The relationship between science and materialism

[UndercoverElephant]

David

Since you will have missed the link to this earlier, here is why I think phenomenalism won't work either:

http://www.phil.gu.se/posters/prop.html

Geoff

BTW, my metaphysics professor is coincidentally called David Smith.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Eh? Where has this "inside" come from. If there is no awareness and no subject then there is no "inside." It is the subject which allows there to be an "inside".

I'm not moving on until we come to some form of closure on this issue. There is something fundamentally different between looking at what a computer does from the outside -- you can look and follow the steps, but that is not doing calculation, it is describing it. What the computer does is calculate. Calculating and describing calculation are two very different things.

I made quite clear that there is no person, awareness, etc. associated with the computer. It performs operations. But there is a difference in viewpoint from the outside and from the "inside". Can we agree on that? It does have a referent -- calculation is different from describing calculation. The computer is the "subject" (not a subject like us, but the subject of the sentence) in both situations. The only difference is viewpoint or perspective.

There is no like "what it is like to be a computer".

How many times do I have to say the same damn thing for you to listen to me and stop jumping to conclusions?

OK, then use "awareness" instead of "viewpoint". There is no "awareness" in a speeding camera, agreed?

If we agree on the above, then "agreed" and we can move on. Yes, I think awareness is the issue, not viewpoint. Viewpoint is obviously important, but it is also "present" in a non-thinking thing in a manner of speaking. There is certainly something different about the view from outside and the view from the internal workings.

Speeding cameras have no awareness. If we can agree on the above, we can discuss why.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

There's no difference. You want to define subjective and objective as "not really opposites" but that is because of your own definitional problems. If you wish to define them properly then they must be defined as the opposites they really are. But if that is the case then anything "not guaranteed irreducible" will also be guaranteed reducible. It's the same thing.

To force the definitions of subjective and objective to be polar opposites is to simplify the situation to the point of absurdity. And, I might add, it begs the question. But if you insist on rigging the definitions, then I will grant you whatever conclusion you reach, though not take the conclusion too seriously.

Subjective experiences : The sum total of your mind, your entire mental life. Everything that you have ever experienced.

Apparently this should continue with "... not a single bit of which is objective in any way." In any event, "everything you have ever experienced" is clearly incorrect.

This is the correct referent for "subjective experiences". It is what that phrase was invented to refer to. Denying it has a referent is therefore tantamount to declaring yourself to be a p-zombie.

It's what the phrase means after being hijacked by certain philosophers, yes.

"Synonyms" means "two labels for the same referent." In order for this to be true, the referents of the two labels must be indistinguishable - they must be indentical in every way. If there is a way of telling their referents apart, then they aren't synonyms. The reason why subjective experiences cannot be synonymous with brain processes is therefore that this critieria is nowhere near being met. The proper referent for "subjective experiences" (which I've defined above) is not only distinguishable from the referent for "brain processes" - the two referents have almost nothing in common at all. They are arguably "functionally equivalent" - but that's not enough to be synonyms - not even close.

So the fact that we use subjective experience to refer to fuzzy things like "the sum total of your mind" and inaccurate things like "everything you have ever experienced" means that it's not a synonym for brain function, in the linguistic sense. Granted. But to use this as a basis for metaphysical conclusions about any fundamental difference between subjective experience and brain function is nothing but empty wordplay. If philosophers use your definition, they are forcing a duality that may indeed be a linguistic duality, but not necessarily an actual one. The entire argument thus becomes a linguistic one:

Subjective experience cannot be the same as brain function because we have defined it to be different.

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Subjective experiences : The sum total of your mind, your entire mental life. Everything that you have ever experienced.

Could you tell me how, from the first-person perspective, "subjective experiences" could be differentiated from "private behavior"?

You are defining them as different, but I am looking for your evidence here that distinguishes a "mental" realm from a "private" one (which you can think of as physical if you wish, but is independent of monism).

As I wrote in another argument here, if you define flight as requiring feathers, then insects and bats do not truly fly. Your definition as you have it here assumes your conclusions (or rather, assumes the problem that you build a neumenal monism to solve).

 

[Mercutio]

First, I'll assume that hammegk is refering to the phenomenal character of experience when he says "thought". Hopefully, that definition is also included in Mercutio's use of the term in his reply.

The extent to which that assumption is warranted is also the extent to which you understand my argument.

Mercutio,

How can you say that the existence of experience is an assumption? That seems ludicrous. It's meaningless to say that I assume my experience of redness.

You did not understand my use of the word "illusion". Your "experience of redness" may well be a purely material process. If (and here is where we start getting into what the assumptions of "thought" include) you think that you see, instead of a red ball, the image of a red ball, or the redness of the ball, then you are mistaking an illusion for an actual phenomenal experience. When we say "thought exists", and from that conclude that this "existence" has some sort of implications for a possible "mental realm", we have built a castle out of air.

This is brief, but I could go on at great length on this one, and have done so in the past. I think that hammy would probably recall at least one instance.

On the other hand, one can easily state that the existence of objective reality is an assumption since it is defined as something that is not dependent on phenomenal charater for its existence.

I agree that it is an assumption. But if you make this assumption, you can get to an illusion of "mental". Given that, "mental" cannot be assumed, since it depends on the assumption of material.

 

[Piggy]

Piggy, this is 21 pages into the thread and the first time I wheeled out old Bertie. I did it as an "interesting aside" and no more.

But that's the thing, JustGeoff -- it's not interesting. It's false. Why are you trotting out falsehoods in response to my reply to your claim that empirical evidence has never solved a conceptual philosophical problem?

The fact is, JustGeoff, that as science provides more and more answers to important questions regarding the material world, the sphere of possible influence of non-material philosophy shrinks accordingly.

Philosophical and theological questions regarding the soul, for example, have gone the way of physical questions regarding the nature of phlogiston or the ether, although plenty of folks don't yet know enough -- or don't care to know enough -- about the science to understand that.

The soul -- like phlogiston or the ether -- was an entity proposed to answer certain apparent questions... in this case, questions about consciousness, free will, and agency.

But just as in the cases of the physical entities phlogiston and ether, the advancement of material knowledge and materialistic/naturalistic/physical theories, made possible by scientific research, has shown that the non-physical entity soul is not actually necessary to answer questions about consciousness, free will, and agency. In fact, it does nothing but present problems and contradictions arising only from the claim of a soul itself. When the soul is no longer posited, these previous conflicts vanish without a trace, and valid explanations may be explored.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

In fact, it does nothing but present problems and contradictions arising only from the claim of a soul itself. When the soul is no longer posited, these previous conflicts vanish without a trace, and valid explanations may be explored.

This must be part of our epoche, then. Marvelous!

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Calculating and describing calculation are two very different things.

I made quite clear that there is no person, awareness, etc. associated with the computer. It performs operations. But there is a difference in viewpoint from the outside and from the "inside". Can we agree on that? It does have a referent -- calculation is different from describing calculation.

I think I can see a problem, and it comes straight from the P1/P2 double definition of physical. No, I don't think there is any difference between "the calculation going on in the computer" and "a description of the calculation going on in the computer" - and I think the reason you believe that there is a difference in because of an unnoticed materialistic assumption. When you refer to computer, are you refering to the phenomenal computer - the one you actually percieve - "the P1-computer" - or are you refering to real-world external computer - "the P2-computer"?

The P1-computer is actually in front of you. In this case, if you want to make the distinction you wish to make, it works. But the P2-computer doesn't appear before you. From your perspective, it's already just an abstraction. Therefore, in the P2 case, your question becomes:

"A description of calculating and describing a description of calculation are two very different things."

Which isn't what you really want to say.

Speeding cameras have no awareness. If we can agree on the above, we can discuss why.

Well, we haven't agreed, but if you tell me why you think a speeding camera isn't aware it would help.

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Consider the weather. I might say "weather is synonymous with atmospheric molecular interaction."* A linguist would rightly say that it's not a synonym. I would reply that you know what I mean: Weather is what we call the results of atmospheric molecular interaction.

Now, the philospher would first play the linguist and give me trouble for using the word synonym. Ho hum. Once I appeased him, he would say say "Yes, but we understand the weather fully in terms of atmospheric molecular interaction." This is apparently what stops philosophers from running off and developing a dualistic paradigm about the weather. But why do philosophers assume this potential for understanding is absent for "subjective experience"?

What principle prevents us from eventually understanding subjective experience fully in terms of brain function?

~~ Paul

* Yes, I know it's more than this.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No, I don't think there is any difference between "the calculation going on in the computer" and "a description of the calculation going on in the computer" ...

You don't? Well, those two things certainly aren't synonymous, which is the reason you give why subjective experience can't be the same as brain function. So you must be saying that the calculation can be fully explained by the description of the computer. Why this inconsistency?

In the noumenal world, there is still a distinction. The computation performed by the noumenal computer is not the same as a description of the noumenal computer. Now, you may say that there is only one thing in the noumenal world because there are no descriptions of things in the noumenal world, but that is silly. You have given us various attributes of things in the noumenal world. Of course, I do not understand how there can be computation in the noumenal world, since there is no spatio-temporal framework.

"A description of calculating and describing a description of calculation are two very different things."

Which isn't what you really want to say.

And yet they are not synonymous.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

To force the definitions of subjective and objective to be polar opposites is to simplify the situation to the point of absurdity.

Paul, think about what you are saying. Is it really "absurd" to use words to mean what they have always meant? Where's your plausibilometer when you need it? What you are calling "absurd" is simply to go back to using words to refer to what they've always refered to.

And, I might add, it begs the question.

Rubbish, Paul. You are defending nonsense again. I showed you why it is YOU who is trying to assume your conclusion. I showed you WHY you do it and HOW you do it. But the only way you can hang on to your illogical belief system is to continually accuse ME of doing what YOU are actually doing.

It's not me who's assuming my conclusion, Paul. It's you. Every time.

But if you insist on rigging the definitions....

Paul, I am not going to let you get away with this lie any longer. You have a free hand to provide any definitions you like. You can't do it. Stop blaming ME for YOUR logical problems, the structure and origin of which are very carefully explained in post #836.

Apparently this should continue with "... not a single bit of which is objective in any way." In any event, "everything you have ever experienced" is clearly incorrect.

WHY?

Don't just say "it's clearly wrong". It isn't. It's clearly correct. Why do you think it is it wrong? That is PRECISELY what the term refers to.

So the fact that we use subjective experience to refer to fuzzy things like "the sum total of your mind" and inaccurate things like "everything you have ever experienced" means that it's not a synonym for brain function, in the linguistic sense. Granted.

There is nothing "fuzzy" about either of those definitions. They couldn't be any less fuzzy or inaccurate. Are you really be honest with yourself here?

However, you have at least now accepted that brain processes and "subjective experiences" cannot by considered as synonymns. It will help if we don't have to repeat that particular circle any more times.

But to use this as a basis for metaphysical conclusions about any fundamental difference between subjective experience and brain function is nothing but empty wordplay.

You are jumping the gun. When you've got a usable, coherent set of definitions, then we can go back and see where it leads us.

If philosophers use your definition, they are forcing a duality that may indeed be a linguistic duality, but not necessarily an actual one.

I'm not a dualist, remember?

Please have another look at post #836. It is important, and I don't think you grokked it properly.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Could you tell me how, from the first-person perspective, "subjective experiences" could be differentiated from "private behavior"?

No. I've no idea what "private behaviour" is supposed to mean.

You are defining them as different....

I didn't define "private behaviour" at all.

, but I am looking for your evidence here that distinguishes a "mental" realm from a "private" one (which you can think of as physical if you wish, but is independent of monism).

Err. You can have "private experience", or a "private realm" or a "mental realm". All of this would be the same as "mind", yes. There's nothing to distinguish private from subjective in this sense. But I'm not going to let the word "behaviour" sneak under my radar unnoticed.

As I wrote in another argument here, if you define flight as requiring feathers, then insects and bats do not truly fly. Your definition as you have it here assumes your conclusions (or rather, assumes the problem that you build a neumenal monism to solve).

Please elaborate. I don't see what you mean.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Consider the weather. I might say "weather is synonymous with atmospheric molecular interaction."* A linguist would rightly say that it's not a synonym. I would reply that you know what I mean: Weather is what we call the results of atmospheric molecular interaction.

We can't rely I "I know what you mean" in this case, though. The whole problem is that in the critical cases not only do I know what you mean, but I know it's not what I mean. So "I know what you mean" isn't going to be good enough. It's vague and innaccurate, unlike my terms which were clear and accurate.

Now, the philospher would first play the linguist and give me trouble for using the word synonym. Ho hum. Once I appeased him, he would say say "Yes, but we understand the weather fully in terms of atmospheric molecular interaction."

Yes. In this case the P1/P2 confusion about physical doesn't matter. The reason it doesn't matter is because there is no subjective/objective dichotomy in between "weather" and "molecular interaction".

This is apparently what stops philosophers from running off and developing a dualistic paradigm about the weather. But why do philosophers assume this potential for understanding is absent for "subjective experience"?

Because all instances of "weather" are on the same side of the subjective/objective divide. You aren't trying to sneak in a "subjective is objective" clause. There's no subjectivity to be had. Unless you want to start talking about "lightning", in which case we will have to make a distinction between the experience of seeing lightning and lightning-as-it-is-in-itself - at which point our problems will start all over again.

What principle prevents us from eventually understanding subjective experience fully in terms of brain function?

Right now what is preventing it is that you either can't or won't acknowledged that your definitions are all wonky. You've got to stop blaming me for "begging the question" and "rigging the definition" when it is Paul C. Anagnostopoulos who keeps doing those things. Until you can see why it is you and not me who is guilty of this, we are going to go round in circles. Please go back to post 836. All the answers are there. I need you to give me a much more detailed response to that post.

Geoff

 

[chriswl]

Subjective experience -----> The sum total of all your conscious experiences, everything that's ever appear in your mind.
Physical brain processes -----> A computation in grey matter in your head.

In this standard terminology "physical" is clearly refering to what we called P1 before. If you are sitting in front of a mirror with a hole in your forehead then "physical brain process" would be something you could see in the mirror. When you say "physical" you are using this as one of your referents - you are refering to the whole physical world as you experience it, from your own hands to the most distant star you can see. This is referent 1 for "physical".

But physicalism doesn't stop there. Even though you already agreed that experiences of a physical universe shouldn't be confused with the external causes of those experiences, you (and physicalism) also declare that P2 (the mind-external reality which causes those experiences) is also physical. When you are sitting in front of the mirror, you see a physical-1 brain (in the mirror), but the physical-1 brain isn't the proximal cause of your subjective experiences. By contrast, the physical-2 brain isn't in the mirror, but is the proximal cause your subjective experiences. So they aren't the same thing. Your physical-1 brain is not a synonym for your physical-2 brain. So you now have a referent 2 for "physical".

After all this time your P1/P2 stuff is still nonsense. You are the first person I have come accross who would call P1 above "the physical world" - this is exactly the opposite to its normal meaning, and physicalists use the word "physical" in it's normal way.

Physicalists claim that P2, the object of our experience, is the physical world. That's what physicalism means. Then (if they are not eliminativists) they claim that P1, our subjective experience of the P2 physical world, is the activity in our P2 physical brains. It is not the physical brain itself but the brain processes. This usually goes hand-in-hand with a belief that there is nothing special about the particular physical substrate of the human brain and that functionally similar things that were totally different physically would also have P1-type experiences of the P2 physical world. The fact that (most) physicalists believe this shows that they do not consider a P1 thing to be synonymous with any particular P2 thing. So they can't be conflating them.

 

[Piggy]

Speeding cameras have no awareness. If we can agree on the above, we can discuss why.

Well, we haven't agreed, but if you tell me why you think a speeding camera isn't aware it would help.

If it cannot simply be posited that speeding cameras are not aware, then we're in leprechaun land. Any system of thought which needs to debate this point at all is nothing but memesturbation.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

And yet they are not synonymous.

~~ Paul

They are exactly synonymous.

A) A description of X :

"B D V G" is the description of X

B) A description of a description of X:

"B D V G" is a description of the description of X

B) A description of a description of a description of X:

"B D V G" is a description of the description of the description of X

Can you tell me what is non-synonymous about these things? Do you think that every time you describe the description you are adding any new information to the description?

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Paul, think about what you are saying. Is it really "absurd" to use words to mean what they have always meant? Where's your plausibilometer when you need it? What you are calling "absurd" is simply to go back to using words to refer to what they've always refered to.

I simply disagree. There is nothing about the definition of subjective experience that implies that there is no objective component at all. If there was, the definition would be wrong.

Now, if you'd like to take subjective experience and divide it into the "purely subjective experiences" and the "sorta subjective experiences," be my guest. I'd like to see the two lists, though.

Rubbish, Paul. You are defending nonsense again. I showed you why it is YOU who is trying to assume your conclusion. I showed you WHY you do it and HOW you do it. But the only way you can hang on to your illogical belief system is to continually accuse ME of doing what YOU are actually doing.

It's not me who's assuming my conclusion, Paul. It's you. Every time.

If you divide subjective and objective experience into two disjoint sets, you are assuming a clear dualistic difference. Can we see the two lists?

WHY?

Don't just say "it's clearly wrong". It isn't. It's clearly correct. Why do you think it is it wrong? That is PRECISELY what the term refers to.

Many of my subjective experiences have no remnants whatsoever in my mind. Are you sure you don't mean "everything you remember you have experienced"?

There is nothing "fuzzy" about either of those definitions. They couldn't be any less fuzzy or inaccurate. Are you really be honest with yourself here?

Yeah, I'm sure. Would you care to define "the sum total of your mind"?

However, you have at least now accepted that brain processes and "subjective experiences" cannot by considered as synonymns. It will help if we don't have to repeat that particular circle any more times.

I was never saying they are linguistic synonyms, was I?

I'm not a dualist, remember?

Please have another look at post #836. It is important, and I don't think you grokked it properly.

I don't know what it means to be a dualist if insisting that subjective experience is by definition different from brain function isn't it.

~~ Paul

 

[Tricky]

They are exactly synonymous.

A) A description of X :

"B D V G" is the description of X

B) A description of a description of X:

"B D V G" is a description of the description of X

B) A description of a description of a description of X:

"B D V G" is a description of the description of the description of X

Can you tell me what is non-synonymous about these things? Do you think that every time you describe the description you are adding any new information to the description?

Geoff

Each "description" must leave out certain information about X. It is impossible for you or any known thing thing to describe every single property of X, thus the description is not X, but only a partial representation of X.

Don't eat the menu.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

and it comes straight from the P1/P2 double definition of physical.

OK, let's examine this. I looked back at your uses of P1 and P2 earlier and you defined P1 as subjective experience of something. I'm not speaking of any subjective experience (we don't have a subject in a computer the way that you are using the word), so I'm not sure what you are saying.

Are you trying to say that the description of an event and the actual performance of the event are one and the same thing? I always thought they were different -- one an action and the other a description.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Physicalists claim that P2, the object of our experience, is the physical world.

You've got that backwards. P2 isn't the object of our experience. P1 is the object of our experience. And if you are saying that P1 isn't the physical world then are you going to accept we might as well call it "subjective experiences" cos that would make life a whole load easier.....

That's what physicalism means.

Wrong. Physicalism means "all reality is physical".

Then (if they are not eliminativists) they claim that P1, our subjective experience of the P2 physical world, is the activity in our P2 physical brains.

Yep, and it's incoherent. If you don't believe me, give me some definitions and I'll construct a proof that they're illogical. I've already done this once with you, when you tried to explain computationalism to me.

It is not the physical brain itself but the brain processes.

Yep, that's the mistake you made before. Now you are making it again. It helps if we learn from our mistakes instead of repeating them.

You are saying "Brains aren't brain processes."

**** NEWFLASH FOR CHRIS ****

We all know that. We are interested in the difference between brain processes and experiences, remember?

***************************

This usually goes hand-in-hand with a belief that there is nothing special about the particular physical substrate of the human brain and that functionally similar things that were totally different physically would also have P1-type experiences of the P2 physical world.

Yep, that's functionalism and it's based on the same fundamental error that you have now made TWICE.

The fact that (most) physicalists believe this shows that they do not.....

....understand logic.

consider a P1 thing to be synonymous with any particular P2 thing. So they can't be conflating them.

They are making precisely the error you are making. They think the relationship between brains and minds is like the relationship between computers and calculations. Shall we put it in the form of an IQ test question?

Computer is to computation what brain is to....

A) brain process
B) minds/experiences
C) I'm confused
D) I'd better go back and check my definitions



Sorry to take the p*ss but we've been through this already once.

Geoff