Materialism

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy, thanks for clarifying things for me. You said:

It is certainly relevant. She will not have those facts before she leaves the room. But since those are not facts about red, it doesn't matter.

Why do you consider the neural connections formed when I see red not to be "facts" about red? They are not conceptual facts about red, but they certainly are empirical facts necessary to see red. Separating them from "facts" seems to confuse matters.

If we all agree that learning these empirical facts does not constitute a violation of physicalism, then my question is only one of definition. But I'm suspicious from reading about the KA over the past few days that many people either do not acknowledge the existence of these facts, or think that their acquisition does violate physicalism. So it's an important issue.

~~ Paul

 

[Jethro]

The actual process of seeing red is accompanied by the phenomenal experience. If the brain is artificially stimulated in such a way as to cause the brain to think that it is seeing red, is this also accompanied by the phenomenal experience? Is there any situation in which a real person's brain (not a p-zombie) could be made to think that it has had a phenomenal experience that the person has not actually had?

I took Luci's advice and finally googled up (blind stimulation "visual cortex").

TMS creating spots, including color in some cases, in the vision field of various individuals.

The abstract of a fascinating study which relates to how the brain works.

 

[Guest]

UcE said:
Why does the "I" have to be more than the sum of the physical parts?

~~ Paul

I assume you mean "why does 'I' have to mean more than the sum of the physical parts of the brain?

Because it is a different perspective on the sum of the physical parts of the brain, rather than the totality of the facts themselves. It is defined with respect to YOU instead of with respect to the agreed concepts of physics. Because it is the subject and not the object.

What do you think 'subjective' and 'objective' mean, Paul?

 

[Loki]

Win,

Running hopelessly behind in this discussion, but...

So Mary, having the full set of physical facts, won't learn anything when she leaves the room because she's already knows, from the physical facts, exactly what "seeing red" is like, that is to say, she has a full description of the factual content of the experience.

Perhaps a minor point (perhaps irrelevant) but wouldn't the "full set of facts" of experiencing red include not only the visual discrimination mechanism, but also the workings of consciousness itself? How could we expect to be able to "teach" the experience of red if we don't understand how consciousness perceives and implements selfwareness? In other words, doesn't the "full set of facts" mean being able to fully describe conscious experience? Since no one thinks we are at this point yet, how can we say with any confidence that this point can't be reached?

That's true, if reductive materialism is correct. But it's our intuition that she has, in fact, learned something new. The contradiction of that intuition and the requirements of reductive materialism is what the thought experiment is supposed to highlight.

Intuitions can be wrong - my intuition tells me that epiphenominalism is wrong, yet I'm assured by several quite intelligent people that I'm wrong about that.

So, the though experiment does tell us something. It undermines reductive materialism, and clears the decks, as it were, leaving eliminative materialism, metaphysical materialism and property dualism as the most attractive remaining options.

Just to clarify, it only undermines reductive materialism if our intuition is correct? If our intuition is faulty here then reductive materialism remains on the table?

If Mary learns a new fact, reductive materialism is false, because learning a new fact under the circumstances of the thought experiment is incompatible with the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical.

There's nothing more to it that this? "If what seems intuitively true is actually true, then reductive materialism falls". Okay - I understand Chalmers point that if you want to argue against intuition then you need to provide some evidence (as in "Flat Earth versus Round Earth" - we needed evidence to overturn the intuition).

'"Reductive Materialism is false' is the correct default position becuase (a) it is supported by intuition and (b) it is *not contradicted* by sufficient eveidence". Is that inteded result of the KA?

 

[Guest]

Chuckie,

But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.

The KA depends on the fact that these things are totally and utterly different.

Just because you cannot describe your own emotions completely does not mean that we can never understand the physical processes involved in your emotions.

Also undeniably true.

What I don't is how you can agree with me that these things are true, but still not understand why the KA falsifies materialism. Materialism is false because subjective things are incomprehensible to it. Emotions aren't just physical processes. They are more than just physical processes.



Geoff.

 

[scribble]

Emotions aren't just physical processes. They are more than just physical processes.

Why do you think that?

 

[Guest]

Chuckie :

I guess what KA is saying is that there is more to the experience than can be ever described physically (not just trivially that the person experiencing something can not "completely" describe it to others). Is that roughly the way you might say it?

Yeah, I just did say it in a reply I wrote before I read your post.

I suppose the scientific reply would be "Show me that there is something that cannot be described", and the philosophical materialist reply might be "Explain the testable implications of how having a physically indescribable experience would affect materialism", and then the circle continues because the non-materialist says that it is not something that I can "show" you because only I can experience it.

Have I demonstrated understanding (if not acceptance).

Yes, but I'm not sure how you can understand it and not accept it.

But I like your style.

Geoff.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:

Because it is a different perspective on the sum of the physical parts of the brain, rather than the totality of the facts themselves. It is defined with respect to YOU instead of with respect to the agreed concepts of physics. Because it is the subject and not the object.

What do you think 'subjective' and 'objective' mean, Paul?

I think subjective means something like "as experienced by a person." Objective means something like "as common to everyone." I don't see why my subjective experience cannot be a product of my brain. Constant repetition of words like "I," "you," and "not object" doesn't convince me otherwise.

Originally posted by ChuckieR
But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.

The KA depends on the fact that these things are totally and utterly different.

Wait, please explain what you mean by this without relying on the KA being in any particular framework.

~~ Paul

 

[Win]

Loki:

First of all, let me say how happy I am to see myself quoted in your sig.

Running hopelessly behind in this discussion, but...

Me too. I think you've asked me some other questions that I haven't answered. If you want to ask them again, I'll try to be a little more on top of the discussion.

Perhaps a minor point (perhaps irrelevant) but wouldn't the "full set of facts" of experiencing red include not only the visual discrimination mechanism, but also the workings of consciousness itself? How could we expect to be able to "teach" the experience of red if we don't understand how consciousness perceives and implements selfwareness? In other words, doesn't the "full set of facts" mean being able to fully describe conscious experience? Since no one thinks we are at this point yet, how can we say with any confidence that this point can't be reached?

Look at it this way. Mary doesn't have the physical means, the ability to see red. But, if reductive materialism is true, since she knows all the physical facts, what red looks like isn't something that should surprize her, because it is a consequence of those physical facts. When she first sees red, she'll say, "yeah, just like what I read."

Intuitions can be wrong - my intuition tells me that epiphenominalism is wrong, yet I'm assured by several quite intelligent people that I'm wrong about that.

Just to clarify, it only undermines reductive materialism if our intuition is correct? If our intuition is faulty here then reductive materialism remains on the table?

No, reductive materialism accepts the existence of qualia, and maintains that the phenomena is supervenient on the physical. If Mary learns new fact, then qualia are real and not supervenient on the physical, so reductive materialism is false.

So, you can deny the existence of qualia (be a eliminativist materialist) or deny that supervenience is necessary for materialism to be true (be a metaphysical materialist), but I think reductive materialism is dead, unless you want to say that Mary doesn't learn anything new because the full set of physical facts somehow gives her the facts about the content of the quale, red, which I don't think can be done.

"Reductive Materialism is false' is the correct default position becuase (a) it is supported by intuition and (b) it is *not contradicted* by sufficient eveidence". Is that inteded result of the KA?

The relevant intuition being that qualia exist, and by extension that they have content.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:

So, you can deny the existence of qualia (be a eliminativist materialist) ...

What does this mean? Would I be denying the existence of qualia as a separate physical thing, or denying their existence as a convenient term for a collection of brain processes?

... but I think reductive materialism is dead, unless you want to say that Mary doesn't learn anything new because the full set of physical facts somehow gives her the facts about the content of the quale, red, which I don't think can be done.

What are examples of "facts" about the content of the quale that wouldn't be physical facts?

~~ Paul

 

[ChuckieR]

Chuckie,
...
What I don't is how you can agree with me that these things are true, but still not understand why the KA falsifies materialism. Materialism is false because subjective things are incomprehensible to it. Emotions aren't just physical processes. They are more than just physical processes.



Geoff.

I can completely agree with you that only you can experience your experiences, and that your exact experiences are private and that I can never experience them myself.

But, I think it is theoretically possible to completely explain and understand why you experience what you experience. I understand that this is not the same as experiencing what you experience.

What I don't agree with is that it requires something non-physical to explain your experiences or my experiences. I don't pretend to entirely understand consciousness, but having seen so many real-world examples of how people's consciousness and concept of self can become completely messed up due to physical defects in the brain, I realize that there is a lot more to this seeming "magic" of consciousness than I can describe by simply reflecting on how I feel.

I would love to keep on going with this, but I really must get some "real life" work done. It has been a nice discussion, more pleasant that I thought it would be. I have experienced, gained knowlege, and connected a few more brain cells. I hope we can pick this up some day soon.

 

[ChuckieR]

New Thought Experiment

...and just to show that I've really made some progress, I have an alternative to the original Colorblind Scientist thought experiment that I find scientifically (and maybe even philosophically) interesting, and that might address my concern with the originally stated thought experiment. I think Win's post about the "red detector" machine sparked this idea...

Instead of being raised in white light (which might not allow her to ever distinguish between colors), Mary is indeed raised in Red, Green, and Blue light, but only one color at a time. She has Red days, and Blue days, and Green days. The wavelengths of light are pure and are tuned to the center of her color receptor cell sensitivities. So she is exposed to all of her "primary" colors, but never sees any combinations of them, and never sees them "next to" each other. Of course she does all of the requisite reading (which I still maintain is a wasted exercise: abstract knowlege != experience).

Then she is let out of the room. She sees Yellow, and Orange, and Purple, and all of the other colors "in between" Red, Green, and Blue. Does she experience anything new? Almost certainly. Could she have anticipated what she sees? Almost certainly not. I think this is more what the KA folks had in mind.

Does the brain have to see the colors together to be able to eventually differentiate between them? Some might say that the neural pathways are only strengthened by seeing the color differences simultaneously (or nearly simultaneously). If the lights are alternated more quickly (every second, say), would that make a difference? (if you look at very rapidly alternating red and green lights that are in the same area of your visual field, you will "see yellow", even though they are never on at the same time - maybe due to simple retinal persistance?)

These are scientifically interesting questions. Would she see color in the same way you and I do?

I don't know...

(and I'm not afraid to admit it!)

 

[Guest]

Paul :

I think subjective means something like "as experienced by a person." Objective means something like "as common to everyone." I don't see why my subjective experience cannot be a product of my brain. Constant repetition of words like "I," "you," and "not object" doesn't convince me otherwise.

The reason I asked you this is because I am trying to get you to think about whether subjective and objective are logically mutually exclusive. You've seen my definitions. "Objective" things are "Objective" because they are out there in this abstract physical world we seem to share and can all verify together. Subjective things are "subjective" because they aren't 'out there' - they are 'in here' in your mind and totally unavailable to verification by anyone but you. It seems to me that these things are totally and utterly exclusive. To claim that subjective things 'are actually objective at the same time' is just totally stupid. If it is subjective then it cannot be objective. If it is objective then it cannot to subjective. There is no problem here - no confusion. Until, that is, a materialist is faced with the fact that these things are mutually exclusive. This has been demonstrated time and again by both yourself and Stimpson, who, motivated by a need to defend materialism, insist that subjective is in fact a subset of objective, with no apparent concern that this throws the dictionary in the bin, doesn't make sense and cannot actually be justified when one considers what the words actually mean.

What is the process here? Do we start with useful words with useful, logical, consistent meanings and then use them to carry out our logical investigations and come to some conclusions?

Or do we start from our conclusion (that materialism is true), then set about re-defining all the terms so that we know in advance that we will be able to reach the desired conclusion, regardless of whether or not those terms make sense anymore?

quote:
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Originally posted by ChuckieR
But someone being able to describe their feeling is completely different from understanding the physical process of seeing and hearing.
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The KA depends on the fact that these things are totally and utterly different.
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Wait, please explain what you mean by this without relying on the KA being in any particular framework.

If 'feeling' and 'seeing' are physical processes then you should be able to describe them as such. In truth it is inconceivable that you could ever describe them as such because they are totally and utterly different.

How many times have you seen this exchange :

Materialist : Qualia ARE brain processes
Non-materialist : How so? They are completely and utterly different.
Materialist : PROVE IT!
Non-materialist : Why should I have to prove that two things which are completely and utterly different aren't the same thing?
Materialist : How do you know they are completely and utterly different?
Non-materialist : Huh?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:

"Objective" things are "Objective" because they are out there in this abstract physical world we seem to share and can all verify together. Subjective things are "subjective" because they aren't 'out there' - they are 'in here' in your mind and totally unavailable to verification by anyone but you. It seems to me that these things are totally and utterly exclusive. To claim that subjective things 'are actually objective at the same time' is just totally stupid. If it is subjective then it cannot be objective. If it is objective then it cannot to subjective. There is no problem here - no confusion. Until, that is, a materialist is faced with the fact that these things are mutually exclusive. This has been demonstrated time and again by both yourself and Stimpson, who, motivated by a need to defend materialism, insist that subjective is in fact a subset of objective, with no apparent concern that this throws the dictionary in the bin, doesn't make sense and cannot actually be justified when one considers what the words actually mean.

But they are not "totally and utterly exclusive," as demonstrated by people with brain damage, by neurophysiological experiments, by drugs, by alcohol, and so forth. Furthermore, there is a clear interaction between the subjective and objective aspects of a person whenever they react to sensory input, whenever they react to the objective world. So why is it such a stretch to suppose that your subjective life is a product of your objective brain?

I can't find any definitions of subjective that deny all connection to the objective.

~~ Paul

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Win,

I'm not sue what you mean by "artificially stimulated ... to think it is seeing red." If you mean, say, pressing on your eye near your nose so that a blue spot appears at the opposite side of your visual field (try it, it's cool) without there being a blue object out there in the world, I think you're really seeing blue.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

No, that's pretty much exactly what I was getting at. In other words, would you say that the content of phenomenal consciousness is logically dictated by the physical brain activity, but that the existence of phenomenal consciousness cannot be derived from the physical brain activity?

Such a scenario could be modeled by saying that the physical World is a causally closed set, A. Phenomenal consciousness is a distinct set, B, which is not causally closed, but whose state is determined by the state of A.

One could imagine that the state of B is completely determined by the state of A, according to some set of logical rules, but that the existence of B is not required for the existence of A. In other words, a completely one-way interaction between A and B.

This would also imply that it is not possible, using information only available in set A, to determine the existence of set B, or the nature of the rules that describe how set B depends on set A.

Is this an accurate description of your position?

Does Mary possess information processing capabilities other than those performed by her brain? Does she possess any way of storing information, other than physically storing it in her brain?
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Information processing, no. Storing, no.

Briefly, information is physically stored and processed by your brain. That physical instatiation of the information, though, doesn't exhaust the "facts." Every time that information is physically realized in your brain, in fact in any information processing system of a certain class, it is simultaneously phenomenally realized. The phenomenal realization of the information contains a new fact, or perhaps is a new fact.

When I say phenomenally realized, I mean represented within phenomenal consciousness.

The thing I am having a problem with, is the meaning of "phenomenally realized" information.

When you say "physically realized information", I know what that means. It means either storage or processing of the information (or a combination of the two), by some sort of physical process. I would thus be inclined to interpret the phrase "phenomenally realized information" to mean some sort of phenomenal storage or processing of the information.

If this is not what it means, then what does it mean? To put it another way, the word "to realize" is a verb, which describes what is being done to the thing being realized. What is being done to the information when it is "phenomenally realized"?


Paul,

Why do you consider the neural connections formed when I see red not to be "facts" about red? They are not conceptual facts about red, but they certainly are empirical facts necessary to see red. Separating them from "facts" seems to confuse matters.

Strictly speaking, the neural connections are not facts. They are physical thing. Facts are information. There are certainly facts about those neural connections. For example, the fact that Mary has those neural connections are a fact.

That said, the neural connections do encode facts about red, which is to say that there is information about red that Mary could extract from the memory of seeing red. But she already has that information.

If we all agree that learning these empirical facts does not constitute a violation of physicalism, then my question is only one of definition. But I'm suspicious from reading about the KA over the past few days that many people either do not acknowledge the existence of these facts, or think that their acquisition does violate physicalism. So it's an important issue.

Unfortunately, we do not all agree with this. Some of the people here are still trying to assert that the fact that Mary cannot gain the memory of seeing red from reading a book, somehow invalidates physicalism. Each of them seem to have different reasons for thinking this is the case, though.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Guest]

But they are not "totally and utterly exclusive," as demonstrated by people with brain damage, by neurophysiological experiments, by drugs, by alcohol, and so forth.

Aren't they?

How do any of the above things make subjective/mental/empirical and objective/physical/abstract anything but totally and utterly exclusive?

The only reason I have ever seen anyone EVER claim that subjective and objective were not exclusive opposites was when they were forced into doing so because they trying to defy logic whilst defending materialism. There is no other reason to claim it.

Furthermore, there is a clear interaction between the subjective and objective aspects of a person whenever they react to sensory input, whenever they react to the objective world. So why is it such a stretch to suppose that your subjective life is a product of your objective brain?

No-one is disputing they are related. For the purposes of the proof no-one is even disputing that one can't be a product of the other (at least I don't need to assert that to examine the words). I am merely stating that they are mutually exclusive. I am stating that nothing can be both subjective and objective at the same time. Why can't you just accept that this is the truth? Why the resistance? Try to forget about materialism and dualism for the minute and concentrate on the words themselves, what they mean, why they are defined and how they are related. Make sure the horse is facing in the right direction before you start thinking about the cart.

NB : remember the abstract/empirical difference. Empirical things come DIRECTLY into your mind. Abstract things are reasoned via a collectively-agreed on conceptual model called physics. Is there a difference between direct and subjective (and mental)? Is there a difference between indirect/abstract and objective (and physical)? Why does there need to be any confusion at all between these two classes of things?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Stimpy said:

Strictly speaking, the neural connections are not facts. They are physical thing. Facts are information. There are certainly facts about those neural connections. For example, the fact that Mary has those neural connections are a fact.

That said, the neural connections do encode facts about red, which is to say that there is information about red that Mary could extract from the memory of seeing red. But she already has that information.

I'm still not catching on. Let me pick a specific set of neural connections that Mary might hypothetically obtain from seeing color: the weights in the visual cortex that specify the relative amount of each color in typical objects. There might not be such a thing, but I think we can agree that there are neural connections like this. Pick one of them.

First of all, referring to this as "memory" seems misleading. It is memory in that all neural encoding is memory, but it is not memory in the common sense of memory of events that can be retreived more or less at will.

That said, I don't understand why we wouldn't call this neural encoding a fact, in particular, a physical fact. Calling it something else confuses the issue when we say "Mary has learned all the physical facts about color." She cannot learn these sorts of facts by reading books (I'm assuming no robot operation here). She can gain the knowledge of how the visual cortex works, but not the personal neural connections.

These kinds of facts are referred to as subjective physical facts by at least one writer (http://neologic.net/rd/chalmers/mdeutsch.html).

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

UcE said:

I am stating that nothing can be both subjective and objective at the same time.

I just don't see it. If I think about an apple, that's both at the same time. Perhaps if you defined the two words, I might see your point.

Maybe you mean that an object and my thoughts are mutually exclusive?

If I assume they are mutually exclusive, where does that lead?

~~ Paul

 

[Guest]

I just don't see it. If I think about an apple, that's both at the same time. Perhaps if you defined the two words, I might see your point.

I defined them in the opening post of the other thread :

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Two different forms of knowledge :

Mental facts, including both experienincg qualia and the subjective experience described as "remembering qualia" come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness (directly into your mind like qualia and emotions).

Physical facts, including knowledge of brain states, come to us indirectly via means of reasoning and explanation concerning a group of related concepts we call physical reality. No physical facts ever come to us directly via phenomenal conscious - to us they are abstract concepts.

I hope we can agree on those definitions. We might also observe that we have an extremely clear cut division between subjective facts and objective facts here. The objective facts are objective for the simple reason that they exist within the context of a group of concepts (the physical model of the Universe) and that we all understand what those concepts are - they are shared and verifiable. The subjective facts are subjective for the simple reason that they come to us directly via phenomenal consciousness. Because they come us directly they cannot be specified in terms of the physical model because they are not abstract like the physical things - they just EXIST in their own right directly within our phenomenal consciousness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you see it yet?

Subjective refers to things that directly exist in your consciousness.

Objective refers to things that we reason exist using an agreed-upon set of abstract physical concepts.

It doesn't matter if you are a materialist, a dualist or an alien from the planet Zog - subjective and objective cannot be the same thing.

Maybe you mean that an object and my thoughts are mutually exclusive?

It amounts to the same thing.

If I assume they are mutually exclusive, where does that lead?

Do not assume it! Satisfy yourself that it must be true. THEN think about where it leads. It seems to me that its the 'thinking about where it leads' that causes people to refuse to accept what these words are for. I think it is important to accept the meanings of the words, their mutual exclusivity and their independence from assumptions about ontology first so we don't go around in any more circles.

Geoff.

 

[Guest]

Paul

If I think about an apple, that's both at the same time.

Your thoughts about the apple are subjective. Your visual picture of the apple and your experiences of tasting the apple are all subjective. They have direct meaning to you and no agreed-upon or objectively communicable meaning to anyone else.

If you measure the size and weight of the apple or specify the chemicals it is composed of then these things are objective. They are also abstract, and only have meaning with respect to our collectively agreed-on set of physical concepts.