Rusty,
Surely you are not going to assert that Physicalism claims that everything is information? That the description is the reality?
That position is easily refuted, and you don't need Mary to do it. You are attacking a strawman here. Physicalism only claims that everything can be mathematically described in terms of our perceptions.
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No I am not asserting that physicalism claims everythign is information. I am asserting that the reduction process reduces everything to the point where I will call it information. I did this to define information because you did not. This was in response to you claiming that perceivable things are not knowledge.
So things that are mathematically described are not information?
Of course they are not. The mathematical description is information.
Wrong. The memory was not included in the book. A description of the memory was included in the book. You can no more include the memory in the book than you could include Mary's brain in the book. The book only contains descriptions.
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Physicalism states that the totality of everything that is the memory can be reduced to a state where it can be perceived. We all of that down and we have written down everything that memory is.
Once again, you are using the word "reduced" in a completely different way than the physicalists. All the above means, within the context of physicalism, is that a complete description can be made of the memory, in terms of percievable things.
If we cannot write it all down then physicalism is rendered false.
Again, to make it clear, physicalism asserts that everything is reducable to a state where it is perceived.
We can write down everything we perceive.
We can write down everything about that memory. Everything that it is.
You can assert that this is physicalism all you want, but this is not what any physicalist believes or claims. You are attacking a strawman based on a misunderstanding of the description of physicalism you read.
Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between a thing, and the description of that thing? Do you acknowledge that Physicalism does not claim that things are equivalent their descriptions? If you do not acknowledge these two points, then we have nothing to discuss.
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Physicalism claims that everything can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived. Everything.
So the reduced state (which I am calling information) must be equal to the original state, otherwise we have not included everything!
Jesus Christ, Man! Can't you just answer the question? Would you at least acknowledge that we disagree about what physicalism claims, rather than just repeating what you think it claims over and over again like a broken record?
I understand that physicalism does not claim that things = information. I am claiming that if you have the totallity of information about a thing then it logically follows that you have all the information that there is about that thing.
Well duh, but having all the information is not the same as having the thing.
So how can Mary gain more?
She can gain the thing itself.
It is really simple. Mary cannot learn everything there is to know about seeing red by reading a book. This fact does not contradict Physicalism, because Physicalism in no way claims that she should be able to. Physicalism only claims that a complete description of the process of seeing red should be possible. It in no way implies that knowing that description is equivalent to knowing what it is like to see red.
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Uh, no actually we already agreed that physicalism claims that everything is reducable to the point where it can be perceived. We can write down what we perceive. Everything about red can be written down in the book. Mary learns everything in the book. Mary learns everythng about red.
We agreed on that first statement, but we do not agree on what it means, or on any of the conclusions you have drawn from it.
She can learn it. She just can't learn it by reading a book. The book only contains a description of the brain state. For her to learn it, she must acquire that brain state. Physicalism only requires that we be able to describe the brain state. It does not require that we be able to give somebody that brain state.
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No, the book contains all the perceivable information about the memory. All the perceivable information is in the book. All of it. And everything is reducable to perceivable information.
You are misrepresenting physicalism, plain and simple.
You defined knowledge as the physical state of the brain. So what you are asking me is this:
"Do you understand that to perceive Mary's physical state of her brain when she see's red is not the same as to have the physical state of Mary's brain when she see's red."
Correct. But everything is reducable to perception, and if you have all of that perception then you have the thing.
Once again, you are using a different meaning of the word reducible than the physicalist are. Why won't you acknowledge this?
If Mary's "knowledge" consists of 5 brain dots, and you gain a perception of those 5 brain dots, then you gained Mary's "knowledge".
Obviously not. If you gain perception of those five dots, then that is what you have. you do not have the five dots.
If Mary's "knowledge" is more then the 5 brain dots in any way that cannot be reduced to a perceivable state then physicalism is false.
Mary's knowledge is not more than the 5 brain dots. But since those 5 brain dots are percievable, this is perfectly fine.
In the first case, I am able to perceive her brain state. The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her knowledge of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state.
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Again, you defined knowledge as brain state. So let us re-write your sentance to see what you are truly saying:
"The "reduction" that you are talking about is nothing more than a description of her brain state of what it is like to see red in terms of that brain state."
According to physicalism there can be nothing more then that brain state. So if I fully learn and understand a description of everything there is then how can I learn MORE when I see the thing?
Because you can also have the brain state itself. I have already explained this.
If I give you a complete description of a dog, then you still don't have a dog. If I give you a real dog, you have still gained something.
You are attributing things to Physicalism that it does not say, because you are misunderstanding what it means to say that everything is reducible to a state where I can perceive it. This only means that I can, in principle, describe everything in terms of my perceptions.
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No we still agree. It means that we can describe EVERYTHING. So we reduce and describe everything about red, memory of red, knowledge Nth of red, etc.. Mary learns and understands it all. She has now learned and understood everything about red etc.. but when she see's red she learns something MORE.
Why is this a problem!?!?!
Before she sees red she has a complete description of what it is like to see red. After she sees red she has the memory of actually having seen red. What is the problem?
Why do you insist that she should be able to acquire the memory of having seen red just by reading a description of it?
This is not what any person who calls himself a physicalist is claiming. You are attacking a nonsensical strawman. No physicalist would claim that you can transform a dog into perceivable information. They would only claim that you can provide a description of the dog in terms of perceptions.
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Exactly, a complete description of everything that dog is. So if we replace dog with red and say that we can provide a complete description of everything that red is then Mary learns that description of what red is then how can she learn something more when she see's red.
The same way you get something more when you get the real dog. As I already explained, the description can only give her abstract knowledge. Actually seeing read gives her empirical knowledge. Absatract and empirical knowledge are two physically different things, which are acquired through different physical processes. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?
The things that we perceive objectively exist. We describe them in terms of our perceptions. Those descriptions are information. The things being described are not. Is that clear enough?
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The descriptions are information. Correct. As you progress through your rebuttal we agree again.
Mary possesses all the information about red etc.. but see's red and gains something more. Hence we must discard physicalism.
What she gains is not information about red. What she gains is the memory of having seen red. Memories are not information, remember?
I only objected when you made it clear that by "reduced to a physical fact" you meant something more than just "described in terms of physical facts".
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Wait, now you are saying that a description of the physical fact is different from a physical fact? Those two are the same thing.
I didn't say anything about a description of the physical fact. I said "described in terms of physical facts".
I object to your use of the word "reduced". You are clearly using it to mean something different than what physicalists mean by it.
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No I mean what physicalists mean.
Reduced = Rendered
Reduced to a state where any human can perceive = Rendered to a state where any human can perceive.
That is not what physicalists mean by it. Physicalists mean that it can be described in terms of our perceptions.
This is clearly going nowhere. From now on, I am not going to use the word "reduced". It is ambiguous and unclear. I hereby deny that Physicalism claims that anything can be reduced to physical facts, in the sense that you are using the term.
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You are changing physicalism!
No, I am not. I am clarifying it. The problem is that you do not know what physicalism is. All you know is your misconception of it. And for some reason that I cannot fathom, you refuse to allow actual physicalists to correct your misconceptions. Instead you insist that your definition of it is the correct one, even though nobody who calls himself a physicalist believes what you are claiming it means.
Ok, now we need to come up with something that will allow a non-physical "agent".
Go for it. I suggest you start by coming up with a coherent definition of "agent", and a logical reason to believe it exists. Good luck.
, of course, am using physical to mean both caused and causal.
This doesn't surprise me in the slightest, given that physicalists don't define physical that way either.
Physicalism only claims that everything can be described in terms of our perceptions. It does not claim that objects can be transformed into perceptions, or that objects are perceptions, or that objects are information.
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Yes, exactly. It is the claim that everything can be 'described'. It is described by rendering it to such a state that it can be perceived. We describe the perceptions.
No, we describe the object in terms of our perceptions.
No. Our brains can turn information into abstract knowledge. It cannot turn information into empirical knowledge.
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So there are two types of knowledge? Are they both brain-states?
Of course. I already explained that. Abstract knowledge is the memory of abstract facts (information). Empirical knowledge is the memory of an experience.
Into abstract knowledge. She only has the abstract knowledge. The only (natural) way for her to get the empirical knowledge is to actually see red. In principle, it may be possible to artificially give her this empirical knowledge, but reading a book isn't going to do it.
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If knowledge is a brain state and the brain state can be completely described and placed in the book then she can gain that knowledge by learning and understanding the description in the book.
No, she cannot. The brain state can be completely described, and that description can be placed in the book, but all Mary will get by reading that book is the information. It will not give her the brain state. She will have abstract knowledge of the description of the empirical knowledge, but she will not have the empirical knowledge.
If you can only gain the knowledge by seeing red then you can not reduce that knowledge to a complete description.
If you can only gain a scar by being cut, then you cannot reduce the scar to a complete description.
See the problem with your argument yet?
Reading about being cut isn't going to give you a scar. Reading a complete physical description of the scar isn't going to give you one either. All it gives you is abstract knowledge of the scar.
You are not using the word "reduced" the way it is used in the definition of Physicalism. You are attacking a strawman.
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No, you are changing physiclism which is exactly what I want to do. Hooray.
Your arrogence amazes me. You are not a physicalist. You are basing your arguments entirely on a brief, one-line description of physicalism, and your own interpretation of what was meant by it, and yet you presume to tell people who are physicalists, and who know the complete formal definition of it that leads to the brief one-line description you were told, that they are wrong about what it is.
Just to reiterate. I claim that everything can be described in terms of our observations. I call this claim Physicalism. you can assert that physicalism claims that everything can be transformed into information. I agree with you that such a claim is nonsensical. What I don't understand is why you would assert that this is what physicalism claims?
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It is what you are claiming.
Anything + perception = description.
That is not what I am claiming. The two sides of your equation are not equal. The proper operator would be an arrow, meaning implication, not equality.
Anything can be rendered into a description.
Meaning that a description of anything can be constructed.
Descriptions are information.
They are information about the thing being described.
Anything can be rendered into information.
Anything can be described. That does not mean that it is the description, or that it is equivelent to the information.
It seems awfully conceited for you (who are not a physicalist) to be deciding what Physicalism means, and to be telling other people that they are not physicalists because they don't believe what you say they should.
Did it ever, even once, occur to you that maybe you have misunderstood the definition of Physicalism? That maybe the physicalists who wrote down that definition meant something different by it than what you originally thought?
Did it ever occur to you, when you realized that what you thought it meant was incoherent, to ask the physicalists to clarify what they meant, rather than just assuming that they did mean something incoherent?
Dr. Stupid
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Yes, we are redefining physicalism. I will continue to press for the redefinition of physiclism until it is such that it will accept the "agent".
Am I to assume then that your answers the above questions are "no"?
If it feeds your ego to believe I am redefining physicalism, rather than simply clarifying that what you thought it was is not what it is, that's fine. Either way, I expect that from now on you will not claim that I, or any other physicalist, is claiming anything other than what they say they are.
I find it particularly tellig that throughout this entire discussion, you never once asked any of the physicalists to explain what
they think physicalism means, or even what they think the description of physicalism you posted means.
Ian,
There seems to be a lot of confusion and talking at cross purposes here. The information isn't literally the dog. That the mistake central state materialism makes (identity theory). Rather the dog is a function of that information. The information entails the dog. Once you are acquanited with that information, and if you're a functionalist (which most materialists are), it should in principle be possible to work out what the dog looks like, and is thinking, purely from the information. Is that correct?
Exactly. It certainly doesn't mean that just because I could, in principle, work out what the dog is thinking, that I could somehow experience the dog's thoughts.
I wouldn't say that the dog is a function of the information, though. I would say that the information is a description of the dog. Depending on what precisely you mean by "function", this may or may not be OK.
Oh my gosh, yet another one: entail. Ian said:
Which of the following definition of entail from Webster's are you using?
"1 : to restrict (property) by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof
2 a : to confer, assign, or transmit as if by entail : FASTEN *entailed on them indelible disgrace Robert Browning* b : to fix (a person) permanently in some condition or status *entail him and his heirs unto the crown Shakespeare*
3 : to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result *the project will entail considerable expense"
I suspect you might be able to work out what the dog is like, but I doubt you could experience what it's like to be a dog.
~~ Paul
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In which case what it is LIKE to be a dog cannot be derived from the totality of physical facts about the world. If it cannot be derived how can you therefore claim reductive materialism is true?
Not true. What it is like to be a dog can be derived from the totality of physical facts about the World. Experiencing what it is like to be the dog would be a physical process occuring in your brain. A process which is not physically possible, because you are not a dog.
The fact that you can completely describe the physical state of a dog's ass doesn't mean that your ass could ever be in that state. Why should the fact that you can completely describe the state of a dog's brain imply that your brain could ever be in that state?
Dr. Stupid
