No, I'm dualist, I apprehend both, with a fundamental incompatibility between the objects which I see, and the concepts which I understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't understand. You apprehend both what? What is incompatible?

It goes both ways. Some scientists try model the behaviour of natural things using concepts, but artificial things are representations of concepts. Fundamentally, symbols always represent something mental. — Metaphysician Undercover

It don't see how fundamentally, symbols always represent something mental when you just said that concepts can represent natural things, unless you're saying that natural things are mental, but then that would make you an idealist/pansychist, not a dualist.

Do tree rings represent the age if the tree independent of someone looking at the tree rings?

When you look at the world what do you see?

Is it concepts all the way down?

Do objects and their behaviors symbolize mathematical concepts or do mathematical concepts symbolize objects and their behaviors?

I agree that individually we are born with the ability to (pre-)reason and learn a language. I can't agree that language is just scribbles and sounds. Language is something like a set of conventions. — T H E

It is just scribbles and sounds that children learn to imitate. Using language is a behavior, and just like all other behaviors we learn to interpret them.

And prime numbers would have never been discovered without math. — Marchesk

So you agree that language is necessary for math?

They typically describe the history of some important experiments and physicists leading to the development of QM along with the various interpretations and the authors opinion. But they also include a few equations, with a note that QM is describing a world of the microphysical we don't experience.

I'll revise my question. Can you replace the equations in QM with English making no reference to mathematical concepts? — Marchesk

Sure, because the mathematical concepts refer to states of affairs that isn't just more math. What is a mathematical concept, if not words in a language? Are you saying that it's mathematical concepts all the way down? Are you an idealist? The universe isn't made of numbers and function symbols. It is composed of objects and their processes. The scribbles on paper refer to those objects and their processes. Are electrons numbers or objects or processes? Are tables and chairs composed of numbers or electrons?

That's what mathematicians claim, so I would think there is some truth to it. If there is anything more than math, being referred to, this is dependent on application. — Metaphysician Undercover

So when you look at reality you see numbers and mathematical function symbols, not objects and their processes? F=ma refers to a state of affairs that isn't just more math.

Math would have never been discovered without language.

So are you saying that the mathematical symbols don't refer to anything that isn't just more math? What does the math say about reality?

Never read a layman's book on QM?

If math was the only language that could be used to explain QM then what need would there be for an interpretation?

You can say your numbers in English, you can say the function symbols in English, so I don't see the problem you guys are having here. The numbers and symbols represent something. What do they represent - more math?

Bertrand Russell said that 'physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. — Wayfarer

Mathematics is just another language and is therefore invented and arbitrary. It uses scribbles to represent some state if affairs, just like other languages. You can even translate the scribbles into English or some other language. What you can say with mathematics you can say in English.

Scientific method relies on the ability to capture just those attributes of objects in such a way as to be able to make quantitative predictions about them. This is characteristic of Galilean science, in particular, which distinguished those characteristics of bodies that can be made subject to rigourous quantification. These are designated the 'primary attributes' of objects, and distinguished, by both Galileo and Locke, from their 'secondary attributes', which are held to be in the mind of the observer. They are also, and not coincidentally, the very characteristics which were the primary attributes of the objects studied by physics, in the first place. — Wayfarer

Words are like numbers in that they allow you to make quantitative predictions, too. Words represent how we view the world as quantified objects. The mind is a measuring device.

He did not, not any more that some biblical prophet understood your particular predicament when you happen to read his verses and find them useful. The reader is only using the book as clues to understand himself. — Olivier5

So when you read people's posts on this forum you're not trying to understand what the writer meant when they authored those posts? If you're only projecting your own interpretation, then you're basically putting your own words in the writer's mouth. What would be the point of communicating with you?

That is only one of the many possible meanings of "speaking in metaphors", and not the one I intended. I meant the Freudian interpretation of dreams as expressing ideas (desires, fears usually) via a sort of confused theatrical play, often with composite characters. — Olivier5

So you just mean the language of shapes, colors, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings - the language of nature that "selected" the vocabulary we all understand and use to be informed of the state of the world, and that was passed down to subsequent generations through heredity?

I think I understand what you are saying, but IMV thinking itself is (counter-intuitively) not a private act. I say this because we think in and through a public language and through the 'lens' of an education. Also consider that any interest in trust seems to reference some reality that transcends the individual. The goal is true-for-anyone and not just true-for-me. To find these true-for-all propositions is also to work in a shared language. I do see that we can quietly talk to ourselves and have insights that lead scientific revolutions. — T H E

This simply can't be the case. Newborn infants have to learn the language and learning anything requires an ability to reason. The ability to reason exists prior to learning a language. Language is just visual scribbles and sounds, like most everything else, and we interpret our visual and auditory sensations individually. Actions speak louder than words because actions are visual, like words, and can be interpreted, and provide more accurate information than words can. It's more difficult to lie with your actions than with your words.

And I'm saying you're kidding yourself if you think the "ontological distinction between mind and brain" is independent of language. — Janus

You're fooling yourself if you think that the distinction between how you observe your own mind vs. other minds is a difference in the scribbles and sound you make. Is the distinction between scribbles and sounds also dependent on language? Hearing is distinctly different than seeing, without using words.

Because reading a book involves a certain amount of self projection, of interpretation. Some people get their insight from reading the bible, others from reading the stars. I have nothing against it, I myself draw insights from books, including on dreams. The part I disagree with is when you say that "some book can interpret your dreams for you". This is having it vice versa: the reader interprets the book, and uses the book as a source of clues to try and interpret his dreams. — Olivier5

But the book is in a public language, written by someone else with their own private language, so how did author else come to understand the readers private language?

According to Freud it's the subconscious part of me speaking in metaphors. Does that count as a private language? — Olivier5

Speaking in metaphors means that you are using the native public language that you learned. So you're saying that your private language is your publuc native language?

I agree. When we think about evolution, we sometimes forget that life alters its own environments, sometimes drastically. The nurturing being is embedded in nature, part of it. — frank

Yes, or another way of looking at it is that we are all social individuals. We are individuals that find happiness in being social. It's why we can agree on many ethical standards except when it comes to choosing the group over the individual and vice versa (collectivism vs individualism).

If you're having trouble interpreting the private language in your head, then maybe it's YOUR private language.
— Harry Hindu

Well yes, I guess that's the point. — Olivier5

I mistyped. I meant to say it's NOT your private language if you're having trouble understanding it.

If others claim that a book on dreams does give them insight into their dreams, who are you to say that it didn't? — Harry Hindu

I never said that it didn't. — Olivier5

Yes you did:

That proves very little. There are many books written about aliens from another planet too, or about ghosts. It doesn't mean these books are right in everything they say. — Olivier5

If a book helps a person gain insight into their dream then how is that not proof that the book was right in what it said?

Perfectly private 'observation' is (or seems to be) scientifically irrelevant. What I'm questioning is this starting point of the private dream. This makes the brain a mere part of the dream, so then so is the dream a part of the dream. (?) — T H E

Science Identifies and integrates sensory evidence which is the nature of reason. Science is essentially based, not on experiment, but on observation and logic. Looking under a rock or into a telescope are both scientific acts. So is the act of observing and thinking about your own mental processes - a scientific act is private. Proof of one's conclusions to others comes later, but that is argumentative, not inquisitive.

Brains are just information in minds. Some might call this idealism or panpsychism, but I reject the idea that information is inherently mental (or physical). Information is fundamental and mental and physical are both information.

I'm not advocating dualism, but semantic pluralism. You don't seem to be able to get out of your own dualistic framework of thinking in order to understand what I'm saying, so there's no point continuing. — Janus

You're confused again. I'm not the dualist. If you had been reading my posts, youd understand that I'm arguing against dualism.

Again, we're talking past each other. Your taking about the meaning of scribbles and sounds (semantic pluralism), and I'm talking about the ontological "distinction" between mind and brain - what exists independent of language and how we use scribbles and sounds to refer to things.

That proves very little. There are many books written about aliens from another planet too, or about ghosts. It doesn't mean these books are right in everything they say. — Olivier5

LOL. How do you know what they're saying if it's about a private experience? If others claim that a book on dreams does give them insight into their dreams, who are you to say that it didn't? Either way you lose the private language argument.

My native language is French. I can try to describe my dreams, irrespective of the language used for that. I can even try to decipher them, or somebody else's. But it's not easy. — Olivier5

Why not, if it's YOUR OWN PRIVATE LANGUAGE? If you're having trouble interpreting the private language in your head, then maybe it's YOUR private language.

BTW, what forms do the symbols of your private language take? A public language takes the form of visual shapes and colors, and sounds. How do you know you have a private language? What form does it take for you to be aware of it?

Coming from a trumpy, card carrying member of the Dunning-Kruger Gang . — 180 Proof

Coming from a guy that doesn't know me and can only create a fictitious image of me to help him sleep at night. :roll:

In short, the idea is that we communicate because of common biological structure, not because we share a society where language facilitates group activities.

See what I mean? — frank

If what you are saying is that we mentally represent the world in similar ways thanks to our similar biological functions, then sure, that seems obvious and is similar to what I have argued with people like Banno about before. But then you have to account for how the brain shapes itself when learning a language. Brains physically change when they learn. Once you learn one language some sounds become difficult to make in another language because of how your brain and tongue and lips have become accustomed to communicating in certain ways. For instance, many Hebrew speakers have trouble with the English R. It's not that they aren't hearing it like English speakers can, it's more to do with training your brain, tongue and lips to make the sound.

Personally, I think that this argument of nature vs nurture is absurd. It's really both working together, not just one or the other.

Stick to politics/religion, 180. You're in over your head.

What about processes in the brain that do not involve conceptual thought? The information in your consciousness was processed in the brain before appearing in consciousness. Are those not mental processes?
— Harry Hindu

Are you claiming there are no subconscious thought processes? — Janus

I'm asking questions about what you have claimed. I'm trying to understand what you are claiming. You said that mental processes involve conceptual thought. I'm asking about those processes that occur in the brain stem, pituitary gland, basal ganglia, the lower brain, etc,. From what I know, those processes do not involve conceptual thought, so I'm basically asking if you know something that the neurologists don't.

Are you saying that all mental processes are conscious processes - from sub-conscious to full-fledged consciousness? Would there be parts of the brain that you would point to to show which parts are sub-conscious and fully conscious? Would that not indicate that the physical parts correspond to the conscious parts?


Then you're saying that mental states are physical states -mind is the brain and vice versa? How is does the non-mental process of tendonitis become a mental conceptual thought?
— Harry Hindu

No, I'm not saying that at all. In all I've said I've been arguing that the mind is not the brain simply because there is a valid distinction between the two concepts. — Janus

Then we are talking past each other. You're talking about a difference in concepts (conceptual thoughts), which are mental processes and I'm talking about a difference mind vs brain. Are you saying that everything is mind and brains are just another idea, or concept, not a actual "physical" thing?

The mind becomes aware of the pain caused by tendonitis. The tendonitis could have earlier been incipient and no pain felt, so there would have been no awareness of the tendonitis. To know (that is to come to believe under good authority) that I have tendonitis I have to research the symptoms or seek expert advice. — Janus

I'm asking how do you become mentally aware of a physical state.

It seems to me that to assert that the mind and brain are not one and the same, or at least the mind is at least part of the brain and there are other non-conscious processes in the brain, is dualistic and dualism's problem is in explaining how two different things can interact.

Physical states (or better, processes) — Janus

Here you seem to be saying that processes (like mind) are the same as the physical state (brain).

What I am saying is that they are the same, just from different perspectives - being the state vs observing the state.

There's a little bit of research on the biological basis of it, but what does it really tell me if my motor cortex is active when I'm silently humming? Shrug. — frank

That maybe they are one and the same phenomena, just from different perspectives - one from the process of observing yourself outside of your body (like in a mirror or MRI scan), while the other is the process of being your body. Think about how different a grandfather clock looks from outside of it vs inside of it. You're looking at the same thing, just from different perspectives, so you get different information from different perspectives, and it appears as if you are looking at two distinctly different things, but that is because the information is different. Think about how your pet cat/dog appears to your different senses. Your senses provide different information about the same thing, so hearing your dog bark is different than seeing your dog bark, but it provides information about the same thing.

I seem to have this uncanny ability to sing in my head too.

Another thing I can do is dream, when I am asleep.

And these things I dream of, they sometimes seem to have meaning. As if I were talking to myself in some secret language. — Olivier5

Then why are there so many books written that claim to be able to interpret your dreams for you, and many people claim that those books have provided insight into their dreams and lives?

What is this secret language? Can it be translated into English, or is already in English because that is your native language?

There's one big difference though. I can check the frequency I'm humming. Only I know the sound of internal humming.
— frank
What does it mean to know the sound of internal humming when you can't check its frequency? If you need to know the frequency to know the sound and you can't check the frequency of the sound in your mind then how can you say that you know the sound in your mind? — Harry Hindu

You're not good to address this?

You can't tell the frequency of the sound in your mind because frequencies have to do with wavelenghts. If the sound in your head doesn't have a frequency, it doesn't have a wavelength, so it comes down to how to distinguish between external wavelengths of vibrating air molecules and the mental representation of those frequencies and wavelengths as sound in the mind.

Are you a naive realist?
— Harry Hindu
Are you? — 180 Proof

Nope.

I was the one that asked you the question because of what you claimed,, not me, and because you can't answer it without appearing naive, you just throw the question back at me. Pathetic.

So it appears that your immaturity doesn't just become apparent when you are shown to be inconsistent in politics, but also in metaphysics? So no one can have serious "conversation" with you unless they agree with everything you say?

There's one big difference though. I can check the frequency I'm humming. Only I know the sound of internal humming. — frank

What does it mean to know the sound of internal humming when you can't check its frequency? If you need to know the frequency to know the sound and you can't check the frequency of the sound in your mind then how can you say that you know the sound in your mind?

I could access the computer's registers and light up a display of LEDs to show me the binary code for the password. I can't do that with an internal image of a password.

Maybe we just don't have the technology for that yet. Maybe one day. — frank

There are programs that can display a stored passwords. When you tell someone your password you convert memory to sound and another hears it an coverts the sound to their memory. They are then able to access your data. How did they get the correct password if the internal sound of your password is different than what is heard?

You're right, I misread what you called "strange". I read it backwards, in fact, as 'processing can exist independent of its processor'. Yeah, there are examples (e.g. coma patients, chickens, fish) of mindless brains but, as far as I know, there aren't any examples of brainless minds. Infants & paraplegics have legs without walking just as there can be brains independent of minding. Why is that "strange"? — 180 Proof

Chickens and fish have minds, as they have brains and minds are what brains do, right? Jellyfish are an example of an organism that doesn't have a brain and therefore no mind, no? If not, then what is different between human and chicken brains such that one is minding and the other isn't?

A brain-dead brain may not have a mind as you think of it (do you really know what consciousness is?), but it still has information (and I assert that consciousness is just a type of information).

Brains are visual objects, or visual information of others mental processes. Believing that the world is as it appears visually is naive realism. Are you a naive realist?

Silently hum a note in your mind. Now duplicate that same frequency aloud. I think some readings of the Private Language argument would say this activity is nonsense because there's no way to tell if the note you hum is the same as the note in your mind.. — frank

Like colors, sounds only exist in the mind. The sound you hear when you hum and the "sound" you "hear silently humming" in your mind is a memory are the same. Just as the password stored in the computer's memory is the same as the stokes on the keyboard you type, or else you won't be able to get access to your data.

Physical states (or better, processes) like digestion do not necessarily involve conceptual thought, whereas mental processes just are conceptual thought processes. It amazes me that you seem to find this difficult to understand. — Janus

What about processes in the brain that do not involve conceptual thought? The information in your consciousness was processed in the brain before appearing in consciousness. Are those not mental processes?

I don't know what you are asking. I haven't said the body is "composed of both mental and non-mental states". The body is physically composed. I may have tendonitis, a physical condition, without knowing it. I know I have tendonitis, when it is demonstrated to me beyond reasonable doubt that I have it, just like I know anything else. — Janus

Then you're saying that mental states are physical states -mind is the brain and vice versa? How is does the non-mental process of tendonitis become a mental conceptual thought?

You're right, I misread what you called "strange". I read it backwards, in fact, as 'processing can exist independent of its processor'. Yeah, there are examples (e.g. coma patients, chickens, fish) of mindless brains but, as far as I know, there aren't any examples of brainless minds. Infants & paraplegics have legs without walking just as there can be brains independent of minding. Why is that "strange"? — 180 Proof

If a processor processes, when it doesn't process does it still make sense to call it a processor? Is a brain still a brain without the activity, or just a lump of matter that takes up space? What's the difference between a brain that doesn't think and a leg that can't move besides their shape? They are both just lumps of biological matter.

Strange. You seem to believe that a processor can exist independent of its processing.
— Harry Hindu
I do? Cite where I've given you that impression. — 180 Proof

Here:

The latter makes sense and the former does not. "Mind" is predicate (processing), "brain" is subject (processor) like e.g. walk and legs, respiration and lungs, respectively. Mind(ing) is what a brain does. — 180 Proof

You said the former does not make sense and the latter does. If the former does not make sense and the latter is not saying the same as the former, then what else could you be saying?

My "mind is not for rent to any god or government".
— Harry Hindu

Don't flatter yourself. ;-) — Wayfarer

"Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant.
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is."
:cool:

Mental states', as the term is ordinarily used, refers to states of a person. I have no idea what you think big toes and pubic hair have to do with it. — Janus

Are not big toes and public hairs part of a person? Are mental states of a person the same as the physical states of a person? If not, what is the difference between them?

I have.... no clue what this means. What's a "non-mental bodily state"?
— khaled

Digestion, respiration, tendonitis, etc.,etc.,: the list is endless, — Janus

So the body is composed of both mental and non-mental states? How do they interact? For instance, how do you know you have tendonitis when you have it?

Empty in not containing any individuals - hence Noether's Theorem could not be proved. — Banno

WHAT is empty?

The point about the transcendent nature of 'God' is that we can't make an object out of it - there is no such object, and so no objective method to know about 'it'. — Wayfarer

The same can be said about leprechauns and ghosts, but we don't use terms like "transcendent" to describe those things, why?

But the point of practical spirituality is to 'know by not knowing' (again remeniscent of Socrates) - hence 'the cloud of unknowing'. 'The known must cease for the unknown to be', — Wayfarer

You'd have to know when you're in a state of "unknowing", hence you cannot ever escape a state of knowing, unless you're dead or unconscious.

Droves of atheists (and anti-theists) renunciate merely the social consequences of organized, religious structures - as opposed to the (indeterminate) metaphysical assertions, that the structures themselves declaim. — Aryamoy Mitra

Maybe we could say that the latter is atheism and the former is a-religion. There is also a-political. A-political would include all forms of political/social coercion, not just religion/theology. Politics is essentially a religion. Politics evolved from religion. They are both forms of Big Brother. I'm not just an atheist, but a-political. My "mind is not for rent to any god or government".

Firstly mental states are not identical to brain states; a state of happiness is a state of the person, not just a state of the brain — Janus

You're conflating mental states with states of a person? Mental states are brain states, just from a different perspective. Is your big toe and pubic hair included in this happiness that your taking about? We all know that the same thing looks different from different perspectives. Why would it be any different for brains - (observing a brain that is part of you vs observing a brain that is not part of you)?

I had no idea you're a mysterian too ... — 180 Proof

Strange. You seem to believe that a processor can exist independent of its processing.

I suppose it does. The God of the Old and New Testaments, Qur’an and many others differ greatly, and yet the atheist supposedly believes in none of them. Because of this, I reckon the atheist would need to account more generally, if that makes sense. — Georgios Bakalis

The mono-theist believes in none of them, except just one. There is just as much evidence for one as there is for all the rest - none. The atheist is just being consistent.

Gorman positioneert zich nadrukkelijk als iemand met een natuurlijk bewustzijn van haar plek in de voortdurende strijd van zwart Amerika. — Johan Fretz

Het is dus flauw de critici huidskleurobsessie te verwijten, terwijl zij overduidelijk doelen op zeer specifieke ervaring en vakkennis van zwarte dichters in relatie tot Gormans werk. — Johan Fretz

Why are you making it about skin color?

What's the matter, Netherlands have too much white privilege to find an qualified candidate to translate a speech made by a black woman in Amerika?

voor wie de geschreven tekst zich voegt naar het ritme en de cadans van het gesproken woord. — Johan Fretz

LOL, the written word is read at the pace of the reader, not at the pace of the speaker that is being translated. "Spoken-word-artist"? Phhhah! Art is in the eye of the beholder.

But you upbraided synthesis for trying to be someone else: — Todd Martin

If synthesis is a follower, and I'm not, then telling them how to live their lives and how to think, and then they do just that, is what we both do and how we are both being ourselves. Leaders lead. Followers follow.

Your example goes straight to my point: a human being, unlike a cat, knows what he is, and, unlike a cat, often has issues with it. — Todd Martin

If someone asserts that they Elvis Presley reincarnated, are they really being Elvis Presley reincarnated, or just being delusional?