I didn't say I believed it myself. I'm not a complete eliminativist. After you have eliminated the meaningless things in folk psychology I still believe there will be something left that we can reasonably call mind. I think such a thing may be said to supervene on the physical and that this neither denies the existence of mind, nor is it dualism (in spite of Geoff's efforts to convince me otherwise).If that's what you think, no-mind ....
Is it possible to perceive a world which is external to our perceptions?
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After you eliminate what's possible, you are left with mind, yet you are not a dualist. I wish I could be convinced by any logic that is a viable position.
Maybe it's just me, but I find no causual efficaciousness in mind, either supervening on, or as an epiphenomenon of, ~mind. I suspect we agree ~mind certainly yields 100% to reductionism.
just my 2cts ....
That's right, mind defined in this way, cannot cause events in the physical world. In that sense it is like an epiphenomenon.
But supervenience, unlike epiphenomenalism, avoids being dualism because of the nature of the supervenience relationship. Any change in the supervening property implies a change in that which it supervenes on, but not vice-versa. So any change in mind must involve a change in matter, but many configurations of matter may result in the same mind state. So mind cannot change independently of matter and thus its activity cannot contain anything that is hidden from us in the way an epiphenomenal consciousness can. But at the same time mind is not just matter, in the same way that capitalism is not just atoms. They are emergent properties.
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I see. Then why not just state it's all matter?
I have no problem stating it's all mind, with matter supervenient, or epiphenomenal. And mind, as it seems to, does control, or can in theory control.
BTW, I find, for example -- "life is an emergent property" -- to be the way Scientism pronounces 'goddidit'.
I have no problem stating it's all mind, with matter supervenient, or epiphenomenal. And mind, as it seems to, does control, or can in theory control.
BTW, I find, for example -- "life is an emergent property" -- to be the way Scientism pronounces 'goddidit'.
Do you suggest the characteristics of, and response to EMF of, doped silicon is not reducible? SFAIK, nothing except math is needed to describe and predict in great detail what occurs.
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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And you coulda fooled about the reducibility of life, too.
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~~ Paul
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No. I'm suggesting a double standard. A computer can do things that do not appear to have anything remotely to do with silicon - such as computation. If one were ignorant of how it all worked they might assume the computer might have to have some immaterial centre that could perform these tasks.
Sure if someone proposes this for a computer it's ludicrous - propose it for a life form and suddenly it's not just perfectly reasonable, I'm the idiot for even suggesting an equivolence?
Pray tell how is your position not an appeal to ignorance and incredulity? Where does you position exist when the carbon-based machinery of life is completely reduced? It exists merely in your assertion you are more than a machine and nothing else.
Kevin_Lowe
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Idealism: there is only "mental stuff". (Silly, needs God to make it work and so multiplies entities beyond necessity).
Dualism: there is "mental stuff", and "physical stuff", and they are ontologically distinct. (Fails the empirical test).
Neutral Monism: there is "mental stuff", and "physical stuff", and they are ontologically distinct, but they are both made of the same "neutral stuff". (Fails the empirical test like dualism, multiplies entities beyond necessity like Idealism).
Physicalism: there is only "physical stuff". (Woowoos don't like it, but it's simple and it works).
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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Why? Why isn't it equivalent to physicalism?Kevin said:
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I don't know if there is a formal definition of "emergent", I suspect there isn't, I was just using it to mean "supervenes on". B can't be said to emerge from A if B isn't reducible back down to A, one process is just the reverse of the other. If B didn't reduce to A it would just be different from A, not emergent from A.
Yes, of course computing is reducible to the behaviour of semiconductors, the world economy is reducible to the motion of atoms and mind is reducible to matter. That's why it's called materialism. This doesn't deny the existence of a thing called mind, just denies that it is a separate "substance".
If matter were epiphenomenal then I think that would be a weird form of dualism. Conventional epiphenomenalism counts as dualism because the epiphenomenal consciousness is assumed to do things that are not reflected in the physical brain activity (like experience qualia). Supervenience is carefully defined to rule this out.
You mean like absolute free will? I don't think it's necessary to assume that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
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That is not supervenience.
Change is a one-way street.
Not in any meaningful way that I can see.
A computer is reducible. A semiconductor is reducible.
I see. Could you define 'world economy' and explain why it would be so reducible, in the epistemological reductionist materialism sense that science requires.
So you assert. Now, if you could just prove 'matter' exists without assuming it exists ....
It denies it in the sense used in this type of philosophical discussion.
Kevin_Lowe
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If "stuff" only existed in minds, then objects that no mind is perceiving would not exist. However we have plenty of evidence that things nobody is watching still exist, and in fact that the universe existed long before there was anything around to perceive it.
Berkeley's dodge, and the only one that really works, is to postulate a God or God-like entity which perceives everything all the time and always has, so explaining the fact that objects never disappear because nobody is looking. You can call it Cosmic Consciousness or Jehovah or whatever you like, but it's needed to rescue idealism.
So the problem of justifying Idealism drops down to the problem of giving reason to believe in a God, which historically has not been forthcoming despite an awful lot of optimistic effort.
Hammy and Geoff like the idea, I've gathered, because they had a spooky experience and they like to think it was God or something, because that's more fun than a brain malfunction.
Z
Variable Constant
Can't we just proclaim that the Universe is somehow aware, that the specific configuration of stars, planets, etc. constitutes a large, self-aware brain, that is always aware of itself, and be done with it?
Can't the Universe be God?
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note to self: drink more beer.
Can't the Universe be God?
...
note to self: drink more beer.
I think not. It's just the 'foam on the beer" so to speak, mind being the beer, "what-is".
I'll consider that, but my first thought is that 'classic' epiphenomena is a physicalist attempt to deny dualism.
Supervenience is a somewhat different attempt to meet the same objective.
And I say a computer in operation exactly meets the criteria that an object obeying compatibalistic freewill would exhibit.
Yes it does. I don't see any reason for denying that computers could ever be conscious, in the far future. If it engages you on a personal level and you relate to it as if it was conscious then what grounds do you have for denying that it is conscious? Biological chauvinism notwithstanding, you are in the same position in relation to it as you are in relation to other humans.