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The study of atoms in the brain doesn't explain the redness of red;Materialism = FAKE

If you're awed by antique pop music, perhaps a brain scan is in order. Yes, something really, genuinely materialistic.
 
Darat said:
What is this redness of red?
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I've got as far as this so I expect I'll continue reading since there is so much spare time at the moment. I do know something about the colour red. When focal vision is lost, one of the first colours to be difficult to see is red, so its position on the retinal receptors must be close to the edge of the centre. Bright yellow must be out towards the edge because that is one that is more easily seen.
 
Oh - perhaps materialism has not explained the seemingly emergent experience of consciousness because it's not good enough at explaining stuff.

I think that it is possible to be not very good at explaining what you're talking about. Change my mind.
 
devhdb said:
And NO, I'm not talking about measurable neurons firing in certain areas in the brain.



When I mean "explain" I mean "describe" how does it FEEL to be in love, or describe an orgasm to someone who haven't had sex ever before.
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Why would you expect to be able to use the English language to do that?
 
devhdb said:
It is impossible to be directly "in contact" with matter: to all extent and consequence, the world is our perceptions.
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Not quite. It is impossible for me to be directly in contact with anything but my perceptions.

So to all extent and consequence, the world is my perceptions.

But I make the inference that the other people also have these perceptions, rather than being just appearances.

If this inference is correct then it inescapably follows that there is a somewhat (to borrow De Morgan's word for it) that keeps these perceptions synchronised.

This somewhat is something that is not perception.

So either I am the Solipsist, or there is something that is not perception.
 
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steenkh said:
I have no idea what this materialism means, so I can’t have an opinion on whether it is “fake” or not. However, physics has shown that that our brains consist of atoms and particles: these are all that is needed for seeing red, feeling red, or whatever. If your brain is damaged, you might no longer see or feel red.

As I see it, “redness” is a neuron firing pattern, or something similar. The inability of explaining such a firing pattern to a blind man does not mean that there is more to redness than the emergence of certain firing patterns.
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And as ever those folk who come out with " can't explain red to a blind person" are decades behind with their knowledge. We are now indeed able to "describe" sight to a blind person.

Here is just one example

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...omise-sharper-artificial-vision-blind-people#
 
robin said:
Not quite. It is impossible for me to be directly in contact with anything but my perceptions.

So to all extent and consequence, the world is my perceptions.

But I make the inference that the other people also have these perceptions, rather than being just appearances.

If this inference is correct then it inescapably follows that there is a somewhat (to borrow De Morgan's word for it) that keeps these perceptions synchronised.

This somewhat is something that is not perception.

So either I am the Solipsist, or there is something that is not perception.
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Now since dualism is incoherent perception and the somewhat are the same kind of thing.

Finally, perception is a complex thing and so must consist of components of which are not themselves conscious.

So even if consciousness does not arise or emerge from matter, it must arise or emerge from some non-conscious medium.
 
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devhdb said:
I am talking about how do you DESCRIBE that pain so that I can have a proper a idea of what you are feeling.
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What has this got to do with 'Materialism = FAKE'?

Words may be inadequate to describe a lot of things - but that doesn't invalidate materialism. If 'feelings' can be induced by directly stimulating certain parts of the brain, that is enough to show that they have a materialist origin.

But what about words? They also stimulate certain parts of the brain. I say red, and you 'see' the color red. Or I could could post a picture of something red, and you 'see' red through your eyes. These are just different ways of the stimulating the brain to invoke a response.

Now take pain. I have never had a broken bone, but people have described to me what it is like. I bet if I ever break a bone the experience will be familiar. Why? Because words represent shared experiences. When I say 'red' you think of 'red' as your brain remembers it, but our 'feelings' are similar enough that we can both relate to it. OTOH if I was to say the name of a color that you don't recognize, we could be imagining very different colors (or even none at all). So when someone does a good job of describing the pain they got when breaking a bone, I can relate to it because they described it in terms of feelings I have experienced. And it's all materialistic, stored in the physical material of my brain.

But you will reject this. Why? Because the mind perceives itself to be something apart from the physical atoms it is made of. This is an illusion of course - but a powerful one that makes it emotionally difficult to accept that it is just an illusion.

Scientists are constantly improving our knowledge of the brain and consciousness, but you don't need science to tell you that feelings have a material basis. You may not want to believe it, but logically you must. If you reject it then you reject logic.
 
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Or, for the shorter version, either mind is metaphysically simple or else it is emergent from a medium which is not mind.

Since we cannot reconcile metaphysical simplicity with the functionality we observe in mind, mind is not metaphysically simple.

Thus mind is emergent from some non-conscious substrate, be it matter or something else.
 
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As far as I can see, the argument goes like this:

P1: If materialism is true, it can explain qualia.
P2: We are currently unable to explain qualia.

C: Materialism is not true.

In formal terms this is the logical fallacy of denying the antecedent; in informal terms it is the logical fallacy of the argument from ignorance.

Even if we accept qualia, therefore, they cannot refute materialism; it simply remains unproven.

Dave
 
devhdb said:
Isn't the ultimate target of science to describe the world?
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Any description of the world in the form of text maps directly to a number. You're trying just as hard to reduce everything to a number as the "materialists" you're moaning about.
 
Since there must be a non-conscious substrate to mind, then matter (or whatever it is that we are describing with physics) is the only known candidate.
 
devhdb said:
Isn't the ultimate target of science to describe the world?
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Not with English. The 'language' of science is math. At the lowest level (quantum physics) math is the only way to 'understand' it. English words are wholly inadequate to describe the World with the precision required by science. If you think describing your 'feelings' is hard...
 
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