The relationship between science and materialism

[Ichneumonwasp]

And, again, that's all fine, but at some point you are going to have to lay out the whole thing. Spending some time working out the issues as they relate to neuroscience is obviously one starting point. Since it is what I consider most important, obviously I am biased toward that side of things.

Robert Kane would tell you to spend all your time on the free will/determinism issue since that is probably the whole crux of the matter. It sounds like you have quite the task before you.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Part of the problem, and don't get all huffy on me please, is that I can't find any one place or "thing" that even tells me exactly what subjectivity is.

That's why ontology is needed.

I'm not sure what the necessary components for subjectivity really are.

You need a subject. That's the only thing my ontological position provides that isn't already provided by the physical description of the brain. We have also established that you need some sort of exceptional physical conditions, but apart from an apparently doomed suggestion from Stuart Hameroff, nobody appears to know what these physical conditions are. In effect, what you are talking about is the difficulties involved in providing answers to what David Chalmers has called "the easy problems of consiousness". So there's your answer. The neccesary components for subjectivity are the subject itself, which can be provided by a theory like mine, and also some specifiable physical/quantum condition of the brain which is yet to be provided by science. Both halves of the answer are currently missing from physicalist explanations of consciousness. Both halves are required before a comprehensive answer to your question is possible.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

There are many other conditions that require explanation and if they are all thrown at you at one time it would be a bit overwhelming since you would have to sift through them all. I know it wouldn't bother you that much because the "Being" interaction with the noumenal brain seems to serve one function -- the homonculus. Even the self-reflective parts of our "consciousness" must be largely accountable from the standpoint of the noumenal brain since we have that and insects don't -- but both share the homonculus/Being. One of the issues will surround exactly what the homonculus/Being does -- like what Paul seems to be asking you.

I cannot imagine that this model of reality is going to handle neurophysiological discoveries in any way other than the "Ian way." Everything we discover is just the "neural correlates" of mind and so have no effect on the underlying model at all. One can always say "Well, when you do that to the noumenal brain, the interaction of Being with the brain changes to produce the resulting physical/mental appearance."

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Robert Kane would tell you to spend all your time on the free will/determinism issue since that is probably the whole crux of the matter. It sounds like you have quite the task before you.

Well, I've got to spend the rest of my life doing something.

On the plus side, there's new information coming along all the time. You never know where the next clue is coming from.....

http://hitoshi.berkeley.edu/neutrino/neutrino.html
http://hitoshi.berkeley.edu/neutrino/neutrino5.html

Abandoning the fundamental distinction between matter and antimatter means that the two states can convert to each other. It may also solve one of the biggest mysteries of our universe: where has all the antimatter gone?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I cannot imagine that this model of reality is going to handle neurophysiological discoveries in any way other than the "Ian way." Everything we discover is just the "neural correlates" of mind and so have no effect on the underlying model at all.

Exactly. There's two different issues here. The ontological question is distinct from anything neuroscience can ever say.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Both. Physical things and their noumenal correlates aren't "two different things" in the sense that a saucer and a cup are two different things. If you could extricate yourself from the 1st-person, subjective way of looking at things (which you can't) and see the system from the noumenal side of things (which you can't either) then all you would see is the noumenal side of things. There wouldn't be any physical things or mental things. "Physical" is just a name for some part of this system but it's a name which only makes sense from your 1st-person perspective on things. So to answer your question from your 1st-person perspective you are interacting with a physical thing. From the (unattainable in practice) noumenal perspective there aren't any physical things - there is only the noumenon. From the noumenal perspective there is merely some sort of change which corresponds to you interacting with a physical thing back here in phenomenal reality.

Then I reject the glib description of the noumenal as having no spatio-temporal aspect. Without it, no event could occur without my watching it. Somehow, though, events occur that end up in the correct spatio-temporal location when I notice them afterward. This means there is some sort of spatio-temporal "memory" in the noumenal.

What sort of "common attribute" are you looking for. I am struggling to understand the precise nature of the problem here. Do you think Berkeleyan idealism is dualistic because of "the apparently dualistic nature of God and His mind"? I realise that the noumenon is not mental and that Being isn't the same as God, but nevertheless, this is a monistic system - not a dualism.

If Being and Neutral have the same attributes, then Neutral should produce the "light of consciousness" without requiring Being. The two things serve fundamentally different purposes in your model.

There is a clean conceptual seperation. You can't mix up the concepts. But I said all along that from the perspective of "things in themselves", there are only "things in themselves". "Things as they appear to us", is, by definition, the same "things" but how they appear to us.

I had no problem before with the conceptual difference between a chair and my perception of the chair.

This should be easy to show. We have:

Things as they are experienced by humans.
Things as they are in themselves.

Do we have two sets of things here? No. We have one set of things described from two different perspectives.

Just as we had last week before we started this conversation.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Part of the problem, and don't get all huffy on me please, is that I can't find any one place or "thing" that even tells me exactly what subjectivity is.

That's why ontology is needed.

I don't think so. What's needed is more hard work, so we can make a list of the components of "subjectivity."

You need a subject.

You need a logical proof that a subject is required.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Exactly. There's two different issues here. The ontological question is distinct from anything neuroscience can ever say.

Then you are assuming your result.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Then you are assuming your result.

~~ Paul

If you still think that then you've been wasting your time talking to me. That is the false accusation that has been repeated so many times I no longer even hear it when it comes. No, Paul, I haven't assumed my conclusion. Instead, I have identified a conceptual problem. Because it is a conceptual problem instead of an empirical one, it folows, logically, that the solution will be conceptual and not empirical. So I have absolutely NOT assumed my conclusion on this point. I do not need to look for an empirical answer to the question. I already have that answer. It's not empirical.

Empirical science does not solve conceptual philosophical problems. Ever.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't think so. What's needed is more hard work, so we can make a list of the components of "subjectivity."


You need a logical proof that a subject is required.

~~ Paul

All I can prove logically is that non-eliminative materialism doesn't work. The only proof that a subject is required comes from your direct experience of reality. I cannot logically or empirically prove that you are not a p-zombie. But that is what you are asking me to do if you ask me for a logical proof that a subject is required.

 

[Melendwyr]

Ontological fabricationontalistism falls before the puissance of Ockham's Razor.

Redundancy is to be abhorred.

 

[Melendwyr]

If you cannot show that someone is or is not a p-zombie logically, and you cannot do it empirically, you've exhausted all possible means of verification.

The concept is meaningless. It has no implications. If p-zombies have no "experiences" as the word is specially defined, then "experiences" are not real things according to your own argument.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Just as we had last week before we started this conversation.

~~ Paul

With one difference. Last week before this conversation people were defending an additional claim. They weren't just claiming that when we talk about mind and matter we are effecively just using two different sets of words to talk about the same fundamental thing. The additional claim was "....and this fundamental thing is physical."

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If you cannot show that someone is or is not a p-zombie logically, and you cannot do it empirically, you've exhausted all possible means of verification.

Except for in the case of myself. I know that I am not a p-zombie. For sure.

 

[Melendwyr]

No you don't. That requires that being a p-zombie or not have an implication, which you've admitted does not.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Mel

Paul is asking me to prove to him (logically) that a subject is required. It is his question which is as irrelevant as the p-zombie argument. Just as you are saying that p-zombies are an incomprehensible concept, so it is true that asking for proof that a subject is required is an incomprehesensible question. It's just a silly a question. Unless the person asking the question is a p-zombie, that is......

Only a p-zombie would actually have any legitimate right to ask the question Paul asked me. P-zombies are a meaningless concept so it's a meaningless question.

Geoff

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You need a subject.

But what I am asking is "what is a subject?". To be a subject, must you be awake, aware, what? Can we meaningfully speak of a subject being neither awake nor aware? Is awareness the most salient feature? What level and type of awareness?

 

[Darat]

With one difference. Last week before this conversation people were defending an additional claim. They weren't just claiming that when we talk about mind and matter we are effecively just using two different sets of words to talk about the same fundamental thing. The additional claim was "....and this fundamental thing is physical."

Then you misunderstood a lot of people Geoff!

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But what I am asking is "what is a subject?"

There's two ways of interpreting that question. From the noumenal point of view you already know my answer - it's Zero/Being. From the phenomenal point of view it is the phenomenal point of view. It's what would be a homunculus if it were a "thing".

To be a subject, must you be awake, aware, what?

You must be having experiences. So "awake" doesn't seem to count, because one experiences things during dreams and hallucinations.

Can we meaningfully speak of a subject being neither awake nor aware?

I don't see how.

Is awareness the most salient feature?

It looks like it, yes. Only subjects are aware of things.

What level and type of awareness?

Any type of awareness (except the sort that is refered to by cognitive scientists using the term "detect").

Different types of awareness = different states of consciousness/self-consciousness. But all types of awareness and consciousness involve a subject. Remove the subject and you are left with a p-zombie (or a mindless computation).

 

[cyborg]

Except for in the case of myself. I know that I am not a p-zombie. For sure.

How?

I mean under your system I guess this would mean that in the entire field of existence it is entirely possible you are infact the only thing with a mind since you can't verify the rest of us aren't matter-only p-zombies.

Congratualations. You are now hammy.