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

[Cheetah]

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove incivility

That whole first paragraph is fiction erupting from your own imagination.

The second has some truth to it, except for:

Whereas in this whole thread you have spent the entire time producing precisely nothing … no evidence at all, and not even a hand-waving word-explanation to show how solipsist un-reality could be true. And the same goes for the silly BIV claims too – no evidence and no explanation. Nothing at all, zero.

As I've said, over and over and over and over and over again. I'm not trying to produce anything. I was trying to explain to you what a solipsist is, since you obviously have no clue. How many time do I have to say this, when will you get this? All my posts to you have been about trying really very hard, in multiple different ways, to explain that one thing.

I challenge you to come up with a thought experiment to illustrate the nature of a solipsist. Should be easy if you understand the concept. It does not in any way have to be plausible, just possible and logically consistent.
Go for it!

 

[Cheetah]

You can if you first define 'wrong'. For example if you define 'wrong' as anything that causes a net increase in human suffering and 'right' as anything which causes a net decrease in human suffering then you can determine that killing a doctor who is saving lives is wrong and killing someone who is in the middle of a killing spree is right.

Morality is easy when the choices are so clear cut.
"Causes a net increase in human suffering" is something I think would not be applicable to all moral situations and in any case might turn out to be a matter of opinion.

Example, you can only save one person, who do you save?

An adult or a child?

or

A teenager or a baby?

all else being equal.

What about:
The scientist, who's job is his whole life, who does not have a family, but who is working on some medical breakthrough, or the dolt with the 15 kids and a doting wife?

It's not easy.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Morality is easy when the choices are so clear cut.
"Causes a net increase in human suffering" is something I think would not be applicable to all moral situations and in any case might turn out to be a matter of opinion.

....

Well, we need an ironclad objective definition of "suffering", or we have simply moved the problem to the fact, that what "suffering" is, is subjective.

 

[Belz...]

It is a strange statement in a forum that deals with solipsism. If you have said this before we would not have wasted our time talking about a subject that you are not interested in.

I didn't say I wasn't interested in the subject. Perhaps you should read what I post more carefully. I said that I'm not interested in what solipsists would say to my proposal of a standard because they don't believe what they say anyway. They are playing devil's advocate.

Confrontational tone? Have you answered my questions? Truly?

To the best of my knowledge and ability. If you feel like I haven't, wouldn't it be better to ask them again rather than do what you did?

Strange way to answer questions.

Interesting that you snipped the part where I actually tell you why they are stupid questions. It's almost as if you're trying to gaslight me, forgetting that I can go back and read the post, too.

 

[Tassman]

Context:
We are now within a natural world, so no supernatural claim, woo-woo, CT and what not.

So you can ask the following question: Within this world is there at least one question which science can't answer?
And the answer is yes! Using science you can't answer if killing another human is wrong or not.

The philosophical argument used to answer this question is useful only inasmuch as mathematics and philosophy are the cement that holds the scientific structure together, ensures its self-consistency, and helps us prevent errors of false inference. But philosophy and maths do not, and cannot, generate new truths about nature. For this you need science.

Re the morality of "killing people"', the natural evolution of human behaviour is to ensure the survival of the family and community and cooperation so that the human species survives. This is the basis of whether or not killing people is right or wrong and it's grounded in scientific knowledge.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

The philosophical argument used to answer this question is useful only inasmuch as mathematics and philosophy are the cement that holds the scientific structure together, ensures its self-consistency, and helps us prevent errors of false inference. But philosophy and maths do not, and cannot, generate new truths about nature. For this you need science.

Re the morality of "killing people"', the natural evolution of human behaviour is to ensure the survival of the family and community and cooperation so that the human species survives. This is a scientific fact, not a "moral truth"

For the human species it doesn't require all humans to survive, nor does it say anything about a good life in general. Further biological evolution is about the fitness of the individual organism in regards to reproduction, not the fitness of the species. There can be competition within a species for resources and since resources are limited, competition do occur.
In short humanity is a moral sense is not the same as the human species in the biological sense, because humanity is an idea, i.e. a social construct and not a biological fact.
Try again.

 

[IanS]

Context:
We are now within a natural world, so no supernatural claim, woo-woo, CT and what not.

So you can ask the following question: Within this world is there at least one question which science can't answer? And the answer is yes! Using science you can't answer if killing another human is wrong or not.Moral answers are not magical, supernatural, woo-woo, CT and what not but such all the answers are subjective and a case of bias, where as science is objective and without bias.

So as a result of how a scientist uses her/his cognition, she/he can't do science and morality about what behaviors are right or wrong, except when it comes to what behavior is scientific or not.
In other words moral subjectivity is natural and can be observed by scientists, but not replicated as behavior when do scientific behavior.

The same is the case for the word "physical", "physical" is a limited human behavior in regards to the natural world. All behavior is natural, but no all behavior is physical.

Well first of all the above (e.g. the highlighted claims) is completely off topic here. Issues of what the words “right” and “wrong” should mean, is an entirely different subject than claims of solipsist-unreality and BIV. However, apart from that – you are using those words (“right” & “wrong”) in two completely different ways where they have two entirely different meanings, but deliberately conflating the two different situations to claim that the words should have the same meaning -

As you must very well know; when anyone talks of what science believes to be right or wrong, such as saying we believe the theory of evolution is right (meaning that it is factually correct as far as we can honestly tell), that is a very different meaning of “right” from what is meant when we say people should do the “right” thing for someone else, such as helping a blind person to cross a busy road … that is only “right” in the sense of what society as a whole has come to accept as fairness and help towards others, e.g. a matter of honesty (it's “right” to tell the truth etc.) … but that is completely different from impersonal non-subjective things that are regarded as a matter of fact, such as saying it's “right” that humans evolved from earlier apes.

What you are displaying, and what you seem to display in almost every post on this site when you are promoting philosophy, is that formal academic philosophy appears to be mostly if not entirely just a matter of playing deceptive games with the use of words and language.

 

[Pixel42]

What you are displaying, and what you seem to display in almost every post on this site when you are promoting philosophy, is that formal academic philosophy appears to be mostly if not entirely just a matter of playing deceptive games with the use of words and language.

Richard Feynman once described philosophers as people who kick up the dirt, and then complain because they can't see.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Well first of all the above (e.g. the highlighted claims) is completely off topic here. Issues of what the words “right” and “wrong” should mean, is an entirely different subject than claims of solipsist-unreality and BIV. However, apart from that – you are using those words (“right” & “wrong”) in two completely different ways where they have two entirely different meanings, but deliberately conflating the two different situations to claim that the words should have the same meaning -

As you must very well know; when anyone talks of what science believes to be right or wrong, such as saying we believe the theory of evolution is right (meaning that it is factually correct as far as we can honestly tell), that is a very different meaning of “right” from what is meant when we say people should do the “right” thing for someone else, such as helping a blind person to cross a busy road … that is only “right” in the sense of what society as a whole has come to accept as fairness and help towards others, e.g. a matter of honesty (it's “right” to tell the truth etc.) … but that is completely different from impersonal non-subjective things that are regarded as a matter of fact, such as saying it's “right” that humans evolved from earlier apes.

What you are displaying, and what you seem to display in almost every post on this site when you are promoting philosophy, is that formal academic philosophy appears to be mostly if not entirely just a matter of playing deceptive games with the use of words and language.

Read some of Tassman's post and you will find the following claims:
The world is physical and natural.
Science can answer all questions within this world.

It started as I recall as a progression from qualia to psychology versus biology and whether there are words, which are a part of a natural world, but can't be explained by natural science.

And indeed there are such words: "Morally right" and "morally wrong".
So this thread is about both solipsism and qualia.
So if you like we are debating the subjective experience of "morally right" and "morally wrong" and if that is a limit to science.
So does "morally right" and "morally wrong" have something to do with consciousness, qualia and subjective experience. Yes, they do. Further they don't have a scientific theory like the theory/law of gravity, unless you can show us a link to a scientific theory of what behavior is morally right or wrong.

In regards to the header of this thread it is related:
Science can't answer moral questions, therefore science is a limited methodology when it comes to questions about the natural world.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hi IanS

I actually think that I am a solipsist. The problem relevant to this thread is that I am a weak one. I don't believe in real nor existence, so it is meaningless for me to say that I exist. Rather I experience and that I am certain of. What the content of my experiences are about other than that I experience them, I don't know.
In the classical tradition of solipsism it makes me an epistemological solipsist, but not a metaphysical one.

Now I do believe that you and I are a part of the world as it appears to be, but I don't know that.
You see I don't need the word "knowledge" as other humans do. I get by on my beliefs about the world, because they appear to work in practice for me.

 

[LarryS]

If you can not claim there is an independent reality (independent of a mental state), and in addition you can not claim that you exist . . . then I think that is full blown nihilism.

 

[Fudbucker]

As I said, I find it weird and seemingly impossible, but since I am a rational person I have to accept it.
I don't understand the highlighted bit, what do you mean? From my point of view it looks like it is you who are claiming that "2+2 doesn't equal four in some part of the universe".
Your answer seems like a claim that the same process on different hardware will not have the same result? I'm not sure, you did not actually say anything except you think it's illogical.

A conscious system of toilets is as impossible (to me), as 2+2 equaling 5 in some part of the universe. It's so fundamental, I would consider it an axiom: no system of toilets can ever become conscious.

 

[Myriad]

A conscious system of toilets is as impossible (to me), as 2+2 equaling 5 in some part of the universe. It's so fundamental, I would consider it an axiom: no system of toilets can ever become conscious.

How about a system of brain cells? Could one of those ever become conscious?

How about a system of brain cells, functioning only in the general manners that neurobiology currently understands them to function? Could one of those ever become conscious?

 

[LarryS]

A conscious system of toilets is as impossible (to me), as 2+2 equaling 5 in some part of the universe. It's so fundamental, I would consider it an axiom: no system of toilets can ever become conscious.

well get used to it - because in a materialist POV, every possible unit or parcel of matter, no matter how one slices it - is conscious. Though it may respond/behave so slowly and differently to be recognizable to us as such. BTW, it also explains why we're smarter if we wear a hat, or a specific hat, and why we're dumber with other hats.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

If you can not claim there is an independent reality (independent of a mental state), and in addition you can not claim that you exist . . . then I think that is full blown nihilism.

Well, I know that there is an independent objective reality (das Ding an sich), but that is all I know about it, because e.g. I don't know if reality is as it appears or if I am a Boltzmann Brain. So as whether I exist or not, existence (being qua being) in philosophy is in fact an empty idea, because in practice if you look closer you will realize that you don't exist, you experience.
In practice you have different experiences and that ties in with control/the ability to do or no control/no ability to do. The ideas of things and existence are in the western culture philosophical ideas. You don't have to believe in things and existence to have a life. You can believe in different experiences and control/the ability to do or not.

 

[jrhowell]

well get used to it - because in a materialist POV, every possible unit or parcel of matter, no matter how one slices it - is conscious.

A pretty silly straw man. The idea you are ignoring is that consciousness appears to be a process performed by a properly functioning brain and has more to do with how the components of the brain work together than the exact substance of which they are composed.

 

[Myriad]

well get used to it - because in a materialist POV, every possible unit or parcel of matter, no matter how one slices it - is conscious.

There is such a view; it's called panpsychism, and historically it has been widely popular. Panpsychism is not strictly incompatible with materialism, but it's not currently popular in materialist philosophy. Your claim is therefore contrary to the facts.

 

[The Norseman]

Too bad this thread has devolved into more BS philosophizing make-it-up-as-you-go anti-science nonsense.

I do find it amusing, however, that the people arguing the so-called solipsistic POV are using the exact same arguments of incredulity, "proof", "unassailable position" and so on that many theists use to defend their "god." And they don't seem to realize it.

 

[Dancing David]

well get used to it - because in a materialist POV, every possible unit or parcel of matter, no matter how one slices it - is conscious. Though it may respond/behave so slowly and differently to be recognizable to us as such. BTW, it also explains why we're smarter if we wear a hat, or a specific hat, and why we're dumber with other hats.

I wonder who expressed that as a materialist?

My understanding is that an arrangement of items creates a process that is conscious.

 

[LarryS]

There is such a view; it's called panpsychism, and historically it has been widely popular. Panpsychism is not strictly incompatible with materialism, but it's not currently popular in materialist philosophy. Your claim is therefore contrary to the facts.

I figured that with your inserting the cartoon we were just goofing off for a bit, but now it appears to be back to serious.