Re: Criticism of philosophical materialism (and a comment on someone2)

On May 3, 1:43 pm, urthogie <urtho...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 3, 1:14 pm, noctiluca <robertlc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On May 3, 9:03 am, urthogie <urtho...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>


A phenomenon of this universe, derived from this material universe's
physics, need not be composed of particles to be considered material.
There are waves, there is energy, there are emergent phenomena (which,
I suspect, will eventually reduce as do all other phenomena). This was
my point from an earlier response. Something need not be "particular"
for it to be material, and natural, and of this universe.

The activity in the brain is composed of balanced reactions, both
chemical and physical. To suggest that consciousness is a wave or a
particle is to contradict physics, which says that something cannot
come from nothing. (First law of thermodynamics).

This does not follow. What is the "something"? Why would it come from
nothing, if the brain activity is its own hardwiring interacting with
input? Our consciousness is the pattern of brain activity developed by
hundreds of millions of years of natural selection choosing brains
that are more flexible in moving thru the environment, making
decisions to eat, flee, compete, and court. Thinking is no more
something from nothing than chewing food is.


2.It can be observed by the possessor, but not by others.

It cannot be directly experienced by others, but it can be observed.
And I see no reason why such observations (e.g. scans of brain states)
should be considered any less valid a picture of a phenomenon than
infra-red photos of black holes at the center of distant galaxies.

False-- you cannot know if someone else is conscious. You can only
use induction to assume that they are because you are, and you have a
similarly structured brain.

Correct. But every synthetic statement is an induction of sorts, and
acting on the assumption that others are conscious (to a degree...)
has served me well for over half a century.

Even if an invisibile cloud of
"consciousness" gas appeared around every brain, this would not be
evidence of consciousness. It would be evidence that brains create
gasses.

We'd probably just call it brain gas, then :)


3. A reductive account of it would fail. We know this because we
can't describe it despite having it.

This seems presumptive to me. Why not accept that our ability to
describe this phenomenon is at present limited by our tools of
description, as are all potential descriptions of any natural
phenomena? In other words, we can describe it to the best of our
current understanding. Lack of understanding doesn't support reductive
impossibility, and I don't think you would accept that line of
argument if applied to other empirical fields.

Sounds an awful lot like linguistic determinism to me. The idea that
we are extremely limited by our language has been very much disproven
by modern psychology.

I agree that our language is probably more limited by our psychology
than the other way 'round. But there are many things that we did not
understand at all, and now we understand them somewhat, some very well
indeed. They have all turned out to be natural in nature. Material, if
you will. Nothing has yet been found to be outside nature, or free of
the laws of physics.




4. Philosophically, those who argue for consciousness being material
are unable to provide a solid account of how it could be studied, even
if they had access to any made up technology their hearts desired. In
other words, despite their already having a theory that they want to
be true, they have no idea how their theory could ever be proven
valid. In other words, they have faith in philosophical materialism.

Anyone who ascribes to philosophical materialism may be said to be
advancing an "ought" position, and thus be taking something on faith.
But that observation doesn't apply here. In this case we have
individuals accepting that materialist methodology is the most likely
process to produce empirical understanding - of consciousness. The
approach is the same as it would be for trying to understand the
origins of life, and is no more a faith proposition than that such
research will eventually produce a natural explanation. We assume
natural cause and effect because that's how science works.

Assuming you can apply materialist methodologies to everything is
philosophical materialism. I have argued the case here that the more
empirical and logical position to take here is that consciousness is
immaterial.

Only in the sense that a dance is. A dance can be remembered,
recorded, described, taught, and performed. It doesn't weigh anything,
and cannot be put in a box. It is the movement of a human body.
Consciousness is the dance of chemicals in functioning brain. That
doesn't mean that it's free of physics or outside material law. Like
society at large, it is the movement and position and relationship of
its elements.

But should materialists consider dancing mysterious?


I don't "want it [a material explanation of consciousness] to be true"
any more than I *want* abiogenesis to be true. In contrast, however,
your argument depends upon the assumption that consciousness is
something more than material. But if the materialist perspective is
correct, and I again suggest that this is the reasonable default
position, then when we are studying those (admittedly complex and
reticulated) physical processes that occur during cognition we *are*
studying consciousness itself. There is no need or warrant, apart from
the *wants* of those who suggest it, to posit a dualism.

Abiogenesis is getting more evidence every year. Consciousness being
material remains at zero evidence.

No, research continues apace. Mostly it is focused on smaller parts of
this puzzle. I expect in time it will become clear.
1. There is no reason to believe it will never be explicable.
2. Even if this were true (how would we know?), there is no reason to
believe it is therefore immaterial.

Secondly, its possible to conceive
of a factual account of abiogenesis emerging from scientific
research. It is not possible to offer such an account for
consciousness.

If you had asked a 16th century thinker to imagine the tools necessary
for establishing the transformation of one species into another, he
might be hard pressed. And yet his great^20-granddaughter is using
them for that very purpose.

Unlike you, I am not willing to assert that this generation's
limitations are permanent.

Lastly, abiogenesis is just like most difficulty
problems-- it is easy compared to the hard problem of consciousness.
Even the "easy" problem of consciousness is harder than developing a
theory of abiogenesis.

Some problems are harder than others, yes.


Our personal intuition that the self is something separate is an
illusion. We are all willing to accept that intuition can lead us
astray in so many circumstances of inquiry, yet somehow when it comes
to the subject of consciousness that discipline goes out the window.

*Who* or *what* is being lied to by the brain, exactly? This is a
contradictory statement. If its possible to be lied to by the brain,
subjective experience exists. (I'm assuming here that by "self" you
mean subjective experience. You are correct if you're merely pointing
out that the brain deludes us into thinking of our bodies as part of
us, but of course this doesn't challenge my point about subejctive
experience).

The brain activity of one person is perceived by the activity of
another brain, which may ur may not realize it is being lied to. This
is not informative.


I think the material pursuit of consciousness will be fruitless for
the reasons I've discussed here, and I don't think need repeating.

I agree. Unsupported assertions are not more persuasive for
repetition.

If
you can challenge the reasons I've provided, and show that they are
invalid, then you will be correct in saying that I don't have
"discipline" or patience in regards to the study of consciousness.

This subject was being studied 150 years ago:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Consciousness.html

Commissurotomy patients have shed light on the nature of consciousness
for fifty years:
http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/Split_Brain/Split_Brain_Consciousness.html

Here's somebody's paper:
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/searle.prob.html

For your amusement:
"This is a directory of 2573 online papers on consciousness and
related topics."
http://consc.net/online.html


5. Points 1-4 must be significant issues because we know consciousness
exists.

Significant is not equivalent with correct.

True, but this was addressed at some people who were actually denying
the existence of subjective experience. Read through this thread and
you'll see a couple of them.

My view, though, is
that it is more likely that consciousness is immaterial. How did I
come to this view?:

Again, I'm not entirely sure how you are using "immaterial."

Meaning its not part of the same physical plane on which the brain
resides, ruled by our universe's physics.

Can you explain to me how I am to distinguish this from an inference
to magic?

"Magic" in the fairy tale sense has some effect on the physical world,
and can therefore be either falsified or reduced through
methodological naturalism.

How would your ideas be falsified? You seem to be saying that magic is
more easily studied scientifically than your claims.


"I came to this decision by the observation that we have
consciousness, that emerges from a physical brain without leaving any
physical traces of itself, that we can't even reduce even the most
basic conscious experience into reductive, scientific terms, and that
we can't even conceive of a workable experiment whereby *anything*
about consciousness could be revealed, let alone reported."

This is a statement of incredulity. Even if it were substantially true
(and I don't think it is, e.g., "a physical brain without leaving any
physical traces of itself," and "we can't even conceive of a workable
experiment whereby *anything* about consciousness could be revealed"
are, respectively, unevidenced and incorrect) it would simply stand as
a description of an empirical field of inquiry in its infancy.

it's deceptive to call this a field in its infancy. As a scientific
field producing objective evidence, it is nonexistent.

This is simply not true.

Actually, it is true. If it isn't true, I've been lied to by a lot of
evolutionary psychologists, philosophers of mind, and neuroscientists.

In a sense, all science is in its infancy. Do not use a scientist's
lament that we don't know as much as he would like to justify claims
that we know nothing. My link above shows that this was being
investigated scientifically 150 years ago. We didn't have very good
tools for it, though.


In addition, I
provided reasons why it could never be a scientific field.

Now who is making statements of faith?

If you provide logical reasons why something can't be a scientific
field, then you're making an argument based on reason, not faith.

But all you've offered are assertions.
It is *not true that it is not being studied.
You have asserted without support that we know nothing about it.
It does not follow that even if we knew nothing, we could never know
anything about it.

I would accept that it is immaterial, in the same sense that a
sentence is. How much does a sentence weigh? Does the laws of physics
limit it? This does not imply that sentences are mysterious, or beyond
physics. or some such. I might accept that they are not subject to
reductionism; I am inclined to think that way myself. There is a realm
of organization in which sentences are best understood, and it's not
physics. But that doesn't make them otherworldly.


Incredulity is a valid position if you back it up with reasons why you
are incredulous.

There are always valid reasons for being incredulous. There are just
no valid reasons for accepting incredulity as an argument against
natural epistemology.

I believe my argument is valid because I think adequatly addressed
criticisms that attempt to undermine it. I don't think I can be
accused of circular logic or any such trickery, either.


You jump to conclusion without, I think sufficient cause.

Kermit

.

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