The relationship between science and materialism

[UndercoverElephant]

I thought those two were philosophers not scientists?

They call themselves "neurophilosophers". Paul Churchland is about a philosophically aware as cyborg. His wife isn't much better, IMO.

 

[chriswl]

It is rather unhelpful and uninformed hyperbole.

Agreed.

Apart from the fact that the reason he thinks that his position is reasonable is because he is a materialist.

No, Dawkins' claim that religion is the root of all evil means that he has looked at the various problems in the world and (rather amazingly) concluded that religion is behind every one of them. It's silly, but it is the kind of silly statement a non materialist could make too.

OK...stripped from an essay on pseudoscience (= fake science), the whole of which is available here : http://esophy.com/arc1/scienceandpseudoscience.html

I said not counting arguments among philosophers. I want to know how "scientism" has supposedly infiltrated deep into our culture and actually affects us. Is it just something for philosophers to discuss or a real problem for the rest of us?

I should have made it obvious by now that I am no Christian, but that doesn't mean there isn't deeply philosophical (meaningful, relevant) allegory in some parts of it. This is exactly the sort of thing I mean by "scientism". You clearly don't allow for any other sort of information gathering than via objective science. Attacking liberal Christians as somehow having less integrity than the fundamentalists seems to me to be a fundamentally wrong-headed thing to do. They are not your enemy - at least they shouldn't be.

If liberal Christians would accept that the bible is a work of literature to be examined for the insight it gives us into the human condition, rather like say, Shakespeare, than I'd be fine with that, but then they wouldn't be religious anymore. For them the bible is kind of true and kind of not true and they have no valid basis for deciding which bits are which.

I have equal contempt for the views of fundmentalist and liberal Christians but for different reasons - fundamentalists are bonkers and liberal Christians are intellectually dishonest.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No, Dawkins' claim that religion is the root of all evil means that he has looked at the various problems in the world and (rather amazingly) concluded that religion is behind every one of them. It's silly, but it is the kind of silly statement a non materialist could make too.

I suppose so, but the kind of people who usually exhibit that sort of an attitude tend to be heavily influenced by the worldview associated with science and materialism.

I said not counting arguments among philosophers. I want to know how "scientism" has supposedly infiltrated deep into our culture and actually affects us. Is it just something for philosophers to discuss or a real problem for the rest of us?

It's a real problem, but only in so much as I think that the world would be a better place if people understood each better, and I think that scientism has a tendency to impede this. Both Husserl and Allan Wallace have a tendency to sound like they are blaming scientistic attitudes for more problems than they can be directly associated with. I think the biggest threat is to the integrity of science of itself - like in the case I described. Churchland may be a "neurophilosopher" rather than a scientist, but he certainly represents the scientific worldview (as does Dennett). In both these cases I believe the primary audience is scientists rather than other philosophers. What's more, they then get quoted by the scientists and an attempt is made to attach scientific authority to what is actually bad philosophy. The result is people at this site making false claims that science has shown materialism is true and that consciousness is a brain process. Science has shown nothing of the sort, and a great many people think it's theoretically impossible that it ever could. This doesn't stop the claims. People who challenge the claims are treated like they are stupid, ignorant or trying to destroy science.

If liberal Christians would accept that the bible is a work of literature to be examined for the insight it gives us into the human condition, rather like say, Shakespeare, than I'd be fine with that, but then they wouldn't be religious anymore.

But the human condition can be interpreted in many ways, and some of them are religious. Unlike you, I believe that religion has a legitimate role to play in human society - and not just a socio-pychological one.

For them the bible is kind of true and kind of not true and they have no valid basis for deciding which bits are which.

This statement is scientism in action. You are trying to apply your own restrictive modes of thinking (aristotlean, analytic, empirical) to a religious text which was never designed to be understood or analysed in that way. You can't even approach a deeply allegorical piece of literature and "decide which bits are true and which bits are not". "Truth" isn't science and mathematics. It isn't philosophy either.

Basically, there is a whole world of spiritually-inspired literature out there, from the Bible to Robert Anton Wilson, all of which, from your point of view, might as well not exist. I believe it serves a purpose which science can never replace. Philosophy might have been able to, if it had ever managed to reach more than a tiny percentage of the population and if it was easier to understand. Perhaps Sartre was the closest to reaching the people, but even he didn't reach that many.

I have equal contempt for the views of fundmentalist and liberal Christians but for different reasons - fundamentalists are bonkers and liberal Christians are intellectually dishonest.

You sound to me like you aren't far behind Dawkins. Some liberal Christians are amongst the most pleasant, most thoughtful, most hardworking and least selfish people I have ever met.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Chris,

I can't help noticing you completely ignored the actual example I gave you. You could not have a clearer example of scientism than that. Paul Churchlands position isn't just contraversial or unproven. It is simply wrong, and badly so. It is based upon a serious and easily identifiable error which is repeated throughout the book I was quoting from start to finish. Yet it is still taught to first year students of cognitive science.

Now - what is the difference between that and the work of people defending intelligent design theory? Nothing, as far as I can see. I may not have a theory of truth, but I know when something is demonstrably wrong, and both the IDers and Paul Churchland fall into this category. Yet both continue to be championed by their fundamentalist supporters, one lot of which you endorse.

Wrong is wrong. I don't care whether it's Christian wrongness or materialistic wrongness.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Chris

One other thing. Since you keep trying to equate science and truth, I ought to explain what truth means to me. For me, there are only language games - no absolute language in which to express absolute truth. So any statement in English which appears to be true is only true within the context of the language game it is occuring in. For you, the context is always scientific materialism and what you call "true" really means "true within the context of the language game of scientific materialism." But you think that is REAL truth. And you seem to think that everybody else ought to accept it as truth (if they want to be reasonable). You dismiss other peoples language games (like the language game of the bible) as worthless and the people who use them to be intellectually dishonest. Underlying this whole edifice is physicalism. Take it away and suddenly your "truth" becomes only one of many. Which is why people like you find it so impossible to let go of it, wrong though it is. "But it's not wrong! Prove it's wrong!" goes the voice in your head.....where's your critical eye when it comes to physicalism? Have you ever seriously considered the possibility it could be wrong?

Geoff.

 

[stamenflicker]

What I want is some suggestions for what to do about the problem, rather than some guy's rant about how some strawman materialism has become the religion of the USA. What a farce. But there won't be any suggestions, because no one has anything to suggest.

When you've got the new science of Zero, let me know.

~~ Paul

We could always have a beer and throw some darts. That's what this preacher tends to do with my science buds.

 

[fsol]

As a side point. Dawkins never said that religion was the root of all evil. He has repeatedly denied that the title was his idea, and even if it was his idea, the title doesn't state that religion is the root of all evil. It asks a question. A program with the same title could just as easily be made by Ted Haggard.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

We could always have a beer and throw some darts. That's what this preacher tends to do with my science buds.

A fine idea. Can we throw darts at strawmen?

~~ Paul

 

[ruach1]

Chris

One other thing. Since you keep trying to equate science and truth, I ought to explain what truth means to me. For me, there are only language games - no absolute language in which to express absolute truth. So any statement in English which appears to be true is only true within the context of the language game it is occuring in. For you, the context is always scientific materialism and what you call "true" really means "true within the context of the language game of scientific materialism." But you think that is REAL truth. And you seem to think that everybody else ought to accept it as truth (if they want to be reasonable). You dismiss other peoples language games (like the language game of the bible) as worthless and the people who use them to be intellectually dishonest. Underlying this whole edifice is physicalism. Take it away and suddenly your "truth" becomes only one of many. Which is why people like you find it so impossible to let go of it, wrong though it is. "But it's not wrong! Prove it's wrong!" goes the voice in your head.....where's your critical eye when it comes to physicalism? Have you ever seriously considered the possibility it could be wrong?

Geoff.

The following is a long quote from a book which changed my life for the better--a book that everyone on this Forum should read. It is from Richard Tarnas' The Passion of the Western Mind

Properly speaking, therefore, there is no "postmodern world view," nor the possibility of one. The postmodern paradigm is by its nature fundamentally subversive of all paradigms, for at its core is the awareness of reality as being ot once multiple, local and termporal, and without demonstrable foundation. The situation recognized by John Dewey at the start of the century, that "despair of any integrated outlook and attitude [is] the chief intellectual characteristic of the present age," has been enshrined as the essence of the postmodern vision, as in Jeah-Francois Lyotard's definition postmodern as "incredulity toward metanarratives."

Here, paradoxically, we can recognize something of the old confidence of the modern mind in the superiority of its own perspective. Only whereas the modern mind's conviction of superiority derived from its awareness of possessing in an absolute sense more knowledge than its predecessors, the postmodern mind's sense of superiority derives from its special awareness of how little knowledge can be claimed by any mind, itself included. Yet precisely by virtue of that self-relativizing critical awareness, it is recognized that a quasi-nihilistic rejection of any and all forms of "totalizaton" and and "metanarrative"--of any aspiration toward intellectual unity, wholeness, or comprehensive coherence--is itself a position not beyond questioning, and cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself. Such a position presupposes a metanarrative of its own, one perhaps more subtle than others, but in the end no less subject to deconstructive criticism. On its own terms, the assertion of the historical relativity and cultural-linguistic bondage of all truth and knowledge must itself be regarded as reflecting but one more local and temporal perspective having no necessarily universal, extra-historical value. Everything could change tomorrow. Implicitly, the one postmodern absolute is critical consciousness, which, by deconstructing all, seems compelled by its own logic to do so to itself as well. This is the unstable paradox that permeates the postmodern mind.

Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Westen Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped OUr World View. New York, NY. Ballantine Books: 1991, pgs. 401-402.

(I hope this didn't break any rules. If it did; it was worth it.)

 

[chriswl]

I think the biggest threat is to the integrity of science of itself - like in the case I described. Churchland may be a "neurophilosopher" rather than a scientist, but he certainly represents the scientific worldview (as does Dennett).

But it's interesting that in your piece you let the real pseudo-scientists off the hook and concentrate your ire on real scientists who dare to misunderstand philosophy.

In both these cases I believe the primary audience is scientists rather than other philosophers. What's more, they then get quoted by the scientists and an attempt is made to attach scientific authority to what is actually bad philosophy.

How is Dennett propagating bad philosophy? Purely because he's a materialist? That's one hell of a lot of bad philosophers out there. Your view of contemporary philosophy seems unduly influenced by the biases and specialisms of your university. What do you make of the following comment from the non-materialist philosopher David Chalmers in a recent blog entry:

One still sometimes sees the claim that almost everyone these days is a materialist (e.g. in Peter Carruthers' new book, p. 5: "Just about everyone now working in this area is an ontological physicalist, with the exception of Chalmers (1996) and perhaps a few others"). I don't think one can get away with saying this any more. ...If I had to guess, I'd guess that the numbers within philosophy of mind are 50% materialist, 25% agnostic, 25% dualist.

http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2005/09/jaegwon_kim_com.html

Note he's talking about philosophy, not cognitive science (I don't think 25% of cognitive scientists are dualists, right?)

But the human condition can be interpreted in many ways, and some of them are religious. Unlike you, I believe that religion has a legitimate role to play in human society - and not just a socio-pychological one.

Religion is not merely a different interpretation of the human condition. All religions (except perhaps Buddhism) make claims about the physical world. You don't like science stepping on philosophy's toes - well I don't like religion doing the same to science.

This statement is scientism in action. You are trying to apply your own restrictive modes of thinking (aristotlean, analytic, empirical) to a religious text which was never designed to be understood or analysed in that way.

Of course it was. It only became allegorical when the advance of science made a literal interpretation unsupportable. To what extent do you think the average middle ages peasant thought the bible stories were allegorical?

Basically, there is a whole world of spiritually-inspired literature out there, from the Bible to Robert Anton Wilson, all of which, from your point of view, might as well not exist.

You're right there.

You sound to me like you aren't far behind Dawkins. Some liberal Christians are amongst the most pleasant, most thoughtful, most hardworking and least selfish people I have ever met.

I agree, some of my friends are liberal Christians, it's their religion I have contempt for not them (we never talk religion, it's safer that way). I like and admire Dawkins enormously. He does make the occasional over the top statements but only because he is passionate about what he believes in. He also writes and speaks wonderfully, in a positive way, about the beauty of the scientific view of the world.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Ruach1:

Thankyou for that quote. We find ourselves at the point in history where we find ourselves - we can't go backwards. And yes, even postmodernism isn't immune to being deconstructed.

Geoff.

 

[chriswl]

Chris

One other thing. Since you keep trying to equate science and truth, I ought to explain what truth means to me. For me, there are only language games - no absolute language in which to express absolute truth. So any statement in English which appears to be true is only true within the context of the language game it is occuring in. For you, the context is always scientific materialism and what you call "true" really means "true within the context of the language game of scientific materialism." But you think that is REAL truth. And you seem to think that everybody else ought to accept it as truth (if they want to be reasonable).

Not quite. I accept there are different "language games". But the science language game has a special property that the others lack - it is complete. It can explain all phenomena and all the other "games" can, in principle, be reduced to "science game" descriptions. Not that we would always want to make such a reduction, even if we could. Ultimately, it should be possible, if we know enough, scientifically about the brain, to understand what makes a great painting but I suspect that current "art game" theories are more useable as instructive guides either to appreciation or practice.

Each person plays many types of language game, they can't all be hermetically isolated from one another. When a language game produces results that conflict with the science language game it is wrong (e.g. the astrology language game).

Underlying this whole edifice is physicalism. Take it away and suddenly your "truth" becomes only one of many.

You could only have many truths if there is some way of ensuring they don't conflict. And there is - they are all ultimately derivable from a fundamental truth - the facts of the physical world.

....where's your critical eye when it comes to physicalism? Have you ever seriously considered the possibility it could be wrong?

I used to be a dualist, until quite recently. I became convinced that dualism was untenable. That leaves materialism (I find idealism incomprehensible, unless it's just materialism but with all the physical stuff labelled "mind" instead, and I don't see the point of that). Convince me that physicalism can't be true.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But it's interesting that in your piece you let the real pseudo-scientists off the hook and concentrate your ire on real scientists who dare to misunderstand philosophy.

If you read the rest of the essay you will find that this is not the case. The section I quoted was the very end. The bulk of the essay first established what pseudo-science is (and isn't) and why it is a problem.

Religion is not merely a different interpretation of the human condition. All religions (except perhaps Buddhism) make claims about the physical world.

No they don't. Some of them do. Most of those claims are not interpreted literally.

You don't like science stepping on philosophy's toes - well I don't like religion doing the same to science.

I know that, and I don't like it any more than you do. That's why I used to be the science and skepticism moderator at infidels.org. Your reasons for disliking creationists are a long way from being lost on me, Chris.

Of course it was. It only became allegorical when the advance of science made a literal interpretation unsupportable.

I don't think you understand the purpose of symbolism and mythology. It's a whole different way of thinking - an intuitive way of thinking. Not all religions have fought with science for 400 years. It really is only Christianity that has done this, and that is because science was born in Christendom.

To what extent do you think the average middle ages peasant thought the bible stories were allegorical?

The average middle ages peasant

a) Couldn't read
b) Certainly couldn't read latin
c) Wouldn't have been allowed to read the Bible even if he could read latin

So, none, probably.

All religions are different. Christianity has a unique history. With respect to the allegorical meaning, especially of the new testament, something "went wrong" during the first 400 years. The story of how this happened is, IMO, absolutely fascinating. I think that far more is known about the origins of Christianity, the origins of its symbolism and the reasons it became what it became, than most people think. In some other religions the symbolism is easier. But I think that even most mediaevil peasants probably understood the symbolism of the crucifixion, regardless of whether or not they believed it was an historical event, which they almost certainly did.

If I were to ask you what the crucifixion symbolises, what would you say?

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Chris.

I agree, some of my friends are liberal Christians, it's their religion I have contempt for not them (we never talk religion, it's safer that way). I like and admire Dawkins enormously. He does make the occasional over the top statements but only because he is passionate about what he believes in. He also writes and speaks wonderfully, in a positive way, about the beauty of the scientific view of the world.

Dawkins was my childhood hero. When he talks about science, I still think he is great. But the reason I thought he was great when I was 12 was because he called religion "a mind virus". Given my vitriolic hatred of Christianity at the time, this was music to my ears.

By the way, regarding Christian symbolism - I believe that in it's early stages Christianity was much more in control of the literalist/allegorical divide. New converts were just taught the stories. Later on, the meanings of the allegory were explained. But somewhere along the line something happened - some of the knowledge of the meanings got lost, and people realised that the flock were all too willing to believe it literally, and Christianity started to become seen as a useful tool for controlling people - the exact opposite of what it was originally supposed to be. By the time it became the state religion of the Roman Empire the transformation was complete and something resembling what we now know as Christianity began to emerge. But most of the crimes comitted in the 1000 year period which followed, although in the name of Christianity, were simply carried out by those who held political power. This isn't the fault of religion. Religion was merely their tool for doing what humans have always done and continue to do, regardless of religion. The problem is human nature and the human condition, not religion.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Chris

Not quite. I accept there are different "language games". But the science language game has a special property that the others lack - it is complete.

That is simply wrong. Science is incomplete, not in synch with itself and almost entirely lacking in stable philosophical foundations, despite the best efforts of Popper et all. This is another of the myths propagated by scientific materialism. Science is supposed to be a "unified body of truth". Like hell it is. As for it being "complete" - I have no idea what you mean.

It can explain all phenomena and all the other "games" can, in principle, be reduced to "science game" descriptions.

But that is also a total myth, a myth I have been trying to debunk for the last two weeks. It claims it can, but when you examine the claims they turn out to be a load of old hokum. The claim is critically dependent on an assertion of physicalism, making it completlely circular: physicalism is true, therefore physicalism is true. What is actually true is the reverse of your statement:

No statement ascribing a mental predicate can be derived from a set of purely physical descriptions.

Therefore, both in principle and in practice, you cannot reduce all of the other games to the language game of physics, regardless of Richard Rorty's fairytale about "the antipodeans", who invented neuroscience before they invented folk psychology and therefore never developed a subjective vocabulary. "Oooh Baby, I feel so ***** horny. Oops! I meant my N4-auxillary-feedback-loop is firing!"

Not that we would always want to make such a reduction, even if we could. Ultimately, it should be possible, if we know enough, scientifically about the brain, to understand what makes a great painting but I suspect that current "art game" theories are more useable as instructive guides either to appreciation or practice.

I couldn't disagree more. Try to get science to analyse art and you kill it stone dead.

Each person plays many types of language game, they can't all be hermetically isolated from one another. When a language game produces results that conflict with the science language game it is wrong (e.g. the astrology language game).

Whose point are you trying to prove, mine or yours?

Do you mean science or do you mean scientific materialism. Because nothing I have said contradicts science, but nearly all of it contradicts scientific materialism. Yet more often than not, people like you tend to throw people like me in the same bucket as the astrologers. You are right. If somebody makes a claim that contradicts empirical science, then they are almost certainly wrong. Which is why it is so important to make sure the claim is really contradicting science and not just contradicting materialism. Most scientific materialists appear to be unable to tell the difference and more importantly they do not seem to think this matters. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in the past few days. "What difference does it make? Science? Materialism? Same thing!" Except it's not.

You could only have many truths if there is some way of ensuring they don't conflict.

You can. It's called coherentism. It gives priority to coherence over foundations. You give priority to foundations over coherence and the result is that your system can never be "completed", contrary to what you claimed earlier. No system with a single foundation will ever explain everything. Especially if that foundation is a metaphysical assertion which is wrong.

I used to be a dualist, until quite recently. I became convinced that dualism was untenable. That leaves materialism (I find idealism incomprehensible, unless it's just materialism but with all the physical stuff labelled "mind" instead, and I don't see the point of that).

No mention of neutral monism, though.... I have gone to great lengths to try to explain why the option you have listed aren't exhaustive.

Convince me that physicalism can't be true.

That would be like trying to convince a fundamentalist Christian that the Bible can't be true. I can't.

In order to defend physicalism people are forced to make a whole array of statements which are completely and utterly absurd. Yet somehow the physicalists don't find them absurd. The eliminativists should be the canary in the mine. They are the ones who actually have a coherent position - but it's only coherent because it outright denies the existence of mind. This is every bit as absurd as believing that God made the world in 4000BC, but it is the only way to defend materialism coherently. All of the softer versions of materialism try to find some way to let mind back in without letting go of physicalism. None of the explanations make much sense. They are all variations on "Minds do exist, but they are really matter, here's why: [insert explanation which doesn't explain anything here]. There, what's the problem? Minds are brain processes!" Wouldn't you like to able to not have to defend claims like this?

 

[Jeremy]

"No statement ascribing a mental predicate can be derived from a set of purely physical descriptions."

Why not?

 

[Q-Source]

Not quite. I accept there are different "language games". But the science language game has a special property that the others lack - it is complete. It can explain all phenomena and all the other "games" can, in principle, be reduced to "science game" descriptions. Not that we would always want to make such a reduction, even if we could. Ultimately, it should be possible, if we know enough, scientifically about the brain, to understand what makes a great painting but I suspect that current "art game" theories are more useable as instructive guides either to appreciation or practice.

Each person plays many types of language game, they can't all be hermetically isolated from one another. When a language game produces results that conflict with the science language game it is wrong (e.g. the astrology language game).

You got it very wrong here. Please read Mr. W very carefully.
There is NO a unique language game and no language game is better than the other, they are just different. And they are correct in their own framw of reference.

Problems arise when we want to use concepts that belong to one language game (for example the material) to explain something that requires a different language (the immaterial).

This also applies to someone who does the opposite. For example, people who appeal to QM to explain the effect of consciousness on matter

Mary

 

[ruach1]

You got it very wrong here. Please read Mr. W very carefully.
There is NO a unique language game and no language game is better than the other, they are just different. And they are correct in their own framw of reference.

Problems arise when we want to use concepts that belong to one language game (for example the material) to explain something that requires a different language (the immaterial).

This also applies to someone who does the opposite. For example, people who appeal to QM to explain the effect of consciousness on matter

Mary

In other words: crossing paradigms

 

[UndercoverElephant]

"No statement ascribing a mental predicate can be derived from a set of purely physical descriptions."

Why not?

Try it. It can't be done.

I took that statement from the following essay explanaining the mind-body problem : http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/mind.htm

Finally, there is (5). What reason is there for thinking that is true? Well, we can compare it with a number of similar principles to get the general idea. In moral philosophy, there is a principle sometimes called Hume's law that says it is not possible to derive a normative judgement from a descriptive judgement. A normative judgement is a judgement about what is good or bad, right or wrong, and a descriptive judgement is basically anything else. Another way this is stated is that you cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is": you can't derive what ought to be the case solely on the basis of what is the case. This principle is almost universally acknowledged. And it is merely part of a more general pattern. For example, you can't derive a statement describing distances from any set of statements that don't describe distances. You can not derive a statement about colors from any set of non-color statements. You can't derive geometrical statements from non-geometrical ones. And generally, if you have an inference in which the conclusion talks about one thing and the premises talk about something else, the inference is invalid. In the same way, it is a conceptual truth that you cannot derive a mental description from a physical description. After all, just consider some physical concepts, such as spatial/geometrical properties, mass, force, and electric charge. Is it plausible that there is any way that these concepts could be used to explain what it feels like to be in pain? Say whatever you like about masses, positions, and forces of particles, you will not have ascribed any mental states to anything.

Put even more simply, as far as the relationship between experience-reality and language goes, what we call "the physical world" is part of our experiences. But unlike mental "things" which we just name directly as being part of our experiences, we do something different with the physical world. We imagine it as an abstraction of our experiences - a thing which is "out there". In effect, what we do is eliminate "the subject". The problem is that once we have turned reality into an abstraction (and it's the physicalists who have got it backwards here - MATTER is the abstraction, NOT mind) we can't turn it back into reality without re-inventing "the subject", but you can't do that if you want to defend physicalism.

Lots of people have tried to challenge this claim, and I'm not sure why. I think if you can detach yourself from the consequences of the claim it is possible to see that it is obviously true.

If you are still not convinced there is a longer argument available which demonstrates that what we generally refer to as "the physical world" is linguistically equivalent to a fictional character like Sherlock Holmes. It also uses Wittgensteinean arguments to do so:

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~ursa/philos/phinow3.htm

Statements about mental things and statements about physical things belong to a fundamentally different frames of reference. Mental statements only make sense with respect to "the subject itself". Physical statements only make sense with respect to an abstract concept we call "the physical world", which by definition excludes "the subject itself".

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Problems arise when we want to use concepts that belong to one language game (for example the material) to explain something that requires a different language (the immaterial).

I agree that problems arise. That does not mean they are insurmountable.

Statements about mental things and statements about physical things belong to a fundamentally different frames of reference. Mental statements only make sense with respect to "the subject itself". Physical statements only make sense with respect to an abstract concept we call "the physical world", which by definition excludes "the subject itself".

The physical world only excludes the subject if you define it that way. Once you have done so, you can claim that a description of the physical world can never explain the subjective. You tried to do it here:

The problem is that once we have turned reality into an abstraction (and it's the physicalists who have got it backwards here - MATTER is the abstraction, NOT mind) we can't turn it back into reality without re-inventing "the subject", but you can't do that if you want to defend physicalism.

They are both abstractions. You have no more clues whether mind is a fundamental existent and what it really is than you do for matter. You fool yourself into thinking you do because you can shut off all sensory input and still have "mind." However, you have no idea what sort of mind you would have had you never had any sensory input to begin with. Your mind may be nothing more than the sum of the abstractions of the outside world.

One's "self" has a special place in one's experience, but that does not mean it has a special place in the world as a whole.

~~ Paul