Materialists......

[Robin]

Like what???

I thing you are capable of researching for yourself the physical equations for apparently indeterminate phenomena in QM.

You can probably also find out how useful these are by the many practical applications of Quantum physics.

Certainly science had to adapt in the last century, but it always has and probably always will.

I still don't understand why you think that indeterminate phenomena cannot be part of physics.

I still don't understand why you think that we ought to pre-define boundaries of science.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Of course we can. Check the definitions of the verbs "to be" and "to cause".

"Cause" doesn't work. When we use the word "cause" it is to describe a set of empirical connections, over time. Event X causes event Y, and this implies that X occured before Y. But brain processes do not cause minds in this sense, because they occur simultaneously. They correspond, rather than one "causing" the other. You can say that brain processes are a necessary condition for minds, that is OK. You can also so that minds supervene on brains, which means that every change in a mind must be accompanied by a corresponding change in a brain. But you can't just say "causes".

As for "to be"? Which definition of "to be" are you suggesting?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

Identity, of the form "noun copula noun" [The cat is an animal]

Predication, of the form "noun copula adjective" [The cat is furry]

Auxiliary, of the form "noun copula verb" [The cat is sleeping]; [The cat is bitten by the dog]

Existence, of the form "copula noun" [There is a cat]

Location, of the form "noun copula place" [The cat is on the mat]

Note that if you want to answer "identity" then you are going to have to explain how two things which are identical can have completely different sets of properties.

Seriously, though. I'm not sure I understand what more you want about all this. Science explains how things work. I'm not sure it is meaningful to ask what things "are".

Exactly. Science doesn't asking questions about being. That's philosophy's department - ontology, metaphysics and phenomenology all revolve around those questions. My whole problem with materialism/materialists is that they get science confused these area of philosophy. Claims are made in the name of science which aren't science at all. What they actually are are ontological claims - claims about the nature of being.

Just as scientists get annoyed about religious people intruding on their territory and scrawling all over it, philosophically-inclined people tend to get annoyed about scientist doing exactly the same thing to them. If there is one theme uniting all of my posts on this forum it is that people on all sides of the debates need to be much more aware of where the boundaries lie between philosophy, science and religion.

Since we can only count on our perceptions, I'm not sure we can even say what it isn't.

That is a position which some people defend, yes. The arguments as to who is correct on this issue are very technical and probably not worth pursuing here and now.

Well, how can you say that the assumption that the world is as perceived is wrong and NOT end up with solipsism, or worse?

I'm not sure what is worse than solipsism.

You still need to posit that there is an external world, or you would be left with no explanation as to why reality behaves in a rational manner at all. Nobody is denying the existence of a world external to mind. They are denying that its the same as the world as it is experienced by you, that's all.

If we say that the observed universe exists, then all we have to do is observe it to eventually learn about the way it works.

Do you mean "If we say that the observed universe self-exists?"

IF we say that, then we have just assumed our conclusion. Also there is a maor problem with this. If we say that the universe self-exists then we are saying it is external to perceptions of it. But if it is external to our perceptions of it, then how can we observe/percieve it? How can we transcend the veil of perception? That is why transcendental idealism is called what it is called.

Science has done this very succesfully.

Not quite. Science doesn't make any ontological claims. It doesn't need to claim that the empirical world is independent of our perceptions. What is has successfully done is record the behaviour of the empirical world. It is not science, but materialism, which claims that the empirical world is ultimate reality. So your sentence is wrong. Science has been succesful at what it does, but it wasn't science which claimed the empirical world is the same as things-in-themselves.

As I've said, the other assumption, that the world isn't as perceived and cannot be known, leads to everything beign suspect.....

It certainly leads to all sorts of new questions, sure. But it doesn't support idealism and certainly doesn't lead to solipsism.

, short of, according to solipsists, our own minds, though I dispute that last point. That position is useless, as you've noted. What "middle ground" is there ?

My own position is the ultimate middle ground. I am a neutral monist. This position is similar to Kant's. Kant was a sort-of neutral monist, but wouldn't have endorsed that name himself.

 

[I less than three logic]

I would say Kant was just wrong and that his opinion are simply outdated. Perhaps within his time he believed this to be so, however he died before the development of modern atomic theory, before the discovery of electromagnetic radiation, before the laws of thermodynamics, basically before modern physics even existed. To be quite blunt, Kant was arguing against materialism before he, or anyone else for that matter, knew what they were arguing against.

I think atomic theory does a very good job of describing the nature of the world that exists beyond our perceptions. You nor I have ever perceived an atom; we've never perceived millions of them together either, we perceive objects instead. I believe the keyboard I am typing on is made of atoms. I perceive it as a solid object, yet I believe it consists, as it really exists, of almost entirely empty space. The sensation of it being solid is a result of the nuclear force holding the atoms of the keyboard and those that make up my finger together and separate from one another. As I press down on a key, the force keeps the atoms that make my skin from passing through the atoms that make the key. This creates a chain of atoms pushing against each other until the atoms that make up the tissue of the nerve cells in my finger are also pushed against. At this point the nerve cells start sending signals to my brain which then in turn interprets the signal and forms my perception of a solid object at the end of my finger.

I don't believe my perceptions are of the world as it really is, but I also don't believe Kant, in that, this fact prevents us from knowing about the world as it really exists. I think the concept of the noumenal is an unnecessary layer that can be shaved off with the ol' razor.

 

[Robin]

That is the same thing!

When they say "things are physical" they mean things-as-they-really-are.

Go and read the chapter on Physicalism in Ayer's "Philosophy in the Twentieth Century" to see how wrong you are about this.

The definition of "physical" is something that has undergone a long debate among physicalists. I don't think that there has been anybody in the last 150 years at least that has claimed that we can know things "as they really are".

It is why I am always on your case to provide a definition of what you mean when you say "physical" or just what it is that you think that materialists or physicalists mean by this.

And by the way, when you refer to "they" in the post, are you referring to anybody in particular, or just a broad general group of theoretical materialists?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I would say Kant was just wrong and that his opinion are simply outdated. Perhaps within his time he believed this to be so, however he died before the development of modern atomic theory, before the discovery of electromagnetic radiation, before the laws of thermodynamics, basically before modern physics even existed. To be quite blunt, Kant was arguing against materialism before he, or anyone else for that matter, knew what they were arguing against.

Modern physics does have an impact on some of Kant's arguments, but not the central ones - not these ones. The book is called "A critique of pure reason". It doesn't depend upon empirical/scientific facts.

People knew perfectly well what they meant by materialism. Also, his position is vindicated by the fact that todays transcendental realists are still having the same arguments they were having when Kant wrote the book. His complaint about why those arguments are unresolvable is just as pertinent today as it was then, for exactly this reason.

As for the relationship between Kant and QM.....unfortunately there are very few people on this planet who are sufficiently well-trained in both these areas to be able to offer a reliable opinion.

I think atomic theory does a very good job of describing the nature of the world that exists beyond our perceptions. You nor I have ever perceived an atom; we've never perceived millions of them together either, we perceive objects instead.

I believe the keyboard I am typing on is made of atoms. I perceive it as a solid object, yet I believe it consists, as it really exists, of almost entirely empty space.

This really doesn't make any difference to Kant's position. The atomic theory is a model - and its a model of the world we experience. Just because we don't experience the atomic components of the model doesn't mean it isn't a model of the world we experience.

I don't believe my perceptions are of the world as it really is, but I also don't believe Kant, in that, this fact prevents us from know about the world as it really exists. I think the concept of the noumenal is an unnecessary layer that can be shaved off with the ol' razor.

Then you really are left with idealism, aren't you?

 

[chriswl]

That's only true if you've already assumed that space and time are transcendentally real. The line of inductive reasoning you are following is very persuasive, but wrong. You are imagining an early Universe, devoid of life, filled with first generation stars, etc.... But what you are imagining is what a human being would experience if there could have been a human being there to experience it. Additionally, when you are imagining a post-human world, you are imagining it how it would be experienced by a human. That world - the world of human experiences - would have ceased to exist. All that would be left is the noumenal world.

But we are still left with the numbers: the vastly greater time that the universe has been around with no human observers and the vastly greater part of the universe that has never and will never be directly observed. Won't the composition of the noumenon reflect these ratios in some way - if there are noumenal correlates of physical things won't there be vast quantities of noumena that correspond to distant galaxies and stars and nebulae in their present, past and future states and hardly anything corrsesponding to our immediate human world?

In this picture consciousness appears to be an utterly marginal phenomenon that barely touches the noumena, not a fundamental ontological constituent of the world. Or does the mapping from the phenomenal world to the noumenal world involve some transformation which vastly magnifies the significance of human consciousness?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But we are still left with the numbers: the vastly greater time that the universe has been around with no human observers and the vastly greater part of the universe that has never and will never be directly observed.

All of the above only makes sense to a transcendental realist. You are assuming that the noumenal world is spatio-temporal. When you are conceiving of a Universe with no observers in it what you are actually imagining is still the Universe as it is experienced by a human. All we are left with if we take away the observers is the noumenal world. If that world is non-spatio-temporal, your problem vanishes.

Won't the composition of the noumenon reflect these ratios in some way - if there are noumenal correlates of physical things won't there be vast quantities of noumena that correspond to distant galaxies and stars and nebulae in their present, past and future states and hardly anything corrsesponding to our immediate human world?

Quite possibly, yes. I don't see how it makes any difference.

In this picture consciousness appears to be an utterly marginal phenomenon that barely touches the noumena, not a fundamental ontological constituent of the world. Or does the mapping from the phenomenal world to the noumenal world involve some transformation which vastly magnifies the significance of human consciousness?

There is no mapping available. Kant doesn't try to show how the phenomenal world maps onto the noumenal world because he claims it can't be done. I have tried to do this, if somewhat vaguely - as have various other people at other times, but Kant didn't. It's quite hard to answer your question because from the viewpoint of transcendental idealism "consciousness" doesn't really mean what it might mean to a materialist - whatever that is. Kant has plenty to say about the way cognition works, but he didn't really talk about "minds" as such - not as a central topic, anyway. It's not that the Critique isn't concerned with the topic, more that he completely redefines the questions we should be asking and insists we follow him down a line of thinking we weren't expecting at all. At the end of this process, many of the questions that initially arise in response to Kant just seem to "come out in the wash". "What is consciousness?" is a typical example. From a Kantian perspective, this question just indicates a transcendental realist asking a malformed question to which no satisfactory answer is possible. He was trying to arbitrate between two groups of transcendental realists who were having very similar arguments to the ones played out on this forum. Instead of getting involved in the arguments (as he would have done if he started trying to answer questions about minds on their terms) he effectively banged their heads together and told them to stop asking questions which either have no answers or have two equally compelling answers which contradict each other in an unresolvable ways (the antimonies).

There's more here if you want it:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-mind/#1

 

[chriswl]

"Science doesn't asking questions about being. That's philosophy's department - ontology, metaphysics and phenomenology all revolve around those questions. My whole problem with materialism/materialists is that they get science confused these area of philosophy. Claims are made in the name of science which aren't science at all. What they actually are are ontological claims - claims about the nature of being.

Scientists don't ask questions about being. But you assume that when people of a scientific outlook call themselves materialists that they have started asking those very questions and concluded that matter is the only sort of being and that putting it in this way actually says something about what being really is.

This is your strawman version of materialism that you compulsively attack, even though I bet you've never met anyone who thinks like this. One of the reasons that most scientists don't ask questions about being, apart from the fact that they're not paid to ask those sort of questions, is that they think those questions are meaningless. If they declare themselves materialists they are not answering a question about what the world is really made of - that is clearly a nonsensical question. They are simply putting the label "physical" on whatever it is that the world is made of. And rejecting supernaturalism to boot.

This is also why those of us who have broadly materialist views (which includes most scientifically educated people) so rarely actually declare ourselves as materialists - we dont think the declaration really adds up to much.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Perhaps its worth making one other thing clear. Kant claimed to have shown that transcendental realism leads to empirical idealism. In other words, if you don't accept that the empirical world is transcendentally ideal then you will end up being forced to accept idealism, Berkeley-style. This is basically where hammegk is, even though he's not a Berkeleyan. I also agree with this position.

http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/kant/IDEALISM.HTM

The dogmatic procedure in metaphysics, it was noted above, led to the substantive thesis that space is a property of things in themselves, with the consequence that things in space are things in themselves as well. Since the thesis is thought to follow from the a priori analysis of concepts, it is a transcendental thesis, entitled "transcendental realism." "The transcendental realist . . . interprets outer appearances (their reality being taken as granted) as things in themselves, which exist independently of us and of our sensibility, and which are therefore outside us -- the phrase 'outside us' being interpreted in conformity with pure concepts of understanding" (A369). (These pure concepts are those of the "inner" and "outer.") Correspondingly, transcendental idealism is the thesis (based on criticism) that outer appearances are not things in themselves, and space is not a condition of objects considered as things in themselves.

While the transcendental distinction between idealism and realism concerns the way in which we represent space and the things in it, the empirical distinction is concerned with the evidence for their existence. Empirical realism is the view that experience provides proof of the existence of objects in space, while empirical idealism holds that it does not. Kant pronounced triumphantly that transcendental realism leads to empirical idealism. "After wrongly supposing that objects of the senses, if they are to be external, must have an existence by themselves, and independently of the senses, he finds that, judged from this point of view, all our sensuous representations are inadequate to establish their reality" (A369). Empirical idealism is a skeptical idealism, rather than a dogmatic idealism. This point is obscured by the fact that at A368, Kant pronounced that the term 'idealist' is always meant skeptically.

The other side of Kant's triumphant announcement was the claim that transcendental idealism leads to empirical realism. We do have enough empirical evidence to yield knowledge of the existence of objects in space, though this experience is inner or self-conscious. This claim is argued for in very different ways in the first-edition Fourth Paralogism and the second-edition Refutation of Idealism. In the former, the status of outer objects as representations is the key premise: "the objects are nothing but representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is at the same time sufficient proof of their reality" (A317). In the latter, the claim is that the existence of objects in space makes possible the determination of our inner states in time.

Transcendental realism leads to empirical idealism.

Transcendental idealism leads to empirical realism.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Geoff, It is my supposition that minds are processes in brains.

It is self evident that most information processing in the human brain is unconscious. (How many bits per second does your optic centre process? How many of them are you consciously aware of? Now how many bits per second can you think?). The ratio of unconscious processing to conscious must be of the order of millions to one.

In my opinion, we tend to place far more importance on what goes on in our conscious mind than it actually merits. I do not have to think whether I like chocolate, or pretty girls; I am told that I do, by unconscious process. I have no conscious say in the process.

I do not consciously calculate the movement of a ball. I do so unconsciously as I run and as it moves, and change foot as necessary to kick it. Given a computer, a copy of Principia Mathematica and a year, I still could not tell you , consciously, how to do this.

Again, this seems self evident to me by a second's introspection. I presume the same holds for other minds.

If any part of my mind has the freedom to like chocolate it must be my unconscious mind, because my conscious mind has no choice in the matter.
However, since it is the conscious part that is "supposed" to make the big decisions, it follows that I have no freedom in this case, except unconscious freedom. Either that, or we grant the unconscious the ability to make free choices.
(Actually, I suspect it too is restrained by it's internal wiring, but far less so than the conscious mind.)

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff, It is my supposition that minds are processes in brains.

OK.....but at this point I am unclear about exactly what the word "are" means in your sentence. "is" has over twenty meanings in English and I need to know which one you mean. These are the main ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

Identity, of the form "noun copula noun" [The cat is an animal]
Predication, of the form "noun copula adjective" [The cat is furry]
Auxiliary, of the form "noun copula verb" [The cat is sleeping]; [The cat is bitten by the dog]
Existence, of the form "copula noun" [There is a cat]
Location, of the form "noun copula place" [The cat is on the mat]

It is self evident that most information processing in the human brain is unconscious. (How many bits per second does your optic centre process? How many of them are you consciously aware of? Now how many bits per second can you think?). The ratio of unconscious processing to conscious must be of the order of millions to one.

That's not clear. I don't think we have enough information to answer this so precisely. However, if your main point is that there is considerable unconcious processing in the brain, it is stil correct. Large parts of the brain, such as the cerebellum, have vast numbers of neurons and connections, none of which seem to be associated with consciousness.

In my opinion, we tend to place far more importance on what goes on in our conscious mind than it actually merits. I do not have to think whether I like chocolate, or pretty girls; I am told that I do, by unconscious process. I have no conscious say in the process.

Sure. Although I might want to draw a distinction between unconscious(sub-conscious?), conscious and self-concious. I am conscious of my attraction to pretty girls. I can act on that without really being self-concious - it's more like an ant responding to a morsel of food.

But your point is valid. There is still a great deal to be resolved about these questions.

If any part of my mind has the freedom to like chocolate it must be my unconscious mind, because my conscious mind has no choice in the matter.

OK, I think I understand. What you are talking about can only be compatibilist free will though - and I've been talking about libertarian free will, which is different. Your unconcious mind can't have libertarian free will because it doesn't even know what it is doing.

However, since it is the conscious part that is "supposed" to make the big decisions, it follows that I have no freedom in this case, except unconscious freedom. Either that, or we grant the unconscious the ability to make free choices.
(Actually, I suspect it too is restrained by it's internal wiring, but far less so than the conscious mind.)

I don't think you have any freedom as to whether or not you like pretty girls.

I've lost track of why we are discussing this, though.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Scientists don't ask questions about being.

Well, they do, but not when they've got their scientific hats on.

But you assume that when people of a scientific outlook call themselves materialists that they have started asking those very questions and concluded that matter is the only sort of being and that putting it in this way actually says something about what being really is.

That's what materialism implies. At least it does if the person in question is making an obviously ontological claim like "minds are brain processes". The scientist can say he is a materialist from a methodological point of view, and this need not necessarily imply any ontology, but such a person has got to be careful when it comes to things like QM and the study of the mind.

This is your strawman version of materialism that you compulsively attack, even though I bet you've never met anyone who thinks like this.

This board is full of people that think like that, isn't it? People like Dennett and Dawkins have a tendency to go way beyond the bounds of the merely scientific and their views are routinely defended here.

One of the reasons that most scientists don't ask questions about being, apart from the fact that they're not paid to ask those sort of questions, is that they think those questions are meaningless.

Hold on a minute! Some scientists may think this. It is certainly not true to say that all of them do. The ones that do think this also need make sure they don't hold an ontological position by default even though they claim not to. Plenty of people who say metaphysics are meaningless also hold views which are critically dependent on an assumed metaphysical position which often isn't even recognised as such.

If they declare themselves materialists they are not answering a question about what the world is really made of - that is clearly a nonsensical question. They are simply putting the label "physical" on whatever it is that the world is made of.

OK, but in itself this is meaningless. Simply saying "everything is physical" doesn't mean anything unless you can explain how this relates to things like minds and matter. The word "physical" ceases to mean anything. It could be replaced by a random string of letters and nothing would change about their position.

And rejecting supernaturalism to boot.

Then they should say they are naturalists.

This is also why those of us who have broadly materialist views (which includes most scientifically educated people) so rarely actually declare ourselves as materialists - we dont think the declaration really adds up to much.

In this much I can agree. The problem is that when it comes to talking about what minds might be, it is quite impossible to conduct the conversation without indulging in metaphysics. As soon as somebody says "minds are brain processes" then they have made a metaphysical statement, and telling me you don't think it adds up to much isn't going to help. If it doesn't add up to much, why do they get so irate when somebody comes along and says it doesn't add up logically, either? You seem to be saying "we don't really care about this". But that isn't the case. I don't know about you personally, but plenty of people here care about it enough to ridicule anybody who challenges it.

 

[articulett]

Today I was typing 866 into my computers search, because I was trying to find a password I had been given for a website, and I could only remember that part of it--at the exact moment I was typing the numbers, a person on television was saying "call 866- (phone number)". I thought--wow, how cool. In the past I may have been able to convince myself (and others) that this meant I was psychic--or that I should call the number--or that I was "on the right track" to go to the website with 866 in it's password. But now I think, "what a cool coincidence--I guess it's not all that cool--866 is the area code for many services advertised on t.v.--and maybe I even remembered that part of my password because of my familirarity with the number (maybe more on a subconscious level--but I've seen the area code show up on my caller I.D. plenty of times.) I like knowing how people think and where thinking goes wrong. I like knowing that a coincidence, for all it's marvels, is not a metaphysical phenomena of hidden meaning. I am hesitant to even encourage the feel good feelings of metaphysics because it does a disservice to people and plays into the most common human fallacies.

http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html

If you are interested in how you might be fooling yourself regarding synchronicity--I suggest the following link for a quick rundown. That's pretty much what science is. We can't assume anything but materialism because there is no measurable evidence for anything else. And subjective experiences don't necessarily reflect reality. Humans are all too good at finding meaning that isn't there--and the extreme of this is schizophrenia.

Looking for "signs" (hidden meaning) is akin to reading tea leaves. It may be a self-fulfilling prophesy or make you feel spiritual and warm and fuzzy--but that doesn't mean it's valuable for any truth or knowledge except your own.

 

[Belz...]

"Cause" doesn't work. When we use the word "cause" it is to describe a set of empirical connections, over time.

Well, there has to be a brain FIRST. But your point is well taken.

Exactly. Science doesn't asking questions about being. That's philosophy's department - ontology, metaphysics and phenomenology all revolve around those questions. My whole problem with materialism/materialists is that they get science confused these area of philosophy. Claims are made in the name of science which aren't science at all. What they actually are are ontological claims - claims about the nature of being.

Actually, what I meant is that I'm not sure that "what IS it" is a meaningful question.

Just as scientists get annoyed about religious people intruding on their territory and scrawling all over it, philosophically-inclined people tend to get annoyed about scientist doing exactly the same thing to them.

Well, philosophy is still useful, but only to ask personnal questions and answer them, because whatever those answers are, they're only meaningful to the individual. They don't necessarily describe anything real (aside from that individual's psychological state, of course.)

I'm not sure what is worse than solipsism.

Its logical conclusion : even your mind could be non-existent.

Do you mean "If we say that the observed universe self-exists?"

Nope. It exists. That's all I said. I'm not sure what you mean by "self-exists".

IF we say that, then we have just assumed our conclusion. Also there is a maor problem with this. If we say that the universe self-exists then we are saying it is external to perceptions of it. But if it is external to our perceptions of it, then how can we observe/percieve it? How can we transcend the veil of perception? That is why transcendental idealism is called what it is called.

Well, I disagree that the world is completely external to our perception. As mentionned before, we perceive something, and we can all agree to that. Either the universe exists and behaves as we think it does, or it doesn't exist and we're left with nothing. But something MUST exist.

 

[Belz...]

That's what materialism implies. At least it does if the person in question is making an obviously ontological claim like "minds are brain processes".

Which is akin to saying "colours are light wavelengths". But it's still true.

I think people, philosophers especially, simply have a hard time accepting that minds are just a physical thing. It's got to be more than that.

 

[Belz...]

We can't assume anything but materialism because there is no measurable evidence for anything else.

In fact, there COULDN'T be.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Belz

Well, there has to be a brain FIRST. But your point is well taken.

Correctly stated: brains are a neccesary condition for minds. There can be no mind without a brain. "first" usually implies temporal priority - you mean logical prioirity.

Actually, what I meant is that I'm not sure that "what IS it" is a meaningful question

Then I have to respond that I'm not sure what you mean by "minds ARE brain processes". If "ARE" doesn't mean anything, then neither does that statement.

Well, philosophy is still useful, but only to ask personnal questions and answer them, because whatever those answers are, they're only meaningful to the individual. They don't necessarily describe anything real (aside from that individual's psychological state, of course.)

That is an over-simplistic view of the situation. Philosophy is capable of discussing topics like "Being" at great length, and giving answers worth considering. It is capable of analysing concepts and how they relate to each other.

Its logical conclusion : even your mind could be non-existent

If you think that that is its logical conclusion, then I think it can be rejected as a reductio ad absurdum.

Well, I disagree that the world is completely external to our perception. As mentionned before, we perceive something, and we can all agree to that. Either the universe exists and behaves as we think it does, or it doesn't exist and we're left with nothing. But something MUST exist

Sure, something must exist. But you are still mixing up what we percieve with what self-exists. We do not necessarily percieve the self-existent universe. The claim that we do is a claim of direct realism. Direct realism is very, very hard to defend. You have to figure out how to respond to the argument from hallucination against direct realism. Imagine a brain in a vat, being fed data exactly the same as your nerves are feeding you data now. You would be experiencing exactly what you are experiencing now - perceiving a world of objects. However, none of those objects would actually exist. So if in the case of the brain in a vat, the objects being perceived are mere "sense data" or "mental images" what justifies you in saying that right now you are perceiving anything more than "sense data" or "mental images"?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That's what materialism implies. At least it does if the person in question is making an obviously ontological claim like "minds are brain processes". The scientist can say he is a materialist from a methodological point of view, and this need not necessarily imply any ontology, but such a person has got to be careful when it comes to things like QM and the study of the mind.

Is a scientist making an ontological claim when he says "weather is an atmospheric process"?

Is it really an ontological claim to say "minds are brain processes"? Seems to me that's just a definition of mind. The real ontological claim would come when the scientist said something about what brain processes actually are, wouldn't it?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Which is akin to saying "colours are light wavelengths". But it's still true.

No, that's not true either. It suffers from a similar, but less serious, problem. It's an over-simplification, and it raises all sorts of questions. Where are colours? In your mind? In the object? In the light waves?

I think people, philosophers especially, simply have a hard time accepting that minds are just a physical thing. It's got to be more than that.

It's not that they have a hard time, Belz. They just tend to think it is wrong. It's their job to analyse claims like this to see if they stand up to reason, and this one doesn't. Not very easily, anyway.

I'm not sure that the scientific people who tend to make this claim are aware of just how much of philosophy is dedicated to providing a much more detailed and careful examination of this issue. The scientists tend to reject the philosophy without understanding the relevance of that philosophy.

Try this, for example, on the relationship between being and nothing by Hegel:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hl083.htm

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Is a scientist making an ontological claim when he says "weather is an atmospheric process"?

Not really, though some pedants might argue it impinges on ontology. This is a sort of identity claim, but it isn't interesting because its a non-controversial identity claim. All of the properties of the weather we call "thunderstorm" are the same as the atmospheric processes we call "thunderstorm." What you should really say is "weather is a class/category of atmospheric processes." This is no different to "Wollemi Pines are conifers".

Is it really an ontological claim to say "minds are brain processes"?

If this is taken as an identity statement, then it can only be interpreted as meaning "materialism is true". It logically entails that materialism is true. If any other ontological position is true, you cannot make this claim. So, yes, it is an implied (logically) ontological claim.

Seems to me that's just a definition of mind.

It's that too.

The real ontological claim would come when the scientist said something about what brain processes actually are, wouldn't it?

No. Not if the answer was "brain processes are interactions of chemicals and electrical charge in squishy grey meat." That's just another identity statement like the weather example. It doesn't imply any ontological position. It's true under all of them.