Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff, I'm still waiting for your answer to my post #2277.

Here, let me help you:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1790686&postcount=2277

From that post:

Instead of answering me you simply use word play,

And what do you think your comment about Yin and Yang was if it wasn't an attempt at clever word play instead of trying to think about the interdependence of those two concepts?

I am wasting my time talking to you, Belz. You have stopped listening.

 

[DreadNiK]

Corrected zombie argument, and where Robin goes wrong:

set H=the set of all physical characteristics of a human,
set Z=The set of all characteristics of a p-zombie
set C = The set of characteristics of conciousness

Definition of a p-zombie:

1. The set Z contains all the members of the set H
2. The set Z does not contain C

Conclusion:

3. H does not include C.

This conclusion logically follows from the definitions.

NB: Assumed definition of a human (set H*):

4. The set H* includes the set Z and the set C (human beings are conscious).

Let’s see what happens when we apply this corrected version of the zombie argument to your prime number example.

1. The set of p-prime numbers contains all the members of the set of prime numbers.
2. The set of p-prime numbers does not contain the number 7

This is just false. You already defined the set p-prime to contain all the prime numbers, and this includes 7. Therefore line 2 contradicts line 1. If you think that is the same as line 1 & 2 in the corrected zombie argument, you are mistaken.

You need to look at the actual logic, and you need to do it without first assuming your conclusion. Let’s have a look at what the argument looks like to a physicalist who has assumed his conclusion and cannot think about the logic without doing so.

RAC: Robin’s Assumed Conclusion: Consciousness is physical.

set H=the set of all physical characteristics of a human. NOTE: set H now implicitly includes set C, due to RAC.
set Z=The set of all characteristics of a p-zombie
set C = The set of characteristics of conciousness

Definition of a p-zombie:

1. The set Z contains all the members of the set H. NOTE: Set Z now also includes set C, due to RAC.
2. The set Z does not contain C. NOTE: We now have a contradiction, because we are claiming set Z does not contain C. But the contradiction is not actually with anything in the zombie argument itself, but with RAC.

Please try again, this time without making assumption RAC.

You can bold 'physical' all you like, but until you demonstrate that there are characteristics that are not physical, then you can go whistle.

RAC is not an assumption, rather it logically follows from him not making your assumption that there is a distinction between physical and non-physical human characteristics, which you time and time again not only fail to provide evidence for, but refuse to acknowledge neuroscientific evidence of the opposite. Stop insulting people.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

DreadNik:

To dispute this, you are forced to make the assumption that consciousness is non-physical, something that there is no evidence for.

Oh my God, yet another one! Is there a line of thirty more materialists behind you, each one of them incapable of thinking about the logic without assuming his conclusion is true, each one of them ready to falsely accuse me of the logical crime THEY are committing????

Here we go, yet again:

"1. A p-zombie has all the physical characteristics of a human being."

"2. A p-zombie is not conscious".

1 contradicts 2.

Wrong. 1 does not contradict 2. 1 only contradicts 2 if you start out with:

Assumption: Consciousness is physical.

OK? Without THAT assumption, that is YOUR assumption, then there is no contradiction between 1 and 2. I do not need to assume my conclusion to make 1 and 2 compatible. I simply need to stop you from assuming yours. Do you understand the difference?

My reasoning:

Humans are 'conscious' as we understand the concept of consciousness, precisely because it was a concept designed to describe 'being a human' although it may extend to other animals. We don't really have a coherent defintion of consciousness, but I think what I have said is fairly reasonable and obvious.

Sure. But it has nothing to do with the argument. I am waiting for some reasoning.

There is no evidence for any characteristic of human that is non physical.

That statement is so laden with materialistic and scientistic assumptions as to be meaningless. Of course there isn't. Can you deal with the actual zombie argument, instead of offering other arguments?

Therefore, AFAWK, all human characteristics are based on the physical. 'Conscious' is a human characteristic. Therefore either a) humans are not conscious, or P-Zombies are, or humans are p-zombies or p-zombie is a meaningless term (as I have said before) because all it describes is a
human other than oneself.

This is just an attempt to defend your assumption of your conclusion. The whole house of cards depends on the first line of your position being:

Premise : Conciousness is physical.

As soon as you are denied the right to assume your conclusion is true, your position collapses. Trying to defend that right by offering evidence from empirical, materialistic science does not help either because no empirical evidence is going to make any difference to the argument. It's irrelevant.

 

[PenguinWarrior]

Specifically, I want you to make sure that when you turn this into logic you do not change (1) from "A p-zombie has all the physical characteristics of a human being" to "A p-zombie has all the characteristics of a human being", because I think that is what you tried to do above. It just wasn't clear because you also misdefined set T and set S.

Please try again, I'm waiting.

See, the problem here is that, under materialism, "The physical properties of a human being" and "The properties of a human being" are identical, since the only kind of properties (at the fundamental level) are physical properties. Thus, under materialism, the p-zombie concept is incoherent. 1. and 2. can not be true simultaneously.

Also confusing to me is the "If we can conceive of it, whether or not it is actually possible, it can refute an idea which contradicts it" idea. How can anybody possibly think this? If I can imagine a wizard shooting fireballs from his hands, does this contradict the Laws of Thermodynamics? More relevantly, earlier in this thread (can't go back and find it, this thing is a monster) Geoff said that if we could transfer thoughts from one person's brain to another, that it would create problems for his metaphysic (I believe so, anyway, it's been a while since I read it) and then proceeded to attempt to show that this was impossible, based on his knowledge of neural networks, and their holographic method of storage. But I can certainly conceive of transferring one person's thoughts into another person's mind, so surely if materialism is refuted, then so is Geoff's pet metaphysic?

Also, hello people, I'm new (although I've been lurking around for literally years). This p-zombie argument annoyed me sufficiently to register . So, hello.

 

[DreadNiK]

DreadNik:



Oh my God, yet another one! Is there a line of thirty more materialists behind you, each one of them incapable of thinking about the logic without assuming his conclusion is true, each one of them ready to falsely accuse me of the logical crime THEY are committing????

Here we go, yet again:



Wrong. 1 does not contradict 2. 1 only contradicts 2 if you start out with:

Assumption: Consciousness is physical.

OK? Without THAT assumption, that is YOUR assumption, then there is no contradiction between 1 and 2. I do not need to assume my conclusion to make 1 and 2 compatible. I simply need to stop you from assuming yours. Do you understand the difference?



Sure. But it has nothing to do with the argument. I am waiting for some reasoning.



That statement is so laden with materialistic and scientistic assumptions as to be meaningless. Of course there isn't. Can you deal with the actual zombie argument, instead of offering other arguments?



This is just an attempt to defend your assumption of your conclusion. The whole house of cards depends on the first line of your position being:

Premise : Conciousness is physical.

As soon as you are denied the right to assume your conclusion is true, your position collapses. Trying to defend that right by offering evidence from empirical, materialistic science does not help either because no empirical evidence is going to make any difference to the argument. It's irrelevant.

You are now officially talking outright bollocks. You have failed utterly to address my point that there is evidence for physical human characteristics but NO evidence for any non-physical characteristics. Therefore it is you doing the assuming, and the rest of us going on the evidence. You are starting to look somewhat imbecilic.

But then, your 'philosophy' doesn't like concern itself with irritating things like facts and evidence and reality.

 

[DreadNiK]

You can't ignore 'empirical evidence' (I.E the only worthwhile kind of evidence) and then offer no evidence of any sort whatsoever to support your assumption that there are non-physical characteristics of humans.

You can claim there 'might be' non-physical characteristics, but that is not what you are doing, you are starting from that assumption, just as we start from our assumption, but we're the ones supporting our assumption with evidence.

I recall you being quick to accuse others of 'creationist thinking'. Creationists also refuse empirical evidence and offer no evidence of their own. You are the 'creationist'. See my sig for what else you are...

 

[DreadNiK]

DreadNik:

Oh my God, yet another one! Is there a line of thirty more materialists behind you, each one of them incapable of thinking about the logic without assuming his conclusion is true, each one of them ready to falsely accuse me of the logical crime THEY are committing????

Another one of your 'you're all so stupid I alone am right' assertions.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

On Assuming Conclusions

There seems to be a widely-held false belief hanging around this thread like a bad smell. That belief is as follows:

If you do not asssume that consciousness is physical, you must be assuming that it is non-physical.

This is a fallacy. It is logically equivalent to claiming that If I do not assume that John is a bacheolor, I must be assuming that he isn't a bachelor. There is a middle that has been excluded illegitimately: the possility of not assuming anything at all about Johns marital status.

Does everybody follow that?

You can then construct an assumption-free argument about John, for example:

John is only 2.
Therefore John is not a bachelor.

or

John's divorce went through 60 seconds ago.
Therefore John is a bachelor.

Now - to return to the zombie argument:

set H=the set of all physical characteristics of a human (NOTE: No assumptions about consciousness have been made. Can you do it?)

I am betting at this point, most of you will say "No, we can't."

Why not? The whole point in starting this thread was a rant about the rank stupidity materialists claiming they couldn't differentiate between minds (consciousness) and brain processes (matter). I think we have established that nobody wants to do that anymore. So when we say "all the physical characteristics of a human" it is quite clear that we mean - you just have to remember that you can indeed tell the difference between minds and brain processes. Or are you going to go back to the insane claim that you cannot do so? No? Good. So you can differentiate between them. Therefore you should have no problem in defining set H without making any assumptions about minds or consciousess. Why should you be able to do this? Because set H doesn't make any claims about minds and consciousness. The only reason you think that it does is because you have already assumed that consciousness must be physical.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Another one of your 'you're all so stupid I alone am right' assertions.

What else am I supposed to say? I am faced with a thread-full of people who apparently cannot tell the difference between not assuming John is a bachelor and assuming John is not a bachelor.

Then they accuse me of not understanding logic.

 

[DreadNiK]

Then they accuse me of not understanding logic.

Because you apparently don't.

 

[DreadNiK]

You are CLEARLY arguing that p-zombies are different from humans. Since you say they have all the physical characteristics of humans, then the difference MUST be non-physical. Therefore you are assuming the existence of non-physical characteristics.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You can bold 'physical' all you like, but until you demonstrate that there are characteristics that are not physical, then you can go whistle.

"I will continue to assume my conclusion! Until you can prove John is not a bachelor, I will start all my arguments with the assumption that he is!"

RAC is not an assumption, rather it logically follows from him not making your assumption that there is a distinction between physical and non-physical human characteristics.....

That isn't an assumption. The first two pages of this thread were an animated rant against people making this claim. I do not have to assume that there is a distinction between physical and non-physical human characteristics any more than I have to assume that one can distinguish between a conscious experience and a brain process.

So I have assumed NOTHING. I have correctly pointed out that we can distinguish between physical and mental properties/characteristics/predicates. To compare it to the john example, I have started by not assuming that John is a bachelor and not assuming he is not (I do not assume that consciousness is physical and I do not assume that it is not). I have then made an argument based upon an an analysis of concepts - starting with the observation that we can indeed distinguish between physical and mental concepts.

So yet again I have been accused of assuming John is not a bachelor when all I have actually done is not assumed John is a bachelor.

When is the penny going to drop?

 

[DreadNiK]

When is the penny going to drop?

I don't know. We keep explaining why you are wrong...all we can do is keep trying .

How about this:

1. There are physical characteristics of humans, this is supported by definition and evidence.
2. There *might* be 'non-physical' characteristics of some sort. There is no evidence for this.

Therefore, changing the *might* to *are* requires an assumption, or evidence.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

See, the problem here is that, under materialism, "The physical properties of a human being" and "The properties of a human being" are identical......

You mean "If I assume my conclusion is true, then....."

, since the only kind of properties (at the fundamental level) are physical properties. Thus, under materialism, the p-zombie concept is incoherent. 1. and 2. can not be true simultaneously.

Now think about the logic before you assume your conclusion. P-zombies are indeed incompatible with materialism. However, P-zombies remain conceptually possible. This isn't a problem for P-zombies. It is a problem for materialism.

Also confusing to me is the "If we can conceive of it, whether or not it is actually possible, it can refute an idea which contradicts it" idea. How can anybody possibly think this? If I can imagine a wizard shooting fireballs from his hands, does this contradict the Laws of Thermodynamics?

That is a valid question and it is answered in detail in Nagels six-page paper. Please read it:

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

More relevantly, earlier in this thread (can't go back and find it, this thing is a monster) Geoff said that if we could transfer thoughts from one person's brain to another, that it would create problems for his metaphysic (I believe so, anyway, it's been a while since I read it) and then proceeded to attempt to show that this was impossible, based on his knowledge of neural networks, and their holographic method of storage. But I can certainly conceive of transferring one person's thoughts into another person's mind, so surely if materialism is refuted, then so is Geoff's pet metaphysic?

Actually, this is an interesting example. You can imagine this very easily, just as you can imagine p-zombies quite easily. Yet both, I believe, are impossible in reality. In both cases, it is the same conceptual error which results in us being able to readily concieve of something impossible. The reason you can imagine being able to transfer thoughts is because you can easily tell the difference between a mind and a brain and it is not obvious why or how there could be a neccesary connection between them. If this neccesary connection, and the reasons behind it, were intellectually transparent to us then neither p-zombies nor thought-transfer would seem remotely credible.

Also, hello people, I'm new (although I've been lurking around for literally years). This p-zombie argument annoyed me sufficiently to register . So, hello.

How many years....?

Hello.

 

[DreadNiK]

I think the key problem is that JG views physicalism/materialism/whatever it is as a metaphysical assumption, rather than the fact it is based the evidence to hand.

And as we have seen, he doesn't like pesky evidence getting in the way of his worldview or supporting someone elses. Words alone are enough for him. Sound familiar? Religious?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You are now officially talking outright bollocks. You have failed utterly to address my point that there is evidence for physical human characteristics but NO evidence for any non-physical characteristics.

And if I unpack what you mean by "evidence", how far do you I will have to go before I find an assumption that materialism is true is critically underpinning the argument?

You are trying to use empirical evidence to justify feeding ontological assumptions into metaphysical arguments. And you think it is me who is talking bollocks?

Therefore it is you doing the assuming, and the rest of us going on the evidence. You are starting to look somewhat imbecilic.

No, I'm just astonished at the number of people who aren't capable of seeing that "Not assuming that John is a bachelor" is not logically equivalent to "Assuming John is not a bachelor".

But then, your 'philosophy' doesn't like concern itself with irritating things like facts and evidence and reality.

Empty accusation. At least I understand logic.

 

[DreadNiK]

Please address this then:

You are CLEARLY arguing that p-zombies are different from humans. Since you say they have all the physical characteristics of humans, then the difference MUST be non-physical. Therefore you are assuming the existence of non-physical characteristics.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You can't ignore 'empirical evidence'

You can if you are having a metaphysical argument about concepts.

You don't seriously believe that empirical data can distinguish between metaphysical positions, do you?

(I.E the only worthwhile kind of evidence) and then offer no evidence of any sort whatsoever to support your assumption that there are non-physical characteristics of humans.

Errr....no.

I repeat myself yet again: I have not assumed John is not a bachelor. I have assumed nothing. I start by examining CONCEPTS.

You can claim there 'might be' non-physical characteristics, but that is not what you are doing, you are starting from that assumption.....

WHERE??????

You are seeing things which aren't there. Please point to exactly where the assumption is made? Why do I need to assume consciousness is non-physical in order to observe that minds can be distinguished from brains???

, just as we start from our assumption, but we're the ones supporting our assumption with evidence.

So you admit you assume your conclusion. That is a start. Your evidence is not relevant to the debate. There is no evidence from science to support the claim that materialism is true, or that it is false, or that any other of the main metaphysical positions are true are false. Therefore it is irrelevant. Therefore it does not justify your assumption of your conclusion.

I recall you being quick to accuse others of 'creationist thinking'. Creationists also refuse empirical evidence and offer no evidence of their own. You are the 'creationist'. See my sig for what else you are...

If the creationist is rejecting empirical evidence about metaphysical questions, he's probably correct to do so. He would only be mistaken if he rejects empirical evidence about empirical questions. Understand the difference?

 

[Mercutio]

What clearer evidence than one's own awareness? I believe that is the issue. We won't find much in cutting up animals' brains, or in brewing up elaborate theories. The "laboratory" is really closer than our noses.

We tried introspection, in the beginnings of the science of Psychology. It is a terribly flawed methodology. The problem of using our awareness as evidence is that we can easily demonstrate times when we are influenced by things that are out of our awareness, and times when we claim to be aware of things that we can empirically demonstrate we are not aware of. The nature of our awareness is problematic as well. We can demonstrate that a perceptual experience that feels unitary is actually multiply processed in parallel in several different brain areas, with no one place where anything resembling our awareness shows up. (There is some evidence that the "feeling of awareness" portion of our experience is the firing of spindle cells, and is independent of any of the other visual or other sensory processing.) We simply cannot take our own introspective accounts as bedrock. It is a house of cards.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Might I suggest a fresh start? Geoff, why don't you present your complete zombie argument one more time, in one thread. Give us a short summary of the argument, the premises, and the conclusions. I, for one, am no longer sure what you are arguing.

~~ Paul

Edited to add: I meant to present the argument in one post.