Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

What makes you think this is a metaphysical question? Or, looking at it another way, what makes you think it is any more metaphysical than, say, phlogiston? And science has answered that question.

~~ Paul

How could the relationship between mind and matter be anything other than a metaphysical question? Even if the answer is "materialism is true", it is a metaphysical answer. The debate about this relationship is the be-all and end-all of metaphysics. The WHOLE of metaphysics is descended from the attempt to answer it. If this isn't a metaphysical question, nothing is. It is the metaphysical question.

 

[Jeremy]

Geoff, I am getting the feeling that you are ignoring what I said. I must apologize for being untrained in philosophy, but if you refuse to correct me and point out what is wrong with what I said, why even bother debating philosophy?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul,

Part of the problem here is the definition of what science actually is, and without this definition we have no agreed means of determining where the boundaries of science are. There are a number of ways of identifying what science is, and most of them aren't any good. Appeals to "method" or "falsificationism" don't work. If instead you try to identify science with materialism then there is a logical reason why science can't answer this question. Because science has become identified with materialism it is logically impossible for science to stand outside materialism in order to be able to compare it with anything else. If you take materialism as a scientific assumption, you therefore rule out any possibility that science can either verify or disprove materialism and it is a logical inevitability that the mind-body problem is going to be metaphysical. But if, on the other hand, you do not identify science with materialism then it is not at all clear how you are going to define what science is. Science becomes a bit of a free-for-all, in so much as all sorts of people can claim to be being scientific when what they are actually doing is attempting to be as objective as possible outside the framework of materialism. But I am guessing you wouldn't want to call such things "sciences".

If you try to define what science is, then I think you may end up seeing for yourself why these questions are non-scientific/metaphysical.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff, I am getting the feeling that you are ignoring what I said. I must apologize for being untrained in philosophy, but if you refuse to correct me and point out what is wrong with what I said, why even bother debating philosophy?

Sorry - I missed this:

What about spectra of light? You can make a color statements based on the electromagnetic radius.

They aren't colour statements. They are statements about electomagnetism or wavelengths. You can tell a blind person all you like about electromagnetism, and he'll never know anything about red looks like.

In the same way that the color dichotomy is a false one, it seems to me that the mental/physical one is as well.

The colour dichotomy is not false. The primary/secondary qualities distinction is not false.

 

[Crispy Duck]

Geoff,

With respect, I think you need to take an extra step back. Your arguments all seem to take as axiomatic the fact that this thing called "mind" is mysterious and magical and fantastic. You then claim that materialism can't explain mind, becuase mind is by (your) definition not part of the material world. If you discard that axiom, then Paul's position that the mystery of mind may be resolved within materialism is no longer inconsistent.

Would you agree that you take as axiomatic the fact that this thing called "mind" is mysterious and magical and fantastic?

Someone earlier in this thread asked "if mind is just physical, then where do our thoughts go when we die?". This seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the term "physical" (or "material", if you prefer). The material world is not simply the world of matter, but also of processes and interactions. The question is like saying "if I'm jumping on a trampoline, and then I stop, where did the jumping go?".

IMHO.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff,

With respect, I think you need to take an extra step back. Your arguments all seem to take as axiomatic the fact that this thing called "mind" is mysterious and magical and fantastic.

It's not axiomatic, no. But it is certainly the case that it looks that way if you think materialism is true.

You then claim that materialism can't explain mind, becuase mind is by (your) definition not part of the material world. If you discard that axiom.....

It isn't an axiom. I think I mentioned this in a previous post when I said that materialists interpet any starting position which doesn't involve assuming materialism is true as assuming materialism is false. What I am saying is that if materialism is true then it owes us a big answer regarding consciousness. At the moment, instead, we have people like Dennett claiming they have "explained consciousness" even thought the so-called explanation doesn't actually address the real problem. It merely "explains it away".

, then Paul's position that the mystery of mind may be resolved within materialism is no longer inconsistent.

Would you agree that you take as axiomatic the fact that this thing called "mind" is mysterious and magical and fantastic?

No. But if I assume materialism is true, then it becomes the case that it is deeply mysterious. The basic problem was explored in another previous thread which was entitled "Is it possible to perceive a world which is external to our perceptions?":

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55606

This is the source of the mystery. Materialism involves the claim that the objects we percieve self-exist entirely external to perception. Yet if you think about the title of that thread, it becomes a deeply paradoxical situation. How on earth can it be that we perceive objects which are external to perception? It looks like you are going to end up having to claim that what we percieve aren't external objects at all - they are merely mental representions of external objects. But if we are materialists then haven't we said that the external world is all that exists? If so, what are the representations?

Basically, at this point we end up in a philosophical mess. We need to go back to the question in the title of that other thread. This is a slightly difference issue to materialism/dualism/idealism. Instead its a question about direct realism, indirect realism and anti-realism with respect to perceived objects. The problem then becomes is that providing a coherent defence of direct realism is almost impossible, but without such a defence it is going to be hard to defend materialism. Indirect realism is a non-position which collapses before it starts and anti-realism is incompatible with materialism.

Someone earlier in this thread asked "if mind is just physical, then where do our thoughts go when we die?". This seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the term "physical" (or "material", if you prefer).

Yeah, there's plenty of those in town. Most of them coming from physicalists. At the end of a recent 40-page monster thread on physicalism at least three physicalists admitted they had no idea how to define "physical". The reason is associated with the direct realism debate in the following way: "Physical" originally meant the objects of perception - the ones you can point to and say "that one". But later, largely because of science, came to refer to the world which is external to perception. The definitional problems for the physicalist is that he wants to call both of these "physical" but they appear to be ontologically different. What you end up with is a sort of physical(1)-physical(2) dualism which Dennett refers to as "Cartesian Materialism". Unfortunately, even though Dennett has recognised this problem, his solution only side-steps it. It doesn't solve it.

The material world is not simply the world of matter, but also of processes and interactions. The question is like saying "if I'm jumping on a trampoline, and then I stop, where did the jumping go?".

IMHO.

I don't know who made that comment about thoughts, but it was a strange one. Something not quite right, for sure.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Put even simpler:

When you percieve a tomato, where is the tomato you percieve? Is it inside your head somewhere (a mental representation) or is it out there in the external world? Which one is the real tomato? The external one or the internal one? Or do you want to say that both are the real tomato, and if so how do you account for the fact that it is both "in here" and "out there" at the same time? Which one is the physical tomato? Both of them? But one of them is in here and one is out there!

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

How could the relationship between mind and matter be anything other than a metaphysical question? Even if the answer is "materialism is true", it is a metaphysical answer. The debate about this relationship is the be-all and end-all of metaphysics. The WHOLE of metaphysics is descended from the attempt to answer it. If this isn't a metaphysical question, nothing is. It is the metaphysical question.

That's because it's the only remaining interesting question. Thousands of years ago, whether everything was earth, air, fire, and water was also the metaphysical question, along with a few other juicy questions. Science doesn't answer metaphysical questions, it just relegates them to the trash heap. I suppose that's an answer.

It's not suprising that the final interesting question is one about the subjective/objective dichotomy. After all, look who's asking the question.

But not to worry. Even if we explain how mind comes from brain, there will still be philosophers saying we haven't really explained it.

~~ Paul

 

[I less than three logic]

Put even simpler:

When you percieve a tomato, where is the tomato you percieve? Is it inside your head somewhere (a mental representation) or is it out there in the external world? Which one is the real tomato? The external one or the internal one? Or do you want to say that both are the real tomato, and if so how do you account for the fact that it is both "in here" and "out there" at the same time? Which one is the physical tomato? Both of them? But one of them is in here and one is out there!

In my opinion, the external tomato is the real one; even if it is wholly unlike the perceived image the processes in my brain have produced. What we perceive is a formatted image of the external world. It has been made coherent for us by the many complex processes taking place within our brains.

Which is the real web page you are reading right now, the nice formatted one, processed by your computer, into the image seen on your monitor that you are able to read and understand, or the millions of incoherent 1s and 0s stored on a hard drive on some server in the corner of the internet? I believe the file on the hard drive is the real web page, for that is the one that must be manipulated in order to affect how others perceive it. You can of course change your browser or computer settings to change how the image is formatted, but the web page remains objectively unchanged.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

That's because it's the only remaining interesting question. Thousands of years ago, whether everything was earth, air, fire, and water was also the metaphysical question....

No, that was their attempt at an answer to the same question still being asked today. Science relegated that answer to the trash heap, and in doing so answered some other questions. The start of the scientific revolution is when somebody (Galileo, Newton) started looking for laws as to predict the behaviour of things, instead of asking "what things are". As a result, science opted out of the metaphysical part of the previous questions - and whilst it has proven very successful at answering the non-metaphysical "how does this happen" questions it pays the price of being theoretically unable to answer metaphysical questions. In other words it is the very strength of science for answering empirical questions which makes it incapable of answering metaphysical ones. However, it is a serious mistake to conclude from this that the metaphysical questions have gone away. That would be blatant scientism. Scientism bad.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

In my opinion, the external tomato is the real one; even if it is wholly unlike the perceived image the processes in my brain have produced. What we perceive is a formatted image of the external world. It has been made coherent for us by the many complex processes taking place within our brains.

Which is the real web page you are reading right now, the nice formatted one, processed by your computer, into the image seen on your monitor that you are able to read and understand, or the millions of incoherent 1s and 0s stored on a hard drive on some server in the corner of the internet? I believe the file on the hard drive is the real web page, for that is the one that must be manipulated in order to affect how others perceive it. You can of course change your browser or computer settings to change how the image is formatted, but the web page remains objectively unchanged.

So for you, "real" and "physical" are "things which are out there". They are "the world as it is in itself". That is all very fine but it leaves a massive question: "What are the mental representations?" From your point of view, they aren't "real". What is "real" is the brain processes. This is why minds are so mysterious. The only thing you can say the mental represtentations "are" is "brain processes". But they are nothing like brain processes! This does not assume that "in some as yet undefined way" they really aren't brain processes, but it's going to have to be some real humdinger of a theory that explains how they can be. The problem is that none of the materialistic offerings so far have come anywhere close to providing an answer, regardless of the inflated claims of people like Dennett to have "explained consciousness". Put it another way: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And saying that brain processes and subjective experiences are one and the same identical thing is an extra-ordinary claim simply because on the face of it, they have nothing in common. The only reason it doesn't seem all that extra-ordinary to a materialist is that for the materialist this extra-ordinary claim is the only game in town. There is no alternative at all.

 

[Robin]

Holy epistemology, Batman!

~~ Paul

Well of course each scientist's own philosophy is his or her own. Dawkins, for example, says he is a materialist.

But I thought it was pretty well understood that if science has a philosophy that it is Positivism, or Physicalism in it's original sense (which I again stress had nothing to do with materialism).

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Well of course each scientist's own philosophy is his or her own.

Then we are going to have trouble agreeing on the borders of science.

 

[Robin]

Put even simpler:

When you percieve a tomato, where is the tomato you percieve? Is it inside your head somewhere (a mental representation) or is it out there in the external world? Which one is the real tomato? The external one or the internal one? Or do you want to say that both are the real tomato, and if so how do you account for the fact that it is both "in here" and "out there" at the same time? Which one is the physical tomato? Both of them? But one of them is in here and one is out there!

Easy. One is a real tomato and one is a real representation of a tomato. The real representation of a tomato is "in here" in the sense that it is part of the collection of mental representations that make up our mental representation of the world. It is also "in here" in the sense that our mental representation of the world is organised from our own point of view.

The real tomato is clearly not part of that collection of mental representations, but is the thing which originally created the sense data that was used to create the representation.

Whether they are physical or not depends entirely on what you mean by physical. Since you obstinately refuse to define the term then you simply should not ask the question.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Easy. One is a real tomato and one is a real representation of a tomato. The real representation of a tomato is "in here" in the sense that it is part of the collection of mental representations that make up our mental representation of the world. It is also "in here" in the sense that our mental representation of the world is organised from our own point of view.

The real tomato is clearly not part of that collection of mental representations, but is the thing which originally created the sense data that was used to create the representation.

Whether they are physical or not depends entirely on what you mean by physical. Since you obstinately refuse to define the term then you simply should not ask the question.

Why should it be me who defines "physical" and not the physicalists?

Put it this way: If a physicalist cannot define "physical", what an earth does he mean when he says he is a physicalist?

I am a neutral monist. I am perfectly happy to define what I mean by that, but that's not what you are asking me to do.

 

[Robin]

Then we are going to have trouble agreeing on the borders of science.

Why? Who are we anyway to decide the borders of science.

It is a problem that will, in effect decide itself.

 

[Robin]

Why should it be me who defines "physical" and not the physicalists?

Because it was you who used the term.

Why should you use a term then demand that other people supply the definition?

That does not make a shred of sense.

So either explain the sense in which you mean it. Or stop using it.

At the very least you must accept as a satisfactory response that the answer to your question depends on what you mean by the key term in it.

Put it this way: If a physicalist cannot define "physical", what an earth does he mean when he says he is a physicalist?

Can you give an example of a physicalist who cannot define "physical"?

Of course the original physicalists (like Broad) could define what they meant by physical - that certain sense data could be categorised as physical on the basis of persistence and consistency.

I am a neutral monist. I am perfectly happy to define what I mean by that, but that's not what you are asking me to do.

No, please, go ahead and explain what you mean by neutral monism. You are also welcome to provide justifications and explain what philosophical problems it addresses.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Because it was you who used the term.

Why should you use a term then demand that other people supply the definition?

That does not make a shred of sense.

So either explain the sense in which you mean it. Or stop using it.

At the very least you must accept as a satisfactory response that the answer to your question depends on what you mean by the key term in it.

Can you give an example of a physicalist who cannot define "physical"?

Of course the original physicalists (like Broad) could define what they meant by physical - that certain sense data could be categorised as physical on the basis of persistence and consistency.

No, please, go ahead and explain what you mean by neutral monism. You are also welcome to provide justifications and explain what philosophical problems it addresses.

OK, when I get time. I have to sit a metaphysics exam tomorrow afternoon, and I've another exam the day after, so my contributions to this thread will have to wait.

Geoff

 

[hammegk]

Is it necessary for someone to have a label? Since Mach developed the philosophical position he did not label it. It has since come to be known as Positivism. Hawking labels himself a Positivist.

"I . . . am a positivist who believes that physical theories are just mathematical models we construct, and that it is meaningless to ask if they correspond to reality, just whether they predict observations" (Stephen Hawking,

Positivism is the denial of metaphysics, and 100% acceptance of "the epistemological privilege of Science" to answer all questions worth asking.

IOW, a copout by some of greatest minds and thinkers to avoid the question "Should we" (drop the themonuke, splice this gene 'there') etc.

Einstein states that reality may be a meaningless concept ....

I would refer him to "reality is what remains even if you don't believe in it".

Ernst Mach's "The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical" is generally regarded as being a seminal work in the field of philosophy of science.

And it's a darn shame Mach isn't here to give his views in today's world, although I put him near if not firmly in the camp of materialists.

Doubtless, but what relevance does it have to the philosophy of science?

No more or less than any man's worldview will have on how he proceeds.

I cannot see anywhere that Geoff has actually stated a position of his own, he merely criticises what he sees as other people's positions.

He declares himself to be a neutral monist.

But I suppose as he believes that the mind supervenes on the physical brain that he is a supervenience physicalist, as defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia.

I think not.

BTW, I could call myself a supervenience idealist, with physical, in the usual sense of the term, being what supervenes.


And I still await an answer to: "If someone can provide me a logically defensible form of interactive dualism, I'll happily go back to being an interactive dualist."

 

[I less than three logic]

That is all very fine but it leaves a massive question: "What are the mental representations?"

The mental representations are a formatted image of the external world. Detected by my eyes and other sensory organs, and processed by my brain. I already said that.

From your point of view, they aren't "real".

I don’t believe I claimed that. They are just as real as the image of this web site produced by your monitor. Quite unlike what the website truly is, but it is far more coherent. Also, like the image on your monitor, my mental representation is dependent on the processes and signals that produce it.

What is "real" is the brain processes. This is why minds are so mysterious.

Yes, quite so.

The only thing you can say the mental represtentations "are" is "brain processes". But they are nothing like brain processes!

Yes, like the image on your computer monitor is only the final process of the striking the phosphor screen with an electron beam, or the uses of electric signals to align thousands of liquid crystals to allow for the passage of light. The image produced is nothing at all like the web page you are reading however. The real web page is magnetic impression on a small spinning metal or glass disk. It contains no letters, no numbers, and no images; it is completely intelligible to anyone in its physical form. It has taken a lot of changing and processing to produce what you can read and understand.

In my opinion, my experiences are not unlike an internal monitor within my brain. The images produced are simply my brain’s interpretation of the firing of neurons and such, not unlike the image on your monitor is produce by its interpretation of the electronic signal sent by your computer into an electron beam traced onto phosphor screen.