Materialists......

[DreadNiK]

Geoff wrote:



I don't see how Chris's reply is a valid reply to the actual statement I made, but....

Chris replied:



Agreed.



OK. Very clever. I can appreciate this one. It's also absolutely correct.

However, it refutes two things at the same time:

A) It refutes the zombie argument.
B) It also refutes epiphenomenalism, supervenience physicalism and reductionist materialism.

Everyone happy with that conclusion?

Not sure. What I was referring to as being refuted, was your suggestion that language is inherently dualistic because reality is so. In a zombies only world, that would not be the case, yet the same language would arise.

 

[chriswl]

However, it refutes two things at the same time:

A) It refutes the zombie argument.
B) It also refutes epiphenomenalism, supervenience physicalism and reductionist materialism.

Everyone happy with that conclusion?

You've completely lost me here. All it refutes is your contention that: "the fact that our languages are naturally dualistic is the result of that experience of reality being dualistic". That's the point I was directly replying to.

 

[DreadNiK]

Sorry Chris lol, I'll let you speak for yourself

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Here is the definition from the horses mouth (again):

And here is why the horse hasn't got a clue what he is talking about:

Throughout Churchlands 1984 book "Matter and Consciousness" there is an indiscriminate and ambiguous use of the three terms "consciousness", "intelligence" and "conscious intelligence". Most of the time Churchland uses "conscious intelligence" as a compound noun that is never clearly defined. The word "consciousness" does not refer to the same thing as "intelligence". "Intelligence" refers to a sort of behaviour and decision-making ability. Consciousness is a term encompassing many more things, the essential component of which is subjective awareness. Churchland implicitly acknowledges this by using "consciousness" and "intelligence" correctly as single nouns in many places in the book, but each time there is a critical point where he really means "intelligence" but wants to be able to say "consciousness" he uses the term "conscious intelligence". For example, on page 5 he writes: "To what extent can we recreate the features of conscious intelligence? Answer: to a very impressive extent". Here, "conscious intelligence" has to mean "intelligence" because the only elements of "conscious intelligence" we have recreated is intelligence. At this point Churchland is referring to the impressive but limited successes of computer-based artificial intelligence. Then, on page 10 he writes: "The properties of Property Dualism are described as properties of having pain, having a sensation of red, of thinking P, of desiring Q. These are the properties of conscious intelligence". This time, "conscious intelligence" can only mean "consciousness" because the properties of property dualism are specifically the properties of subjective awareness. These properties have nothing whatsoever to do with the aforementioned successes of computer-based AI. Both statements together amount to a claim by Churchland that the properties of property dualism have been recreated by AI technology, a claim which is somewhere between unsupportable and demonstrably false but which helps to support the ideologically-driven notion that consciousness does not provide any unsolvable problems to materialistic science.

In other words, Churchland tries the same cheap trick as the people who try to define terms like "private behaviour". They have got a fundamental problem resolving the difference between subjective and objective so they define a term like "private behaviour" or "conscious intelligence". Then they use the same term to mean different things in different situations and hope that nobody notices the trick. Sorry, but stage magic won't work this time.

And, yes, Churchland is the authority on eliminativism.

BTW, I can do this all summer. I have nothing to do until October, apart from having four stitches removed from my leg and clearing out the pond in my mothers garden.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You've completely lost me here.

Well, I'm quite certain of where I am.

All it refutes is your contention that: "the fact that our languages are naturally dualistic is the result of that experience of reality being dualistic". That's the point I was directly replying to.

Yes, but you didn't check the consequences of making that reply, did you?

Go have another look. If you still can't figure it out, I'll explain.

 

[nescafe]

What point?

Apparently I have not. The point that the label for a thing need not change when the definition of a thing does. Eliminative materialism seeks to demolish our current concept of mind, fine -- that does not mean that the term "mind" will be replaced -- if it is kept it will merely refer to whatever will end up taking place of the current to-be-demolished concepts.

You have a long list of things which have been successfully eliminated/reduced. All of them consisted of replacing one physical explanation with another physical explanation. Objective things being replaced by other objective things.

You read the list, and still failed to see. Gods and demons as objective or physical explanations?

Materialistic science isn't trying solve any old problem here. It is trying to solve the mind/body problem. The claim that materialistic science can solve the mind/body problem by a process it has previously used to replace one physical thing with another physical thing is high fantasy.

So you keep saying. You have yet to provide anything beyond tortured linguistic/semantic games, arguments from incredulity, and (most recently) arguments from dubious authority.

And all you have actually got to back up the claim is....."???". And you wonder why we laugh at you?

A little hint: ??? in this context means "I don't know, and I do not think we have enough raw data to make any positive claims that are obviously better than educated guesses".

As far as laughing at me goes -- that puts you in the fine company of yyreg and lifegazer (hammegk as well, but he laughs at everyone and never explains the joke).

*snip long, pointless flame about brain processes and misplaced faith in science*

It's got to do with good old fashioned LOGIC and EVIDENCE and REASONING and a desire not to believe in fairytales.

Ironic, that coming from someone who apparently believes that microtubules cause consciousness via quantum woo even after that explanation has been cast into serious doubt and that 1 - 1 = 0 in a screwy mathematics where 0 = infinity is the best explanation for neutral monism.

 

[chriswl]

Yes, but you didn't check the consequences of making that reply, did you?

The example of a parallel universe which contains only zombie entities but is otherwise identical to our own certainly wouldn't refute materialism or epiphenomenalism. The argument requires us to at least pretend that both a materialist universe and a universe containing epiphenomenal consciousnesses exist.

Are you suggesting that it leads to some contradiction?

 

[Mercutio]

In this case the sentence would not read:

"Minds: Once thought to be composed of things like Will, Desire, Subjective Experience, Shards of Godhead, etc. etc., now known to be ???"

Oh no. It would read:

"Minds: Once thought to be composed of things like Will, Desire, Subjective Experience, Shards of Godhead, etc. etc., now known to be BRAIN PROCESSES"
The Elephant is back.

And creating straw arguments to fight against. "Now known to be brain processes" is incomplete, and incorrect. There probably are people who used to think that; there may well be people who currently think that. It is not, however, the only materialist argument (or the only argument consistent with the materialist position, whether posited by materialists or not.).

Remember, as long as you get to choose the position you argue against, you can easily set yourself up to win. But around here, the rest of us know when it happens.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Are you suggesting that it leads to some contradiction?

I am suggesting that a series of statements has been made which leads to this point in the argument and that there are two logical consequences of those statements. One of them is that the zombie argument doesn't work because it's inconceivable that something physically identical to a human but lacking a mind would actually behave like something physically identical to a human and possessing a mind. The other is that minds both exist, and are causal with respect to physical things, thus violating the closure principle, etc....

I could point them out, but I think it may be more productive to wait for people to figure it out for themselves.

See you all tomorrow.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

OK. Very clever. I can appreciate this one. It's also absolutely correct.

However, it refutes two things at the same time:

A) It refutes the zombie argument.
B) It also refutes epiphenomenalism, supervenience physicalism and reductionist materialism.

Everyone happy with that conclusion?

I'm pretty excited about it. Can you explain each conclusion?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I see where you are coming from. The problem is that the anti-materialists are all too well aware that the argument cannot be completed without further question-begging. Have a go. Try to support the claim "materialism is true" without assuming that it is true. I've supported my definition of mind with an argument from linguistics. What argument are you going to use to defend the claim "materialism is true"? without making the assumption "materialism is true" and taking into account there is a linguistic/conceptual argument supporting the claim that we experience the world dualistically.

But the sentence you keep claiming people say is "If materialism is true, ..."

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I could point them out, but I think it may be more productive to wait for people to figure it out for themselves.

Thanks, I needed an extra dose of patronizing attitude today.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Regardless of whether the z-universe shows that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, and regardless of what the hell epiphenomenalism actually is, we know one thing for sure: Evolution proceeds identically in our universe and the z-universe, and the lack of consciousness doesn't have any effect on it. Now that's inconceivable.

Curiosity can get the best of me
As I try to conceive the inconceivable
All philosophy is escaping me
As I try to believe the unbelievable

---Marshall Hall, Sam Mizell, Matthew West, Brian White

 

[Robin]

And here is why the horse hasn't got a clue what he is talking about:

Typical JG/UE non-sequitur. What on earth does that have to do with anything.

Especially since you appear even incapable of reading his definition of eliminative materialism, so I am not sure why you deem yourself capable of critiquing the whole book.

Again - "Eliminative materialism" does not refer to the doctrine that minds don't exist. Is not. Never was. Never will be.

It does not matter if you keep repeating it until October 2077 when you can put it in 3d holographic font in 1 billion point in a color that has not even been discovered yet.

You will still be wrong.

BTW, I can do this all summer. I have nothing to do until October, apart from having four stitches removed from my leg and clearing out the pond in my mothers garden.

What you appear to be suggesting is that if you keep uttering this self evident falsehood long enough so that nobody can be bothered pointing out your obvious mistake then you will be right.

Argumentum ad nauseum?

Why don't you try justifying your assertion with evidence better than Wikipedia (which had Quine as a physicalist last time I looked).

 

[hammegk]

I love the ridiculous straw man arguments that Idealists are reduced to in desparate attempts to avoid justifying their own metaphysic.

Feel free to deny 'thought exists'.

I assume my metaphysic, objective idealism, and am comfortable accepting and defending the worldview it engenders. All I ask is those who assume materialism have the balls to accept the worldview it engenders when they defend it. Some wish to deny that not chosing a monism leaves their position as one of dualism, yet no reasonable explanation of other choices available has ever been put forward, sfaik.

UCE/Geoff likes neutral monism; I consider it to be nothing more than dualism in disguise.

But the sentence you keep claiming people say is "If materialism is true, ..."

What do you claim they say?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Curiosity can get the best of me
As I try to conceive the inconceivable
All philosophy is escaping me
As I try to believe the unbelievable

---Marshall Hall, Sam Mizell, Matthew West, Brian White

There's a word for it
And words don't mean a thing
There's name for it
And names make all the difference in the world
Some things can never be spoken
Some things cannot be pronounced
That word does not exist in any language
It will never be uttered by a human mouth

Let X make a statement
Let breath pass through those cracked lips
That man was my hero
And now that word has been taken from us
Some things can never be spoken
Some things cannot be pronounced
That word does not exist in any language
It will never be uttered by a human mouth

Give me back my name
Give me back my name
Something has been changed in my life
Something has been changed in my life
Something must be returned to us
Something must me returned to us

[David Byrne, Talking Heads.]

 

[Robin]

Originally Posted by Robin :
I love the ridiculous straw man arguments that Idealists are reduced to in desparate attempts to avoid justifying their own metaphysic.

Feel free to deny 'thought exists'.

I love it even more when an Idealist, accused of a straw man position, responds with another straw man

I assume my metaphysic, objective idealism, and am comfortable accepting and defending the worldview it engenders. All I ask is those who assume materialism have the balls to accept the worldview it engenders when they defend it.

...the worldview you claim it engenders without ever quite explaining how ...

Some wish to deny that not chosing a monism leaves their position as one of dualism, yet no reasonable explanation of other choices available has ever been put forward, sfaik.

It is a little like saying that not choosing a footbal team leaves you as a Birmingham United supporter.

What if you just don't want to assume anything at all? Maybe if we don't know, it is sometimes better just to say "I don't know".

UCE/Geoff likes neutral monism; I consider it to be nothing more than dualism in disguise.

Agree.

 

[Apathia]

Regardless of whether the z-universe shows that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, and regardless of what the hell epiphenomenalism actually is, we know one thing for sure: Evolution proceeds identically in our universe and the z-universe, and the lack of consciousness doesn't have any effect on it. Now that's inconceivable.

Curiosity can get the best of me
As I try to conceive the inconceivable
All philosophy is escaping me
As I try to believe the unbelievable

---Marshall Hall, Sam Mizell, Matthew West, Brian White

I've expressed this before in some kind of incoherent way that got me sneers, but I'll put my head on the chopping block again. The P-Zombie argument appears technically OK to me with the P-Zombie imagined as just this breathing but otherwise inactive thing standing there. But once we begin to talk about a being interacting with his/her environments, physical and social, involved in intimate relationships and chagning the environemnt, but most of all using a language that accomodates the difference between first and third person that it, as above, supposedly evolved, the absurdity alarm goes off. Such a being knows the difference between Subjectivity and Objectivity (Even if doesn't capture that in his expressions in a forum thread about P-Zombies. Such a being isn't a Zombie, and isn't a P-Zombie either. The argument approches the same kind of Medieval academia as arguing over how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, or Zeno's wonderful arguments of how you can never get from point A to point B.
The P-Zombie is just inconceivable.

Now the same aprehension that makes the P-Zombie argument seem absurd to me is also what makes Eliminativist Materialism absurd to me. What's inconceivably missing from the so-called fully operational P-Zombie is what is wanted to be eliminated.
What is absent In the so-called P-Zombie and discarded in the so-called fully dissected and analyzed Human being is Subjectivity. Various persons in this thread continue to want to Objectify it away. It's so ironic then; that the P-Zombie argument happily tolerates Subjectivity being something that can be discarded in the making of a P-Zombie that somehow, nevertheless, can function as a Human Being.

BTW, my understanding of Eliminative Determinism conforms to this quotation:

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our commonsense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience.

Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes
Paul M. Churchland
Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Feb., 1981) , pp. 67-90

And here:
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/eliminativism.html

 

[Robin]

Using the 1st/3rd person divide in language as evidence for a metaphysical mental/physical duality seems to me the daftest idea yet.

As I have already pointed out, we use first person to refer to physical things “I am 6 foot tall” “I weigh 81 kg”

And we use 3rd person to refer to our minds “My mind is not alert today”. So there is no clear cut duality there.

Furthermore, why wouldn’t there be a 1st/3rd person divide? If there were no metaphysical mind/body duality, would this somehow remove the need for a person to refer to him/herself in any communication?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the whole thing, but then if it is never actually explained…

I would contend that rather than a dualism in our language there is an inherent monism.

Look at the impossibility of imagining minds without bodies

The greatest poet of all – Dante – couldn’t describe Paradise without physical language.

Look at descriptions of so-called “out of body experiences”, they are full of physical language – “I was ‘floating’ near the ceiling ‘looking’ down on my body”

Look at descriptions of near-death experiences – they are also replete with physical descriptions – “I ‘saw’ a ‘light’ and ‘heard’ ‘voices’ ‘saying’ ‘come’ into the ‘light’”

I doubt anybody could actually justify P1.

But then analytic linguistics is defined as the process that begins by making up the rules and ends by failing to come to a conclusion.

 

[Robin]

Robin’s Hypothesis used to be: “Any argument designed to prove or disprove the existence of God is useful only for the practice it affords in spotting logical fallacies”.

This thread convinces me I was too narrow, so it is now:

“Any argument designed to establish or refute any metaphysical position is useful only in the practice it affords in spotting logical fallacies”

And, no, I don’t exclude any of my own arguments.

However after this many pages, perhaps we have all had practice enough?