Materialists......

[Apathia]

Behaving utterly human is selfhood, self-awareness, self-consciousness. To say that it requires these things is circular. We have no evidence for them other than our behavior (public and private). There is no need to invent some fictional "requirement".

We don't have souls; we are souls. Being a soul entails a sense of transcendence, that we are more than our behavior and more than the sum of our parts. Whatever the metaphysical view or attempted scientific way of putting it, we have "Heart." we function as Heartful persons everyday.

But speaking of "Heart" is very unscientific. Talking about the quality of Subjectivity that makes the concept of P-Zombie absurd is inadmissible.
We must objectify, objectify, objectify.
The evidence of your self-awareness, that your sock puppet isn't empty, is right in front of you, but isn't allowed because it's only anecdotal.
Yet our humanity is in this anecdote.

Something is lost in reducing being to behavior, and that's just what P-Zombie can only lack. It's not clear to an individual what that is if he is rushing about doing ad reacting. It takes for still time and some quality of intimacy time with other souls.

And I'm not saying you don't have that quality in your life. it just gets excluded from academic considerations.

 

[Darat]

Right....it's just that they are completely motionless and doing absolutely nothing? Sorry, I don't know what you mean. A completely paralysed person exhibits no behaviour at all. Certainly no "motor behaviour" - and it's looking like this term is about to make it's presence felt in this thread...

...snip...

Yet look at this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5167938.stm
"A sensor implanted in a paralysed man's brain has enabled him to control objects by using his thoughts alone."

 

[Apathia]

Furthermore, any person who has seriously managed to convince themselves that conciousness is indistinguishable from behaviour is too far gone for me to be able to say anything to change their minds.

Some people are being what they consider to be good academics about the subject and that entails Subjectivity being banned from relevance to the topic.
Others need a metanoia.

Plus there seems to be no shortage of other people here who are willing to provide answers to our trio of behaviourists, so I don't have to.

I naively thought that something I might say could serve to toggle persons into seeing how their own self-consciouness relates to the discussion going on here. I was mistaken.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

OK, let's try and get this beast of a thread (now the longest on the R&P database, having exceeded Kurious Kathy's "The Gospel" some time last night) moving forwards again....


http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~seager/zombie.html

"Are Zombies Logically Possible? (and why it matters)"

And, contrary to the opinions, or at least the hopes of many, the idea of zombies is important. For to claim that zombies are logically possible is to deny a very common form of physicalism. I want to emphasize this point: it is the mere logical possibility of zombies that refutes physicalism. If, say, my philosophical zombie is logically possible then there is a possible being which shares all my physical properties but does not share all my mental properties. Thus mental properties are non-physical properties and the physicalist assertion that everything is ultimately physical is false. An ontologically liberal functionalist cannot escape either, since the idea of a 'functional zombie' is a simple extension of the idea of a 'physical zombie'. In fact, if, as seems reasonable, we assume that functional properties logically supervene upon physical properties, then the possibility of a philosophical zombie refutes functionalist physicalism no less than it refutes 'bare physicalism' (see Chalmers 1996, especially chs. 3 and 4).

This is a real problem. I've sometimes heard it said that the idea of zombies -- like that of certain other bizarre, purely philosophical thought experiments -- is so weird that we just don't know what to say about them, or that we just have no way to assess their logical possibility. And therefore (therefore?) we needn't spend any time worrying about them. Not good. This is tantamount to saying that we don't know what to say about the truth of physicalism and have no way to assess its truth or falsehood. Good friends of physicalism ought not to take this line. They know perfectly well what to say about zombies: such monstrosities are not logically possible. The question is whether there is any way to convince someone who is neutral about physicalism of this without begging the question.

There is the crux of it all. How does one refute the claim that zombies are possible without it looking to a neutral person like there has been an assumption of the conclusion.

Consider that the mere denial of physicalism does not entail that zombies are possible. The former is entailed by the existence of Cartesian possible worlds -- worlds in which there are non-physical entities and properties: mental substances possessing mental properties as postulated by Descartes. But there could be Cartesian worlds even if philosophical zombies are logically impossible. So it is not at all the case that the zombie hypothesis is just a fancy way of dressing up anti-physicalism.

This paper is spot on. This is exactly the argument I just had with Robin and Paul. They (and others) have tended towards claiming that in hypothesising a zombie, you have assumed anti-physicalism. The author of this paper correctly rejects this line of argument, having just stated that he wants to avoid being accused of begging the question.

Of course, we don't have a very clear idea of exactly what makes a property a physical versus a non-physical property. But we can use the rationale of the zombie argument itself to help us get clearer about such properties. Here is a first pass at a sufficient condition for being what I will call a radically non-physical property:

(R) if some thing, x, has a property, P, which is such that it is logically possible for something physically indistinguishable from x to lack that property then P is a radically non-physical property7.

My philosophical zombie, if it is logically possible, will reveal that there are mental properties of consciousness which are radically non-physical properties by this criterion. And that seems intuitively correct. However, some properties which intuitively present no difficulties for a physicalist outlook are hereby declared radically non-physical. Any relational property will come out as non-physical by this criterion. For example, a Canadian one dollar coin has a possible physical duplicate which is not money at all. However, it is easy to extend our criterion of non-physicality to cover relational properties thus:

(R*) if some thing, x, has a property, P, which is such that there is a possible world which is physically identical to the actual world but in which x's physical duplicate lacks P, then P is a radically non-physical property.

Note that the specification of the possible world that tests for non-physicality might have to include the total history of the world. If the actual world was in fact created five minutes ago then it may be that there is no real money in it (only lots of perfect counterfeits), if one defines money in terms of being printed by a legitimately authorized mint (as opposed to miraculously appearing out of nowhere with the rest of the world and being treated as money by the similarly newly created denizens of that world). Thus test worlds may have to be totally physically identical to the actual world. This identity might even have to extend through 'future history' as well. For example, it is conceivable that the property of inertia is a relational (and physical of course) property depending upon the total distribution of matter throughout all of space and time. So if -- as seems unlikely to me -- properties of consciousness are in fact relational properties then it will be the logical possibility of whole 'zombie worlds' that will reveal that such properties are radically non-physical.

We might now define a rather weak form of physicalism simply as:

(P) There are no radically non-physical properties.

Now it is clear that the mere logical possibility of zombies is enough to refute physicalism insofar as it reveals the radically non-physical nature of at least some mental properties and insofar as any reasonable version of physicalism (such as (P) for example) rejects the existence of such radically non-physical properties.

I agree with all of that.

Showing that philosophical zombies are logically impossible would thus make the world safer for physicalism. But on the other hand, a proof of the impossibility of zombies which rested upon a premise asserting or implying the truth of physicalism would be worthless. That would just beg the question.

And I've spent the past ten pages attempting to prove exactly this. However you are going to deny the possibility of zombies, you MUST NOT do it by implying or asserting that physicalism is true.

Unfortunately for the anti-zombist, the rest of the paper concludes that if this can be done, we are still waiting to be shown how.

Some possibilities that are mere logical possibilities would thus have some very significant consequences for physicalism. Physicalists ought to be worried about them, and seek some arguments independent of their physicalism to show that these are only apparent logical possibilities. I have argued that Kirk's efforts do not succeed, but perhaps there are other ways to show that zombies are no more possible than square circles, or colourless green ideas.

The paper shows that zombies do not have to be nomologically possible in order to to threaten physicalism. They merely have to be logically possible. If the physicalist wants to defend physicalism from the attack of the zombies he is going to have to show that they are actually in the same category as square circles, or the parents of the number 327 and he must do so without begging the question. He can't. Therefore physicalism is false.

The beauty of the zombie argument is that it legitimately places the burden of proof onto the physicalist. It manages to do this precisely because the conceptual framework we start from already expresses the dualistic nature of our experience of reality and it is this dualistic set of concepts which allows us to conclude that zombies are possible. If our language and conceptual structure was naturally monistic/materialistic then the burden of proof would be on the zombist.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So the difference between assuming your conclusion and not doing so is that people who assume their conclusion actually feed the conclusion itself ("The Bible is true", "Materialism is true") into the start of the argument rather than allowing the conclusion to follow naturally from the premises. This is either done quite explicity, or it is done implictly by saying something like "The Bible is the word of God". The theist in this case implictly means "the Bible is true", but hasn't quite said it.

Although a theist could say that without meaning that the Bible is necessarily all true, so it's not a dead giveaway. Question begging can become quite subtle, buried in long implication chains in the premises.

For example "A zombie exists as a complete physical copy of a human-complete-with-mind, but without the mind" sounds to me as if it directly implies that mind is not physical. Yet you are arguing that it is not question begging.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Imagine you are a creationist. You come across the following argument:

1) Evolution says it took billions of years.
2) The Bible says it took 7 days.
C) Therefore the Bible is wrong.

You don't like this, because you are trying to avoid concluding (C). Is it valid to then say "But if the Bible is true, then (1) must be wrong"? Does (1) contain a hidden assumption that the Bible is false."? The creationist has no case. In order to make the accusation that the argument assumes its conclusion, it is he who has to assume his conclusion - and he does so explicitly when he says "If the Bible is true then...."

All the creationist has to say is that (C) does not follow from the premises. I'm confused by this example.

Imagine you are a Robin. You come across the following argument:

1) Zombies are physically identical to humans but mindless.
2) Humans have minds.
C) Therefore minds are non-physical.

You don't like this, because you are trying to avoid concluding (C). Is it valid to then say "But if materialism is true, then (1) must be wrong?" Does (1) contain a hidden assumption that the physicalism is false."? Robin has no case either. In order to make the accusation that the argument assumes its conclusion, it is he who has to assume his conclusion - and he does so explicitly when he says "If physicalism is true then...."

It seems to me that (1) contains the assumption that minds are nonphysical. That is why I'm asking questions about question begging.

Meanwhile, I don't think Robin did what you say he did. I think he was also confused about question begging, but I can't speak for him.

~~ Paul

 

[chriswl]

To the behaviourists in this thread:

I'm not sure it is worth my while taking the time to respond to your attempts to defend behaviourism. As I already said, behaviourism with respect to philosophy of mind is so far beyond the pale that it has effectively become irrelevant.

So it's such a dead idea that no one needs to consider it? No offence, but I'll take the word of this site over that of a first year undergraduate who refuses to read anything about behaviourism anyway.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/behavior.htm

Several recent developments inside and beside the mainstream of "cognitive science" -- though their proponents have not been keen to style themselves "behaviorists" -- appear to be rather behavioristic. Semantic externalism is the view that "meanings ain't in the head" (Putnam 1975: 227) but depend, rather, on environmental factors; especially on sensory and behavioral intercourse with the referents of the referring thoughts or expressions. If emphasis on the outward or behavioral aspects of thought or intelligence -- and attendant de-emphasis of inward experiential or inner procedural aspects -- is the hallmark of behaviorism, semantic externalism is, on its face, behavioristic (though this is seldom remarked). Emphasis (as by Burge 1979) on social (besides the indexical, or sensory-behavioral) determinants of reference -- on what Putnam called "the linguistic division of labor" -- lends this view a distinct Wittgensteinean flavor besides. Such externalist "causal theories" of reference, although far from unquestioned orthodoxy, are currently among the leading cognitive scientific contenders. Less orthodox, but even more behavioristic, is the procedural externalism advocated by Andy Clark (2001), inspired by work in "Situated Cognition, Distributed and Decentralized Cognition, Real-World Robotics, and Artificial Life" (Clark 2001: abstract); identifying thought with "complex and iterated processes which continually loop between brain, body, and technological environment"; according to which the "intelligent process just is the spatially and temporally extended one which zig-zags between brain, body, and world" (Clark 2001: 132). Perhaps most importantly, the influential connectionist hypothesis that the brain does parallel processing of distributed representations, rather than serial processing of localized (language-like) representations, also waxes behavioristic. In parallel systems, typically, initial programming (comparable to innate mechanisms) is minimal and the systems are "trained-up" to perform complex tasks over a series of trails, by a process somewhat like operant shaping.

The enduring cogency of behaviorism's challenge to the scientific bona fides of consciousness means that methodologically, at least, there seems no viable alternative to "practically everybody in cognitive science" remaining -- if not "a behaviorist of one sort or another" (Fodor 2001: 13-14) -- at least, behavioristic in some manner. Cognitive Science killed Behaviorism, they say. Still, Cognitive Science seems entitled to its last name only on condition that it retain a good measure of behavioristic conscience.

So the word "behaviourist" is a bit of a no-no, but the ideas haven't gone away. BTW isn't Andy Clark supposed to be one of your "embodied cognition" crowd?

You referred to Dennett as a "computationalist" before, which he isn't. It seems to me he's pretty close to being a behaviourist (he studied under and is very much influenced by the logical behaviourist Gilbert Ryle) and he's pretty mainstream in cognitive science.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Yet look at this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5167938.stm
"A sensor implanted in a paralysed man's brain has enabled him to control objects by using his thoughts alone."

Sorry, Darat, but.....

 

[Jeff Corey]

Yes, I recall your 100% is "virtually 100%". If dualism as a worldview suits you, it's your "choice" so to speak. ...

Where did I say that? Either my recall or yours is faulty. See post 2740.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The paper shows that zombies do not have to be nomologically possible in order to to threaten physicalism. They merely have to be logically possible. If the physicalist wants to defend physicalism from the attack of the zombies he is going to have to show that they are actually in the same category as square circles, or the parents of the number 327. He can't. Therefore physicalism is false.

Do we agree that zombies are only conceivable if consciousness is an epiphenomenon? If you don't agree, then could you explain how a zombie is going to give the same answer as a human to a question that involves knowledge obtained by feedback (causality) from conscious experience?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sorry, Darat, but....

But what? Is that guy exhibiting behavior when he thinks the cursor around the screen?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Question begging can become quite subtle, buried in long implication chains in the premises.

For example "A zombie is a complete physical copy of a human-complete-with-mind, but without the mind" sounds to me as if it directly implies that mind is not physical. Yet you are arguing that it is not question begging.

~~ Paul

It sounds like it might be question-begging, but only because it is such a short argument. In fact, it isn't question-begging. It hasn't made any reference to physicalism at all. "Minds are not physical" is the conclusion of the argument, and this contradicts physicalism. But the mere definition of a zombie is supported by the very same set of concepts that we use all the time to think and reason about reality. You might just as well say that "the dictionary itself contains the "direct implication" that physicalism is false. By your standards, it does just this. The truth of the matter is that the dictionary itself contains a bunch of definitions which are valid and useful in so much as they are needed for any intelligable discussion about this subject. There is a very good reason for this: those terms are naturally dualistic because the way we experiences reality is itself dualistic. The terms evolved naturally, and because we can naturally distinguish between mental and physical, those terms also naturally distinguish between mental and physical. If you try to get rid of the mental ones you end up in a complete mess. You end up "Doing a Kevin Lowe" - which means you keep assigning mental words to mean physical things and then you are stuck when somebody asks you to describe mental things. You have to say something like: "What we actually experience is........Geoff-minds which are Kevin-minds which are brain processes." In doing so, you've just added a new term to the long list of other ones. Ask him what "What we actually experience" refers to and he'll say "Brain processes". Leaving us with "What we actually experience (now defined to mean brain processes) are geoff-minds which are....." It's impossible. Each time you try to get rid of the mental concepts by turning them into physical ones you are left with no words to describe the mental things. So it is not so easy to claim that the dualism inherent in our language, on which the zombie argument depends, is the result of backward-thinking by those backward mediaevil folks. That claim doesn't stand up, because even us educated 21st-century folks can't avoid the mentalistic vocabulary if we want to actually have an intelligable debate about the nature of our experience of reality.

Important conclusion: It looks very much like the dualism inherent in our language is a neccesary consequence of the way we actually experience reality.

Why is this important? Because it is this dualism which supports the possibility of zombies and there does not appear to be any valid way for the physicalist to deny this dualism. He can't do it by assuming materialism is true, because that just begs the question. And he can't do it by claiming that the dualistic vocabulary is a hangover from pre-scientific times because we can't do any better in these post-scientific times. So how's he gonna do it?

 

[Mercutio]

Either you believe that at 100% as a logical materialist, or at bit less than 100% as an illogical dualist pretending materialism is correct, or as a logical idealist (objective idealism for me, thanks).

You, and Jeff Corey, continue to not address this little problem. It isn't going to disappear no matter how you 'behave'.


Like the assumption objective perceived reality is in essence intentless matter?

Um... hammy, you were the one who pointed out, earlier, that my view is independent of monism. I don't have to make any of the assumptions you are foisting on me.

 

[Mercutio]

Nice to see Geoff using the term "motor behavior", making explicit the previously implicit assumption limiting his use to only part of the definition.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It sounds like it might be question-begging, but only because it is such a short argument. In fact, it isn't question-begging. It hasn't made any reference to physicalism at all.

I didn't say anything about physicalism. It sounds as if it directly implies that mind does not have the attribute "physical."

A zombie exists with a complete set of physical attributes of a human-complete-with-mind, but does not have the mind attribute.

Immediately, without need for derivation, we know that the mind attribute is not a physical attribute. It is directly implied by the statement. It appears to me to be assumed by the statement.

I'm only discussing this because I don't feel confident in my understanding of question begging.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul:

Originally Posted by Geoff :

Imagine you are a creationist. You come across the following argument:

1) Evolution says it took billions of years.
2) The Bible says it took 7 days.
C) Therefore the Bible is wrong.

You don't like this, because you are trying to avoid concluding (C). Is it valid to then say "But if the Bible is true, then (1) must be wrong"? Does (1) contain a hidden assumption that the Bible is false."? The creationist has no case. In order to make the accusation that the argument assumes its conclusion, it is he who has to assume his conclusion - and he does so explicitly when he says "If the Bible is true then...."
--------------------------

Posted by Paul:

All the creationist has to say is that (C) does not follow from the premises. I'm confused by this example.

OK, it might have been a bad example. I was trying to offer a very simple example, and it ended up being too simple. In fact the conclusion which follows from the premises is "Either the Bible or Evolution must be wrong".

Here's a better version:

1) Evolution has been proven true by science.
2) Evolution says it took billions of years.
3) The Bible says it took 7 days.
C) Therefore the Bible is wrong.

Now, the creationist wants to deny (C). The conclusion does now follow from the premises. Can he claim that (1 & 2) involve an assumption that the Bible is false?

Posted by Geoff:

Imagine you are a Robin. You come across the following argument:

1) Zombies are physically identical to humans but mindless.
2) Humans have minds.
C) Therefore minds are non-physical.

You don't like this, because you are trying to avoid concluding (C). Is it valid to then say "But if materialism is true, then (1) must be wrong?" Does (1) contain a hidden assumption that the physicalism is false."? Robin has no case either. In order to make the accusation that the argument assumes its conclusion, it is he who has to assume his conclusion - and he does so explicitly when he says "If physicalism is true then...."
--------------------------

Posted by Paul:

It seems to me that (1) contains the assumption that minds are nonphysical. That is why I'm asking questions about question begging.

But where is the assumption? You are confusing question-begging with valid arguments. It is true of all valid arguments that their premises entail their conclusion. This does not mean they assume their conclusion.

What do you think is the essential difference between the two examples? Why do you think that one of them begs the question but the other does not? Why does the definition of zombies assume that physicalism is false if the claim "Science has shown evolution to be true" doesn't assume that the Bible is false? You are applying double standards. If you think that I assume my conclusion when I supply the definition of a p-zombie then, if you are going to be consistent, you must allow the creationist to accuse the evolutionist of assuming that the Bible is false when he declares that the origin of the specied took billions of years.

Meanwhile, I don't think Robin did what you say he did. I think he was also confused about question begging, but I can't speak for him.

He's gone kind of quiet, don't you think?

 

[Mercutio]

Some people are being what they consider to be good academics about the subject and that entails Subjectivity being banned from relevance to the topic.

Be careful with what you are saying. None here are banning private behavior from relevance (well, maybe Geoff and hammy); the same experiences normally labeled "subjective", with the inherent dualistic baggage, are more neutrally seen as "private", which does not make assumptions about their ontological status. It is not a matter of "science cannot work with subjective stuff, so I ban it from discussion!", but "let's look at this stuff without the unwarranted assumption that it must operate by completely different laws than experiences that can be shared by more than one person." We do not ignore any part of experience. We simply do not make up fairy tales and just-so stories to go along with the parts that only one person can observe.

 

[President Bush]

When, and only when, this board finally catches up with Kant can these debates finally be laid to rest.

Kant was the worst writer on earth before Marx. He had many ideas, and some of them quite simple, but he always managed to make them seem unintelligable. I hope he is in hell.

H.L. Mencken

Is not understanding Kant behavior?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So it's such a dead idea that no one needs to consider it? No offence, but I'll take the word of this site over that of a first year undergraduate who refuses to read anything about behaviourism anyway.

Sure. That's not a problem for me. I will continue to consider it a non-threatening position and ignore people who defend it.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/behavior.htm

So the word "behaviourist" is a bit of a no-no, but the ideas haven't gone away. BTW isn't Andy Clark supposed to be one of your "embodied cognition" crowd?

The word behaviourist is a total no-no if you want to be taken seriously. Clark used to run the COGS department at Sussex, he is well-known in these parts. If you think that Clark is defending anything which actually resembles behaviourism of the sort that is being defended by Mercutio and Jeff Corey, then you are seriously mistaken. Sure, the epistemoligical constraints of science impose a "sort of behaviourism" on us. But Clark's conception of the mental and "the extended mind" is so far removed from the reductive behaviourism of Merc and JC that it cannot possibly be confused, or even placed in a similar category.

You referred to Dennett as a "computationalist" before, which he isn't. It seems to me he's pretty close to being a behaviourist (he studied under and is very much influenced by the logical behaviourist Gilbert Ryle) and he's pretty mainstream in cognitive science.

As I've said before, I do not think anybody actually knows what Dennetts position is on the reality of mental states. I find him incomprehensible much of the time. He may well not be a computationalist. He may well be a behaviourist. From my point of view, that makes about as much difference as the difference between someone from Xinjiang province and someone from Qinghai province. Dennett, the Churchlands, Stich and the rest of the materialist cognitive scientists are engaged in a family feud about how best to fit the square block into the round hole. I couldn't give a **** about their squabbling. I belong to another school of thought entirely, one which is busy pulling the rug out from beneath the whole load of them. Andy Clark is a person who is attempting to show the squabbling materialists a better way of approaching the concept of "mind" which is not so vulnerable to the rug-pulling. Personally, I don't think he's radical enough, but at least he's heading in the right direction: off the rug.

 

[Mercutio]

Behaviourism is an outdated materialistic fantasy.

Thanks for alerting me. Baum, whose "Understanding Behaviorism" is one which I have recommended to several people here (at least 4 have taken me up on it and read it), argues that Radical Behaviorism is not materialistic at all, but instead is based on the philosophy of Pragmatism. (This should come as no surprise, but I figured I'd cite someone besides me as saying it.)

That your view of Behaviorism is an outdated materialistic fantasy, I will agree. Your ignorance of Radical Behaviorism allows you to argue against a straw-behaviorism that bears little or no resemblance to what is actually there.

I doubt that you will take the time to understand Behaviorism; why should you? The version you use serves your purposes just fine, and the real version is a threat to this comfortable philosophy you have assumed. But if you do wish to enlighten yourself, just ask and I can recommend some very good reading.