A question for scientists: Primary and Secondary qualities

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Huh??? So now you're advocating eliminitavist materialism!!

You're a hopeless case. As soon as I demonstrate that a particular position of yours is unintelligible, you shift to another!

I have told you before that eliminative materialism and reductionist materialism are the same thing. They only differ semantically.

There's nothing I can say to someone who doesn't believe that they themselves are conscious.

Yet another blatant misrepresentation of my position.

Sorry but there's no point in further discussing this.

You're just incorrigibly hopelessly stupid.

Yes Ian. I am just hopelessly stupid. No need to make any actual attempt to understand the position of moron. No need to seriously investigate evidence that a retard claims refutes your religious beliefs. No need to learn about things like science, when even a complete chowder head like me can get a PhD in it. Obviously you are right, and there is no reason why you should waste your time entertaining the possibility that you might not be.

Enjoy your fantasy world while it lasts, Ian.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian's trying to play pin the metaphysic on the cat again.

What on earth is eliminativist materalism? I can't make heads or tails of this:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativist_materialism

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian's trying to play pin the metaphysic on the cat again.

What on earth is eliminativist materalism? I can't make heads or tails of this:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativist_materialism

~~ Paul

Ummm . . .join the club. I know that I've said that eliminative materialism is meaningless, but I didn't mean the definition of it was gobbledegook. Look round on the Net and find a better definition! LOL

 

[scribble]

There is no scientific evidence retard. You misunderstand the nature of science. Your stupidity really does know of no limits does it? You truly chose an appropriate name for yourself.

...

You just haven't got a clue what you're talking about. You truly are stupefyingly thick.

...

Sorry but there's no point in further discussing this.

You're just incorrigibly hopelessly stupid. [/B]

I can't tell if that odor I smell on Ian's breath is beer or despair. Whatever it is, it smells awful.

-CJ

 

[Interesting Ian]

Eliminitivism materialism

This is what my Oxford companion to philosophy says:


An extreme materialist doctrine advocating the elimination of everyday psychological concepts in favour of neuroscientific ones.

The doctrine is sometimes cast in the claim that folk psychology is false. This seems incredible: if it were correct, then (belief being a state of folk psychology) it could not be true that anyone believed it.

The doctrine is usually premissed on (a) a metaphysical thesis purporting to show the need to reduce common-sense categories to categories of some mature science (reductionism), (b) a purported demonstration that our common-sense psychological categories are not such as to match up with those that could be used in any scientific account.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Paul,

What on earth is eliminativist materalism? I can't make heads or tails of this:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativist_materialism

There's nothing to make of it. The description given there is completely incoherent.

This one's a bit better.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/

From that site:

Like Feyerabend, Quine also endorsed the idea that mental notions like belief or sensation could simply be abandoned in favor of a more accurate physiological account. In a brief passage in Word and Object (1960), Quine suggests that terms denoting the physical correlates of mental states will be more useful and, as he puts it, "[t]he bodily states exist anyway; why add the others?" (p. 264). However, Quine goes on to question just how radical an eliminativist form of materialism would actually be, implying no significant difference between explicating mental states as physiological states, and eliminating mental state terms in favor of physical state terms. He asks, "Is physicalism a repudiation of mental objects after all, or a theory of them? Does it repudiate the mental state of pain or anger in favor of its physical concomitant, or does it identify the mental state with a state of the physical organism (and so a state of the physical organism with the mental state)" (p. 265)? Quine answers this question by rejecting it, suggesting there is no interesting difference between the two cases: "Some may therefore find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal" (p. 265).

Here we see a tension that runs throughout the writings of many early eliminative materialists. The problem involves a vacillation between two different conditions under which mental concepts and terms are dropped. The first scenario proposes that certain mental concepts will turn out to be empty, with mental state terms referring to nothing that actually exists. Historical analogs for this way of understanding eliminativism are cases where we (now) say it turned out there are no such things, such as demons and crystal spheres. The second scenario suggests that the conceptual framework provided by neurosciences (or some other physical account) can or should come to replace the common-sense framework we now use. Unlike the first scenario, the second allows that mental state terms may actually designate something real -- it's just that what they designate turn out to be brain states, which will be more accurately described using the terminology of the relevant sciences. One possible model for this way of thinking about eliminativism might be the discontinuance of talk about germs in favor of more precise scientific terminology of infectious agents. Given these two different conceptions, early eliminativists would sometimes offer two different characterizations of their view: (a) There are no mental states, just brain states and, (b) There really are mental states, but they are just brain states (and we will come to view them that way).

So like I said, the distinction between reductionism and eliminativism is purely semantic. If people insist on defining terms like "consciousness", "experiences", and "subjective", in ways that presuppose dualism, then the materialist claims those things do not exist at all (eliminativism). If the terms are defined in a less presumptuous way, such as to refer to things like thinking, memories, awareness, etc..., then the materialist claims that those things are physical processes (reductionism).

Anyway, as you can clearly see, I did not pull any of this out of my @ss. Other people pulled it out of their @sses before I was even born.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Scribble, according to this site it's the Beer of Despair. Scroll down to see the evidence.

http://www.slanty.net/24601/main.cfm

~~ Paul

 

[Titus Rivas]

Is the first-person perspective identical to the third-person perspective?

That person can observe that he is experiencing something, but so can other people.

In the exact same way, Stimpy? Or is there a fundamental difference?

The answer to this question is essential to the issue at hand.

Titus

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Titus,

That person can observe that he is experiencing something, but so can other people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the exact same way, Stimpy?

Why should it have to be in the same way? One of the reasons science works is because we can observe the same thing in many different ways.

Or is there a fundamental difference?

I guess that depends on what you mean by fundamental.

The answer to this question is essential to the issue at hand.

Well, then you need to explain your question better. Experiences are a specific set of processes occurring in your brain. One characteristic of these processes is self-awareness. Unless you can demonstrate that self-awareness is a characteristic that a physical process cannot possibly have, I see no problem.

You observe the existence of your own experiences through self-awareness. I can infer the existence of your experiences through application of the scientific method. I can also infer the existence of my own experiences through application of the scientific method (not that I need to). So what's the problem?


Dr. Stupid

 

[Titus Rivas]

Qualia again

You observe the existence of your own experiences through self-awareness. I can infer the existence of your experiences through application of the scientific method. I can also infer the existence of my own experiences through application of the scientific method (not that I need to). So what's the problem?

Stimpy, the problem is that introspection reveals completely different characteristics of consciousness than you can find if you study the brain 'objectively'. Characteristics usually called qualia.

Titus

 

[Interesting Ian]

I can't tell if that odor I smell on Ian's breath is beer or despair. Whatever it is, it smells awful.

-CJ

It's complete and total despair. If you happened to be intelligent and read this thread you would understand.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Titus,

You observe the existence of your own experiences through self-awareness. I can infer the existence of your experiences through application of the scientific method. I can also infer the existence of my own experiences through application of the scientific method (not that I need to). So what's the problem?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimpy, the problem is that introspection reveals completely different characteristics of consciousness than you can find if you study the brain 'objectively'.

I am not sure what you mean by "introspection". If you mean intuitive analysis of your experiences, then these things are not characteristics of consciousness at all. The fact that you think of them as such is just a result of your own misconceptions about the nature of consciousness.

Characteristics usually called qualia.

I thought qualia were the experiences themselves. Now you are claiming that they are the characteristics of consciousness revealed through introspection?

Anyway, the point is that our intuitive conceptions of what consciousness is may not be compatible with the theory that consciousness is a set of brain processes, but that does not in any way refute the theory. Our intuition is just wrong. It wouldn't be the first time, ad it certainly won't be the last.


Dr. Stupid

 

[scribble]

Scribble, according to this site it's the Beer of Despair. Scroll down to see the evidence.

http://www.slanty.net/24601/main.cfm

~~ Paul

People post the strangest things on the internet. Stranger still is that presumably, you had some previous reason to be aware of this site.

 

[Titus Rivas]

Qualia

Anyway, the point is that our intuitive conceptions of what consciousness is may not be compatible with the theory that consciousness is a set of brain processes, but that does not in any way refute the theory. Our intuition is just wrong. It wouldn't be the first time, ad it certainly won't be the last.

It could only be wrong if qualia would not actually exist. But we're coming full circle now.

We've both made our points.

By the way, the word qualia is Latin and is the plural for quale. "Quale" is a technical term introduced by C.I. Lewis (1929). A quale is an introspectible and seemingly monadic property of a sense-datum. For example, the qualia of a visual sense-datum of a rose would include the experienced red-ness, and the qualia of an olfactory sense-datum of a rose would include the sweet-ness of the scent., according to this online dictionary. Qualia are sometimes used as a pars pro toto for subjective, qualitative experiences as a whole.

Titus

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Titus,

Anyway, the point is that our intuitive conceptions of what consciousness is may not be compatible with the theory that consciousness is a set of brain processes, but that does not in any way refute the theory. Our intuition is just wrong. It wouldn't be the first time, ad it certainly won't be the last.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It could only be wrong if qualia would not actually exist. But we're coming full circle now.

We've both made our points.

By the way, the word qualia is Latin and is the plural for quale. "Quale" is a technical term introduced by C.I. Lewis (1929). A quale is an introspectible and seemingly monadic property of a sense-datum. For example, the qualia of a visual sense-datum of a rose would include the experienced red-ness, and the qualia of an olfactory sense-datum of a rose would include the sweet-ness of the scent., according to this
online dictionary. Qualia are sometimes used as a pars pro toto for subjective, qualitative experiences as a whole.

That sounds like a rather incoherent definition to me. What is meant by "sense-datum? Does that refer to the memory of the experience? Does it refer to information about the actual experiential process? Both? Neither?

I don't have any idea what is meant by "experienced redness". Experiencing redness is a physical process in the brain. The memory of having experienced redness is a physical structure in the brain. The experience of remembering having experienced redness is a physical process, and so on. I don't see any meaningful way that "experienced redness" could be said to exist. It appears to me to be a purely linguistic concept.

So if that is what is meant by qualia, then I guess you could say that I don't think qualia actually exist.


Dr. Stupid

 

[hammegk]

Why should it have to be in the same way?
Dr. Stupid

"Maybe" to a yes/no question? Does this waffling imply you are beginning to see your problem?

 

[Dancing David]

Re: Remaining civilized

Hi David,

You had responded to my words Again, that’s not an assertion about the reality of qualia but just about its possible source(s).:

No, it's nothing to do with neoplatonism or platonism in the sense of forms or ideas in a transcendent world. I also believe that 'red' exists within the context of perception and memory (and on that basis, of dreams, imagination and visualization as well). The question remains however if all perception and memory in the qualitative sense are by definition dependent on the brain. It is obvious that the physical processes involved in normal sensory perception depend on processes in our bodies, but it is not at all obvious that that is all there is or can be to perception in the qualitative sense. As you will know, there even is quite some evidence for Extra-Sensory Perception.


There could be but I am a concrete in my abstraction. When percertion aside from organic perception is demostrated then I will believe. So we probably have divergent views of proof. But , yes there could be means of perception other than those currently being explored.



A high bar would do, I think. But I suggest you read more about the subject. You might be quite surprised by the kind of evidence we're talking about.

Of course I know of that possibility. But I was referring to cases in which this possibility was at least very implausible.


I think you would be suprised at how familiar I am with this kind of evidence, I just happen to require something similar to the double blind, most cases while interesting are grossly contaminated. Sigh


Okay, but it remains an entirely quantitative process, whether you digitally count to two (or one rather) or analogously to infinity. It's still just a question of numbers, with nothing irreducibly qualitative in it.

Perhaps I would beg to differ here on two grounds,

first the process itself, it is not what you would call quantitative in the usual sense, the way that there neurons work in the brain is associative the connections are not merely on/off numerical, they are much sloppier than that, a neuron can be connected to numerous other neurons, and they associate with each other in a 'probablility' like fashion. It would be interesting but a mistake to call is merely quantitative.
second: is the materialist argument that the brain does represent all the qualities of consiousness and therefore is qualitative in nature.


That is doubtlessly true, i.e. we do make up a lot. But the question is here if we make up ALL of our consciousness, and that's simply seems too far-fetched to take seriously rationally. By the way, the brain or in my view rather the mind or self learns to perceive qualia as it develops, but mainly in the cognitive perceptual sense of learning to categorize experiences. Not in the sense that we only experience what we've learnt to label. Otherwise you should believe that infants or animals don't experience any pain unless they've learnt to label it. I for one don't.


-snip-
Though it partially depends on one's standards (which in turn relate to one's broader world view), there are quite a lot of cases in which it certainly seems very plausible that they can't be explained away by any such contamination (or other normal processes).

Best wishes,

Titus

associative

The rest I shall have to continue to ponder. The experience itself is what is learned not the label.
I reference previous discusion of Mary raised in the black and white room, this poor unfortunate will not see red when first exposed to it.
More later.

Thank You.

 

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

What I fail to understand is what could be so attractive about materialism that anyone should prefer this theory which cannot account for the existence of the conscious mind over a dualistic theory which even existentially seems a lot more appealing.

Even if I was to grant that the various "-isms" offer equivalent theories for "how" reality is, I find that materialism offers a far superior "why". But that's just me...

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

hammegk,

Why should it have to be in the same way?
Dr. Stupid
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Maybe" to a yes/no question? Does this waffling imply you are beginning to see your problem?

Where did I say maybe? I think it was quite clear from the rest of my post, which you cleverly failed to mention, that the answer is no, and that this doesn't matter, since nothing about the claim that consciousness is a set of physical processes in the brain, implies that the answer should be yes.

I don't suppose you have anything to add to this discussion?


Dr. Stupid

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Scribble said:

People post the strangest things on the internet. Stranger still is that presumably, you had some previous reason to be aware of this site.

I found it while searching to see if there was a microbrewery somewhere making Despair Beer.

~~ Paul