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The study of atoms in the brain doesn't explain the redness of red;Materialism = FAKE

I presume now that we have found another hidden root of language to trip over, we can begin a seventeen page argument about whether love is an entity with atoms. How can the buzz of life produce the sweet honey of love? Discuss and show your work. Be prepared for next week's quiz when the subject will be....velocity.
 
bruto said:
I presume now that we have found another hidden root of language to trip over, we can begin a seventeen page argument about whether love is an entity with atoms. How can the buzz of life produce the sweet honey of love? Discuss and show your work. Be prepared for next week's quiz when the subject will be....velocity.
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No dear, we are discussing what kind of feeling science can provoke in a passionate lover. Don't lose sight of the thing behind the word.
 
David Mo said:
Therefore there is a distinction between amar and gustarme that refer different things.

There is a difference in intensity, object and consequences. For example: sea cannot cheat you with other.
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Nope no difference in the term used in English.
 
David Mo said:
Love is a very special and intense emotion.

I love my wife and children, my parents, my aunt and cousins, my friends, my dog and my cat. Maybe I've forgotten someone else.
I can't love my couch, my car or my garden.
I can't love a gun or a plane or a storm.
I can't love violence.
First of all because they are things. In my conception love is a very special word that implies some kind of personal interaction (yes, with my dog too).
Secondly, it implies some kind of valuation (yes, with my cat too). Love is related to a positive vision. I can't like anything that is bad or can be good and bad at the same time. Therefore I cannot love weapons, violence or science.

Love of science is fetishism, because it hides the bad side of science and personifies one thing. This is the myth of science.

Perhaps you think of love in a more superficial sense than I do. Something like "I like it"= :thumbsup: You should have warned us.
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Call it what you want. Does that make "love of god" a fetish?
 
David Mo said:
Because the light that impacts on a wall does not produce a subjective feeling of red on the wall.

This is a "small" difference that implies that the sensation of red is not just the wavelength of the light.
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If you see it, it does. The "experience" of red is the result of 600 to 720 nm of light landing on the cones in your eye which send electrical signals to your brain. That you identify this color as the label red has to do with how your brain retrieves and stores knowledge.

The "experience"of red is the result of a brain. Either organic or silicon. Humans experience red, but so do spectrometers.
 
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More stupid word play from the anti-reality contingent? Is that all they have?

I love art, I love vacations, I love science... Are any of these anything but well established ways of expressing a strong interest in something and that one obtains pleasure from participating in it? I love science. Does that imply some pathology on my part or that I am blind to negative aspects of science? Hardly. I love art too, but I view some art as bad art. I also love my wife, but, duh, I don't love science (or art) in the same way as I love my wife. More news: I love my kids as much as I love my wife, but not in the same way as I love my wife.

Stupid word play that fails to make any point at all.
 
Giordano said:
More stupid word play from the anti-reality contingent? Is that all they have?

I love art, I love vacations, I love science... Are any of these anything but well established ways of expressing a strong interest in something and that one obtains pleasure from participating in it? I love science. Does that imply some pathology on my part or that I am blind to negative aspects of science? Hardly. I love art too, but I view some art as bad art. I also love my wife, but, duh, I don't love science (or art) in the same way as I love my wife. More news: I love my kids as much as I love my wife, but not in the same way as I love my wife.

Stupid word play that fails to make any point at all.
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Thank you for this.

I just love how some of these people want to make a big deal over the colloquial use of a word.

They can "love" god...actually are commanded to love god and that's ok with them. But I can't love science, art, literature, movies, sports, etc? At least the things I profess a passion for are demonstrably real. They can not say that about their god.
 
Some here conclude that there must be something magical about how information processing, using molecules and electrical currents, can yield the conclusion in your brain "that apple is red" from the retina absorbing particular wavelengths of light. Well, think about this:

Imagine some sand. Can it possibly talk to you, even ask questions and respond to your answers, without some sort of magic? Something non materialistic? But extract the silicon from the sand and make a transistor from it. Well, it can control an electrical current but still can't talk to you or answer your questions either! But connect together many transistors in the correct way with the right rules for how to interact (a program). Then hook up the resulting computer to the telephones at your credit card company. Call them up and, surprise, the silicon will answer your call and ask you some questions. It will then respond to your answers. All with a computer with a physical complexity that is a tiny fraction of that of your physical brain.

More specifically in regard to the OP: Link a photosensor to a computer, something that is done in all digital cameras. Program the computer to turn on a buzzer whenever it detects a red object. Easy - not dependent on a consciousness, right. You can even program the computer to turn on a buzzer only when it sees a red apple in tree, rather than on a table. Amazing! But not metaphysical.

The initial recognition of the red wavelengths by the photoreceptors in your eye is straightforward, and further processed by the more complex higher neuronal connections in you brain to produce the recognition of that signal as the the color red in your brain. Not fundamentally different, although more complex and sophisticated, than the photosensor/computer model.
 
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David Mo said:
No dear, we are discussing what kind of feeling science can provoke in a passionate lover. Don't lose sight of the thing behind the word.
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It might have escaped you, but I think you're not the only one in the thread, and it is remotely possible that your understanding of what "we" are discussing is not shared by absolutely everyone.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Well, I shall avoid snide remarks about the water of Chalmer's brain. After all, everybody's brain is mostly water.

So, how does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?

Much like how the wine-maker turns water into wine:

It is grown in the sunlight of observation.
It is harvested with the wisdom of recognition.
It is fermented in the yeast of experience.
It is matured in the casket of inference.
It is savored in the taste of coordination.

Hans
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Awesome! I have one minor quibble, however and I'd suggest the use of 'cask' or 'vat' or other; 'casket' has the implication of a dead body. Or perhaps, as a good play on the word mature, "It is matured in the butt of inference."


But, nonetheless, well said.







acbytesla said:
This has clearly turned into the poetry thread.

:thumbsup:
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But.... but... how can that be!?!?!! We're nothing but unthinking atoms after all! We can't prove qualia which come from beyond the event horizon of the formless!!!!!
 
This is hands down an interesting subject.

I am a Materialist myself, and here is my line of thought.

First of all : we do not know what consciousness is. In fact, not only that : We do not know what matter is. Keep this in mind for the moment, we have two unknowns : Consciousness and Matter

Yes, we see matter, we touch it, smell it, experience it. We know that it is some kind of energy, disturbance in the quantum fields ... But we do not know what the quantum fields are. All we know about matter is the way it presents itself to us, to our conscious experience, other than that : its essence is absolutely unknown to us.

So, matter is as puzzling as consciousness .

Now, I can't build any opinion on our ignorance of what these two unknowns are. Because if I do that , I would be appealing to ignorance, which is a fallacy.

And you can't either.

And since we cannot give a full account of what consciousness AND matter are, it follows that we cannot establish or deny any causal relationship between them, from this perspective alone.

But why am I a materialist? why not dualism ?

Materialism is a consequence of using inductive reasoning. (Let's assume here that solipsism is false, and that you guys are as conscious as I am)

1- All conscious entities that I met before, have material and complex brains.
2- Therefore, all conscious entities probably have material complex brains.


This means, that this property, that we wish to understand, which we call consciousness (the experience of red for example), is only found in systems that have highly complex material brains.

Which means, that if you tell me that an alien is conscious, I would, using inductive reasoning, first establish that all conscious beings have complex material organs (brains), and then use deduction to conclude that our Alien has a complex organ too.

It follows then, that this relation respects this conditional :

IF consciousness THEN complex brain

Let's check first the inverse : "IF complex brain THEN consciousness " It is false , because when we are in deep sleep, we have a complex brain, but no consciousness.

So , "IF consciousness THEN complex brain" , is true, but "IF complex brain THEN consciousness" is false.

What can we get from this asymmetry ?

Let's check a similar conditional to have a better view :

We know that whenever there is rain, there are clouds. But not the other way around :

"IF rain THEN clouds" is true.

But

"IF clouds THEN rain" is false, since there are cloudy days where it's not raining.

We can clearly see that : clouds in the second conditional corresponds to complex brain in the first , and rain corresponds to consciousness .

It is suggestive when you think about it, isn't it?

Of course it doesn't establish causality, but it is suggestive. It means that a materialist view is reasonable enough, compared to the other views.

1) We don't know what matter is, in the same way we don't know what consciousness is.

2) it follows that we cannot appeal to our ignorance, either in favor of materialism, nor idealism nor dualism.

3) From another perspective, we can use induction : all beings that have consciousness have complex brains .. but not all beings that have complex brains necessarily have consciousness .

4) This has the same form as the well established propositions : all days that are rainy are cloudy .. but not all days that are cloudy are rainy.

5) This equivalence between consciousness/brain conditional, and rain/cloud conditional , suggests (at least to me) , that there is probably (only probably) some kind of causality between brain and conscious experience.

6) This conclusion I use to know (beyond any reasonable doubt) which beings ought to have consciousness, and which ought not.A table I know cannot have concsciousness, but a complex Alien can.

Of course, this is all true for me, since I do not adopt a solipsist view (Of course I keep a healthy level of skepticism).

Thanks for this thread !
 
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MohamedTaqi said:
This is hands down an interesting subject.

I am a Materialist myself, and here is my line of thought.

First of all : we do not know what consciousness is. In fact, not only that : We do not know what matter is. Keep this in mind for the moment, we have two unknowns : Consciousness and Matter

Yes, we see matter, we touch it, smell it, experience it. We know that it is some kind of energy, disturbance in the quantum fields ... But we do not know what the quantum fields are. All we know about matter is the way it presents itself to us, to our conscious experience, other than that : its essence is absolutely unknown to us.

So, matter is as puzzling as consciousness .

Now, I can't build any opinion on our ignorance of what these two unknowns are. Because if I do that , I would be appealing to ignorance, which is a fallacy.

And you can't either.

And since we cannot give a full account of what consciousness AND matter are, it follows that we cannot establish or deny any causal relationship between them, from this perspective alone.

But why am I a materialist? why not dualism ?

Materialism is a consequence of using inductive reasoning. (Let's assume here that solipsism is false, and that you guys are as conscious as I am)

1- All conscious entities that I met before, have material and complex brains.
2- Therefore, all conscious entities probably have material complex brains.


This means, that this property, that we wish to understand, which we call consciousness (the experience of red for example), is only found in systems that have highly complex material brains.

Which means, that if you tell me that an alien is conscious, I would, using inductive reasoning, first establish that all conscious beings have complex material organs (brains), and then use deduction to conclude that our Alien has a complex organ too.

It follows then, that this relation respects this conditional :

IF consciousness THEN complex brain

Let's check first the inverse : "IF complex brain THEN consciousness " It is false , because when we are in deep sleep, we have a complex brain, but no consciousness.

So , "IF consciousness THEN complex brain" , is true, but "IF complex brain THEN consciousness" is false.

What can we get from this asymmetry ?

Let's check a similar conditional to have a better view :

We know that whenever there is rain, there are clouds. But not the other way around :

"IF rain THEN clouds" is true.

But

"IF clouds THEN rain" is false, since there are cloudy days where it's not raining.

We can clearly see that : clouds in the second conditional corresponds to complex brain in the first , and rain corresponds to consciousness .

It is suggestive when you think about it, isn't it?

Of course it doesn't establish causality, but it is suggestive. It means that a materialist view is reasonable enough, compared to the other views.

1) We don't know what matter is, in the same way we don't know what consciousness is.

2) it follows that we cannot appeal to our ignorance, either in favor of materialism, nor idealism nor dualism.

3) From another perspective, we can use induction : all beings that have consciousness have complex brains .. but not all beings that have complex brains necessarily have consciousness .

4) This has the same form as the well established propositions : all days that are rainy are cloudy .. but not all days that are cloudy are rainy.

5) This equivalence between consciousness/brain conditional, and rain/cloud conditional , suggests (at least to me) , that there is probably (only probably) some kind of causality between brain and conscious experience.

6) This conclusion I use to know (beyond any reasonable doubt) which beings ought to have consciousness, and which ought not.A table I know cannot have concsciousness, but a complex Alien can.

Of course, this is all true for me, since I do not adopt a solipsist view (Of course I keep a healthy level of skepticism).

Thanks for this thread !
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It's clear to me that you are starting with faulty premises. I'd argue we do know what matter is and we do know what consciousness is. 'Matter' is the label we give to materialistic objects whether it is a gas, a solid, a liquid or a plasma. Consciousness is an emergent property of select types of matter, most specifically an organic brain.

Does this mean we know all there is to know about either? No.

It seems to me, that there is an attempt to dismiss knowledge and understanding simply because we are always limited in both.
 
acbytesla said:
It's clear to me that you are starting with faulty premises. I'd argue we do know what matter is and we do know what consciousness is. 'Matter' is the label we give to materialistic objects whether it is a gas, a solid, a liquid or a plasma. Consciousness is an emergent property of select types of matter, most specifically an organic brain.
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I’d argue you don’t even have to know what matter really is to understand consciousness.
All you need to understand is how the brain works on a cellular level.
 
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