I don't get how you can say that physicalists have to prove that experience is based in physical fact, but dualists don't have to prove that it isn't. Why is dualism the default?
...I'm looking through to say where I claimed that either Dualism is the default, or that Dualists had to prove nothing...
Nope, don't see it.
Look, it's legitimately logically possible, that's why the physicalist has to prove that it's not. Burden of proof rests solely on those who argue against the logical possibility of something. It is logically possible that there is a person who knows all physical facts about neurophysiology, it is logically possible that they learn a new fact when actually having the experience of a color. Now, if both of those are true (which they might be), then how does physicalism survive this problem?
If they learn a new fact, then physicalism is false. If not, then dualism is false. There is no way to know the outcome of the experiment without either performing the experiment, or demonstrating either dualism of physicalism to be true.
It all rests on the fact that those premises don't involve a contradiction (unless you've assumed that all facts are physical facts ahead of time, but then we've gone over the question begging of that. And you don't have to assume Dualism initially because it is logically possible that not all facts are physical facts)
And as has been pointed out, assuming that there are facts which are not physical is equally question begging, so you've demonstrated nothing.
What I don't understand, is did Mary learn physics from specially constructed text books meant to screw with her? They describe the spectrum of visible light, but don't think it's necessary to provide an illustration?
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
It all rests on the fact that those premises don't involve a contradiction (unless you've assumed that all facts are physical facts ahead of time, but then we've gone over the question begging of that. And you don't have to assume Dualism initially because it is logically possible that not all facts are physical facts)
And as has been pointed out, assuming that there are facts which are not physical is equally question begging, so you've demonstrated nothing.[/QUOTE]
No, it's not assuming facts that aren't physical, it's concluding that if a new fact is learned, then there are more than just physical facts. It's logically possible that a new fact is learned. The only way you can dispute that is by concluding that all facts always ever, in all possible worlds are physical when it comes to sensory experience. Which is absurd.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
It all rests on the fact that those premises don't involve a contradiction (unless you've assumed that all facts are physical facts ahead of time, but then we've gone over the question begging of that. And you don't have to assume Dualism initially because it is logically possible that not all facts are physical facts)
And as has been pointed out, assuming that there are facts which are not physical is equally question begging, so you've demonstrated nothing.
No, it's not assuming facts that aren't physical, it's concluding that if a new fact is learned, then there are more than just physical facts. It's logically possible that a new fact is learned.
Jesus, okay.
It's not assuming facts that aren't physical
It's concluding that if a new fact is learned, then there are more than just physical facts
Or, in other words, ASSUMING there exist facts that aren't physical, there exist nonphysical facts.
This is a tautology.
The only way you can dispute that is by concluding that all facts always ever, in all possible worlds are physical when it comes to sensory experience. Which is absurd.
And as has been pointed out, assuming that there are facts which are not physical is equally question begging, so you've demonstrated nothing.
No, it's not assuming facts that aren't physical, it's concluding that if a new fact is learned, then there are more than just physical facts. It's logically possible that a new fact is learned. The only way you can dispute that is by concluding that all facts always ever, in all possible worlds are physical when it comes to sensory experience. Which is absurd.
It is likewise logically possible that a new fact is not learned, so, again, I don't get what you mean to demonstrate.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
Moridin: basic first-order logic shows that any argument that A implies B is logically equivalent to an argument that not-B implies not-A. Hence the saying "one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens." The fact that you can 'turn the knowledge argument on its head' that way doesn't indicate any special circularity, because any deductive argument can be turned on its head that way.
Moridin: basic first-order logic shows that any argument that A implies B is logically equivalent to an argument that not-B implies not-A. Hence the saying "one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens." The fact that you can 'turn the knowledge argument on its head' that way doesn't indicate any special circularity, because any deductive argument can be turned on its head that way.
Fantastic! I don't have any problem with his logical statement. He still hasn't actually provided any new information. The thought experiment literally does nothing to prove or disprove the existence or nonexistence of nonphysical facts. That is all I'm saying.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Fantastic! I don't have any problem with his logical statement. He still hasn't actually provided any new information. The thought experiment literally does nothing to prove or disprove the existence or nonexistence of nonphysical facts. That is all I'm saying.
The thought experiment purports to show that, in order to be a physicalist, you also have to believe things such as: a deaf person could understand what a violin sounds like just by virtue of reading about the ear, a biologist could know what it's like to be a bat by virtue of studying its tiny little bat brain, and so on. Now you may be willing to say those things. But I think you're being extremely obtuse if you claim that they aren't the least bit counter-intuitive.
I strongly suspect that if I had asked whether either of those things are possible, but not mentioned the way that they figure in the knowledge argument, then most everyone here would have agreed that they are obviously not. Because they are pretty boggling claims.
That is why my response to the knowledge argument involves showing how you can be a physicalist without having to say those things.
I don't mind saying those things, though. And no one has actually given a convincing argument why I shouldn't be able to say those things.
I don't have a problem with the statement "There might be nonphysical facts." I just expect a really sound argument as to what those might be, not hand waving.
Fantastic! I don't have any problem with his logical statement. He still hasn't actually provided any new information. The thought experiment literally does nothing to prove or disprove the existence or nonexistence of nonphysical facts. That is all I'm saying.
The thought experiment purports to show that, in order to be a physicalist, you also have to believe things such as: a deaf person could understand what a violin sounds like just by virtue of reading about the ear, a biologist could know what it's like to be a bat by virtue of studying its tiny little bat brain, and so on. Now you may be willing to say those things. But I think you're being extremely obtuse if you claim that they aren't the least bit counter-intuitive.
It doesn't really even do that, though. "It's possible for you to know what hearing is like by reading about it" is a very different statement from "If you know every physical fact about the universe, you would know what hearing is like." I think it's somewhat disingenuous (of the argument, not of you) to try to link the two.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I don't mind saying those things, though. And no one has actually given a convincing argument why I shouldn't be able to say those things.
Here is an inchoate sort of support for those claims:
Science has made significant advances in explaining the physical workings of color vision. But none of those advances have brought us any closer to the point where a R-G colorblind person could use them to understand what R and G felt like for normal people. We are no closer. So, going forward, there's no reason to expect that further advances in understanding the physical workings of color vision will get us any closer either.
If you think along these lines, then saying "at some point, a complete physics will contain knowledge of these phenomenal qualities" is kind of like saying "at some point, a complete mathematics will tell us who the best baseball player of all time is." The response is: man what? How would that ever happen?
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
It doesn't really even do that, though. "It's possible for you to know what hearing is like by reading about it" is a very different statement from "If you know every physical fact about the universe, you would know what hearing is like." I think it's somewhat disingenuous (of the argument, not of you) to try to link the two.
Yes, this is one of the reasonable responses to the argument, eg "not all physical facts can be learned by reading a book." Then you get into an argument about what counts as a physical fact, because Jackson has defined it in such a way that they all could be in a book.
I don't mind saying those things, though. And no one has actually given a convincing argument why I shouldn't be able to say those things.
I don't have a problem with the statement "There might be nonphysical facts." I just expect a really sound argument as to what those might be, not hand waving.
See, and it's cool that you're willing to say those things, but now we get into a discussion about where the burden of proof lies. Now, I believe it lies with you to prove that such things are the case, but that's a purely intuitive thing, and I might be wrong about that (in fact, that could be a source of disagreement among professionals). I'm not giving any argument that you can't say those things, but I think that there are problems with doing such, and that you need to justify yourself, not that you should be the default position.
I think that you treat the notion of "non-physical facts" with way too much seriousness. Like somehow this would turn all of thought onto its head, which it wont.
The thing about physical facts is that they can be written down, and with sufficient training, understood. So when you say "if all the physical facts are known, then you know what it is like to hear a violin" that's really just saying that "if you read the book of all the facts, you would read about what it is like to hear a violin"
MrMr knows way more about this than I do...listen to him, not me. Until he disagrees with me, then fuck that guy.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
For the record, my personal position is that I am, like Nagel once wrote, a "despairing physicalist."
That is to say that I take seriously the problems bedeviling our attempts to reconcile the subjective view with the scientific view. They cause me despair! But dualism doesn't help. So physicalism it is.
But... from a physicalist standpoint, if the experience of seeing red is new to Mary, then Mary did not know every physical fact (about herself, in this case) before seeing the color red. It's like the unstoppable force immobile object thing all over again.
"Stuff that can be written on paper" seems like an arbitrary distinction. Why would you define knowledge as something that can be described in some language, be it English or mathematics? You can know things without language, and language seems like an unnecessary complication in a thought experiment about physicalism: you have the brain, and the knowledge that's physically embedded in it, whereas language is just a method of describing that knowledge, or often just approximating it. Presumably Mary doesn't need such tools because she already knows everything.
edit: To elaborate, Mary also knows that gravity will work tomorrow the way it works today. We can write "gravity will work tomorrow the same way it works today" on paper as many times as we want, but we'll only ever be able to strongly believe that it's the case, whereas Mary knows the absolute truth about it. We can't describe that kind of knowledge in writing any more than we can describe the color red. The whole thought experiment is a trick question, where the limitations of language are used to seemingly limit the physical.
I think you will find that "You can know things without language" is actually a controversial epistemological claim.
Also, I'm a meta-physicalist. That's right. I believe that there are only facts about physical facts but no actual physical facts, so the only fact about physical facts is that there aren't any physical facts.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
I'm going to go ahead and say that, from now on, if you want to rag on the argument then you have to actually read the papers first. The initial paper is around 10 pages, and the criticisms and replies is another 6. And these are not dense pages.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited January 2010
The thought experiment purports to show that, in order to be a physicalist, you also have to believe things such as: a deaf person could understand what a violin sounds like just by virtue of reading about the ear, a biologist could know what it's like to be a bat by virtue of studying its tiny little bat brain, and so on. Now you may be willing to say those things. But I think you're being extremely obtuse if you claim that they aren't the least bit counter-intuitive.
Intuitively it sounds wrong, and in actuality if you poke it you realise that's not quite what you have to believe. It's that you can be made to understand what it is like to have an experience without actually having that experience (or a direct analogue of it). That includes stuff outside reading!
I read a fascinating Taoist work one time, I forget where, describing words themselves as dead thoughts. That putting a thought into a word was like killing an animal and stuffing it. I think we've gotten too wrapped up in how we put the inner-workings of our mind into text and dialog. Sure, that's a very useful tool, but words are not the divine system of record for consciousness and being. They're just something we came up with to help us work through things. I'm not sure I understand why we think "what it feels like to see red" need ever be put into words in order to prove physicalism.
Even after reading the paper it seems to me that the authors are basing their argument on a fairly limited subset of "all physical facts" and arbitrarily separating knowledge from sensation.
They claim that what Mary learns upon exiting the room is that the experiences of others are barred to her; that after experiencing the color red she realizes she can't know how others experience the color red. But based on how Mary's knowledge is defined, she should know. She should know exactly how she or anyone else would experience having a radar sense, for that matter. Otherwise her knowledge of the physical world isn't complete.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
That is to say that I take seriously the problems bedeviling our attempts to reconcile the subjective view with the scientific view. They cause me despair! But dualism doesn't help. So physicalism it is.
Wasn't that early on in his career? Isn't he some sort of epiphenomenologist or something like that now?
Also, I would like to add that the only choices are not dualism or physicalism. One could be an empiricist, a phenomenologist, an existentialist, etc.
I read a fascinating Taoist work one time, I forget where, describing words themselves as dead thoughts. That putting a thought into a word was like killing an animal and stuffing it. I think we've gotten too wrapped up in how we put the inner-workings of our mind into text and dialog. Sure, that's a very useful tool, but words are not the divine system of record for consciousness and being. They're just something we came up with to help us work through things. I'm not sure I understand why we think "what if feels like to see red" need ever be put into words in order to prove physicalism.
That's a decent point. Language is a technology. Some things it can do, some things it can't. Asking for a conscious, directed, linguistic explanation for all human experience is silly. On occasion, it's like asking your iPhone to play basketball.
Even after reading the paper it seems to me that the authors are basing their argument on a fairly limited subset of "all physical facts" and arbitrarily separating knowledge from sensation.
They claim that what Mary learns upon exiting the room is that the experiences of others are barred to her; that after experiencing the color red she realizes she can't know how others experience the color red. But based on how Mary's knowledge is defined, she should know. She should know exactly how she or anyone else would experience having a radar sense, for that matter. Otherwise her knowledge of the physical world isn't complete.
You're inserting a new premise into the argument though. Your argument assumes that there are only physical facts. So if she knows those, she must already know what it is like to see red. Why? What neuron firing is identical to what it is like to see red (I know, an oversimplification, but you get the idea)? Why do you suppose that there is one?
I think MrMr brought up a very good point earlier when he said that we are no closer to being able to understand, from the standpoint of a person with normal color vision, what red is like to someone who is R-G colorblind. It doesn't seem to relate to the physical facts that we know at all. Why do we suppose that there is a physical fact to be known?
We regard this as an epistemological issue, but frequently I see people claim that, and I'm beginning to suspect that they just don't want them to be ontological ones.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
You're inserting a new premise into the argument though. Your argument assumes that there are only physical facts. So if she knows those, she must already know what it is like to see red. Why? What neuron firing is identical to what it is like to see red (I know, an oversimplification, but you get the idea)? Why do you suppose that there is one?
Why do you suppose that there isn't?
If you go into the Mary thought experiment assuming that non-physical facts exist, you conclude that Mary could have learned something new when she saw red. If you go into it assuming that they don't, you conclude that she couldn't. If you don't assume either one, you can't proceed, because it's not possible to determine whether she could have learned something new or not.
Using Mary to support dualism and using her to support physicalism are equally question-begging activities, except I don't really see anyone in this thread doing the latter.
As for your ridiculous question about neurons firing: if you don't think the experience of red is a pattern of brain states, what the hell do you think it is instead?
Catullus 16 on
jothki: If you removed all of the protons from a unicorn, would it still be a unicorn? Evil Multifarious: it would be a dead unicorn.
You're inserting a new premise into the argument though. Your argument assumes that there are only physical facts. So if she knows those, she must already know what it is like to see red. Why? What neuron firing is identical to what it is like to see red (I know, an oversimplification, but you get the idea)? Why do you suppose that there is one?
Why do you suppose that there isn't?
As for your ridiculous question about neurons firing: if you don't think the experience of red is a pattern of brain states, what the hell do you think it is instead?
I'm skeptical that there is, really. I don't think that there's a good reason to believe that such is the case, as an alternative, I find Chalmers' ideas coherent and plausible.
As for your second question, I'm not sure. I find the notion of it being such implausible (and honestly, a bit boring). As for the alternative, I don't know. I find the notion of Chalmers' protophenomenal properties to be satisfying. Or perhaps that experience is a fundamental feature of the universe, like space-time, spin, charge, etc.
Honestly, i don't have the scientific training to answer the question satisfactorily.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
You're inserting a new premise into the argument though. Your argument assumes that there are only physical facts. So if she knows those, she must already know what it is like to see red. Why? What neuron firing is identical to what it is like to see red (I know, an oversimplification, but you get the idea)? Why do you suppose that there is one?
Why do you suppose that there isn't?
As for your ridiculous question about neurons firing: if you don't think the experience of red is a pattern of brain states, what the hell do you think it is instead?
I'm skeptical that there is, really. I don't think that there's a good reason to believe that such is the case, as an alternative, I find Chalmers' ideas coherent and plausible.
As for your second question, I'm not sure. I find the notion of it being such implausible (and honestly, a bit boring). As for the alternative, I don't know. I find the notion of Chalmers' protophenomenal properties to be satisfying. Or perhaps that experience is a fundamental feature of the universe, like space-time, spin, charge, etc.
Honestly, i don't have the scientific training to answer the question satisfactorily.
I don't think it's reasonable to use our incomplete understanding of consciousness as an argument in favor of an even less complete alternative explanation. Particularly if, as with "protophenomenal properties," the alternative explanation in mind isn't even falsifiable.
You're inserting a new premise into the argument though. Your argument assumes that there are only physical facts. So if she knows those, she must already know what it is like to see red. Why? What neuron firing is identical to what it is like to see red (I know, an oversimplification, but you get the idea)? Why do you suppose that there is one?
Why do you suppose that there isn't?
As for your ridiculous question about neurons firing: if you don't think the experience of red is a pattern of brain states, what the hell do you think it is instead?
I'm skeptical that there is, really. I don't think that there's a good reason to believe that such is the case, as an alternative, I find Chalmers' ideas coherent and plausible.
As for your second question, I'm not sure. I find the notion of it being such implausible (and honestly, a bit boring). As for the alternative, I don't know. I find the notion of Chalmers' protophenomenal properties to be satisfying. Or perhaps that experience is a fundamental feature of the universe, like space-time, spin, charge, etc.
Honestly, i don't have the scientific training to answer the question satisfactorily.
I don't think it's reasonable to use our incomplete understanding of consciousness as an argument in favor of an even less complete alternative explanation. Particularly if, as with "protophenomenal properties," the alternative explanation in mind isn't even falsifiable.
Right, though suppose that there really are these facts out there, and we just don't know them. I don't know if it's reasonable to suppose that. You think it's just an epistemic issue, and I don't know how you can so easily dismiss the notion that it might be an ontological issue.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I read a fascinating Taoist work one time, I forget where, describing words themselves as dead thoughts. That putting a thought into a word was like killing an animal and stuffing it. I think we've gotten too wrapped up in how we put the inner-workings of our mind into text and dialog. Sure, that's a very useful tool, but words are not the divine system of record for consciousness and being. They're just something we came up with to help us work through things. I'm not sure I understand why we think "what if feels like to see red" need ever be put into words in order to prove physicalism.
That's a decent point. Language is a technology. Some things it can do, some things it can't. Asking for a conscious, directed, linguistic explanation for all human experience is silly. On occasion, it's like asking your iPhone to play basketball.
There's also the movie Mask where Eric Stoltz teaches a blind girl about color by using her sense of touch. A hot thing was red. Meh.
I read a fascinating Taoist work one time, I forget where, describing words themselves as dead thoughts. That putting a thought into a word was like killing an animal and stuffing it. I think we've gotten too wrapped up in how we put the inner-workings of our mind into text and dialog. Sure, that's a very useful tool, but words are not the divine system of record for consciousness and being. They're just something we came up with to help us work through things. I'm not sure I understand why we think "what if feels like to see red" need ever be put into words in order to prove physicalism.
That's a decent point. Language is a technology. Some things it can do, some things it can't. Asking for a conscious, directed, linguistic explanation for all human experience is silly. On occasion, it's like asking your iPhone to play basketball.
There's also the movie Mask where Eric Stoltz teaches a blind girl about color by using her sense of touch. A hot thing was red. Meh.
Right, but that's an ability to recognize red things.
Unless you're saying that hot = red as far as your phenomenal experience of red goes...which is interesting, that's not the language that I would use for mine.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Every thinking being believes
A) god exists, *or qualia exist.
A: God is that which is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
B: Qualia is a "whatness," a (perhaps) sensible, non-quantifiable property which gives a being its identity.
I do not believe that god exists or qualia exists. I maintain the physicalists stance.
The physicalist stance: Everything that exists is reducible to physical processes.
However, I would not maintain that everything is reducible to "physical processes", as a process would be, by definition, occuring "between" component parts, there would be a noun of which the process would be the verb. So, ultimately, that which exists are the nouns, atoms, which then act with regards to their verbs, processes.
If someone wants to believe that all that exists is quantifiable physical processes, they are also positing the existence of God qua Being.
No. There is no such thing which is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Rather, there are atoms and physical processes which occur "between" these atoms.
In other words, the "is" as an existential in "energy is" and "this atom is" and "the number 7 is" and "a centaur is" is in each case different. If the existence of energy is not the same as the existence of an atom or a centaur then Being is neither infinite nor omnipresent, neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and thus cannot be said to fall under the definition of God.
The problems with the existence of qualia are numerous and well-documented. There are a few ways out of the razor I have proposed, but I cannot think of a physicalist way out. One could adopt a Deleuzian empiricism of endlessly repeated sense-data, but this still retains a psuedo-Cartesian subject, which I imagine many physicalists would be loathe to adopt. Perhaps someone out there has a different way out, or can find inconsistencies in my argument?
Every thinking thing believes either A or B:
A: God is that which is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
B: Qualia is a "whatness," a (perhaps) sensible, non-quantifiable property which gives a being its identity.
A physicalist believes that only atoms and the physical processes "between" atoms exist. Therefore, a physicalist would not believe in an infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient God just as a physicalist would not believe in a "whatness". For, all that exists are atoms and physical processes.
Belief in atoms and physical processes does not require either qualia or God.
If you believe that things exist, then they either A) have Being, which is no different from God, or B)exist in qualitatively different ways, and thereby you believe in the existence of qualia.
Or you deny the existence of Being, because Heidegger was a Nazi, and you deny qualia, because qualia is stupid.
For a thing to exist does not mean that a thing "has Being" because, again, it is not necessarily the case that, ontologically speaking, to exist is to have "Being" where "Being" is understood as being God. This is because:
1) Heidegger was a Nazi.
2) Things exist without having Being; there is no such thing as Being.
2a) Heidegger was a Nazi.
An atom exists. The existence of an Atom is not a manifestation of the Atom's "having being". Rather, the Atom exists. To exist is not to "have being" or to "have existence" but rather is to exist. The Atom exists.
Linguistically, "the atom exists" can be articulated as the predicate "exists" modifying the noun "atom". However, linguistic articulations do not mirror ontology. "Adjective Noun" is not a mirror reflection of a state of nature wherein an ontological entity somehow is modified by an adjective predicate. Rather, "Adjective noun" is a linguistic articulation of an ontological state.
Atoms exist.
Linguistic: The predicate "exist" modifies the noun "atom".
Ontology: There is an atom which exists; Heidegger was a Nazi.
Every thinking being believes
A) god exists, *or qualia exist.
If to exist is to have Being, then A and B both contain the Heideggerian Nazi Cluster-Fuck Trap of Being.
"God exists" means "God has Being".
"Qualia exists" means "Qualia has Being".
So, basically, your argument is that to exist is to have Being. So, with A and B, one need invoke Being and so invoke Heidegger-Nazism.
However, a physicalist would deny that to exist is to have Being, because a physicalist will have read Wittgenstein and so understand that "adjective noun" does not somehow mirror an ontological state.
Every thinking being believes
A) god exists, *or qualia exist.
If to exist is to have Being, then A and B both contain the Heideggerian Nazi Cluster-Fuck Trap of Being.
"God exists" means "God has Being".
"Qualia exists" means "Qualia has Being".
So, basically, your argument is that to exist is to have Being. So, with A and B, one need invoke Being and so invoke Heidegger-Nazism.
However, a physicalist would deny that to exist is to have Being, because a physicalist will have read Wittgenstein and so understand that "adjective noun" does not somehow mirror an ontological state.
To exist is not to "have Being".
So, yey physicalism. Boo Nazis.
Basically, what you're arguing is "Nazis are wrong"? And "Qualia are stupid"?
Every thinking being believes
A) god exists, *or qualia exist.
If to exist is to have Being, then A and B both contain the Heideggerian Nazi Cluster-Fuck Trap of Being.
"God exists" means "God has Being".
"Qualia exists" means "Qualia has Being".
So, basically, your argument is that to exist is to have Being. So, with A and B, one need invoke Being and so invoke Heidegger-Nazism.
However, a physicalist would deny that to exist is to have Being, because a physicalist will have read Wittgenstein and so understand that "adjective noun" does not somehow mirror an ontological state.
To exist is not to "have Being".
So, yey physicalism. Boo Nazis.
As a Dualist, I would like to formally align myself against both Nazi's and Heidegger.
I too have read Wittgenstein.
Do like Qualia though. Don't know what it would be like to not have them. I feel bad for you guys that don't have them, and are zombies.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Belief in atoms and physical processes does not require either qualia or God.
Well, they most certainly require qualia, at least in the sentence you just wrote. "atoms" and "processes" are qualia. Or, rather, there must be some qualia involved in your experience of them.
I think what Podly's getting at is that to really strip away all qualia, you have to reduce existence to some indescribable ever-present Force. And he's then saying "let's call that God haha you're a monotheist."
And aren't you the guy who tried to convince us all about the essence of things? How are you calling qualia stupid now?
Belief in atoms and physical processes does not require either qualia or God.
Well, they most certainly require qualia, at least in the sentence you just wrote. "atoms" and "processes" are qualia. Or, rather, there must be some qualia involved in your experience of them.
I think what Podly's getting at is that to really strip away all qualia, you have to reduce existence to some indescribable ever-present Force. And he's then saying "let's call that God haha you're a monotheist."
And aren't you the guy who tried to convince us all about the essence of things? How are you calling qualia stupid now?
1.If physicalism is true, then it is not possible for there to be a world in which all the physical facts are the same as those of the actual world but in which there are additional facts. (This is because, according to physicalism, all the facts are fully determined by the physical facts; so any world that is physically indistinguishable from our world is entirely indistinguishable from our world.)
My main problem is that qualia just seems to mean "information that isn't in the form of words." Could a zombie speak with me? Count how many fingers I hold up? How?
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If they learn a new fact, then physicalism is false. If not, then dualism is false. There is no way to know the outcome of the experiment without either performing the experiment, or demonstrating either dualism of physicalism to be true.
And as has been pointed out, assuming that there are facts which are not physical is equally question begging, so you've demonstrated nothing.
Edit: And by "actual paper" I mean some criticisms and replies.
Here is the ACTUAL actual paper
And as has been pointed out, assuming that there are facts which are not physical is equally question begging, so you've demonstrated nothing.[/QUOTE]
No, it's not assuming facts that aren't physical, it's concluding that if a new fact is learned, then there are more than just physical facts. It's logically possible that a new fact is learned. The only way you can dispute that is by concluding that all facts always ever, in all possible worlds are physical when it comes to sensory experience. Which is absurd.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Jesus, okay.
Or, in other words, ASSUMING there exist facts that aren't physical, there exist nonphysical facts.
This is a tautology.
Why is that absurd?
It is likewise logically possible that a new fact is not learned, so, again, I don't get what you mean to demonstrate.
Fantastic! I don't have any problem with his logical statement. He still hasn't actually provided any new information. The thought experiment literally does nothing to prove or disprove the existence or nonexistence of nonphysical facts. That is all I'm saying.
The thought experiment purports to show that, in order to be a physicalist, you also have to believe things such as: a deaf person could understand what a violin sounds like just by virtue of reading about the ear, a biologist could know what it's like to be a bat by virtue of studying its tiny little bat brain, and so on. Now you may be willing to say those things. But I think you're being extremely obtuse if you claim that they aren't the least bit counter-intuitive.
I strongly suspect that if I had asked whether either of those things are possible, but not mentioned the way that they figure in the knowledge argument, then most everyone here would have agreed that they are obviously not. Because they are pretty boggling claims.
That is why my response to the knowledge argument involves showing how you can be a physicalist without having to say those things.
I don't have a problem with the statement "There might be nonphysical facts." I just expect a really sound argument as to what those might be, not hand waving.
It doesn't really even do that, though. "It's possible for you to know what hearing is like by reading about it" is a very different statement from "If you know every physical fact about the universe, you would know what hearing is like." I think it's somewhat disingenuous (of the argument, not of you) to try to link the two.
Here is an inchoate sort of support for those claims:
Science has made significant advances in explaining the physical workings of color vision. But none of those advances have brought us any closer to the point where a R-G colorblind person could use them to understand what R and G felt like for normal people. We are no closer. So, going forward, there's no reason to expect that further advances in understanding the physical workings of color vision will get us any closer either.
If you think along these lines, then saying "at some point, a complete physics will contain knowledge of these phenomenal qualities" is kind of like saying "at some point, a complete mathematics will tell us who the best baseball player of all time is." The response is: man what? How would that ever happen?
Yes, this is one of the reasonable responses to the argument, eg "not all physical facts can be learned by reading a book." Then you get into an argument about what counts as a physical fact, because Jackson has defined it in such a way that they all could be in a book.
See, and it's cool that you're willing to say those things, but now we get into a discussion about where the burden of proof lies. Now, I believe it lies with you to prove that such things are the case, but that's a purely intuitive thing, and I might be wrong about that (in fact, that could be a source of disagreement among professionals). I'm not giving any argument that you can't say those things, but I think that there are problems with doing such, and that you need to justify yourself, not that you should be the default position.
I think that you treat the notion of "non-physical facts" with way too much seriousness. Like somehow this would turn all of thought onto its head, which it wont.
The thing about physical facts is that they can be written down, and with sufficient training, understood. So when you say "if all the physical facts are known, then you know what it is like to hear a violin" that's really just saying that "if you read the book of all the facts, you would read about what it is like to hear a violin"
MrMr knows way more about this than I do...listen to him, not me. Until he disagrees with me, then fuck that guy.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
That is to say that I take seriously the problems bedeviling our attempts to reconcile the subjective view with the scientific view. They cause me despair! But dualism doesn't help. So physicalism it is.
"Stuff that can be written on paper" seems like an arbitrary distinction. Why would you define knowledge as something that can be described in some language, be it English or mathematics? You can know things without language, and language seems like an unnecessary complication in a thought experiment about physicalism: you have the brain, and the knowledge that's physically embedded in it, whereas language is just a method of describing that knowledge, or often just approximating it. Presumably Mary doesn't need such tools because she already knows everything.
edit: To elaborate, Mary also knows that gravity will work tomorrow the way it works today. We can write "gravity will work tomorrow the same way it works today" on paper as many times as we want, but we'll only ever be able to strongly believe that it's the case, whereas Mary knows the absolute truth about it. We can't describe that kind of knowledge in writing any more than we can describe the color red. The whole thought experiment is a trick question, where the limitations of language are used to seemingly limit the physical.
Also, I'm a meta-physicalist. That's right. I believe that there are only facts about physical facts but no actual physical facts, so the only fact about physical facts is that there aren't any physical facts.
Intuitively it sounds wrong, and in actuality if you poke it you realise that's not quite what you have to believe. It's that you can be made to understand what it is like to have an experience without actually having that experience (or a direct analogue of it). That includes stuff outside reading!
They claim that what Mary learns upon exiting the room is that the experiences of others are barred to her; that after experiencing the color red she realizes she can't know how others experience the color red. But based on how Mary's knowledge is defined, she should know. She should know exactly how she or anyone else would experience having a radar sense, for that matter. Otherwise her knowledge of the physical world isn't complete.
Wasn't that early on in his career? Isn't he some sort of epiphenomenologist or something like that now?
Also, I would like to add that the only choices are not dualism or physicalism. One could be an empiricist, a phenomenologist, an existentialist, etc.
You're inserting a new premise into the argument though. Your argument assumes that there are only physical facts. So if she knows those, she must already know what it is like to see red. Why? What neuron firing is identical to what it is like to see red (I know, an oversimplification, but you get the idea)? Why do you suppose that there is one?
I think MrMr brought up a very good point earlier when he said that we are no closer to being able to understand, from the standpoint of a person with normal color vision, what red is like to someone who is R-G colorblind. It doesn't seem to relate to the physical facts that we know at all. Why do we suppose that there is a physical fact to be known?
We regard this as an epistemological issue, but frequently I see people claim that, and I'm beginning to suspect that they just don't want them to be ontological ones.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Why do you suppose that there isn't?
If you go into the Mary thought experiment assuming that non-physical facts exist, you conclude that Mary could have learned something new when she saw red. If you go into it assuming that they don't, you conclude that she couldn't. If you don't assume either one, you can't proceed, because it's not possible to determine whether she could have learned something new or not.
Using Mary to support dualism and using her to support physicalism are equally question-begging activities, except I don't really see anyone in this thread doing the latter.
As for your ridiculous question about neurons firing: if you don't think the experience of red is a pattern of brain states, what the hell do you think it is instead?
I'm skeptical that there is, really. I don't think that there's a good reason to believe that such is the case, as an alternative, I find Chalmers' ideas coherent and plausible.
As for your second question, I'm not sure. I find the notion of it being such implausible (and honestly, a bit boring). As for the alternative, I don't know. I find the notion of Chalmers' protophenomenal properties to be satisfying. Or perhaps that experience is a fundamental feature of the universe, like space-time, spin, charge, etc.
Honestly, i don't have the scientific training to answer the question satisfactorily.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I don't think it's reasonable to use our incomplete understanding of consciousness as an argument in favor of an even less complete alternative explanation. Particularly if, as with "protophenomenal properties," the alternative explanation in mind isn't even falsifiable.
Right, though suppose that there really are these facts out there, and we just don't know them. I don't know if it's reasonable to suppose that. You think it's just an epistemic issue, and I don't know how you can so easily dismiss the notion that it might be an ontological issue.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Right, but that's an ability to recognize red things.
Unless you're saying that hot = red as far as your phenomenal experience of red goes...which is interesting, that's not the language that I would use for mine.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
A: God is that which is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
B: Qualia is a "whatness," a (perhaps) sensible, non-quantifiable property which gives a being its identity.
I do not believe that god exists or qualia exists. I maintain the physicalists stance.
However, I would not maintain that everything is reducible to "physical processes", as a process would be, by definition, occuring "between" component parts, there would be a noun of which the process would be the verb. So, ultimately, that which exists are the nouns, atoms, which then act with regards to their verbs, processes.
No. There is no such thing which is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Rather, there are atoms and physical processes which occur "between" these atoms.
No. "Is" is a verb.
Every thinking thing believes either A or B:
A: God is that which is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
B: Qualia is a "whatness," a (perhaps) sensible, non-quantifiable property which gives a being its identity.
A physicalist believes that only atoms and the physical processes "between" atoms exist. Therefore, a physicalist would not believe in an infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient God just as a physicalist would not believe in a "whatness". For, all that exists are atoms and physical processes.
Belief in atoms and physical processes does not require either qualia or God.
Or you deny the existence of Being, because Heidegger was a Nazi, and you deny qualia, because qualia is stupid.
For a thing to exist does not mean that a thing "has Being" because, again, it is not necessarily the case that, ontologically speaking, to exist is to have "Being" where "Being" is understood as being God. This is because:
1) Heidegger was a Nazi.
2) Things exist without having Being; there is no such thing as Being.
2a) Heidegger was a Nazi.
An atom exists. The existence of an Atom is not a manifestation of the Atom's "having being". Rather, the Atom exists. To exist is not to "have being" or to "have existence" but rather is to exist. The Atom exists.
Linguistically, "the atom exists" can be articulated as the predicate "exists" modifying the noun "atom". However, linguistic articulations do not mirror ontology. "Adjective Noun" is not a mirror reflection of a state of nature wherein an ontological entity somehow is modified by an adjective predicate. Rather, "Adjective noun" is a linguistic articulation of an ontological state.
Atoms exist.
Linguistic: The predicate "exist" modifies the noun "atom".
Ontology: There is an atom which exists; Heidegger was a Nazi.
If to exist is to have Being, then A and B both contain the Heideggerian Nazi Cluster-Fuck Trap of Being.
"God exists" means "God has Being".
"Qualia exists" means "Qualia has Being".
So, basically, your argument is that to exist is to have Being. So, with A and B, one need invoke Being and so invoke Heidegger-Nazism.
However, a physicalist would deny that to exist is to have Being, because a physicalist will have read Wittgenstein and so understand that "adjective noun" does not somehow mirror an ontological state.
To exist is not to "have Being".
So, yey physicalism. Boo Nazis.
Basically, what you're arguing is "Nazis are wrong"? And "Qualia are stupid"?
I think we can all get down with that.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
As a Dualist, I would like to formally align myself against both Nazi's and Heidegger.
I too have read Wittgenstein.
Do like Qualia though. Don't know what it would be like to not have them. I feel bad for you guys that don't have them, and are zombies.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The true tragedy of the zombie is that a brain is not sufficient no matter how many they get.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I think what Podly's getting at is that to really strip away all qualia, you have to reduce existence to some indescribable ever-present Force. And he's then saying "let's call that God haha you're a monotheist."
And aren't you the guy who tried to convince us all about the essence of things? How are you calling qualia stupid now?
Philospohical zombies
This.