Ian,
I am not a physicalist as you define the term. This is just yet another strawman argument.
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Your so called "physicalism" fails to distinguish itself from naturalism. Are you going to admit this finally???
naturalism does not imply that the scientific method will work. Naturalism only implies that a natural explanation exist, not that it is possible to determine the explanation through our observations. Naturalism is my first axiom, and the observability axiom is the second. That is the distinction from naturalism.
Do you claim that to be a physicalist, consciousness need not supervene on the physical??
I still don't understand what you mean by supervene.
I am not sure what you mean by this.
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That in all logically possible worlds appropriate conscious states supervene on appropriate physical states.
I don't know what supervene means. Explain.
I think that consciousness is a physical process in the brain.
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But presumably one does not hold that conscious states and their correlated physical states are synonymous.
That's what I just said. Conscious states
are physical states. There are no "correlated" physical states. The physical states are the conscious states. I do not think it is possible for me to be any more clear about this.
It is not logically necessitated by the physical.
It is a subset of that which is physical. It is a physical process.
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The point is that there are conscious states and physical states and these are not synonymous. Even identity theorists say that consciousness supervenes on the physical.
Well, that is not what I say. I say that conscious states are a type of physical state.
This statement is no more metaphysical than the statement that computation is a physical process occurring in my computer's CPU.
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Is the computation a logical necessity?
The computation is not a logically necessary product of the process. The computation
is the process. I don't know whether this qualifies as supervenience or not, but it is clearly not metaphysical.
But this is not an a priori necessity, but rather an a posteriori necessity. That is to say that although consciousness is necessitated, we cannot know it is necessitated without reference to the world. One needs to be acquainted with the world. Therefore consciousness is not a case of logical supervenience, but rather metaphysical supervenience.
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I cannot make any sense of this.
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An a priori logical necessity? You know! Like all unmarried men are bachelors? But doesn't say anything about the world does it?
Then I would say that it is an a-priori necessity. In principle, the existence of the phenomena we think of as consciousness (thought, awareness, etc...) can be logically derived from the physical brain activity, because these phenomena
are brain processes.
The claim that it is a post-priori necessity would be to claim that it is something distinct from the brain process, which is somehow logically correlated with it. That is not what I am claiming.
How could there be a debate? All you have done is misrepresent my position, and attack it. I'll give you this, you chew through strawmen like a weed-wacker through dandelions.
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So how have I misrepresented your position? If you are merely a naturalist, then fine. But as a physicalist you are commited to asserting consciousness supervenes on the physical. Are you denying you believe this?
Yes, I guess I am.
Also tell me why any non-solipsistic position on the nature of reality avoids metaphysical conclusions.
The rejection of solipsism is a logically necessary component of the naturalism axiom. Since my framework constitutes a falsifiable hypothesis, my rejection of solipsism is no more metaphysical than my acceptance of any scientific theory for which there is substantial supporting evidence.
I mean even solipsism is compatible with naturalism isn't it?
No, it isn't. Not if by solipsism you mean the assumption that reality is all a figment of your own imagination. If this is the case, then naturalism doesn't work, because our experiences are often self-contradictory. The only way to reconcile this with naturalism is to assume that our experiences are a fallible representation of something else, which functions according to natural laws. In other words, an external world of some sort.
And this is not metaphysical because I do not make any assumptions about this external world which are not empirically verifiable through science.
Actually he is definitely a physicalist. He has stated in this very thread:
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(Consciousness) is a subset of that which is physical. It is a physical process.
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That is a tenet of physicalism. Naturalism merely declares that consciousness is susceptible to scientific explanation (ie it can be scientifically explained). Naturalism does not take a ontological or metaphysical stance on anything, where as explicitly stating that consciousness is a physical process does.
This is a blatant misrepresentation of my position on several counts.
1) Just because physicalism (as you define it) also makes the claim that consciousness is physical, does not mean that my position is equivalent to it. Especially since your idea of physicalism defines the word "physical" to refer to an ontological substance, and mine does not.
2) Naturalism claims that consciousness has a natural explanation, but does not claim that this explanation can be determined through observations, as I do.
3) Using my definition of physical, stating that consciousness is physical means exactly the same thing as saying that it can be explained scientifically.
And of course this gives even further proof that his position that his physicalism does not involve any metaphysics is a lie, since stating that consciousness is one and the very same thing as a physical process is a very powerful metaphysical stance!
Only if you define "physical" metaphysically, which I have not done!
Give up the argument Stimp. You have comprehensively lost the debate. Admit you're merely a naturalist and not a physicalist and let it go.
I have a better idea. Why don't you, for once, try to actually address my position, rather than attacking a poor defenseless strawman?
Naturalism doesn't involve any metaphysical presuppositions, right? But a denial of solipsism does, right? So it is unclear to me why solipsism is incompatible with naturalism.
Solipsism makes both metaphysical and epistemological presumptions, as do many other metaphysical worldviews (like yours, for example).
Is it? IIRC, physical is defined as 'that which is in principle observable, directly or indirectly'.
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A strange definition. I am aware however that Stimpy defines it thus.
Then you admit that your claim that when I said consciousness is physical, I was making a metaphysical claim, was a deliberate misrepresentation?
But then such a "physicalism" in reality is failing to distinguish itself from naturalism. Agreed?
I really do think it is possible to reach an agreement here if Stimpy would just let his pride go and admit that his "physicalism" equates to naturalism.
I find it rather odd that you have twisted this entire thing around to a question of whether or not my position is naturalism. As I recall, the original point of debate, from which all of this discussion stemmed, was the question of whether consciousness could be described scientifically. When I said that it could, and explained why (without making any references to materialism or physicalism), you immediately claimed that I was presupposing the correctness of ontological materialism.
Do you now acknowledge that it is possible to claim that consciousness can be described scientifically without being an ontological materialist, and that such a position is not self-contradictory?
I have already clearly stated that I am not a materialist or physicalist as you define the term. I am also quite happy to acknowledge that I am a naturalist, and that my position is nothing more than naturalism plus the assumption that the natural laws can be determined through observation. In fact, if you clearly state that this is what you mean by naturalism, I will even go so far as to state that my position is simply naturalism.
Are you prepared to acknowledge that the claim that consciousness can be described scientifically does not require a presumption of metaphysical materialism? Are you willing to acknowledge that the claim that consciousness is a brain process does not have to be a metaphysical assumption, and that it can instead be a scientific theory?
Dr. Stupid
