Dualism and Theism are Subsets of Materialism

[Robin]

I think, therefore I am. Your turn.

Perhaps the physicist Lichtenberg, who pointed out that Descartes had defined the term 'I' circularly and said that the very most we can claim is 'there is some thinking going on'

 

[Robin]

Robin, before I respond to your questions I need to ask what philosophical works you have read regarding these matters? I might be able to tailor my answers to your specific background.

That is a big ask. I started out (mumble) decades ago with a book glorying in the title 'Philosophy Made Simple'. Hmmm. A.J. Ayer's Philosophy in the 20th Century, Carnap's Collected Works (but particularly 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' his 'I goofed' paper), d'Holbach's Systems of Nature of course, 'Eliminative Materialism' (you appear to have read that too), a Donaldson essay that I can't quite remember now. Thomas Nagle's selected essays (I don't remember the name of the book now), Ernst Mach's Analysis of Sensation.

Witty's Tractatus Illogico-Nonsensicus of course, rite of passage that one.

Hmmm. I will have to have a think, I don't have all these on my bookshelf..

 

[Phaedrus74]

That is a big ask. I started out (mumble) decades ago with a book glorying in the title 'Philosophy Made Simple'. Hmmm. A.J. Ayer's Philosophy in the 20th Century, Carnap's Collected Works (but particularly 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' his 'I goofed' paper), d'Holbach's Systems of Nature of course, 'Eliminative Materialism' (you appear to have read that too), a Donaldson essay that I can't quite remember now. Thomas Nagle's selected essays (I don't remember the name of the book now), Ernst Mach's Analysis of Sensation.

Witty's Tractatus Illogico-Nonsensicus of course, rite of passage that one.

Hmmm. I will have to have a think, I don't have all these on my bookshelf..

Well, that explains some things. I have actually read none of the stuff on your list. "What? Not even Carnap?" Not even Carnap, the philosophy department where I studied considered Logical Positivism a failed albeit sympathetic experiment (I'm overstating of course). So most of what I studied was post WW-II: Putnam, Searle, Quine, Davidson (obviously), Sellars and so on.

Highlights for me: "Two Dogma's of Empiricism" by Quine, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" by Sellars and pretty much everything written by Davidson but particularly "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics", "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" and "Three Varieties of Knowledge". (Guess who my favorite is )

The thing is that what characterizes these thinkers is that, all though none of them will deny that your "mind" is caused by your brain and can be said to subscribe to eliminative materialism in terms of ontology, the problems they address have to do with the way in which we refer to these entities (minds, brain, &c.), crucially they hold that we cannot step outside the language that we use to refer to these objects. The philosophical problems they treat have to do not with the structure of the world (ontology) but with the way our knowledge and language relate to this structure (epistemology/philosophy of language).

So what you remarked about Davidson:

You are talking about linguistic reductionism as I mentioned earlier. Davidson is saying nothing startling or new, Carnap said much the same thing back in the 1950's. It was a bit of a blow for Logical Positivism but I don't think it really said anything about Materialism.

Is basically correct, the philosophers I mentioned previously all try to make sense of the situation post-logical positivism. The start off where Carnap stops. When they speak of reductionism, it is always linguistic reductionism.

 

[Phaedrus74]

No, I meant leading to inconsistencies. I don't see the inconsistencies.

Fair enough, I already said I was unable to make the case against reductionism.

I suggest reading the articles I mentioned in my previous post, and you might see the possibility of contradictions. [I can heartily recommend them]

In the second sense it would mean that something could be meaningfully termed an 'intention' and yet be a metaphysical primitive, not dependent on any underlying complexity. But I have shown quite a lot of underlying complexity in the term without even going to a biophysical level or beyond. I think that any intention (whether or not it resided in a brain) would necessarily be dependent on quite considerable underlying complexity.

Now I see, I misunderstood the second sense.

Presupposing Materialism as a starting point for scientific enquiry is as unhelpful as presupposing God for the same purpose.

I don't mean to be pendantic, but is the notion "tacit assumption" familiar?

Strict Empiricism is the only rigorous starting point for scientific enquiry. No assumptions.

There are always assumptions, it is crucial that you understand this. Empiricism as a methodology relies on the assumption that our perceptions are generally reliable, that the language we use to express our ideas has sufficient semantic stability so that we can trust that we refer to the same things when using the same words.

These are the kinds of assumptions that are deemed trivial but in actuality define the space in which we can meaningfully ascribe truth and falsehood to sentences about the world. In this context I re-recommend "On Certainty" by Wittgenstein, this is pretty much the point he tries to make.

I think intention can already be supplanted by other terms. We can think of intention in terms of perceiving a situation having reasons to alter that situation and forming a perceptual projection of a new situation and the steps required to move from one to the other. We can see that this is likely to have been true of even the most primitive types of brain.

I have no doubt, as I stated previously, that the concept "intention" can be replaced by rediscription. Whether it is semantically equivalent (synonymous) is another matter entirely. I would say: Use it in a sentence

 

[Robin]

Well, that explains some things. I have actually read none of the stuff on your list. "What? Not even Carnap?" Not even Carnap, the philosophy department where I studied considered Logical Positivism a failed albeit sympathetic experiment (I'm overstating of course).

Back to what I said before, ignore philosophy, you are doomed to repeat it. Davidson is clearly a case in point

So most of what I studied was post WW-II: Putnam, Searle, Quine, Davidson (obviously), Sellars and so on.

Well Quine was a contemporary of Carnap and there was quite a lot of crosstalk there. I seem to recall that Quine mentions Carnap's abandonment of translatability in "Dogmas". Of course Carnap died in the 50's and Quine went on into the late 70's

Highlights for me: "Two Dogma's of Empiricism" by Quine, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" by Sellars and pretty much everything written by Davidson but particularly "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics", "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" and "Three Varieties of Knowledge". (Guess who my favorite is

Well I should have also mentioned Dogmas. I have brought it up several times in this forum, I regard it as just about the key philosophic text of the 20th century.

Is basically correct, the philosophers I mentioned previously all try to make sense of the situation post-logical positivism. The start off where Carnap stops. When they speak of reductionism, it is always linguistic reductionism.

And yet Quine basically put the kibosh on linguistic reductionism in Dogmas.

In fact I have mostly abandoned the term. It is used in terms of translatability. It is used in terms of mapping physical theories and it is used in terms of understanding things in terms of their parts. It tends to get in the way these days, rather than being useful. What, for example, does Searle mean when he says that there are irreducible mental states?

I have described what I mean by mind Materialism by saying that mental entities are always functional composites of non-mental entities. I think it is necessarily true and I think it creates a problem for any philosophy that has mind as a thing in its own right.

 

[Robin]

There are always assumptions, it is crucial that you understand this. Empiricism as a methodology relies on the assumption that our perceptions are generally reliable, that the language we use to express our ideas has sufficient semantic stability so that we can trust that we refer to the same things when using the same words.

Not really. See Mach for example, who makes the point that everything could be a dream but science would go on just the same. There is no assumption that our perceptions are reliable in any way. As for semantic stability, the language of Empiricism is mathematics. We have the concept of a proof on the one hand and the concept of a predictable hypothesis on the other. It may not be perfect, but there is no assumption that it is. On the contrary every hypothesis is endlessly subject the the most extreme skepticism.

Even the conjecture of lawfulness in nature is never assumed, but is always tested.

These are the kinds of assumptions that are deemed trivial but in actuality define the space in which we can meaningfully ascribe truth and falsehood to sentences about the world. In this context I re-recommend "On Certainty" by Wittgenstein, this is pretty much the point he tries to make.

But science never deems them trivial. Science has but one assumption "thinking happens".

Everything else is up for grabs.

I have no doubt, as I stated previously, that the concept "intention" can be replaced by rediscription. Whether it is semantically equivalent (synonymous) is another matter entirely. I would say: Use it in a sentence

I would say functionally synonymous. So I wouldn't use it in a sentence, I would use it in a function. Rocketdodger could probably say more about this idea, with his experience in AI.

 

[Phaedrus74]

Back to what I said before, ignore philosophy, you are doomed to repeat it. Davidson is clearly a case in point

Which is quite depressing considering I spent 6 years earning an M.A. in that field

Well Quine was a contemporary of Carnap and there was quite a lot of crosstalk there. I seem to recall that Quine mentions Carnap's abandonment of translatability in "Dogmas". Of course Carnap died in the 50's and Quine went on into the late 70's

Well I should have also mentioned Dogmas. I have brought it up several times in this forum, I regard it as just about the key philosophic text of the 20th century.

And yet Quine basically put the kibosh on linguistic reductionism in Dogmas.

Correct, and this has/can have consequences for the way you view knowledge as it relates to the world. This is what those others I mentioned go on about.

In fact I have mostly abandoned the term. It is used in terms of translatability. It is used in terms of mapping physical theories and it is used in terms of understanding things in terms of their parts. It tends to get in the way these days, rather than being useful. What, for example, does Searle mean when he says that there are irreducible mental states?

I have described what I mean by mind Materialism by saying that mental entities are always functional composites of non-mental entities. I think it is necessarily true and I think it creates a problem for any philosophy that has mind as a thing in its own right.

No disagreement here.

 

[Phaedrus74]

Not really. See Mach for example, who makes the point that everything could be a dream but science would go on just the same.There is no assumption that our perceptions are reliable in any way.

I stand corrected.

As for semantic stability, the language of Empiricism is mathematics. We have the concept of a proof on the one hand and the concept of a predictable hypothesis on the other. It may not be perfect, but there is no assumption that it is. On the contrary every hypothesis is endlessly subject the the most extreme skepticism.

Hmmm... I have yet to encounter a scientific publication outside mathematics that uses only mathematics. But I get your point.

Even the conjecture of lawfulness in nature is never assumed, but is always tested.

Now I am curious, how do you test for this?

But science never deems them trivial. Science has but one assumption "thinking happens".

Everything else is up for grabs.

That is good to hear, sometimes I get the impression this is not the case. But in those cases I'm probably not talking to scientists (hard to determine on an internet-forum) but "science-groupies"

I would say functionally synonymous. So I wouldn't use it in a sentence, I would use it in a function. Rocketdodger could probably say more about this idea, with his experience in AI.

Not necessary, I understand precisely what you mean.
Thanks for clarifying!

 

[hammegk]

Perhaps the physicist Lichtenberg, who pointed out that Descartes had defined the term 'I' circularly and said that the very most we can claim is 'there is some thinking going on'

If that's what Lichtenberg said, I (so to speak) fully agree.

Do you, or anyone else, think "thought exists" is controversial? Couple that with the fact the closer we examine matter the less there is of it, and where are you?

 

[Robin]

If that's what Lichtenberg said, I (so to speak) fully agree.

Do you, or anyone else, think "thought exists" is controversial?

Well I prefer "thinking happens". Other than that it seems to be a metaphysical given.

On the other hand it would be perfectly silly just to stop there when there are a number of perfectly good propositions we can build on this bedrock.

There is, for example, perfectly good evidence that thinking isn't the only thing that happens.

Couple that with the fact the closer we examine matter the less there is of it, and where are you?

I am not sure what you mean by it, but in any case it is not relevant. "Matter" has taken on a specific technical meaning within the mathematical modelling of physics. When, for example, d'Holbach spoke of "matter" he meant something else entirely.

How much matter there is or what it does is a metaphysically trivial matter.

The real question is 'does thought obey the laws of physics?' If yes, then Materialism is true, if no then what laws does it obey?

 

[Robin]

Which is quite depressing considering I spent 6 years earning an M.A. in that field

I am no expert on Donaldson. Plenty of people I respect say he was the most important philosopher of our time and I am prepared to go along with thst.

Correct, and this has/can have consequences for the way you view knowledge as it relates to the world. This is what those others I mentioned go on about.

It has never occurred to me in any case that language is more than a 'best available' tool.

 

[Robin]

Hmmm... I have yet to encounter a scientific publication outside mathematics that uses only mathematics. But I get your point.

Scientists use lots of stuff to arrive at, understand or put across a hypothesis - imagination, creativity, fantasy, hunches, guessword and so on, so do mathematicians.

But in the end if they want to say something meaningful they have to place it in the framework of mathematics on one hand and observational data on the other.

Now I am curious, how do you test for this?

Way beyond my scientific ability. But a unified model of science will also include a hypothesis about the scope and lifetime of the laws being observed. How we test these hypotheses I don't know.

That is good to hear, sometimes I get the impression this is not the case. But in those cases I'm probably not talking to scientists (hard to determine on an internet-forum) but "science-groupies"

Well of course practical everyday science falls short of this ideal more often than not. Wise and respected scientists sometimes pronounce dogma and upstarts are upbraided for disagreeing. But somehow the truth gets out in the end.

 

[Phaedrus74]

I am no expert on Donaldson. Plenty of people I respect say he was the most important philosopher of our time and I am prepared to go along with thst.

You mean Davidson, right? I can really recommend his stuff (though I'm far from objective, he is definitely my favorite author) his articles are very well written and offer lots of intelectually challenging arguments. They offer a nice "mental workout".

It has never occurred to me in any case that language is more than a 'best available' tool.

The thing is that the notion that language is 'merely' the best available tool is of a rather recent date (historically speaking), the reception of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" in the 1960's can be viewed as an illustration of this point. There probably have always been scholars who felt this was the case, but it is only after WW-II that this fact has been broadly accepted as such, and even then only after much debate.

 

[Phaedrus74]

Way beyond my scientific ability. But a unified model of science will also include a hypothesis about the scope and lifetime of the laws being observed. How we test these hypotheses I don't know.

Formulated like this it reminds me of what Thomas Kuhn was working on in the 1980's before his untimely demise. At that time he was working on a theoretical framework to describe the dynamics involved in (rational) theory-selection. Unfortunately he never got far with this before the Grim Reaper caught up with him. The only thing he left were some tantalizing clues in papers published in the bundle "The Road since Structure" published in 1990.

Again, if this sort of thing interests you, highly recommended!

Well of course practical everyday science falls short of this ideal more often than not. Wise and respected scientists sometimes pronounce dogma and upstarts are upbraided for disagreeing. But somehow the truth gets out in the end.

Funny how that works, isn't it? Science is sometimes just like real-life

(I hope rocketdodger doesn't mind us going off on a tangent like this, it's hardly OT)

 

[hodgy]

I know I seem to have been ignoring it, but it is at the back of my mind. If libertarian free will were logically possible then it would probably provide a defeater for Materialism, at least as I understand it.

But its a non-rational fudge, you can safely ignore it unless you want to spend hours in pointless debate.

At the moment I don't really understand the term but as has been pointed out a few times it would entail that something could be neither deterministic nor random.

Simultaneously not determined or random - a contradiction in logical terms. I may as well say 'what about the fairies in my garden' as say 'what about libertarian free will'.

 

[hodgy]

Perhaps the physicist Lichtenberg, who pointed out that Descartes had defined the term 'I' circularly and said that the very most we can claim is 'there is some thinking going on'

Descartes assertion was (and is) the foundation of rationalism. To point out that it can be considered as a circular reference is to entirely miss the point.

Before Descartes, this fundemental truth was not stated, it makes a point beyond philosophy, science and maths to existence itself.

Lichtenberg is simply re-assigning labels when he says that 'I' is 'some thinking'. It is intellectually dishonest and arrogant when the plain simplicity and truth of Descartes' original assertion is there for all to see.

 

[Robin]

But its a non-rational fudge, you can safely ignore it unless you want to spend hours in pointless debate.
...


Simultaneously not determined or random - a contradiction in logical terms. I may as well say 'what about the fairies in my garden' as say 'what about libertarian free will'.

Agree and agree.

 

[Robin]

Descartes assertion was (and is) the foundation of rationalism. To point out that it can be considered as a circular reference is to entirely miss the point.

Before Descartes, this fundemental truth was not stated, it makes a point beyond philosophy, science and maths to existence itself.

Lichtenberg is simply re-assigning labels when he says that 'I' is 'some thinking'. It is intellectually dishonest and arrogant when the plain simplicity and truth of Descartes' original assertion is there for all to see.

Disagree.

To put it another way, Descartes is simply assigning labels when he says that some thinking is 'I'. Remember the 'I' is what Descartes is trying to prove so he cannot use it in a premise.

Your wording seems to suggest that this upsets you. It is no insult to Descartes that someone has built on his work, I think most philosophers would agree that Lichtenberg was right.

 

[hodgy]

Disagree.

To put it another way, Descartes is simply assigning labels when he says that some thinking is 'I'. Remember the 'I' is what Descartes is trying to prove so he cannot use it in a premise.

Of course - Descartes' 'I' can be otherwise described as 'some thinking ' or whatever. 'I' is much more concise though.

Your wording seems to suggest that this upsets you.

You are right that I should be more objective on this matter

it is no insult to Descartes that someone has built on his work, I think most philosophers would agree that Lichtenberg was right.

Maybe but not me - its easier to point out criticsim than produce genuinely original ideas. RD gets my vote

 

[Robin]

Maybe but not me - its easier to point out criticsim than produce genuinely original ideas. RD gets my vote

I am only too happy to concur that - Dualism aside - Descartes is the Man.