• Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    So what? You operate (at least as a default position) under the assumption that other scientists don't lie to you about this, when they say that, e.g. they ran the math again and it doesn't work.Olivier5

    It's not about lying. Scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, not on the assumption of non-physical minds. I'm not disagreeing that minds are important: science is phenomenological, I agree. And there are good reasons to assume that I'm not surrounded by p-zombies or stooges. However that process of knowing other minds is based on my phenomenology and their physicality, not some telepathy. (Come to think of it, how crap are non-physical minds that, free from physical constraints like localism, they depend 100% on physical means to communicate? Anyone who believes in non-physical mind must admit that theirs is dumb :rofl: ) A purely solipsistic science wouldn't be possible, and I have to know others, work with others, learn from others and hopefully one day supersede others through physical means.

    There's just no obvious platform for ideal minds outside of solipsism here that I can see.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    It is undisputed that there are (1) minds and (2) bodies. I count two things, which means it is undisputed that dualism is the case. — Hanover

    It is undisputed that there are (1) ducks and (2) rows. I might count three ducks and they might be three ducks in a row, but only a philosopher would count four things. Count ducks if you will, and count rows too. but do not add ducks to rows and call them all 'things'.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    There is life and there is matter. They mix but neither can be derived from the other.Protagoras

    I would contest that. Life is already transcendental vis-à-vis inanimate matter. Life is already a manner of thinking at biochemical level, and this manner of thinking is written down on matter.

    Life creates new information, codes and stores it to use it later, chosing carefully which DNA code to play, which hormones or enzyme to pump up or down... It recombines information again and again (mainly through sex, a form of genetic dialogue) and in doing so it creates new information.

    Life is one step towards thinking. Stones can't think. They have no need for it. But life is all about information, and it is very creative. So it was bound to lead to actual conscious thinking at some point or another, IMO.
  • Protagoras
    331
    @Olivier5
    You are assuming wrongfully that life comes from matter.

    You are making an unnecessary distinction between life and concious thinking. Life is concious thinking.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, not on the assumption of non-physical minds.Kenosha Kid

    More precisely, scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, understandable by human minds.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    You are assuming wrongfully that life comes from matter.Protagoras

    No, certainly not "matter". To me it comes from the fact that in our indeterministic world, anything that can happen will happen.
  • Protagoras
    331
    @Olivier5
    Glad to hear that!

    I would say life is axiomatic. It is a given. And has always existed.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    As Searle said, the man on the street is a Cartesian. You're barking up the wrong tree.

    What's the draw of property dualism? It takes a tiny bit of philomind to answer that. Last time I talked to 180 he came up pretty short in that area, so I don't expect much

    We are all property dualists insofar as we recognize two basic kinds of action or process; the mental and the physical. As @180 Proof says, this is an epistemological, not a metaphysical or ontological, statement since it is referring to our ways of understanding the world.

    Substance dualism makes a further claim that the fact that we understand things in these different ways (conceiving of the mental and the physical) indicates the existence or reality of distinct substances. This is pure speculation or reification based on believing in our intuitions.

    It is not that one or the other (PD or SD) is the more useful, since PD has already fulfilled the purpose of recognizing that we do in fact understand things in these two different general ways, and SD adds no further use. Since it is a metaphysical icing atop the methodological cake; thus being pure sugar it adds only a little extra flavour, but no additional nutrition (use)..
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    I would say it emerged naturally, because it was possible.
  • Protagoras
    331
    @Olivier5
    So what drove it be possible?

    Possibility is not life. Possibility does not desire.

    Life is the first principle.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    I don't think it's necessary to invent a new material to explain why people think and trees don't in a complex sense.Cheshire

    The distinct and separate substance of substance dualism are not able to exchange energy, for neither one cannot walk the walk and talk the talk of the other.
  • Cheshire
    1.1k
    The distinct and separate substance of substance dualism are not able to exchange energy, for neither one cannot walk the walk and talk the talk of the other.PoeticUniverse
    Well, if that was the case they wouldn't be found working together. Maybe they aren't interchangeable but some type of exchange ought be taking place.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    some type of exchange ought be taking place.Cheshire

    Yes, and it should have read 'can' instead of 'cannot' or 'either' instead of 'neither'.

    So, substance dualism is dead.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Dualism vs dualism: whoever wins, reason loses.

    Though with property dualism reason loses slightly less, I guess?

    (There is only one kind of substance, which is just the abstract grouping together in space of many properties, all of those properties of the same ontological kind, merely dispositions to interact in particular ways with another of that same one kind of substance — which interactions can each equally well be seen as either the physical behaviors of one substance or the phenomenal experiences of the other substance, whence the dualistic appearance).
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Dualism vs dualism: whoever wins, reason loses.Pfhorrest

    What sort of material stuff is reason made of, in your view? Or are you arguing vice versa, that all matter is made of reason?
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    We are all property dualists insofar as we recognize two basic kinds of action or process; the mental and the physical. As 180 Proof says, this is an epistemological, not a metaphysical or ontological, statement since it is referring to our ways of understanding the world.Janus

    This is a logical mistake. In fact, without dualism, there could be no such thing as epistemology. So dualism underpins epistemology and science. It is not itself epistemological or scientific, but metaphysical.
  • Protagoras
    331
    180 claims logical fallacies from hanover yet most of his post is an appeal to authority to spinoza! And strawman and obfuscates hanover by mentioning leibniz and melanbranche.

    One wishes 180 could for once use his own words and actually present some ideas of his own to express his case.

    One wishes he could actually engage in an actual charitable discussion without handwaiving and repeating his previous posts.

    @Hanover
    For goodness sake express the fact that mind is desire. And desire is physical. Thus you establish an unassailable position. And put us out of the misery of this dodgy debater.

    And yall blamed 3017 when it was obvious he is a very good debater,he just had a terribly uncharitable and poor debater who upended the debate.
    @3017amen
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    Non-rational minds, such as the minds of animals, direct intentional behaviour. The rational mind, such as those of humans, is able to grasp meaning, form abstractions, count, speak, and so on. As such it discerns a domain of rational relations, which is the basis of science. But it's a fact that the mind is not itself an object of cognition, in the way that the objects of science are. That's why it's not objectively real - it transcends the subject-object division, which itself is a product of the mind on a subliminal or unconscious level.

    The problem with Cartesian dualism is that it suggests res cogitans as something objectively real which 'interacts' with the supposed 'physical'. But it reality, there is nothing that is only physical, nor anything which is only mental, these two always co-arise. Cartesian dualism is an explanatory metaphor, not a scientific model as such. (If you believe there is something purely physical, then you would need to demonstrate what that is, which is in the domain of physics. However as is well known, fundamental physics are bedevilled by just the kinds of problem that is being discussed in this thread.)
  • Janus
    16.2k
    I don't know what you think you're disagreeing with. Epistemology is based on the recognition that our understanding is dualistic; which is what I said.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Epistemology is based on the recognition that our understanding is dualistic; which is what I said.Janus
    Ok then.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    What sort of material stuff is reason made of, in your view? Or are you arguing vice versa, that all matter is made of reason?Olivier5

    I didn't say anything about material stuff.

    But in any case, reason isn't a stuff, it's an activity, that I was poetically personifying, which activity is usually done by brains, which are made mostly of gluons if we're measuring by mass, which are material particles, that confine quarks into the nucleons of the atoms from which are built the complex molecules from which the tissues of the many, many cells of those brains are made.

    Or if you want to interpret "reason" as a stuff anyway, I guess that would make it abstract stuff, like mathematical objects and such, the stuff that can be reasoned about; in which case yes, matter is in a sense made of that, inasmuch as matter like the above is a feature of the abstract object that is our concrete universe, where "concrete" here just means "the structure we're a part of".
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    More precisely, scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, understandable by human minds.Olivier5

    That's probably true more often than not, and not unreasonably so. There's no obvious reason, other than the anthropic principle, that as much of the universe is amenable to human reason as is.

    But I for one don't assume that everything is necessarily comprehendible to human minds. In fact I think we're hitting that limit already, as more and more AI is used to make experimental predictions. Rather, we're fortunate that the elementary character of reality is that it obeys comprehendible rules on a statistical level.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Dualism vs dualism: whoever wins, reason loses.Pfhorrest

    reason isn't a stuff, it's an activity, [...] usually done by brains,Pfhorrest

    How can an activity lose anything?
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    More precisely, scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, understandable by human minds.
    — Olivier5

    That's probably true more often than not,
    Kenosha Kid

    It's always true, whether they know it or not. A scientist worth his mettle tries to understand the world, or some part of it. If he doesn't do that, he's a lab technician. And if he assumed the world could not be understood by human minds, then he wouldn't try day after day to do so.

    Actions speak louder than words, they say.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    The bit you elided there in the "[...]", "...that I was poetically personifying...", is the answer to your question. Saying "reason loses" is a poetic way of saying that reasoning has not been done well.

    I was parodying this movie's tagline, if that's not obvious:
    C9bPd0AVwAAmkki?format=jpg&name=small
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    reasoning has not been done well.Pfhorrest

    If reasoning is an activity of gluons, that'd be their fault, not ours.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    The gluons (etc) are us.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    I don't know about you, but I'm certainly not a gluon...
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Not just one, but you’re made of them, among other things.
  • Protagoras
    331
    @Pfhorrest
    Are gluons living or material?
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