The relationship between science and materialism

[UndercoverElephant]

The physical world only excludes the subject if you define it that way.

That is the way we use it. I am not making any ontological claim about the physical world at this point. I am making a linguistic claim about it. Unfortunately, this is part of the problem, since physicalists conflate two uses of the word "physical" (we're back to Husserl now....).

USAGE (A): "Physical" as it is actually used as a description of part of the lifeworld is refering to elements of our direct experience which have extension - it refers to our experiences of an objective world.

USAGE (B): But physicalists go further than this and make the hypothetical claim that there is an actual consciousness-independent world out there which is somehow both the same and different to (A).

Physicalists tend to conflate (A) and (B). But they aren't the same. (A) is already part of our subjective (mental) experience. They are mental experiences of physical things. (B) is explicity seperate from our experience, and thus it is perfectly valid to define it the way I defined it. I am not going to allow an unacknowledged conflation of (A) and (B) to be claimed to lead to a falsification of my statement because in this statement the physicalist in question is specifically refering to usage (B). If he's using usage (A) then he's no longer defending physicalism, and if he's using usage (B) then my definition of "physical", and the statement, are both valid. If he's conflating (A) and (B) then he needs to stop conflating them, because they are not the same.

Nothing can be simultaneously mind-dependent and mind-independent, but if you try to claim (A) and (B) are the same this is what you are trying to do. And people ask me why I think physicalism is stupid!

They are both abstractions.

If that's what you want to argue then I am willing to accept it. It's exactly the sort of observation that leads to neutral monism.

You have no more clues whether mind is a fundamental existent and what it really is than you do for matter.

I can't agree with that.

You fool yourself into thinking you do because you can shut off all sensory input and still have "mind."

No, that's not the reason. Mind has to be concious of something. You cannot have a totally empty 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.

Fear? Anxiety? Wonder? Those are not abstractions of the the physical world (neither A nor B). And if you are going to deny that please tell me whether you mean physical (A) or physical (B), or whether you've conflated them. It will make it much easier for me to understand what your response is trying to say.

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.

My experience is part of the world as a whole. And please be careful about the world "self". If you "subject" then say "subject" because "self" has come to mean all sorts of other things, many of which have got nothing to do with being the subjective viewpoint or "I".

 

[Jeremy]

Why is the mind any different than a computer? It takes physical circuits, and creates something that seems to be apart from the physical existence, but it is simply based on the interaction between the parts.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Why is the mind any different than a computer? It takes physical circuits, and creates something that <i>seems</i> to be apart from the physical existence, but it is simply based on the interaction between the parts.

In what way do the processes in a silicon chip "seem to be apart from physical existence"? To me, it seems quite obvious that they are part of physical existence. Only if the computer also has subjective experiences would there be anything which seemed to be distinct from the physical world. We aren't talking about the process, we are talking about the subjective experiences, and we absolutely no reason to believe that a computer ever has or ever will have a subjective experience. In other words, your argument would only work if you define subjective experience to be no different to a calculation taking place in a physical machine of some sort. But if you do that, then thermostats are conscious. The computer is more like a thermostat than it is like a brain.

 

[Jeremy]

define subjective experience to be no different to a calculation taking place in a physical machine of some sort.

What we identify as subjective expeience is only highly complex calculations taking place in a physical machine (the brain).

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What we identify as subjective expeience is only highly complex calculations taking place in a physical machine (the brain).

Jeremy,

You have a lot of catching up to do. It is taken for granted that physicalist want to identify subjective experiences with physical processes. The problems start when you actually try to defend this claim. If you read the links I posted at the start of the thread, or read some of the other threads I have started recently in this forum then you will see some of the arguments. But I'm not going back to square one with yet another person who thinks that by defining physicalism to be true they have actually said something useful or meaningfull. They haven't. It's the physicalist version of "It's true because the Bible says so!"

In terms of the arguments in this thread, if you define mental things to me physical processes then you might be able to derive what you have redefined as mental things from a set of purely physical descriptions, but since your definition has reduced all the mental predicates to physical ones, you still haven't derived any of the things we actually call "mental predicates". In other words, all you have done is define mental as physical. This isn't going to help much, apart from to demonstrate that no statement ascribing a mental predicate can be derived from a set of purely physical descriptions. You cannot circumvent this argument by claiming that a physical description of a brain is a mental predicate.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

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

All right. I've been trying to stay out of this, but I'm tired of seeing the same mistakes repeatedly made. This statement is a fallacy of composition, as has been pointed out to Geoff repeatedly. When given the counter-example of computer function with its obvious emergent properties (if there are only neutral, physical, and mental "things", with the mental and physical being aspects of the neutral, then what is the output of a computer? It is clearly not physical. You can't touch a program functioning,etc. The working of a program on a computer is exactly what we have always called mental function), Geoff simply moves the goal posts and says, "yeah, but you can't explain subjective states". But that was not the issue under discussion. The issue is the truth or falsity of the statement above. It is clear that the statement itself is wrong. We see emergent properties all the time. We see the emergence of liquidity and surface tension in water that is not derivable from the physical description of a single water molecule. We cannot derive the properties of NaCl from a physical description of the component parts. These, of course, are purely physical examples used simply to demonstrate the point of emergent properties -- they are purely physical so that we can see them and understand the basic concept. The greater issue is whether or not mental predicates can be derived from purely physical "stuff". The computer example clearly shows this is the case.

It is an entirely different issue how one explains subjective experiences with purely physical "stuff" -- a stickier issue. But please stop using the statement above as though it somehow wins the argument and then shifting the goal posts when you lose the argument. I'm tired of watching it.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Edit: To which I would like to add that one of the biggest problems I see with the phenomenonological approach is that it "looks" at subjecitve states through a subjective lens. While the project has provided some truly excellent thinking about what it is to be human, I don't see how it can be used to solve the problem of explaining subjectivity, since it looks forever from the inside.

While we may not be able to derive the feeling of an internal "mental state" (what it is like to see red) from looking at the physical components that may create that "state" -- the neurons that work together to do it -- that does not mean that we cannot work out how the neurons cause those "states" to occur. Once we have a full description of the process we can see how the thing fits together, just as we can see how water molecules hold together to create surface tension. There will still be left deeper issues, however.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

All right. I've been trying to stay out of this, but I'm tired of seeing the same mistakes repeatedly made.

You haven't demonstrated that they are mistakes....

This statement is a fallacy of composition, as has been pointed out to Geoff repeatedly. When given the counter-example of computer function with its obvious emergent properties (if there are only neutral, physical, and mental "things", with the mental and physical being aspects of the neutral, then what is the output of a computer?

It's physical. Doesn't matter whether it's on a screen, on a piece of paper or where it is, it's physical.

It is clearly not physical.

Eh?

No, that's not clear.

You can't touch a program functioning,etc.

No, but you can describe the complete function of the computer in terms of bits of metal, silicon and electrical charge. Nothing will be missing from this description.

The working of a program on a computer is exactly what we have always called mental function)

Utter b***cr*p. This is the key plank of your argument, the bit which makes it "go" and it is utter b***cr*p. What we have called "mental function" or "cognitive processes" ARE NOT descriptions of neuronal behavoiur and the shuffling around of electrical charge in a brain. To claim that this is "what we always called mental function" is simply false. It's totally incorrect. The truth is as follows:

a) There is no "always" about "mental function". It is a modern term which is deliberately designed to obscure and confuse the actual facts.
b) What we have always called mind is subjective experience.
c) "Mental function" can then itself be a conflation - a conflation of the processes we can discern in the subjective experiences of our mind and a the aformentioned physical processes.

It's not me who hasn't learned anything in the past week and is still repeating the same old mistakes.

, Geoff simply moves the goal posts and says, "yeah, but you can't explain subjective states". But that was not the issue under discussion.

Oh yes it is. That is EXACTLY what is under discussion. Why do you think this thread starts with four sections from a book called "The Taboo of Subjectivity".

The issue is the truth or falsity of the statement above. It is clear that the statement itself is wrong.

It is clear that it is correct. This can be demonstrated by the fact that no matter how long you go on conflating mental things and physical things you will NEVER derive a mental predicate from a physical description. You might provide all sorts of fancy arguments as to why you think it is possible in principle, but never will you actually show us how to do it.

We see emergent properties all the time. We see the emergence of liquidity and surface tension in water that is not derivable from the physical description of a single water molecule. We cannot derive the properties of NaCl from a physical description of the component parts. These, of course, are purely physical examples.....

Making them totally and utterly irrelevant and demonstrating that you cannot provide any examples that aren't purely physical. QED.

It is an entirely different issue how one explains subjective experiences with purely physical "stuff" -- a stickier issue.

Impossible, in fact.

But please stop using the statement above as though it somehow wins the argument and then shifting the goal posts when you lose the argument. I'm tired of watching it.

Claiming to have won an argument isn't the same as actually winning it.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No, that's not the reason. Mind has to be concious of something. You cannot have a totally empty mind.

People heavy into meditation might disagree with you.

Fear? Anxiety? Wonder? Those are not abstractions of the the physical world (neither A nor B). And if you are going to deny that please tell me whether you mean physical (A) or physical (B), or whether you've conflated them. It will make it much easier for me to understand what your response is trying to say.

Fear, anxiety, or wonder of what? These are reactions to stimuli. Granted, they are not abstractions of things in the external world, but they are related to things.

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

This means that no statement describing the cause/source of a mental state can be derived from purely physical descriptions. From the paper that talks about this:

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.

Lack of logical proof duly noted.

~~ Paul

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Doesn't matter whether it's on a screen, on a piece of paper or where it is, it's physical.

Calculation and word processing are physical? Since when? I think you are confusing the processing and the display. The display is obviously physical so that we can see it. How is the processing physical? It obviously takes place by easily demonstrable physical means, but the processing physical?

Oh yes it is. That is EXACTLY what is under discussion. Why do you think this thread starts with four sections from a book called "The Taboo of Subjectivity".

Yes, let's move the goal post again. What was under discussion at that time was the statement that I quoted. That statement is wrong.

What is the definition of physical and the definition of mental?

When did calculation become extended in space or directly effect the physical world? I must have missed the memo.

If mental means only subjective experience, then what is all the other stuff that philosophers have discussed for the past 2000 years?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Utter b***cr*p. This is the key plank of your argument, the bit which makes it "go" and it is utter b***cr*p. What we have called "mental function" or "cognitive processes" ARE NOT descriptions of neuronal behavoiur and the shuffling around of electrical charge in a brain. To claim that this is "what we always called mental function" is simply false. It's totally incorrect. The truth is as follows:

a) There is no "always" about "mental function". It is a modern term which is deliberately designed to obscure and confuse the actual facts.
b) What we have always called mind is subjective experience.
c) "Mental function" can then itself be a conflation - a conflation of the processes we can discern in the subjective experiences of our mind and a the aformentioned physical processes.

Proof by proclaiming utter bullcrap and emphasizing subjective experience.

You need to demonstrate that subjective experience isn't just precisely certain brain functions.

~~ Paul

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Science is a myth.

 

[chriswl]

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.

OK. In that case I reject his idea that science is merely a language game.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Calculation and word processing are physical? Since when? I think you are confusing the processing and the display. The display is obviously physical so that we can see it. How is the processing physical?

No, but you can describe the complete function of the computer in terms of bits of metal, silicon and electrical charge. Nothing will be missing from this description.

And what remains to be seen in neurophysiology is whether the same thing can be done with the brain and consciousness. In the meantime, if philosophers want to assume it cannot, they must come up with a logical proof. The fact that consciousness will always "feel different" than watching a computer compute is not proof. The describe the source of my feeling of pain is not the same thing as feeling pain.

~~ Paul

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

And what remains to be seen in neurophysiology is whether the same thing can be done with the brain and consciousness. In the meantime, if philosophers want to assume it cannot, they must come up with a logical proof.

Yes. We keep getting the same replies from Geoff.

I have no degree in philosophy (my undergraduate degree is in Liberal Arts), but I have read a bit. In my experience, such activities have always been considered "mental".

If we redefine "mental" to that which has not yet been explained by physical processes, then this calls that derivation of Leibnitz's law that Geoff keeps trotting out (I was engaged in some PM with him when he first trotted it out, but I never read the last four exchanges because of that weird explanation of his underlying beliefs and continuing the discussion seemed pointless) seriously into question. It does not rest on a priori proof. There are examples in the literature of exceptions to it; and it clearly does not work when one considers the possibility of emerent properties.

Since it does not rest on a priori proof, the whole question becomes empirical as you suggest. We have examples of "mental processes" explained by physical means. We need a fuller description of the possible physical means of explaining subjective experiences. I suspect the subjectivity will be an emergent property that we can't precisely predict by the actions of neurons, at least initially. But if we could theoretically build a functioning mind with matter other than the stuff we are made of, and study the effects of changes in inputs we might very well be able to derive the principles of subjective experience (by looking at the reports of subjects). We could never do this, of course, for ethical reasons, but it should be theoretically possible.

 

[chriswl]

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.

I meant science. I suppose astrology is just another parallel language game that makes different sorts of claims to science and thus cannot be refuted by it? Or if science can legitimately say things about beliefs like astrology why can it not say things about religion and other areas of human culture, without being accused of falling into "scientism"?

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.

You really think anyone on here, me included, understands one word that you have written on neutral monism? It's all about the number zero, apparently... WTF???

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

You may not be able to convince him but you could clearly and concisely summarise your case, and he would understand, but disagree. You are nowhere near being able to do that here.

 

[Alphaba]

Pfffeee, debate goes on too quickly for my third language English...

Anyway, let's try:

I have read carefully the texts linked to by JustGeoff in the OP.

I am currently espousing the physicalist monism stance but I reject reductionism (at least the idea that all can in principle be reducible to physics, and by physics I mean the contemporary corpus of physics as a discipline). Am I a materialist?

The now well-acknowledged existence of levels of organization, with their own, irreducible specificities, properties, and phenomena, allows a much more complex conception of the physical than the mere reference to physics. It notably permits to envision so-called mental or subjective (intraindividual) phenomena as bona fide physical events, that can't indeed be reduced to/by the formalism of physics, which deals with other levels of organization, objects, and phenomena.

Thus I see JustGeoff's critic as missing its target: if critic of attempts of reduction of subjective phenomena to physics (or even to XXth century neurobiology) certainly is a valid goal, there is no way for a critic of reductionism to invalidate the conception of emotions, feelings, perceptions, and cognitions as physical events and phenomena. They are manifestations in/of the physical world; manifestations that to date still resist to bottom-up reduction, and are better described in/by the lexicon of psychology (or by common, natural language). But there are obvious signs that in a near future many of them will be more accurately described by what progressively emerges from the fusion of large chunks of neurobiology and psychology (cognitive sciences represent a highly interesting prototype of such a process, that redefines the classical boundaries of disciplines, pointing incidentally that one of the major obstacles to such a move resides in the quasi-bureaucratic organization/division of science in disciplines. Some disciplines or sub-disciplines are relevant relatively to levels of organization, other aren't. Psychology and parts of neurosciences are among the latter).

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I meant science. I suppose astrology is just another parallel language game that makes different sorts of claims to science and thus cannot be refuted by it?

Depends on whether the atrologer is making claims that are supposed to contradict science. I suppose this happens sometimes. You can certainly refute astrology being presented as science, but you can't neccesarily refute, say, writings about symbolism which sraw heavily on astrological devices (I am thinking about someone like Crowley here, who was no newspaper astrologer. Indeed he believed those sorts of people were a very useful smokescreen - hiding the sorts of things he was involved in).

Or if science can legitimately say things about beliefs like astrology why can it not say things about religion and other areas of human culture, without being accused of falling into "scientism"?

It depends upon the basis by which you are criticising it. I think you can debunk newspaper astrology without falling into scientism. You can debunk it without even mentioning science.

You really think anyone on here, me included, understands one word that you have written on neutral monism? It's all about the number zero, apparently... WTF???

I don't think I've succeeded in showing people the way in. That was what Husserl was all about.

You may not be able to convince him but you could clearly and concisely summarise your case, and he would understand, but disagree. You are nowhere near being able to do that here.

No, it is not true to say that the literalist Christians understand evolution but disagree with it. In order to believe the theories they believe, it is neccesary that they don't understand evolution properly. All they understand is the accounts of evolution given to them by other people in their own side, who either don't understand it either or are deliberately lying.

Similarly, I haven't seen any sign that anybody really engaged with my account of neutral monism. I don't think you can get past physicalism being false, and I think you have to have faced up squarely to the problems with physicalism (rather than trying to find ways of claiming they don't exist) in order to be able to understand my neutral monism. It's no different to the situation with the creationists. Until I can get you to ditch the assumption that materialism is true, and actually start thinking about neutral monism as I described it (instead of from a materialistic point of view, from which it doesn't make sense) then you won't be able to understand it. I do not believe it is inherently incomprehensible.

 

[hammegk]

After removing ... usual irrelevant and circular "explanation" of the unexplainable, accepting at face value the truthfulless of the usual materialist paradigm ... the quote we are left:

There will still be left deeper issues, however.

And Geoff has been attrempting to move the discussion to those levels, also as usual, to no avail.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Fear, anxiety, or wonder of what? These are reactions to stimuli. Granted, they are not abstractions of things in the external world, but they are related to things.

That's why I choose anxiety. The whole point of anxiety is that it isn't directed at any abstractions of things in the external world. You can be very anxious, but completely unaware of why you feel anxious.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Calculation and word processing are physical?

Without a doubt. There is nothing about either calculation or word processing which cannot be fully describe in terms of the entities of physics.

Since when?

Since always. There is nothing "mental" about calculation and word-processing. Sorry, but there just isn't.

I think you are confusing the processing and the display.

I'm not, and it wouldn't matter if I was. They are both fully describable physically, as are all the interactions between the two.

The display is obviously physical so that we can see it. How is the processing physical?

It a process occuring in something we can see (a computer). It's physical in exactly the same way that a chemical reaction is physical.

It obviously takes place by easily demonstrable physical means, but the processing physical?

Yep, it's a physical process. See how easy this is? I'm not struggling for answers here, and I'm not making any counter-intuitive claims. Everything I am saying is so obvious that nobody would challenge it except a materialist trying to defend his metaphysical beliefs.

Yes, let's move the goal post again. What was under discussion at that time was the statement that I quoted. That statement is wrong.

What was under discusion was mental predicates. Not physical processes.

What is the definition of physical and the definition of mental?

I have told you what MY definitions of them are. They are in the opening post of my thread on neutral monism. The problem is how materialists define these things, because the definitions wobble all over the place, and generally range from counter-intuitive to completely non-sensical.

YOU define them, please. What do you mean by physical and mental?

When did calculation become extended in space or directly effect the physical world? I must have missed the memo.

The process of calculation is extended because it is embodied in a physical machine. What on earth is the problem??? Brain processes are physical. Subjective experiences are mental. Processes in silicon chips are physical. IF computers were to have subjective experiences associated with these processes THEN those would be mental. But we have no way of knowing whether any such subjective experiences actually happen. Is there something like "What it is to be a computer?" I doubt it.

You seem to be trying to make out that it is my definitions that cause a problem. But they don't. My definitions are the ones which makes sense. Even to you. Yours try to mix up mental and physical, and then you claim that there is something normal or valid about doing so, even though you can't answer the set of questions you just asked me without saying something ridiculous like "But subjective experiences ARE brain processes". Since I have been debating with you you must have made this particular claim about fifteen times now. Each time you do it I ask you what you mean by "ARE", and each time you either fail to answer, or give a reply which implies that "ARE" doesn't mean "identical to".

If mental means only subjective experience, then what is all the other stuff that philosophers have discussed for the past 2000 years?

"Mental might be taken to mean all sorts of things over the past 2000 years". We are talking about what it means now and the defining characteristic of what we call "mental" is subjectivity, or the first-person perspective. It is quite absurd to deny this. That really is what we mean by mental. It's not some as-hoc definition I have chosen to suit my argument - like yours is. I don't have to redefine the dictionary to make my arguments work.