Rusty,
No. The universe can be functioning through TLON. There can be laws that are affecting the "agent" of the Libertarian, the only thing that must be true is:
1) The agent is causal
2) The agent cannot be caused
I am a bit puzzled by your use of causality here. You are aware, aren't you, that materialism does not hold that the physical world is causal? Indeed, the laws of nature are not causal. Anyway, if you "agent" functions according to the laws of nature, then how does your position differ from materialism?
Also if you assert:
1) The definition of the universe is such that all things that exist do so within the universe.
Then I can assert that the universe is infinite and you are putting a clause on a undefinable definition. Useless.
How does that render the definition undefinable? If the set of things that exist is infinite, then the Universe is an infinite set. So what?
The hard problem does not even exist unless you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is not reducible to empirically observable phenomena. Such an assumption is a rejection of the scientific method, and renders all scientific knowledge invalid.
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You are very confused Simpson J. Cat. If we make the assumption that consciousness (in some form or on some level) exists in such a way that it can not be caused (and therefore cannot be completely reduced to empirically observable phenomena) we are not assuming that it cannot be percieved at all.
It is you that are confused. Many empirical phenomena are not caused. This is the basis of Quantum Mechanics. What is important for science is that the phenomena is observable, and can be described according to logical rules. Materialism only claims that consciousness is observable, and functions according to logical rules. If you agree with this, then the rest of your so-called dualism is not a philosophical or metaphysical issue at all. It is simply a question of what the proper scientific description for consciousness is. Contrary to what many people my have told you, the idea that consciousness is a brain process that can be completely described by our current laws of physics, is not an assumption of materialism. It is just the best scientific theory that we currently have.
Nor are we assuming that just because human beings posses a free will granting "agent" that eveything has one. Obviously, TLOP still apply even though we have "agents" (since we do), so obviosly it follows that you are incorrect.
How am I incorrect? If consciousness can be described according to logical rules, and those rules can be determined empirically, then the Hard Problem does not exist.
Try to imagine a world with "agent" where only the "agent" is not completely reducable to empirically observable phenomena.
I thought before you said the agent could be perceived? If it can be perceived, then there are only two options. Either it functions according to natural laws, in which case it can be empirically observed, and scientifically studied, or it does not, in which case it is supernatural.
Regardless, we still do not have to (and should not) assume that the agent is not reducable. We have this two things that the "agent" might have been:
1) Causaully determined
2) Random
No it cannot be either of those. So we add the third thing:
How do you conclude that it cannot be either of those? Are you just assuming this? If so, why?
Before you can assert that it is something else, you must define "random" in such a way that there could even be something else. As I said before, the precise mathematical definition for random is "undetermined".
We do not know what #3 is yet, but hopefully one day science will tell us. To claim that just because science has not demonstrated it yet means that science has refuted it is nonsense.
It is not a question of science refuting it. It is not a scientific question at all. "Random" means "not determined". Saying that it is not determined and not random is a contradiction.
I claim that it is #3 because:
1) it cannot be #1, #2
and
2) It logically follows that "agent" exists because we have free will.
Why can't it be 1 or 2? And how do you know we have Libertarian free-will?
UCE,
I am not asking for a complete description here. I am asking for a formal logical definition of what you mean by the term "Mind". Do you have one, or not?
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Well...give me an example of what you mean by providing a 'formal logical definition' of matter (without it being self-referential). Do you have one, or not?
I already told you, I define "matter" to mean "everything that exists". Is that how you define Mind? If so, then how does your philosophy differ from mine, and how do you explain the existence of human consciousness?
My dreams are not reality. Only a mentally ill person would believe they are.
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I didn't say your dreams were reality, Stimpy. I said that when you have dreams they appear like reality to the dreamer.
That is irrelevant. The only analogy that you could draw from that is that reality appears like reality to the Meta-Mind. That says absolutely nothing about why reality appears like reality to me.
It is not an explanation. You are saying X does A in the same way that Y does B, even though X is clearly a very different thing from Y, and A is very different from B. Reality is not a dream, and my mind is not infinite. What you gave was not a metaphor, but an analogy, and a seriously flawed one at that.
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How do you know what reality is?
I know that dreams are not reality. That is enough to refute your argument.
How do you know the mind is not infinite?
I don't. Nor did I claim that it is not. I just claimed that the mind is not "Infinity", whatever that is supposed to be.
As I said before, dreams are not reality.
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And as I said before dreams appear like reality to the dreamer. If you were dreaming now then how would you know?
But you are not claiming that reality is my dream. You are claiming that reality is a dream of the Meta-Mind, and that I am a part of that dream. Do you not see the difference?
And besides, just because you see no reason why the process cannot be the same, doesn't mean that they are.
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FACT : Every time you dream your mind constructs the illusion of reality.
FACT : It has therefore already been demonstrated that mind can create the illusion of matter very easily. ***And that was all I was trying to demonstrate***.
No, it demonstrates that
human minds can create the illusion of matter. It demonstrates absolutely nothing whatsoever about this hypothetical Meta-Mind of yours.
No, it doesn't. But when I am asleep, I usually don't have the cognative faculties to recognize all the differences (sometimes I do). If you seriously cannot tell the difference between dream and reality, you need help.
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WHEN YOU ARE DREAMING it FEELS LIKE reality. Or are you a freak?
Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. As I already pointed out, this is beside the point.
There are two problems:
1) Reality is very different from dreams. Reality is logically self-consistent. Dreams are not. Reality is temporally consistent. Dreams are not.
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Fair enough, and totally irrelevant. All that matters is that mind has created something which appears as material reality. ***That was all I was trying to demonstrate***. Therefore your first problem is a strawman, since it is raising complaints that are not relevant. I did not say that mind created a 'logically self-consistent' illusion of reality. ***all I said was that it creates an illusion of reality***. Try to keep focused on what we are discussing instead of shooting off in other directions to find something to attack, Stimp.
once again, what does any of this have to do with the Meta-Mind. My mind is not the Meta-Mind. The Meta-Mind is not a human mind. So far, you have provided no definition of this Meta-Mind other than to say it is everything that exists.
All you are doing is positing the existence of some mind, which you claim is somehow qualitatively similar to human minds, and which generates reality as some sort of dream. This is pure anthropomorphic nonsense!
2) Your speculation that reality is just a dream in some super-mind is just that, speculation.
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At least I have an explanation to speculate with, plus a whole collection of 'mysteries' which appear to be solved by this solution. All the materialists have is a headache.
No, all you have is an ad-hoc hypothesis that you cannot even formulate coherently. Materialists have an entire field of scientific research which has told us more about the human condition in the last 50 years then all the mystics throughout history have.
The question was given X, how do we get Y (and given Y, how do we get X). It was NOT 'what is X?' and it was NOT 'what is Y?'. You start with matter and fail to provide an explanation for mind.
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I start with matter, and have a method which could potentially provide an explanation for human/animal consciousness.
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You start with matter and run into the Hard Problem, then you spend 18 months glued to the spot, refusing to accept the Hard Problem exists and making no progress toward finding answers to any of these questions.
I state again that unless you assume dualism a-priori, there is no hard problem. Scientific research has answered many questions about the mind. Burying your head in the sand won't change that fact. Neither will taking every question about the mind that science does answer, and moving it into the category of brain activity.
No, you start with "Mind", which if you are not willing to give any further definition than simply "all that exists", leaves you in exactly the same position of having to explain where human/animal consciousness comes from. If you define "Mind" to be human/animal consciousness, then you can not also define it to be "everything that is".
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Why not?
That is precisely what YOU DO when you claim that mind is physical.
No it is not. When I claim that the mind is physical, all I am doing is stating that it interacts with other physical stuff. This is a trivial observation.
What's more, simply pointing out that human minds create matter everytime they dream, is not only false, but it is not an explanation of how Mind creates reality.
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Why not, Stimp?
If a mind creates a reality every time you dream why not when you are awake? Or is that solution too simple for you to understand? I may not be able to explain the mechanism by which mind creates the illusion of reality but I can sure as hell point out that it does indeed do so.
I can point out that ducks fly, but that is hardly an explanation for how flight works. And it is certainly not an explanation for how helicopters fly.
Pointing out that human minds create mini-realities every time they dream, is not an explanation for how the meta-mind creates reality.
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No, but it is conclusive proof that minds are capable of creating the illusion of physical reality. I repeat : This was the claim I was trying to support. It has been supported.
And as I have pointed out, that is irrelevant unless you are going to demonstrate that the Meta-Mind is, in fact, a human mind. And even then, you will not have explained how minds create the illusion of reality in the first place!
In order for it to qualify as an explanation, you would need to be able to do two things:
1) Explain how human minds produce mini-realities when they dream (which they don't).
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Why do I have to explain the details of the mechanism? All that matters is that the mechanism exists, and it clearly does exist.
Because you
claimed that idealism provides an explanation for these questions. Are you now saying that it does not? That it is, in fact, nothing more than an ad-hoc hypothesis which does not actually explain anything?
2) Demonstrate that the mechanism by which the Meta-Mind creates reality is the same as in (1).
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Well if we have two mechanisms by which mind creates matter. Do you think they are likely to be very similar or completely unrelated?
now you are playing word games. Human minds create the illusion of matter. The Meta-Mind creates real matter. You can argue that real matter is somehow illusory too, but this does not change the fundamental fact that there is clearly a difference between dreams and reality. And it doesn't resolve the fact that you still haven't defined "Meta-Mind".
Is it everything that exists? Is it a human mind? Does it share some characteristics with human minds? If so, which ones? And what are its characteristics that it does not share with human minds?
And even if you can explain all that, the fact still remains that Materialism provides a method by which we can attempt to determine the mechanism by which reality works. Idealism provides no such thing. instead you just say "see, it works. We don't need to know how".
Dr. Stupid
