i want to make a poll

  On 3/1/2010 at 2:01 AM, Hoodie said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 12:47 AM, the anonymous forumite said:

Dualism, by default. Materialists should read the knowledge argument, by Frank Jackson, and get back to me with apologies.

 

apparently, even frank jackson admitted the flaws to his argument, according to wiki.

 

so i am thoroughly unconvinced.

Yeah, so Frank Jackson came up with the knowledge argument, and then it was refuted a number of different ways. And then he converted to Materialism.

But then Kripke's modal argument for dualism convinced a lot of people to switch to dualism. So Jackson's switch one way coincided with a very big switch the other way.

I think Kripke's argument is bunk, but I refuse to take a stand either way about materialism because I still don't know what the distinction is supposed to be.

  On 3/1/2010 at 2:16 AM, Root5 said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 2:01 AM, Hoodie said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 12:47 AM, the anonymous forumite said:

Dualism, by default. Materialists should read the knowledge argument, by Frank Jackson, and get back to me with apologies.

 

apparently, even frank jackson admitted the flaws to his argument, according to wiki.

 

so i am thoroughly unconvinced.

 

Yeah, so Frank Jackson came up with the knowledge argument, and then it was refuted a number of different ways. And then he converted to Materialism.

 

But then Kripke's modal argument for dualism convinced a lot of people to switch to dualism. So Jackson's switch one way coincided with a very big switch the other way.

 

I think Kripke's argument is bunk, but I refuse to take a stand either way about materialism because I still don't know what the distinction is supposed to be.

i never took a class in philosophy or anything, so can you direct me to something about this "modal argument" of Kripke's or explain it to me? i looked it up and i just got a lot of papers about god in the search results.

What are the flaws of Jackson's argument ? How could the knowledge argument be definitely refuted ? Because both positions are kinda speculative.

Well, it's basically a revised version of Descartes' conceivability argument.

It goes like this: Some words are rigid designators, which means they refer to the same thing (the same stuff) in every possible world (you don't need to think of possible worlds as literal worlds. They are just like imagined counter factuals. Like, imagine if your screen name was Huudie, instead of Hoodie. You can imagine it, so there is a world for it).

Now, he claims that 'pain' is a rigid designator that refers to the feeling of pain.

He claims that a scientific state, like C-Fibers firing or ceremocortical oscillation (two theories of what pain is) are also rigid designators that refer to the material states or functional states or something like that.

No he claims that if pain=C-Fibers firing, then that identity must hold in every possible world, because identities between rigid designators are necessary, not contingent. However, it is possible to imagine having C-Fibers firing, and not feel any pain.

So basically he's saying that, since we can imagine feeling pain without having C-Fibers firing (or whatever), then that means pain actually is not the same thing as C-Fibers firing.

  On 3/1/2010 at 2:54 AM, the anonymous forumite said:

What are the flaws of Jackson's argument ? How could the knowledge argument be definitely refuted ? Because both positions are kinda speculative.

Basically it goes like this:

Imagine you are lost in a city, and you want to go to the bus station. You happen to know that the bus station is 100 meters north of your location. You also know which way north is, in that you know that it is the direction that points to the north pole. However, you do not know which way north is in the sense that you can point to it. You know all the relevant facts, but you do not know how to get to the supermarket until somebody points north, or points to the supermarket.

This is because it is not enough to know all the facts, you also need to know how they relate to you.

Imagine you know every fact about where everything is on the planet. Every single fact. You won't be able to find your way anywhere unless you have an indexical statement. You have to know more than "X is 100 meters north of me and north is the direction that points to the north pole". You have to also know that north is "that" way. (that is an indexical)

So, similarly, you can't know what it feels like to see red, even if you know every fact about it (physical or non-physical. If the knowledge argument works, it should work for every fact, not just every physical fact). You also have to know that red is "that' colour. The only way to teach someone a direction is to point, the only way to teach someone a colour is to point it out.

(David Louis had a different refutation. He thought that Mary would just build a computer and hook it up to her brain to determine what red looks like)

(PS: that wasn't very clear. Sorry. But, if you are interested, try that book by John Perry I recommended. It has cool refutations of the knowledge argument, the zombie argument and the modal argument, and it is written clearly and is easy to understand.)

*jots it down* cheers Root5

Global supervenience ftw!

  On 3/1/2010 at 3:05 AM, Root5 said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 2:54 AM, the anonymous forumite said:

What are the flaws of Jackson's argument ? How could the knowledge argument be definitely refuted ? Because both positions are kinda speculative.

 

 

So, similarly, you can't know what it feels like to see red, even if you know every fact about it (physical or non-physical. If the knowledge argument works, it should work for every fact, not just every physical fact). You also have to know that red is "that' colour. The only way to teach someone a direction is to point, the only way to teach someone a colour is to point it out.

 

 

Yes, but doesn't the fact that you can't know what it feels like to see red even if you know every physical fact about red entails that there is something more to it than physical facts ?

And the indexicality you mention in this case would be more an argument for qualia rather than pure physical events, wouldn't it ?

From a quick read, I got the sense that Perry's argument is that you don't learn a new fact, but learn the same fact through a new means or 'mode of presentation.' So on his view, the fact is still of the same nature -- a fact about the physical state of something -- but it is learned through the first-person point of view of sensation, rather than through the testimony of someone else's description or a map's visual depiction or something.

I don't know what to think about this!

Although I would say that even if materialism (as defined in this thread) is true, that doesn't really make any difference to how I live. I will still act as if there exist people, with character and the ability to responsibly choose their actions. In other words, I don't think this debate should be taken to have any serious ethical implications -- just as it doesn't stop me from getting turned on to learn that Scarlett Johannsen's boobies are just made out of pixels.

what it "feels like" to see red? i think we're getting lost in semantics. there is plenty of neuroscience that explains how our eyes tell our brain what color we're seeing. if we could tap into the brain and send exactly the same signal that the eye sends to the brain when seeing red, we would "see" red. this is simply because our eyes are sending information about the wavelength of a certain object.

someone describing everything about red means nothing to your brain because your brain doesn't work using any language that isn't a vast electrical network of neurons.

Encey, who's Perry ?

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:28 PM, theSun said:

what it "feels like" to see red? i think we're getting lost in semantics. there is plenty of neuroscience that explains how our eyes tell our brain what color we're seeing. if we could tap into the brain and send exactly the same signal that the eye sends to the brain when seeing red, we would "see" red. this is simply because our eyes are sending information about the wavelength of a certain object.

 

someone describing everything about red means nothing to your brain because your brain doesn't work using any language that isn't a vast electrical network of neurons.

We're not talking about what is it to see red but what it feels like to see red, just as what it feels like to smell a rose or to taste chocolate. We're talking about phenomenal properties that can't be explained in terms of neuronal activity.

i dont think this guy is perry anymore, he seems a bit more intelligent.

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:32 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:28 PM, theSun said:

what it "feels like" to see red? i think we're getting lost in semantics. there is plenty of neuroscience that explains how our eyes tell our brain what color we're seeing. if we could tap into the brain and send exactly the same signal that the eye sends to the brain when seeing red, we would "see" red. this is simply because our eyes are sending information about the wavelength of a certain object.

 

someone describing everything about red means nothing to your brain because your brain doesn't work using any language that isn't a vast electrical network of neurons.

 

We're not talking about what is it to see red but what it feels like to see red, just as what it feels like to smell a rose or to taste chocolate. We're talking about phenomenal properties that can't be explained in terms of neuronal activity.

they can't be explicitly explained right now in neuroscience, but i would wager that will change in 50 years. smelling a rose or tasting chocolate, you are projecting what you have learned in your society, it doesn't mean anything about how your brain is actually perceiving and thinking about things. of course chocolate tastes good, it's sweet and creamy and everyone ate candybars as a kid, roses mean romantic, where people are usually in love and happy. if what it "feels like" to smell a rose or taste chocolate is entirely dependent on how our society views these things, that just means that what it "feels like" to do these things is to be aware how you're supposed to "feel" and project that. i see nothing that would imply any sort of non-physical action.

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:20 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

And the indexicality you mention in this case would be more an argument for qualia rather than pure physical events, wouldn't it ?

oh, that Perry. Well, no. What a strange idea.

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:40 PM, theSun said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:32 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:28 PM, theSun said:

what it "feels like" to see red? i think we're getting lost in semantics. there is plenty of neuroscience that explains how our eyes tell our brain what color we're seeing. if we could tap into the brain and send exactly the same signal that the eye sends to the brain when seeing red, we would "see" red. this is simply because our eyes are sending information about the wavelength of a certain object.

 

someone describing everything about red means nothing to your brain because your brain doesn't work using any language that isn't a vast electrical network of neurons.

 

We're not talking about what is it to see red but what it feels like to see red, just as what it feels like to smell a rose or to taste chocolate. We're talking about phenomenal properties that can't be explained in terms of neuronal activity.

 

they can't be explicitly explained right now in neuroscience, but i would wager that will change in 50 years. smelling a rose or tasting chocolate, you are projecting what you have learned in your society, it doesn't mean anything about how your brain is actually perceiving and thinking about things. of course chocolate tastes good, it's sweet and creamy and everyone ate candybars as a kid, roses mean romantic, where people are usually in love and happy. if what it "feels like" to smell a rose or taste chocolate is entirely dependent on how our society views these things, that just means that what it "feels like" to do these things is to be aware how you're supposed to "feel" and project that. i see nothing that would imply any sort of non-physical action.

No, what I'm talking about can't be defined/explained (understood) by words, it's that something that makes it an experience to do something like tasting chocolate or having sex. Imagine trying to describe to a blind man what it feels like to see, even if you explain every physical, neurological fact to him on what it is to see, he won't understand until he sees. Explain to him what is colour, he's never gonna understand it as we do.

just because his eyes are broken, doesn't mean that his brain can't receive visual info, just that it doesn't.

it's like if your camera lens is shattered, making it impossible to see anything but a mess of shit when you take a picture. sensory input is lost, but the information and functionality is still the same inside. if you could feed a blind mans brain the right information, he would be able to "see" just as we do. any emotional response to the physical information is based entirely on instincts (sweet taste = good) or the society (roses = sexytimes).

Root 5, where are you ?

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:28 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

Encey, who's Perry ?

John Perry, who was mentioned earlier in this thread. Here's a review of the book that was mentioned.

  On 3/1/2010 at 4:57 PM, theSun said:

just because his eyes are broken, doesn't mean that his brain can't receive visual info, just that it doesn't.

 

it's like if your camera lens is shattered, making it impossible to see anything but a mess of shit when you take a picture. sensory input is lost, but the information and functionality is still the same inside. if you could feed a blind mans brain the right information, he would be able to "see" just as we do. any emotional response to the physical information is based entirely on instincts (sweet taste = good) or the society (roses = sexytimes).

But until the blind man gets that information, he has no idea what it is like to see red.

Also, it's disputed that the information our eyes are sending our brain is about the light's wavelength -- for there can be different combinations of wavelengths of light that end up looking the same color to us. (metamers)

Also, all of your arguments that all our experience and knowledge is 'just brain information' depend on your faith that we will be able to 'decode' our neural activity in order to figure out what it 'mean's or 'represents' -- but we haven't done so yet. So that does not compel me to believe your arguments right now.

just because some people are lacking in sensory experience (blind, deaf) doesn't suggest that there is something 'else' going on.

i'm not entirely convinced of my own philosophy, but i have never seen anything to suggest that we aren't purely the result of circumstantial physical actions. so i guess time will tell if we can ever really 'decode' the brain.

a book that sums up this stuff concisely is Matter and Consciousness by Paul Churchland. some of the experiments (and the whole AI section) are a little dated but most of it has held up in the 20 years or so since it was written.

I'm here anonymous forumnite. I don't think you understood what I was saying, but that makes sense, because I probably wasn't explaining it very well.

Basically, Perry says that the Knowledge Argument does not show that there is anything about the physical non-physical distinction (to be clear, I do not know what this distinction is, but Perry thinks he does). It has to do with whether the content of a sentence has to do with reflexive content at all.

So, if you know all the facts about red, but you don't know them in a reflexive way (i.e. how they pertain to you REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU ARE PHYSICAL OR NON-PHYSICAL) then you won't know what it feels like to see red. But if you know about red in a reflexive way (I.E, you know that THAT colour that you are looking at is red) then you will know what it is like, regardless of whether dualism or materialism is true.

So basically, the if the knowledge argument were true, it would be equally a problem for dualism. But it isn't true for either, because you can know things in reflexive or non-reflexive ways.

Root5 -- I can see your apprehension about the physical/non-physical distinction, because to me at least, it opens up so many complicated issues about explanation, realism and ontological commitment that I know so little about.

I at least believe that one way to mark the distinction is to say that physical entities are those that make sense and are truly described using the concepts and principles (or laws) of physical theory (e.g., mass, force, space, time, Newtonian mechanics or relativity -- I don't really know what physics uses these days, lol); whereas non-physical entities would be entities that make sense and are truly described using concepts and principles derived from some other theory. This leaves the latter wide open; we might think that 'other theory' is folk psychology (so, people's minds are intelligible and truly described using the everyday concepts of belief, desire, intention, etc.), or one might think that it's Kantian (although this would not fit with my description of 'non-physical,' since Kant would deny that we have any concepts we could use to truly describe our noumenal moral personality ... ). But I have no idea how to argue that a description of entities using non-physical concepts is true, because I don't have a well-thought-out view about what explanation consists in.

Just bs-ing out loud ...

Hey all, this is the other half of TheSun.

I have to say that I believe that nature is both material and "spiritual." I think all things are comprised of matter, but that there is much more than meets the eye. Everything is intrinsically connected to nature and we, as humans, are just another product of nature and have a profound connection to it.

Let me share with you an excerpt from the book I am currently reading, "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra about this whole sprit/matter dualism that we seem to be facing at this present moment in time:

"The birth of modern science was preceded and accompanied by a development of philosophical thought which led to an extreme formulation of the spirit/matter dualism. This formulation appeared in the seventeenth century in the philosophy of Rene Descartes who based his view of nature on a fundamental into two separate individual realms; that of the mind, and that of matter. That 'Cartesian' division allowed scientists to treat matter as dead and completely separate from themselves, and to see the material world as a multitude of different objects assembled into a huge machine."

"As a consequence of the Cartesian division, most individuals are aware of themselves as isolated egos existing 'inside' their bodies. The mind has the futile task of controlling it, thus causing an apparent conflict between the conscious will and the involuntary instincts. Each individual has been split up further into a large number of separate compartments, according to his or her activities, talents, feelings, beliefs, etc., which are engaged in endless conflicts generating metaphysical confusion and frustration."

"This inner fragmentation mirrors our view of the world 'outside' which is seen as a multitude of separate objects and events. The natural environment is treated as if it consisted of separate parts to be exploited by different interest groups. The belief that all these fragments--in ourselves, in our environment and in our society--are really separate can be seen as the essential reason for the present series of social, ecological, and cultural crises. It has alienated us from nature and from our fellow human beings. It has brought a grossly unjust distribution of natural resources creating both economic and political disorder; and ever rising wave of violence, both spontaneous and institutionalized, and an ugly, polluted environment in which life has often become physically and mentally unhealthy."

This is not to say however, that this division is all bad. The Cartesian division and this mechanistic world view has been beneficial and detrimental at the same time. Beneficial in that it was extremely successful in the development of classical physics and technology, but detrimental in that the process is one of alienation from nature.

But you basically just said that physical stuff is whatever physicists talk about. But this leads to a dilemma.

Is the physical whatever physicists are talking about today, or that physicists will talk about in the future? If it is stuff they are talking about today, how are you certain they are right? If it is in the future, how do you know what that is?

Basically in science people take data and create models to predict stuff about it. Are you saying that anything that can be modeled is physical? I've heard that as being a theory for the physical/non-physical distinction.

But really, I think people just say "physical" in different situations to make different distinctions. Like, "I'm not downloading that album, I'm going to get a physical copy". Obviously the download can be modeled by physicists. But you still understand what I mean. Or "I can't physically lift that much weight". I don't know what non-physical lifting means, but I don't have to to make sense of that sentence. In that case, it just means it isn't in my capacity to lift that much.

Edit: That was directed at encey