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The relationship between science and materialism

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
I've got no idea what eliminative materialism is supposed to be rejecting.
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It is rejecting the claim that "minds are brain processes" by claiming that there isn't anything for the word "mind" to refer to at all. Minds aren't brain processes. There's no such thing as a "mind".

If it rejecting the concept that any part of mind is nonphysical, then fine.
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No, it is rejecting the claim that there is any such thing as a mind to have a nonphysical component in the first place. Both your comments and wasps comments suggest that your means of escaping from my proof leads straight back to the position where there is no point in talking about "minds" at all - at least not when we are having this debate. There's only something left for us to talk about if you really believe that you're defending some other sort of position.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
So the logical argument against solipsism isn't also a logical argument in favor of "something other than myself"?
~~ Paul
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What logical argument? Please enlighten me, since the best I can do is choose to deny that I am The Solipsist. With that denial I also choose to believe you also "think".
 
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You say this is "merely an epistemological stance" but then go on to claim that there is an external world (a thing in itself) and that it's physical.
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Again, where did I say that? You keep telling me what I said but I can't recall ever saying it. I don't think that so I'm not sure when or where I would have said it unless I was really drunk. Perhaps you can show me, so we can move ahead?

I have made no mention of any "God".
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God quit his day job as Being=Awareness? Remind me to send him a condolence note.

Look, it's simple. There is either stuff out there or it's all in our heads. We can't really know the answer to that question, so we have to choose. I choose stuff really out there. I have no idea what the stuff out there is. I have no way of finding out, so I really don't care. Neither does science. All science cares about is mapping out the interactions of this stuff and explaining its rules of engagement.

You can continue waffling all you want and try to redirect the conversation to avoid the sticky stuff as you have been doing for the past 2 weeks if you want.

Or you can be a man and continue the previous line of argument.

Your choice.
 
Geoff said:
It is rejecting the claim that "minds are brain processes" by claiming that there isn't anything for the word "mind" to refer to at all. Minds aren't brain processes. There's no such thing as a "mind".
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If the wording is that there is nothing for X to refer to when X has been fully described, then I agree that it is possible that in the future mind will have nothing to refer to, and so will be redefined to refer to its description. The same holds true for weather. This has already happened to sunrise.

No, it is rejecting the claim that there is any such thing as a mind to have a nonphysical component in the first place. Both your comments and wasps comments suggest that your means of escaping from my proof leads straight back to the position where there is no point in talking about "minds" at all - at least not when we are having this debate. There's only something left for us to talk about if you really believe that you're defending some other sort of position.
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In the realm of solipsistic-oriented philosophy, I can see no escape from your proof. Your solution, however, seems like dualism to me.

~~ Paul
 
Hammegk said:
What logical argument? Please enlighten me, since the best I can do is choose to deny that I am The Solipsist. With that denial I also choose to believe you also "think".
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Well, it might not be a logical argument. I know of a few arguments against it. There is the language argument: Why would a solipsist have a language? There is the argument that the solipsist should find the source of the universe he has created. And there is the joke about the incredible solipsist philosophy professor who is approached by a student so excited by solipsism that he declares himself one, too.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
So the logical argument against solipsism isn't also a logical argument in favor of "something other than myself"? Really?
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There is no logical argument against solipsism. All you have is a case based on inductive reasoning.

That's an epistemological statement. It doesn't rule out the existence of an external world.
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It rules out you being able to claim it is physical.

I don't claim that there is an external world. It just doesn't appear to me that TI rules it out, in which case it is just as reasonable to assume the subjective view is abstracted as it is to assume the external world is.
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TI rules it in. It calls it "noumena".
 
Geoff said:
There is no logical argument against solipsism. All you have is a case based on inductive reasoning.
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Then why do I need a logical argument to shift the anchored viewpoint from subjective to objective at the same time?

TI rules it in. It calls it "noumena".
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And what does it say about the anchored viewpoint?

~~ Paul
 
So, I guess this is where it ends off. We are eliminativists, we just disagree to what extent we may use the term "mind" when referring to the completely physical computations of the brain.
 
Jeremy said:
So, I guess this is where it ends off. We are eliminativists, we just disagree to what extent we may use the term "mind" when referring to the completely physical computations of the brain.
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If by "we" you mean the people in this thread still defending materialism then this is correct, yes.
 
For some reason we seem to have abandoned your proof again. Pondering it:
Physicalism: The claim that the only reality is physical reality.
P1) Your experiences of objects (like chairs/brains) ("subjective experiences") P1 refers to the brain in the mirror from the above example.
P2) The external things which cause you to have experiences of objects ("external stimuli"). P2 refers to the brain in the vat from the above example.

Premise (A): P1 and P2 are not the same thing and should not be confused. The brain in the mirror cannot be the brain in the vat.
Premise (B) : P1 and P2 account for everything which exists.
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I think I disagree with premise (B), but it depends on the definitions of exists. I can think of things that I would say "exist" that are not included in (P1 and P2).

~~ Paul
 
Geoff said:
If by "we" you mean the people in this thread still defending materialism then this is correct, yes.
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I'm not defending materialism. I don't think Wasp is, either. Then again, I suppose when the domain of discourse is limited to metaphysics, we are. Of course, then the discussion has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

~~ Paul
 
Geoff said:
Then what are you doing?
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Playing one on TV. I am playing the role of the materialist in a conversation about metaphysics, a field of thought that I believe to be fundamentally flawed. I do not think that we can know what actually exists, so metaphysics is a word game.

Now, I admit it is an interesting word game, although frustrating. And word games have their uses. I do not think it has any fundamental effect on the scientific endeavor. Some people will accept that science has explained mind, and some people will not.

~~ Paul
 
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
David Deutsch on solipsism:

http://www.freivald.org/~jake/deutschOnSolipsism.html

~~ Paul
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This is an inductive argument. A clever one, but nevertheless inductive and not logical (as in not deductive). It is a claim that solipsism is absurd and nobody should have any serious right to believe it, but not a claim that is logically false. Does that sound familiar? It ought to, because it's exactly the same as the situation with eliminative materialism.
 
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Geoff said:
Physicalism: The claim that the only reality is physical reality.
P1) Your experiences of objects (like chairs/brains) ("subjective experiences") P1 refers to the brain in the mirror from the above example.
P2) The external things which cause you to have experiences of objects ("external stimuli"). P2 refers to the brain in the vat from the above example.

Premise (A): P1 and P2 are not the same thing and should not be confused. The brain in the mirror cannot be the brain in the vat.
Premise (B) : P1 and P2 account for everything which exists.
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I think category P2 might hold some surprises. Imagine I have decided to set up a situation where I can investigate another person's brain in great detail, so that I can get the most out of it when treated as "external stimuli" (P2). I have enough circuitry attached to it that I can glean every last bit of information from it. This should be possible in principle, or else the person's brain does does not wholly lie in category P2.

Now, how do I get all those stimuli into my senses in an appropriate manner? We don't know today, but again, in principle, I should be able to wire the sensors into the appropriate parts of my brain, without losing anything, because my brain is also in category P2.

Does anyone think I could not then experience what the other person is experiencing? Even if the experiences were not identical, there would be a one-to-one mapping between them. Nothing would be lost. This jolts our assumption that subjective experience is personal and private.

One question remains: Would a robot experience what the wired-up person is experiencing?

~~ Paul
 
Geoff said:
This is an inductive argument. A clever one, but nevertheless inductive and not logical (as in not deductive). It is a claim that solipsism is absurd and nobody should have any serious right to believe it, but not a claim that is logically false. Does that sound familiar? It ought to, because it's exactly the same as the situation with eliminative materialism.
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Yes, that's fine. But if we're going to reject solipsism on an inductive argument, why not reject the first-person viewpoint as the primary one at the same time? Isn't the inductive argument just as compelling with regard to the primary viewpoint?

~~ Paul
 
Just to clarify my previous post:

I disagree with Deutsche, but only in the following respect: he offers this defence against solipsism as a reason why nobody should seriously believe it. But he then goes on to say that "all variants" should also be dismissed. It is not clear whether this refers to what he previously called "arguments that use solipsism as a stepping stone." In other words I see no reason why I cannot use solipsism as a stepping stone in a deductive argument, provided where-ever I end up is not solipsism. In the end, deductive arguments trump inductive arguments every time, because they have logic on their side.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Yes, that's fine. But if we're going to reject solipsism on an inductive argument, why not reject the first-person viewpoint as the primary one at the same time? Isn't the inductive argument just as compelling with regard to the primary viewpoint?

~~ Paul
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No, because the inductive argument is based upon a load of other factors, none of which provide an escape route from the subjective viewpoint. The world we experience doesn't become any less subjective just because we have rejected solipsism based on an inductive argument.
 
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