The relationship between science and materialism

[Ichneumonwasp]

Now comes along Wasp and Paul and they say they want to defend the view that the only reality is physical reality.

Show me where I said that. I told you earlier to stop the labelling garbage and now instead of actually engaging in a conversation, you simply return to labelling.

OK, I'll answer your question then let's get back to the issue at hand or just drop the whole thing.

You are confusing an epistemic problem with an ontologic problem. Your lack of knowledge of the external world is the epistemic problem. That does not allow you to posit that the internal, subjective view of the world is the world itself. If you do that, then you are an idealist. If you want to be an idelist, then, fine, be an idealist. But take off the dress. Proclaim your idealism proudly. Hammy made the choice. He isn't wearing a dress.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Can we try a new approach?

Happy to.

We seem to have a situation where the pair of you think that you have a solution to the problem, but that I can't see why it's a solution. So perhaps I shall explain exactly what the problem is and you can tell me why you think your solution works. I need you to try to understand the problem from my viewpoint and that means temporarily suspending any belief in materialism in order for me to explain the problem:

As explained to Paul before, everything we ever experience is subjective. We are trapped in our own mental realm. For all we know, solipsism may be true. Please don't complain that I am using "dualistic talk". I need some sort of way of specifying the problem and "We are trapped in our own mental world" is the only way of specifying it. Now, I don't care at this point if you want to think to yourselves that this "realm of subjective experiences" is a shorthand notation for something mind-independent like a brain proces, but you can't insist (at this point) that I also use it as a shorthand notation for something else. I need it to refer to my own subjective realm - all my experiences - because this is this very thing that needs to be explained.

Okay.

There are experiences. My experiences. At this point the word "experiences" has only one referent. I am the solipsist. Nothing exists but my experiences. "experiences" doesn't refer to anything independent of my mind, because there are no things which are independent of my mind.

I think the solipsist would say there is an experiencer and experiences. Not sure, though.

Where do we go from here?

Well, let's now assume that there is a world external to my experiences - I'm not a solipsist after all. Let's call this external world "physical". What I want to know is how this external physical world relates to my solipsistic world of experiences. Of crucial important is the following:

I know nothing of this external physical world. I have merely posited it's existence. I have no direct, incontravertible evidence that exists at all. From my perspective (stuck in a subjective world where solipsism could be true) it is merely an informed fairy-tale. It is in fact an abstraction from my experiences - something I have proposed/concluded exists via a line of reasoning. It's not something I'm sure exists, however powerfully I might believe it exists.

You do have some indirect evidence, but this is fine.

Now comes along Wasp and Paul and they say they want to defend the view that the only reality is physical reality. They have claimed that the only thing which actually exists is something which from my subjective point of view is a mere abstraction. This is already quite difficult to swallow, because it is a claim that the only thing which exists is independent of my subjective experiences, and my subjective experiences are the only thing I am sure exists. But let's press on and look at the explanations that Wasp and Paul are offering for their claim. They ask me to recognise the difference between a physical process and description (abstraction) of a physical process. Now, if we remember that this external world, from my point of view, is already a mere abstraction, then the difference between the two things wasp has called "internal" and "external" - the difference between the process and the description of the process - is that one is a first-level abstraction and the other is a second-level abstraction. The final part of the claim made by Wasp and Paul is that this second-level abstraction IS IDENTICAL to what I am calling "subjective experiences" or my solipsistic world.
Is that agreed?

This is not a view I want to defend. The solipsist may be right. The idealist may be right. But I'll play the physicalist.

The physical world is not an abstraction. Granted, from the subjective point of view it is, but I am claiming it is real and physical. So now my subjective experience is an abstraction of the physical world. The process by which this abstraction comes about is a physical process.

The problem with this view is this: The abstraction from my experiences which we are calling an external physical world has been defined as being external to my subjective experiences. This means that physical processes which involve information-processing are also external to my subjective experiences - they are also mere abstractions because they are just abstractions of abstractions. They are a model within a model. And if you were to add another level of description to this all you would be left with is an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction - a model within a model within a model. Each time you add a layer of abstraction to the already abstract external world you just get further away from my solipsistic subjective world. Please can you explain how your solution overcomes this problem, because I don't understand.

I do not think the physical world is an abstraction, so it is not a problem. When we reject solipsism, we reject the primacy of the subjective viewpoint, so the physical world is no longer abstract in relation to something else.

The reason I think my solution works and your doesn't is because mine provides an anchor for the subjective world of experience. That anchor is the thing I call "Being" from the neutral perspective and "the subject" from the subjective perspective. Now the accounts of abstractions of abstractions can work. Now your 2nd-order descriptions of processes in the external world can become all the things apart from Being that is needed to create my subjective experience. Now the claim "brain processes are minds" can be correctly stated as "minds are brain processes + Being" and all of the problems evaporate. The noumenal has been replaced with physical and mind is explained by the addition of the subject/Being. But you don't want to allow me to add Being. Please explain to me how you can remove Being from this picture and still provide an "anchor" for the solipsistic world of subjective experiences. Please explain why those subjective experiences don't just remain models within models, all happening in some world mind-independent world.

Once the physical is the nonabstracted thing, then it can be the anchor.

It may indeed be the case in philosophy that if you insist on the solipsistic subjective viewpoint as paramount, you have provided a solution that cannot be provided by a nonneutral monism. Notice that you need to redefine mind a bit, something that you were complaining about when we did it. You now have a being/brain process duality, which seems to me just another take on mind/body duality.

Now, it may be that someone cleverer than I can simplify your metaphysic so that we can retain the primacy of solipsism but not require quite so much baroque complexity. However, is philosophy really so anthropocentric as to require the solipsistic viewpoint?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You are confusing an epistemic problem with an ontologic problem. Your lack of knowledge of the external world is the epistemic problem.

Agreed. I can have no direct knowledge of an external world.

That does not allow you to posit that the internal, subjective view of the world is the world itself.

I haven't. That would be idealism. I'm not an idealist.

If you do that, then you are an idealist. If you want to be an idelist, then, fine, be an idealist. But take off the dress. Proclaim your idealism proudly. Hammy made the choice. He isn't wearing a dress.

My position simply isn't idealism. What it has in common with idealism is the first half of the reasoning. It just doesn't end up being ontological idealism. It ends up being a glorified version of Kant's transcendental idealism.

Idealism : The claim that the only reality is mental reality.
Transcendental Idealism : The claim all we know is the phenomenal realm and that thing-in-themselves are unknowable*.

I'm hoping you are going to explain the answer to my long post instead of just explaining it from your point of view once more. I think I understand your point of view. What I don't understand is why you thinks it solves the problem I explained in that long post.

*unknowable except that it is not physical and/or mental. We can only have knowledge of the noumenal world is NOT, according to Kant's position

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Transcendental Idealism : The claim all we know is the phenomenal realm and that thing-in-themselves are unknowable.

But this appears to be an epistemological concept. Does it require that the phenomenal realm have primacy?

From Wikipedia:

Transcendental Idealism differs from standard (empirical) idealism in that it does not claim that the objects of our experiences would be in any sense only within our minds. Whenever we experience something, that experience is necessarily personal. The object experienced exists independent of our minds, but our perception of it is corrupted by the categories and the forms of sensation, space, and time, which we use to understand it.

There you go. If this is correct, it's only an epistemological concept. The external objects may be the nonabstracted things.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul,

Before attempting a long answer to your last post I need to clear one thing up:

Are you attempting to defend eliminative materialism?

If the answer is "yes" then I can accept your explanation, apart from some relatively unimportant technical points.

If it is "no", and you think you are defending something other than eliminative materialism then we have more talking to do.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But this appears to be an epistemological concept. Does it require that the phenomenal realm have primacy?

No. Other way around. The noumenal realm is things-as-they-really-are. The phenomenal realm is merely things-as-experienced-by-humans.

From Wikipedia:

There you go. If this is correct, it's only an epistemological concept. The external objects may be the nonabstracted things.

~~ Paul

T.I. is more than an epistemological position. It is also a denial of idealism, physicalism and dualism. Transcendental idealism is logically incompatbile with physicalism because there is no space in physicalism for both phenomena and noumena. There's just physical.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

My position simply isn't idealism.

You keep saying that, but you keep acting like one.

In a dress.

I know you are not an idealist (you're in a dress after all). You are a dualist, right down to your shoes. You have two substances in your system and you can't figure out how to get them together. You think you only have one substance because the other substance is God. You have concocted a neutral substance and are trying to get God into everyone's mind as awareness. But you can't figure out how to get Him in there, where the interaction takes place. You know enough about the brain to realize that you can't have the soul controlling all neural function because much of it has been explained mechanistically. You can't talk about souls because you know people would jump all over you. So you've fooled yourself into thinking that God cannot be a separate substance even though you treat Him like one.

But what you really do is pull this obscurantism every time someone gets close to giving you answers that you can't handle. You've done it numerous times throughout this thread -- start yelling matches so that no one can see the argument any longer. It's just a big Geoff show.

If you want to keep playing those games, then go right ahead. I won't prod your preciously kept worldview.

If you want to act like an adult and follow a line of reasoning then we can get back to it.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I'm hoping you are going to explain the answer to my long post instead of just explaining it from your point of view once more.

I did. It took all of a sentence. You are confusing epistemic with ontologic concerns.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You keep saying that, but you keep acting like one.

In a dress.

No response to my long post though.

I know you are not an idealist (you're in a dress after all). You are a dualist, right down to your shoes. You have two substances in your system and you can't figure out how to get them together. You think you only have one substance because the other substance is God.

I don't know whose position you are discussing here, but it sure isn't mine. My position really isn't idealism. I'm not sure that transcendental idealism is anywhere on your map, which is why you are convinced I am an idealist or a dualist. Let's say I do not specify the precise nature of the neutral entity. Can you explain why my position then isn't transcendental idealism?

Do you know what transcendental idealism is?

You have concocted a neutral substance and are trying to get God into everyone's mind as awareness. But you can't figure out how to get Him in there, where the interaction takes place. You know enough about the brain to realize that you can't have the soul controlling all neural function because much of it has been explained mechanistically. You can't talk about souls because you know people would jump all over you. So you've fooled yourself into thinking that God cannot be a separate substance even though you treat Him like one.

I have made no mention of any "God". My position is compatible with that of the most notorious atheist who has ever lived : Jean-Paul Sartre.

If you want to act like an adult and follow a line of reasoning then we can get back to it.

I am waiting for a response to my long post. There's no point in you just continuing to repeat your explanation from your point of view. I understand it. Really I do. I want you to tell me why you think it both solves my problem and avoids eliminativism. Or are you defending eliminativism? Because if you are, then this conversation is utterly pointless.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I did. It took all of a sentence. You are confusing epistemic with ontologic concerns.

That wasn't a long enough or detailed enough response. I do not understand how it works.

I ask again:

Are you defending eliminative or non-eliminative materialism?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Before attempting a long answer to your last post I need to clear one thing up:

Are you attempting to defend eliminative materialism?

If the answer is "yes" then I can accept your explanation, apart from some relatively unimportant technical points.

If it is "no", and you think you are defending something other than eliminative materialism then we have more talking to do.

I suspect that I am, although I'm quite confused by the definition of eliminative materialism.

"The most radical claims of eliminativism include the challenging of the existence of conscious mental states such as pains and visual perception."

So I try to find a definition of "conscious mental states":

"Whatever we think about the intentionality of pains and itches, they are at least conscious mental states. Philosophers these days like to say that a conscious mental state is a mental state for which there is something it is like to be in it. If a creature is having a conscious mental state, there is something it is like to be that creature."

So I try to find a definition of "something it is like":

"In more philosophical terms, qualia are properties of sensory experiences by virtue of which there is something it is like to have them."

And around and around we go. Where she stops ... nobody thinks we ever will.

No. Other way around. The noumenal realm is things-as-they-really-are. The phenomenal realm is merely things-as-experienced-by-humans.

It is the latter that has primacy in solipsism. Is this a philosophical requirement? That description of transcendental idealism apparently does not require it.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Wasp and Paul

This is silly. Both of you are doing the same thing, and I'm sorry if you don't like the label I am going to slap on you. You can each see why my proof has a weakness - a way of being undermined - and you are each explaining how you could undermine it. But I've already stated it isn't a proof against eliminative materialism and your methods of getting around the proof simply have the effect of turning your position into a form of eliminativism.

If this is not the case then you really need to explain why. Ask yourself this question :

In my system, does the term "subjective experience" have any referent for which there is no physical term, and for which there can be no physical term in the future either?

If the answer is no, and I strongly suspect it will, then you are defending eliminativism and this is a pointless conversation.

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Can you explain why my position then isn't transcendental idealism?

Do you know what transcendental idealism is?

You'll need to give us a definition. It sounds like it's an epistemological concept about the permanent distortion of experience.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

In my system, does the term "subjective experience" have any referent for which there is no physical term, and for which there can be no physical term in the future either?

How the hell would I know? Ah, you don't want me to treat it as an empirical question. You want me to boldly assume an answer, like maybe a philosopher would do.

Yes, it's eliminative materialism, for some definition of eliminative materialism that I do not know.

Meanwhile, I do not understand why you are working so hard to come up with a solution to the problem where my perception has primacy over the external world. Is there a rule that says you cannot reject the primacy of perception when you reject solipsism?

~~ Paul

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

No response to my long post though.

The response was just as detailed as it needed to be.

I'm not playing the "it's my ball and we are playing on my court by my rules game". Do you want to follow the line of argument or not?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes, it's eliminative materialism, for some definition of eliminative materialism that I do not know.

What sort of an answer is that supposed to be, Paul?

"It's eliminative materialism but not eliminative materialism".

I've got no idea what you're trying to say. None.

Meanwhile, I do not understand why you are working so hard to come up with a solution to the problem where my perception has primacy over the external world. Is there a rule that says you cannot reject the primacy of perception when you reject solipsism?

~~ Paul

Yes, there is a reason for this. Just because you've rejected solipsism it doesn't mean that the set of conditions that led you to think it might be true are not still in place. In other words, just because you've made a decision to reject solipsism, you're still stuck in a subjective world where solipsism could be true. It makes no difference that you've decided it isn't.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Transcendental idealism: denial that we could have knowledge of the thing in itself. A view that holds the opposite is called transcendental realism.

You say this is "merely an epistemological stance" but then go on to claim that there is an external world (a thing in itself) and that it's physical. This is the reverse epistemogical stance because it claims that not only can we know the nature of things-in-themselves but that we do know this and that those things are physical.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

The response was just as detailed as it needed to be.

I'm not playing the "it's my ball and we are playing on my court by my rules game". Do you want to follow the line of argument or not?

Yours? The one that leads to eliminative materialism? I've already followed it. It leads to eliminative materialism. Remind me once more : why are we having this conversation?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes, there is a reason for this. Just because you've rejected solipsism it doesn't mean that the set of conditions that led you to think it might be true are not still in place. In other words, just because you've made a decision to reject solipsism, you're still stuck in a subjective world where solipsism could be true. It makes no difference that you've decided it isn't.

So the logical argument against solipsism isn't also a logical argument in favor of "something other than myself"? Really?

Transcendental idealism: denial that we could have knowledge of the thing in itself. A view that holds the opposite is called transcendental realism.

That's an epistemological statement. It doesn't rule out the existence of an external world.

You say this is "merely an epistemological stance" but then go on to claim that there is an external world (a thing in itself) and that it's physical. This is the reverse epistemogical stance because it claims that not only can we know the nature of things-in-themselves but that we do know this and that those things are physical.

I don't claim that there is an external world. It just doesn't appear to me that TI rules it out, in which case it is just as reasonable to assume the subjective view is abstracted as it is to assume the external world is.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What sort of an answer is that supposed to be, Paul?

"It's eliminative materialism but not eliminative materialism".

I've got no idea what you're trying to say. None.

I've got no idea what eliminative materialism is supposed to be rejecting. If it rejecting the concept that any part of mind is nonphysical, then fine.

This is why I think metaphysics is gunk.

~~ Paul