Materialism and Immaterialism

[gentlehorse]

Well, we've certainly observed objective evidence for consciousness.

You'll get no argument from me here. I was responding to Dancing David's having said that "we have not obseved the nature of what is consiousness in a rock." That we've observed objective evidence for consciousness does not address my question, which remains: Have we observed "the nature of what is consciousness" in anything? Perhaps he meant to say "characteristics" as opposed to "nature". Or perhaps "nature" is the word he was looking for and I'm reading something into his statement that isn't there.

BillHoyt:
What is space made of?

Haven't a clue-- Are you suggesting that it's immaterial?

Regardless, perhaps you can delineate some of the immaterial attributes of magnetic fields and gravitation for me. We are increasingly familiar with the characteristics of magnetic fields and gravitation by virtue of our observations of the manner in which certain material things interact with one another. Dancing David suggested that magnetic fields and gravitation have immaterial attributes assigned to them. What are some of the immaterial attributes?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Thank you for a well-written piece of reasoning. It's wrong, of course, but subtly so.

I'll write this from the hard-line determinist postition (for the sake of argument); adding quantum-scale randomness into the loop would merely muddy the waters without helping the explanation.

QM is irrelevant. To say that aspects of our behaviour are intrinsically random is just as much to explain it as strict determinism.

Even under this strong assumption, the statement "the totality of [...] behavior is completely explained by that which can be established from the 3rd person perspective" is not true in a universe where objects have internal states (as ours do).

Internal states? You mean mental states? I'm going to assume you do so mean this.

For example, if I throw the light switch in my bedroom, the behavior of the light cannot be predicted without taking into account the prior state of the light. If it was off, it is now on, and vice versa. In order to explain the behavior of the light, I need access to information describing the light bulb itself as well as the information about the switch.

Similarly, if I hand you a sealed box, you can't explain the contents. If I hand you a box sealed since before you were born, you have no way (from your perspective) of knowing/explaining the contents of the box. You may be able to infer properties of the contents -- for example, if the box blows up, it must have held a bomb, but you have never "known" the contents of the box.

The same argument applies to mental states -- to the beliefs I hold "inside my mind" (via appropriate neural architecture and settings). You have no way of knowing what those beliefs are from your perspective, even if they arose from a specifically causal process based on my previous mental states. We can regress this argument of state dependency all the way back to the creation of the universe. The universe is the way it is because of how the observable facts have interacted with the unobservable state variables in the universe.

Ummm . . nothing said against my argument so far.

II
In short we can no more conclude that our behaviour is accompanied by consciousness then we can infer consciousness for a boulder rolling down a hill. It is only necessary that we are familiar with physical laws and the state of the environment in order to predict behaviour.

Drkitten
You leave out a crucial element. We need familiarity with physical laws, the state of the environment, and the state of the organism whose behavior is being predicted.

Physical state of organism? Well, I include that as part of the environment. But let me rephrase it. "It is only necessary that we are familiar with physical laws and the state of the environment, and the physical state of the organism in order to predict behaviour.

... and here is the crux of the argument. Part of the reason that we consider a boulder to not be conscious (or indeed, even alive) is that it has no behaviors that we believe are dependent on an internatl state; everything there is to know about a boulder (to the best of our ability to detect) is available to a third-person observer.

And it is different for humans? This is the problem. You're talking about some knowledge existing over and above physical facts. This is a direct contradiction to materialism.

Living organisms have a certain degree of "state" -- if a rat has eaten recently, we predict it will be less responsive to food -- and we can anthropomorphize this into the discussion of a feeling of "hunger."

Anthropomorphize?? Are you suggesting rats don't feel hunger??

In this limited sense, anything whose behavior is apparently best explained in terms of "internal" states (that can only be inferred instead of observed) is potentially conscious.

I agree. But it's not relevant to the point I made I'm afraid. Such internal states are not the real cause of our behaviour, otherwise you're not talking about reductive materialism. You have to maintain it's the correlates of mental states which is causally efficacious, not the mental states themselves.

You cannot explain the mirror results from a 3rd person perspective. You can only explain it by postulating a 1st person perspective held by an entity other than yourself.

Right, so you've refuted materialism. That's the implication.

 

[jj]

QM is irrelevant. To say that aspects of our behaviour are intrinsically random is just as much to explain it as strict determinism.


Do you mean "random" or "probabilistic"?

We've been over this before, Ian, you have to distinguish between "random", which most people use to mean "completely random", or "probabilistic" which does not necessarily mean completely random, especially when a system has memory, as drkitten brings up now:


Internal states? You mean mental states? I'm going to assume you do so mean this.


So, we have a system with some probabilistic elements, some internal states, and some probabilities of transitions between states.

Do you see, yet, why this completely dismembers your argument?

Furthermore, it shows that QM is utterly germane to the issue, and germane to determinism. Random does not mean "predetermined", after all.

Physical state of organism? Well, I include that as part of the environment. But let me rephrase it. "It is only necessary that we are familiar with physical laws and the state of the environment, and the physical state of the organism in order to predict behaviour.


Again, you're wrong. QM implies a probabilistic component to anything whatsoever made of material. Ergo, you can not predict behavior as you assert.


And it is different for humans? This is the problem. You're talking about some knowledge existing over and above physical facts. This is a direct contradiction to materialism.


Please show me some evidence that humans are anything but wetware. There is neither evidence nor need for anything above and beyond "physical facts", they just aren't the facts you want them to be, Ian.

I agree. But it's not relevant to the point I made I'm afraid. Such internal states are not the real cause of our behaviour,

"proof" by blatant assertion, I think.

otherwise you're not talking about reductive materialism.

I won't speak for drkitten, who quite capably speaks for herself, but I will point out that "reductive materialism" now a creeping bar, and you're trying to shift the bar from materalism to "reductive materialism".

Internal states of the brain exist, physically, and have been shown to exist. Ergo, any physical theory has to account for that. Whatever it is you're talking about can't be part of physical theory unless it acknowledges these physical states that have been measured (although their meaning is not clear or trivially decoded), and accounts for them.

In short, you're proposing something incommensurate with observation and then trying to put it in the mouth of something that can't possibly assert it.

You have to maintain it's the correlates of mental states which is causally efficacious, not the mental states themselves.


No, Ian, I don't.


Right, so you've refuted materialism. That's the implication.

No, Ian, she's refuted you. I've refuted you in a different fashion. You've been twice refuted on two entirely different sets of issues.

This ought to be a hint.

 

[Darat]

Er, we sure agree with that. It's that 1st person problem we are discussing. The fact that thought exists is the most objective data point I have (you too for you, of course); I "have faith" *I* think, but can't logically conclude I do so.

...snip...

And again I have to state that I may be a p-zombie.

I have no continuous stream of consciousness, "I" am not always "here" in the sense that I am not always "consciousness" thinking, the "I" am today is not the same "I" as it was a few years ago (or even minutes).

For me “I” just seems to be a convenient label for something that happens, the same way “weather” is just a convenient for something that happens.


(Edited for a confusion of continuums.)

 

[BillHoyt]

Haven't a clue-- Are you suggesting that it's immaterial?

Are you suggesting there is an aether? If not, then explain gravitation.

 

[hammegk]

And again I have to state that I may be a p-zombie.

I have no continuous stream of consciousness, "I" am not always "here" in the sense that I am not always "consciousness" thinking, the "I" am today is not the same "I" as it was a few years ago (or even minutes).

For me “I” just seems to be a convenient label for something that happens, the same way “weather” is just a convenient for something that happens.

And I would say you are confusing *I* (the immaterial Thinker) and *me* (the perceived and perceiving which includes ego/id/whatever).

 

[Darat]

And I would say you are confusing *I* (the immaterial Thinker) and *me* (the perceived and perceiving which includes ego/id/whatever).

Tell me then (assuming I'm not a p-zombie) how am I meant to distinguish between the two?

Because for me there aint a difference.

 

[drkitten]

Er, we sure agree with that. It's that 1st person problem we are discussing. The fact that thought exists is the most objective data point I have (you too for you, of course); I "have faith" *I* think, but can't logically conclude I do so. One answer is Atman=Brahman, and thought is what exists and is the ultimate solipsist (Brahman, shall we say). Of course I or you or whoever could be the ultimate solipsist, and ya'all are my dream/your dream, etcetc. I find that position silly (but unprovable one way or the other). So we can either pretend we are having, or actually have, a conversation, if by gentlemens' agreement we deny being The Solipsist and grant thinking to each other.

I'm not sure that I can see where you're going with this. If your claim is that solipsism is formally irrefutable, you are of course correct -- but also rather sophomoric. Although I can't prove it incorrect, the mere fact that you're bothering to write reponses suggests that you aren't taking the solipsist position seriously, either If you want to call it a "gentlemen's agreement," that's fine. But in that case, let's just make the agreement and get on with our respective (stipulated) lives.

However, the "agreement" that needs making doesn't need to be as strong as agreeing to "grant thinking to each other." It suffices if you are willing to grant the general validity of sensory experience. If you believe that you can generally trust your senses, then that in and of itself is sufficient, for example, to demonstrate that the computer in front of you exists -- you don't need to make a special agreement to that effect. Similarly, if you accept the validity of sensory data, then the existence of other thinking beings can be confirmed by your own senses.....

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Is a computer program immaterial?

Because fourteen-odd pages into this thread, we still haven't established what "material" means except as a reference to a personally idiosyncratic definition.

 

[drkitten]

Some editing done by drkitten


"It is only necessary that we are familiar with physical laws and the state of the environment, and the physical state of the organism in order to predict behaviour.

Such internal states are not the real cause of our behaviour, otherwise you're not talking about reductive materialism. You have to maintain it's the correlates of mental states which is causally efficacious, not the mental states themselves.

You're misunderstanding at least two points. First, "internal states" are not necessarily mental; the (unobserved) interior of an box is not generally considered to be mental, but it's still an internal state with respect to an observer. Second, mental states are not necessarily non-physical. I'm not talking about "correlates of mental states". I'm talking about mental states themselves as being physical-but-unobservable states in the human brain,

To briefly recap : physical states can be unobservable because they derive from processes "with memory" and the starting state of the process was not observed. This does not make these physical states causally ineffective, but it does make state-based systems potentially unpredictable. Mental states, with propositional content, derive at least in part from other mental states, and thus are an example of such a system based upon unobservable states. There is no evidence here to support the claim that mental states themselves are non-physical.

Thus, I specifically question your statement that "Such internal states are not the real cause of our behaviour, otherwise you're not talking about reductive materialism." I claim that this assertion requires greater support than you have given it. In particular --- are you equating "materialism" and "reductive materialism"? And on what basis do you assert that "mental states" are non-physical and distinct from physical brain states (given that physical brain states, being memory-based, are at least partly unobservable)?

 

[drkitten]

We've been over this before, Ian, you have to distinguish between "random", which most people use to mean "completely random", or "probabilistic" which does not necessarily mean completely random, especially when a system has memory, as drkitten brings up now:

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." (Goldman, The Princess Bride)

Terminological issues aside, postulating randomness doesn't address the heart of what I believe Ian's point to be. Specifically, I have a strong sense that my mental beliefs can have causal effect themselves -- I didn't order the salmon because I don't like salmon, not because it was preordained at the start of the universe that I wouldn't order the salmon, and not because some roulette wheel in my head came up not-salmon. The question is not whether you can come up with a material cause for events (because you obviously can), but whether you can come up with a material cause for events that appear to have a mental cause without losing the apparent mental cause. Assuming "randomness," unless randomness is somehow tied to mental states, is just yet another unrelated and therefore unsatisfactory cause.

 

[hammegk]

.... It suffices if you are willing to grant the general validity of sensory experience. If you believe that you can generally trust your senses, ...

Actually, no it isn't; as an objective idealist, the 3rd person verifiability of my sensory experiences are available to all. What is not available to anyone (observing the perceived & perceiving me)is the fact that "thought exists"-- that is the 1st person datapoint you have but seem willing to ignore. If it did not, would we be having this conversation. Note that it doesn't require *us* to be anything but The Solipsist's dream. Something "thinks".

then that in and of itself is sufficient, for example, to demonstrate that the computer in front of you exists -- you don't need to make a special agreement to that effect.

Note that you have aleady given sensory experience the position that it exists, and *you* tag along for the ride. There have been a number of JREF discussions on a person (or any "life") being solely a maximum perceived benefit algorithm. Idealism cannot address this possibility effectively, only leave the door ajar for libertarian free-will -- and the immaterial.

Similarly, if you accept the validity of sensory data, then the existence of other thinking beings can be confirmed by your own senses.....

Gee, wouldn't the world be neat if things were that simple.

Tell me then (assuming I'm not a p-zombie) how am I meant to distinguish between the two?

Because for me there aint a difference.

And no one can offer you assistance; either you accept your "p-zombiness", or not; it's just your personal choice. Others have asked, can one 'give away' free-will by assuming one has none?

 

[Z]

First, let me offer apologies: as an adult ADHD, I couldn't bear the thought of reading the entirety of this thread.

Second, I'd like to quote Star Trek IV: "Nothing Unreal Exists."

This idea of 'material' vs. 'immaterial' is all semantics. Science may not yet understand everything, or be able to detect all interactions possible; yet, for anything to exist, some interaction is completely necessary. Even detection on the most minimal level constitutes interaction.

Therefore, when someone claims they can 'read minds' it is possible that what they are doing is utilizing a system of comprehending particle flows below any level we can yet detect - 'Brain Waves', if you will - but completely impossible that, if such interactions exist, it will never be detected. Likewise, in the eventual course of science, we will one day detect, classify, and fully understand the mechanisms of such concepts as 'free will', 'choice', and 'thought'. I think everything that exists is governed by precise laws, even where matters such as choice occurs. Every decision we make is inevitable - even when we choose to make a decision AGAINST our urges. Even when we second, third, or fourth-guess a choice to whatever degree, the choice we make is ultimately the result of interactions of matter, energy, and whatever else may exist in the universe. Of course, with such a world-view, it becomes evident that no one can be held accountable for their actions (one might think), yet the very process of accountability and possible punishment comes into play in these interactions. A man who knows he will go to jail for raping someone is less likely to do so than a man who does not know rape is illegal. The same man faced with the knowledge of the possible death penalty is even less likely to do so. These consequences become part of the intricate matrix of thought and guide the decision-making process on levels we have yet to detect; but ultimately, we will fully understand even these processes.

At some point in our far future, crime will be utterly eliminated, not because of the moral enlightenment of Mankind, but beause we will eventually know the exact procedure for eliminating the necessary conditions that lead to crime in even the most criminally insane person. Of course, by extension, this also means choice will be heavily reduced as well - if not eliminated. We will move through life on pre-recognized paths suitable to each of us. It's quite likely, we'll be happier than ever, because even before birth, our destinies will be carefully outlined to be suited exactly to us. But those who cherish free will and choice will lament, for we will have become the machine at that point - little more.

Sorry, guys - we're already the machine. We just aren't being taken care of very well.

 

[Dancing David]

And again I have to state that I may be a p-zombie.

I have no continuous stream of consciousness, "I" am not always "here" in the sense that I am not always "consciousness" thinking, the "I" am today is not the same "I" as it was a few years ago (or even minutes).

For me “I” just seems to be a convenient label for something that happens, the same way “weather” is just a convenient for something that happens.


(Edited for a confusion of continuums.)

I bow to you, oh enlightened one!

 

[jj]

Terminological issues aside, postulating randomness doesn't address the heart of what I believe Ian's point to be.

Well, postulating some probabilistic component does address his claim that dismissing his form of whateveritis results in absolute determinism.

Specifically, I have a strong sense that my mental beliefs can have causal effect themselves -- I didn't order the salmon because I don't like salmon, not because it was preordained at the start of the universe that I wouldn't order the salmon, and not because some roulette wheel in my head came up not-salmon.

Precisely. You are a system with memory, and with a random component, is my point. The memory introduces very difficult complexity that almost trivially creates chaotic branching and decision processes (they may indeed be stable once established, but how they get there can be based on very small influences).

When we add to that memory the issue that neural nets come down to QM basics like "did this neuron fire" in wetware (they may be predisposed to the same action over and over by a very large amount, but there is still some small (sometimes very small) randomness involved, the system becomes both chaotic and at the very least an HMM (hidden markov model) although I think that's much too simple to actually describe it.

This means that 1) we can never, even in a world without QM, measure accurately enough to describe the system's evolution more than a few microseconds down the road, and 2) that we can't even do that because of the probabilstic component due to QM.

This blows Ian's arguments about physical reductionism, materialism, etc, completely away, because his assumptions about material do not match the observed behavior of material, simply put.

Your argument is, I think, also entirely correct. It's a completely different attack on his position, and one that I also agree with, in case that's not clear, and you also refute him completely.

But, you DO see where that gets us, I wonder when we'll finally be told we're "thick as ...".

The question is not whether you can come up with a material cause for events (because you obviously can),

But no, you can't necessarily come up with a material cause. Here we disagree. Why did these two molecules in trajectory 'x' combine, and the other two in the same trajectory in another point in space not? The answer is that it's PURELY probabilistic. There is no material cause at that point, at least that can be observed inside this universe.

but whether you can come up with a material cause for events that appear to have a mental cause without losing the apparent mental cause.

How does examining the physical framework responsible for "mind" reduce the presence of "mind"? I don't see that at all.

The statement "it's all wetware" does not deny the presence of mind, it simply makes a statement about how "mind" comes about.

Assuming "randomness," unless randomness is somehow tied to mental states, is just yet another unrelated and therefore unsatisfactory cause.

Randomness, or probabilistic behavior, if we accept a materialistic viewpoint, is required to be present in "mind", simply because we can't eliminate it. What's more, study of chaotic systems shows that any system with any noise at all that has the style of neural arrangement that we have can't be predicted at all. It can't be predicted for very long even without noise.

My point is that if we accept a materialistic viewpoint, namely that "mind" arises from the wetware and nothing else, we know that there must be a probabilistic component to it, based on our understanding of the material that it's made out of.

This, by itself, tanks Ian's point entirely.

Then again so does your meta-argument.

 

[Dancing David]

posted by Gentlehorse

Regardless, perhaps you can delineate some of the immaterial attributes of magnetic fields and gravitation for me. We are increasingly familiar with the characteristics of magnetic fields and gravitation by virtue of our observations of the manner in which certain material things interact with one another. Dancing David suggested that magnetic fields and gravitation have immaterial attributes assigned to them. What are some of the immaterial attributes?

Thank you GentleHorse, I am suggesting that there are immaterial effects that we can witness in the material world.

To wit: I have seen one magnet floating above another magnet. One peice of material is suspended above the other solely by the virtue of magnetic repulsions. I know that the effect is caused by a bunch of pieces of matter called electrons. Yet it is an immaterial effects as it were. Something that I can point to and say: Here is the immaterial aspects of something called magentic fields.

I haven't seen any prediction based upon irreducable qualia or immaterial mind yet.

 

[Z]

I am suggesting that there are immaterial effects that we can witness in the material world

This is itself an incorrect statement. To witness an effect, there has to be an interaction of some sort with some medium - photons, sound waves in air, etc. - which are themselves disturbed by some material effect. Energy is not immaterial - it consists of interactions of particles (or waves of particles) that we may yet lack the ability to detect, but their existence is still quite material. Magnetic waves and fields will one day yield the existence of detectible material just as light consists of detectible photons - we may not see these bits now, but we will in time.

Nothing immaterial can ever be detected, thus is irrelevant, even assuming it exists.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

And no one can offer you assistance; either you accept your "p-zombiness", or not; it's just your personal choice. Others have asked, can one 'give away' free-will by assuming one has none?

And now you have me totally confused, you said:

"And I would say you are confusing *I* (the immaterial Thinker) and *me* (the perceived and perceiving which includes ego/id/whatever)."

If you can't tell how to distinguish between them how can you know they are separate and distinct?

 

[hammegk]

Nothing immaterial can ever be detected, thus is irrelevant, even assuming it exists.

That is another statement of the reason interactive dualism is illogical, and the choice remains -- material, or immaterial.

If you can't tell how to distinguish between them how can you know they are separate and distinct?

For me, the fact that thought exists, and dualism is illogical, makes me choose Idealism.

Of course, your choice. Some act as if other choices exist, but I have yet to see an example that does not collapse to material, or immaterial.

Others state they will not choose. That position makes no sense to me.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

For me, the fact that thought exists, and dualism is illogical, makes me choose Idealism.

Of course, your choice. Some act as if other choices exist, but I have yet to see an example that does not collapse to material, or immaterial.

Other state they will not choose. That position makes no sense to me.

I freely admit I may just being dense but I just don't see how this answer clarifies your statements.


Just to remind you, I posted this:

"I have no continuous stream of consciousness, "I" am not always "here" in the sense that I am not always "consciousness" thinking, the "I" am today is not the same "I" as it was a few years ago (or even minutes)."

To which you responded with:

"And I would say you are confusing *I* (the immaterial Thinker) and *me* (the perceived and perceiving which includes ego/id/whatever).".

At the moment it is all as clear as mud to me or should that be to I?

(If anyone else understands hammegk’s point please feel free to explain it to the class thicko.)