The relationship between science and materialism

[Ichneumonwasp]

Does math exist if there is no awareness?

That doesn't answer the question. By that line of reasoning every number contains the added property of awareness, so there is no solution to be found in such a query.

Being does not necessarily imply awareness. We are beings with awareness, but if you want to construct a system with Being=Nothing so that you do not forge a dualism, you cannot insert Awareness into Being and maintain that the system is still monistic.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin,

I showed you the proof. It's a whole seven lines long. Here we go again:

a) Every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural.

or

b) Not every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural.

(a) and (b) are mutually exclusive.

Okay. Either we have peeled all the existing labels off the brain and stuck new ones on, or we have not.

If (a) is true then eliminative materialism is true.

Hang on sport.

How do you get from "every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural" to "minds do not exist"?

That your definition of eliminative materialism links these two ideas is not evidence that one actually follows from the other.

If we peeled all the labels off the brain and threw them away, the labels would be gone but the brain would still be whatever it was in the first place. You can't change reality by changing the labels.

If (a) is true then eliminative materialism is true.

I don't understand what the problem is.

IF every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural THEN eliminative materialism is true.

There is nothing to reject about this. Eliminative materialism IS the claim that every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term can be theoretically been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural.

That's just misleading Geoff. Your version of eliminative materialism IS the claim that every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term can be replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural, AND that if we succeed in doing this then minds never existed.

You keep leaving that second bit off your explicit statements of your position, because it is patent nonsense, but then you keep sneaking it back in as if you had proven it to be true.

Any kind of materialism is going to claim that in theory we can replace every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term with objective/physical/neural terms.

I am talking about a hypothetical situation where the project of the eliminativists has been completed. At this point, which I do not believe can happen (theoretically) nobody would need mental words anymore. The eliminitavists would then have an unrefutable claim that their theory was correct and non-eliminative versions of materialism must be wrong. They would have proved it empirically.

Certainly they would have peeled off all the old labels and stuck new ones on.

They would not have an unrefutable claim that they had changed anything in the real world by doing so though. That is a very silly idea indeed.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I should have thought of this one ages ago.

Let's say we have a completed neuroscience. "JKL theory" is a complete description of all processes going in a brain - no neural activity is not accounted for.

So now I ask you:

What is the difference between a JKL brain process and a mind?

If the answer is "none", you're an eliminativist.

If the answer is anything at all apart from "none", then you aren't. Remember we are talking about a completed neuroscience, so you can't explain it in terms of future advances in neuroscience.

A further clarification, re: mercutio's example of the sunrise. "Sunrise" is a redundant term which is used for convenience. It could be eliminated quite easily tomorrow. The same is not true of minds. This question is about whether you believe it is possible that it may one day become true of minds. And the critical question is if not, then why not?

 

[hammegk]

That doesn't answer the question. By that line of reasoning every number contains the added property of awareness, so there is no solution to be found in such a query.

I didn't mean to imply a 'number' per se is conscious.

Being does not necessarily imply awareness.

If you are specifically naming Geoff's Being, I'd agree. But I'd also say nothing could be said to exist without some level of awareness.

 

[hammegk]

How do you get from "every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural" to "minds do not exist"?

"Mind" in the sense of cartesian duality mind/body.

If we peeled all the labels off the brain and threw them away, the labels would be gone but the brain would still be whatever it was in the first place. You can't change reality by changing the labels.

So true, but that brain is firmly in your realm of all that exists is physical.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Okay. Either we have peeled all the existing labels off the brain and stuck new ones on, or we have not.

No. Either we have replaces all the mental terms with physical ones, or we have not. I have no idea what your sentence is supposed to mean, but it's not what my sentence means.

If (a) is true then eliminative materialism is true.


Hang on sport.

How do you get from "every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural" to "minds do not exist"?

They are the same claim.

Let me explain with respect to the sunrise. We could eliminate the word "sunrise" tomorrow. By that, I mean that when we say the word "sunrise" we all know that what we really means is that the Earth has turned enough for the sun to be visible, yes? In which case the term can be eliminated, but is just hanging around because it is useful. The same is not currently true of minds. If it DOES become true of minds then eliminative materialism WILL be true. It would mean that everybody understood that when they said "mind", what they really mean is "brain process".

Eliminativism is merely the claim that it is POSSIBLE to eliminate the word "mind" completely.

That your definition of eliminative materialism links these two ideas is not evidence that one actually follows from the other.

"My definition" of eliminative materialism is THE definition of eliminative materialism. What else do you think it means?

Are you clear about the difference between eliminative and reductive materialism or would you like me to explain it?

If we peeled all the labels off the brain and threw them away, the labels would be gone but the brain would still be whatever it was in the first place. You can't change reality by changing the labels.

But "Mind" isn't currently a label for "brain". It is a label for subjective experiences. Materialists want to redefine it as "Brain processes" which is what is causing these disputes.

That's just misleading Geoff. Your version of eliminative materialism IS the claim that every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term can be replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural, AND that if we succeed in doing this then minds never existed.

You keep leaving that second bit off your explicit statements of your position, because it is patent nonsense, but then you keep sneaking it back in as if you had proven it to be true.

But it would be true. Just like there never really was a sunrise, yes? What's the problem?

Any kind of materialism is going to claim that in theory we can replace every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term with objective/physical/neural terms.

WRONG. Reductive materialism does not make that claim. Instead, it tries to find a way to keep the word "mind", but link it to brains in someway that minds supervene on brains. Reductive materialism is not the same as eliminativism. I'm not sure you understand the difference here.

Certainly they would have peeled off all the old labels and stuck new ones on.

They would not have an unrefutable claim that they had changed anything in the real world by doing so though. That is a very silly idea indeed.

And you don't change anything in the real world by eliminating the word "sunrise". There's never been a "sunrise". There is no logical requirement to keep this word.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Just in case anyone still doesn't get why "sunrise" is eliminable but "mind" is not:

In the case of sunrise the word can be eliminated because we now have two different perspectives within the model. We can think of a fixed Earth or a fixed sun and we can all agree on an explanation of why there are two perspectives and, crucially, how these two perspectives are related.

In the case of the word "mind" we have a different problem. There's two perspectives allright - although we can't agree on how to define them. But at the moment we've got a bunch of words that apply from the 1st-person, subjective perspective and a bunch that apply from the 3rd-person, objective perspective. So what we need in order to be able to eliminate "mind" is a coherent explanation of the relationship between the two perspectives, like we've got for the sunrise and the movement of the Earth. At the moment, we do not have this explanation. The various different metaphysical positions being discussed are different answers to the question. The problem is that this time, unlike with the case of the sunrise, the arguments are metaphysical instead of physical, and as Paul has noted, metaphysics is a whole different ballgame. There's a very important reason why materialistic science can't ever explain the difference between these two perspectives: Science itself is founded on one of them. The scientific view of the world (which is materialistic) is restricted to operating within one of the two perspectives which needs to be resolved. That is what makes these questions metaphysical instead of physical. So in this case, unlike the sunrise, materialistic science can't stand outside the division between the two perspectives. The eliminativists realise this, which is why they want to eliminate the word "mind" completely. They know they cannot use a materialistic theory to reduce it so it has to be theoretically eliminable. Eliminative materialism is merely a version of the claim that it is impossible for materialism to stand outside itself in order to compare itself to idealism and dualism.

Either way, as things stand, the word "mind" cannot be eliminated and nobody can agree whether it's theoretically possible to so. Eliminative materialism is the claim that it is possible. Other forms of materialism do not entail this claim, which is why they are incoherent.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I should have thought of this one ages ago.

Let's say we have a completed neuroscience. "JKL theory" is a complete description of all processes going in a brain - no neural activity is not accounted for.

So now I ask you:

What is the difference between a JKL brain process and a mind?

If the answer is "none", you're an eliminativist.

Why does this make you an eliminativist in particular? It just makes you a materialist.

To be an eliminativist as you use the term you have to believe, in addition, that minds never existed and that by understanding the brain you have proved it.

If the answer is anything at all apart from "none", then you aren't. Remember we are talking about a completed neuroscience, so you can't explain it in terms of future advances in neuroscience.

If your answer is anything at all apart from none, then unless I misunderstand the question you aren't a materialist.

You're some flavour of immaterialist, dualist, or dualist with nonsense on top (neutral monist).

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Let's say we have a completed neuroscience. "JKL theory" is a complete description of all processes going in a brain - no neural activity is not accounted for.

So now I ask you:

What is the difference between a JKL brain process and a mind?

If the answer is "none", you're an eliminativist.

I would have agreed with you yesterday, but further reading makes me think that some eliminativists are even more radical. If you asked:

What is the difference between certain JKL brain processes and pain?

They would answer that the question is incoherent because there is absolutely nothing that is pain. This is ridiculous.

I think we have type A eliminativists and type B eliminativists.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Why does this make you an eliminativist in particular? It just makes you a materialist.

Nope. It makes you an eliminativist. Reductive forms of materialism acknowledge that mind is somehow fundamentally different from matter, but in such a way that (somehow) physicalism is still true. The way those theories are formulated rules out the possibility that the word "mind" can be completely eliminated. That's why if and when the eliminativist's project is both completable and completed, all materialists will be eliminativists.

To be an eliminativist as you use the term you have to believe, in addition, that minds never existed and that by understanding the brain you have proved it.

You *WOULD* have proved it. Just like we have proved that the sun never once rose over a stationary Earth. People used to use the word "sunrise" to mean THE SUN HAS RISEN. Now it's just shorthand for something else. If the eliminativists completed their project then the word "mind" would be in the same category as sunrise: a shorthand notation for "brain process". Non-eliminative materialism denies this will ever be the case.

If your answer is anything at all apart from none, then unless I misunderstand the question you aren't a materialist.

You're some flavour of immaterialist, dualist, or dualist with nonsense on top (neutral monist).

!!!!CORRECT!!!!.

That is why I am telling you that all the non-eliminative forms of materialism are incoherent. They are incoherent because they claim to physicalism but in actual fact they are some flavour of immaterialist, dualist, or dualist with nonsense on top!

Understand now?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

They are the same claim.

Not necessarily. "Every single mental/subjective/folk-psychological term has now been replaced with a term which is purely objective/physical/neural" allows me to replace a dualistic definition of mind with a physical definition. "Minds do not exist" is a loaded statement that cannot be analyzed without first agreeing on what mind refers to.

Let me explain with respect to the sunrise. We could eliminate the word "sunrise" tomorrow. By that, I mean that when we say the word "sunrise" we all know that what we really means is that the Earth has turned enough for the sun to be visible, yes? In which case the term can be eliminated, but is just hanging around because it is useful. The same is not currently true of minds. If it DOES become true of minds then eliminative materialism WILL be true. It would mean that everybody understood that when they said "mind", what they really mean is "brain process".

Agreed. But what would the word mind then come to mean? Not until you answer this question can you assert "minds do not exist."

"My definition" of eliminative materialism is THE definition of eliminative materialism. What else do you think it means?

Are you clear about the difference between eliminative and reductive materialism or would you like me to explain it?

I'm not at all convinced that there is one definition of eliminative materialism.

But "Mind" isn't currently a label for "brain". It is a label for subjective experiences. Materialists want to redefine it as "Brain processes" which is what is causing these disputes.

I don't think it's a label for the experiences. I think it's a label for the engine of experience, or possibly for the subject.

WRONG. Reductive materialism does not make that claim. Instead, it tries to find a way to keep the word "mind", but link it to brains in someway that minds supervene on brains. Reductive materialism is not the same as eliminativism. I'm not sure you understand the difference here.

I certainly don't, no.

And you don't change anything in the real world by eliminating the word "sunrise". There's never been a "sunrise". There is no logical requirement to keep this word.

And yet the word is retained and has meaning.

You seem to be saying that if we define X to be exactly Y, then we can say "X does not exist." We could say sunrises don't exist, or we could say weather does not exist. But we can also say that Y does not exist.

Perhaps we could make some progress if Geoff would define all the other kinds of materialism. I certainly don't understand the differences.

~~ Paul

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

No. Either we have replaces all the mental terms with physical ones, or we have not. I have no idea what your sentence is supposed to mean, but it's not what my sentence means.

You get the idea that terms are just labels we humans attach to things, I assume?

I can call a ball a dribwidget, or anything else I like, but the physical object that I once referred to as a "ball" will be unchanged by the change of labels, nor will the change of labels prove anything about the nature of the ball/dribwidget.

Your version of eliminativist materialism includes the claim that if we change the labels on the brain, we will have proven something. That's a very odd claim indeed. In the normal order of things the thing we once referred to as a "mind" would still exist whatever label we attached to it, and the change of labels would not in itself prove anything.

They are the same claim.

Let me explain with respect to the sunrise. We could eliminate the word "sunrise" tomorrow. By that, I mean that when we say the word "sunrise" we all know that what we really means is that the Earth has turned enough for the sun to be visible, yes? In which case the term can be eliminated, but is just hanging around because it is useful. The same is not currently true of minds. If it DOES become true of minds then eliminative materialism WILL be true. It would mean that everybody understood that when they said "mind", what they really mean is "brain process".

So? We still see the phenomenon we refer to as a sunrise. We would still perceive the phenomenon we refer to as our mind. Our minds would still do everything they currently do, we would just have different labels attached to it, and perhaps a deeper understanding of why our minds do the things they do.

Eliminativism is merely the claim that it is POSSIBLE to eliminate the word "mind" completely.

I could eliminate the word "ball" completely. Balls would still bounce in exactly the same way though.

"My definition" of eliminative materialism is THE definition of eliminative materialism. What else do you think it means?

Are you clear about the difference between eliminative and reductive materialism or would you like me to explain it?

We have already established that it doesn't look like the people who call themselves eliminative materialists are attached to any kind of claim that minds don't exist. So I'm very much open to the possibility that your version of eliminative materialism is pure straw, in addition to being silly.

But "Mind" isn't currently a label for "brain". It is a label for subjective experiences. Materialists want to redefine it as "Brain processes" which is what is causing these disputes.

Why would that cause a problem? Call them anything you like.

But it would be true. Just like there never really was a sunrise, yes? What's the problem?

How does that follow? If I call balls something else, that doesn't prove that balls never existed, or that they never bounced, or did any of the other things balls do.

WRONG. Reductive materialism does not make that claim. Instead, it tries to find a way to keep the word "mind", but link it to brains in someway that minds supervene on brains. Reductive materialism is not the same as eliminativism. I'm not sure you understand the difference here.

I'm very sure that you can't have a materialist theory that doesn't think that brains are entirely material things, and that as such they could in theory be described in entirely material terms.

If you think there's an immaterial component then you are some kind of immaterialist or dualist or something.

And you don't change anything in the real world by eliminating the word "sunrise". There's never been a "sunrise". There is no logical requirement to keep this word.

Who cares? The things we refer to as minds would be just as real, and do exactly the same things, no matter what we called them. Changing the labels would not change the reality.

 

[Mercutio]

Just in case anyone still doesn't get why "sunrise" is eliminable but "mind" is not:

In the case of sunrise ...[snip]

There are modern geocentrists. To them, "sunrise" cannot be replaced.

What is the difference between your philosophy and modern geocentrism? (with appropriate substitutions--mind for sunrise--of course) You assert that mind and brain processes cannot be synonymous. To a geocentrist, sunrise and earthrotation are not synonymous. Are we wrong to simply say that they are wrong?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I would have agreed with you yesterday, but further reading makes me think that some eliminativists are even more radical. If you asked:

What is the difference between certain JKL brain processes and pain?

They would answer that the question is incoherent because there is absolutely nothing that is pain. This is ridiculous.

I think we have type A eliminativists and type B eliminativists.

~~ Paul

Type-A meaning people who make this claim and Type-B saying it is ridiculous?

Then type-A eliminativists are true eliminativists and type-B eliminativists are people who have accepted something logically but can neither understand it nor make sense of it.

Type-A sunrise-eliminativists find nothing ridiculous about the claim "there never was a sunrise". They know exactly what this is supposed to mean and it is not an absurd thing to say "The sun has never risen over a stationary earth." Everyone knows what "sunrise" really means, they say.

Type-B sunrise-eliminativists find the claim that there never was a sunrise quite ridiculous. How could there have never been a sunrise? The sun rises every day. They can't understand the type-A eliminativists at all. What can they mean when they say the sun never rose?

The type-B eliminativists simply do not understand what they claim to be their position. They say their position has eliminated the sunrise but they can find no way of making sense of this claim.

There's no way I'd want to be a type-B sunrise-eliminativist, would you? I'd sooner go back to believing the sun actually rose until such time somebody could explain how there'd never been a sunrise in such a way as it was actually believable.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Nope. It makes you an eliminativist. Reductive forms of materialism acknowledge that mind is somehow fundamentally different from matter, but in such a way that (somehow) physicalism is still true. The way those theories are formulated rules out the possibility that the word "mind" can be completely eliminated. That's why if and when the eliminativist's project is both completable and completed, all materialists will be eliminativists.

Are they referring to two subtypes of the single ontological type called material?

That is why I am telling you that all the non-eliminative forms of materialism are incoherent. They are incoherent because they claim to physicalism but in actual fact they are some flavour of immaterialist, dualist, or dualist with nonsense on top!

Understand now?

Why can't they just say they have two subtypes of material? Is that necessarily dualism? Could they convert noneliminative materialism to neutral monism by declaring one of the two subtypes = nothing?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

There are modern geocentrists. To them, "sunrise" cannot be replaced.

Agreed.

What is the difference between your philosophy and modern geocentrism?

The answer is in post 1147.

(with appropriate substitutions--mind for sunrise--of course)

You assert that mind and brain processes cannot be synonymous. To a geocentrist, sunrise and earthrotation are not synonymous. Are we wrong to simply say that they are wrong?

No. They are wrong. See post 1147

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Your version of eliminativist materialism includes the claim that if we change the labels on the brain, we will have proven something. That's a very odd claim indeed. In the normal order of things the thing we once referred to as a "mind" would still exist whatever label we attached to it, and the change of labels would not in itself prove anything.

I think there is a deeper confusion here. To me, Geoff is changing the definition of eliminative materialism subtly as he talks. It is the same confusion I find when reviewing discussions of eliminative materialism on the Web.

Why are we eliminating the word pain?

(a) Because it is unnecessary, referring only to other physical things.

(b) Because there never was any pain at all.

These are vastly different. Which is eliminative materialism? Or, are there two stripes of eliminativists?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul

Are they referring to two subtypes of the single ontological type called material?

Ask them. I haven't got a friggin' clue what they think their position is. It's incoherent.

Why can't they just say they have two subtypes of material? Is that necessarily dualism?

Yep. Neccesarily that is some form of dualism.

Could they convert noneliminative materialism to neutral monism by declaring one of the two subtypes = nothing?

No.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Nope. It makes you an eliminativist. Reductive forms of materialism acknowledge that mind is somehow fundamentally different from matter, but in such a way that (somehow) physicalism is still true. The way those theories are formulated rules out the possibility that the word "mind" can be completely eliminated. That's why if and when the eliminativist's project is both completable and completed, all materialists will be eliminativists.

If that's how you define "reductive materialism", then by your definition it is straightforwardly self-contradictory. You can't have a materialist theory which says that all things are matter, plus there is this other stuff which is fundamentally different from matter.

I think the problem here is that you have cooked up some very weird, self-serving "definitions" of materialist views. You define "eliminative materialism" as the view that if we change the labels on the brain we prove minds never existed, and define "reductive materialism" as the view that all things are matter plus there is this other stuff which is fundamentally different from matter. Then you declare that between these two straw men you have exhausted all materialist theories.

Then you proclaim that you have "proved" that materialism is incoherent or crazy, because one of your straw men is incoherent and the other straw man is crazy.

You *WOULD* have proved it. Just like we have proved that the sun never once rose over a stationary Earth. People used to use the word "sunrise" to mean THE SUN HAS RISEN. Now it's just shorthand for something else. If the eliminativists completed their project then the word "mind" would be in the same category as sunrise: a shorthand notation for "brain process". Non-eliminative materialism denies this will ever be the case.

You only would have proven that "minds" never existed if your definition of "mind" covertly included immaterial components. In other words, if you have begged the question.

!!!!CORRECT!!!!.

That is why I am telling you that all the non-eliminative forms of materialism are incoherent. They are incoherent because they claim to physicalism but in actual fact they are some flavour of immaterialist, dualist, or dualist with nonsense on top!

Understand now?

Yes, that is your incoherent straw man. As opposed to "eliminative materialism", the crazy straw man.

What about the theory that our minds are physical structures and processes, but that they would still be there whatever labels we slap on to them?

 

[Mercutio]

Agreed.

The answer is in post 1147.

No. They are wrong. See post 1147

See, I'd have thought that the fact that I quoted that post would have told you that I had already read it. Then, the fact that I posted what I did would have told you that if the answer was indeed in post 1147, it was not doing what you intended for it to do.

There are a number of assumptions in it that are simply not true; perhaps you would like to try again.