PWQs

[Guest]

UCE:



Well, assumptions, or conclusions, like certain of the contents of qualia are "objects," these "objects," properly defined, persist over time, and, again over time, these "objects" do the same sorts of things when in the presence of other "objects," giving rise to the concept of "behaviour."

But none of the above pose a particular problem, do they?

To be honest I don't think I even want to answer the 'Ultimate question'. I think people must answer that question for themselves. All I am really trying to do is, keeping in mind some of the long-discussed problems facing materialism, provide a suggested alternative metaphysical model which might go some way to making progress toward understanding certain contraversial phenomena like Jungs collective unconscious and things like the 'hundredth monkey" effect - plus things like non-locality in physics. I'm not trying to prove anything except that there are workable alternatives to materialism, and suggesting how they might work.

 

[Win]

UCE:

But none of the above pose a particular problem, do they?

Only to the idea that qualia themselves have "behaviours."

And when I say "ultimate question," I only mean with regard to qualia and their relation to the physical world, if any.

Ultimatel ... er, I mean, in the end, all I'm saying is that looking at "physical world qualia" as opposed to looking at the physical world doesn't really get us anywhere. It's just reposing the same questions using different terms.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: PWQs

"When are we sure that the meaning of a question is clear? Obviously if and only if we are able to exactly describe the conditions in which it is possible to answer yes, or, respectively, the conditions in which it is necessary to answer with a no. The meaning of a question is thus defined only through the specification of those conditions...
The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference.
(M. Schlick, 'Positivismus und Realismus' in Erkenntnis, 3, 1932).
Metaphysical statements are thus forbidden: they are meaningless. Also the traditional philosophy is indeed meaningless, and the only role of philosophy is the clarification of the meaning of statements. "



Now, Mr Elephant, where is the verifiable difference?

What's with all this logical postivist cr*p? And what's the verifiable difference between what?

 

[Peskanov]

UCE,

----
quote:
And I found several of them quite hard to understand as well as feeling them to be irrelevant.
----

Oops! I guess I am included there...

Well, I have read again your model. Could you give me some details? I want to know:
Would the world perceived through PWQ follow always an internal logic?
Woud the brain workings that we perceive though PWQ be an accurate projection of a mind? Or it would just an unrelated illusion? Or a partial one?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: Re: PWQs

Of course Geoff.

Let's suppose you are right and Stimpy is wrong. What would be a verifiable difference we can objetively test and wich can't be true if Stimpy is right?

What precisely are you claiming Stimpy is right about??

Is there ANY? Because if no, then your post has no meaning.

What precisely don't you understand about UCE's original post?

"The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference. "

Justify this position.

Is there any verifiable difference?

If there is no verfiable difference btween UCE's position and Stimpy's position how does this entail that UCE's position is meaningless and Stimpy's isn't?

 

[Win]

Ian:

What's with all this logical postivist cr*p?

Didn't you know? This board is the last redoubt of logical positivism. Though it went out of fashion, indeed bankrupt, in the philosphical community and the world at large fifty years ago, here they still tend the flame.

 

[Interesting Ian]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
no, that is not all I am claiming. I am also claiming that the reality which I am experiencing is the reality which you are experiencing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My PWQ's cannot literally be the same as your PWQ's. Therefore you must hold the position that our PWQ's refer to something other than our PWQ's. In which case, despite your denials, you are involved in ontological speculation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It is not ontological speculation, because I am not attributing any characteristics to this external reality that cannot be empirically verified. It is an epistemological position, not an ontological assumption.

Saying it exists is the ontological presumption. It is sufficient for reality to be objective that we experience similar PWQ's when in the same place and time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The axiom of science you have rejected is the axiom which states that physical reality is causally closed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And who gets to decide that it is an axiom?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Whoever it is that is responsible for deciding what the word "science" means.

Who has stated that the hypothesis that the world is physically closed is an axiom of science? Did anyone argue against him that it ought not to be?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why does it need to be an axiom?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Because without it the scientific method is not logically valid.

Why not? Change in the world initiated by sentient beings could be explained in terms of intent and desires. I see no necessity in supposing the world must be physically closed.

If you allow for influences which don't obey physical laws to influence things which do, you can no longer claim that those things do.

Sorry you're confusing me here. Care to expand?

Look at it this way. If the physical World is the set of all things which obey physical laws,

But it isn't. The physical world is the set of all things which can be discerned from a third person perspective.

then it must be causally closed. If it is not causally closed, then that implies that there are physical things which can be affected by things which do not obey physical laws. This in turn implies that these physical things do not function according to physical laws,

No it doesn't imply this at all. Change might be initiated by a non-physical thing, but thereafter unfold according to physical laws.

As a practical example, consider the mind. Clearly the mind has an effect on the brain.

How did you work this out?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this axiom is true, then consciousness must be physical.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not at all. It just means that our non-physical consciousness is not causally efficaceous.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Which is a trivially false statement.

What you say here is quite patently false. If the world is causally closed then our behaviour is fully explicable in terms of physical processes. You can only say that it is trivial false if it is self-evidently true that experiential consciousness is one and the very same thing, or is a function of such processes. However we were considering the scenario of non-physical consciousness

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What the current scientific theories state is that consciousness is a physical process in the brain,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is materialism, not science....come on Stimp....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is a scientific theory,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you think this you clearly don't understand what science means. Quite bad considering you claim to be a scientist. FYI it is a metaphysical theory, and an impressively stupid one at that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What is metaphysical about it?

To say that A and B are one and the very same thing, when they appaer to be utterly different from each other, and we merely have a correlation between them, is at the very minimum, to take a gigantic leap of faith to say nothing of its highly questionable intelligibility.

It is a falsifiable hypothesis, and the most parsimonious falsifiable hypothesis that is consistent with the available data.

You can't falsify it. There is absolutely no way one could falsify such a crazy hypothesis.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and one for which there is considerable supporting evidence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no evidence whatsoever. How many times do you need to be told this???
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



You can tell me this as many times as you like. Until you actually provide some sort of reasonable argument to back up this claim, you are just blowing hot air.

No, you are required to produce the evidence.

Your "that isn't consciousness, that is just the neural correlate" argument holds no water, because at the very least, it begs the question.

So what evidence do you have that consciousness just simply is its neural correlates. Come on, you've claimed you've got plenty. I await with baited breath

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Win said:

Didn't you know? This board is the last redoubt of logical positivism. Though it went out of fashion, indeed bankrupt, in the philosphical community and the world at large fifty years ago, here they still tend the flame.

Ooh, it went out of fashion with philosophers! Say it ain't so.

What is logical positivism? Is this the correct definition:

"a 20th century philosophical movement that holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless"

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Win said:
Ooh, it went out of fashion with philosophers! Say it ain't so.

What is logical positivism? Is this the correct definition:

"a 20th century philosophical movement that holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless"

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

~~ Paul

God exists.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:

No it doesn't imply this at all. Change might be initiated by a non-physical thing, but thereafter unfold according to physical laws.

Do the physical laws govern how the nonphysical thing interfaces with the phyisical things? If so, then the nonphysical thing must be a least at least partially physical (and by induction, completely physical). If not, then we're missing the physical laws that govern the interface from the physical side.

Or, I suppose you could just say POOF ! the nonphysical thing does the physical things.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:

God exists.

Meaningless. Define God.

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Or, I suppose you could just say POOF ! the nonphysical thing does the physical things.

~~ Paul [/B]

What's wrong with that?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian said:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
God exists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Meaningless. Define God.

The denial of atheism and its associated family of beliefs.

 

[Win]

Paul:

I am reminded of Ernst Mach denying the existence of atoms.

But you ask:

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

All metaphysics. Plato's Forms, Berkeley's Idealism, Materialism.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Luci



You mean it has no meaning in terms of materialistic science. Your above statement depends on the assumption that anything not objectively verifiable by the scientific method has no meaning.

The statement depends of any difference that can be detectable.

The difference is metaphysical, not physical. It makes an enormous difference to ones outlook on the possibility of the existence of paranormal phenomena or meaning in religion. There are no objectively verifiable differences because both schemes result in the same (normal) behaviour in the physical world - the realm of objective study. But in terms of metaphysics it makes the difference between

1) all paranormalism and all religion being utterly non-existent and meaningless

and

2) The possibility of making sense of recurrent themes throughout the history of religion, and providing explanations for the vast amounts of anecdotal evidence surround so-called 'paranormal' phenomena.

And this difference traslates to?

This is a crucial difference. So long as you are an ontological materialist you don't really have to experiment to find out whether paranormal phenomena exist, and you don't need to investigate religion and philosophy - because your metaphysical model has already rendered both of these things devoid of meaning. That isn't because the are actually devoid of meaning - it is because you have chosen a metaphysical model which renders them meaningless. This choice then causes serious bias amongst the so-called skeptics because they already "know" they are right. Even though they are wrong.

Not really. I'm asking about what difference would make your theory if true. You can't provide any. In that very real sense, your theory has no meaning.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Re: Re: Re: Re: PWQs

What precisely are you claiming Stimpy is right about??

I was just claiming what would happen if UCE is right!

What precisely don't you understand about UCE's original post?

I understand everything

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference. "


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Justify this position.

It would be absurd to claim that any set of words put together have a meaning. Just the words that claim something about something can have a meaning. And only if we can decide somehow if the claim is correct. What part you don't understand?

If there is no verfiable difference btween UCE's position and Stimpy's position how does this entail that UCE's position is meaningless and Stimpy's isn't?

Parsimony.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Paul:

I am reminded of Ernst Mach denying the existence of atoms.

But you ask:



All metaphysics. Plato's Forms, Berkeley's Idealism, Materialism.

What do you think of Stimpy's claim that his particular version of materialism is devoid of any metaphysical elements?

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Win said:
Ooh, it went out of fashion with philosophers! Say it ain't so.

What is logical positivism? Is this the correct definition:

"a 20th century philosophical movement that holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless"

If so, then give me an example of a metaphysical theory that it claims is meaningless.

~~ Paul

The above statement is correct. All metaphysical theorys that I know of (including materialism) are meaningless.

 

[Win]

Ian:

What do you think of Stimpy's claim that his particular version of materialism is devoid of any metaphysical elements?

To be charitable, I think it's misconceived.

 

[Keneke]

This is basically correct. As far as the physical world is concerned, materialism still operates exactly the same. The only difference occurs when we look at questions like "Why does the Universe exist at all"/"What is the metaphysical support for the Universe", questions surrounding the relationship between the mental and physical realms and certain issues regarding the nature of time. All of those questions are arguably philosophical questions in the first place anyway. As far as materialistic science is concerned the only difference is that the specific question about why a 1st-person perspective exists at all has been removed, because under my metaphysics it is no longer a question that needs answering. But again - I don't see this as any great loss to science since as far as I am concerned science is condemned to be unable to answer that question anyway. All my metaphysics really does is open the door to new theoretical possibilities regarding what sort of phenomena are actually possible. I've said this before - materialism renders several whole classes of phenomena theoretically impossible - but if you look closely enough this actually includes subjective consciousness. If you modify your metaphysics so you can acount both for an 'external' world that behaves as if it was made of matter and 1st-person consciousness then those classes of phenomena are no longer impossible. More importantly for me, it opens up the possibility of making some sort of sense of some the biggest questions I have spent my whole life asking myself, questions for which science has not been able to provide much in the way of answers, mainly because of its perceived dependence on materialism.

Hey, whatever works for you. I say the same thing about religions.

Science and materialism is simply observation of these PWQs and making a workable model. Not a thing to do with "why".