And that article full of jargon is proof that scientists turned matter into life? — Protagoras

The jargon is individually very basic. You can look each piece up and it won't take you very long.

You not wanting to understand it that doesn't disqualify it as proof.

Or alternatively you can simply look up "Synthetic creation of bacteria" and you'll find many more articles with much less jargon.

The mind is desire and desire is non material but physical. — Protagoras

What is "material" for you because material and physical are synonymous for me. I don't know what "non material but physical means". And I don't know about "the mind is desire" either. Seems to me way more than that.

I'm just interested in what "non-physical energy" is currently. I've only ever heard Bartricks say something like that which is how you know it's bullshit. Is there "non-physical mass" by any chance? What about "non-physical momentum"? Note that momentum is also conserved.

Science happens in the mind. This may be why science finds it difficult to look at the mind, or even to conceive of it. The eye cannot see itself. — Olivier5

But my eye can see your eye and vice versa. Then we come to the astonishing discovery that we can see and study eyes.

Do you have reason to believe that or no reason to believe it? — Bartricks

I do have reason to believe it.

But regardless of whether or not I do believe it, or whether or not I have reason to believe it, the rock will still fall. In any case, whether or not the rock falls, my belief and the reasons for my belief don't affect the rock.

In short:

1- God can move a rock
2- If the mind that issues normative reasons is God, then the mind that issues normative reasons can move a rock.
3- The mind that issues the laws of reason cannot affect a rock in any way (since rocks aren't affected by normative reasons).
4- Therefore the mind that issues normative reasons is not God.

Which premise do you disagree with?

Only someone who had control over the laws of Reason would be able to do anything at all. — Bartricks

The laws of reason aren't "out there". Reasoning is a capacity, like sight. Rocks don't fall down because they are following the laws of reason.

This is like thinking that someone that has the ability to control what you see can change reality to whatever they want it to be.

And that mind would be......omnipotent and omniscient. — Bartricks

False. See above.

This is how the last conversation ended too. You can't show that a mind that commands people to follow the laws of Reason is omnipotent in any way. I asked you before and you refused to do so. For one, that mind can't even move a rock, you need a body to do that and your God doesn't have one (unless you believe in telekinesis).

So, someone could read my argument and think it is shit. That person would be stupid. There are a lot of them around. — Bartricks

But it shows that God has no power over those people. He can change the normative reasons all he wants but that won't affect people that ignore them. Or rocks plants and animals. Your omnipotent God is powerless for people who choose to ignore him/her, nor can he even lift a rock.

And it is required for omnipotence because the person whose willings constitutively determine what there is reason to do and believe has control over everything. There is nothing they cannot do. — Bartricks

Again, they can't lift a rock, or get stupid people to do anything, or tell an animal or plant to do anything.

Very far from omnipotent.

It follows from being omnipotent. To be omnipotent requires being the source of all normative reasons. — Bartricks

Where did you get this?

If one is a fool, one will reject all of that in some flippant way. — Bartricks

As you say, people can just choose not to believe what they have normative reason for believing or not do what they have normative reason for doing. And normative reasons don't give you any power over rocks or animals either.

So it doesn't seem like being the arbiter of normative reasons gives you much power. Nor does it seem required for omnipotence in any way, why would it be?

What is a justification made of? Well, a justification is made of God's attitudes. That is, to be 'justified' in believing something is for God to favour you believing it. — Bartricks

Where’d you get this?

they don't know anything about the existence or the non-existence of god. — skyblack

the agnostic view that there is no good reason to think that god doesn't exist. — Banno

Isn't what Banno said included in what you said? Although yes it's missing an essential part "and no good reason to think god exists"

I'm talking about a song playing in my head. It has nothing to do with air vibrations — RogueAI

Then the triviality of your counter argument is laid bare.

I think the idea that mental states = physical states is contradicted by the simple fact that I can have a song playing in my head while there's no music in my skull — RogueAI

If it has nothing to do with air vibrations then why did you expect a song playing in your head to imply music in your skill? So then the idea that mental states = physical states is not contradicted by this simple fact is it?

If you are incapable of acknowledging the trivial fact that people have songs in their heads, what more can I say? — RogueAI

Oh no it’s very easy to acknowledge when people are using colloquial expressions. It’s your “counter argument” that relies on taking the literal meaning to make sense as I just explained above. It’s not that people are being obtuse or that materialism can’t account for songs playing in your head, it’s that your counter argument only begins to make sense when the literal meaning is taken, that’s why people take the literal meaning in response to you.

Again, if songs playing in your head has nothing to do with air vibrations (which we can agree it doesn’t) then there is no reason that having a song playing in your head should require music in your skull. So your “simple fact” presents no difficulty to materialism. There is no contradiction in it.

Or you can take the literal meaning in which case: no you don’t have songs playing in your head unless someone installed a boom box there. Now the argument is wrong on empirical grounds.

Whichever meaning you take the counter argument is bad.

Now, regardless of the absurdity or non absurdity of my position, can you please answer the question?

What are minds themselves in an idealist system? Are they also projections of a mind? — khaled

I’m trying to understand your position (which I assume is idealism though you haven’t explicitly committed to anything far as I can see)

No, it's not implausible to actually have a song playing in your head. I have a song playing in my head right now. Do you think it's implausible? Do you think I'm lying or mistaken? — RogueAI

Yes, if by “song playing in your head” you mean that there are air vibrations that produce a certain sound literally emanating or passing through your head. But this is what you must mean in order to make your point. Otherwise your points about “seeing green without a green brain” or “hearing a song in your head without a source” wouldn’t actually be a challenge for materialism in any way as explained above.

but they're not indicative of a category error, which is what you were claiming before. — RogueAI

I have not once used the phrase “category error”. You’ll need to remind me if I did because last time we talked was around a week ago wasn’t it?

In dualism, there are two categories: mental stuff and physical stuff, and the dualist claims that one comes from the other. — RogueAI

Uhhhh no? Dualism is dual precisely because neither can be reduced to the other. If you propose 2 kinds of stuff but really one kind just comes from the other kind, you’re a monist who believes the other kind is all that exists. No materialist denies the existence of minds and consciousness. What they deny is that they’re different stuff. Yet we don’t call materialists dualists do we?

That would be fine if there was an explanation for it all, but in the absence of any explanation (and the problem has been around a long time), I think there's a prima facie case for a category error. — RogueAI

I’m not sure I understand this but it doesn’t seem to answer the question.

So can you answer the question?

What are minds themselves in an idealist system? Are they also projections of a mind? — khaled

The cause of my thought can only be a thought — Mww

Not true. Idk where you get this. You must have had a first thought no? You haven’t been thinking forever. What caused your first thought after being born? It wasn’t another thought. By definition. Or even simpler, what causes your first thought after waking up? Do you continue your line of thinking from before you went to sleep? I would be impressed if that’s the case! This also applies to your thoughts about what causes thoughts. Those also started somewhere, and weren’t caused by a thought.

never to arrive at the unconditioned cause of any thought. — Mww

So, if I think of a cause of something, what I just thought of is not an “unconditioned cause” because I thought about it?

How do you ever get to the “unconditioned cause” of anything then, if even thinking makes it “conditioned”?

I’m not sure I’m following.

That I must use thinking, in order to think to that which causes my thinking, is the epitome of infinite regress. — Mww

No it isn’t as I just explained above. I know some programming and it’s pretty common practice to have an object take itself as a member. So the “human” class would declare something like “friend” variable which is of type human. You would have to have a human in order to have a human friend. But no weird infinite regresses occur. Usually you end up with cycles or complicated networks. Or some people just not having friends.

Infinite regress. — Mww

How, do you mind explaining? I don’t see how you end up with infinite regress.

Positing the existence of some mind-independent non-conscious stuff doesn't solve any problems. — RogueAI

It solves countless problems. Such as:

1- Not being able to dismiss solipsism, or a world where it’s just you and the mind of God.

2- Not being able to tell if anyone else has a mind (kind of same as above but applies individually)

3- Not being able to tell if someone is suffering or not (since their behavior is divorced from what their mind is thinking)

And the list goes on but those are all problems with dualism not idealism per se. I’m trying to understand idealism so I’ll ask you the same question I asked wayfarer.

No, because the idealist says that the cause of your experiences is a mind(s). Everything you experience is a projection of either a coordinated set of minds or a god-head mind — RogueAI

What are minds themselves in an idealist system? Are they also projections of a mind? Or are they somehow independent and fundamental? If they are the former, whose mind? God’s? Then in whose mind is God a projection? If he’s not a projection in another’s mind, what is he? If the latter, how do they seem to increase whenever a kid is born?

Sorry for all the questions I just don’t get y’all. And I’ve been trying to.

it's not implausible to have a song in your head. It happens all the time. — RogueAI

Right and he’s saying that to “have a song in your head” has a different meaning to “hearing a song from the other room”. In the one case there are are air vibrations hitting your eardrums causing the certain brain state. In the other case there are no air vibrations, yet there is a similar brain state (similar in the sense that you still feel like you hear a song). So there is no contradiction here.

Having a song in your head and actually hearing a song from the other room are different yet similar experiences corresponding to different yet similar brain states. What’s the issue with this?

That I think is a condition of my biology, and to seek its causes, is to necessarily use the very thing already caused. — Mww

So? What’s the issue with this?

I can never ever think to a cause of thinking. — Mww

Why not? You just implied in the above quote that you can.

Better to examine what a thought is, what a thought contains, where it fits in some overall system, rather than its causality. — Mww

Agreed that’s more practical. But you can do both no?

deleted.

I think the idea that mental states = physical states is contradicted by the simple fact that I can have a song playing in my head while there's no music in my skull
— RogueAI

It seems highly implausible that you actually have a song playing in your head. There doesn't seem to be be any source of vibration in there sufficient to make the necessary sounds. Far more likely is that you sometimes have an experience similar to that you have when listening to a song. Since both experiences are mental processes it doesn't seem at all a contradiction. — Isaac

This is a much clearer explanation than what I gave. :up:

You can see anything as a curse to be alleviated or as a fun challenge. Everything you just said applies to any activity not just living in general. You juggle when you eat, you juggle when you play video games, you juggle when you do sports, you juggle when you talk with friends.

Yet I’d bet you enjoy the juggling sometimes. And that there are often cases (I’d say most cases) where you WOULDN’T want the circus shut down. If you see a group of people playing pickup basketball do you wonder about how much they’re suffering and how basketball matches should all be closed down because they involve this juggling?

So maybe it’s not that the juggling is inherently bad. You just don’t like the juggling of life. That’s a fixable problem. Whereas “juggling is inherently bad” isn’t. And also I’d bet money you don’t think the latter is true.

So you can either pretend to believe the latter, in which case you will wallow in depression and make the juggling even worse, so it’s worse from both a practical and an intellectual honesty perspective. Or you can believe the former and have a difficult yet fixable problem on your hands. Your choice.

You can measure the intensity of a magnetic field, though. — Olivier5

What does that have to do with anything?

You tried proving that one must concede that ideas exist, and since they don’t have weight, they are immaterial. False. There are plenty of things that don’t have weight that are material.

Are you moving to intensity now? Well a rock doesn’t have intensity and we still call it material. So that doesn’t work either.

You can weight matter alright, but you cannot weight the idea that matter is all there is — Olivier5

There is plenty of things we can’t weigh that we consider material. Sound waves for example. Or magnetic fields. So this proves nothing.

To re-iterate, a recurring theme in this thread is how to conceive of a non-physical entity such as a mind. I’m saying, the question is misguided, because the mind is not an entity or object of any such analysis. — Wayfarer

Then you're not a substance dualist.....

Say you decide to disagree with what another poster is saying - that assessment, that weighing up, is the aspect of your activites that is not physical, even if there's some neural activity that is triggered by it. — Wayfarer

So if I look at your brain, and take note of every neural event, and the neural event that caused it, will I find some neural event which was seemingly caused by nothing? Since that would be the neural event that was "triggered by your mind"?

So looking at for a mental substance or thing or cause, in that sense, is misplaced. — Wayfarer

Yea, definitely not a substance dualist....

So what exactly are you saying? You propose a mental substance that triggers neurological events. But also insist that looking for a mental substance is misguided.

What about the insights of mathematicians who solve conjectures and so on? What has physically transpired in those cases? — Wayfarer

What do you think happened in those cases? Do you think if we scan their brains we'll find some unexplained energy anomaly we can attribute to a mind causing something?

1. If x is nonphysical then x violates physical laws — TheMadFool

But we haven't seen those laws violated so maybe x is not nonphysical. OR x is nonphysical and also completely useless (can't bring about any movement)

What dark energy and its implication on the conservation physical laws does is it makes statement 2 above false i.e. it's true that that x violates physical laws & x is physical. — TheMadFool

Which isn't helping your case. Beforehand, if we see physical laws getting violated, we can more easily assume the thing violating them is nonphysical. Now, even when physical laws are violated, the thing violating them can be physical or nonphysical. Which only makes this:

Considering thoughts aren't physical, how are you ever going to detect that this event has occurred? What do you expect to see when a thought does something? — khaled

Even worse. Now even if we DO find the fabled "seemingly uncaused neurological event" which was caused by your thirst rather than any physical process, we can't attribute the thing causing it to thirst. Well, we couldn't already but it's an even bigger leap to do so now.

10. If x is nonphysical then either x doesn't violate physical laws or x violates physical laws [7 - 9 conditional proof] — TheMadFool

This is the entire problem. If x is nonphysical and it violates physical laws, then x doesn't exist, as we haven't seen those laws violated. If x is nonphysical and it doesn't violate physical laws, then x is completely useless and posing its existence is thus also useless.

The problem is dualists want to propose a mental substance, that actually does work. An X that violates physical laws, that actually exists. You can't have that. Either you can propose a mental substance, and find out it doesn't do work (epiphenomenalism). Or you can insist that the mental substance does work, in which case it violates the conservation laws, in which case, you have to admit it doesn't exist because we haven't seen those laws violated yet.

Closest you'll get is quantum consciousness but again, it's highly speculative.

Exactly!

But no, the schema is not problematic. To define physical by being detectable seems like a decent definition even in vacuum. If you want to propose a “mind substance” like a thought, being more than just a physical structure, then that’s a testable hypothesis.

You claim thoughts are non physical yes? That means they can’t be perceived. However one would also like to claim that thoughts do something (I got a drink because I was thirsty). So if thoughts do something without getting perceived, we’d know exactly what that looks like: A magical unexplained movement. Somewhere along the causal chain of you getting a drink, you’d expect to see a neurological event that was uncaused by anything physical, that was instead caused by the thought.

Once that’s detected (though it directly violates the conservation laws) you can begin to deal with the whole slew of other problems that come with it. How do we know that this seemingly uncaused movement was caused by YOUR mind? If your mind has these telekinetic powers, why can’t you cause movement outside your body in the same way you cause movement inside your body? Etc.

But most likely we won’t detect such a thing at all. I recommend you check Enrique’s explanation of quantum consciousness if you insist on having minds and thoughts be substances with their own existence, rather than just structures of matter.

Or maybe it’s doubtful that thoughts exist independently as a substance in the first place. Though I’d like to make that work, I see no good way to do so.

That's one of the vexing problems in ontology. — TheMadFool

Vexing problems in dualist ontology*

You can't do any work with thoughts, at least I haven't heard of such an event having occurred. — TheMadFool

Considering thoughts aren't physical, how are you ever going to detect that this event has occurred? What do you expect to see when a thought does something?

Something important. — Hello Human

That's not a much better definition.

I assume that the "Qualia law" (matter->Qualia) is a law of nature similar to the other laws of nature, thus steady and time-independent. — SolarWind

Right. You assume. For no reason. Yet you claim you have a reason for doing so.

Anyways we've been going around in circles for a while now. I'll leave it here.

would mean that the qualia would still have to depend on something else. — SolarWind

Or be completely random. That too is an alternative. Or simply not exist for anyone other than yourself.

What should be that? — SolarWind

Heck if I know, a private ineffable substance called "qualia" is not my idea. But even if Qualia only depended on the physical configuration, you have absolutely no way of finding the significant variables. Maybe people born after 3 pm on Wednesdays actually enjoy torture (though they’ll act like the rest of us and scream). That’s just as reasonable a hypothesis than that they hate torture. Because both hypotheses have 0 evidence backing them up.

Again note, that this is assuming same physical configuration = same Qualia. Which you have no reason for believing either. But even IF you believe it the discontinuity argument doesn’t hold up. Even between you and a clone of you there is a vast array of physical and historical differences, so no reason to assume the same or similar Qualia.

There is an infinitesimally narrow gap of realization if someone has EXACTLY the inner configuration of oneself. — SolarWind

What? I'm reading this as "You will have the same qualia as a clone of yourself" or something like that. Well, by your formulation of qualia: No not necessarily. For this you have to assume that the physical is what results in qualia. But as you said, qualia must be completely separate from any physics, or else the physicists will consume it as some force or other. So you have no reason to believe that a clone of you, with the exact same matter configuration, would have the same, or similar, or any qualia.

There is no way for you to test any of the alternatives (same, similar, radically different, none), AND you have no reason to assume a physical similarity leads to a similarity in Qualia. It's a completely untestable hypothesis with no reason for us to believe it.

Now it would be extremely implausible that a small deviation would lead to a completely different qualia (or no qualia). That would be very discontinuous. — SolarWind

Again, you have no reason to believe there is a continuity of any sort. You cannot assume that a physical equality leads to the same qualia with the way you've cut qualia off so completely.

Anything is possible, but that doesn't get us anywhere. — SolarWind

Right, but the problem is that in your system, you have just as much reason to believe any qualia-matter combination is the case. You have 0 evidence anyone else is experiencing the same or similar qualia, or any qualia at all. And you have no argument from plausability or implausibility as I'm trying to show above.

We are faced with the amazing situation of not being able to prove something intuitively true. — SolarWind

I wouldn't call it an "amazing situation" so much as "a problem". If your theory can't prove something inuitively true, either it's not intuitively true or your theory isn't very good.

Exactly. I cannot know it. But I can accept it as plausible that I am not the exception in the universe. — SolarWind

Which is more probable?
1) I am the only human being who has qualia.
2) There is a principle which material configuration has qualia. — SolarWind

Neither is more probable than the other or more reasonable to believe given your position. Because when Qualia causes no physical change, you have absolutely 0 inkling what others are experiencing. And you have 0 reason to believe they are experiencing the same qualia as you, if any qualia at all. One has just as much evidence for believing that the torture victim loves it, or hates it, or feels nothing at all, and that is 0 evidence. This is what happens when you divorce experience from matter, and propose that experience is its own substance.

Yes it would as this line wouldn't be asked:

R: Oh, so...when you figure it all out, does that mean I won’t be able to claim I think? — Mww

R: I think.
S: No you don’t. That’s the brain at work. — Mww

How about: Yes you do, that's the brain at work.

It is the other way to eliminate qualia. However, this would mean that ethically speaking, any genocide would be the same as breaking stones. — SolarWind

I doubt qualia can be treated as a good basis for ethics. Especially given that you can't even tell anyone else has it other than yourself. How do you know the keyboard you're typing on right now isn't in extreme pain? Those are the questions you have to ask when you propose an ineffable, private, qualia.

Especially since you agree that these Qualia would be useless when it comes to enacting a physical change, so you can't use a physical change to infer a change in qualia. One could seriously maintain that the torture victim is in fact not suffering at all, as even if he/she had been suffering, that wouldn't lead to them screaming, it wouldn't lead to anything. For all we know they love the torture! Let's give em more!

A lot of "may" and "perhaps". Once or if those are gone I'd agree with you. Until then.

The body's molecular complexes may be adapted by the evolutionary process for extreme sensitivity to energy fields that haven't even been discovered yet, but which we must honestly admit probably exist. — Enrique

Or it could be adapted to completely crush any semblance of quantum effects and to be as close to deterministic as possible in whichcase you'll have dug yourself into a hole. Until the extent to which quantum events affect the brain, and consequently behavior is determined I'm not putting any money on the theory.

I doubt it. I'd say you're just refusing to address the questions. Seems like it ends the same way it ends every time.... I still don't see any reason to propose a separate substance. And you still can't explain how that substance is affected by or affects the physical. And we both walk away without learning anything. :roll:

Is this going to be a weekly/biweekly thing? :rofl:

Epiphenomenalism is true and we can prove it:

If there would be a mind effect, this effect could be captured by the physicists, they will eat everything what has an effect and define a force to it.

What remains can only be an epi. Q.e.d. ! — SolarWind

This assumes that something will remain. I don't think so.

Again, while I like the theory, it has its gimmicks which you haven't addressed. Yes, it fundamentally allows for a non material substance that can cause physical changes without violating any laws, but doesn't really give what we're looking for. The body is too big to be treated as a quantum system. Your mind, formulated as that which decides quantum events (instead of relegating it to randomness) will end up still being useless.

Except this formulation mentions nothing about minds, or anything controversial. Anyone can give a yes or no answer to this one:

Do you think that some physical effects are not caused sufficiently by physical causes? — khaled

It's different from the question you've been dodging for 2 pages in that it asks nothing about minds It's purely talking about physical effects and physical causes. Things we can agree exist.

So what is ‘physical’? — Wayfarer

What we study in physics.

See? Answers.

I asked a yes or no question. I got neither a yes or no.

Do you think that some physical effects are not caused sufficiently by physical causes? — khaled

Do you intend to answer the question? The one you spent 2 pages dodging (in this thread alone)?

Do you think that some physical effects are not caused sufficiently by physical causes? — khaled