How do we know that places like Narnia do not exist?

[uruk]

If gravity doesn't exist but all other physical laws remain the same then stars, planets etc would not exist.

True but so what?

I think the original point I made was to suppose that we have an entirely different set of physical laws, or no laws at all i.e the Universe is wholly random and chaotic.

Well I guess that depends if you believe a universe to be an empty slate or matrix onto which the laws are written or if it is the laws that make the universe.

My points is that it is all academic. Unless some evidence is found it is just fanciful musings.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This is like saying an image projected onto a screen is not a physical process.

I know I'm getting repetitious, but the image is not a process. Projecting it is a process, and seeing the image is a process, but linquistically the image itself is not a process.

I think Ian makes this same sort of distinction between the brain processes that give rise to consciousness and consciousness itself. Why that makes consciousness immaterial I do not know.

~~ Paul

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

A phrase the metaphysical behaviourist Gilbert Ryle's coined. Metaphysical behaviourists reject the existence of consciousness.

Interesting Ian,
I hold no brief for Ryle, but he deserves better than this. His real views are easily ascertainable. He sets out several everyday uses of "conscious" and "consciousness", and points out how little they have in common with philosophical notions of consciousness from Descartes onwards.
Nowhere does he deny the existence of consciousness in the everyday sense. However, criticizing these philosophical notions, he says: "I shall argue that consciousness, as so described, is a myth and shall probably therefore be construed as arguing that mental processes are, in some mortifying sense, unconscious..." ( Evidently, he could spot a strawman burning at a distance of several decades.)
You'll find all this stuff in chapter 6 of The Concept of Mind.

Regards

 

[Tricky]

Reductive materialists cannot hold consciousness exists, but non-reductive materialists can. No materialist can hold that the self exists. Or ratehr the self is an illusion created by the brain.

Consciousness cannot be an illusion because there is no distinction between "illusionary consciousness" and real consciousness.

Oh look! Berkeley's Demon!

 

[PixyMisa]

I've taken you off ignore.

You're confusing Berkeley with Descartes.

Nope.

Berkeley wrote a treatise that he thought disproved materialism. It didn't, of course; he used the proof from contradiction and imported idealist concepts that made no sense under materialism. It's a very common failing.

Indeed materialists necessarily have to deny the existence of the self.

Nope.

However, even if we acknowledge the self does not exist, consciousness most definitely exists. This is contrary to what the elimitivist materialists maintain and what reductivist materialists ought to maintain.

Nope.

Oh yes, and if you think the "Hard Problem" of consciousness is merely semantic games, then you have completely failed to understand the problem. The hard problem is conclusive proof that reductive materialism and eliminitivist materialism are false.

The statement of HPC that UCE used - a direct quote from Chalmers, I believe - was a statement about language, not about consciousness. I didn't say it was word games, I said it was a statement about language, and had no bearing on consciousness at all.

HPC on the whole assumes what it sets out to prove, and as a result, doesn't prove anything at all.

 

[Red Siegfried]

Any chance we can move this thread to the "threads that serve no purpose other than to give everyone a chance to argue with Ian over matters of absolutely no import, AGAIN" forum? Or, at the very least, move it to the philosophy forum because that's where it belongs at this point, IMO.

Or maybe Abandon All Hope.

13 pages over whether Narnia exists. Damn.

Seriously, step back and think how silly this looks to everyone else on the planet Earth. Then, take a deep breath and back away from the keyboard slowly.

Have a nice day.

 

[PixyMisa]

Reductive materialists cannot hold consciousness exists, but non-reductive materialists can.

Wrong.

No materialist can hold that the self exists.

Wrong.

Or ratehr the self is an illusion created by the brain.

Right. Of course, just because it's an illusion doesn't mean it isn't real.

Consciousness cannot be an illusion because there is no distinction between "illusionary consciousness" and real consciousness.

Non-sequitur.

 

[PixyMisa]

No, emotions are certain characteristic experiences. They are not physical processes even though they are arguably generated by such processes.

If they are arguably generated by physical processes, then they present no problem for reductive materialsm.

And no, I do not assume that consciousness is non-physical. It's non-physical because it does not fulfill the criteria necessary to qualify as being physical.

What criteria might those be?

I'll explain all on my website when I eventually complete it.

Riiiight.

Look, Ian, your argument, like Berkeley's and Chalmers', runs like this:

Consciousness cannot be reduced to the material.
Therefore, materialism cannot possibly explain it.
But we know consciousness exists.
Therefore materialism is wrong.
And since materialism is wrong, it is clear that consciousness cannot be reduced to the material.

Round and round and round...

 

[Taffer]

Are you sure you want to say that? Consciousness is an umbrella term that we use for a bunch of internal experiences, or internal behaviors. Is it safe to say consciousness is an umbrella term for a set of brain processes?

Perhaps I'm picking nits. I've been doing that lately.

~~ Paul

No, I am willing to say that. Consciousness, if used to mean the way someone behaves and feels, their personality, internal experience, etc, is both dictated by and is the physical processes in the brain. It is not true, however, that these things are completely decided upon with DNA.

 

[Tricky]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian :
No, emotions are certain characteristic experiences. They are not physical processes even though they are arguably generated by such processes.

If they are arguably generated by physical processes, then they present no problem for reductive materialsm.

And no, I do not assume that consciousness is non-physical. It's non-physical because it does not fulfill the criteria necessary to qualify as being physical.
What criteria might those be?

I'll explain all on my website when I eventually complete it.

Riiiight.

Look, Ian, your argument, like Berkeley's and Chalmers', runs like this:

Consciousness cannot be reduced to the material.
Therefore, materialism cannot possibly explain it.
But we know consciousness exists.
Therefore materialism is wrong.
And since materialism is wrong, it is clear that consciousness cannot be reduced to the material.

Round and round and round...

Do I get the prize for finding the demon first?

 

[Taffer]

That's true. Neither are things, but they are both real. They are both real true existents.

Wrong, Ian. Only one exists. Here you are obviously showing your view that consciousness is a physical, or immaterial, existing thing. Ghost in the Machine. The colour purple does not exist, Ian, only the set frequency that is interpreted by our brain and relayed to the visual parts of the brain as the colour purple. The colour does not exist.

No, in addition to the body there is also consciousness.

This is a blind assertion, without any evidence. Where does this 'consciousness' go when the body dies? How is it managed? How can an immaterial thing interact with the material world?

Indeed I do. I understand the reductive materialist position. What we call "consciousness" is simply a physical process. So we think we have various experiences, but in fact we do not because what we call consciousness is a physical process, not phenomenal experiences.

Perhaps you might object you don't mean this. That consciousness is a physical process in the sense that ther are 2 aspects to physical processes. The 3rd person aspect, or that aspect viewed from without (the tap dripping or neurons firing), and the subjective aspect, or that aspect viewed from within (raw experiences). Let me know if this is what you mean.

No, I mean that consciousness does not exist as a physical entity. What we call consciousness, or perhaps more accurately "internal experience" is simply parts of the brain interacting with other parts of the brain. Consciousness is generated by the brain in the brain. In fact, it is the brain, Ian. You are correct in thinking that 'consciousness' is simply a physical process (or more accurately, many plathora of processes).

Complete nonsense. This is equally explicable under interactionist dualism. That's why it's interactionist i.e not only can our consciousness affect the world through the exercise of our free will, but the physical world can affect our consciousness.

How can an immaterial thing have any effect on the material world, Ian?

You said above. A physical process is literally one and the very same thing as a physical process. Therefore people are indeed "conscious" by definition since you can directly see these physical processes. But to me you're conflating the manifestation of consciousness with consciousness itself.

And you are assuming there is a difference to begin with. Show me that consciousness is anything but physical processes in the brain, please.

However I was referring to whether people are conscious in the sense of having experiences. That is to say they have certain characteristic experiences (qualia). They experience greenness, they experience love, they experience pain. That is to say there is more to pain than yelling "ouch" -- there is the raw expereince itself too.

All pain is is the brain interpreting signals from various parts of the body, Ian. This is measurable. If the same processes occurs, then why can we not assume that they, too, have the same subjective experience? Of course we can!

 

[Taffer]

[/I]but consciousness is not reducible to neurons firing.

And you have some evidence of this, I suppose? No? Didn't think so.

BTW love is certainly not reducible to lots of kissing. I think you're confusing fancying someone with love.

Why is it people put some metaphysical importance on the concept of 'love'? As if it cannot be explained by anything but immaterial ********?

 

[Taffer]

No, emotions are certain characteristic experiences. They are not physical processes even though they are arguably generated by such processes.

And no, I do not assume that consciousness is non-physical. It's non-physical because it does not fulfill the criteria necessary to qualify as being physical.

Bollocks Ian. It only "does not fulfill the criteria necessary to qualify as being physical" to you, who wishes desperately for it to be immaterial. Grow up.

 

[Taffer]

Well I guess there's nothing to say that a universe with out gravity is not possible. But from what we know stars, planets and so forth would not exist without gravity. There would be no force for which they could form.
That particular universe would be rather empty except for a relativly even distribution of subatomic particles. As far we would know.

Indeed it would, as far as we know. It's that last bit which allows me to accept the possibility of stars created using, as a random example, the Chocolate Strong Force.

 

[Taffer]

I think the possibility of life on other plantes is more probable than the existance of other universes. Plus we actually have a better chance of detecting extraterrestial life then we do of detecting another universe.
I'm not saying by any means there is no possibility of other universers, just that it is only a possibilty untill we can actually detect it.

True, although I must point out that many theories about the quantum world, and indeed many 'theories of everything', include or require other universes. It's detecting them that's the hard part.

I understand. We can only say that with the laws the way they are in our universe, planets, stars and soforth are possible. It just seemed to me that it is justifiable to assume that if there are stars, planets and soforth that other universe it would have to (in the least) have laws similar to ours.

As far as we know. I understand this, but I accept that in other universes, other forces could create the same effect. But I'm really just arguing for the sake of it, since I think we understand one another.

 

[Taffer]

I know I'm getting repetitious, but the image is not a process. Projecting it is a process, and seeing the image is a process, but linquistically the image itself is not a process.

I think Ian makes this same sort of distinction between the brain processes that give rise to consciousness and consciousness itself. Why that makes consciousness immaterial I do not know.

~~ Paul

Actually, I'd say the image is a process. The process of photons interacting with the molecules of the wall. Unless you are saying that the image is a pattern of photons, in which case this would be the processes of photons interacting with one another in a uniform matrix. Unless you say the image is the information stored in the computer, in which case this most certainly is the process of logic gates interacting with one another.

 

[PixyMisa]

Do I get the prize for finding the demon first?

Yes! Let's see what Tricky's won... He's won this tasty lizard!

 

[Tricky]

Yes! Let's see what Tricky's won... He's won this tasty lizard!

I won a Iguana!

 

[69dodge]

All pain is is the brain interpreting signals from various parts of the body, Ian. This is measurable. If the same processes occurs, then why can we not assume that they, too, have the same subjective experience? Of course we can!

It's a reasonable assumption, to be sure, but if the phrase "subjective experience" were just another name for those brain processes, it wouldn't be an assumption, reasonable or unreasonable---it would be true by definition.

Do we have some scientific theory that is able to predict which subjective experience results from which brain processes? Or do we simply have to look and see? If the latter is the case, in what sense is subjective experience reducible to brain processes?

 

[Belz...]

I know I'm getting repetitious, but the image is not a process. Projecting it is a process, and seeing the image is a process, but linquistically the image itself is not a process.

I think Ian makes this same sort of distinction between the brain processes that give rise to consciousness and consciousness itself. Why that makes consciousness immaterial I do not know.

If you contend that the image itself is just a confabulation of the brain, then you can say it's not a thing at all. However, an image is composed of something and does what it does because of its interaction with other things. Unless I'm not clear as to the definition of the word, I'd call that a process as well.