My argument against materialism

[Belz...]

Can "you" that is conscious report that it is conscious?

Consistency requires that I answer "no".

If there's a part of the brain that is conscious, and that part of the brain can influence decisions; and there is a part of the brain that makes decisions, then wouldn't it simply be a semantic argument as to whether consciousness is the part that is aware, or the part that is aware plus the part that is making decisions?

I suppose so. Since consciousness doesn't report, however, no.

For the purpose of discussion, I would be willing to consider them both one and the same, As long as we know that this is a simplification; we'll label this as "you". However, if I did agree to this, then I wouldn't be confusing consciousness with agency, I would be lumping them together for the sake of discussion while knowing full well that they're not the same.

 

[Belz...]

Well, aparently not. Although this is not entirely conclusive, Libet's experiments strongly suggest that the part with agency is not self-aware and the part that is self-aware is not an agent. There's some very clever mental sleight-of-hand going on to make it look like your mind is one cohesive whole rather than a synthesis of a whole bunch of subsystems that don't always see eye to eye.

Indeed. And people who've had their corpus callosum cut certain show that there is no such thing as a single mind within the brain.

 

[marplots]

No that goes in the maigic box next to the magic box noumenal in the one labeled qualia.

I remember qualia. It was one of those words that made me feel all educated. Noumenal fits that category as well. I think the truth value of a concept is less important here than the impression you can make by throwing these out in casual conversations.

It's like a secret handshake for the literati, but the hip crowd is switching to "emergent" and "entangled," leaving off the philosophy catch phrases and adopting others from physics.

 

[punshhh]

The things within the universe operate according to cause and effect. It is not necessarily the case that the universe itself does.

Things within the universe operate via cause and effect because they are subject to time. Time is part of the universe, and therefore, as far as we know, there is no time outside of the universe. Thus the universe was not necessarily caused, because there is no time in which a cause-effect relationship could occur. In fact, until we have evidence that there is time outside the universe, the only logical conclusion is that the universe did not have a cause, since without time, there can't be a cause.



What paradox is this, exactly?

This whole finite existence thing, its nonsensical I cannot accept(for the sake of argument) that anything finite can actually exist. You know in this space-time bubble of ours.
This reminds me of a flat earth or that we are somehow at the centre of things, or a conviction that we are the only sentient beings in existence.

 

[punshhh]

Yep, that's one of the two logical fallacies - it's special pleading. Everything has a cause - oh except this one thing.

The other one is equivocation - causality relates to time, and time is a property of the Universe, so the cause of the Universe itself, if the expression means anything at all, need have no relation to the way causality works within the Universe.

But on second thoughts, if we're just going to define a solution, why not just say "Hey, maybe universes don't have to have a cause?" That's the same solution, but without the complication of God and all the additional problems & contradictions He introduces. It's not a very satisfying solution, but at least it avoids a redundant deity.

All this ignores other, equally valid hypothetical solutions to this problem, such as a universe with no beginning (debate the literal meaning of 'the beginning of time'), and so-on.

All speculation. If we don't know the answer, we should not be afraid or embarrassed to say "We don't know the answer, and we will probably never know". We can speculate, but how high on the list of interesting speculations should magical omnipotent, omniscient, emotionally human superbeings be? Don't we have Marvel Comics & DC Comics, etc., to satisfy that fantasy?

[/QUOTE]

I've just noticed one skeptic claiming that the universe does not necessarily require a cause and another, say its special pleading to suggest that there is one cause that may not have a cause.

Shall I go with your line or the other?

 

[Dancing David]

I think you meant to say "if some other consciousness didn't already exist, then our consciousness couldn't have come about any other way."

And yes, I think that's exactly what he's getting at. He seems to be saying that consciousness can only come from another consciousness. So where did God's consciousness come from? I guess it's turtles all the way down.

sort of, the argument of Malerin is this
matter to consciousness doesn't make sense
consciousness to consciousness makes sense

if minds are like trees and can reproduce

 

[Dancing David]

I've just noticed one skeptic claiming that the universe does not necessarily require a cause and another, say its special pleading to suggest that there is one cause that may not have a cause.

Shall I go with your line or the other?[/QUOTE]

Parts is parts, once scale is causal , another isn't.

 

[marplots]

You're not using the word, but you are in fact addressing agency.

Oversimplification.

Tell me when you disagree.
1. A part of the brain makes decisions.
2. A part of the brain is conscious.
3. A part of the brain is aware of itself.
4. A part of the brain is aware of decisions.
5. The part of the brain that is aware of itself does not make decisions.

I disagree with number three in this way: I take a strict biological point of view and adopt the idea that consciousness is what the brain produces in much the same way that urine is what the kidney produces. Each is an organ that senses its environment and has feedback. With that picture in mind, I don't think I experience what is actually going on in my brain any more than I experience what my kidneys are up to.

In much the same way, altering the biological structure of a kidney causes it to alter its function -- just as consciousness is altered by messing with a brain. Self awareness simply doesn't extend very deep into the cells doing the work. It's the recursion that creates the illusion, but if you look, the same sort of feedbacks are built into many areas of biology, from the immune system all the way down to DNA regulation. But at each level, there is a level beneath which cannot be accessed. So, for instance, while we find mechanisms that alter DNA expression, we don't find new types of DNA created with iron atoms thrown in.

And as weird as it sounds, I do not think I control what I think about. I couldn't, for instance, create now the thoughts I will be thinking five minutes from now or even predict them generally. I don't control my brain, my brain creates and controls me.

 

[dlorde]

Yes a space-time bubble, and presumably the time the universe would end, would be on re-entering a singularity, hence foam?

what's foam got to do with it?

...at face value the laws of physics suggest to me that there is an involvement of infinity.

Can you explain what you mean by 'an involvement of infinity'? infinite how (what sort of infinite)?

Can you also explain how they suggest that to you? [if you already did, please link]

 

[Nonpareil]

This whole finite existence thing, its nonsensical I cannot accept(for the sake of argument) that anything finite can actually exist.

Why not?

You know in this space-time bubble of ours.

I know what?

I've just noticed one skeptic claiming that the universe does not necessarily require a cause and another, say its special pleading to suggest that there is one cause that may not have a cause.

Shall I go with your line or the other?

Both. They're both equally valid objections to the same argument.

The argument from first cause says that everything must have a cause, except God for some reason. That's special pleading. It also assumes that the universe must have a cause with no reason for doing so.

Neither excludes the other; they're both just pointing out different problems with the argument.

 

[dlorde]

...
And as weird as it sounds, I do not think I control what I think about. I couldn't, for instance, create now the thoughts I will be thinking five minutes from now or even predict them generally. I don't control my brain, my brain creates and controls me.

Yes. The problem is, we are so used to conflating 'you' and 'conscious awareness', that can be difficult to conceptualise an awareness that retrospectively assumes agency but is actually a passive confabulator.

 

[laca]

This whole finite existence thing, its nonsensical I cannot accept(for the sake of argument) that anything finite can actually exist.

Two questions. Are you finite? Do you exist?

 

[laca]

I've just noticed one skeptic claiming that the universe does not necessarily require a cause and another, say its special pleading to suggest that there is one cause that may not have a cause.

Yes, but the thing is you added another unnecessary entity: a creator. There is no evidence whatsoever that points to a creator or to a need for one. On the other hand, we know that the universe at least exists.

That is why positing that the universe does not need a cause is much more parsimonious than positing a magical creator for it.

 

[tsig]

Because I am and have been from a young age, a philosopher.My main concern is the nature of the paradox of existence and I seek and consider everything that has been said on the subject. Alongside a consideration of the experience of being me and all that can be implied from my personal interaction with reality from day to day.

I see no paradox only semantic waffling. Philosophy lost out when the first scientist did the first experiment.

 

[tsig]

Two questions. Are you finite? Do you exist?

I seems to me he's hung up on something like Zeno's Paradox. He doesn't seem to understand than an infinity can exist between 0 and 1, or 0 and .1 and on and on.

 

[Belz...]

I remember qualia. It was one of those words that made me feel all educated. Noumenal fits that category as well. I think the truth value of a concept is less important here than the impression you can make by throwing these out in casual conversations.

Yeah, it works until you meet someone who can actually understand the concept and point out that it doesn't work.

 

[Belz...]

I've just noticed one skeptic claiming that the universe does not necessarily require a cause and another, say its special pleading to suggest that there is one cause that may not have a cause.

Shall I go with your line or the other?

First off, you shouldn't assume there's a contradiction in the science just because two people say contradictory things.

But it's even worst than that:

It's true that the universe may not require an actual first cause. It's _ALSO_ true that theists try to make the argument that the universe DOES require it because EVERYTHING requires it, except the god who made the universe; and THAT is special pleading. So actually, there IS no contradiction.

You can thank me later.

 

[CurtC]

I've just noticed one skeptic claiming that the universe does not necessarily require a cause and another, say its special pleading to suggest that there is one cause that may not have a cause.

Shall I go with your line or the other?

Like Belz said, you're confusing two different things: one is what skeptics are actually arguing for, and the other is a technique of taking apart someone else's argument.

Some theists say that everything requires a creator, therefore God. A skeptic points out that *if* everything requires a creator, then it's special pleading to then say that this God character didn't require a creator.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I see no paradox only semantic waffling. Philosophy lost out when the first scientist did the first experiment.

Philosopy's been "losing out" bit by bit since the time of the ancient Greeks. Back then "philosophy" covered everything except rhetoric. Over time various sub-disciplines have spun off (history, psychology, science, linguistics and so on) as they either developed an empiricist framework or developed enough of a separate culture to merit the distinction.

Of what's left in the philosophy tent a lot of it is indeed meaningless and has "lost out" to other approaches long ago. The philosophy of mind probably should have been taken out the back and shot when psychology started turning into a proper science, metaphysics definitely should have been taken out the back and shot long ago for being no use to man or beast and so on. Continental philosophy had something to say at one point but has now devolved into waffling which has been empirically demonstrated to be indistinguishable from utter nonsense.

However formal logic, informal logic, ethics, the philosophy of science, political philosophy, legal philosophy and many other branches of philosophy are still interesting and important.

This thread is about a tired old topic in first year philosophy which is only taught as interesting mental exercise and an illustration of the sort of thing philosophers used to do. Now I think about it, that's a good description of almost all of the philosophy discussion on the JREF forums. The woowoos are still hung up on puzzles considered interesting long ago which are now fodder for the most basic introductory courses, and the general run of skeptics (correctly) see those issues as irrelevant and (incorrectly) form a view of philosophy based solely on what the woos talk about on the JREF forums.

 

[marplots]

I remember qualia. It was one of those words that made me feel all educated. Noumenal fits that category as well. I think the truth value of a concept is less important here than the impression you can make by throwing these out in casual conversations.

Yeah, it works until you meet someone who can actually understand the concept and point out that it doesn't work.

It's a good thing I only ever meet those people here in the forum. Ya gotta pick your audience.