The relationship between science and materialism

[UndercoverElephant]

Then you misunderstood a lot of people Geoff!

No, I was fully aware of the ranks of cheerleaders who were occasionally commenting but showing no sign whatever of understanding what was actually happening during the debate. There were also the "hit and run" posters who come along and make a post which says "You're wrong and this is nonsense. Bye." And there are there hardline materialists whose interest in what I was saying was limited to finding the first sentence they could disagree with, attacking it, and completely failing to see the structure of the argument. All the above groups of people have no ideas what this thread was really about or whether it achieved anything.

People who actually followed the argument (or at least tried to):

Wasp
Paul
Mercutio
chriswl
hammegk
Mary Dennett
69 Dodge
BDZ
Jeremy
LW

People who didn't:

Dr Kitten
Cyborg
Taffer
Darat
Kevin Lowe
Complexity
Piggy

 

[Piggy]

I have identified a conceptual problem. Because it is a conceptual problem instead of an empirical one, it folows, logically, that the solution will be conceptual and not empirical.

If the "problem" is purely conceptual and can have only a conceptual "solution" and no empirical one, then the only conclusion which follows logically is that you have invented a problem in your head which does not exist anywhere in reality.

Therefore, unlike actual problems, this problem will vanish -- which is even better than being solved -- if you stop conjuring it up.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

It looks like it, yes. Only subjects are aware of things.

So, taking a phenomenal stance a subject would seem to be awareness from a point of view? Would that be accurate? Would that entail what a subject is (yes, dualistic language, and no I'm not trying to get you to commit to an ontological stance regarding Being with this, just to get the concept down)?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If the "problem" is purely conceptual and can have only a conceptual "solution" and no empirical one, then the only conclusion which follows logically is that you have invented a problem in your head which does not exist anywhere in reality.

Not quite. It depends what you mean by "reality". There is noumenal reality (Reality as it is in itself) and there is phenomenal reality (Our reality). The statement "the problem does not exist anywhere in reality" is true. Reality itself is coherent, regardless of whether our descriptions of it are. The problem wasn't invented by me because it wasn't my set of concepts which suffer from the problem. The fact that non-eliminative materialism is logically incoherent but still believed by most physicalists is a real problem. A real conceptual problem.

Therefore, unlike actual problems, this problem will vanish -- which is even better than being solved -- if you stop conjuring it up.

No, it can't vanish until people stop trying to defend the claim that the nature of ultimate reality is physical. (apart from the eliminativists)

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So, taking a phenomenal stance a subject would seem to be awareness from a point of view?

The subject is the viewing point itself. What it views is subjective.

Would that be accurate? Would that entail what a subject is (yes, dualistic language, and no I'm not trying to get you to commit to an ontological stance regarding Being with this, just to get the concept down)?

Sounds good.

 

[69dodge]

With one difference. Last week before this conversation people were defending an additional claim. They weren't just claiming that when we talk about mind and matter we are effecively just using two different sets of words to talk about the same fundamental thing. The additional claim was "....and this fundamental thing is physical."

But they don't mean the same thing by the word "physical" as you mean by it. Or at least, I don't. E.g., your physical apples are really red, but mine aren't. Just pretend that whenever people say "physical", they really mean "noumenal". Now what's the difference between your position and theirs?

What's the difference, using your meanings of the words, between physical and mental, if everything physical is just my perceptions anyway? Is "physical" limited to visual perceptions, or something like that? Take my loudspeaker, for example. I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel it vibrate, if I lightly touch its woofer cone with my fingertips. Are the sound and the feeling of vibration also physical, or are they mental? How about my enjoyment of the music it's playing? There doesn't seem to be any clear boundary here.

I really think most people do not use the word "physical" the way you're using it. Your physical things disappear whenever you close your eyes. What do you think is meant by the law of conservation of matter? "Matter" refers to stuff that doesn't disappear when you look away.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

With one difference. Last week before this conversation people were defending an additional claim. They weren't just claiming that when we talk about mind and matter we are effecively just using two different sets of words to talk about the same fundamental thing. The additional claim was "....and this fundamental thing is physical."

And now the claim is "... and this fundamental thing is noumenal, with some nothingness thrown in to cause the physical." Other than making things more complex, I still don't see what this buys us. Please try to explain without recourse to "theoretical space," because I don't understand what that is.

Paul is asking me to prove to him (logically) that a subject is required. It is his question which is as irrelevant as the p-zombie argument. Just as you are saying that p-zombies are an incomprehensible concept, so it is true that asking for proof that a subject is required is an incomprehesensible question. It's just a silly a question. Unless the person asking the question is a p-zombie, that is......

Then why do you have a subject, when it is a solution to an incomprehensible question?

Different types of awareness = different states of consciousness/self-consciousness. But all types of awareness and consciousness involve a subject. Remove the subject and you are left with a p-zombie (or a mindless computation).

What is wrong with removing the answer to an incomprehensible question?

The fact that non-eliminative materialism is logically incoherent but still believed by most physicalists is a real problem.

Could you find me a noneliminative materialist and a quote by him that explains his position? I'm getting this "strawman materialism" feeling again.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Along with Dodge, I wouldn't want you to miss this question, Geoff:

Then I reject the glib description of the noumenal as having no spatio-temporal aspect. Without it, no event could occur without my watching it. Somehow, though, events occur that end up in the correct spatio-temporal location when I notice them afterward. This means there is some sort of spatio-temporal "memory" in the noumenal.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But they don't mean the same thing by the word "physical" as you mean by it. Or at least, I don't. E.g., your physical apples are really red, but mine aren't. Just pretend that whenever people say "physical", they really mean "noumenal". Now what's the difference between your position and theirs?

Hi 69Dodge.

You can call the external causes "physical" if you like. That is one of the two usages of physical that physicalists usually employ so its not surprising that you want to call those things "physical". The problem then becomes what you call the actual objects that appear before you in phenomenal reality. You've already used "physical" to describe the world of unseen causes. If you then try to use it to describe the objects of your experiences then you will end up in another logical problem. I can prove to you that this position is incoherent. The only way to make it coherent and still keeping your definition of "physical" is to re-introduce the term "mental" or "qualia" - which is fine by me but fiercely resisted by the same people who want to use your version of "physical" .

What's the difference, using your meanings of the words, between physical and mental, if everything physical is just my perceptions anyway?

Physical refers to specific parts of your perceptions - those that are extended in space. Mental refers to the totality of those perceptions. Those concepts are strictly idealistic rather than dualistic.

Is "physical" limited to visual perceptions, or something like that?

No. Blind people are also aware of a world extended in space.

Take my loudspeaker, for example. I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel it vibrate, if I lightly touch its woofer cone with my fingertips. Are the sound and the feeling of vibration also physical, or are they mental?

As I said, in a certain sense everything phenomenal is mental. It all comes to use via our minds. So the real question is where to draw the line between physical and non-physical aspects of our experiences. But why do I even have to draw a line? What's wrong with the distinction being blurred?

How about my enjoyment of the music it's playing?

That's entirely mental. There's no spatial extension to your enjoyment.

There doesn't seem to be any clear boundary here.

There are cases where the boundary is clear and cases where it isn't. It depends on exactly what you are talking about. But the distinction between mental and physical still exists because "mental" is a word which now encompasses the totality of our experience and "physical" is a word which refers only to some parts of it.

I really think most people do not use the word "physical" the way you're using it.

They use it that way sometimes. Sometimes they use it like you use it. Most of the time they don't think very hard about exactly what they mean when they use it, which is why they end up using it in two different ways without realising that this is what they have done.

Your physical things disappear whenever you close your eyes. What do you think is meant by the law of conservation of matter? "Matter" refers to stuff that doesn't disappear when you look away.

Understood. But you're still just demonstrating that there are two ways of using the word "physical" and that the physicalists want to keep hold of both of them. Just as you say that people want to think of "matter" as something which persists when they aren't looking - something which exists in itself - they also want to think that the objects they are directly aware of are literally "made of matter". These two uses of "matter" are in conflict.

Your usage is the modern, science-influenced way of thinking of matter. Mine is the original, historical one. Hoever, modern scientific materialism conflates these two things and doesn't want to admit that this is what it has done. Apart from the elminativists, who have at least figured out the problem (if not the solution).

If you want to defend that definition of physical then you need to also stand up and be counted as an eliminative materialist.

Geoff

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

The subject is the viewing point itself.

I'm not sure I understand what that means. Can I try this way of stating it?

There is awareness, which in a sense is Being (I know this is simplification and it makes no sense to say that Being is anything, but is the parallel basically correct?). Is that part correct? And we can have awareness from a viewpoint. The subject is awareness from the viewing point, is it not? -- neither the viewing point nor awareness itself, but awareness from that viewing point. Is that correct?

Because the way I see the viewing point is as a conceptual "space" (not physical) where the contents of consciousness are made available to awareness (we seem to need these spatial metaphors). This somehow happens in the noumenal brain (simplification, I know, because Being/awareness is not restricted to such spatial limitations, but for purposes of communication it is easier to talk this way, our language for these ideas being so sparse).

Have I properly understood your view or have I muddled it?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

And now the claim is "... and this fundamental thing is noumenal, with some nothingness thrown in to cause the physical." Other than making things more complex, I still don't see what this buys us. Please try to explain without recourse to "theoretical space," because I don't understand what that is.

It means space in your system to account for everything which needs to be accounted for.

Then why do you have a subject, when it is a solution to an incomprehensible question?

Because the incomprehensible question refers to a state of no-subject!

If you remove the possibility p-zombies then everything conscious has a subject. Therefore I don't have to prove there is a subject.

~~subject = subject.

How else can I explain it?

What is wrong with removing the answer to an incomprehensible question?

Nothing. The answer I removed was "There is no subject to my subjective experiences". The answer I removed was "But I am a p-zombie". I have removed the answer to an incomprehensible question. This leaves us with the subject, not the abscence of a subject. It was the abscence of the subject which was incomprehsensible about a p-zombie.

Could you find me a noneliminative materialist and a quote by him that explains his position? I'm getting this "strawman materialism" feeling again.

~~ Paul

There's about twenty of them in this thread. Each time somebody made a claim which ended up depending on a meaningless "IS" to link subjective and objective it was a non-eliminative materialist trying to explain what minds are. Every time a person said "Minds are brain processes", and that includes you, they were trying to defend "non-eliminative materialism".

Geoff

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Each time somebody made a claim which ended up depending on a meaningless "IS" to link subjective and objective, it was a non-eliminative materialist trying to explain what minds are. Every time a person said "Minds are brain processes", and that includes you, they were trying to defend "non-eliminative materialism".

I beg to differ. I claim and fully admit very poor use of language, but my view was always what you call eliminative materialism. I just don't have a very good vocabulary to speak the lingo of no-mind.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Understood. But you're still just demonstrating that there are two ways of using the word "physical" and that the physicalists want to keep hold of both of them. Just as you say that people want to think of "matter" as something which persists when they aren't looking - something which exists in itself - they also want to think that the objects they are directly aware of are literally "made of matter". These two uses of "matter" are in conflict.

Who thinks like that? Obviously the objects as I am subjectively aware of them aren't made of matter, because they are not noumenal objects. However, my analysis of my subjective experience of objects has led me to believe that the noumenal objects are made of matter, where "made of matter" is a convenient shorthand for the complex physical models we have developed. That use of "made of matter" is not an ontological claim.

The only question is: Do we need "something else" in order to develop a complete model for how my subjective awareness works and how it comes to have representations of noumenal objects? In other words, will subjective awareness yield to a physical model? If it does, great, and we don't need all this metaphysical baggage. If it does not, then surely we will discover something quite fascinating that we have missed so far, whose essential essence, I daresay, will be unlike anything we dream of in our metaphysics.

Now, if some people insist on "no matter what neuroscience discovers, it will, by definition, be missing the core of subjective awareness," then they will have the burden to explain carefully why this is so. An explanation such as "we just don't think you've got it all" will not suffice.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It means space in your system to account for everything which needs to be accounted for.

I do not understand why Being is needed to account for subjective experience.

Because the incomprehensible question refers to a state of no-subject!

If you remove the possibility p-zombies then everything conscious has a subject. Therefore I don't have to prove there is a subject.

~~subject = subject.

How else can I explain it?

Some other way, because I don't understand this at all.

Nothing. The answer I removed was "There is no subject to my subjective experiences". The answer I removed was "But I am a p-zombie". I have removed the answer to an incomprehensible question. This leaves us with the subject, not the abscence of a subject. It was the abscence of the subject which was incomprehsensible about a p-zombie.

I asked why we need a subject. You removed the answer "there is no subject." I'm confused.

There's about twenty of them in this thread. Each time somebody made a claim which ended up depending on a meaningless "IS" to link subjective and objective it was a non-eliminative materialist trying to explain what minds are. Every time a person said "Minds are brain processes", and that includes you, they were trying to defend "non-eliminative materialism".

I defined mind to be a term that circumscribes certain brain processes." Does the verb circumscribe have the same problem as is?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Along with Dodge, I wouldn't want you to miss this question, Geoff:

Then I reject the glib description of the noumenal as having no spatio-temporal aspect. Without it, no event could occur without my watching it. Somehow, though, events occur that end up in the correct spatio-temporal location when I notice them afterward. This means there is some sort of spatio-temporal "memory" in the noumenal.

~~ Paul

We are right at the heart of Kant's arguments here. Yes, there must be something of this sort in the noumenal. Kant claims that just because we see two events as succeeding each other temporally in phenomenal reality, we cannot know in which order these events are causally connected in the noumenon. For all we know, even if event X seemed to be a cause of event Y in our world, this sequence may reversed when understood in terms of the noumenal world. Y might be the cause of X.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1000863

In the Second Analogy, Kant continually refers to the need for an objective sequence of appearances. For example, without an objective sequence, ``no appearance would be distinguished from any other'' (B238). Or, later, if occurrences did not have necessary causes, ``we would have only a play of representations'' and, again, ``no appearance would be distinguished from any other as far as the temporal relation is concerned'' (B239). Why is this the case? It seems that Kant is suggesting that a mere subjective sequence of apprehensions is too fragmentary to yield distinct appearances (and thus objects).

From a Humean perspective, it seems that Kant's argument begins with an assumption that a necessary sequence underlies the unity of appearance. From there, he establishes that causality is precisely the kind of sequentiality needed. Of course, Hume would argue, this is begging the question: the necessary ``objective sequence'' which Kant assumes is precisely that of which he is trying to prove the existence.

Suppose we grant that an objective time-determination is needed for the possibility of experience. Kant claims that time is the necessary condition of all inner experience. In particular, we perceive our own internal states within time. We thus have a subjective order of events, based on when they reach our mind; this is Kant's subjective order of apprehension. Add to this subjective order, then, the fact that we perceive time ``backwards''. That is, a thought can concern events occurring before, but not after, that thought. Given this constraint, the order of apprehension is not entirely arbitrary---we apprehend X before we apprehend an apprehension of X, for example. This is a rule, in accordance with which the apprehension of one thing follows another. According to Kant's criteria, this allows for an objective sequence of appearances. Thus, without cause and effect, but rather with the internal ordering of memory, we can separate appearances. Causality is then not a necessary condition of objects; it, in fact, does not necessarily exist at all.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I beg to differ. I claim and fully admit very poor use of language, but my view was always what you call eliminative materialism. I just don't have a very good vocabulary to speak the lingo of no-mind.

If your position is eliminative materialism then you've got to stop saying that minds are brain processes. You've got to say that there is no such thing as a mind.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I need a break from this. I have to think about something else. Anything else......

 

[cyborg]

If your position is eliminative materialism then you've got to stop saying that minds are brain processes. You've got to say that there is no such thing as a mind.

Damn it man! Using the term for an abstraction doesn't mean he gives it a fundamental substance! What kind of reality would we be in if that were the case every time?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

We are right at the heart of Kant's arguments here. Yes, there must be something of this sort in the noumenal. Kant claims that just because we see two events as succeeding each other temporally in phenomenal reality, we cannot know in which order these events are causally connected in the noumenon. For all we know, even if event X seemed to be a cause of event Y in our world, this sequence may reversed when understood in terms of the noumenal world. Y might be the cause of X.

Then you cannot say that the physical is any sort of simple image of the noumenal. And furthermore, you have to admit that Being is the source of this cause/effect swap. It's now stretching things a bit to say that Being is nothingness.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Damn it man! Using the term for an abstraction doesn't mean he gives it a fundamental substance! What kind of reality would we be in if that were the case every time?

I feel your pain.

We have had this "forced ontology" problem for years. Is it de rigueur in philosophy of mind? Since philosophers ignore neuroscience, they seem to have no room for mind to make reference to brain function.

Again, I reviewed definitions of eliminative materialism on the Web. Some of them make reference only to the innapropriateness of folk terminology. A couple mention the "radical" abandonment of mind and mental states, but when examined carefully simply say that there is no referrent for some of the folk psychology terms we use.

I'm happy to go on record as saying that we will find neurological explanations for all the folks psychology terms we use, although these explanations may bear little resemblance to the mental pictures that people have of what those terms mean or how they function. We will explain pain, and a careful examination of the explanation may very well change your view of what pain is like.*

~~ Paul

* Can I say "like" anymore?