Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

[Belz...]

It's bizarre you should ascertain that science, instead of discarding old hypotheses in favour of new ones, clings grimly to the same concept and tries to shoe-horn into it into the ever-changing evidential framework of reality. That's not a behaviour of science I've ever encountered but you know, it does ring a bell...

If it's not a behaviour of science you've ever encountered, then science isn't doing that, and I don't see what your problem is.

...ah, unless you want there to be souls, of course.

 

[caveman1917]

Materialism is not, never has been, and never will be "a fad"

I have another name for it, I call it "actualism"

That's nice...

Materialism doesn't require the assumption of anything else other than itself for it to be reality

As does every other ontology. A bit like a religious person claiming that you only have to assume the bible to be true for said beliefs to become real to you, whilst ignoring that this just as well holds for any other religion and their texts.

 

[baron]

If it's not a behaviour of science you've ever encountered, then science isn't doing that, and I don't see what your problem is.

I have no problem, and I was not debating science, I was debating acbytesla.

For the record, materialism is not a scientific term nor is it a scientific concept. It sits squarely in the realms of philosophy. Scientists who declare themselves materialists (an increasingly small number) are simply defining the framework in which they view the world, not aligning themselves with a particular scientific theory.

 

[Myriad]

What are you talking about? The world as we observe it is created in its entirety inside our heads from a vanishingly small set of electrical impulses. It is a wholly fabricated model, the sole purpose of which is not for us to understand the universe, but for us to survive in our limited environment long enough to reproduce. You think the real 'out there' world possesses attributes of colour, or sound, or solidity, or even movement in the strictest sense? You think we are capable of processing more than a crazy small fraction of the information around us?

Quantum mechanics tells us what reality is fundamentally like. You can't reasonably deny that. What you experience with your almost non-existent macro senses in your immediate environment is wholly irrelevant. Materialism, regardless of what contrived definition it is operating under today, must define the fundamentals of existence, otherwise why even invent the term?

That second paragraph directly contradicts the first.

Quantum mechanics is part of the fabricated mental model made of electrical impulses from which we extrapolate the external universe.

If our minds are too feeble to process a complete or accurate description of the universe as your first paragraph claims, then we either cannot fully process quantum mechanics either, or quantum mechanics is not a complete and accurate description. Either way, your claim that quantum mechanics tells us what reality is fundamentally like contradicts your premises.

 

[smartcooky]

I am trying to get at why games are being played here with the name "materialism" without any sensible replacement being mooted.

I know the answer to this. Its the game of trying to keep the argument going.

If you keep changing the meaning of what is being debated, you can keep your options open by redefining the debate... that way, you can avoid ever being pinned down to a position.

This is called the "slippery eel" technique, something that solipsists and other airy-fairy types are really good at.

 

[baron]

That second paragraph directly contradicts the first.

And this one directly contradicts yours.

Quantum mechanics is part of the fabricated mental model made of electrical impulses from which we extrapolate the external universe.

I don't know what that means.

If our minds are too feeble to process a complete or accurate description of the universe as your first paragraph claims, then we either cannot fully process quantum mechanics either, or quantum mechanics is not a complete and accurate description. Either way, your claim that quantum mechanics tells us what reality is fundamentally like contradicts your premises.

You're getting confused. We cannot directly perceive quantum events. We can build machines to do so and read their output. We can also do the maths that predict aggregate quantum outputs and compare them with experimental results. We can perceive macro events. None of these points contradict any of the others.

 

[caveman1917]

I know the answer to this.

And I didn't ask that.

If you keep changing the meaning of what is being debated, you can keep your options open by redefining the debate... that way, you can avoid ever being pinned down to a position.

My position is simple: asserting any ontology is worse than asserting no ontology, essentially by Occam's razor. And that materialism is, indeed, a fad.

 

[Myriad]

You're getting confused. We cannot directly perceive quantum events. We can build machines to do so and read their output. We can also do the maths that predict aggregate quantum outputs and compare them with experimental results. We can perceive macro events. None of these points contradict any of the others.

No confusion. This is crystal clear.

Is quantum mechanics an aspect of the world or not?

If it's not, then it's hardly relevant to anything.

If it is, well...

The world as we observe it is created in its entirety inside our heads from a vanishingly small set of electrical impulses. It is a wholly fabricated model, the sole purpose of which is not for us to understand the universe, but for us to survive in our limited environment long enough to reproduce. You think the real 'out there' world possesses attributes of colour, or sound, or solidity, or even movement in the strictest sense? You think we are capable of processing more than a crazy small fraction of the information around us?

 

[Darat]

'Matter' is a throwback term to when the subatomic world was thought a mirror the macro world and consist of tiny little balls bouncing around and interacting. We have known for decades that this is not the case. Any current definition of 'matter' cannot relate to all that can be observed, and indeed does not. The photon does not have mass, the quark does not even exist in three dimensional space, and that's before you even get onto the question of fields and forces, which have never been defined under the term, and have historically been ignored by materialists of all flavours. No attributes of macro objects are mirrored in the subatomic world and therefore the idea of 'matter' and 'material' as applied to the latter is literally not even wrong, it is moot; it has no meaning.



About 20 years ago I bought a book titled 'The End of Science', a confused, attention seeking tome suggesting that we were approaching a time when we know everything there is to know about reality. Some elements of the scientific community have been bleating on in a similar vein for the past two thousand years. Perhaps once it was a valid avenue of speculation, now it is inexcusable. What should be clear is that statements such as "We know that X cannot exist" are unjustified and unscientific.



I don't know the article, and I've never heard of such a statement being made, but it smacks of sensationalism. That something of this magnitude is contained in single article is laughably unlikely. I certainly haven't encountered anything similar in the books I've read, even the ones published in the last 18 months.

In fact, 'unknown mechanism'? Consciousness, you mean? Consciousness does operate via an unknown mechanism. That's not even in serious dispute (unless you believe the title of Dennett's book 'Consciousness Explained', in which he waffles on about peripheral irrelevances before announcing he doesn't actually have a clue what consciousness is; I did consider getting a refund on the basis of false advertising). The general consensus, in my view, is that right now we know there is more we don't know that at any point in our history.



Of course it's changed, that's my whole point! It changes every five years, when its followers realise the current flavour fails miserably to describe the prevailing scientific consensus yet don't have the wit or the honesty to admit they are wrong and re-evaluate their worldviews.

I was a materialist once, I have no qualms about admitting it. But then I did the research. Materialism wasn't a religion to me so I had no issues about letting it go.

I've never been a materialist so for me it ain't even about letting go a childhood favourite, it's just about being pragmatic. What materialism refers to of course changes over time, but that is indeed its strength. I've often thought materialism would be better named stuffism I. e. the stuff that exists regardless of what that stuff is.

 

[Darat]

We only have evidence for 'a universal consciousness or spirit' - every experience and measurement occurs as an object in consciousness. We assume the existence of a shared physical material world. It's a rational assumption, but an assumption.

Please define your use of consciousness. I'm asking because it appears that you are making the same "error of assumption" you claim those that postulate a physical material world make.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I'm asking you, because you seem to have automatically assumed that "consciousness" cannot be explained as simply the end result of a sensory system (sight, touch, smell, hearing etc.) that is rapidly exchanging "information" (i.e. chemical, electrical and other physical changes) with the brain, limbs, and other organs.

How does that lead to consciousness? And why doesn't it always lead to consciousness assuming it ever does?

 

[Darat]

That doesn't scan.

Materialism is not a fad or a competing hypothesis in the ring with gods, magic or navel-gazing. Materialism is a noun that groups the whole of what science has learned.

I am trying to get at why games are being played here with the name "materialism" without any sensible replacement being mooted.

I think what you have here (is as ever) folk using different definitions for "materialism". Some are using the classical philosophy definition, some are using the modern useage which is not really a philosophical position in the same way. That means we seem to be disagreeing with one another whereas if we each reread our exchanges with the definition the poster was using I suspect we would have less disagreement about "materialism".

I'm happy to agree that classical materialism was disproved by science a long time ago, the world truly isn't made of little solid particles.

 

[baron]

No confusion. This is crystal clear.

Is quantum mechanics an aspect of the world or not?

If it's not, then it's hardly relevant to anything.

If it is, well...

Try extending your bolding by four words. You're right, though, you can't possibly be confused about what I said, so clearly you're being argumentative for the sake of it.

 

[baron]

I've never been a materialist so for me it ain't even about letting go a childhood favourite, it's just about being pragmatic. What materialism refers to of course changes over time, but that is indeed its strength. I've often thought materialism would be better named stuffism I. e. the stuff that exists regardless of what that stuff is.

'Stuff exists' is probably as far as you can take it, although even then I wouldn't hang my hat on it (literally or conceptually). For day to day parlance it is of course useful to acknowledge that stuff exists, but in the quantum realm I'm not sure it even has meaning. After all, can something with no size be considered stuff? What about something with no mass? What about something with no directly observed attributes whatsoever? Is gravity stuff? Is an electromagnetic field stuff? Is time stuff? That's the thing with the quantum world, none of the attributes of 'stuff' is applicable to the mathematics which describe it.

 

[Myriad]

Try extending your bolding by four words. You're right, though, you can't possibly be confused about what I said, so clearly you're being argumentative for the sake of it.

That extends the bolding to "the world as we observe it."

Are we not observing the world and/or "fabricating mental models" using our limited faculties when we do these things:

We can build machines to do so and read their output. We can also do the maths that predict aggregate quantum outputs and compare them with experimental results. We can perceive macro events.

You are clearly implying (whether you mean to or not) that while all other observations and mental models of the world are unreliable and incomplete due to our limited faculties, quantum mechanics is somehow not subject to those same limitations. But you've presented no justification for such a view.

 

[baron]

That extends the bolding to "the world as we observe it."

Are we not observing the world and/or "fabricating mental models" using our limited faculties when we do these things:

Yes, of course.

You are clearly implying (whether you mean to or not) that while all other observations and mental models of the world are unreliable and incomplete due to our limited faculties, quantum mechanics is somehow not subject to those same limitations. But you've presented no justification for such a view.

I didn't say our direct observations were unreliable in terms of their limited scope, I said they are unreliable (more accurately, useless) in describing fundamental reality.

Quantum mechanical processes cannot be directly observed by humans, only their aggregates, and those tell us nothing about the fundamentals.

 

[acbytesla]

You are clearly implying (whether you mean to or not) that while all other observations and mental models of the world are unreliable and incomplete due to our limited faculties, quantum mechanics is somehow not subject to those same limitations. But you've presented no justification for such a view.

He's definitely engaged in special pleading where the understanding of quantum mechanics is the exception to his perception rule. He also seems to be arguing The Matrix phenomenon of solipsism which I consider to be the most useless concept.

Somebody, please, please take the bong away from him.

 

[baron]

He's definitely engaged in special pleading where the understanding of quantum mechanics is the exception to his perception rule. He also seems to be arguing The Matrix phenomenon of solipsism which I consider to be the most useless concept.

That bears not even a passing relationship to what I posted.

 

[caveman1917]

What materialism refers to of course changes over time, but that is indeed its strength.

That's just silly, words mean things. If your preferred ontology changes then you use a new name for it. It's what everyone else does...

Besides, having materialism be some ever moving target means that by now you have to consider asserting the existence of the universal wavefunction as materialism, that's like completely on the other side of the ontological spectrum as the standard form of materialism. No wonder you get confusions.

 

[applecorped]

Science is only as good as those using it