Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

Good question. Someone in a blissful meditative state would say no.

Would they?

Also, under idealism, all the nonconscious stuff going on to keep the "external world" together must be part of my mind, no?

No, that's solipsism. They just have to be part of the "realm of mind".

 

[UndercoverElephant]

This doesn't seem to match idealism.

"the view that the existence of objects depends wholly or in part on the minds of those perceiving them or that reality is composed of minds and their states."

"in metaphysics, the doctrine that ideas, or thought, are the fundamental reality; in ethics, the devotion to moral ideals."

"the philosophical theory that ideas are the only reality"

"Various philosophical theories of mind fall under this category. Essentially, idealism is the view which posits that the material realm does not exist wholly independent of the mind. Idealism does not dismiss the notion that the material realm exists; it just asserts that the material realm must be perceived by the mind - i.e. that ultimately, the material realm (contepts, ideas, things, etc.) exists in the mind."

Bolding mine.

~~ Paul

OK, fair enough. I am not going to defend hammegk's position for him. As far as I am aware, hammegk shares my own belief that minds cannot exist in the abscence of brains - but I could be wrong.

 

[DreadNiK]

I don't know who you mean by "us" and who you mean by "them". It all depends which question you ask.

Who is on Geoff's side? Hammegk? Paul? Lifegazer? Hyparxis? Randfan? Nescafe?

Don't be cute, you know exactly what I mean, I've asked you this sort of question before and after a great deal of evasion, I got you to admit that this whole thing matters 'very little'. There is a disgreement, but I can't even tell what it is anymore thanks to the stupendous amount of pointlessness in this thread. If you need a specific disagreement POV to answer my question, then I'll say Belz.

How does your philosophy differ from Belz' (as far as you can tell) and what difference does it make to your actions?

If you can, replace 'Belz' with 'anyone who disagrees with you'.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Okay, so this is where we are.

P-zombies are possible under materialism unless we agree that mind = brain.

Some other sort of zombie is possible under idealism unless we agree that individual mind = objects of experience.

Would the typical idealist agree that individual mind = objects of experience?

I'm part way through the Stanford article on zombies and it's way, way more complex than we've been treating it. So far, I've read nothing but arguments about what conceivable means.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Would they?

We sure did during my gig in the TM movement.

No, that's solipsism. They just have to be part of the "realm of mind".

I wasn't suggesting solipsism; perfectly happy to have many individual minds working to keep things consistent. But now I don't understand idealism, so I have no idea whether there are external mind-stuff objects or whether it's all just in our minds.

~~ Paul

 

[Belz...]

Because it has to explain how something that is actually only one type of thing appears to us as two.

The same way things appear a certain way to, say, a video camera, although they aren't. Glare, for example. Cameras will show white blobs because they aren't built to compensate for that. Same for the brain, methinks.

The idealists have to try to find a way to explain why material doesn't really exist, or can be said to be "mental things, really". This is at least supportable by the claim "I am 100% certain my mind exists".

"I am 100% certain my mind exists; but I can also see how everything that's part of it is affected by a number of circumstances in the world it is observing. I can therefore be 100% certain that the world that it is observing exists as well."

The materialist, unlike the idealist, is also in the unenviable position of having to find a way to get rid of the one thing they are 100% certain exists.

...Of course, that's assuming he's 100% certain of it, which is an assumption of yours.

Materialism ends up claiming that the only thing which exists is something you can never actually be aware of, and that the only thing you can ever be aware of doesn't actually exist. Which is silly.

And here's two assumptions of yours, one the same as above. I disagree with both of them. I am very much aware of the world around me, and sometimes not so much of my own mind.

 

[Belz...]

[edit: deleted sentence] It exists as an object in your mind, but it doesn't have its own mind. It's just like any other mindless object of which the world is full, except it happens to behave as if it had a mind - like an android.

I have another question about idealism and how defensible it really is: If everything you see is an object in your mind, where exactly did we get the information required to conceptualise these things ? I distinctly remember, as a young boy, that I knew nothing of the world. I had to be told. How could I imagine something I've never experienced ?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Don't be cute, you know exactly what I mean, I've asked you this sort of question before and after a great deal of evasion, I got you to admit that this whole thing matters 'very little'.

Not quite. It matters very little in some areas of life and a great deal in some others. The targets I am attacking are the extremists in both camps, so the further you are away from extremism, the less it should matter what I am saying.

How does your philosophy differ from Belz' (as far as you can tell) and what difference does it make to your actions?

If you can, replace 'Belz' with 'anyone who disagrees with you'.

I don't know what Belz's philosophy is. I am not sure Belz does, either - since Belz appears to be a relative newbie to this area of discussion.

The main difference between my own position and the one being defended by most of the people who are arguing with me is that I am motivated by a desire to mediate in the war between science and religion. I do not believe there needs to be a war. So my actions are different in that rather than sitting on the scientific side of the fence and lobbing grenades over to the religious people, I try to engage the extremists on both sides in an attempt to get them to better understand the weaknesses of their own position, which they generally aren't aware of, and the strengths of the opposing one, which they are also not aware of.

There is a war of ideas going on right now. This has always been the case, but in the past those wars tended to take place in universities and not very many other places. At the present time there is an upsurge in interest in these issues, largely being fuelled by the new phenomenon which is the internet. All I am trying to do is to get both sides to understand the other better than they do at the moment.

I suppose I believe in defending what I think is the truth as being an end in itself. I believe philosophy matters. Anyone who does not believe that it matters should not be posting on this board anyway.

 

[Belz...]

If you need a specific disagreement POV to answer my question, then I'll say Belz.

I'm flattered!!

How does your philosophy differ from Belz' (as far as you can tell) and what difference does it make to your actions?

I'm going to chime in and just make a little summary of how I see this whole debate:

<cracks fingers>

In order to even try to understand reality, I have to have a working assumption. Otherwise I couldn't even formulate a question, let alone find the answer. A quick thought gives me two possibilities: "nothing exists" or "something exists". The former can't be of any use to me, because then no question could possibly have any meaning. Not only that, but it flies in the face of a very obvious fact: I'm aware of something, so even assuming it's all an illusion, that illusion exists.

So we're left with the second assumption. Of course, then the question is: "what exists" ? Well, if I could refine my first assumption with an answer to that question, it would help tremendously. Again, I see two choices: "the world as I experience it exists in some capacity" or "It may or may not exist, but I can be sure that the observer, my mind, exists".

But assuming the latter, that the observed universe is suspect, leads to a few problems. First of all, if what I see is possibly illusory, then I'm left with the possibility that the other people I see in that world are also non-existent. After all, I can close my eyes and imagine fictitious characters that are nonetheless realistic in their behaviour. And since I can't experience their mind, then they're just as suspect as the rest of it. That leaves just me.

But then, there are a number of circumstances that affect my mind, and I can see that my memory, my feelings and even my thoughts can be altered by those circumstances. Sleep deprivation, drugs, caffeine and even temperature are just a few of the things that can make my mind go awry. Obviously, those aspects of me are part of the world I observe, because they are directly affected by it.

So, what's left ? Well, I could retreat to Geoff's last position about it: "the subject", or "the I that observes". Well, here's the rub: it's just as subject to change as the rest, and my very ability to observe my own thoughts has evolved over the years and changed with context. This position is also pretty much what solipsism is, and everyone here seems to agree that it's, again, not very useful. Also, it's at least conceivable that this "subject" could be part of an elaborate simulation. So, maybe I'm just bits in a computer program.

Well, seeing as something must exists and the idealist train of thought has led me to positing a reality that I could never experience anyway, I'll have to go with the other refinement of my assumption: "the world as I experience it exists in some capacity".

If the world is real, it would be expected to be consistent, an expectation which is vindicated by the existence of science, something I can do myself. This consistency would be difficult to explain under idealism, and now it allows me to ask questions and find answers. It's already more useful than the other assumptions, isn't it ?

Now I can also consider that the people I observe are real and similar to me. Now, this is still compatible with dualism, but not for long, because then we have to deal, again, with the mind-brain dependency discussed above. Also, I'd say that a monism is simpler and more elegant than dualism, because it doesn't require two explanations and two sets of assumptions. So, not only does the world as I experience it exists, but I'm part of it. This fits rather well with my own experience, as I don't feel that my mind is "ethereal", or anything of the sort. It's also quite testable, empirically, at least in principle.

Call it materialism or physicalism or whatever, but it's the only path that gives me real answers and doesn't require mental gymnastics for me to maintain. Sure, the universe really could be an illusion; it's possible that I'm just a brain in a vat. But it changes nothing to this reality, so in the end, it's the only thing I can ever hope to understand.

 

[Belz...]

The main difference between my own position and the one being defended by most of the people who are arguing with me is that I am motivated by a desire to mediate in the war between science and religion. I do not believe there needs to be a war. So my actions are different in that rather than sitting on the scientific side of the fence and lobbing grenades over to the religious people, I try to engage the extremists on both sides in an attempt to get them to better understand the weaknesses of their own position, which they generally aren't aware of, and the strengths of the opposing one, which they are also not aware of.

That's a little pretentious and condescending, don't you think ?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Okay, so this is where we are.

P-zombies are possible under materialism unless we agree that mind = brain.

No, you are still sticking in "under materialism" where it's not needed.

"P-zombies are possible unless we agree that mind = brain" is correct.
They are not possible if we refuse to define what "mind" means on the grounds that it doesn't mean anything at all.

Some other sort of zombie is possible under idealism unless we agree that individual mind = objects of experience.

But individual minds ARE the sum total of what they experience.....

P-zombies are possible under idealism. Period.

Would the typical idealist agree that individual mind = objects of experience?

Yes, I guess they probably would. Or at least they would agree that an individual mind is the sum total of what that mind is aware of - which includes the objects of experience and also things like emotions.

I'm part way through the Stanford article on zombies and it's way, way more complex than we've been treating it.

Yes, it is complicated. However, I hope you can see that many of the issues in that article have indeed popped up in this thread.

For example....in the conclusion:

Some may be led to deny the possibility [of zombies] in order to make some theory come out right, but the justification of such theories should ride on the question of possibility, rather than the other way round (Chalmers 1996, 96).

This is exactly the point I ended up making over and over again. We must make sure the cart is not placed before the horse. You cannot deny that p-zombies are possible simply because you have already assumed that materialism is true. Instead, you must decide whether p-zombies are concievable (logically possible) and continue from there. Provided you can define mind and matter and can distinguish between the two of them, then p-zombies are concievable.

The only purpose of p-zombies is to establish without any shadow of a doubt that reality, as perceived by us, is dualistic. The reason there are so many arguments about concievability and possibility is that once it has been admitted that reality manifests in a dualistic way, anti-materialists have got everything they need to falsify materialism. P-zombies are a just big stick for bashing materialism, because once they have been established as possible it becomes very hard to blur the line between mind and matter and because all of the attempts to defend non-eliminative materialism depend on blurring that line.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

We sure did during my gig in the TM movement.


I wasn't suggesting solipsism; perfectly happy to have many individual minds working to keep things consistent. But now I don't understand idealism, so I have no idea whether there are external mind-stuff objects or whether it's all just in our minds.

~~ Paul

Depends on the type of idealism. Personally, I'm not defending any type of idealism. Hammegk can speak for himself. I don't believe in any "external mind-stuff".

 

[UndercoverElephant]

The same way things appear a certain way to, say, a video camera, although they aren't. Glare, for example. Cameras will show white blobs because they aren't built to compensate for that. Same for the brain, methinks.

No, you are going to have to try much harder than that.

"I am 100% certain my mind exists; but I can also see how everything that's part of it is affected by a number of circumstances in the world it is observing. I can therefore be 100% certain that the world that it is observing exists as well."

Looks like you are a dualist then.

...Of course, that's assuming he's 100% certain of it, which is an assumption of yours.

Erm, no, I think I've seen him make that claim about 250 times.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I have another question about idealism and how defensible it really is: If everything you see is an object in your mind, where exactly did we get the information required to conceptualise these things?

OK...you do know I'm not an idealist, yes?

Do you think that cats and dogs see objects? I assume they must. But they do not "conceptualise" anything.

It is a difficult subject area though. Kant famously claimed that everything must be cognised through a certain fundamental set of "categories". A.D. Smith completely disagrees with him and claims that perception does not require any prior conceptualisations.

I distinctly remember, as a young boy, that I knew nothing of the world. I had to be told. How could I imagine something I've never experienced ?

Eh? So didn't you experience anything as a toddler?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

In order to even try to understand reality, I have to have a working assumption. Otherwise I couldn't even formulate a question, let alone find the answer. A quick thought gives me two possibilities: "nothing exists" or "something exists". The former can't be of any use to me, because then no question could possibly have any meaning. Not only that, but it flies in the face of a very obvious fact: I'm aware of something, so even assuming it's all an illusion, that illusion exists.

Agreed. Unless you are Gorgias, something exists.

So we're left with the second assumption. Of course, then the question is: "what exists"?

Actually - a better question would be "what appears to exist?" or "how does reality manifest to me?" Jumping straight to "what exists" is too hasty.

Well, if I could refine my first assumption with an answer to that question, it would help tremendously. Again, I see two choices: "the world as I experience it exists in some capacity" or "It may or may not exist, but I can be sure that the observer, my mind, exists".

This is a bit confused. The world as you experience it clearly does exist in some capacity, because that is what you have already established. The "something" which you already say exists is "the world as you experience it".

But assuming the latter, that the observed universe is suspect, leads to a few problems. First of all, if what I see is possibly illusory, then I'm left with the possibility that the other people I see in that world are also non-existent.

This is called the problem of other minds. How do you know that anybody else has a mind?

If the world is real, it would be expected to be consistent, an expectation which is vindicated by the existence of science, something I can do myself. This consistency would be difficult to explain under idealism, and now it allows me to ask questions and find answers. It's already more useful than the other assumptions, isn't it ?

You do realise I am a realist, yes? In no way do I deny that the world is real. I just deny the claim that material reality is ultimate reality in the way that materialists claim it is.

Call it materialism or physicalism or whatever, but it's the only path that gives me real answers and doesn't require mental gymnastics for me to maintain.

If you don't want to do mental gymnastics, stay away from philosophers.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

That's a little pretentious and condescending, don't you think ?

Sorry if you think so. I am not trying to be pretentious and condescending. I was just answering the question I was asked. I stand by what I said. I've spent a long time talking to people about this and at different times in my life I have been an ultra-extremist on both sides of this debate. I have been an arch-skeptic who was the science & skepticism moderator at infidels.org, the scourge of apologetics websites rather like a Dr Adequate is today. I have also been an anti-realist occultist making claims about the breakdown of the structure of reality, in public, right here. I still frequent Christian sites, but my attitude and approach is very different now - and much more productive. The less extreme ones do not so readily identify me as an enemy and some of them actually listen to me instead of attacking me because they feel like they are being assaulted. I also still make posts on this board which challenge materialism and allude towards certain forms of paranormal phenomena. But I do not ask anybody else to believe me and I'm not trying to save the world and in the end I believe I am defending a form of realism which is actually more secure than materialism is. And the range of reactions is the same as that on the christian boards. The extremists react very badly to me but all sorts of less extreme people will engage with my arguments and have long and interesting threads about subjects which matter. This contrasts with somebody like lifegazer, who nobody actually takes the slightest bit of notice of other than to poke fun at.

 

[hammegk]

It's getting tough to keep up with this thread ... so, somewhat randomly ..


articulett, psst, articulett

Please respond to my questions to you:

Do you know what "epistemology" means?

Do you know what "ontology" means?

Do you contend epistemology answers onotological questions in any way?

If so, how?

If not, why do you continue to post the same irrelevant nonsense vis-a-vis this thread?

We need to distinguish between an individual mind and the Metamind.

My turn. What the heck is Metamind? Could you list any attribute other than "raw intent"?

What? I thought everything was mind. Why should the mind need to conjure up a neural system just so it can function?

My what a confused and confusing "thought" ...

I thought use 1.

everything was mind Use 2.

Why should the mind Use 3.

need to conjure up a neural system just so it can function

er, you mean "think"? Use 4.?

We agree that "thinking exists."

We might. It's a bit hard to tell.

I'm aware of thoughts and sensations and feelings and memories and such.

What is that "I"?

I have no idea what mind feels like.

"I"?

Certainly no idea what some sort of monolithic monist mind is like.

Nor does anyone else sfaik.

How about an objective idealist that believes in a God that maintains the universe but couldn’t care less what happens to humans on this nearly inconceivably tiny blue dot within the vast universe he/she/it created.

I see nothing in that conjecture I would to object to. I just plain don't know.

Then I read the article at Wikipedia and I have no idea what idealism says.

Although Geoff may not agree, I classify "hammegk" objective idealism as post-Kantian. It is a work still in progress. At the moment I'm trying to integrate the concept of the perceived-as-physical being an epiphenomena of an idealist 'what-is'.

Philosophers of mind shall pay no attention to scientists of brain.

You continue to expand the silliness quotient with that absolutely untrue comment.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Although Geoff may not agree, I classify "hammegk" objective idealism as post-Kantian.

I'm not 100% sure what your position is, so I haven't classified it at all. You can speak for yourself.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No, you are still sticking in "under materialism" where it's not needed.

"P-zombies are possible unless we agree that mind = brain" is correct.

But it is correct, by definition, under idealism. So there are no p-zombies under idealism.

But individual minds ARE the sum total of what they experience.....

Considering that everything in metaphysics is open to debate, I think you're being a bit dogmatic here. Anyway, I wasn't talking about p-zombies under idealism. I was talking about a different sort of zombie that has a mind but no objects of perception. Are you saying that this is not even conceivable? If you are, then why do you say it is conceivable to have a brain without mind under materialism?

P-zombies are possible under idealism. Period.

The article I'm reading certainly doesn't make it this simple.

This is exactly the point I ended up making over and over again. We must make sure the cart is not placed before the horse. You cannot deny that p-zombies are possible simply because you have already assumed that materialism is true. Instead, you must decide whether p-zombies are concievable (logically possible) and continue from there. Provided you can define mind and matter and can distinguish between the two of them, then p-zombies are concievable.

The question of the definition of conceivable is much more complex than this.

So what is wrong with this statement: Provided you can define mind and objects of perception and can distinguish between the two of them, then x-zombies are conceivable. Or: Provided you can define the neutral monism and Zero and can distinguish between the two of them, then y-zombies are conceivable.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Do you think that cats and dogs see objects? I assume they must. But they do not "conceptualise" anything.

That's pretty arrogant. That's stunningly arrogant. Are you sure about this concerning dolphins and apes, too? No microtubules in their brains? QM cleverly selective about only manifesting consciousness in H. sapiens microtubules? I can't wait to see the mathematics about this bit.

Even without consciousness, I could conceptualize something, in the sense that I could abstract a bunch of similar things and then use the abstract to tackle problems concerning those things.

~~ Paul