Ian,
I was particularly thinking about Stimpson, yes. I don't think labeling 2 entirely differing types of existent as both being physical is particularly helpful, but nevertheless we could do that!
What two entirely different types of existent am I labeling as being physical, and in what way are they different?
But if we did we could no longer say, for example, that simply because materialism is correct (which it is by definition according to Stimpson and others on here), that we necessarily therefore cannot survive the destruction of our brains.
Nor would I make such a claim. Our inability to survive the destruction of our brains is not an a priori judgement. It's truth cannot be logically derived from just the definitions I am using. It is a posteriori judgement based on our observations. I have been trying to get this through to you for years, but no matter how many times I tell you, you never seem to notice. The claims that we cannot survive the death of our bodies, and that consciousness is a set of brain processes, are not a priori claims. They are not axioms, nor are they premises, nor are they assumptions. They are
conclusions which I have drawn based on my observations.
But if the brain can cease to function, yet it is conceptually possible we could survive it, then how on earth is this materialism??
By there being something more to us than just brain activity. But whatever that something else is, it physically interacts with the brain, so it too is physical. Note that may position in no way requires that our current understanding of physical laws be correct.
He's just abusing the word materialism. He doesn't understand what it means.
You are the one who used the word "materialism", and furthermore asserted that my position is "by definition materialism", not I. So if anybody here is abusing it, it is
you.
There's absolutely no point in arguing against him and Lowe. One can achieve nothing in the face of peoples' incorrigible stupidity.
Nor in the face of people who are unwilling to actually
listen to what others say.
That does not necessarily follow. The question of whether or not what my definition refers to is actually nothing more than physical processes, is an a posteriori question.
No it's not, it's a priori. This is why the question of whether materialism is correct or not has nothing to do with science.
How is it a priori? Please explain to me how its truth value can be logically derived from the definitions of the terms. It certainly cannot be derived from the definitions
I am using.
No possible empirical data could show materialism to be true (or indeed false). It is entirely a metaphysical position.
I never said anything about materialism, you did.
No, that just makes your behaviour empirically verifiable.
Incorrect. If the effects they have on my behavior were impossible to detect, then it would be meaningless to say that they actually affect it. Consider the brain. If my subjective experiences affect my brain activity, then in principle, we should be able to detect those effects. I is nonsensical to say that something physically affects something else, but that those effects cannot be detected.
A complete non-sequitur. Your response has absolutely nothing to do with his observation:
"No, that just makes your behaviour empirically verifiable".
It has everything to do with it. Saying that subjective experiences
do physically affect the brain, but are not empirically verifiable, is logically self-contradictory. All physical affects are empirically verifiable, by definition.
You would claim my definitions were meaningless to you because they start from direct subjective experience which has no real place in your model. You can only make sense of "thought" in terms of physical processes.
This is not true. For one thing, I already told you that I do not define, nor think of "thought" in terms of physical processes. Second, it is only
posteriori claims which I assert must be empirically verifiable in order to be meaningful. Definitions are not claims at all. So you should be able to define your terms with no problem, so long as you can do so without having your definitions implicitly assume the truth of posteriori claims which are not empirically verifiable. And if your epistemological framework is coherent at all, then your definitions should not implicitly depend on the truth of any posteriori claims anyway.
Any definition I provide of "thought", "subjectivity", "mind", "existence" and such like will be instantly rejected by you, rather obviously. And the epistemological justification is, also obviously, the fact that we have direct access to our own subjective experiences - another (IMO) blatantly obvious and endeniable fact that is neverthesless denied by people such as yourself. My position, and those of many like me, rather depends on people accepting that the non-existence of minds is prima facie absurd and the fact that we have direct access to our own subjective experience is an assumption that cannot seriously be questioned. If you reject those two claims, and you do, then we cannot proceed.
I do not reject them. What I do reject is the assertion that we can have "direct access" to the fact that these subjective experiences are not physical processes. This is not a justified belief. Nothing about your "direct access" to them in any way implies that they cannot be physical processes. The question of whether or not they are is a posteriori one, and cannot be determined through introspection.
I did not ask if you could justify it to me. I asked if your belief is justified. It is a question of intellectual honesty. Do you actually consider your belief to be justified?
Of course I do. It's justified by a line of reasoning which starts by taking consciousness and subjectivity seriously instead of starting from an assumption of materialism and proceeding to claim that minds don't "really" exist.
I don't understand this response. I do not claim that minds don't really exist either. I have already explained that my own epistemological framework also starts by beginning with subjective experiences. How you can characterize my position as "an assumption of materialism" after what I have said in this thread is completely beyond me.
Minds is where I start from. This is justified rather easily by stating that it is quite impossible to justify starting anywhere else! Your position is to take my starting point and claim you can't make sense of it - not because you are any less trapped in your own subjective experiences than I am - but via a long complicated argument involving all sorts of issues from epistemology to the philosophy of science.
Aside from your gross mischaracterization of my position, which is completely irrelevant to the question I asked you, I still do not see how "starting by taking consciousness and subjectivity seriously" allows you to determine that your belief that the meaning which
you have assigned to Kant's writings is actually the meaning which
he intended.
That's pretty much the situation. You claim that a problem exists, but do not appear to be able to explain what that problem is in a way that does not implicitly assume premises which have not been justified as being true.
Not "justified" by your system of justification, Stimpson.
Well, given that you are claiming that it is a problem with
my epistemological system, I would say that justifying those assumptions by using a
different epistemological system would not have any relevance whatsoever.
Personally, I don't see any need to justify the claim that my mind exists.
That is easy to justify, and not something which I am disputing.
I don't need science to tell me this. And I don't care if it happens to set up a contradiction with materialism, because I am not ideologically committed to that or to any other ontology.
I don't care if it does either. I am not a materialist (at least not in that sense), and I have no interest in that ontology at all. The existence of minds certainly does not set up a contradiction in my position.
I just know that my mind very definately exists, and by "mind" I mean the subjective experiences which comprise consciousness.
So do I. This issue is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the
nature of subjective experience, not its existence. We both agree that it exists. The issues we disagree on are things like whether it is physical, whether it is possible for it to not be physical, what its relationship to the brain is, and so on.
For me, your whole way of defining things and making judgements puts the cart before the horse. In effect, the only strategy open to you is to claim that the big metaphysical questions aren't really questions at all. That is fine, but you are not going to stop other people, who are quite happy to start from an assumption that minds really do exist, from following a very different line of reasoning and actually trying to find an answer to those questions.
I have no interest in trying to stop people from wasting their time in such a way.
You have effectively chosen not to engage with metaphysics - that is your choice - but I maintain that you can't actually avoid allowing metaphysical assumptions influence what you believe are "objective judgements".
Then point some out. What metaphysical assumptions do you claim I am making? I can't think of any.
You are actually far more committed to your own metaphysical position than I am commited to any metaphysical position.
Then it would be helpful if you could tell me what my metaphysical position is, because I don't think I have one at all.
But it is quite different to claim that metaphysics itself cannot be done.
I guess that depends on what you mean by "doing metaphysics". If you mean waving your arms around and babbling incoherently about stuff you can't even define, then sure, it can be done.
It can, you just have to start by rejecting your conclusion that minds don't exist as an absurd position to take.
I have made no such conclusion. This is a ridiculous misrepresentation of my position, and is not even remotely justified by anything I have said.
People willing to accept your claim for the non-existence of minds (as a non-physical thing) will likely accept the rest of your position.
What does "non-existence of minds as a non-physical thing" mean? It sounds to me like nothing more than an attempt to verbally twist around the quite reasonable claim that minds are physical, to make it
sound like I am claiming that minds don't exist at all.
I could just as easily say that you claim that minds don't exist, and then after doing so for a while put "as a physical thing" in parentheses. The bottom line is that we disagree on certain aspects of the nature of the mind, not on its existence. Twisting my words around and phrasing things to make it sound like I am denying the existence of the mind completely, is just dishonest.
I suspect those people are currently in a minority, and destined to remain that way. Not because the world is full of woo-woos but because it is genuinely an absurd position, and no scientific advance will change this. All the other people will either continue to learn about metaphysics or they will end up like Richard Rorty, who not only rejects metaphysics but also rejects epistemology.
It is not an absurd position to claim that the mind is physical. On the contrary, it is the only alternative to epiphenomenalism, which is incoherent.
Let me ask you this: Can the fact that the mind is not physical be logically derived solely from the definitions of "mind" and "physical"? If so, then please explain what those definitions are, and show your derivation, because I am pretty sure you are not using the same definitions I am.
If not, then the assertion that to claim that the mind is physical is "genuinely absurd" is a posteriori one, and requires some justification. Let's hear it.
Dr. Stupid
