Materialism

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

So you are saying that there is something about red that is not reducable to the point where human beings can percieve it? Or you are asserting that this thing about red that I have claimed is not reducable to being perceived but has to be experienced, is, in fact, reducable. But the only way to reduce it (other then having the experience) is to make a physical modification to the brain?

The latter. And more to the point, I am saying that what is different about you after you have had the experience, and all that is different about you after you have had the experience, is the physical change to your brain that the process of seeing red has caused. In other words, it doesn't make any difference whether you have actually seen red, or whether your brain has been altered to the state it would be in if you had.

So then we are saying that the experience of seeing red causes something in our brain to make a physical modification to our brain and so this 'modification' is the thing we gain?

Exactly.

What does this 'modification' do to give me the 'extra knowledge' about red?

The modification is the knowledge. Your knowledge is physically stored in the structure of your brain.

This argument still assumes that there is some part of the brain that already 'knows' red and just hasn't been connected to the rest of the brain.

Not at all. Knowledge is physically present in the form of neural connections. Before the connections are made, you do not possess the knowledge.

That is the whole point. No amount of explanation will give Mary the relevant knowledge, because the process of explanation will only result in certain types of neural connections being made. The type of neural connections required for knowledge about seeing red can only be made (naturally) by the process of actually seeing red. The only way Mary could know what it is like to see red, without having seen it, would be to artificially alter her brain.

We assume physicalism is true. Hence everything that exists can be reduced to a point where human beings can perceive it in it's relation as both a cause and an effect.

So the color red can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by human beings as both a cause and an effect. If we reduce everything about the color red to the state where it is perceivable as both a cause and an effect and use this knowledge to write a book we will have a way we can learn all there is to know about the color red. This book is called Book of Red-osity.

You have a hidden assumption in there. That it is possible for a human being to be able to read this hypothetical book, and understand it. This is not reasonable. There are far simpler systems then the brain which are already far to complicated for any human being to be able to understand them completely. This is why I used a super computer in my example.

There is a girl named Mary in a black and white room, with black/white clothes, and everything in the room is black/white. Including her skin. She has never seen any color.

Mary is provided with the Book of Red-osity and reads everything. She reads it all, learns it all, and understands it all. Mary now knows everything about the color red.

We then give Mary another book, the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This book contains all information about experiencing the color red. She reads, learns, and understands this as well. Mary now knows everything about the color red and the experience of the color red.

We then bring Mary a red rose. When Mary see's this rose she gains some kind of knowledge about red that she did not have before. What does she gain? We will call this thing qualia.

You are confounding two types of knowledge here. There is the type of knowledge that Mary can get from reading a book, and the type of knowledge she can get from experience. Both of these types of knowledge are present as physical structure in her brain, but reading a book simply isn't physically capable of teaching her what red looks like. Nothing about Physicalism implies that a person can learn every physical fact about something by reading it. The brain just simply doesn't work that way.

The first story of Mary established that Mary gains some kind of knowledge upon seeing red that she cannot gain from the Book of Red-osity or the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity. This means that the thing cannot be reduced under physicalism.

Let us accept the second story. Robo-Mary did not gain any new knowledge when she saw red. So somehow Robo-Mary gained this 'qualia' through a physical modification to her brain but regular Mary could not gain this through the books. Again, this is saying that there is something in the brain that already "knows" red but just has to be connected.

It might help for you to read up on how neural networks learn. After all, the brain is a neural network.

There is not something in the brain that already knows, but just has to be connected. The point is that reading information is not sufficient to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge by learning. Learning is a physical process in the brain. Your brain learns different things in different ways. It learns abstract things through contemplation and imagination. Reading a book just gives you the information necessary for the learning process to occur. Likewise, your brain learns what it is like to see red by processing the corresponding visual stimulus.

Reading a book is just the stimulus. The learning process is physical. Seeing a red object is also a stimulus. Different parts of your brain are involved in learning different things, and as such, they require different stimuli.

Remember that Physicalism doesn't say anything about what human beings are capable of. The claim of physicalism is that it should, in principle, be possible to write those books you were talking about. it does not claim that reading those books could teach somebody what it is like to see red.

I think this point is a real conceptual hang-up for many people. We tend to think of knowledge as being some intangible thing that our minds possess. We forget that knowledge cannot be acquired without going through the process of learning it. And one thing that we now know is that learning is a physical process.

Dr. Stupid

 

[Guest]

Yeah, some things never change.

Just a miserable tiny little piece of evidence would make a difference...

You must find it yourself. You must use your Free Will.

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty,



The latter. And more to the point, I am saying that what is different about you after you have had the experience, and all that is different about you after you have had the experience, is the physical change to your brain that the process of seeing red has caused. In other words, it doesn't make any difference whether you have actually seen red, or whether your brain has been altered to the state it would be in if you had.



Exactly.



The modification is the knowledge. Your knowledge is physically stored in the structure of your brain.



Not at all. Knowledge is physically present in the form of neural connections. Before the connections are made, you do not possess the knowledge.

That is the whole point. No amount of explanation will give Mary the relevant knowledge, because the process of explanation will only result in certain types of neural connections being made. The type of neural connections required for knowledge about seeing red can only be made (naturally) by the process of actually seeing red. The only way Mary could know what it is like to see red, without having seen it, would be to artificially alter her brain.

You are cleverly asserting that Mary does not gain anything when she see's red. I only agreed that Robo-Mary does not gain anything so you must back up your claim that regular Mary does not.

If all Mary gains after seeing red is a physical change in her brain she still gained something. That something must be reducable to a thing that Mary could perceive and hence would have been in the books.

If it is not reducable then physicalism is false. If it is reducable then it would have been in the books.

You have a hidden assumption in there. That it is possible for a human being to be able to read this hypothetical book, and understand it. This is not reasonable. There are far simpler systems then the brain which are already far to complicated for any human being to be able to understand them completely. This is why I used a super computer in my example.

Immaterial. If Mary gains something new then she obviously is capable of learning it. So how come she can't learn it from the book? Is it becase the thing is not reducable? That means physicalism is false.

You are confounding two types of knowledge here. There is the type of knowledge that Mary can get from reading a book, and the type of knowledge she can get from experience. Both of these types of knowledge are present as physical structure in her brain, but reading a book simply isn't physically capable of teaching her what red looks like. Nothing about Physicalism implies that a person can learn every physical fact about something by reading it. The brain just simply doesn't work that way.

Everything must be reducable. We reduce and we put it in the books. If it cannot go into the books then physicalism is false.

It might help for you to read up on how neural networks learn. After all, the brain is a neural network.

There is not something in the brain that already knows, but just has to be connected. The point is that reading information is not sufficient to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge by learning. Learning is a physical process in the brain. Your brain learns different things in different ways. It learns abstract things through contemplation and imagination. Reading a book just gives you the information necessary for the learning process to occur. Likewise, your brain learns what it is like to see red by processing the corresponding visual stimulus.

Reading a book is just the stimulus. The learning process is physical. Seeing a red object is also a stimulus. Different parts of your brain are involved in learning different things, and as such, they require different stimuli.

You are complicating the issue unnecesarily. I won't let you confuse me with your physics stuff because it is all a non-issue.

Physicalism states that EVERYTHING must be reducable to the point where we can perceive it. So we reduce everything about red and learn all their is to know. Then how come we still gain more knowledge when we see red? Because everything is not reducable, hence physicalism is false.

Remember that Physicalism doesn't say anything about what human beings are capable of. The claim of physicalism is that it should, in principle, be possible to write those books you were talking about. it does not claim that reading those books could teach somebody what it is like to see red.

Even if we assume that we cannot learn everything, Mary obviously can learn what she does learn. So if she learns everything that she can possibly learn, how does she learn MORE when she see's red? Because it is not reducable and physicalism is false!

I think this point is a real conceptual hang-up for many people. We tend to think of knowledge as being some intangible thing that our minds possess. We forget that knowledge cannot be acquired without going through the process of learning it. And one thing that we now know is that learning is a physical process.

Dr. Stupid

So now you are saying that some things are reducable but others must be experienced (or a combination thereof)? So you are a dualist? Then why are you defending physicalism?

I noted that you never actually addressed the point that if Mary learns something new, then whatever she learned was not reducable or it would have been in the books.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty, I really don't care what the definition of physicalism is. I'll let philosophers spend millennia debating the terms.

All things are reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive these things.

If what you're saying is that the knowledge about something should be able to be codified in such a way as to allow a person to read about the thing and gain all possible facts about the thing, then I disagree. That requires Stimpy's robot. There is nothing about physicalism or materialism that asserts this.

Yes she had not seen red yet, she had only read the books. The books contained all knowledge reduced down to the point where she coudl perceive it and she learned and understood it. How can she then gain MORE knowledge about red when she see's it? Because not all things are reducable in this way.

This is getting silly. If you insist on claiming that I should be able to form all possible neural pathways simply by reading about a subject, we might as well just quit.

Physicalism does not say that all facts can be learned from books.

Yes it does.

No, it doesn't. But if you can find a concensus that it does, then I'll reject physicalism in favor of some other poorly-defined ism.

If you would like to continue this discussion under the assumption that Mary can learn from books everything the robot would program, I'm happy to do so.

~~ Paul

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.

If you cannot accept the truths about what physicalism asserts then perhaps it is not the world view you should accept.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.

Ridiculous. You are assuming that subjective experience requires dualism. You are therefore presupposing dualism before the debate even begins.

If what you say were true, then dualism would be required even to experience the words on the page of Red-everythingosity. It would be a tautology.

You really need to read even just a tiny smidgen about neuroscience.

~~ Paul

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty said:
Ridiculous. You are assuming that subjective experience requires dualism. You are therefore presupposing dualism before the debate even begins.

You really need to read even just a tiny smidgen about neuroscience.

~~ Paul

I am not presupposing dualism. You are the one who believes in dualism, not me. You just can't accept it. It's nice to be part of the group isn't it?

If there is subjective experience that cannot be reduced to an objective state where any human can perceive it then physicalism is false.

By your definition.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

I am not presupposing dualism. You are the one who believes in dualism, not me. You just can't accept it. It's nice to be part of the group isn't it?

Okay then, you're presupposing idealism or some other non-materialism.

If there is subjective experience that cannot be reduced to an objective state where any human can perceive it then physicalism is false.

You've become a broken record. Perhaps we can break this cycle by your posting a link to a description of physicalism that includes this nonsensical requirement?

~~ Paul

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty said:
Okay then, you're presupposing idealism or some other non-materialism.


You've become a broken record. Perhaps we can break this cycle by your posting a link to a description of physicalism that includes this nonsensical requirement?

~~ Paul

No, I'm not presupposing anything. But that's the problem isn't it? I'm not presupposing physicalism am I? Hot damn, it came up again! You know, if many, many, many people tell you that you have a problem then perhaps, just maybe, you might have a problem. Paul, you have a problem. You presuppose physicalism then you deny anything that may not be physicalism.

If I can have a subjective experience that NO ONE ELSE CAN perceive then there has occured something that can not be rendered to a state where any human can perceive it.

This is a direct contrast to your definition of physicalism.

This is like arguing with a Morman!

Please don't bother to respond, just go back to your 'religion', even though you don't understand what it is.

 

[Mercutio]

Rustywrote:
Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human
can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a
book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or
possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.




Memory researchers speak of procedural and declarative memories--what you remember you have done, and what you remember you know, to oversimplify a bit. Are you , Rusty, saying that if a procedural memory cannot be experienced as a declarative one, it doesn't exist? (BTW, both are currently viewed as "stored" in neural nets, through new synaptic connections--but different pathways)

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty, what is an example of an experience I can have that doesn't require your assumption of non-physicalism?

~~ Paul

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rustywrote:
Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human
can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a
book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or
possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.




Memory researchers speak of procedural and declarative memories--what you remember you have done, and what you remember you know, to oversimplify a bit. Are you , Rusty, saying that if a procedural memory cannot be experienced as a declarative one, it doesn't exist? (BTW, both are currently viewed as "stored" in neural nets, through new synaptic connections--but different pathways)

Unfortunately I don't know what you are talking about. Perhaps you can explain these two types of memories further?

Maybe you can give me a deeper generalization and explain to me how they are applicable to physicalism. Here is physicalism's according to Paul:

"A thesis that the descriptive terms of scientific language are reducible to terms which refer to spatiotemporal things or events or to their properties."

This can be seperated into two premises:

1) All things are reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive these things.
2) All things are 'spatiotemporal' things or events or properties.

I have reservations with the second premise, but we seem to be focused on the first.

How would these two types of memory apply to the first premise? Are both types of memory reducable to 'terms' that allow human beings to perceive them?

Now you have to remember that physicalism's claims extend to everything. So everything has to be reducable to the point where human beings can perceive them.

EDIT- Not only all things, but all parts of all things. So all parts of all the memories have to be reducable.

PAUL

Rusty, what is an example of an experience I can have that doesn't require your assumption of non-physicalism?

~~ Paul

I don't understand what you are asking. I'm not assuming non-physicalism. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be correct. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be incorrect.

The story of Mary says that physicalism, as it is now defined, holds a fatal flaw. It is still used because it is so useful. But it needs to be modified. My ultimate assertion is that it needs to be modified to allow an "agent". How, I'm not sure. Stimpson the Cat has given me some thoughts on this and I'll hopefully have a good answer tomorrow.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

I don't understand what you are asking. I'm not assuming non-physicalism. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be correct. I am open to the possibility that physicalism may be incorrect.

You said this earlier:

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.

Notice how you said "gain some things through experience." In order for you not to be presupposing dualism/idealism, you need to name at least one thing that I can gain through something other than experience. Otherwise you're saying that I can only gain things through experience and thus you're requiring dualism/idealism.

~~ Paul

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Rusty,

You are cleverly asserting that Mary does not gain anything when she see's red. I only agreed that Robo-Mary does not gain anything so you must back up your claim that regular Mary does not.

I am not asserting anything about regular Mary, because I do not agree with one of the premises of the thought experiment. i do not think it is possible for Mary to know what it is like to see red from reading a book, nor do I think that Physicalism in any way implies that it should be.

If all Mary gains after seeing red is a physical change in her brain she still gained something. That something must be reducable to a thing that Mary could perceive and hence would have been in the books.

Mary could read about the change that experiencing red would have on her brain, but that isn't going to cause the required change to her brain.

If it is not reducable then physicalism is false. If it is reducable then it would have been in the books.

I think you are attributing something to physicalism that I am not. Physicalism implies that all facts about the world are physical facts. Physicalism does not imply that it is possible for a human being to know all of those facts. On the contrary, this is clearly not possible.

You can argue that if Physicalism is true, then it should be possible for a person who has never seen red to know what it is like to see red. I agree, and the thought experiment I gave illustrates a possible mechanism by which a person who has not experienced seeing red could be given that knowledge.

You cannot, however, assert that a person should be able to get that knowledge by reading a book. To do so makes all sorts of assumptions about how people learn. Assumptions which are not valid, and have nothing to do with Physicalism.

Look at it this way. Any knowledge you have is encoded in the physical structure of your brain. This is true whether you are a Physicalist or Dualist. In order for you to know what it is like to see red, your brain's physical structure must be altered accordingly.

Physicalism implies that you should be able to compile all the physical facts into a book (a really huge book). But that does not mean that reading that book, and contemplating its contents, is going to cause the necessary changes to your brain.

You have a hidden assumption in there. That it is possible for a human being to be able to read this hypothetical book, and understand it. This is not reasonable. There are far simpler systems then the brain which are already far to complicated for any human being to be able to understand them completely. This is why I used a super computer in my example.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Immaterial. If Mary gains something new then she obviously is capable of learning it. So how come she can't learn it from the book? Is it becase the thing is not reducable? That means physicalism is false.

It is because there are things which you can learn, which you cannot learn from books. You can only learn them by doing them. This is a limitation of how the brain works, and has nothing to do with Physicalism.

You are confounding two types of knowledge here. There is the type of knowledge that Mary can get from reading a book, and the type of knowledge she can get from experience. Both of these types of knowledge are present as physical structure in her brain, but reading a book simply isn't physically capable of teaching her what red looks like. Nothing about Physicalism implies that a person can learn every physical fact about something by reading it. The brain just simply doesn't work that way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything must be reducible. We reduce and we put it in the books. If it cannot go into the books then physicalism is false.

The problem is not with getting the information into the book. The problem is that information and knowledge are not the same thing. The simple presence of information is not going to cause the required physical changes to Mary's brain.

Reading a book is just the stimulus. The learning process is physical. Seeing a red object is also a stimulus. Different parts of your brain are involved in learning different things, and as such, they require different stimuli.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are complicating the issue unnecesarily. I won't let you confuse me with your physics stuff because it is all a non-issue.

Not Physics, Biology. And the point is that it is an issue. The limitation we are discussing here is a biological one, not a metaphysical one. The human brain is limited in what it can do, and how it can do it. Any thought experiment must take those limitations into account.

Physicalism states that EVERYTHING must be reducable to the point where we can perceive it. So we reduce everything about red and learn all their is to know.

There is the problem. There is a difference between perceiving something that exists, and learning about it. Learning is a physical process, which involves physical changes to the brain. The problem here is not that the information is inaccessible, or irreducible. The problem is that the human brain is limited in the ways that it can learn things.

Remember that Physicalism doesn't say anything about what human beings are capable of. The claim of physicalism is that it should, in principle, be possible to write those books you were talking about. it does not claim that reading those books could teach somebody what it is like to see red.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even if we assume that we cannot learn everything, Mary obviously can learn what she does learn.

The point is how she can learn it. Certainly Mary is capable of learning what it is like to see red, but that does not mean that she is capable of learning it by reading about it in a book. The brain simply doesn't work that way.

So if she learns everything that she can possibly learn, how does she learn MORE when she see's red?

She won't, hence my thought experiment. In my experiment, she truly does learn everything about it that it is possible for her to learn, and as a result does not learn anything new when she sees red. In your experiment, all she has done is read a book. Her brain is simply not physically capable of learning what it is like to see red by reading a book. Reading the book will not cause the necessary changes to her brain.

I think this point is a real conceptual hang-up for many people. We tend to think of knowledge as being some intangible thing that our minds possess. We forget that knowledge cannot be acquired without going through the process of learning it. And one thing that we now know is that learning is a physical process.

Dr. Stupid
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now you are saying that some things are reducable but others must be experienced (or a combination thereof)? So you are a dualist? Then why are you defending physicalism?

This has nothing to do with dualism. It has to do with how the brain works.

In some ways, it is like dualism (really a polyism), but not in a metaphysical sense. The brain itself is composed of many connected organs. They all do different things, and learn in different ways. They all learn through a process of stimulus and response, but the stimulus is different for each case. The way you learn how to walk is different from how you learn to walk, or talk, or do algebra, or even see red.

The idea that you could learn what red looks like by reading a book is based on the misconception that the process of reading a book, and contemplating what you have read, could possibly alter the part of your brain that is responsible for you knowing what colors look like. The brain just doesn't work that way.

I noted that you never actually addressed the point that if Mary learns something new, then whatever she learned was not reducable or it would have been in the books.

I did address that point. I agreed that all of the information could be in the book. What I disagreed with is the idea that reading a book magically causes you to learn things. It doesn't work that way.

Paul you don't understand the entirety of physicalism. If everything is reducable to something any human can perceive then it is reducable to something any human can perceive. Then we can write about it in a book.

If we can only gain some things through experience (which is subjective) then we have dualism or possibly idealism. But we cannot have physicalism.

Not if the experience is physical. Remember that reading the book is also an experience! The only way you have of learning anything is through experience.

If you cannot accept the truths about what physicalism asserts then perhaps it is not the world view you should accept.

None of this has anything to do with what physicalism asserts. It has to do with the way the brain works. Physicalism does not in any way assert that the brain works in such a way that it is capable of learning anything that it can know simply by reading about it in a book!

If I can have a subjective experience that NO ONE ELSE CAN perceive then there has occured something that can not be rendered to a state where any human can perceive it.

Perhaps this is the source of your confusion. Physicalism only requires that my experience be perceivable by other people. It does not require that other people be able to experience my experience.

In principle, all the facts about my experience could be written down in a book. Somebody could then objective know that I am having the experience. They could not experience it themselves, though, simply because their brains are not physically capable of doing so.

As I said before, there is a difference between knowledge and information. I know what red looks like. That knowledge is a physical configuration in my brain. You could take the information about that configuration, and do all sorts of neat things with it. That doesn't mean you will know what red looks like to me. You will not know that because your brain is not physically capable of experiencing what my brain experiences. This is simply because our brains are different. There is nothing metaphysical about it.

There is no way for you to turn that information into knowledge, any more than you could turn the information into a chicken pot-pie.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Q-Source]

You must find it yourself. You must use your Free Will.

I start understanding Franko.
So, have you already used your unique Free Will choice?

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty said:
You said this earlier:

Notice how you said "gain some things through experience." In order for you not to be presupposing dualism/idealism, you need to name at least one thing that I can gain through something other than experience. Otherwise you're saying that I can only gain things through experience and thus you're requiring dualism/idealism.

~~ Paul

WTF 4|*\3 u 7@||<1|\|9 ???????


I'm not saying you can only gain things through experience!!! I'm saying that if there are some things that can only be gained subjectively (i.e. they are not reducable to an objective state where all humans can percieve them) then we have demonstrated a flaw in physicalism!!!!!!!

DO YOU SEE THE IF?

Don't make me bold, italic, and underline the ONLY as well!

[spanish accent]Lucy, I'm warning you!!![/spanish accent]

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

I'm not saying you can only gain things through experience!!! I'm saying that if there are some things that can only be gained subjectively (i.e. they are not reducable to an objective state where all humans can percieve them) then we have demonstrated a flaw in physicalism!!!!!!!

DO YOU SEE THE IF?

Yes, I do. Now here's what I'm asking you to do:

Name one thing that we can only gain through some method other than experience.

~~ Paul

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty,



I am not asserting anything about regular Mary, because I do not agree with one of the premises of the thought experiment. i do not think it is possible for Mary to know what it is like to see red from reading a book, nor do I think that Physicalism in any way implies that it should be.

I really must go to bed, but this has been interesting.

You want to say that it is not possible for Mary to know what it is like to see red from reading a book but that this is ok with physicalism.

It isn't.

Phsyicalism states that everything must be reducable to a state where it can be perceived by any human. It must be reduced to "physical facts", to borrow from Chalmers. It must be reduced to an objective truth.

Objective truths/physical facts/perceivable things can all be written down into books. What perceivable thing cannot be written down into a book? Are you saying that I cannot write down the exact experience of seeing the color red? Then I have not reduced it to it's perceivable state. For when I say EVERYTHING is reduceable this means EVERYTHING. Inluding all parts of red.

If there is something that cannot be reduced to where it is an Objective truth/physical fact/perceivable thing then physicalism is fasle.

We all agree there are such things!

We all agree physicalism is false!

We all agree Rusty should be president!

Thank you, thank you,

And goodnight!

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty said:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not saying you can only gain things through experience!!! I'm saying that if there are some things that can only be gained subjectively (i.e. they are not reducable to an objective state where all humans can percieve them) then we have demonstrated a flaw in physicalism!!!!!!!

DO YOU SEE THE IF?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, I do. Now here's what I'm asking you to do:

Name one thing that we can only gain through some method other than experience.

~~ Paul

Paul, I am saying that IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IFIF

IIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFF

There is something that can only be gained subjectively then there is a problem.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY KEYBOARD?



Now in another post I have asserted that Mary gains something subjectively (qualia). I did that several times in several stories about Mary and the black/white room. I'm not going to repeat them again. You really need to get your memory looked at or something, becasue I've only told the story FOUR TIMES.

Wait, maybe I should say it again. And again. And again. And again.

Weeeeeeeeee!

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

This is a further explanation about how physicalism requires me to be able to write down everything there is to know about red:

Red is a collection of physical particles arranged in such and such a way.

I'll write down the exact way those particles have to be arranged (i.e. the wavelength) and everything else. All perceivable things can be written down. THATS JUST THE WAY IT IS BABY.



I'n the Book of Red-Knowledge-osity I will write down the arrangment of particles in the brain that occur when I have experienced red. After all, everything is reducable to a perceivable state right?

If it cannot be expressed objectively then it is not objective is it? If it is objective then it can be expressed objectively. If there is something that cannot be expressed objectively then there is something that is not objective. That makes it subjective by default. That means physicalism is flawed.


Please actually TRY to understand what I am saying. Don't pull a Paul and try to understand how you can tell me I'm wrong, try to understand why I think I'm write.