I think we can then question the effectiveness of the main argument against physicalism because it assumes that our experiences should be reducible to information about the brain. — Apustimelogist
why would I expect such a representation to be reducible to the brain activity that supports it? — Apustimelogist
If you are sad – very sad inside, to the point of despair – and you look at yourself in the mirror, you may be crying. So you will see tears flowing down your face and contorted muscles, but not for a moment would you think that those tears and contorted muscles are the whole story. You know that behind those tears, there is the thing in itself – the real thing – which is your sadness. So the tears and the muscles are the extrinsic appearance, the representation of an inner reality.
But that reality is not in another world. It’s right here. From a first-person point of view, it is the thing in itself – the sadness in itself – but it presents itself to observation as what we call ‘tears’.
but a physicalist could just say that his experiences are his brain. — Apustimelogist
Although I have questions too regarding this, if ideas exist a priori than wouldn’t this point to genetic markers passed down through millennia ?
An example of this exists in some birds whose chicks are immediately scared upon seeing a certain shape in the sky meant to represent an eagle. — simplyG
it might just be required that a physicalist believes everything is physical. — Apustimelogist
In Consciousness Explained, I described a method, heterophenomenology, which was explicitly designed to be 'the neutral path leading from objective physical science and its insistence on the third-person point of view, to a method of phenomenological description that can (in principle) do justice to the most private and ineffable subjective experiences, while never abandoning the methodological principles of science.'
Maybe we are what its like to be physical things.. we just can't explain it or describe properly the relation. — Apustimelogist
But if the reason something cannot be explained is not about ontology but about limits in explanation then I don't think that is an argument against physicalism. — Apustimelogist
Question is: If these experiences are representations of things in the outside world, why would I expect such a representation to be reducible to the brain activity that supports it? The information in a photograph doesn't contain any direct information about the physical medium it is being represented on, and neither should it if it is caused by information from the outside world. — Apustimelogist
Wouldn't it be bad evolutionary design if our perceptual representations were giving us information about what was going on inside our own head as opposed to the things in the world they are supposed to represent? — Apustimelogist
Nor can we conclude that there is an real, external, physical world. — Metaphysician Undercover
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?
Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism 760 / 931 (81.6%)
Other 86 / 931 (9.2%)
Accept or lean toward: skepticism 45 / 931 (4.8%)
Accept or lean toward: idealism 40 / 931 (4.3%)
But you are presupposing that everything has to be explained in some kind of reduction — Apustimelogist
how would you characterize what my view is saying then? — Apustimelogist
Well, all I can say is I disagree then. I think the photograph metaphor seems a coherent analogy of the view and that I think it is consistent with someone being a physicalist. — Apustimelogist
I think we can then question the effectiveness of the main argument against physicalism because it assumes that our experiences should be reducible to information about the brain.
— Apustimelogist
But your whole OP actually questions reductionism — Wayfarer
I would say its plausibly fully physicalist because the reason for the inability to reduce I think can be explained physically, for instance through the limitations of what a computing / information processing device can or cannot do. — Apustimelogist
Non-reductionist philosophers hold firmly to two essential convictions with regard to mind–body relations: 1) Physicalism is true and mental states must be physical states, but 2) All reductionist proposals are unsatisfactory: mental states cannot be reduced to behavior, brain states or functional states.[53] Hence, the question arises whether there can still be a non-reductive physicalism. Donald Davidson's anomalous monism is an attempt to formulate such a physicalism. (Wiki)
I'm currently reading a book by Mathematician Charles Pinter, subtitled "How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things". And it's the creative aspect of the brain processing which produces mental experiences that are completely different from the physical source. I won't go into the details here, but basically the brain converts incoming isolated bits of information (e.g. photons) into integrated packets of meaning (e.g feelings, experiences, sensations) that are relevant only to the observer, and not inherent in the source.The point I try to make is that if experiences are representations of things in the outside world then maybe they can never be reduced to brains. Yes, you can say - "well I have experiences and that is that" - but a physicalist could just say that his experiences are his brain. You would tell him he is wrong because experiences don't reduce to brains but if this irreducibility is something a physicalist expects or is consistent with physicalism then the argument wouldn't work. — Apustimelogist
How do you do itallics here? — Apustimelogist
THE TRIANGLE IS NOT OUT THERE, but added by the brain as a new meaning that is inferred, not seen — Gnomon
I don't think it is unreasonable for someone to defend a physicalist view, depending on how they conceptualize it, given the success of the natural sciences and what they seem to say. — Apustimelogist
subjective meaning (Qualia) cannot be reduced to the properties of the object (Quanta). Experiences are meaningful (significant) to the Subject, but meanings are metaphysical/immaterial, not physical/material. There's definitely a correlation between physics & metaphysics, but the creative causation (translation) by the brain produces novelty (a system, instead of merely reproducing the original. The brain is a machine for making meanings, but meaning is not the ding an sich. :smile: — Gnomon
Symbolic systems are among the oldest inventions of nature. Evolution could never have gotten off the ground without the molecular genetic system, which is a paradigm example of a symbolic scheme. The double helix is a symbolic structure, essentially an extended proposition, which contains the description of an organism’s entire body plan. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 150). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.
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