Materialism

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

Let me see if I can put this into these terms:

Mary knows everything about red.
Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red.

Mary still gains something.

What Mary is gaining is the knowledge that she has gained the experience personally.

This apparent contradiction is due to an impreciseness of the way it is stated, and nothing more.

Remember that knowledge is not information. It is the physical representation of information in the brain.

Mary knows everything about red:
This means that all of the facts about red are represented in Mary's brain.

Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red:
It could mean that all of the facts about the experience of seeing red are represented in Mary's brain, including the facts about what the physical state of her brain would be if she had the memory of having seen red.

The question is whether this statement also means that she literally has the memory of seeing red. If it does, then I assert that physicalism does not imply that she should be able to get this memory by reading a book. All the book can give her is a description of what her brain would be like if she did have that memory. It cannot alter her brain to be that way.

This knowledge is present in some physical form in Mary's brain, right?

So what if we add a third book, this book contains all the physical information (which is all the information) about the knowledge that she would gain if she had the experience personally.

Sure, but all the book contains is a description of the physical state her brain would have if she possessed that knowledge. Reading that description is not going to alter her brain in such a way for her to have that knowledge.

Also let us assume that we will add pages to this book to describe the physical information (all the information) about the knowledge of having the knowledge to the Nth power.

I'm assuming we will agree that in the physicalist world there is a logical limit to the levels of knowledge we can posses, right?

So now Mary has all three books, and learns everything she can learn in all three.

This puts us back into the problem.

You can take it to as many levels of abstraction as you want. This does not change the fundamental issue, which is that knowledge is a physical state of the brain, and all that can be written in the book is a description of that physical state. Physicalism only requires that it should be possible to construct a description of the physical state. It in no way requires that knowing that description will cause your brain to change to match that description.

Right. But if Mary can only learn X amount about Red then how could she learn more by seeing red? If everything, including seeing red, is reduced to it's physical fact (and that is all that there is) then how can she learn more?

Saying that it can be reduced to the physical facts does not mean that the physical facts are all there is. Reducing something to physical facts just means you have a physical description of it. It does not mean that it is the description. Expecting a description of knowledge to transform into actual knowledge is no different than expecting a description of a toaster to transform into a real toaster.

Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. Under physicalism everything about knowledge can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by Mary. So the new third book with this reduction should address this.

If there is some part of the knowledge that cannot be reduced then it's the same problem.

The problem is that you are thinking of reducing knowledge to information, and then converting that information back to knowledge. Nothing physical can be reduced to information. When we say that something is reducible to the physical facts, we just mean that it can be described in terms of physical facts. Those facts are information. The physical thing being described is not information. knowledge is not just information. Reading information describing knowledge is not going to give somebody that knowledge. A physical process is necessary to alter to brain so that it has the knowledge.

For abstract knowledge (the memory of information), a mechanism is already in place to turn the information into knowledge. For empirical knowledge (the memory of an experience), no such mechanism is in place. This has nothing to do with philosophy. It is simply a statement about how the brain works.

Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).

This is not a problem. A subjective experience is a physical process in somebody's brain. Saying that the subjective experience is reducible to a state where any human can perceive it, just means that a description of that process can be constructed, which another person could see. It does not mean that it must be possible to execute that process in anybody else's brain. That is exactly what it would take for another person to experience your subjective experiences for themselves. Physicalism in no way says that this should be possible.

Yeah, but now there is a third book addressing this.

And this book is stipulated that it will contain all further levels of knowledge about knowledge.

This illustrates the source of our disagreement. A book cannot contain knowledge. It only contains information. The knowledge of what it is like to see read cannot be written down in a book, nor acquired by reading it, any more than a cat could be stored in a book, and then produced by reading it. Only a description of the knowledge can be stored in the book. And this is all that Physicalism requires.

Mary gains whatever neural connections arise from seeing red.

Is there something about that statement that is difficult to understand? Do you not understand it, or do you disagree with it?
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Under physicalism those nerual connections must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. Those facts are in the first book.

Those facts are not all there is. The facts are not the neural connections. They are a description of the neural connections. The neural connections are not in the book, only a description of them is. Reading the book will not give Mary those neural connections. It will only give her a description of them.

But the performance of the brain process must be reducable to perceivable physical facts. Those facts are all that there is. We will put those facts in one of the books.

Where on Earth did you get the idea that Physicalism claims that physical reality is made of facts? This is absurd!

I can't put a dog into a book, why should I be able to put a brain state in a book?


UCE,

I am not going to respond to you line by line anymore, since I have already responded to all the points you are making before. I will just say once again, that I do not accept your assertion that my mind exists only for me. That is the premise upon which your entire "mind is different from brain" argument depends, and it is completely unjustified.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

Something is physical if it is both a cause and an effect.

It is a cause if it's occurance necessitates the occurance of something else.

It is an effect if it's occurance was necessitated by a prior state.

Hmm, not sure I understand. Doesn't match my dictionary definition. And I need a definition of physical fact, not simply physical.

Subjective physical facts under physicalism must ultimately be reducable to objective physical facts. So truly 'subjective' facts cannot co-exist with physicalism.

Well, I don't really understand your definition of physical fact, but neural connections in my brain sound like they fit the bill.

~~ Paul

 

[Guest]

Well, I don't really understand your definition of physical fact, but neural connections in my brain sound like they fit the bill.

~~ Paul [/B]

Sure, those are physical facts. They just aren't subjective. Seeing red is subjective. Brain connections are objective.

 

[Guest]

UcE said:
First define subjective experience.

~~ Paul

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=subjective

1a) Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.

1b) Particular to a given person; personal: "subjective experience."

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=experience

1) The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.

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I do not think the term "subjective experience" is in any way ambigious, unless you are a materialist trying to refute the KA.

Seeing red = subjective experience
neural connection = objective fact
subjective != objective

 

[Guest]

And if anybody tries to claim that the dictionary definitions of these words 'presupposes that materialism is false' I think I am going to kill myself.

Or at least I am going to go mad.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:

No. I am not using "subjective physical fact" to refer to experience. I am using it to refer to physical neural connections in the brain. Not to the knowledge of those connections, but to the connections themselves.

There is nothing "subjective" about a neural connection. It is a physical thing. PERIOD.

The word subjective means personal, per-person, "peculiar to a particular individual" (Websters). If you want me to call them personal physical facts, fine.

They are not per-person. Anyone can slice your brain open and verify it for themselves.

Not sure what you mean.

Well, until today I hadn't heard anyone propose such an idea....

http://neologic.net/rd/chalmers/mdeutsch.html

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Subjective experience:

1a) Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.

1b) Particular to a given person; personal: "subjective experience."

2) The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.

Okay, now define mind.

And if anybody tries to claim that the dictionary definitions of these words 'presupposes that materialism is false' I think I am going to kill myself.

Nope, don't think they do. No need to die just yet.

~~ Paul

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Re: Dammit

I don't know what happened to Stimpy and Paul.

Rusty can be pleased and every idealist here would have the proof they want doing a simple experiment wich really capture the esence of physicalism.

First you Rusty forget the Book about Red you claim is sufficent to experience Red according to physicalism. It is nonsense because the only physicalist requeriment is that a physical neural arrange is necessary and sufficent to experience Red . Not a book wich can or can't arrange the neurone matter in the way needed to experiment red.
So the physicalist experiment to demostrate physicalism goes like this:

You store the brain configu¡ration to experience red in a computer. Then you stimulate the PHYSICAL brain of the subject using ONLY the PHYSICAL information in the computer ans...voila!!! the subject should experiment RED if physicalism is true.

Now, go to google and see some actual experiments in this field with blind people or vision research centers like Caltech.

It is odd to quote myself but no one addressed my point above.

 

[Guest]

Paul

The word subjective means personal, per-person, "peculiar to a particular individual" (Websters). If you want me to call them personal physical facts, fine.

The primary definition of "subjective" mean "in a mind" i.e. it has no meaning to anyone but the subject. It is only true for you. Things in your mind are only true for you, because they are in your mind. Things in your brain are true for everybody because, unlike your mind, your brain is available in objective reality for anyone to examine.

quote:
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They are not per-person. Anyone can slice your brain open and verify it for themselves.
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Not sure what you mean.

How could it be any clearer?

Anything which exists in the physical world MUST BE objective. You are saying it is 'per person' because it is part of your body - but your body is itself part of the objective physical world. Your mind is subjective because it does not matter how carefully anyone disects your brain they will not gain access to your mind!

This is SO SIMPLE!

 

[Guest]

Subjective experience:
Okay, now define mind.

~~ Paul

For our purposes here 'mind' is the sum total of all your subjective experiences. "I" is the subject. "Mind" is everything which that subject directly experiences.

These things are most clearly understood if you think about what is meant by "object" and "subject". "subject" is the thing you refer to as "I". Subjective things exist with respect to that subject. "object" is the physical world. Objective things exist with respect to that object.

Easy!

(until the materialist bumbles along and starts declaring that subjective things are actually objective, and that minds are not restricted to the subject, and that qualia "are" brain processes, etc....and then declares that the definitions are confused. The definitions are only confused because the materialist MUST confuse them. Our definitions are straight as an arrow and make perfect sense.)

 

[BillHoyt]

For our purposes here 'mind' is the sum total of all your subjective experiences. "I" is the subject. "Mind" is everything which that subject directly experiences.

These things are most clearly understood if you think about what is meant by "object" and "subject". "subject" is the thing you refer to as "I". Subjective things exist with respect to that subject. "object" is the physical world. Objective things exist with respect to that object.

Easy!

(until the materialist bumbles along and starts declaring that subjective things are actually objective, and that minds are not restricted to the subject, and that qualia "are" brain processes, etc....and then declares that the definitions are confused. The definitions are only confused because the materialist MUST confuse them. Our definitions are straight as an arrow and make perfect sense.)

Woo-hoo! I re-define everything in subjective terms, nothing up my sleeve, and out pops a wholly subjective universe! Woo-hoo! Its magic.

And yet, somehow, inexplicably, I spend soooo much time trying to tell everybody else how this IS TRUE and MUST BE TRUE. After, of course, explaining that it is all subjective, personal, and therefore different for each of us.

What a pitifully hopeless endeavor! It collapses under its own weight and effort. HEY EVERYBODY! THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH! IT IS ALL SUBJECTIVE!

Good, UCE, then we can ignore you, can't we?

Utterly disgusted,

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:

The primary definition of "subjective" mean "in a mind" i.e. it has no meaning to anyone but the subject. It is only true for you. Things in your mind are only true for you, because they are in your mind. Things in your brain are true for everybody because, unlike your mind, your brain is available in objective reality for anyone to examine.

None of this requires that mind not derive from brain. A person can examine my brain and even write down a complete neural map. My internal experience is still my own.

If you do not like "subjective physical facts" for personal neural connections, then make up another term. But don't play with the definitions of the three words to try to dismiss the existence of these facts.

Anything which exists in the physical world MUST BE objective. You are saying it is 'per person' because it is part of your body - but your body is itself part of the objective physical world. Your mind is subjective because it does not matter how carefully anyone disects your brain they will not gain access to your mind!

Well, you don't know that for sure. But let's assume so. Why? Because they do not have my brain in theirs. It is so simple!

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:

For our purposes here 'mind' is the sum total of all your subjective experiences. "I" is the subject. "Mind" is everything which that subject directly experiences.

Easy!

Not easy, circular! We're trying to define subjective experience. Another definition, please.

~~ Paul

 

[Guest]

Stimpson :

I am not going to respond to you line by line anymore, since I have already responded to all the points you are making before. I will just say once again, that I do not accept your assertion that my mind exists only for me. That is the premise upon which your entire "mind is different from brain" argument depends, and it is completely unjustified.

Stimp,

If your philosophy demands that you do not recognise there is a difference between a mind and a brain, then how the h*ll do you think it is ever going to be able to explain how a mind arises from a brain?

DOH!

Why can't you see the problem!?

If you wish to claim that materialism is capable of explaining how a mind arises from a brain, then first you must clearly define what a brain is and what a mind is and how they differ!. But you are here in front of me claiming that they do not differ!

Is the mind the same thing as a brain?
Or are they different things?

Which is it?

If they are the same then materialism cannot explain how one arises from the other.

If they are different then your defence of materialism collapses.

You cannot defend materialism.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

This is correct. Stimpson continually claims that subjective things are 'actually' objective under materialism.
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Of course, if he accepted that subjective facts actually existed subjectively then he wouldn't be a physicalist. I wonder why Paul keeps insisting that WE recognize subjective facts. Personally I see subjective facts constantly. It's the physicalist who has to assert that we aren't really seeing subjectively, we just think we are.

This is simply a question of definition of terms.

If you define subjective facts as UCE does, to be facts which exist only for an individual person, then as a Physicalist I would say such facts do not exist. I would claim that instead these facts are facts about physical brain states, and that the only thing "private" about them is that they are your brain states.

When a Physicalist talks about "subjective" facts, he is clearly not talking about facts that exist only for that person. He is simply referring to facts which are facts about a person's brain state. In this sense, subjective facts are just a type of objective fact.

Whether you choose to still call them subjective, with the understanding that it has a different meaning, or choose to discard the word subjective entirely, is simply a question of semantics.

It is not just arbitrary, either. Those of us who come from scientific backgrounds are quite used to using the word "subjective" to refer to personal stuff, without any implication that these things are completely inaccessible, or that they do not exist objectively. In philosophical circles, maybe they use the term differently. All this means is that it is important to clearly define our terms.

And of course, both of these definitions work fine with the statement "subjective means in your mind". After all, if the mind is a physical process in the brain, then this just means that subjective means "happening in your brain", which is exactly how physicalists use the term.

Dr. Stupid

 

[Guest]

BillHoyt has arrived in this thread.

That is my ultimate signal to leave it.

This thread is a joke, anyway. It isn't philosophy. It is psychotherapy for people who are hopelessly brainwashed.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

If your philosophy demands that you do not recognise there is a difference between a mind and a brain, then how the h*ll do you think it is ever going to be able to explain how a mind arises from a brain?

DOH!

Why can't you see the problem!?

I do recognize that there is a difference between the mind and the brain. I have told you several times now that I do not believe the mind is the brain. I claim that the mind is a process in the brain.

Why can't you get that through your think skull? How many times do I have to tell you my position before you stop insisting that it is the opposite?

Jesus Christ, man. What is your problem here? Can you not read? Or are you just deliberately trying to convince me that you are a complete moron?

Dr. Stupid

 

[Guest]

UcE said:
Not easy, circular! We're trying to define subjective experience. Another definition, please.

~~ Paul

...in other words you are going to reject any definition that leads to materialism being false.

Go on believing, Paul. But don't kid yourself you are interested in the truth. Your agenda is to defend materialism to the death, just like Stimpsons is. If rationalism is a casualty then you don't seem to mind. How do you want to define 'Mind'? Let me guess : "Part of the physical world"

This is stupid.

 

[Guest]

I give up!

Minds ARE brain processes!
Subjective things ARE objective!
Materialism isn't false!

HOW CAN I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID?

Amen.

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty,



This apparent contradiction is due to an impreciseness of the way it is stated, and nothing more.

Remember that knowledge is not information. It is the physical representation of information in the brain.

Then replace everything I said about knowledge with the word information. Everything must be reducable to the point where any human can perceive it. This renders everything into information

Mary knows everything about red:
This means that all of the facts about red are represented in Mary's brain.

Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red:
It could mean that all of the facts about the experience of seeing red are represented in Mary's brain, including the facts about what the physical state of her brain would be if she had the memory of having seen red.

The question is whether this statement also means that she literally has the memory of seeing red. If it does, then I assert that physicalism does not imply that she should be able to get this memory by reading a book. All the book can give her is a description of what her brain would be like if she did have that memory. It cannot alter her brain to be that way.

So you are saying that if Mary learned everything there is in a book that contains all the 'information' about the knowledge of seeing red she still does not have the memory, correct?

But the memory is part of the knowledge of seeing red, hence it was reduced and included in the book. Mary learned everything in that book. So Mary learned everything there is about the memory unless we assume that there is something that can not be reduced and put in the book. If we do that we no longer have physicalism.

Sure, but all the book contains is a description of the physical state her brain would have if she possessed that knowledge. Reading that description is not going to alter her brain in such a way for her to have that knowledge.

But EVERYTHING about her brain being altered can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. This means that everything about the experience, the knowledge, the way the brain is arranged, everything. So she may not have seen red yet (duh) but she knows everything that can be reduced to a perceivable state. If she knows everything that can be reduced about red, seeing red, knowing red, knowing that she knows red, and onwards, then how can she still learn something new?

Are you saying that she is not learning something new? That is the only logical place for your argument to go.

You can take it to as many levels of abstraction as you want. This does not change the fundamental issue, which is that knowledge is a physical state of the brain, and all that can be written in the book is a description of that physical state. Physicalism only requires that it should be possible to construct a description of the physical state. It in no way requires that knowing that description will cause your brain to change to match that description.

I agree totally with that last sentance. But the change in her brain is reduced in the third book. Everything about that change is reduced to a perceivable state and Mary learns it. If there is something that Mary cannot learn then how does she learn it when she see's red?

The contradiction continues.

Saying that it can be reduced to the physical facts does not mean that the physical facts are all there is. Reducing something to physical facts just means you have a physical description of it. It does not mean that it is the description. Expecting a description of knowledge to transform into actual knowledge is no different than expecting a description of a toaster to transform into a real toaster.

(Emphasis added by me)

I used the word physical fact because Paul began to use it. I've tried to avoid using it in response to you because we haven't been using it.

When I say reducing it to a physical fact all I mean is reducing it to the point where someone can perceive it. That reduction is what I am referring to.

So physicalism most certainly claims that "that is all there is".

The problem is that you are thinking of reducing knowledge to information, and then converting that information back to knowledge. Nothing physical can be reduced to information.

But this is the exact claim that physicalism is making. If everything can be reduced to something that any human can perceive then we are reducing things to information. Anything we can perceive is information, and if everything can be perceived then everything can be reduced to information. I'm still not even clear on how you are differentiating knowledge and information.

You claim that knowledge is a physical state of the brain.

So what is information if it is not the things we perceive?

When we say that something is reducible to the physical facts, we just mean that it can be described in terms of physical facts.

Then why did you object when I made the claim that everything can be reduced to a physical fact?

Those facts are information.

So everything can be reduced to information. Why did you object?

The physical thing being described is not information. knowledge is not just information. Reading information describing knowledge is not going to give somebody that knowledge. A physical process is necessary to alter to brain so that it has the knowledge.

Wait, so ultimately everything about this peanut can be reduced to information. But now you are claiming that the peanut is more then information. But everything can be reduced, so whatever the "more" part is we just need to reduce that part as well. Then we've reduced the peanut to information. There is still a peanut, we have just reduced it to a whole bunch of perceivable facts (information).

For abstract knowledge (the memory of information), a mechanism is already in place to turn the information into knowledge. For empirical knowledge (the memory of an experience), no such mechanism is in place. This has nothing to do with philosophy. It is simply a statement about how the brain works.

Our brain turns information into knowledge. Great.
But experience has no 'brain mechanism' to turn it into knowledge.

This is what you are saying. So then when I have an experience how does it become knowledge? The experience must ultimately be reducable to information and my brain can turn that information into knowledge.

Looks like the contradiction is still there.

This is not a problem. A subjective experience is a physical process in somebody's brain. Saying that the subjective experience is reducible to a state where any human can perceive it, just means that a description of that process can be constructed, which another person could see. It does not mean that it must be possible to execute that process in anybody else's brain. That is exactly what it would take for another person to experience your subjective experiences for themselves. Physicalism in no way says that this should be possible.

See above. Same thing, worded differently.

This illustrates the source of our disagreement. A book cannot contain knowledge. It only contains information.

You claimed our brains can turn information into this knowledge. So the book contains information, Mary learns it, thereby turning it into knowledge.

The knowledge of what it is like to see read cannot be written down in a book, nor acquired by reading it, any more than a cat could be stored in a book, and then produced by reading it. Only a description of the knowledge can be stored in the book. And this is all that Physicalism requires.

No, we are storing the information in the book. Mary then learns the information and it becomes knowledge.

Those facts are not all there is. The facts are not the neural connections. They are a description of the neural connections. The neural connections are not in the book, only a description of them is. Reading the book will not give Mary those neural connections. It will only give her a description of them.

Everything about the neural connections is reduced and put in the book. EVERYTHING. A description and everything else. Mary learns everything in the book. Mary learns everything there is that is these neural connections. If there is some part of these neural connections that cannot be reduced to information then we must discard physicalism.

Where on Earth did you get the idea that Physicalism claims that physical reality is made of facts? This is absurd!

You agreed with me earlier in this post. Now you disagree.

I can't put a dog into a book, why should I be able to put a brain state in a book?

You can reduce everything about the dog into information and put all that information in the book. If there is any part of the dog that can not be reduced then we must reject physicalism.