question for the materialists

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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This is question for the materialists who believe the idea of “mind” is a fraud and there really is no such thing - not those who believe there is such a thing, but it’s really reducible, in some way we don’t yet understand (or maybe we do), to the brain.

Do you think that “mind” is just a theory invented by some philosopher like Plato or Descartes, and it’s just outdated, and in time it will be forgotten… or do you think it’s an illusion created by the brain or some related mechanism, and as we are naturally disposed to buy into this illusion, “mind” will always be with us to some degree?

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Probably some equivalent of the word “mind” had long been a useful metaphor by the time Plato got ahold of it. This is not to say the operative idea within the metaphor was precise or clear - many aren’t, especially to the unphilosophical.

What Plato did was to try to establish a connection between the mind (which must exist in some way, according to him) to knowledge - to make knowledge possible, in other words, through a metaphysic. It was the first dilligent attempt that we know of, I think. I’d have to check on the Pre-socratics to see if anything like dilligence was present in any treatment they gave the subject. In most cases, it would be difficult to know, I think.

What Descartes did was to connect it to the Christian God. He was not the first to do so - Aristotle had already been hijacked by the Thomists, for instance - but his was the strongest influence upon philosophy as we know it today.

I guess you could call it an illusion. Not one that everyone has, though.

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The mind is just a word to refer to our none physical mental process.

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They’re quite physical, actually.

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Explain?

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It could be something as simple as semantics.

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“Mind” is certainly theory to me, but moreso a concept that we can’t quite categorize much less prove. It relates to the same problem that we can’t quite categorize the “brain.” Sure, it’s the computational aspect of the body, seems to be centered in that grey matter within the skull. But nature doesn’t just create things as a set with subsets, and specific elements separately packaged. With some things we can somewhat identify thing separately, with “mind” and “brain” and “thinking” and “knowing” we end up with a broad speculative glare - having enough trouble phrasing the question properly. If the PEAR proposition holds merit, (that human thought interacts with something outside the human body) then the “brain” and the “mind” just can’t be considered as a specific point in the human body, nor necessarily as a set of thinking elements, each one designated to a specific individual. It could deal with quantum entanglement, which goes anywhere from there.

What can be said with certainty is that we can create machines that think in all practical manners like us. We can identify everything about these machines- how it processes, what its limits are, even opt to make its decisions exclusively nonrandom. For all practicality, they could eventually replace us. If we want to believe that each person has an individual mind, we have to be prepared to justify why a human being has a concsiousness irrevocably different from a futuristic PC.

*A “concsious being”? A force in the universe that thinks on a greater level than we do or understand? Certainly, why not. We evolved, so what else could? We could also exchange thoughts with it continuously. I hesitate to pin this concept as “God” Plausible.

*A human brain? Each human “working” unit normally has its own brain for practicality. We could engineer something different, and have accidental mutations which are quite different. But on the whole it’s standard for now. Fact.

*Individual minds? A mind for every person like a wrapper for every candy bar? And it does something more than complex computation? I need more proof. Implausible.

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I pretty much agree with what you said except for the end, there is no reason to talk about quantom entaglement or The PEAR besides to say; the brain is complicated and strange and so it might be related to somthing else complicated and strange. Theres absolutely no reason to suppose that these things are the case. Surely ‘mind’ is a theory (as well as a fuzzy term) but so is the sun existing or a round earth, I really can’t see any reason to accept or even entertain notions about anything but biology and whatever fields relate to a complex organ.

Computers do things, lots of things better than us, but no computer yet exists with the type of complexity or computing power of the brain, theres nothing even remotely close. Actions we take for granted, thinking processes that we take for granted are in fact supercomplicated computations, say walking up the stairs or traversing the social-world. Computers do not have that kind of capability and while i’m optimistic and know a lot about the technological curve and futurism, those who truly study the human brain claim that it might be some some some some time before we ever se anything close.

(Do we side with the people who know the most about the human brain, or who know the most about technological progress and capability?)

Hard to say.

Either way when conscious comps come along, i’ll grant them individuality even human type individuality if its based off of human adaptations (I see no reason why someone would program a robot with so much evolutionary baggage) but yeah.

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My official position: I’m not a materialist, but I think the more sensible position is the “mind-is-illusion” one (as opposed to “mind-is-theory”). Of course, mind is a theory - the word refers to a mental construct and we theorize about it - but how I know I have one is by my direct contact with my subjective experiences. I’ve had these since birth. Not that I can recall that far back, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption that we have these experiences before we ever start “theorizing”. Whether these experiences are real or just illusions is a matter for another thread.

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It is really a matter of using the razor. It isn’t that materialism can be proven to be the true philosophy, but that the alternative would be much harder to conceive, understand, and accept.

If we assume that reality is a creation of the “mind” and depends on the mind to exist (and we can do that because that’s philosophy), we have far more difficult problems to solve and questions to answer…then had we just assumed materialism was true.

What happens to the world when you die? Does it disappear? What would happen if you were standing beside me and suddenly fell over dead? Would that tree that was next to us still be there, visible to me? If so, how was it dependent on your mind to exist if clearly I still see it?

I try to avoid this stuff because the next thing you know, we are asking questions like: “dude, are we being dreamed by God?”, or, “are we all part of the infinite consciousness?”, or, “when you die, will you continue to live in a parallel universe?”

Nonetheless I use the razor. Why shouldn’t I? What have I got to lose by being a stone cold skeptic?

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Here’s what I like to do with idealists who like to want to think that “life goes on” somewhere else after we die. We will cut to the chase.

Describe this “next life” as you believe it would be. Would you suggest that you would be “conscious”, with a “body”, with sense organs…what?

If so, what could possibly be much different than this life? Would you even notice a difference? Would you be like “yeah, I just got here. I died on earth and somehow ended up here. I don’t remember much of it, but I know this place is supposed to be a reward for good behavior on earth.”

How dross.

Assume for a moment that in the next life, if you are “good” (whatever that means) you will experience an increased amount of pleasure and success. But what would this entail? What exactly would the extent of experiencing a “better” life than the last one, mean, wherever you are in the next life?

As I probe you with these questions, you put yourself there. Now you are contemplating the idea clearly. It means little to say that the “next life” is like this one, and even less to say that it isn’t.

If, as I asked above, you are situated in a “body” of some sort, or at least “conscious” of “things”, it cannot be too different from this experience of consciousness now while living. On the other hand, if the next life does not resemble this life mechanically, we cannot speculate what the experience would be like…since we cannot imagine experience happening without sensory awareness and “consciousness”.

I haven’t a clue what a disembodied “spirit” would be like, or do, or where it would be, or what would be around it.

Once you examine the possibility and set out a few reasonable hypotheticals about the “next life”, you can see that it doesn’t pan out right. Inevitably we arrive at boredom and quietism in philosophy. The mystique is gone from all the old platonic philosophies.

I prefer to enact a typical “next life” scenario and, in the least, prove that it is either boring, silly and absurd like this one, or so completely different that one could not possibly speculate on it in the first place.

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I think you’ve taken a simple concept and unnecessarily dragged in a whole bunch of its baggage with it. Unless you’re actually talking about idealism itself, the more general belief in mind could have a number of implications depending on the idiosyncrasies and background of the mind-theory in question. Lots of materialists believe in mind - they’re the reductive sort - you know, the mind is the brain in some way we may or may not understand. Others are epiphenomenalists - they believe the brain produces the mind, but not necessarily that it can go on after the body dies.

Then there’s me who believes in my own mind because I can feel it, and define it essential on this feel. I don’t consider this speculation, I consider it bona fide verification - private as it may be. You bring up occam’s razor, and it works fine when all else is equal - that is, when two views are up for consideration, and the evidence weighs in equally on both sides - then, the simpler of the two wins out. But I claim I have my own evidence for my own inner experiences - again, private as this evidence may be - and therefore, for me this evidence takes precedence over occam’s razor.

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Not to make excessive hypothesis. The more theory you create…the greater the chances that you make a mistake.

The alternative to materialism is a far more difficult position to defend honestly because it is laden with metaphysical hypotheses and theory.

I don’t understand your insistence that this “private” experience you had is not possible for other people, who would, in turn, call that proof enough for the existence of mind. The problem with solipsism is that it is happening to everyone…and is therefore not private.

Could it be that everyone has such an experience and only interprets it wrong?

I believe epiphenomenalism is the most accurate theory of mind. Mind is a contingency of the body and has no reciprocal effect on the body- “thoughts” do not affect the world, and they stop happening when the body no longer involves the contingent circumstances to produce them. The body has to be in a specific state in order to produce “mind”. Death is the point where the body disintegrates such circumstances. It is still material, of course, but its internal activity has ceased.

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Sorry, I must have given off the wrong impression. I’m not a solipsist. When I say my experiences are my own private evidence, I’m speaking from the lessons I’ve learnt from debating this point with those who like to deny the existence of mind. These debate always turn out the same: the best I can do is claim that I have a mind, but for those who prefer to deny the existence of mind, I can’t prove to them that I have a mind, nor can I prove that they have a mind. Therefore, I’ve learnt that this evidence is not public.

I still think it’s absurd to suppose that some are pzombies, but this is just my gut intuition and an implication of my beliefs. I’m confident that most people are willing to acknowledge their own mind, recognizing it as the grounds upon which to make the same claim as me - that they too have minds - and therefore we can use this agreement as a starting point to philosophize further on the nature of mind and experience. But this is a futile effort when it comes to radical materialists.

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I don’t think there is any “evidence”. Instead, you and your friends are misusing terms or complicating the issue because materialism simply isn’t fun.

When people say “mind” and then set out to define it, they are talking about it as if it is an ontological category in itself. It cannot be. It is a contingency of the material body.

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Not all attempts to define something necessarily means it belongs to an ontological category. For example, we all have a rudimentary definition of “reality” (otherwise, we’d respond to the utterance of the word with “reality? what’s that?”), but what ontological category does reality belong to? It’s not a thing in existence, it is existence. I don’t think of mind as a thing in existence either, I think of it as the basis upon which we define existence. It is tricky to remember not to fall down the slippery slope of “objectification” as I call it. We do have a tendency to objectify - that is, treat as external and independent objects - all our concepts and definitions. I think this was Plato’s mistake.

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Mind can’t be an illusion because it’s in the mind that an illusion exists. So if the mind didn’t exist illusion would have no meaning. Or if it’s in the “brain” that the illusion exists then it’s only insofar as mind, in which the illusion must exist (because illusion is a mental phenomenon by definition), is assumed to be an abstraction of brain, and abstractions aren’t illusions. And even if they were the mind x of brain x wouldn’t be an abstraction made by brain/mind x anyway, it would simply be its behaviour, or an abstraction to an outside observer. Or if mind were a process of abstraction the brain makes that creates awareness of thought (mind being awareness of thought) then that’s merely the nature of mind, not a refutation of it. In other words… what else would mind be assumed to be, and why? I.e., if mind were something other than our experience of it, we’d never know of it or have a reason to come up with the concept. And the meaning of a word is how it’s used anyway. So either way mind can’t be illusion. But don’t expect the materialists to understand that. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think it is a idealistic simplistic theory created by others however I can’t agreeably call it a illusion since if we call the mind an illusion we must then call all of reality one too.

I strictly believe there is no thing-in-itself and that there is no ghost in the machine.

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What I am trying to say is that only a physical body remains apparent as there exists no evidence of a soul.

Can you agree with that statement?

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We could state that the brain is a simulation creator though and that what we see is a useful simulation of the ‘real world’. I mean, we don’t see wave-lengths at the microscopic level, we don’t see certain solid objects as mostly empty space.

this doesn’t mean its an inaccurate simulation though.