Materialism and Immaterialism

[Pyrrho]

Two posts containing personal attacks have been removed from this thread. I remind everyone to read the rules, again. Focus on the topic, please. If you value your posts, please do not put them at risk by including personal attacks.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

Never thought that you did. Still, it's not the "scientific" definition. It's the positivist definition.

Of course, I realise that all positivists maintain that scientific = positivist. I also know that just ain't so.

I wouldn't know. It seems to me that, while some forms of positivism may make additional metaphysical claims, such as the claim that only physical things "exist", their definition of "physical" is still just the scientific one.

I am puzzled as to what you think the scientific definition of physical is?

Really? How so? It just does not affect me in the same way it affects you. Your phenomenal consciousness affects your thoughts, your decisions, and your actions. In other words, it affects your brain processes (even if you don't think it is one itself). It therefore affects my by virtue of the effects you have on me. Just because I do not observe it in the same way you do, does not mean that I do not observe it.
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My phenomenal consciousness doesn't have any effect on my brain processes at all. My zombie twin would have all the same brain processes as I do. The difference between him and me is the world we live in. In Zombie world, you're right. In this world, I am.

I am talking to a brain. You may believe that there is some immaterial thing that experiences what brains do. You may even believe that you are one of those things, rather than a brain. But the fact remains that I am talking to a brain. If you are not Win's brain, but are instead some immaterial thing experiencing what Win's brain is doing, then I am not talking to you. Nor are you talking to me. Win's brain is. You are just experiencing him doing it.

That is the flaw in the whole epiphenomenalism idea. The bottom line is that are brains are what do our thinking, remembering, and communicating with. Ultimately all of our conversations are conversations between brains, and all of reasoning and thinking is done based on information our brains have access to. It does not make any difference whether there are demons experiencing what our brains do. If they can have no effect on our brains, then our brains cannot know about them. And that means that the only way they could even know about themselves, is if they have some sort of cognitive abilities of their own, beyond those of the brain. This would lead to a contradiction, though, because this would imply that I could know, or think something, but be not only unable to have that knowledge or thought affect my actions, but also be unable to have it affect my other knowledge or thoughts that are actually knowledge or thoughts of my brain.

In any event, there is no logical reason to believe such a ghost in the machine exists. Only your intuition, and the unsound conceivability argument.

Clearly false. I can interact with the content by interacting with you. There is just another level of indirection, which comes about by virtue of the fact that your phenomenal consciousness is a part of you, but not of me.
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Nope.

You can interact with *me, but you can't interact with me.

In any event, not "clearly" false.

The you I am referring to is your brain, not some immaterial being that is experiencing your thoughts and perceptions. And since it is your brain that is writing this message to me, and not this immaterial being, what we've got here is your brain claiming that phenomenal consciousness affects it, but also does not. That is false. At best, your brain could claim that there is some undetectable immaterial being experiencing what it does, but which it cannot possibly know anything about, and that is an irrational claim for your brain to make.

Your brain has no logical reason to believe that such a being exists. And unless this being has information processing capabilities of its own, it not only has no reason to believe it exists, but could not be meaningfully said to have beliefs of its own at all. It does not believe things. It simply experiences your brain believing things. And your brain's belief is not justified.

Hardly. I can only assume you are referring to the p-zombie argument here. That argument is unsound. Even if this is possible, there is no reason to think that it is true. At least, no logical reason.
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I am gratified that you have learned the difference between sound and valid.

I learned that difference more than 15 years ago. I am glad that makes you happy, though.

That being said, of course there is a reason to belive that phenomenal consciousness doesn't supervene on the physical ... apart from the p-zombie and Mary ... let's offer failure of explanation.

That is an argument from ignorance. A classical logical fallacy. It is an especially ridiculous example of the fallacy, as well, because there is so much we don't yet know about how the brain works, that the lack of an explanation for phenomenal consciousness is simply to be expected.

If by "metaphysical materialism" you mean the view that our current scientific theories are an exact description of everything that "is", then you don't need to appeal to consciousness to tear it down. It is all ready self-contradictory, since our two most fundamental theories (QM and GR) contradict each other.
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I think that, were I in a less eleemosynary mood, I might take exception to your transposition.

What transposition? Notice the "if" in my above statement. If that is not what you mean by "metaphysical materialism", then you need to explain exactly what you do mean.

Nevertheless, I think that the tension between GR and QM provides an excellent exemplar of the future accepted tension between C and P.

Please define your terms. What are C and P, and what relevance do they have to my argument?

This is ridiculous, especially since the person you have most consistantly accused of such behavior (Hal), is not even a materialist (metaphysical or otherwise). Such accusations also have no place in this thread.
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Rgardless of whether anything you say in this paragraph is so, it constitutes an attack on me, and I demand that it be removedd from this thread.

How is this an attack on you? And if it is, how is your claim that materialism is used as a club on this message board, not an attack on materialists?

Edited to add: I do not see how that comment can be seen as a personal attack. Nor do I see any reason why the entire post should be removed when that one comment can be removed instead.

I am not going to waste my time posting to this thread if my posts are just going to be deleted, without any opportunity to defend myself.

Dr. Stupid

 

[DrMatt]

Are these points contradictory?

Push on them hard and a contradiction the size of Brazil will emerge. But again that's doing pesky intellectual work. I've never seen any construction of mysticism which wasn't either utterly useless or internally contradictory. Perhaps you have?

 

[hammegk]

Push on them hard and a contradiction the size of Brazil will emerge. But again that's doing pesky intellectual work. I've never seen any construction of mysticism which wasn't either utterly useless or internally contradictory. Perhaps you have?

Yet all that ya'all just determined was that interactive dualism of any stripe is a meaningless concept (er, my apologies to the Dualists here).

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hammegk said:
Wittgenstein again. Do you assert that you do not have any such attribute [free will]? Loki has taken that stance.

Do you find your (private in the Behaviorist sense) thoughts & actions more deterministic or more random?

I'm asking you for a definition of free will, so why are you then asking me whether I think I have it or not?

The origins of my thoughts and actions are so stunningly complex that I have no idea how to answer the second question. To paraphrase someone or other: Any sufficiently complex behavior is indistinguishable from (any definition of) free will.

I do not understand why the free will advocates will not acknowledge that they have no working definition of free will other than a hand wave.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I ask the moderators to restore Stimpson's posts with some kind of big red flag on the personal attack portions. This allows the flow of the thread to be maintained, while giving us clues on what is considered personal attack. I have PMed Pyrrho with the suggestion that this be the mode of operation on this subforum.

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

... To paraphrase someone or other: Any sufficiently complex behavior is indistinguishable from (any definition of) free will.

And presumably indistinguishable from magic, too, paraphrasing A. Clarke iirc.

[]b
I do not understand why the free will advocates will not acknowledge that they have no working definition of free will other than a hand wave.

~~ Paul [/B]

And none of us know how to respond, yet I think I have it, you think you have it, but you are willing to allocate it between determinism & randomness whereas I'm not.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

What makes you think that we think we have free will?

 

[hammegk]

The unanswerable question. Some posters appear to think they don't have it.

Can free-will be used to discard itself? (j/k... sorta)

 

[epepke]

FWIW, my impression is that "materialism" may have meant something back in the 19th century, when classical physics was all the rage, but it means little now.

 

[jj]

My phenomenal consciousness doesn't have any effect on my brain processes at all. My zombie twin would have all the same brain processes as I do. The difference between him and me is the world we live in. In Zombie world, you're right. In this world, I am.


Evidence, please. You have made a specific claim, but I have no evidence available to me to even evaluate it, let confirm it.

That being said, of course there is a reason to belive that phenomenal consciousness doesn't supervene on the physical ... apart from the p-zombie and Mary ... let's offer failure of explanation.


Then how can you insist in the existance of a "phenominal conciousness"?

How can you show that there is anything beyond chemistry?

Nevertheless, I think that the tension between GR and QM provides an excellent exemplar of the future accepted tension between C and P.


Why? QCED still looks pretty good to me.


Rgardless of whether anything you say in this paragraph is so, it constitutes an attack on me, and I demand that it be removedd from this thread.

Is telling the truth about something an attack on you? If so, you render any possible debate moot, you demand enforced censorship of exposure of your mistakes.

Do I understand, then, that you're espousing censorship?

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Cut it out, please.

I fail to see the point in postulating a 'will' that is neither deterministic nor random. How does it work? What properties does it have? It seems to me that it's just a "charming ambiguity", a concept that can encompass anything we wish it to because it's so poorly defined. Our inability to understand, discuss, or analyze it is its sole benefit.

 

[hammegk]

FWIW, my impression is that "materialism" may have meant something back in the 19th century, when classical physics was all the rage, but it means little now.

IMO. this is a claim (albeit unstated) that 'materialists' have faith in.

When the peer reviewed tome The Science of Philosophy is on the best seller lists a attempt will be made to justify it. "Prove"? I don't think that's going to happen.



Wrath: I at least feel the same distaste for "emergent property", although I don't see much of that term here lately. Again, life, on up through qualia, continues to demonstrate that problem. "Charming ambiguity": Is that the new, scientific, buzzword?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hammegk said:
"Charming ambiguity": Is that the new, scientific, buzzword?

I've added it to my buzzword list. It quite nicely describes the free will that everyone uses without definition, yet as an escape from the rigors of reality.

Will no one attempt to explain how free will works?

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

It also quite nicely describes life. A word that everyone uses without definition, yet as an escape from the rigors of reality.

Do you have faith in the current scientific rationalizations as we catalog & classify life?

 

[Interesting Ian]

FWIW, my impression is that "materialism" may have meant something back in the 19th century, when classical physics was all the rage, but it means little now.

Well, for a kick off it would maintain that phenomenal consciousness is the same type of existent as all other existents. Necessarily this is an ontological commitment, despite what Stimpson J Cat might maintain.

If this is the only ontological position he is adopting, this entails he is saying absolutely nothing about the sole existent referred to as the material world, or matter. Therefore it seems that his position, and Wrath's, and a lot of scientists position in this respect are vacuous.

Comments anyone?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Cut it out, please.

I fail to see the point in postulating a 'will' that is neither deterministic nor random. How does it work? What properties does it have? It seems to me that it's just a "charming ambiguity", a concept that can encompass anything we wish it to because it's so poorly defined. Our inability to understand, discuss, or analyze it is its sole benefit.

If we do not have a free will and everything we do proceeds according to physical laws, then this might seem to create a difficulty in giving a justification of why, when we attempt to work something out, that we should be more likely to reach a correct conclusion about anything rather than an incorrect conclusion.

We might as well all be p--zombies and still reach the exact same conclusions. But why should physical objects obeying the laws of physics normally work things out correctly?

And if we have no free will what becomes of ethics? The concept of desert becomes a vacuous one. We might as well feel outrage towards a boulder rolling down a hill and crushing someone to death. Should we place the boulder in prison? Or give it a good whipping??

As to your question of how it works I would say that free will is simply psychokinesis and hence is teleological in nature. Certain processes in the brain start to spontaneously occur as a consequence of an intention to behave in a given manner. (or maybe consciousness manipulates quantum mechanical events (maybe in the Penrose-Hameroff microtubules) in such a way that enables the conscious mind to modify individual acts of behaviour).

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

IMO. this is a claim (albeit unstated) that 'materialists' have faith in.

Again: define 'materialists' and 'materialism', please. I have yet to see an argument that anyone here is a materialist. Furthermore, this statement of yours is on its face utter nonsense. Why in the world would someone who espouses the philosophy of 'materialism', whatever that is, "have faith" in the claim that materialism is an outmoded and meaningless concept?

 

[BillHoyt]

Well, for a kick off it would maintain that phenomenal consciousness is the same type of existent as all other existents. Necessarily this is an ontological commitment, despite what Stimpson J Cat might maintain.

Comments anyone?

I don't get how one can claim it is an ontological commitment when scientists clearly both state and act to test it as a conclusion. We have no reason to asume it is different from other existents. We keep testing and keep finding no reason. We keep hypothesizing and testing. This is the nature of science and it is quite distinct from the claim that scientists make ontological commitments.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:
If we do not have a free will and everything we do proceeds according to physical laws, then this might seem to create a difficulty in giving a justification of why, when we attempt to work something out, that we should be more likely to reach a correct conclusion about anything rather than an incorrect conclusion.

We reach a conclusion (and perhaps modify it later) that jibes with our observations. Whether this is the "correct" conclusion is impossible to know. A brain that uses that state of the world in an algorithmic way to reach conclusions would seem to be precisely the sort of brain that can reach reasonable conclusions. A brain that uses some strange, undefinable free will to reach conclusions, well, who knows what sort of conclusions it would reach?

We might as well all be p--zombies and still reach the exact same conclusions. But why should physical objects obeying the laws of physics normally work things out correctly?

Are you suggesting that some other sort of object is more likely to reach correct conclusions? How?

And if we have no free will what becomes of ethics? The concept of desert becomes a vacuous one. We might as well feel outrage towards a boulder rolling down a hill and crushing someone to death. Should we place the boulder in prison? Or give it a good whipping??

People keep asking this question. Forget ethics in an absence of free will. Let's assume we have free will, whatever the heck that is. How does that lead to "good ethics"?

As to your question of how it works I would say that free will is simply psychokinesis and hence is teleological in nature. Certain processes in the brain start to spontaneously occur as a consequence of an intention to behave in a given manner.

How is the purpose of free will determined? How are my intentions determined? What does it mean to say that at one moment in time I have a free choice between two paths, and in the next moment I choose one of them? What process occurs between those two moments?

~~ Paul