Mind, spirit, materialism and atheism.

[Alpha_Omega]

You have to be an atheist to be a materialist.

A lot of the world is explainable in material terms.

Mind is not.

Mind is spirit.

Discuss.

[Sidhe]

Bit of a stereotype I’m agnostic and I’m a materialist to some extent, although not as hard line as some.

I do believe that eventually the hard problem is soluble by resorting to biology rather than x though.

I read the Threefold Chord recently and I have to admit it’s quite persuasive on the issues of perception in terms of some sort of materialism if not direct materialism.

Good topic though, if this one doesn’t run to 20 pages at least I’ll be surprised.

[Alpha_Omega]

Does your view have anything in common with eliminative materialism?

[Sidhe]

@Alpha+Omega

Does your view have anything in common with eliminative materialism?

After reading that book it has more to do with natural realism. Finding most stances flawed. I was quite intrigued by his ideas and along with Dennet I’d say he has the most logically consistent approach so far.

What is the relationship between our perceptions and reality? What is the relationship between the mind and the body? These are questions with which philosophers have grappled for centuries, and they are topics of considerable contemporary debate as well. Hilary Putnam has approached the divisions between perception and reality and between mind and body with great creativity throughout his career. Now, in The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World, he expounds upon these issues, elucidating both the strengths and weaknesses of current schools of thought. With his characteristic wit and acuity, Putnam offers refreshing solutions to some of philosophy’s most vexing problems. Putnam first examines the problem of realism: Is objective truth possible? He acknowledges the deep impasse between empirical and idealist approaches to this question, critiquing them both, however, by highlighting the false assumption they share, that we cannot perceive the world directly. Drawing on the work of J. L. Austin and William James, Putnam develops a subtle and creative alternative, which he calls “natural realism”. The second part of the book explores the mind-body question: Is the mind independent of our interactions with the physical world? Again, Putnam critically assesses two sharply antithetical contemporary approaches and finds them both lacking. The Threefold Cord shows the entire mind-body debate to be miscast and draws on the later work of Wittgenstein, once more advancing original views on perception and thought and their relationship with both the body and the external world. Finally, Putnam takes up two related problems – the role of causality in human behavior and whether thoughts and sensations have an “existence” all their own.

Sort of a materialist without the hard realism.

[Alpha_Omega]

What is his solution to the free-will question?

[brevel_monkey]

From what I understand about pyscology there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the mind supervenes on physical properties. That is to say - that a specific physical brain state will guarantee a specific mental state; certain alterations of the physical state of a brain will ensure that the mental states also alter in a fixed way. I’m not a pyscologist - but I’d be willing to grant this much as a premiss based on what I do know (i.e. giving the reductivists at least a foot on the ground, and skipping over a highly sceintific debate in the hopeful prospect of getting some philosophy done):

1. A complete survey of the physical state of the brain would reveal everything there is to know about the mental states.

Now - to your question:

A lot of the world is explainable in material terms.

Mind is not.

Mind is spirit.

It seems that a certain type of explanation is now possible, given the assumption in place: a physical explanation of mental states. But is this the explanation we were after in the first place? I don’t think so - I think from the very start of the enquiry we were probably looking for an explanation of what makes the mental different from the physical world around us. The answer now - that they are actually both the same - I think many will find very unsatisfactory.

Even if the mental supervenes on the physical (i.e. even if a physical explantion of mental life is possible) - I don’t think this provides us with the explanation that we originally sought. It seems to me that the fact that the mental is something more than the physical is the intuitive notion that launched the discussion in the first place. This is why I think the reductivist account will always be unsatisfactory.

Here’s one more thought - it seems clear to me that almost everyone at some level believes that mental things hold more importance than physical things. There seems to be something more to, say, someone suffering than to a pebble falling from a cliff and landing on the rocks. I wonder - how does a reductivist account for this fact, after they have reduced mental life to physical things?

Sticky: To clarify - I am using reductivism to mean the point of view that mental life is reducible to physical facts in a way that is eliminative of the mental - i.e. a denial of the existence of mental as anything more than the physical. I hope I am using the term in reasonable congruence with the view that alpha omega is enquiring in to.

[Sidhe]

@Alpha+Omega

What is his solution to the free-will question?

I don’t think he has one, although Dennet does and shares a similar philosophy on mind and body. His is a strange hybrid of compatibilism and Dennet.

Putnams view on multi realisability might be easier than me trying to explain his views:

Putnam’s best-known work concerns philosophy of mind. His most noted original contributions to that field came in several key papers published in the late 1960s that set out the hypothesis of multiple realizability.[21] In these papers, Putnam argues that, contrary to the famous claim of the type-identity theory, it is not necessarily true that “Pain is identical to C-fibre firing.” Pain, according to Putnam’s papers, may correspond to utterly different physical states of the nervous system in different organisms, and yet they all experience the same mental state of “being in pain”.

Multiple realizability
An illustration of multiple realizability. M stands for mental and P stands for physical. It can be seen that more than one P can instantiate one M, but not vice versa. Causal relations between states are represented by the arrows (M1 goes to M2, etc.)

Putnam cited examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate his thesis. He asked whether it was likely that the brain structures of diverse types of animals realize pain, or other mental states, the same way. If they do not share the same brain structures, they cannot share the same mental states and properties. The answer to this puzzle had to be that mental states were realized by different physical states in different species. Putnam then took his argument a step further, asking about such things as the nervous systems of alien beings, artificially intelligent robots and other silicon-based life forms. These hypothetical entities, he contended, should not be considered incapable of experiencing pain just because they lack the same neurochemistry as humans. Putnam concluded that type-identity theorists had been making an “ambitious” and “highly implausible” conjecture which could be disproven with one example of multiple realizability.[22] This argument is sometimes referred to as the “likelihood argument”.[21]

Putnam formulated a complementary argument based on what he called “functional isomorphism”. He defined the concept in these terms: “Two systems are functionally isomorphic if ‘there is a correspondence between the states of one and the states of the other that preserves functional relations’.” In the case of computers, two machines are functionally isomorphic if and only if the sequential relations among states in the first are exactly mirrored by the sequential relations among states in the other. Therefore, a computer made out of silicon chips and a computer made out of cogs and wheels can be functionally isomorphic but constitutionally diverse. Functional isomorphism implies multiple realizability.[22] This argument is sometimes referred to as an “a priori argument”.[21]

Jerry Fodor, Putnam, and others noted that, along with being an effective argument against type-identity theories, multiple realizability implies that any low-level explanation of higher-level mental phenomena is insufficiently abstract and general.[22][23][24] Functionalism, which identifies mental kinds with functional kinds that are characterized exclusively in terms of causes and effects, abstracts from the level of microphysics, and therefore seemed to be a better explanation of the relation between mind and body. In fact, there are many functional kinds, such as mousetraps, software and bookshelves, which are multiply realized at the physical level.[22]

Besides I doubt I could do it justice.

He also tackles the qualia problem by suggesting that red and red are not the same for everyone, but like a pallet they can be close enough so two people can see red as red. Even though they differ by a few “wavelengths”: colours are: #FF4000 and #FF0040.

His suggestion is not a proof of free will but it does leave the door open.

[Alpha_Omega]

@brevel_monkey

From what I understand about pyscology there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the mind supervenes on physical properties. That is to say - that a specific physical brain state will guarantee a specific mental state; certain alterations of the physical state of a brain will ensure that the mental states also alter in a fixed way. I’m not a pyscologist - but I’d be willing to grant this much as a premiss based on what I do know (i.e. giving the reductivists at least a foot on the ground, and skipping over a highly sceintific debate in the hopeful prospect of getting some philosophy done):

1. A complete survey of the physical state of the brain would reveal everything there is to know about the mental states.

Now - to your question:

A lot of the world is explainable in material terms.

Mind is not.

Mind is spirit.

It seems that a certain type of explanation is now possible, given the assumption in place: a physical explanation of mental states. But is this the explanation we were after in the first place? I don’t think so - I think from the very start of the enquiry we were probably looking for an explanation of what makes the mental different from the physical world around us. The answer now - that they are actually both the same - I think many will find very unsatisfactory.

Even if the mental supervenes on the physical (i.e. even if a physical explantion of mental life is possible) - I don’t think this provides us with the explanation that we originally sought. It seems to me that the fact that the mental is something more than the physical is the intuitive notion that launched the discussion in the first place. This is why I think the reductivist account will always be unsatisfactory.

Here’s one more thought - it seems clear to me that almost everyone at some level believes that mental things hold more importance than physical things. There seems to be something more to, say, someone suffering than to a pebble falling from a cliff and landing on the rocks. I wonder - how does a reductivist account for this fact, after they have reduced mental life to physical things?

Sticky: To clarify - I am using reductivism to mean the point of view that mental life is reducible to physical facts in a way that is elminitive of the mental - i.e. a denial of the existence of mental as anything more than the physical. I hope I am using the term in reasonable congruence with the view that alpha omega is enquiring in to.

An interesting exposition, and I think I would tend to share some of your central concerns.

it is clear that a complete description of mental phenomena are beyond the grasp of analysis.

This is because analysis dissects matter.

Spirit is not matter.

[Alpha_Omega]

@Sidhe

@Alpha+Omega

What is his solution to the free-will question?

I don’t think he has one, although Dennet does and shares a similar philosophy on mind and body. His is a strange hybrid of compatibilism and Dennet.

Putnams view on multi realisability might be easier than me trying to explain his views:

Putnam’s best-known work concerns philosophy of mind. His most noted original contributions to that field came in several key papers published in the late 1960s that set out the hypothesis of multiple realizability.[21] In these papers, Putnam argues that, contrary to the famous claim of the type-identity theory, it is not necessarily true that “Pain is identical to C-fibre firing.” Pain, according to Putnam’s papers, may correspond to utterly different physical states of the nervous system in different organisms, and yet they all experience the same mental state of “being in pain”.

Multiple realizability
An illustration of multiple realizability. M stands for mental and P stands for physical. It can be seen that more than one P can instantiate one M, but not vice versa. Causal relations between states are represented by the arrows (M1 goes to M2, etc.)

Putnam cited examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate his thesis. 1. He asked whether it was likely that the brain structures of diverse types of animals realize pain, or other mental states, the same way. If they do not share the same brain structures, they cannot share the same mental states and properties. The answer to this puzzle had to be that mental states were realized by different physical states in different species. Putnam then took his argument a step further, asking about such things as the nervous systems of alien beings, artificially intelligent robots and other silicon-based life forms. These hypothetical entities, he contended, should not be considered incapable of experiencing pain just because they lack the same neurochemistry as humans. Putnam concluded that type-identity theorists had been making an “ambitious” and “highly implausible” conjecture which could be disproven with one example of multiple realizability.[22] This argument is sometimes referred to as the “likelihood argument”.[21]

Putnam formulated a complementary argument based on what he called “2. functional isomorphism”. He defined the concept in these terms: “Two systems are functionally isomorphic if ‘there is a correspondence between the states of one and the states of the other that preserves functional relations’.” In the case of computers, two machines are functionally isomorphic if and only if the sequential relations among states in the first are exactly mirrored by the sequential relations among states in the other. Therefore, a computer made out of silicon chips and a computer made out of cogs and wheels can be functionally isomorphic but constitutionally diverse. Functional isomorphism implies multiple realizability.[22] This argument is sometimes referred to as an “a priori argument”.[21]

Jerry Fodor, Putnam, and others noted that, along with being an effective argument against type-identity theories, multiple realizability implies that any low-level explanation of higher-level mental phenomena is insufficiently abstract and general.[22][23][24] Functionalism, which identifies mental kinds with functional kinds that are characterized exclusively in terms of causes and effects, abstracts from the level of microphysics, and therefore seemed to be a better explanation of the relation between mind and body. In fact, there are many functional kinds, such as mousetraps, software and bookshelves, which are multiply realized at the physical level.[22]

Besides I doubt I could do it justice.

He also tackles the qualia problem by suggesting that red and red are not the same for everyone, but like a pallet they can be close enough so two people can see red as red. Even though they differ by a few “wavelengths”: colours are: #FF4000 and #FF0040.

His suggestion is not a proof of free will but it does leave the door open.

From what I have read of Putnam he seems to be putting forward a material definition of mind.

1. It is clear that animals have share differing levels of consciousness. However I would question the precise role brain structures have to play in this.

What exactly can they tell us about the differences between the consciousness of human beings and animals if we cannot agree what consciousness is?

If an animal can feel pain it is conscious.

However a human being is more conscious because she is rational.

What physical brain states give rise to rationality and why can the phenomenological not be explained by these brain states?

Robots will never be conscious in the same way that humans are.

They have no imagination. They are analytical. We cannot create a robot capable of imagination.

2. It is not possible to create a robot with the same functional isomorphism as a human because the phenomenological is unexplainable and we do not have the power to create it (unless through reproduction).

Humans are free to choose between good and bad actions.

Everyone knows this.

This is a function of the soul.

The soul is free.

[brevel_monkey]

An interesting exposition, and I think I would tend to share some of your central concerns.

uurrrgghhh. agreement is so counter productive in philosophy. where’s faust when you need him?

[Alpha_Omega]

If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything.

[Sidhe]

@Alpha+Omega

From what I have read of Putnam he seems to be putting forward a material definition of mind.

1. It is clear that animals have share differing levels of consciousness. However I would question the precise role brain structures have to play in this.

What exactly can they tell us about the differences between the consciousness of human beings and animals if we cannot agree what consciousness is?

Indeed a solution of the hard problem requires a top down analysis of all functionality, until we can agree on that we are just using guesswork. It also would require a bottom up functionality too. Putnam’s ideas seem logical but aren’t scientific as yet.

If an animal can feel pain it is conscious.

A good enough definition.

However a human being is more conscious because she is rational.

A definition of sentience and self awareness. Both can arise from primitive origins. After all that’s what evolution does, create order: an ever increasing but blindly tenacious complexity of building blocks in a myriad of different solutions to a myriad of problems (99.999999999% of which fail to make it) from disorder. Given enough time and monkeys and typewriters monkeys should be able to write Shakespeare is a good enough example, although flawed.

What physical brain states give rise to rationality and why can the phenomenological not be explained by these brain states?

Because psychology is in its infancy and what we do know could be written on a postage stamp compared to what we do, which would be a world sized envelope mailed to God.

Robots will never be conscious in the same way that humans are.

I don’t see why not? But then I’m not a dualist. Do androids dream of electric sheep?

They have no imagination. They are analytical. We cannot create a robot capable of imagination.

Why not?

2. It is not possible to create a robot with the same functional isomorphism as a human because the phenomenological is unexplainable and we do not have the power to create it (unless through reproduction).

I disagree, and that’s the premise of Blade Runner, once we have the ability to grow cells or make them, then what is the difference between those organisms and humans? Are they monsters? Are we Frankenstein? If a robot thinks and feels pain and learns to grow and adapt to the world in the same way we do, will it ever long for the same things we do, like electric sheep, so that we can impress the neighbours. Or even real ones.

It is impossible to create a human with the same functional isomorphism. They can be similar but each code set and morphology even in twins is unique. Thus each sees the world in a slightly different way. There is no objective, this is x to consciousness, that is what Putnam calls multi realisability. Evolution can produce things which seem exactly the same, like the eye, several times, without any interaction, but fundamentally their constructions come from very diffferent methods.

Incidentally even our memories are stored in DNA to some extent. The body uses methylisation of DNA to store a copy of cells involved with memories so it can replace the cells in an entire part of the brain slowly and surely and as exactly as possible (of course some detail is lost in the replication process) cloning our minds if you will. Of course the cell is unimportant just as in a computer a cell is unimportant, the whole is what is important, the matrix of cells and the connections are what makes us human, but they are a physical process, understanding it deeply is not impossible.

Bonobo chimps (AKA the sex ape for there insatiable desire to experience the world through love not war, like there other chimp species) Can learn thousands of words and sign them. They also show signs of self awareness, such as grooming in mirrors, and recognising themselves as a separate entity from others. They also show signs of morality, such as the law of reciprocity often called the golden rule. And their societies are replete with examples of altruistic behaviour. Given we are almost wiped out it’s not impossible to think apes might replace us. Although I hope they don’t chase us around with nets.

Humans are free to choose between good and bad actions.

Robots have no free will? I don’t see how you can know this given you know virtually nothing about the human mind and how it works (no offence but compared to a neurologist or psychologist, who knows nothing much)

Everyone knows this.

This is a function of the soul.

Logical fallacy. I don’t and I certainly don’t think that the soul is the reason.

The soul is free.

The soul may well be if it exists, but if we aren’t does it really matter, free will is problem of reality and since the soul is part of reality, or not, then if it exists it doesn’t solve anything. Certainly not just because some guy in the sky who may or may not exist (and may well be an invention) says it does.

[Sidhe]

@Alpha+Omega

it is clear that a complete description of mental phenomena are beyond the grasp of analysis.

This is because analysis dissects matter.

Spirit is not matter.

It is clear that it is beyond your ability to grasp. Will it ever be so for mankind? I wouldn’t be so cocky as to make that assumption.

10 years ago many people were in the hard problem is insoluble camp. But with the recent advance of MRI and PET, many more have gone over to the soluble side. Even more precise technology is in the wings. Do you know what is to come? Can you predict the future exactly, or are you merely stating something you want to believe, because it is part of your belief system?

Analysis dissects everything and then like a good car lying in a million pieces on your garage floor, tries to put it back together.

Spirit is not matter? Don’t you mean spirit does not matter, because it is beyond measurement (and reality probably too). We cant measure a dream, but we can still analyse it even if it is a dream.

[Three_Times_Great]

Spirit is not matter

spirit is energy. matter is energy. everything is energy.

what we call “matter” is relative to our perspective and size. to an electron-stream (electricity) other electrons and electron-streams are “matter”, but to us its just energy.

everything is energy. where and how you subdivide out “matter” from this energy is completely relative.

everything builds up from quantum-level field-potentials and interactions, which further structure and aggregate into higher forms. these we call matter. they appear stable to us only because we exist so far-removed from the quantum level.

what you call “spirit” (which, tellingly, you cannot define in any concrete or real way; in fact, “spirit” is just a synonym for “unknown” into which you throw various superstitions and psychological desires predicated on fear and the fundamental need to feel that your life has meaning) would just be another form of energy, one more diffuse and radiant than the matter that we are used to daily… spirit would be similar to light or heat or the waves travelling through a medium, but regardless of whether or not such a “spirit” actually exists, whatever it is, it would be nothing more than a quantifiable and determinant form of quantum energies, entangled with one another and coupled to our physical matter-bodies in a knowable way, because everything is, fundamentally, made of the same type of energy.

its all the same, so regardless of how different things LOOK to us from our perspective, fundamentally, they are all connected to and influenced by each other.

dualities are illusions of distance.

all dualities (such as “body” vs “spirit”) are mere continuum-nature differences that only appear as separate extremes because we cannot see the continuum itself, because our perspective is so distant from this extremely subtle and small level of reality.

[brevel_monkey]

@Three Times Great

Spirit is not matter

spirit is energy. matter is energy. everything is energy.

what we call “matter” is relative to our perspective and size. to an electron-stream (electricity) other electrons and electron-streams are “matter”, but to us its just energy.

everything is energy. where and how you subdivide out “matter” from this energy is completely relative.

everything builds up from quantum-level field-potentials and interactions, which further structure and aggregate into higher forms. these we call matter. they appear stable to us only because we exist so far-removed from the quantum level.

what you call “spirit” (which, tellingly, you cannot define in any concrete or real way; in fact, “spirit” is just a synonym for “unknown” into which you throw various superstitions and psychological desires predicated on fear and the fundamental need to feel that your life has meaning) would just be another form of energy, one more diffuse and radiant than the matter that we are used to daily… spirit would be similar to light or heat or the waves travelling through a medium, but regardless of whether or not such a “spirit” actually exists, whatever it is, it would be nothing more than a quantifiable and determinant form of quantum energies, entangled with one another and coupled to our physical matter-bodies in a knowable way, because everything is, fundamentally, made of the same type of energy.

its all the same, so regardless of how different things LOOK to us from our perspective, fundamentally, they are all connected to and influenced by each other.

dualities are illusions of distance.

all dualities (such as “body” vs “spirit”) are mere continuum-nature differences that only appear as separate extremes because we cannot see the continuum itself, because our perspective is so distant from this extremely subtle and small level of reality.

I find the account unillumintive - considering the debate in hand. What OM is seeking for is an account of how mind can be something more than it’s physical components.

I understand that your account is elimitive - it denies that mind can be more than the physical. It seems we have a reductivist here - so I can put my question directly to you:

It seems clear to me that almost everyone at some level believes that mental things hold more importance than physical things. There seems to be something more to, say, someone suffering than to a pebble falling from a cliff and landing on the rocks. I wonder - how does a reductivist account for this fact, after they have reduced mental life to physical things?

Feel free to answer ‘all such beliefs are fallacious’, or something like that, but I personally will find this a crippling weakness of your theory (as would many, I think).

[Three_Times_Great]

@brevel_monkey

I find the account unillumintive - considering the debate in hand. What OM is seeking for is an account of how mind can be something more than it’s physical components.

the issue of “how or what is spirit?” as opposed to “how or what is body” is central to this thread (it is not the ONLY issue presented here, but it is the one i quoted in my post here and thus the one i have AT THIS TIME, SELECTED TO RESPOND TO).

my main point is that this distinction between spirit and body is predicated on a false assumption

and my post here was not talking about “mind”, but if you want we can get into that as well, just dont confuse “spirit” with “mind”, as i do not (nor do i think this thread’s host would either) consider them the same thing… never did i mention “mind” or “physical” as crutial aspects of my points here, so you are only putting words into my mouth when you paraphrase my arguments here in those terms.

I understand that your account is elimitive - it denies that mind can be more than the physical. It seems we have a reductivist here - so I can put my question directly to you:

eliminitive… reductivist… whatever words you want to throw in there, be my guest.

and ive not said anything about mind nor whether or not it is “physical” (this is because the idea of physicality is a relative term only… “physical” is not another word for “matter”, they are not indicating the same concept).

It seems clear to me that almost everyone at some level believes that mental things hold more importance than physical things. There seems to be something more to, say, someone suffering than to a pebble falling from a cliff and landing on the rocks. I wonder - how does a reductivist account for this fact, after they have reduced mental life to physical things?

your idea of “importance” is irrelevant to anything i have said.

i dont care what you or anyone feels is more “important” or not, reality doesnt care one way or another for our subjective value-judgments, and is structured independent of such things.

and once again, you smuggle in your unstated attack upon mind by assuming that i am calling it “physical” when i have done no such thing, and in fact, have said nothing about “mind” at all.

Feel free to answer ‘all such beliefs are fallacious’, or something like that, but I personally will find this a crippling weakness of your theory (as would many, I think).

thats ok, ill just answer how i answer, rather than answer how you answer how you think i would answer.

you ask a question, then i answer; that is usually how debate works.

you can put words and responses in my mouth all you like, but its not going to advance the discussion any, nor illuminate what i have said or have to say.

[Sidhe]

@brevel_monkey

@Three Times Great

Spirit is not matter

spirit is energy. matter is energy. everything is energy.

what we call “matter” is relative to our perspective and size. to an electron-stream (electricity) other electrons and electron-streams are “matter”, but to us its just energy.

everything is energy. where and how you subdivide out “matter” from this energy is completely relative.

everything builds up from quantum-level field-potentials and interactions, which further structure and aggregate into higher forms. these we call matter. they appear stable to us only because we exist so far-removed from the quantum level.

what you call “spirit” (which, tellingly, you cannot define in any concrete or real way; in fact, “spirit” is just a synonym for “unknown” into which you throw various superstitions and psychological desires predicated on fear and the fundamental need to feel that your life has meaning) would just be another form of energy, one more diffuse and radiant than the matter that we are used to daily… spirit would be similar to light or heat or the waves travelling through a medium, but regardless of whether or not such a “spirit” actually exists, whatever it is, it would be nothing more than a quantifiable and determinant form of quantum energies, entangled with one another and coupled to our physical matter-bodies in a knowable way, because everything is, fundamentally, made of the same type of energy.

its all the same, so regardless of how different things LOOK to us from our perspective, fundamentally, they are all connected to and influenced by each other.

dualities are illusions of distance.

all dualities (such as “body” vs “spirit”) are mere continuum-nature differences that only appear as separate extremes because we cannot see the continuum itself, because our perspective is so distant from this extremely subtle and small level of reality.

I find the account unillumintive - considering the debate in hand. What OM is seeking for is an account of how mind can be something more than it’s physical components.

I understand that your account is elimitive - it denies that mind can be more than the physical. It seems we have a reductivist here - so I can put my question directly to you:

It seems clear to me that almost everyone at some level believes that mental things hold more importance than physical things. There seems to be something more to, say, someone suffering than to a pebble falling from a cliff and landing on the rocks. I wonder - how does a reductivist account for this fact, after they have reduced mental life to physical things?

Feel free to answer ‘all such beliefs are fallacious’, or something like that, but I personally will find this a crippling weakness of your theory (as would many, I think).

I disagree with nearly everything you just said. I expect most economists/bankers/financers would disagree with the point about physical and mental as well, seeing as patently they don’t do a lot of thinking but do seem to do a lot of acquiring the physical.

Saying that the mind is more than the material is fine, it is probably like many things more than the sum of its parts, but it still doesn’t mean there is a dualist element. Dualism is superfluous to a description of mind, it is merely a god of the gaps theory to go with all the other religious theories, where there is an unknown there goes god and the soul. If that unknown is explained then it just makes the gaps smaller, but not matter how small it gets, God can always hide somewhere. The ultimate explanation will be that the soul and the material exist on different planes of existence and although they can interact they never can be perceived from the material plane. Which is fine, it’s just another religious idea to go with the bunch, but it saves us having to make things up because we lack knowledge.

Everything is energy and mass, but the soul has no mass or energy and cannot be measured within the sphere of the four forces? So how does that work? It has no energy either? It is undetectable and might as well not exist.

We can measure vacuum fluctuations by there effect on “magnetism”, the tiniest and most virtual and fleeting particles of all. But the soul we cannot. Why not? Is it because they are beyond detection size like strings. Or is it because like fairies they don’t exist.

[brevel_monkey]

@Sidhe

I disagree with nearly everything you just said. I expect most economists/bankers/financers would disagree with the point about physical and mental as well, seeing as patently they don’t do a lot of thinking but do seem to do a lot of acquiring the physical.

Saying that the mind is more than the material is fine, it is probably like many things more than the sum of its parts, but it still doesn’t mean there is a dualist element. Dualism is superfluous to a description of mind, it is merely a god of the gaps theory to go with all the other religious theories, where there is an unknown there goes god and the soul. If that unknown is explained then it just makes the gaps smaller, but not matter how small it gets, God can always hide somewhere. The ultimate explanation will be that the soul and the material exist on different planes of existence and although they can interact they never can be perceived from the material plane. Which is fine, it’s just another religious idea to go with the bunch, but it saves us having to make things up because we lack knowledge.

Everything is energy and mass, but the soul has no mass or energy and cannot be measured within the sphere of the four forces? So how does that work? It has no energy either? It is undetectable and might as well not exist.

We can measure vacuum fluctuations by there effect on “magnetism”, the tiniest and most virtual and fleeting particles of all. But the soul we cannot. Why not? Is it because they are beyond detection size like strings. Or is it because like fairies they don’t exist.

Firstly, you would note that all I am arguing is that there is something more to the mental than the physical facts can account for. Your first paragraph seems to say that this is ‘fine’. I don’t really know on what level this supports or denies my thesis. But markedly: I am only arguing against eliminative materialsm - that is the view that says that there is nothing more than the physcial.

I believe your argument in paragraph 2 is largely a pure insistance that everything can be explained in physical terms or not at all:

It is undetectable and might as well not exist

But this is a view, not a fact. And seeing as your seemingly trumpeting the eliminative line I will address my question again to you. Someone surely has to answer me sometime? (or at least furnish me with a reason as to why they don’t feel the question is worth asnwering - seeing as it seems like a pretty compelling motivation against eliminative materialism):

“I expect most economists/bankers/financers would disagree with the point about physical and mental as well”

Even a banker probably cares more about human suffering than money, when it really comes down to it (and what about care for his own mental life - should we open that kettle of fish up?). But that’s irrelevent really - my point is more to do with the general beliefs of human kind - it’s a description rather than a rule. It remains obvious that mental life holds an importance that purely physical things do not to most people in every society. Sufferring, happiness, love, evil are all afforded more weight than rocks and trees - it seems generally agreeable to say that things like suffering are somehow fundamentally more important than rocks and trees (or at the very least, that they are fundamentally different, and not different in the same way that a rock is different to a tree i.e. physically different). My inistence is for a method of accounting for this fact if you are a reductivist, on pain of simply calling it irrational or unomtivated. The reason is that it looks to me like the eliminative materialist has no choice but to say that ultimately the mental is nothing more than the physical ergo there’s no reason to prefer one over the other because they are both the same thing. Is this a necessary consequence of eliminative materialism? If so, as far as I am concerned, the theory is a failure.

[Nous]

@brevel_monkey

From what I understand about pyscology there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the mind supervenes on physical properties. That is to say - that a specific physical brain state will guarantee a specific mental state;

1. A complete survey of the physical state of the brain would reveal everything there is to know about the mental states.

Interestingly, the supervenience thesis his would seem to be wrong if anti-individualism about the mental is correct. Anti-individualism in the philosophy of mind says that the nature of some (many) mental states constitutively depends on relations (usually causal) than an individual bears to her environment. Looking at Hilary Putnam’s Twin-Earth thought experiment (if you are familiar with it) the idea would be that Twin-Oscar cannot have thoughts about water unless he is appropriately (causally) related to actual water, either directly (perceptually) or through his use of the term “water” via a chain of users at least one of whom was at some point causally connected to water.

Oscar on earth and Twin-Oscar on Twin-Earth are by hypothesis complete physical duplicates, but when Oscar says “water is wet” his thought is about water, and when Twin-Oscar says “water is wet” his thought is about the stuff on Twin-Earth whose chemical composition is XYZ (not water). Same physical state, different mental state.

[Sidhe]

@brevel_monkey

@Sidhe

I disagree with nearly everything you just said. I expect most economists/bankers/financers would disagree with the point about physical and mental as well, seeing as patently they don’t do a lot of thinking but do seem to do a lot of acquiring the physical.

Saying that the mind is more than the material is fine, it is probably like many things more than the sum of its parts, but it still doesn’t mean there is a dualist element. Dualism is superfluous to a description of mind, it is merely a god of the gaps theory to go with all the other religious theories, where there is an unknown there goes god and the soul. If that unknown is explained then it just makes the gaps smaller, but not matter how small it gets, God can always hide somewhere. The ultimate explanation will be that the soul and the material exist on different planes of existence and although they can interact they never can be perceived from the material plane. Which is fine, it’s just another religious idea to go with the bunch, but it saves us having to make things up because we lack knowledge.

Everything is energy and mass, but the soul has no mass or energy and cannot be measured within the sphere of the four forces? So how does that work? It has no energy either? It is undetectable and might as well not exist.

We can measure vacuum fluctuations by there effect on “magnetism”, the tiniest and most virtual and fleeting particles of all. But the soul we cannot. Why not? Is it because they are beyond detection size like strings. Or is it because like fairies they don’t exist.

Firstly, you would note that all I am arguing is that there is something more to the mental than the physical facts can account for. Your first paragraph seems to say that this is ‘fine’. I don’t really know on what level this supports or denies my thesis. But markedly: I am only arguing against eliminative materialsm - that is the view that says that there is nothing more than the physcial.

I believe your argument in paragraph 2 is largely a pure insistance that everything can be explained in physical terms or not at all:

It is undetectable and might as well not exist

But this is a view, not a fact. And seeing as your seemingly trumpeting the eliminative line I will address my question again to you. Someone surely has to answer me sometime? (or at least furnish me with a reason as to why they don’t feel the question is worth asnwering - seeing as it seems like a pretty compelling motivation against eliminative materialism):

“I expect most economists/bankers/financers would disagree with the point about physical and mental as well”

Even a banker probably cares more about human suffering than money, when it really comes down to it (and what about care for his own mental life - should we open that kettle of fish up?). But that’s irrelevent really - my point is more to do with the general beliefs of human kind - it’s a description rather than a rule. It remains obvious that mental life holds an importance that purely physical things do not to most people in every society. Sufferring, happiness, love, evil are all afforded more weight than rocks and trees - it seems generally agreeable to say that things like suffering are somehow fundamentally more important than rocks and trees (or at the very least, that they are fundamentally different, and not different in the same way that a rock is different to a tree i.e. physically different). My inistence is for a method of accounting for this fact if you are a reductivist, on pain of simply calling it irrational or unomtivated. The reason is that it looks to me like the eliminative materialist has no choice but to say that ultimately the mental is nothing more than the physical ergo there’s no reason to prefer one over the other because they are both the same thing. Is this a necessary consequence of eliminative materialism? If so, as far as I am concerned, the theory is a failure.

I’m not trumpeting it, so all that is a bit of a straw man, when I say there is more to the mental than pure physical I meant it. There is no doubt a whole body feedback loops, and an energy and input beyond the body that all make up the gestalt that is mind, and a philosophical level, that accounts of this. None of this needs spirit though. I’m a natural realist. Ie I believe reality can be perceived directly in as much as objective perception is all there is. There are many shades of red in fact millions, but they are similar enough to all be red. I’m not saying that we are like robots with our 1s an zeros mapping onto 1s and zeros like they do in graphics, that is not how the mind works, it works on much fuzzier conditions, that we have only just begun to understand:

1111111001100011
1100011001100110
1100011001101100
1100011001110000
1100011001111000
1100011001101100
1100011001100110
1111111001100011

You can however make someone see the number 1 by mimicking what 1 looks like and converting it into an electrical signal and then imprinting it on someone’s brain by way of an electrode, I’ve seen it done, but it’s not 1-1 mapping. it’s more optical nerve mapping.