The relationship between science and materialism

[LW]

Axiom 1: External world exists and it is what we call "physical".

Axiom 2: My brain is an external object in the external world.

Conclusion 1: My brain is physical.

(Note that this holds in the reality if and only if I have happened to choose the Axioms 1 and 2 so that they by accident coincide with the real nature of the universe. I have no way of knowing for certain whether this is true or false.)

Axiom 3: There exists a being called Invisible Pink Unicorn that is not part of the external world defined in Axiom 1.

Conclusion 2: Not everything that exist is physical.

(Again, this hold in the reality if and only if I have happened to choose the Axiom 3 so that it by accident coincides with the real nature of the universe and I have no way of knowing for certain whether this is true or false.)

Definition 1: My consciousness is the emergent behavior that arises from the neurons sending their signals all over my brain and that is confined within my physical brain.

Conclusion 3: (from Def 1 and Concl 1) My consciousness is physical.

Definition 2: The expression "1st person view" denotes the effect that changing nervous inputs of my brain cause on the emergent behavior of Definition 1.

Definition 3: The expression "3st person view" denotes everything else that is going around in the external world.

Conclusion 3: (from Def 2 and Concl 1) The "1st person view" is physical.

Conclusion 4: (from Def 3 and Axiom 1) The "3rd person view" is physical.

So there you have it, a set of definitions under which my consciousness is physical but where I have explicitly defined the universe so that not everything in it is physical.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You still don't get it. Emergentism does not prove that physicalism is true. It is not of the form to be able to do that, so to claim that it does or even tries is simply wrong. It is a physicalist answer to the problem you posed. All of your answers to people who pose solutions to the problem are of the "you can't use that answer because it presupposes physicalism" variety. In other words, you have already presupposed your conclusion -- that physicalism is wrong -- and you have tried to stack the deck in your favor. If I use a physicalist answer to solve the problem you pose it means that your solution is wrong, plain and simple. It does not mean that physicalism is correct in all its particulars. You are the one who is so hell-bent on proving that consciousness is impossible by physical means -- you are the one who sees this "proof" as the ultimate end of physicalism. Using physicalism to answer the challenge is not using physicalism to prove physicalism because you are the only one who sees the "proof" as THE challenge. We must begin in some assumption to be able to answer any problem. We assume physicalism is true and proceed from there. The answer to the challenge only means that physical explanations are potentially possible when it comes to consciousness. Physicalism could still be wrong; it is only our starting assumption. But it is clear that your proof actually is wrong. If the physicalist assumption continues to hold without coherent challenge, then it holds. Religious fundamentalism ignores coherent challenges, falsifies actual data, re-interprets its own foundations, etc. Show me where we have done that.

Frankly I don't care what the final answer is as long as I can see a satisfactory one. Physicalist, non-physicalist, whatever, who cares? Something that makes sense and doesn't gloss over the issue like dualism or neutral monism would be nice for a change. We all need a structure from which to ask and answer these questions. We are beginning from a physicalist perspective. That we might find an explanation that works simply means that there is no real challenge to physicalism. You have adopted a different starting point. If you can provide a coherent system that actually satisfies people how your system works to explain consciousness aside from saying, "the mental aspect of reality does "(completely unsatisfactory), then that will be a good alternative explanation. In science we don't go about changing paradigms willy-nilly because some yahoo says "But you might be wrong". We require some proof. Husserl's epoche in this situation is very much like Kuhn's paradigm shift. The only reason that anyone would engage in it is because of a real challenge to the entire physicalist system, to a wealth of information showing that it is wrong. You tried the Michael Behe-Intelligent Design option of trying to "prove" that physicalism is wrong and you failed. Be a man and admit it. It doesn't mean that you must abandon your worldview, only that you currently have no hope of converting anyone else unless you have a better argument than the ones you have already provided.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

The terms themselves are dualistic. You are assuming your conclusion.

Well, that is about the fortieth time somebody has falsely accused me of "assuming my conclusion" since this thread started. Apparently, now, anyone using any terms that aren't clearly reducible to physical entities they are "assuming the conclusion that physicalism isn't true". I could write a whole book about how materialists are incapable of realising when THEY assume their conclusion and resort to accusing other people of doing this when those other people are doing nothing of the sort. It's incredible.

One cannot use inherently dualistic terms to support a monism (John. B. Watson tried, and failed, within behaviorism, as one example); therefore, your use of them to prove physicalism false is a foregone conclusion.

In a way, this is correct. But this is not the same as me "assuming my conclusion". I never DEFINED non-physicalism to be true. Look very carefully at what I actually claimed and what I actually defined. I said that IF anybody chose to give me a coherent set of definitions for those words THEN I could prove that those terms lead to a contradiction, unless the form of materialism being defended was eliminativism. You are now agreeing with me, which should hopefully save me from having to construct another proof. You are basically confirming my claim: The only way to coherently define a set of terms which allows you to be a non-contradictory physicalist is to provide no definition at all for (mind, subjective, 1st-person and qualia). Then you have your "non-dualist" language. Then I can't construct a proof.

Thankyou for agreeing with me. Can we all now agree that the only coherent way to defend physicalism is to eliminate all the English terms which are normally considered to refer to minds and such-like?

It's an understandable mistake, because it is the language we are accustomed to using, but it is a non-problem.

Depends on whether you think it is a valid thing to do to rule out all those words which refer to minds. It is a non-problem only in so much as you can avoid it by eliminating all references to subjectivity. However, since the point in this thread was an accusation that subjectivity is the central taboo of scientific materialism you are once more just proving my point.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Okay, I'll take a deep breath here.

So that neither of us begs the question, the proof has to cover multiple cases, as you are trying to do. The problem is that we don't agree with your formulation of one of the cases. To fix it, you suddenly introduced brain processes in between the chair and the experience of the chair.

They were always waiting in the wings. I wanted a meaningful set of definitions before bringing them in, since these are the entities which physicalists like to claim are two things at the same time, one mental, one physical. We need the other definitions in place before I can prove to the physicalists that brain processes are not mental.

It's not logically impossible that brain processes and subjective experience are two different physical things.

I think I can show it is logically impossible, actually.

But perhaps it doesn't matter. If all you are doing is showing that one path leads to some sort of monism where things aren't "physical," and another path leads to some sort of monism where everything is "physical," then I'll just stipulate that your proof is valid. After all, there are no other choices. I was somehow operating under the delusion that you were going to prove that neutral monism must be the answer.

No, I never claimed I could do that. Proving non-elminitive materialism is incoherent is one thing. Proving everything except neutral monism is incoherent is quite another. Berkeleyanism is coherent. Eliminativism is coherent. Neutral monism is coherent. Even cartesian dualism is coherent. But non-eliminativist physicalism isn't coherent.

This brings us to eliminative materialism. Poking around a bit, I find definitions that are entirely reasonable. They don't even appear to define eliminativism as an ontological position, but just address the question of folk psychology terms.

Which is exactly where our debate has arrived. Mercutio wants to eliminate all "pre-scientific vocabulary". The one thing I want the materialists to realise is that the wishy-washy pseudo-materialistic positions are incoherent. To make their positions coherent they have to go the full hog. They have to eliminate all terms that refer to anything subjective.

Is there supposed to be something more to it, or is this going to be a situation where people accuse me of "the absurdity of denying subjective experience" when that's not what eliminativism does?

That is exactly what it does. It claims that the words designed to refer to inherently subjective things have no referents. That is why they can be eliminated: they do not refer to anything which doesn't already have a physical definition.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Or another way of looking at it is to say we should adapt our vocabulary to match the evidence rather then trying to adapt the evidence to our vocabulary.

What "evidence"? You have confused science and materialism.

And by that (just as an example of the type of thing I mean) it could just be that our word "mind" describes something that just doesn't exist (as it is defined), much like as our knowledge of the world increased we realised the word unicorn describes something that doesn't exist (as it is defined).

That is eliminative materialism.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What do you mean when you say it's a "philosophical problem"? It may be a problem that philosophers have tackled, yet it may have no philosophical solution, as I suspect it does not. The solution may lie in having the patience to see what scientists uncover.

~~ Paul

That solution won't work. That is why the eliminativists are eliminativists. They have realised that scientific materialism can never solve the problem. They then realise that the only way to make the problem go away is to elminate all the words that refer to inherently subjective things. At this point the philosophers walk in and accuse the materialists of having lost the plot.

 

[Darat]

Geoff you are struggling here because it is you that is so fixated in your own worldview (that requires materialism to be wrong). Many of us have a different worldview to yours but that does not make us materialist and what this thread shows is that many of us are quite willing to consider other worldviews - when we are a given a reason to do so. Try to remember that proving materialism wrong (or call it what you will) does not offer one iota of "proof" that your worldview is correct, and from most of the responses from people in this trhead even if you proved it wrong most people in this thread would just shrug their shoulders and go "OK". Because it is no big deal.

Why not just drop this method and explain why your worldview is the one we should all adopt? Explain it from first principles - in other words for once argue for your beliefs rather then against someone else's beliefs. After all that should be you at your most persuasive because you know that you are right and you know how to prove that.

...snip...

Depends on whether you think it is a valid thing to do to rule out all those words which refer to minds. It is a non-problem only in so much as you can avoid it by eliminating all references to subjectivity. However, since the point in this thread was an accusation that subjectivity is the central taboo of scientific materialism you are once more just proving my point.

Geoff - do unicorns exist in the way the word was used 500 years ago? The answer is of course "no", but in an other very real sense unicorns do exist, in fiction, in plastic models they sell to little girls, to the steeds the great hero rides in the final battle of the 12 volume fantasy epic and so on.

Is it not at least possible that a word like "mind" is in fact just another "fiction" we've created?

If you can grasp that you may be able to beginn to understand the point Merc is making, at the moment it is obvious that you don't understand his point.

 

[Darat]

What "evidence"? You have confused science and materialism.

No I'm not.

The evidence means such things like it is raining outside, that I love my cats and that my pain will be lessened in 30 minutes when I next take some painkillers.

I think one of your sources of inspiration called it the "lifeworld"....

That is eliminative materialism.

Not necessarily.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Hello LW

Axiom 1: External world exists and it is what we call "physical".

Axiom 2: My brain is an external object in the external world.

Conclusion 1: My brain is physical.

Great. You have defined physical to be "external world", or (P2) in my specification. External presumably means "external to mind" - what else could it mean?

Axiom 3: There exists a being called Invisible Pink Unicorn that is not part of the external world defined in Axiom 1.

Conclusion 2: Not everything that exist is physical.

Fine.

Definition 1: My consciousness is the emergent behavior that arises from the neurons sending their signals all over my brain and that is confined within my physical brain.

Conclusion 3: (from Def 1 and Concl 1) My consciousness is physical.

You've now introduced the term "consciousness" and then claimed it identical with "behaviour". This is back to eliminativism. So you haven't assumed your conclusion, but you have ended up eliminating "mind" (or "consciousness"). You've introduced an entirely redundant term. You don't need the word "consciousness" at all. It has no referent apart from something you already defined as being physical (behaviour of the physical brain). Thus you have defined "consciousness" to be "external to mind". This is either incoherent or a form of eliminativism.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Wasp,

I am sorry but your posts have reached the stage where there is no point in me replying to them. I am tired of talking to people who cannot see that it is they, not me, who is assuming their conclusion.

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And that seems to be the case for many words and terms that are used in these types of discussion doesn't it?

We could all use a good deprogramming by Mercutio.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff you are struggling here because it is you that is so fixated in your own worldview (that requires materialism to be wrong).

...and another one.

Why not just drop this method and explain why your worldview is the one we should all adopt?

Because unless you lot can accept that non-eliminative physicalism is incoherent, you won't be interested in neutral monism as a better alternative.

Explain it from first principles - in other words for once argue for your beliefs rather then against someone else's beliefs. After all that should be you at your most persuasive because you know that you are right and you know how to prove that.

I already started a thread doing exactly as you ask. Almost nobody tried to understand it.

If you can grasp that you may be able to beginn to understand the point Merc is making, at the moment it is obvious that you don't understand his point.

Darat, I know exactly what point Mercutio is making, because he is simply confirming what I have been saying all along. So don't tell me it's me who "doesn't grasp" what is going on here. You've got no idea what you are talking about. You do not understand that Mercutio is simply saying the same thing I have been saying from the start: the only way to defend physicalism is to eliminate all vocabulary that refers to anything subjective.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

We could all use a good deprogramming by Mercutio.

~~ Paul

Yep, especially anyone thinking of trying to defend non-eliminativist physicalism (like wasp, for example).

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No, I never claimed I could do that. Proving non-elminitive materialism is incoherent is one thing. Proving everything except neutral monism is incoherent is quite another. Berkeleyanism is coherent. Eliminativism is coherent. Neutral monism is coherent. Even cartesian dualism is coherent. But non-eliminativist physicalism isn't coherent.

I might very well agree with this if I new what eliminativism was.

Which is exactly where our debate has arrived. Mercutio wants to eliminate all "pre-scientific vocabulary". The one thing I want the materialists to realise is that the wishy-washy pseudo-materialistic positions are incoherent. To make their positions coherent they have to go the full hog. They have to eliminate all terms that refer to anything subjective.

Are you sure this is not just a caricature of eliminativism? Why can't I used a term to refer to something subjective, as long as the definition of the term is clear?

That is exactly what it does. It claims that the words designed to refer to inherently subjective things have no referents. That is why they can be eliminated: they do not refer to anything which doesn't already have a physical definition.

It's quite different to say they have no referents or to say that they refer to things explained from another viewpoint. Even so, how does this deny subjective experience?

~~ Paul

 

[Complexity]

Wonderful!

What everyone here seems to be forgetting is that, historically speaking, radianism presupposes the ontological precursors to prevalist intentionology.

You can claim that the conscious experience of objective perception is, a priori, tactilistic. But in doing so, you are completely ignoring what Grimaldi established as the prechandrian imperative.

If I see an apple, then who's to say what that "I" was, or whether what we choose to call an apple is, without respect to a pre-determined symbol system, in any way independently real. To do so, one must appeal to what Krudenski termed "the definitivist fallacy".

I'm not saying that this denies any mentalistic substantiation to what is believed by a subject to be actual experience. But I must insist that there's no objective justification for giving this supposed experience any more atropic credibility -- that is to say "reality" -- than any other non-subjective metaprosthesis.

Thank you, Piggy.

This should have been a thread-stopper. I guess nothing will end the idiocy.

Nominated.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That solution won't work. That is why the eliminativists are eliminativists. They have realised that scientific materialism can never solve the problem. They then realise that the only way to make the problem go away is to elminate all the words that refer to inherently subjective things. At this point the philosophers walk in and accuse the materialists of having lost the plot.

So you are saying that the question of the relation between brain and subjective experience is one that science cannot tackle? Instead, the answer will be found by philosophers debating whether the single existent is physical, mental, neutral, or otherwise? But some philosophers don't want to play the game, so they have simply declared the problem eliminated?

You know what's so funny about this? Scientists couldn't give a damn. It's a good thing, too, or no one would be working on the problem.

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Wasp,

I am sorry but your posts have reached the stage where there is no point in me replying to them. I am tired of talking to people who cannot see that it is they, not me, who is assuming their conclusion.

Geoff

When Darat and I agree, you know there is trouble. But we do. As does Wasp. That you interpret these arguments as you do is a crystal-clear indication that you do not grasp them. I know that you have misunderstood my arguments, and that you have conflated science and materialism in a manner that you would not have if you had understood me. That you find my arguments support your position is, frankly, odd. They do not support materialism, certainly, but that is not the same thing as supporting your view.

Do as Darat suggests; try to support your position, not to merely assume that if you knock materialism down, yours is all that remains standing. The same things that are incoherent about materialism apply to much of what you say (I can't say "all", because frankly there is quite a bit that just baffles me in your view. You seem to want to both decry the old vocabulary and simultaneously depend on it for your proof.).

And Geoff, no, you do not understand me. I am not trying to defend physicalism at all.

 

[Mercutio]

Thank you, Piggy.

This should have been a thread-stopper. I guess nothing will end the idiocy.

Nominated.

Good call. I laughed my [rule8] off. I gotta remember to nominate such things...

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

From http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~cmh9639/phi2010/glossary.htm

eliminative materialism: the claim that our mentalistic talk is so deeply flawed that must be abandoned, and there is no hope of correlating our talk about beliefs and desires with our talk about brain states. Includes the claims that mental events are not identical to brain events because minds and mental events do not exist.

Perhaps this is what you mean by denying subjective experience. It doesn't, of course, but merely denies that "mental events" are a different sort of thing from "brain events." If mental events are not different, then those terms should be abandoned to avoid dualistic confusion.

~~ Paul

 

[Darat]

...snip..

Because unless you lot can accept that non-eliminative physicalism is incoherent, you won't be interested in neutral monism as a better alternative.
...snip..

Geoff - no matte how many times you try to tell me what my worldview is it won't change what it actually is!

Let me again tell you that I am not a materialist or a "non-eliminative physicalism " which most be the in-vogue phrase these days.

That you have not convinced me that non-eliminative physicalism is incoherent is not because I believe it is coherent but simply because so far your arguments have either been incoherent (illogical as well ) or have assumed their conclusion.

I already started a thread doing exactly as you ask. Almost nobody tried to understand it.

Where?

Darat, I know exactly what point Mercutio is making, because he is simply confirming what I have been saying all along. So don't tell me it's me who "doesn't grasp" what is going on here. You've got no idea what you are talking about. You do not understand that Mercutio is simply saying the same thing I have been saying from the start: the only way to defend physicalism is to eliminate all vocabulary that refers to anything subjective.

That is not what Merc was saying you prove you do not understand his point.