Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

What does "mind" refer to when spoken by a p-zombie?

Nothing at all, presumably. The p-zombie in question is deluded.

 

[hammegk]

What does "mind" refer to when spoken by a p-zombie?

What the output of any programmed machine "means" when it provides the answer by 'running a program' and providing output. In a human's case let's call it the Maximum Perceived Benefit program.

Epiphenomena less complex than us have less complex 'programs' at their disposal. Their only possible answer might be yes/maybe later/no.

 

[Belz...]

Why is that? Couldn't you be a brain in a vat?

I suppose it's a bare possibility. But so is me beign part of a simulation of some kind, in which case my very mind is an illusion. It's also a bare possibility.

No, I don't agree with that at all. I can imagine Einsteinian 4-dimensional space-time, but I've never experienced it. All I have experienced is good old-fashioned Newtonian space and time.

You can't "imagine" 4-dimensional space-time. How could you possibly visualise it ? You can't imagine a dog if you've never seen or experienced other life forms, can you ? Can you imagine a universe if you have no experience or conception whatsoever ?

Ah, this is slightly different. Sure - somebody entirely deprived of sensory stimulation of any type for their whole life would arguably be incapable of imagining anything at all.

Which is the case of minds imagining a universe. If you stand by your above quote, idealism is impossible.

Dialetical Neutral Monism attacks this problem right from the outset. The central claim is that duality and unity have a sort of identity. That is why I am forever repeating the mantra "0 = 1 + -1". In this way, a unity (0) is shown to be equal to a duality (1 and -1). DNM claims that this pattern underlies the whole of reality. It is related to Taoism which makes the same claim, In Taoism the following is called "the diagram of the supreme ultimate":

OOoohh. Kinda like trinitarianism. God's three people but really only one.

Yin is distinguishable from Yang but they are nevertheless utterly inseperable. You can't have one without the other.

They're still two things. It's dualism.

The only valid way to defend materialism is to deny that the word "mind" refers to anything.

That's because we're still working with your altered meanings of both materialism and mind.

 

[Belz...]

It would be if I declared the existence of a soul as a premise to the argument and then used this premise to claim I'd come to a conclusion that souls exist - but I haven't done this.

Are you saying that your position is in no way religiously motivated ?

 

[chriswl]

Nothing at all, presumably. The p-zombie in question is deluded.

But deluded in a very precise way. If p-zombies are truly indistinguishable from conscious humans they will use words like "mind" in exactly the same way that we use them. How do they manage this if they have no subjective experience themselves to refer to? When p-zombies insist (as they will) that of course they have subjective experiences and that there is nothing that they are more certain of, they are not lying (that would definitely involve different brain states). They have learnt how say these kinds of things of things in the same way that we have learnt them. How else can you explain the coincidence that their arguments agree with ours?

So, if p-zombies arguments in favour of the existence of mind aren't really arguments about mind at all, just stuff that they've learnt to say, why do they become arguments about mind when uttered by a conscious person? They are the same arguments.

 

[hammegk]

Yup. And in the end only *you* can choose for yourself to believe that you *might be* conscious -- immaterialism -- or that at 100% certainty you are not conscious -- materialism.

Or, of course, remain a silly dualist.

 

[chriswl]

Yup. And in the end only *you* can choose for yourself to believe that you *might be* conscious -- immaterialism -- or that at 100% certainty you are not conscious -- materialism.

That's just what a p-zombie might say! And even if you aren't a p-zombie, if there is some private thing going on internally, I have no idea whether your private something is in any way like my private something. If we were somehow able to compare notes, to confirm we were talking about the same thing, then this would give us a method of differentiating p-zombies from non-p-zombies just by trying to discuss our experience of consciousness with them, and this is forbidden by definition.

So, when we agree that we are conscious them we are just agreeing that we have some private thing, whose details we are unable to share, to which we have given the name "consciousness". But this is an utter waste of time because we have no idea if we are talking about the same private thing.

 

[hammegk]

Consciousness as defined by ???

Each of "us", alone, makes our choice of (logically defensible) monism, or uses what most have for a default, (indefensible) interactive dualism.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I suppose it's a bare possibility. But so is me beign part of a simulation of some kind, in which case my very mind is an illusion. It's also a bare possibility.

That is more than enough.

You can't "imagine" 4-dimensional space-time.

How do you know that?

How could you possibly visualise it?

I don't visualise it.

You can't imagine a dog if you've never seen or experienced other life forms, can you?

Maybe not.

Can you imagine a universe if you have no experience or conception whatsoever ?

I already answered that. No.

Which is the case of minds imagining a universe. If you stand by your above quote, idealism is impossible.

Eh? I have no idea how you reached that conclusion.

OOoohh. Kinda like trinitarianism. God's three people but really only one.

Too woo for you? That's why I usually stick with "0 = 1 + -1" instead of refering to Taoism.

They're still two things. It's dualism.

No it isn't. Substance Dualism is completely different to this. Substance dualism simply claims that reality is dualistic. NM claims that duality is identical with unity and that reality is monistic. There is a massive difference between them.

That's because we're still working with your altered meanings of both materialism and mind.

Wrong. You can define matter and mind any which way you like. So long as you define mind at all, the materialist is stuffed. It's either a meaningless definition or it's a definition which falsifies materialism.

This is now the 2nd longest thread in the R&P database. The 3rd longest was another of my threads where I challenged people to define mind and matter however they d*mned well wanted to, and demonstrated that however they defined "mind", they were in trouble. By the end of that the thread the only person who was still being silly enough offer a definition of "mind" was Kevin Lowe, who ended up in a logical meltdown because of it. On top of that, nobody was able to provide a sensible definition of "material" either.

Unless you can provide better definitions than mine, mine stand. Feel free to try.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What does "mind" refer to when spoken by a p-zombie?

And what does it mean when a p-zombie philosopher utters the same words as a normal philosopher arguing for the conceivability of p-zombies?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Then what were you talking about?

Brain processes.

Nothing at all, presumably. The p-zombie in question is deluded.

So a person without a mind can be deluded.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Are you saying that your position is in no way religiously motivated ?

I am absolutely saying this, yes. My religious position is the result of my philosophical and scientific views. It does NOT drive my philosophical and scientific views. Perhaps it would help if I explained how I got here. A few years back, when I was still part of the admin team at the secular web, I had reached a point where I had come to the conclusion that the only way that something could come from nothing was the same way 1 and -1 come from 0. This was certainly NOT based on any knowledge of philosophy or any religious convictions because at the time I had none of either. It was based upon observations like this being the way that "something comes from nothing" in QM (particle/anti-particle pairs popping out of the void and then anihilating), from observations that all of the energy/matter in the Universe exactly cancelled out the gravitational energy (leaving a grand total of nothing at all), and from the observation that this pattern of "0 = 1 + -1" popped up all over the place - not only in physics but in life in general (It's just as horrible falling out of love as it is wonderfull falling in love, etc...)

So ignorant was I of religion and philosophy that, rather like lifegazer, I mistakenly believed that I had come up with a new idea. One evening I was excitedly trying to explain this to a friend of mine (who thought I was on the verge of losing my mind, such was my insistence that I was correct and that this was THE ANSWER). After a little while of looking a bit bemused he suddenly said "Geoff, you are talking about Yin and Yang." This stopped me in my tracks. Yin and Yang was mystical woo. Not only that, but the Taoists who invented the concept shunned experimentation as a waste of time - so they couldn't possibly have arrived at the same conclusion for the same reason. But what was very clear to me was that they had indeed arrived at exactly the same conclusion. That was my entry point into Religion and Philosophy. If one wants to understand and learn new things then one must follow repeating patterns like following Alice's rabbit down the hole. I wanted to understand why and how Taoism had provided the same answer that science seemed to be suggesting. I wanted to know what else I could learn from Taoism. So, no, my metaphysical position was not being driven by religion. It was driven by the mysteries at the borders of science and by thinking about the issues for myself. Much later on, some elements of religion became more important to me, but you have to understand that I did not just wake up one day and decide to ditch atheistic materialism because "I wanted fuzzy warm feelings" or because "I needed to believe in God and the afterlife". Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No it isn't. Substance Dualism is completely different to this. Substance dualism simply claims that reality is dualistic. NM claims that duality is identical with unity and that reality is monistic. There is a massive difference between them.

And, in case it's ever handy, neutral monism could argue that a trinity is identical with unity:

1 + 2 + -3 = 0

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But deluded in a very precise way. If p-zombies are truly indistinguishable from conscious humans they will use words like "mind" in exactly the same way that we use them. How do they manage this if they have no subjective experience themselves to refer to?

I can't give you a better answer than hammegk did.

Chris - nobody actually believes p-zombies are possible in reality. This is a debate about whether they are logically/conceptually possible.

There is a very good paper on this subject by Thomas Nagel called "Concieving the impossible and the Mind/Body Problem".

http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1172/conceiving.pdf

Nagel basically argues that the real problem with p-zombies is that depending on how we look at it we find them both utterly plausible AND completely impossible. From a purely conceptual point of view, there is no reason why we cannot conceive of a p-zombie. But given everything we know about minds and brains we are also fairly certain that they could never actually exist. This, he argues, points to a problem with the conceptual framework we are currently using to think about the problem. I think he's dead right.

When p-zombies insist (as they will) that of course they have subjective experiences and that there is nothing that they are more certain of, they are not lying (that would definitely involve different brain states). They have learnt how say these kinds of things of things in the same way that we have learnt them. How else can you explain the coincidence that their arguments agree with ours?

So, if p-zombies arguments in favour of the existence of mind aren't really arguments about mind at all, just stuff that they've learnt to say, why do they become arguments about mind when uttered by a conscious person? They are the same arguments.

So its a good job they can't actually exist. I agree with most of your post. It is very hard to imagine how a non-conscious human could possibly, for example, produce a great work of art which expresses the human condition. Artwork of this sort requires conscious experience because it is the ineffable components of this experience that the artwork is attempting to express. So I am guessing p-zombies would be poor artists....

There are a hundred and one reasons why we can't really imagine a p-zombie behaving exactly like a human. But there is still no problem conceptualising your basic p-zombie.

 

[nescafe]

Wrong. You can define matter and mind any which way you like. So long as you define mind at all, the materialist is stuffed. It's either a meaningless definition or it's a definition which falsifies materialism.

*yawn*
So you are trying to rule out any means by which anyone but yourself can make any progress in this conversation. Not unexpected, considering your conception of truth:

I ought to explain what truth means to me. For me, there are only language games - no absolute language in which to express absolute truth. So any statement in English which appears to be true is only true within the context of the language game it is occuring in.

(bolding mine)
You do have great skill in playing language games.

Unless you can provide better definitions than mine, mine stand. Feel free to try.

Pretty hard to do, when you insist that your definitions are the only ones that can stand, and then resort to your Taoist interpretation of neutral monism when people challenge your definitions. Your understanding on eliminative materialism has been challenged several times in this thread alone, and each time you have insisted it was incoherent primarily based on your (tautological, full of QM woo) definition of mind.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

That's just what a p-zombie might say! And even if you aren't a p-zombie, if there is some private thing going on internally, I have no idea whether your private something is in any way like my private something. If we were somehow able to compare notes, to confirm we were talking about the same thing, then this would give us a method of differentiating p-zombies from non-p-zombies just by trying to discuss our experience of consciousness with them, and this is forbidden by definition.

So, when we agree that we are conscious them we are just agreeing that we have some private thing, whose details we are unable to share, to which we have given the name "consciousness". But this is an utter waste of time because we have no idea if we are talking about the same private thing.

That just means we will never know for sure whether my experience of red is the same as your experience of red. I can still know that I am concious and I can still know what red looks like to me.

 

[I less than three logic]

Unless you can provide better definitions than mine, mine stand. Feel free to try.

Oh, oh, let me try.

Mind: An ancient and flawed concept created to explain how people are capable of experience, and developed by people that lacked both the base knowledge and the tools to gather the appropriate information to adequetly define such a concept. The term, however, has persisted despite its flaws. It is now used in the realm of science as a convenient way to refer to how the brain processes and perceived signals from a variety of sensory organs and its own internal processes, and in the realm of philosophy it is used as a convenient means for deploying the equivocation fallacy to sustain an argument for no apparent reason.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Brain processes.

Ah, not minds then.....

So a person without a mind can be deluded.

~~ Paul

I guess so. Delusion is just a severe version of an incorrect belief. A zombie is like an android. If you had an android fitted with two front-mounted cameras for eyes, you could probably create some sort of visual illusion which was capable of fooling the android into believing it was looking at something which it wasn't actually looking at. Put it into, say, a flight simulator, and ask it where it is and it will tell you it is sitting in the cockpit of a 747, 10 miles above London. That sounds very much like it is deluded, regardless of the fact that it is entirely without a mind.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

And, in case it's ever handy, neutral monism could argue that a trinity is identical with unity:

1 + 2 + -3 = 0

~~ Paul

Occam makes short work of this.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Wrong. You can define matter and mind any which way you like. So long as you define mind at all, the materialist is stuffed. It's either a meaningless definition or it's a definition which falsifies materialism.

Or it's a definition that makes mind equivalent to something physical.

~~ Paul