The relationship between science and materialism

[davidsmith73]

If you cannot explain it to me, how did you learn it to begin with?

By ostensive definition. By experiencing people pointing to experiences and giving me the label "red". What that label refers to is quality. But that's not a relational definition (explanation) to you. Its just me offering you an ostensive definition, just like I was offered one when learning. The meaning of "red" is not touched upon. It is a qualitative experience.

This is a problem--you are using words in a question which we all might be defining differently (by your argument). How can you expect answers to this question to be meaningful?

Only someone who believes that privacy actually exists has to state that. I'm not sure that Idealism needs any concept of privacy, or at least it could be described as an illusion. ie, there is no concept of "your" red or "my" red, there is just red.

Can I take it your answer is no to my original question? Or do you still think the question is meaningless?

If the latter, we can't really do much more, but I see it as the fundamental problem with this debate.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Nope, JG - the sunrise example is rotten for a number of reasons.

It was the one and only example given by the one and only person who has spent this thread trying to eliminate mental words.

There are no better examples of the elimination of an archaic term. If there are, let's hear them.

For one thing, we can see what a sunrise is, and what it appears to be. We cannot do that with the mind.

Correct. That's why it's hard to imagine the elimination of all the mental terms.

For another, a sunrise (or earth-turn) is a readily observable phenom - an objectively experiential phenom - while a mind clearly is not.

Correct. Which is why we need the mental terms.

The best analogy of all to a mind is a program, as seen by the computer running that program.

Then you have defined "mind" and you are defending a non-eliminative form of materialism. It has been proved in this thread that it all non-eliminative forms of materialism aren't materialism at all. They are forms of dualism.

From your posts since I last posted, JG, what you are clearly claiming is the mind is an inherently immaterial process.

No - YOU are now claiming this. If you cannot eliminate "mind" then you are claiming that mind is inherently non-reducable to the physical.

You are starting with dualism or idealism, then trying to show the logical failures of materialism. I've seen this SOOOOOO many times from your camp that it's silly to even count it.

Now you've gone back to trying to defend eliminativism. You have accused me of using dualistic vocabulary. Yet in the very same post you have told me that you don't see how we could possibly get rid of that dualistic vocabulary.

Your position is therefore TOTALLY incoherent.

Simply enough, JG, minds are a program of the brain.....

This is non-eliminative materialism again.

If we have discovered purely physicalist terms to describe each and every phenomenon, in accordance with eliminative materialism, then we will also have an applicable set of descriptions for the mind.

Yes, but they will be place-holders - just like "sunrise".

There won't be any denying the mind exists; but we'll understand what the mind is, simply enough.

It will be a denial that we ever needed the word "mind". Something you have just claimed cannot be done (not like it was done for sunrise).

Any claims otherwise are being made by dualists and immaterialists who don't grasp the basic concept that all things are material/physical.

ZD, I think you need to sort your own "basic concepts" out. What are you trying to defend?

 

[davidsmith73]

If you cannot define quality perhaps the word has no meaning.

Does that necessarily follow? I don't think so. You have to examine the word "meaning".

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Once again, you project my opinion onto me. Where, here, have I ever hinted at such a thing? I have explicitly told Paul that the words can still be used.

But only as placeholders for physical terms, yes?

Like "sunrise", yes?

Geoff, the words we write are not merely some Rorschach ink-blot, for you to see what you want in them.

I am merely asking YOU what you see in them, Merc?

WHAT position are you defending? You do not have one.

 

[Mercutio]

Mercuto

Would you care to explain what a non-materialistic science would look like in a word where all mental terms are meaningless?

It's pretty hard to define what a non-materialistic science could be. Trying to do so after eliminating all non-materialistic terms is completely impossible.

So you admit it is you that equates science and materialism?

Hammy has said it better than I, but a non-materialist science looks pretty much like science does now...there is no reason that the fundamental "stuff" that science studies must be material. It suffices to say that science studies natural events. Whether material or ideal is irrelevant.

"Faulty assumptions" meaning the use of all "dualistic vocabulary"?

When it is not needed, why assume it? (Nor do I assume materialism, nor idealism.)

What's your position, Merc? That pinhead you were dancing on has been removed. Your position is suspended in mid air.

Silly Geoff. I will not rescue you yet. You can continue to wait.

 

[davidsmith73]

So, in other words, you have just admitted that you have no idea what you are talking about.

No

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Actually, Mercutio has simply been pointing out the assumptions in your questions. You can take that as defending eliminativism, but it is not. Your ideas should stand on their own. They do not; they are propped up by a raft of assumptions which you refuse to see.

You keep trying to rebutt my arguments with arguments which depend on an eliminativists stance. Then you claim you aren't an eliminativist.

You have NO POSITION.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You have to examine the word "meaning".

OK, go for it. What do you mean by the word "meaning"?

 

[Mercutio]

But only as placeholders for physical terms, yes?

No.

Like "sunrise", yes?

That was one example.

I am merely asking YOU what you see in them, Merc?

The focus here is on your view.

WHAT position are you defending? You do not have one.

Remember, you are calling at least two people liars when you say that. Wasp has already verified; Jeremy could, but has not as yet.

Once again, I am not yet defending a position. I am examining yours, and finding it wanting. Attempts to distract from that are recognised for what they are.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Remember that this question presupposes a dualistic view?

So, what was only assumed is what is being eliminated?
Would hammy agree? (Serious question, if you are reading, hammy)
I tend to agree; as I have said, all the terms you have chosen to use are dualistic. As long as you use them, you end up with your dualism-in-a-dress.

And your position is "eliminativism in a dress", except the dress keeps disappearing.

 

[davidsmith73]

OK, go for it. What do you mean by the word "meaning"?

In this context, experience.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If you cannot define quality perhaps the word has no meaning.

Like all mental words?

 

[davidsmith73]

Once again, I am not yet defending a position. I am examining yours, and finding it wanting. Attempts to distract from that are recognised for what they are.

Play fair Mercutio. You have already made a few statements that reveal your position on fairly fundemantal aspects of this debate. Geoff is just asking for clarification of your views which would help the debate.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Says who?

YOU!

You've already stated that it MUST be possible to replace *ALL* mental terms with physical terms. Therefore, the only possible meanings you could have for mental words is as temporary place-holders for purely physical descriptions. Therefore, any definition of "mental" which isn't merely a place-holder for a physical term, must be dualistic.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

In this context, experience.

What is experience?

Look, if you can't define a word -- you said you can't define "quality" -- how do you know if you have used it properly? Or are you defining it at its very heart as being a part of a dualism -- some woo "meaning" that cannot be defined.

If that is the case, then why do we not pass over what can not be spoken?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Remember that a description from the outside does not equal the action it describes? Remember? Hmmm....perhaps it is time to return to the definitions. What do you think?

Go right ahead. I like definitions. It stops people from talking nonsense quite so easily. Now, what do you want to define?

What' it going to be?
Eliminativism?
Or non-eliminativism?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Remember, you are calling at least two people liars when you say that. Wasp has already verified; Jeremy could, but has not as yet.

Bluffing.

Once again, I am not yet defending a position. .

There is no position left for you to defend. The reason I know you are bluffing is because there are NO positions left. You aren't defending a position because you do not have one.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

We were starting on subjectivity until you ran away from it. That is the place to start.

We had gotten as far as subjectivity being potentially awareness from an "internal" perspective. The "internal" perspective was the placeholder for that issue of outside descriptions not covering everything in an action. The action cannot be fully grasped by the third-person description -- the reason being that there is a "first-person" bit to the action itself (though there is no person in the action necessarily).

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

It has been proved in this thread that it all non-eliminative forms of materialism aren't materialism at all. They are forms of dualism.

No it hasn't.

You have asserted that all materialism is dualism unless it is your version of eliminative materialism. You have not provided a decent argument for this assertion though, nor have you persuaded anyone. So it's a bit rich claiming it as an established fact.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No it hasn't.

You have asserted that all materialism is dualism unless it is your version of eliminative materialism. You have not provided a decent argument for this assertion though, nor have you persuaded anyone. So it's a bit rich claiming it as an established fact.

Please explain what you think you mean by "eliminative materialism" is it's not what I have defined it to be. Make sure that the thing you define satisfies the criteria you've already stated all materialisms must satisfy : all mental terms could theoretically be replaced by physical terms.

No such theory is coherent, Kevin. If you take out the claim that all the mental terms can be eliminated, then, by definition, what you've got is a form of dualism as claimed by your own arguments in this thread.