know, simply does not occur when the eyes are open (but don’t quote me on that). When they’re closed though, it seems it can occur in a number of ways with varying degrees of relevance. Dreams would, I suppose, be the most obvious example of such a thing. Outside of dreams we have everything from simple visualization / imagination all the way up to hallucinations and visions.

My point is that the visual system is creating representations that have in the past been useful to help the organism fulfil its evolutionary goals. Visual data is actually massaged over and over again by neural processing, partly to remove all the gunk that sits within it, and secondarily to put it into a form that can facilitate easy and fast reaction to important stimuli. There exists layer upon layer of ancilliary processing...

* applying ownership
* separation into me and not me
* construction into a 3D schema that appears to be focussed behind the eyes
* creating a sense of there being an observer of visual consciousness

All this stuff helped in the past, to survive and have sex, and the brain merrily has learned to make it seem as though it's all a priori real, because that belief is so favoured.

There is immense survival advantage in creating utterly illusory perspectives, and simultaneously creating an emergent sense of self to "possess" and defend these perspectives. So that is precisely what the brain does. It's just an algorithm running.