The relationship between science and materialism

[UndercoverElephant]

I think LW has it. Geoff, you might want to go back to fuzzy terms like mind and qualia. The term subjective just doesn't capture the problem.

~~ Paul

Do you want to change your definitions to LW's?

 

[hammegk]

To chriswl,

Why don´t you put it straight?. There are no really subjective experiences, if they are called subjective is because when someone has to respond to the question: what it feels like...?, he has to give an account from the first person perspective. His language is incomplete and imperfect, this gives the impression that such an experience is something mysterious and special, something that cannot be explain in mere objective terms.

Consciousness is a myth, qualia do not exist.

Another p-zombie. I'll be darned.

The subjective/objective terminology used by the world is bass-ackwards. I have one objective experience; I'm conscious.

 

[cyborg]

I have one objective experience; I'm conscious.

Prove it zombie-face.

 

[hammegk]

LOL. Sorry. My proof is not and never will be available to you.

And so far as I will ever know, you could be a Turing machine.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Well, the physical world, as conceived of by science, has always seemed a pretty certain, non-slippery and stable foundation to me.

Yet, paradoxically, it has none. Materialism has no stable foundation and science has no stable foundation. Which is why, 253 years after the death of George Berkeley, there are still people defending his position.

It's like the old joke about the British Civil Servant which I can't remember, but the punchline is "that's all very well in practice, but will it work in theory."

Very apt. Naive realism works in practice, but fails in theory.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

One thing is becoming clearer to me in this thread. Asking people questions is a better way to do philosophy than trying to spoon-feed them answers.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This isn't anything like clear enough for me to use it in a proof. Since it is physicalism you are supposed to be defending, surely it should be pretty straightforward to define "physical"?

I'm not defending physicalism.

This is a startling statement from a person who got really p*ss*d at hammegk for claiming that physicalists didn't understand their own position. You sound like you don't know what "physical" means. This is a claim I have been making for years: physicalists don't understand what "physical" is.

I am not defending physicalism.

~~ Paul

 

[cyborg]

LOL. Sorry. My proof is not and never will be available to you.

Well of course not. You can't prove you're conscious because you're a zombie.

And so far as I will ever know, you could be a Turing machine.

Zombie knows Turing. You must be a Turing test zombie.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

One thing is becoming clearer to me in this thread. Asking people questions is a better way to do philosophy than trying to spoon-feed them answers.

Well, at least I don't have to gag on the spoon of materialism you try to cram down my throat.

I'm bored. If you have a proof to present, do it.

~~ Paul

 

[cyborg]

Yet, paradoxically, it has none. Materialism has no stable foundation and science has no stable foundation. Which is why, 253 years after the death of George Berkeley, there are still people defending his position.

Dunno. 3000 years after the Greeks why are there still people defending a flat-earth?

Very apt. Naive realism works in practice, but fails in theory.

And neutral monism fails in both.

 

[chriswl]

The literature on cognitive science is full of examples like this: different ways of fooling our perceptual apparatus.

With good reason - they refute the naive intuitions that philosophers have traditionally held about consciousness.

So to apply this to your clock example : whilst the clock is ticking your mind filters it out. It's irrelevant. If you actually concentrate on the contents of your mind (and this exactly what Husserl wants you to do) then you would be instantly aware of the ticking. So it was always available to consciousness, it was just being filtered out with all the other irrelevant junk.

Which means we weren't conscious of it. Could have been but weren't.

However, as soon as the ticking stops, it stops being irrelevant. Our brains are pattern-matchers. When the ticking stops it sends out a sort of mental "alarm" and you become aware that something has changed. For our ancestors, such an ability could mean the difference between life and death. Why have the crickets stopped chirruping? Is it because there's are leopard stalking through the grass?

A nice materialist explanation which I agree with. Now to the subject of consciousness...

You were always conscious of it to the extent that had you paid close attention, you would have detected it.

But I didn't pay attention so I wasn't conscious of it.

It was never missing. You were unconscious of it only to the extent that whilst the ticking was happening, your cognitive apparatus had filtered it out as irrelevant.

Therefore it was missing from my conscious awareness. And yet somehow I was aware of it's going away. Of course this is easy to explain in terms of physical brain processes. But you can't explain it in terms of subjective experience. As I said, how can there be anything that it is like to not hear a clock ticking and to then hear it stop ticking? That could almost be a Zen koan.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You were always conscious of it to the extent that had you paid close attention, you would have detected it. It was never missing. You were unconcious of it only to the extent that whilst the ticking was happening, your cognitive apparatus had filtered it out as irrelevant.

If by "cognitive apparatus" you mean my entire brain, then this is surely true. If you mean the conscious thinking part of my brain, then you do not know if this is the case.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Well, at least I don't have to gag on the spoon of materialism you try to cram down my throat.

I'm bored. If you have a proof to present, do it.

~~ Paul

Paul,

I presented you with the proof. In order to deny it was a proof, you backtracked and accused me of question-begging. So I asked you to supply a set of your own definitions by which I could provide the proof. In response, you have given me no less then FOUR different definitions of the one thing I call "mental/subjective/private" and NO usable definition of physical.

And you want me to prove to you that your position in incoherent!?

You want to know what the problem is. The problem is that you have spent the past four years telling me I cannot disprove physicalism, but when asked for a set of definitions, you can't even define what "physical" means. If you don't think that is a problem, I don't know what you think is.



Geoff

 

[chriswl]

Very apt. Naive realism works in practice, but fails in theory.

Err... the joke is supposed to be that no sane person would let theoretical considerations stand in the way of a practical solution that works. It's a satire on the kind of ivory tower academics who think that the theoretical stuff is an end in itself.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I presented you with the proof. In order to deny it was a proof, you backtracked and accused me of question-begging. So I asked you to supply a set of your own definitions by which I could provide the proof. In response, you have given me no less then FOUR different definitions of the one thing I call "mental/subjective/private" and NO usable definition of physical.

Please stop with the bold.

You said "You are now proposing that the qualia, which you have already accepted are inherently subjective (i.e. NOT BRAIN PROCESSES) "are" physical events/processes." Nowhere did I agree that "inherently subjective" means "not brain processes." This is begging the question. If you simply insist that there are mental things that are not brain processes, then we don't need to discuss it any further, do we?

If you can't define "physical" and you've got four definitions of "mental" (in addition to rejecting "qualia", which would have been FIVE) then I'm not sure you are in any position to demand for me to prove that you can't defend physicalism.

I'm not demanding that you do anything, for crying out loud. It's your thread. Do whatever the hell you want.

Why don't you just propose a definition for mental?

You want to know what the problem is. The problem is that you have spent the past four years telling me I cannot disprove physicalism, but when asked for a set of definitions, you cannot define "physical" and you've effectively given me four definitions of "mental". If you don't think that is a problem, I don't know what you think is.

If you could disprove physicalism, you'd be the most famous philosopher of all time. If you want to think you've done it, fine and dandy.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

With good reason - they refute the naive intuitions that philosophers have traditionally held about consciousness.

Errr...how?

Which means we weren't conscious of it. Could have been but weren't.

Slow down. We've now got a less simplistic understanding of consciousness. We have acknowledged that sometimes there are things that we are present in conciousness, but which we are only minimially aware of. Your "argument for eliminativism" depends on claiming that things are either in consciousness or not, instead of allowing for a foreground and a background.

Some things are in "the background" of consciousness whilst other things are in the foreground, and depending on how much attention we pay we can focus on whatever we like. It is not true to say that things in the background aren't part of consciousness and things in the foreground are. What's the problem? I don't understand what this has got to do with eliminativism.

A nice materialist explanation which I agree with.

It's not a materialist explanation. What makes you think it is? Once more, you have confused science and materialism.

Now to the subject of consciousness...

But I didn't pay attention so I wasn't conscious of it.

Nope. You didn't pay attention to so it remained in the background of consciousness instead of being brought to the foreground. Where's the problem with that explanation?

Therefore it was missing from my conscious awareness. And yet somehow I was aware of it's going away. Of course this is easy to explain in terms of physical brain processes.

Yep, and easy to explain for everybody-else as well. Except maybe Descartes, but since nobody is defending his position this is not important.

But you can't explain it in terms of subjective experience.

I just did.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Err... the joke is supposed to be that no sane person would let theoretical considerations stand in the way of a practical solution that works. It's a satire on the kind of ivory tower academics who think that the theoretical stuff is an end in itself.

When it's this particular "theoretical stuff", it matters. If it didn't, you lot wouldn't be defending it like your lives depended on it.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Nope. You didn't pay attention to so it remained in the background of consciousness instead of being brought to the foreground. Where's the problem with that explanation?

Well, first of all, you don't know if it did. Of course, if you're going to define even nonconscious activity in the brain as consciousness, then the word becomes somewhat meaningless. I think conscious activity should include only those events that we are ... conscious of.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Please stop with the bold.

OK.

You said "You are now proposing that the qualia, which you have already accepted are inherently subjective (i.e. NOT BRAIN PROCESSES) "are" physical events/processes." Nowhere did I agree that "inherently subjective" means "not brain processes." This is begging the question. If you simply insist that there are mental things that are not brain processes, then we don't need to discuss it any further, do we?

Hold on a moment....why are you going back to the previous argument when we already know that you can't define physical and have four definitions of mental? What's the point? Please forget the previous discussion. You have since stated that there is no referent for the world "qualia" so that discussion is void.

If you simply insist that there are mental things that are not brain processes, then we don't need to discuss it any further, do we?

I have insisted on nothing, Paul. I gave you a totally free hand to define your terms however you like. You clearly cannot do so. So you have gone back to the previous argument, and in fact you appear to be trying to get out of the discussion ASAP.

Have you given up trying to define your terms?

Why don't you just propose a definition for mental?

Certainly.

Physical : Objective, 3rd-person.
Mental : Subjective, 1st-person, private.

Two terms. No confusion.

If you could disprove physicalism, you'd be the most famous philosopher of all time. If you want to think you've done it, fine and dandy.

No, I wouldn't be, because a whole string of other philosphers have already done it. It's just that the materialists cannot accept the proof.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Well, first of all, you don't know if it did.

I didn't know if it was available to consciousness? No, maybe not. I would have had to concentrate on my hearing to have known that. So what?

Second, if you're going to define even nonconscious activity in the brain as consciousness....

I didn't define it as "non-conscious" though, did I?

, then the word becomes somewhat meaningless. I think conscious activity should include only those events that we are ... conscious of.

Why have such a restrictive definition of consciousness? Isn't it obvious that there are various levels of awareness and that you can focus on different elements of your experiences? This is the whole point in phenomenology! You are supposed to pay very close attention to what is happening in your mind. Not just the stopping of clock-ticks, but the whole shebang - most of which is ignored by the so-called "practical approach" of materialistic cognitive science! Why on earth anybody thinks this is the basis of a defence of eliminativism is beyond me.