Materialism

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

**************Materialism states that EVERYTHING is made of matter or is reducable to matter***********

**************Qualia are not reducable to matter***************

**************Therefore materialism is not true****************

You have not in any way demonstrated that qualia are not reducible to matter.

We can book learn all of the physical facts about the process of seeing red. That is all. This in no way implies that learning these facts will magically create the process of seeing red in your brain, any more than learning all of the physical facts about a toaster will create a toaster.

You are attacking a ridiculous strawman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am attacking ***PHYSICALISM***. Physicalism claims that everything....*****EVERYTHING******, including QUALIA, i.e. including "SEEING RED" is reducable to (derivable from) MATTER! You have just used the phrase "the process of seeing red in your brain". Stimp, YOUR BRAIN DOES NOT SEE RED. There is a process in your brain when you see red. The 'process' is explicable by materialism. "SEEING RED", which occurs in your MIND not your BRAIN IS NOT EXPLICABLE BY MATERIALISM.

My position is that it is, in fact, the brain which sees red. That is the position that I am defending. That is the position that is being attacked.

You can attack this position in one of two ways. You can either present evidence that it is false, or you can logically demonstrate that it is self-contradictory. Rusty's argument is that it is self-contradictory. That is the argument which I am attempting to refute.

You replying to every attempt I make to refute this argument by screaming that physicalism is false, serves no purpose. The question at hand is not whether it is false, but whether it is internally self-consistent. If you have evidence that it is false, then present it as a separate argument.

As it is, all you are doing is interfering with the discussion, and making the arguments on both sides more difficult to follow. Please stop.

Dr. Stupid

 

[davidsmith73]

Stimpy: The only source of information we have is our experiences. This means that one can always speculate that there is something more to reality than what we experience, or what we can deduce from our experiences. Such additional things are simply unknowable.

David: this problem only occurs if you adopt your particular philosophy. If you accept that our experience of red is the true nature of red then this problem disappears. In other words there is no something else to speculate about.

Stimpy: Yes, I already acknowledged that. Unfortunately, such a solipsistic philosophy is completely useless. If there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.


David: the process we call science would be a method for describing relationships between different qualia that have a stable manifestation. The process of eliminating subjective bias and constructing descriptions of underlying mathematical principles would not have to change at all. Only the meaning of what subjective and objective relate to would change. Subjective and objective would be part of the same realm of qualia. However, the way in which they would be described would be different. Objective relates to the qualia that are stable and which approximate to mathematical principles. Subjective relates to qualia that are unstable.

 

[Guest]

Stimpson

My position is that it is, in fact, the brain which sees red. That is the position that I am defending. That is the position that is being attacked.

You can attack this position in one of two ways. You can either present evidence that it is false, or you can logically demonstrate that it is self-contradictory.

It is simply non-sensical. It is semantic gibberish! It is like saying "My position is that emotions climb walls."

Minds see red.
Brains support physical processes.
Materialism depends upon the claim that mind=brain.

Case closed.

The question at hand is not whether it is false, but whether it is internally self-consistent. If you have evidence that it is false, then present it as a separate argument.

If it depends on a claim that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different then it is not self-consistent.

As it is, all you are doing is interfering with the discussion, and making the arguments on both sides more difficult to follow. Please stop.

OK, Stimp, I'll stop responding to you. I'm quite interested to hear what Paul has to say though. He has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

Isn't that right, Paul?

The 'material world' is an entirely self-contained collection of related concepts - atoms, energy, physical processes. All 'facts' pertaining to the material world are definable/derivable from that collection of concepts. If things exist which are not definable/derivable from that collection of concepts then physicalism must be false. Subjective experiences are not built from that collection of concepts - we know of their existence in a direct way, not in the indirect manner of the material concept. Materialism depends on the claim that the things we know directly (the qualia) are actually reducable to the abstract concepts. In reality, qualia are not actually reducable to anything at all. Therefore physicalism if false!

edit :

Just in case you still don't understand : The reason we KNOW that qualia cannot be reduced to the abstract material concept is that this is precisely what Stimpson is trying to do right now. And the result is the claim that mind=brain. According to materialism "it is the brain which sees red" and "qualia ARE physical processes". Saying they "correlate" to physical processes is correct, but fails to reduce the qualia to the abstract model. Saying that the qualia ARE the physical processes allows you to reduce them to the abstract model but is a totally non-sensical statement!

YES?

 

[davidsmith73]

David: Do you not find it compelling that the nature of reality that you say we can never have the necessary informaiton to describe fully, is exactly the characteristic that qualia hold ?



Stimpy: No, because that is not the case. Under my paradigm, the qualia should be possible, at least in principle, to fully understand. It is the hypothetical stuff that does no contribute to our experiences, and which is therefore not represented by qualia, which cannot be understood. This is precisely why I take the logical positivistic view that such hypothetical things cannot be meaningfully said to exist.


David: If qualia can be “fully understood” then this is equivalent to saying that we can provide a complete mathematical description of them. In other words, we would have provided a complete mathematical description of an aspect of objective reality. Under your view it would be the same as saying it is possible, in principle, to fully uderstand protons. Isn’t this impossible according to your views ? You seem to be contradicting yourself here.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Davidsmit73,

Stimpy: Yes, I already acknowledged that. Unfortunately, such a solipsistic philosophy is completely useless. If there is nothing more to reality than our experiences, then there is no way to construct a reliable method for understanding reality.

David: the process we call science would be a method for describing relationships between different qualia that have a stable manifestation. The process of eliminating subjective bias and constructing descriptions of underlying mathematical principles would not have to change at all.

They would be rendered meaningless. All of the methods for controlling for subjective bias are logically based on the assumption that reality is objective.

Sure, a solipsist can go through the motions of the scientific process, and it will still work, but if you do this, then science is no longer a logical framework for understanding the world. It is simply a heuristic method for which you have no logical reason for believing should be reliable.

As I have said before, this essentially amounts to saying "the assumptions of the scientific method are really false, but reality behaves exactly as though they were true". This is pure metaphysical nonsense. If reality behaves exactly as though the assumptions of the scientific method were true, then in what meaningful sense are they not true? And if it does not, then clearly science is not going to work!


UCE,

It is simply non-sensical. It is semantic gibberish! It is like saying "My position is that emotions climb walls."

Minds see red.
Brains support physical processes.
Materialism depends upon the claim that mind=brain.

Case closed.

I fail to see how the claim that the mind is a brain process qualifies as gibberish. Simply asserting that it does is not going to convince anybody.

The question at hand is not whether it is false, but whether it is internally self-consistent. If you have evidence that it is false, then present it as a separate argument.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it depends on a claim that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different then it is not self-consistent.

I have explained to you many times that it does not make that claim. Why do you continue to assert that it does?

As it is, all you are doing is interfering with the discussion, and making the arguments on both sides more difficult to follow. Please stop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, Stimp, I'll stop responding to you. I'm quite interested to hear what Paul has to say though. He has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model known describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

If you are so interested in the answer to that question, then why don't you respond to the answer I already gave to it?

Please note that I am not asking you to not respond to me. I am just asking you to respond in a sensible way. If my argument is an attempt to show that physicalism is not contradictory, then it is not sensible for you to say that since my argument is based on the assumption that Physicalism is true, it is begging the question. It would only be begging the question if I was attempting to prove that Physicalism is true. Likewise, repeated assertions that physicalism is false, with nothing more to support them than arguments that take as a premise that it is false, are begging the question, and have no place in a sensible argument.

Dr. Stupid

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

DavidSmith73,

David: Do you not find it compelling that the nature of reality that you say we can never have the necessary informaiton to describe fully, is exactly the characteristic that qualia hold ?

Stimpy: No, because that is not the case. Under my paradigm, the qualia should be possible, at least in principle, to fully understand. It is the hypothetical stuff that does no contribute to our experiences, and which is therefore not represented by qualia, which cannot be understood. This is precisely why I take the logical positivistic view that such hypothetical things cannot be meaningfully said to exist.

David: If qualia can be “fully understood” then this is equivalent to saying that we can provide a complete mathematical description of them. In other words, we would have provided a complete mathematical description of an aspect of objective reality. Under your view it would be the same as saying it is possible, in principle, to fully uderstand protons. Isn’t this impossible according to your views ? You seem to be contradicting yourself here.

This is not a contradiction. I never said that it is impossible to provide a complete mathematical description of an aspect of objective reality. I said that it is not possible to provide a complete mathematical description of reality. There is a difference.

Protons are an observable phenomena. Furthermore, the term "proton" is defined to refer only to a specific set of observable characteristics. This means that it is, in principle, possible to provide a complete mathematical description for them. What we cannot do is logically prove that there isn't stuff out there that cannot be observed. This means that such things cannot be included in our mathematical description of reality. Nor can our mathematical description of reality automatically rule them out. Thus our mathematical description of reality cannot be complete.

If there is more to reality than what can be observed, then our description of reality will be incomplete because there is stuff that it does not describe. If there is not, then our description will be incomplete because it does not tell us that there is not. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Dr. Stupid

 

[Guest]

Stimpson

I fail to see how the claim that the mind is a brain process qualifies as gibberish. Simply asserting that it does is not going to convince anybody.

Mind : Collection of subjective impressions a which exist only for you:
Brain process : Something happening in a lump of meat which exists for everybody.

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

Why should I have to convince anybody that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are not the same thing?

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

It is YOU who are 'simply asserting' something. You are asserting that two things bearing utterly different descriptions are in fact the same thing! This is prima facie NONSENSE!

I have explained to you many times that it does not make that claim. Why do you continue to assert that it does?

You are claiming it right now! You are claiming that the mind and the brain, which have completely different descriptions, are the same thing. You are claiming that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different! It is not ME who is asserting this IT IS YOU!!!!

Likewise, repeated assertions that physicalism is false, with nothing more to support them than arguments that take as a premise that it is false, are begging the question, and have no place in a sensible argument.

Stimp, I'm not just asserting that physicalism is false. I am asserting that anything which depends on a claim that two things with completely different descriptions do not differ is a false thing.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

UCE,

Mind : Collection of subjective impressions a which exist only for you:
Brain process : Something happening in a lump of meat which exists for everybody.

I do not agree that your mind exists only for you. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Why do you not realize that your assertion that it does, is nothing less than the assumption that Physicalism is false?

I have explained to you many times that it does not make that claim. Why do you continue to assert that it does?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are claiming it right now! You are claiming that the mind and the brain, which have completely different descriptions, are the same thing. You are claiming that mind and brain are simultaneously the same and different! It is not ME who is asserting this IT IS YOU!!!!

I have never, ever claimed this. What I have claimed is that the mind is a physical process in the brain.

Likewise, repeated assertions that physicalism is false, with nothing more to support them than arguments that take as a premise that it is false, are begging the question, and have no place in a sensible argument.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimp, I'm not just asserting that physicalism is false. I am asserting that anything which depends on a claim that two things with completely different descriptions do not differ is a false thing.

I agree. Fortunately, Physicalism does not claim this.

Dr. Stupid

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian,



I would say that this is nonsense. A complete description of the physical brain state does not logically entail the actual experience. The brain state itself does. A complete description of the physical brain state only logically entails a complete description of the experience, not the experience itself.



Try any of those links to neurobiology that have been posted here. Knowledge is clearly more than just information. Knowledge is a physical representation of information in the brain.

Knowing what it is like to see red is not just the information that completely describes the process of seeing red. It is a specific type of physical brain state.

As always, it is important to keep in mind one of the few things that UCE has said that I agree with: It is very important to not confuse the map with the territory.

I can know all the physical facts about the process of seeing red. But that is just a description of the process. It is a map. The territory is the actual process. Simply having the map does not create the territory. Having a complete description of the process of seeing red, is not going to create the experience of seeing red, nor is it going to create the memory of having seen red (which is all knowing what it is like to see red is).

Dr. Stupid

I'm not sure a reductionist materialist can maintain this. I can't understand the relevance of any links to neurobiology. It needs to be a link to a philosphy page, explaining that reductionist materialism asserts that knowledge involves more than information. So I say again, could you provide a link or links please??

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Rusty,

Let me see if I can try to explain where I am coming from in a different way.

First of all, what is knowledge? What does it mean to say I know something?

I would say that it means I have memories of it. For example, if I know that my name is Kevin, it means that I remember that is my name. If I know what red looks like, it means I remember having seen red.

Now one thing we know (thanks to neuroscience) is that memories are physical configurations in the brain.

I must reiterate here that knowledge is not information. A memory can store information, but it is not information itself. It is a physical structure in the brain.

So what does physicalism say about memories? Nothing, other than that they are physical. Physicalism does say that anything that exists must be perceivable (or reducible to the perceivable). This is no problem, since perceiving another person's memories does not imply actually remembering those memories as though they were your own.

As to the Mary problem, in principle, all of the facts about Mary's brain, and about perception of red, should be perceivable by humans. They could then write this down in a book. They could even figure out what Mary's brain would be like if she had memory of seeing red, and put that in the book too.

What they cannot put into the book is the memory itself. They can no more put that in the book than they could put a cat in the book. All they can put in is a description of the memory (or cat). In other words, the information.

Now Mary reads the book. Mary is a supergenius, so she is able to understand it all. She knows what her brain would be like if she had seen red before. She knows exactly what kind of emotional and intuitive responses the color would invoke in her. She can even figure out what her favorite color would be.

What she cannot do, is remember having seen red. That is what it would mean to say that she knows what red looks like. She does not have that knowledge, because that memory cannot be acquired by reading a book. Maybe surgery could do it, as I suggested before, but reading a book? No.

Reading the description of the memory in the book will not create the actual memory, any more than reading a description of a cat will produce a real cat.

I hope that helps.

Dr. Stupid

Let me see if I can put this into these terms:

Mary knows everything about red.
Mary knows everything about the experience of seeing red.

Mary still gains something.

What Mary is gaining is the knowledge that she has gained the experience personally.

This knowledge is present in some physical form in Mary's brain, right?

So what if we add a third book, this book contains all the physical information (which is all the information) about the knowledge that she would gain if she had the experience personally.

Also let us assume that we will add pages to this book to describe the physical information (all the information) about the knowledge of having the knowledge to the Nth power.

I'm assuming we will agree that in the physicalist world there is a logical limit to the levels of knowledge we can posses, right?

So now Mary has all three books, and learns everything she can learn in all three.

This puts us back into the problem.

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Then either you are misunderstanding what those people are saying, or those people are stupid and are misrepresenting materialism.

Physicalism does not presuppose that a person can learn absolutely everything about an experience simply by reading a book.

Rather, physicalism would state that learning about "the experience of seeing red" and "experiencing the seeing of red" are two different things. However, they are both physical proceses.

Right. But if Mary can only learn X amount about Red then how could she learn more by seeing red? If everything, including seeing red, is reduced to it's physical fact (and that is all that there is) then how can she learn more?

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Win,



The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not logically entailed by the physical facts about the knowledge of what it is like to see red. That is the point.

When we say that the experience is logically entailed by the physical facts about seeing red, we simply mean that the physical process of seeing red logically implies the existence of the experience of seeing red. This does not in any way mean that reading those facts from a book (which is simply a description of the process of seeing red) is going to produce the experience, or the memory of having had the experience.



Experiencing red is not a physical fact. It is a physical process. You can know all the physical facts about that process, but this is not the same as actually having the process occur in your brain.



The fact that you know all the physical facts does not imply that you know what it is like to see red. Saying that you know all the physical facts simply means that you have a complete description of the physical brain state that corresponds to you knowing what it is like to see red. It does not equate to you actually possessing that brain state.



But we aren't talking about experience of memories here. We are talking about the memories. Presumably, even under your brand of Dualism, if we were to alter Mary's brain state so that she possessed the memory of having seen red, she would then know what it is like to see red, because she would experience that memory. Under Physicalism, the situation is the same, except that it is also her brain which experiences the memory, rather than something else. The effect is the same though. Either way the knowledge of what it is like to see red is a physical memory, located in the brain. Simply reading all the physical facts about that brain state is not going to cause that brain state to appear in her brain, which is what the Mary experiment is implying should be expected to happen.



That's fine. The thought experiment is presented within the framework of physicalism, which holds that it is the brain that does the experiencing. The point is that if we accept the premise that the knowledge of what it is like to see red is a physical structure in the brain, then we cannot claim that knowing all of the physical facts about that physical structure is going to cause the physical structure to appear. Thus the argument that physicalism implies that Mary should be able to know what it is like to see red, simply by knowing all the physical facts about, is not valid.

If I didn't address this adequetly in the prior post please let me know.

You bring up a good point, though. Here is a question for both you and Rusty (since you are both advocating very different brands of dualism).

Imagine that we make a perfect physical copy of Mary. This copy is physically identical to Mary in every way. Several questions:

1) Do you believe this copy would be a p-zombie, or would it possess consciousness?

It depends on the "agent".
If the new copy would have an "agent" as well (for any reason) then it wouldn't be a p-zombie. Otherwise it would be a p-zombie in the sense that it would not have an "agent".

2) If she does have consciousness, then would she know what it is like to see, or hear, or any of the other things that Mary knows, but which the copy has not yet experienced?

I suppose I would have to assert that the "agent" has it's own experience. So if the copy of Mary also, somehow, gets a copy of Mary's "agent" then the copy would posses the qualia.

If a new "agent" somehow inhabits the copy of Mary then I don't know what would happen.

3) If she does know what these things are like, even though she has never had the experiences, doesn't that imply that the knowledge of those experiences (not necessarily the experiences themselves, or the experiences of the memories) is purely physical?

Well going by this definition of physical:

"It is physical if it interacts as a cause and an effect"

Then no, even if the "agent" is somehow copied it simply means that a non-physical thing was copied. Of course I don't know if the "agent" could be copied. I hope not

I would assert that under physicalism, the answers would be:

1) She would possess consciousness.

2) She would know what all those things are like.

3) The knowledge of what those things are like is physically stored in her brain.

I would say that this is all that physicalism requires. It does not require that Mary knowing all the physical facts about seeing red, will cause Mary to actually possess the knowledge of what it is like to see red.

Another way to look at it is this. The knowledge of what it is like to see red is not a physical fact about seeing red. Facts are just information. Knowledge is more than just information. Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. It is a physical representation of information.

There are, in fact, physical facts about the knowledge of what it is like to see red. Mary could have those facts as well, but knowing those facts is not the same as having the knowledge, just as having all the facts about a puppy is not the same as having the puppy.

Dr. Stupid

Knowledge is a physical state in the brain. Under physicalism everything about knowledge can be reduced to the point where it can be perceived by Mary. So the new third book with this reduction should address this.

If there is some part of the knowledge that cannot be reduced then it's the same problem.

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

UcE, Ian, Rusty: Will you acknowledge that subjective facts acquired through experience are not the same sort of facts that can be learned from books, even though both are facts about red? If you will not acknowledge this, then we might as well pack up and go home.

~~ Paul

Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

I would say that the KA does not invalidate materialism because:

the physical brain state of having knowledge of the physical brain state due to having experienced red is different than the physical brain state due to having experienced red.

Understand?

Yeah, but now there is a third book addressing this.

And this book is stipulated that it will contain all further levels of knowledge about knowledge.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Morning, all. Gee, here we are again, just like yesterday.

UcE said:

If they were actually reducable to that physical model then it MUST be possible to describe those subjective experiences in terms of that model! But you cannot! You have just admitted you cannot! They are "different sorts of facts"! i.e. they are NOT "material facts". They are NOT "reducable to material". i.e. Facts exist which cannot be explained in terms of the material model of the Universe...

Forum moderators: Is there any way to ignore just uppercase, bold, and asterisks?

There are two kinds of physical facts [another ill-chosen philosophical term]. Objective physical facts are what we seem to refer to as physical facts. But there are also subjective physical facts: Facts that are encoded in the brain of an individual as a result of experience/sensing/thinking. The idealists/dualists here will simply not acknowledge the existence of subjective physical facts. I find that interesting.

So what have we got with Mary? We can assume that Mary can only learn objective physical facts in the room, or we can assume she also has a Stimpy-robot operation. Since the entire exercise is pointless without the operation, I think we should assume she has the operation and her brain is equivalent to what it would be if she had seen color.

Now she goes outside. Does she see/experience/feel/learn anything new? Who the hell knows? This is not a refutation of physicalism.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

What Mary is gaining is the knowledge that she has gained the experience personally.

Correct, but that's not all.

Mary gains whatever neural connections arise from seeing red.

Is there something about that statement that is difficult to understand? Do you not understand it, or do you disagree with it?

Right. But if Mary can only learn X amount about Red then how could she learn more by seeing red? If everything, including seeing red, is reduced to it's physical fact (and that is all that there is) then how can she learn more?

Once again: Learning about how a brain process works is not the same as performing the brain process. Learning everything about programming a computer is not the same as programming a computer.

~~ Paul

 

[Guest]

Stimp

Why do you not realize that your assertion that it does, is nothing less than the assumption that Physicalism is false?

Because my assertion is not the assumption that physicalism is false, Stimp.

My assertion is that two things bearing entirely different descriptions are, in fact, ***DIFFERENT***.

You are asserting that two things with different descriptions are the same.

I am asserting that two things with different descriptions are different.

Which assertion is the valid one?

****STOP****

****EXAMINE YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS****

When confronted with this question your thought process goes :

1) If these things are in fact different then physicalism is false.
2) I am not willing to accept that physicalism is false.
3) Therefore I must claim that saying these two things are different is an assumption that physicalism is false.

****EXAMINE MY THOUGHT PROCESS****

1) "brain process" and "subjective experience" have two completely different descriptions.
2) Therefore they differ.
3) Therefore physicalism is false.

WHO IS THINKING STRAIGHT AND WHO IS BRAINWASHED?

I have never, ever claimed this. What I have claimed is that the mind is a physical process in the brain.

Yes, Stimp. You are claiming that X is identical to Y when the truth is that X correlates with Y!

Which is true :

A) Brain process is identical to subjective experience.
B) Brain process closely correlates with subjective experience.

?

If you answer (A) then you are claiming there is absolutelty no difference between two things which have completely different descriptions. This is prima facie RIDICULOUS because the very fact they have completely different descriptions MEANS THEY DIFFER!!!!!

If you answer (B) then the statement "brain process IS qualia" IS WRONG, and therefore you defence of physicalism collapses.

Which are you gonna choose, Mr Cat?

A?

or B?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rusty said:

Under physicalism all subjective facts must be reducable to a state where any human can perceive them (making them objective).

Nonsense. Can you find any definition of physicalism that requires this?

~~ Paul

 

[Guest]

There are two kinds of physical facts [another ill-chosen philosophical term]. Objective physical facts are what we seem to refer to as physical facts. But there are also subjective physical facts: Facts that are encoded in the brain of an individual as a result of experience/sensing/thinking. The idealists/dualists here will simply not acknowledge the existence of subjective physical facts. I find that interesting.

What do you think makes a fact a physical fact, Paul?

Is it because it is a fact derived from out model of PHYSICS?

Or is it because you arbitrarily declare it to be 'physical'?



What do you think 'physical' actually means?

*****Read my last post again. Try to follow it****** :

Paul has admitted that there are 'two different sorts of facts'. All he has to do now is recognise that one of those 'sorts of facts' is part of an abstract model describable in text books because it is built up entirely from abstract concepts like 'atoms' and the other of those 'sort of facts' is a subjective experience which does not exist in the abstract model because it is the very thing that the model was invented to describe.

Isn't that right, Paul?

The 'material world' is an entirely self-contained collection of related concepts - atoms, energy, physical processes. All 'facts' pertaining to the material world are definable/derivable from that collection of concepts. If things exist which are not definable/derivable from that collection of concepts then physicalism must be false. Subjective experiences are not built from that collection of concepts - we know of their existence in a direct way, not in the indirect manner of the material concept. Materialism depends on the claim that the things we know directly (the qualia) are actually reducable to the abstract concepts. In reality, qualia are not actually reducable to anything at all. Therefore physicalism if false!

Just in case you still don't understand : The reason we KNOW that qualia cannot be reduced to the abstract material concept is that this is precisely what Stimpson is trying to do right now. And the result is the claim that mind=brain. According to materialism "it is the brain which sees red" and "qualia ARE physical processes". Saying they "correlate" to physical processes is correct, but fails to reduce the qualia to the abstract model. Saying that the qualia ARE the physical processes allows you to reduce them to the abstract model but is a totally non-sensical statement!

 

[Rusty_the_boy_robot]

Evening Paul

Morning, all. Gee, here we are again, just like yesterday.

UcE said:
Forum moderators: Is there any way to ignore just uppercase, bold, and asterisks?

There are two kinds of physical facts [another ill-chosen philosophical term]. Objective physical facts are what we seem to refer to as physical facts. But there are also subjective physical facts: Facts that are encoded in the brain of an individual as a result of experience/sensing/thinking. The idealists/dualists here will simply not acknowledge the existence of subjective physical facts. I find that interesting.

Well under physicalism the subjective physical facts have to be ultimately reduable to objective physical facts. If they exits only subjectively then physicalism must be false. So we can say that there exists subjective facts but they ultimately exist only as a physical arrangment of particles in the brain.

So it is actually the physicalist that refuses to accept the existence of subjective facts.