Re: Science, God, and Free Will

On Nov 14, 4:25 am, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 13 Nov, 15:17, part...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Sorry for the late answer. I'm pretty busy, and have internet access
about once of twise a week.

So you seem to abandon Emergent Materialism in favour of the Identity
Theory.

I'm not very versed in the subtleties of the various theories of
phylosophy of mind.
It seems to me that the differences here are mostly semantic, but I
can't tell for sure.

Emergent Materialism asserts that the mind is irreducible (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_materialism). Non-Emergennt Materialism
asserts that it is reducible. Identity Theory asserts that there is a
clear correlation between mind states and brain states (and that's
it's also an identity). Eliminativism, for example, doesn't accept
this assertion - had there been such a correlation, there was no need
to eliminate the mentalic terms, because they could be identified with
brain states, even if these terms resulted frmo folk psychology or
such. If someone proves that there's no such a correlation, IT would
be refuted, but not Eliminativism. I understand these differences
aren't only semantic.

Materialism doesn't have a convincing answer to the mind problem.
The usual strategy in such cases seems to be, to invent many non-
convincing answers.

I had a few points against the possibility of Identity Theory
(or materialism in general) to explain things - posted in this thread,
post no. 106, at Oct 11 ( It think). I see the 'a priori conflict' in
the IT's inability to explain the mind's functions.

Please reference to posts using a message-id or a google groups link.
I can't find the post you mention.

Of course, I would have done it, had I known how. I'll paste it
below.

It's just an application of the Occam's razor: since we have no
empirical reason to postulate the esistence of a mind made of a non-
material substance, we should assume that the mind is material.

The razor could be apllied in other ways as well. When we start
looking on the mind-body problem, with no prejudices (if it's
possible), we note that the mind functions seem to have no connection
to physics - they have no apparent relation to space or time
(psychological time isn't identical to physical time), or mass, the
conservation laws of physics aren't applicable to psychological
entities, etc. The razor could argue that 'what looks different, is
different'.

I thought I had already addressed this point with the computer process
counter-example.

It was about the possibility. Now it's about the simplicity. Not
every possible scheme is the simplest.

I'll try to extend:

If you play a videogame, the objects you see on the screen usually
doesn't seem to behave according to the laws of real-world physics,
but rather they seem to behave according to the simulated game physics
which could be quite different from the real one.
Does that mean that the computer running the game actually violates
the laws of physics? Of course not, the behavior of those objects can
ultimately be reduced to the interaction of matter inside the computer
happening according to the laws of physics.

Now, videogames are usually more or less accurate simulation of the
physical world, thus while their objects don't appear to strictly
follow (from the user point of view) the laws of physics, they usually
follow laws that approximate them. For instance the characters in a
videogame usually have a position, a velocity, etc.
But when you run other programs the similarity of the computer objects
with real-world mechanical objects becomes even less.
What is the mass of this post, for instance? Where is it located? What
is its velocity, momentum or kinetic energy?

Even somebody who doesn't know anything about computer hardware and
software can easly conclude that the fact that the thing we perceive
an usernet post doesn't have mechanical properties doesn't mean that
that entity doesn't result form the physical, ultimately mechanical,
behavior of the parts of the complex system.

Of course it doesn't mean so. The player can think of all the
possibilities, realizing they're all possible. And then they'll choose
the simplest, if no one can be proved. If they think that simplicity
is defined by 'what I see, is what there is', they'll end up Dualists.
If they think simplicity is defined by minimal substances, as seems
the case with you, they'll have Materialism vs. Idelism. Again, if
nothing can be proved / refuted.

This is, in fact, the correct default hypothesis to hold even if one
lacks knowledge about how computers and the internet work.
If one instead claimed that usernet posts are immaterial entities, the
internet is an immaterial spiritual world and computers are interfaces
between the material world and the spiritual world of internet, he or
she would commit the "god of the gaps" fallacy.

Fallacy or not, it's stil simpler than to assume a complicated
hardware & software (depends on simplicity's definition, again). And
it's a fallacy only if they take it for a fact - we're now speaking of
someone who knows they can prove nothing, and is just wondering which
is the simplest.

The Occam's razor in this situation mandates us to accept the simplest
hypothesis (usernet posts are emergent entities arising from the
interactions of the parts of a complex physical system) rather than
othe one (usernet posts are spiritual, immaterial, not reducible to
physical interactions).

Again, even if Materialism has presented a consisted world view (at
least, except for the mind problem), it doesn't mean it's the
simplest. Idealism has done the same, and is always simpler than
Materialism, for the reason I stated. The razor can never argue for
Materialism (only that, if we WANT to accpet Materialism, beccause
it's the most comfortable theory for an atheist, then the razor could
select the simplest Materialistinc theory).

If you think the razor must apply to the assumptions, i.e. that we
should accept the system with the least assumed substances, then
indeed Monism should be preferred. But then, we have (basically)
materialism and idealism to choose from. Now we note that knowledge of
psychological entities is available to us directly, while knowledge of
the physical world is only available through the senses and
perception, and thus, relies on more assumptions - that the perception
really reflects the worlds as it is, that there're no illusions etc.
(indeed some phylosophies have rejected these assumptions). So if we
talk on simplicity and the razor, there's no reason we should get to
materialism.

The only assumptions that are required are the same required for any
other scientific question.


I think it's a mistake to mix philosophy and science, or investigate
philosophy in scientific tools (or vice versa).




The 'no prejudices' thing is hard, since babies learn to rely on their
perception before their mind is developed enough. That's because they
develope earlier.

I
find this assumption highly counter-intuitive, as they seem so
different from all the usual material behaviour we encounter.

Why do you think it's so different than, for instance, the hardware
and software of a computer?
Human minds reach a much higher performance than computers on many
tasks, but this doesn't mean that they are fundamentally different.

Let me phrase it differently. Can you build a computer (i.e. create
a process running ability) out of mathematical triangles? In other
words, are the properties required to run processes reducible to
triangular terms? my feeling is no, but I didn't find a proof. It's
just, these things are too different. I feel the same about reducing
awareness into physical terms. I don't have a proof yet. If you can
prove the triangular computer thing, we might be able to reform that
proof to apply to the aware electron case.

Indeed, if you speak on information processing. But if we speak on
awareness and volition, then nothing in the physical world resembles
that.

What does resemble information processing?

Unless you assume again that they're reducible. But there's no
reason for that - other things being reducible, doesn't mean that
EVERYTHING we encounter is so. And analyzing awareness etc. we see no
hint on how they may be reducible.

So everything studied so far appears to be reducible.
Why do you assume that awareness etc. aren't? It's a violation of the
Occam's razor.

Again, you claim to have presented a consistent Materialistic view.
It doesn't mean it's the simplest possible. The razor still argues for
Idealism.

My
feeling is apparently shared by many people - e.g. the dualists and
the eliminativists.

Eliminativists are also materialists: they claim that "mind" or
"awareness" don't really exist, they are illusions resulting from the
physical behavior of the brain. This isn't much different that saying
that the mind exists and is reducible to the physical behavior of the
brain, in fact, the difference is mostly semantic.

The way I understood it, they admit it isn't reducible, use the fact
that it's materially undefinable and undescribable to deny it
altogether. Because is they thought the mind IS reducible, what made
them abandon the Identity Theory, which is apparently the simplest
materialist variant?

Eliminativists think that the concepts of 'awareness', 'qualia',
'desires', 'intention', etc. are fundamentally ill-defined, so they
don't belong to a proper scientific theory of mind (some of them also
argue against the term 'mind' and prefer the to talk simply about
'behavior').

They argue that those concept originate in folk psycology, the body of
knowledge and "common sense" we use to understand the behavior of
other people enabling us to regulate our social interactions.
Eliminativists argue that folk psycology, while possibly useful in day-
to-day life, is not a scientific theory and its concepts and
assumptions are not scientifically correct, at least no more than the
folk physics assumption that the eath is flat.

They think that the human behavior is reducible to physical phenomena
in the brain, they just don't use mentalistic terms ('awareness',
'intention', etc) to describe it.

Again, if it is reducible to brain states, there's no reason to
abandon Identity Theory. If it isn't, then Eliminativism is different
from IT.

Dualist probably fall into the "God of the Gaps" fallacy: postulating
an immaterial sentient entity as the explanation of an observed
phenomenon for which a complete physical explanation is not known.
This is the same logic that led people to belive that natural
phenomena and objects were caused by, or were themselves gods. This
resulted in the worship of the Sun (Egyptian Ra, Germanic Sol, Roman
Helios), Weather/Thunder deities (Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, Norse
Thor), Agricultural deities, etc.

If their reasoning was based on the absence of material description of
these phenomenons, then indeed it is a fallacy. But if they noted the
absence (and impossibility) of material EXPLANATION for these, then I
think they got it right

And in fact they got it wrong.

How do you know? :) And see below, in the pasted post, for the
impossibility of material explanations. These paragraphs were meant to
be read together with that post.

(again, see my post #106 for the difference
between description and explanation, unless you want me to cut & paste
it here again). Although I'm not sure what made them assume that the
explanations for these phenomenons have human-like shape, volition,
names and that they respond to human worship.

Perhaps humans are somewhat hard-wired to conjure a "ghost in the
machine", that is, a mentalistic explanation, for phenomena for which
they can't find a physical explanation.
Thay might have had an evolutionary advantage:
We don't immediately see a simple physical explanation for the
behavior of humans like we do for most other objects around us.
So our ancestor might have evolved an alternative explanation,
involving mentalistic entities, which was able to yield predictions
with some accuracy. That trait allowed better social relationships in
human (or ape) groups, leading to an increased reproductive fitness.

Had the reality been different, you could also find an evolutionary
explanation. So it isn't much of an explanation, until you proove we
MUST have been evolved that way.

That mechanism might have had the side effect of causing our ancestors
(and us too) to use mentalistic explanations for all the phenomena for
which there wasn't an obvious physical explanation, leading to the
belif in deities in charge of the natural phenomena.

For instance, the world 'planet' comes from a Greek word meaning
'wanderer'. Early observers of the sky, in fact, couldn't explain the
apparent quasi-random wandering of those lights in the sky, so they
used the same explanation they used for humans, that the planets had
'awareness', 'intention', 'desires', etc. and thus considered them
gods.

Eliminativist materialists claim that these mentalistic explanations
are ...

read more >>- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

And here's the long-promised paste, finally. Here I differ between
description and explanation, showing that Materialism can't explain
enything. Here it goes.

You seem to have misunderstood the basic argument for dualism. It
isn't a negative argument, saying we must accept dualism as
materialism has no explanation. This kind is risky, beacuse (a)
materialism may surprise tomoroow, and (b) we can't be sure of
dualism
that way. No, it's a positive argument - materialism CAN NOT have an
explanation. It's the description-explanation thing again. It's a
tirivla a point, that it's easy to overlook it, especially if you're
a
physicist (not to mention the guys who are familiar
eliminativism...).
Let's see some example:

There's a needle in the gauges panel of a car. It's range's edges
are labeld 'F' and 'E'. A correlation may be espablished between its
position and the driving capability of the car. It's known that an
external hose may raise it, and an exact formula can be found,
connecting the raise angle to the connection time of the hose.
Another
formula may describe the driving distance as a function of the
needle's angle. The materliast stops here. It's a testable,
scientifically refutable theory, and that's all we need. We can make
correct predictions according to it. What's wrong?


The dualist knows what's wrong. IT MAKES NO SENSE. No way the car
should stop at 'E', according to known mechanics laws. Thus, s/he has
to assume the existance of an invisible fuel tank, whose location and
volume are unknown (the volume can't be determined from the known
facts, what makes it seem as a fabrication - we can assign the volume
parameter in the above two equations, but it'll be defined up to
constant, and really, the equations worked without it). This
assumptions allows no new predictions - but now everything DOES make
sense. Now the correlation between the angle and the tank's content
is
only that - a correlation (actually, a true identity theorist must
stop before, arguing that the needle reaching 'E' IS the car
stopping.... especially if s/he an eliminativist). That's all.


Another example (true story): years ago, I was in a dinning room.
There were no eggs that day. A physics student asked the kitchen man
for that. He answered, "There's this special kind of cheese. Every
day
it's present, there're no eggs". Satisfied, the student walked on his
way. Another guy asked the kitchen man why is that. Only then, the
student stopped and thought, "really, why?" (it was something about
the price - together they just costed too much). I think it's very
true - physicist got used to finding correlations, which can give
predictions, even if they make no sense at all (just WHY does any
mass
bother to attract any other one??!!?!).


And last, most beautiful example. A few posts ago, I argued that
modern physics research could have no effect on philosophical
questions. That's the situation in any two different fields - that's
what makes them different. This point also is demonstrated here. I
think it clarifies that all neuroscience research is meaningless to
this question.


The greeks thought that emotions are rooted in the heart. That's
because the emotional state (excitement etc.) has a detectable effect
of the workings of the heart. Now, suppose some greek materialist (of
course there were none...) would use some primitive EKG (even a hand
on the neck) to assosiate a heart pattern to each known emotion, and
then shout 'Eurikka! I'm an Identity Theorist! an emotion IS a heart
working pattern!!!". Do you think it's ridiculous? but that's exactly
what the new brain researchers do - they assosiate self-awareness
patterns with the working of the 4th cortex (or whatever) and then
argue that self-awareness IS the working on this cortex. I think the
identity theorists really have to explain why emotions should be
brain
patterns more than heart patterns. Luckily, the greeks didn't make
this mistake. An emotion is a FEELING. It can be correlated to the
workings of the heart - no more than that. That's why they were all
dualists. The modern materialists cannot think they're wiser than
Plato and his gang, as the new knowledge isn't really relevant. They
must think they're more intelligent than him.


Pushing further these examples, one might get into subjects of what
is knowable, and our certainty of our knowledge. But I don't think
it's necessary, as long as we agree that we must assume a car has a
fuel tank...


Explanations allow predictions. Thus, dualism is not an explanation.



Some people (wrongly) think that evolution explains some things. No
one think it can predict anything (how will ravens look in 10000
years, without any human effects, assuming the climate is known?).
The
Needle theory above predicted everything, explaining nothing. The
tank's assumption explained everything (based on mechanics laws), but
added no more predictions. Theoretically, you could argue that the
tank's assumption allow predicting that damage to the bottum part of
the car will create some holes, and cause the needle to lower faster.
That's outside the example. But theoretically, maybe in 200 years a
soul-detector would be invented? so there are theoretical
implications, even outside philosophy.

.

Relevant Pages

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