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The Zombie Poll

What happens?

  • Smooth as silk

    Votes: 56 60.9%

  • Zombie

    Votes: 10 10.9%

  • Curare

    Votes: 3 3.3%

  • I really don't know

    Votes: 11 12.0%

  • Lifegazer is a zombie from Planet X

    Votes: 12 13.0%
  • Total voters
    92
Hammegk said:
Body / Mind, as always; that's what the equivocation gets you.
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Could you please show me where is body and where is mind in what I have said? The only equivocation concerns 100% certainty, not an attempt to get something for nothing, not an attempt to sneak in two substances to explain something that I find otherwise unexplainable. I'm not claiming that there are two ontologic categories in reality. I am claiming that I cannot tell which of the models we propose -- physical/mental (material/ideal) -- is correct. I have no way of doing so. So I choose. But that choice may be wrong. My claim of equivocation is, therefore, not ontologic (though it concerns ontology) but epistemic.

I don't see any traditional view of mind there. I have no idea what "body" means, ultimately. That distinction, between mind and body, really makes no sense to me. There is no "thing" that we call "mind". There is some stuff out there that I cannot fully describe, whose characteristics we probably cannot ever fully know, and whose actions are what we call "mind" -- just as a slightly different sort of this same stuff's actions are running.

I'm suggesting neither property nor substance dualism.

This "body", what is it? The billiard ball universe is bereft of life, resting in peace like a dead parrot. Haldane said it best. I'm sure I need not repeat his sage words.
 
Mercutio said:
What, by assertion? What did I get wrong?
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Sorry, I still don't understand what you miss on the 100% problem that happens only for materialists.

Must be nice not to have to ask the question "how?".
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What moves? Flag? Wind? Mind? :)

What does materialism or idealism tell you inside the Planck length? And "how" did the Big Bang start? Idealist's have the same "how's" as materialists, just different possibilities.

The idealist's 'what-is' is alive, the materialist's dead; that's all.


wasp: Yeah, epistemology just doesn't answer the question. You -- like all of us -- are on your own.
 
Hammegk said:
Yeah, epistemology just doesn't answer the question.
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Correct. That is what I was trying to demonstrate.

Of course I'm on my own. It is a choice, which must be made personally. I simply recognize that my choice may be wrong, so I am open to discussion of other possibilities. What I am not open to (and this does not concern you but rather the way that Geoff seems to carry on his "discussions") is the idea that it is inherently impossible to explain consciousness without recourse to the ultimate answer of ontology and that answer must be some form of neutral monism. While that might be true, since there are alternatives it does not follow that the only possibility is neutral monism of the Geoff kind. I won't belabour this since he cannot defend himself currently, but that has been my sole interest in these threads. I fully accept the consequences of a physicalist stance, which includes not only that libertarian freedom is meaningless but also that typical theistic conceptions of God are wrong. The only recourse for divinity in this paradigm is pantheism. But then we are left with the very real issue, for which I have no good answer, of what "divine" means. The idea of introducing pantheism is itself a choice that is unnecessary. It carries the idea of reverence for existence; and I tend like the story with the tiger in the boat.

I respect your position. I didn't make the choice that you did, but I respect that you do not seem to clothe your idealism in a dress.
 
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hammegk said:
Sorry, I still don't understand what you miss on the 100% problem that happens only for materialists.
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Well...everything, I guess. Why "approach" on the idealist side is any different from your "99.9999% =/= 100%" on the materialist side.

I feel I must be missing something major, because it looks like assertion. In the past, it has been my experience that you have not resorted to mere assertion, so I suspect I am missing something. But damned if I know what.
 
Hmm. What if I say that the problem a materialist faces with uncertainty that free-will and/or god (let's say 'intent') exist is that the existence of either destroy his worldview and he is a dualist. His real problem is that if they do exist -- in the slightest -- what is any of the stuff he believed was intentless, deterministic or random, and 'physical'?

The idealist says everything is in essence 'intent' even though what we would deem god may not exist, and neither may what we would deem 'free-will'. The attribute 'intent' (exemplified by my communication comments) remains inherent to The Existent, or Existents as the case may be.

Better? Worse? The same? :)
 
Check for typos... I think there is an "is" for an "if". Then gimme some time with it.

:D
 
Hammegk when you say 100% certainty do you mean that they think the world is 100% described by the materialist/no free will POV? Or do you mean 100% certainty in such a position?
 
Mercutio said:
Check for typos... I think there is an "is" for an "if". Then gimme some time with it.

:D
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Sorry. It reads ok to me as is. What am I missing?


DreadNik: If materialism is True, then it is 100% certain that free-will and/or god do not exist. That's the 100%.

The choice of monism is just that, a choice. Certainty of correctness of that choice is what we're all waiting for .... :)
 
I wish you'd put in a "none of the above" option.:)

The problem is one of consciousness and continuity of the complex states that make up conciousness, or "you".

If you replace the biological componentry, you will - by definition - be permanently disrupting an existing element of the state of consciousness (or the complex combination of states that make up conciousness). Replacing it with something else, by definition, would make the individual into a "new" person, even if you successfully copied the state in every detail.

Let me address one possible objection before it's raised - when an individual's brain activity ceases and then (via medical intervention) resumes, the state is temporarily interrupted - but all of the original elements are still in place, so the individual is still the same person. (Albeit possibly altered by the experience... but being altered by experiences is the human norm.)

There are well documented instances of brain injuries and surgical interventions that have resulted in dramatic changes of personality, behavior and memory. This happens when some of the elements and processes that comprise conciousness are altered... and these people are simply not the same individuals that they were prior to the experience. (Except in the legal sense of the word!)

Simply because (in the hypothetical example) there's no way to detect a change doesn't mean anything.

If one created a perfect clone of oneself, does that mean that there are now two of you? Or one original and a copy? :D
 
hammegk said:
Sorry. It reads ok to me as is. What am I missing?
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It was me. I was reading a question wrongly.

Now, the "gimme some time" part...I'm just taking a break from clearing out a poison ivy patch...
 
Hammegk said:
The choice of monism is just that, a choice. Certainty of correctness of that choice is what we're all waiting for ....
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I wonder what could possibly happen for us to discover that one of the metaphysical choices is correct and the rest incorrect? Either someone would have to come up with a logical proof, or someone would have to come up with an experiment that demonstrates a difference. But in both cases, people would first have to define the positions in enough detail to make them amenable to distinction.

As they stand, neither the concept of free will nor that of god is coherent enough to do proofs or run experiments. And the definitions of the metaphysical positions aren't crisp enough either.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
I wonder what could possibly happen for us to discover that one of the metaphysical choices is correct and the rest incorrect? Either someone would have to come up with a logical proof, or someone would have to come up with an experiment that demonstrates a difference. But in both cases, people would first have to define the positions in enough detail to make them amenable to distinction.

As they stand, neither the concept of free will nor that of god is coherent enough to do proofs or run experiments. And the definitions of the metaphysical positions aren't crisp enough either.

~~ Paul
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Yep, we're all safe, as long as we don't investigate what those terms mean and keep them as slippery as eels.
When philosophers come up with specilized terms that depart from the sense of common language usage, we can dismiss those for their irrelevancy and obscurantism.
When philosophers try to base their terms on common language usage, we can dismiss them as being naive and Dualistic, because common sense is just too stupid in the face of reality.

Terms like "God" will continue to be our salvation from any discussion that might come to a conclusion, as it's the most slippery metaphor in the English Language. And folks can always argue about the meanings of more specific terms such as "Theist," "Deist," "Pantheist." and so on.
There was a thread going on a couple of days ago about "Atheist" vrs. "Agnostic." There were varying views on what these words entailed.

Anyone hoping to make or communicate what they find a valid working metaphysic for themselves, should understand that the zombies will pound away at the door, break in, and beat any of their words of explanation to a mushy pulp.

But there's an advantage to it: No one needs to be "pinned and wriggling."
And a disadvantage to it: Some will remain "pinned and wriggling."
 
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jmercer said:
I wish you'd put in a "none of the above" option.:)

The problem is one of consciousness and continuity of the complex states that make up conciousness, or "you".

If you replace the biological componentry, you will - by definition - be permanently disrupting an existing element of the state of consciousness (or the complex combination of states that make up conciousness). Replacing it with something else, by definition, would make the individual into a "new" person, even if you successfully copied the state in every detail.

Let me address one possible objection before it's raised - when an individual's brain activity ceases and then (via medical intervention) resumes, the state is temporarily interrupted - but all of the original elements are still in place, so the individual is still the same person. (Albeit possibly altered by the experience... but being altered by experiences is the human norm.)

There are well documented instances of brain injuries and surgical interventions that have resulted in dramatic changes of personality, behavior and memory. This happens when some of the elements and processes that comprise conciousness are altered... and these people are simply not the same individuals that they were prior to the experience. (Except in the legal sense of the word!)

Simply because (in the hypothetical example) there's no way to detect a change doesn't mean anything.

If one created a perfect clone of oneself, does that mean that there are now two of you? Or one original and a copy? :D
Click to expand...

The OP is no longer here to clarify his thought experiment, and having read some of his threads through, I doubt what he'd say would change most readers's initial take on it.
My opinion is he was aiming at the continuity of subjective experiencing and self-consciousness, as opposed to association with a given personality or identity. So, the option that it may not be the same person wasn't relevant to his intended argument.
But it is a more desirable Fifth than some of the "Fifths" cited in earlier posts. And it still plays into his hands.
 
Hyparxis said:
Anyone hoping to make or communicate what they find a valid working metaphysic for themselves, should understand that the zombies will pound away at the door, break in, and beat any of their words of explanation to a mushy pulp.
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That's what you get when you spend your life engaged in an endeavor that is almost exclusively a verbal exercise. If there was anything but words to beat to a mushy pulp, I'd do that, too. :D

~~ Paul
 
Hyparxis said:
The OP is no longer here to clarify his thought experiment, and having read some of his threads through, I doubt what he'd say would change most readers's initial take on it.
My opinion is he was aiming at the continuity of subjective experiencing and self-consciousness, as opposed to association with a given personality or identity. So, the option that it may not be the same person wasn't relevant to his intended argument.
But it is a more desirable Fifth than some of the "Fifths" cited in earlier posts. And it still plays into his hands.
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Ah - thank you. I wasn't aware of his departure; however, I would have continued my line of argument regardless, since the experience of having one's brain replaced bit-by-bit would also certainly have a subjective impact as well. :)
 
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