And so?

Sorry - it was split from this post. Should have said that.

So, it comes down to the "hard problem"? The excerpt sounds like something a 17th century scientist might say about humans never learning how to achieve space travel, or understand the secrets of disease. It's based in ignorance - an assumption that we will never be able to explain certain things. This also isn't much different than the religious notion that we are someone separate from, or above, nature. Haven't we learned that this isn't the case?

If the mind isn't "physical" (again I despise using these terms, "physical" and "mental" as it is what creates the problem Nagel is pointing at), or isn't made of the same stuff as "out there", then how is it that they both interact at all? Again, we should be talking about causation, not "physical" and "mental" substances.

If an idealist says, "Everything out there is made of the same stuff as in here." and the materialist says, "Everything in here is made of the same stuff as out there.", then they are both saying the same thing. "Physical" and "mental" is a product of dualism and is what creates a problem where there isn't one.

Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory.

I like Nagel, but I don't think it does follow. Or rather it does, given the condition that it must explain what it cannot explain. As if whatever I cannot see must be radically different from whatever I can see - because I cannot see it.

If the mind isn't "physical" (again I despise using these terms, "physical" and "mental" as it is what creates the problem Nagel is pointing at), or isn't made of the same stuff as "out there", then how is it that they both interact at all? Again, we should be talking about causation, not "physical" and "mental" substances. — Harry Hindu

That different "stuff" can't interact is a nonsensical idea. It's only if you define those two sorts of stuff as incapable of interacting that the idea is supported. That the mental and physical can't interact is not supported by the concept of "causation" unless you limit causation to efficient cause. However, the concepts of will, intention, and final cause, demonstrate that such a restriction is unjustified.

If an idealist says, "Everything out there is made of the same stuff as in here." and the materialist says, "Everything in here is made of the same stuff as out there.", then they are both saying the same thing. "Physical" and "mental" is a product of dualism and is what creates a problem where there isn't one. — Harry Hindu

This doesn't work, because we have experiences of things which aren't out there, and the things out there can't fully explain the things in here.

This doesn't work, because we have experiences of things which aren't out there, and the things out there can't fully explain the things in here. — Marchesk

Let's go with this and go a bit deeper. Can you give a specific example of something that cannot be explained in this respect? Is it your position that the lack of explanation is a problem to a materialist interpretation? If so, can you explain why that lack of explanation is so fundamental in your view that a materialist interpretation is no longer possible (instead of, for instance, not yet possible)? Thanks.

As far as I know, the only level of abstraction which attempts to explain human learning (e.g., how to play a violin) is cognitive psychology. If materialism is true, human learning should also be explained in the literature of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Please provide relevant citations, and I will admit that materialism is not absurd.

That different "stuff" can't interact is a nonsensical idea. It's only if you define those two sorts of stuff as incapable of interacting that the idea is supported. That the mental and physical can't interact is not supported by the concept of "causation" unless you limit causation to efficient cause. However, the concepts of will, intention, and final cause, demonstrate that such a restriction is unjustified. — Metaphysician Undercover

By making the argument that science can NEVER explain the mind, you are implying that they don't interact, for if science can explain the stuff out there, which interacts with the stuff in here, then why can't it explain the "in here", too?. When science does a good job of explaining all the other stuff, then why can't it explain the mind too? What makes it different? What is it that science will never get at? Is it that a "physical" explanation isn't good enough? What makes an explanation physical as opposed to something else?

This doesn't work, because we have experiences of things which aren't out there, and the things out there can't fully explain the things in here. — Marchesk

I'm trying to get at how the things which aren't out there interact with the things that are out there. Do you deny that your thoughts have an effect on things out there and vice versa? How is that possible? How is it possible that we can have a system of explanation for that stuff out here that doesn't apply to the things in here, if they both interact?

Yes, science will never be able to explain "first person" experience in "first person" terms, but then it doesn't, and cannot ever, given its methodology, do, or even aim to do, that.

And we will never accept that any "third person" explanation of the "first person" is adequate if it leaves out the first person (which it does, by definition).

Objectification of human beings is a problem, but I don't believe it is caused by the proliferation of scientific understandings; rather I think that the fact that people want to think about themselves in "third person" terms is a symptom of a loss of self, along with the tendency to be absorbed with self-gratification, material accumulation, constant entertainment, and so on.

Trying to find an explanation for this loss of self in the rise of science is really just another attempt tp explain what is happening to us in third person terms, ironically. That is the last thing that is needed, as far as I can see.

The excerpt sounds like something a 17th century scientist might say about humans never learning how to achieve space travel, or understand the secrets of disease. It's based in ignorance — Harry Hindu

How dare a mere philosopher question the scientific consensus.

This also isn't much different than the religious notion that we are someone separate from, or above, nature. Haven't we learned that this isn't the case? — Harry Hindu

It never ceases to amaze me, the ease with which people seem to assume that 'we're just animals', when the difference between h. sapiens, and every other creature is so manifestly and entirely obvious. It's kind of a cultural blind spot, an inability to recognise the obvious.

Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory.

I like Nagel, but I don't think it does follow. Or rather it does, given the condition that it must explain what it cannot explain. As if whatever I cannot see must be radically different from whatever I can see - because I cannot see it.[/i] — unenlightened

What kind of theory would be 'more than a physical theory'? I think, perhaps, an example would have been Husserl's conception of phenomenology, as a rigourous discipline which encompassed first-person experience.

In any case, one metaphysical proposition that comes out of Nagel's book, and an idea I've sometimes entertained, is that life is the process of the Universe becoming self-aware.

In a chapter on ‘Cognition’, he goes on to argue that the faculty of reason, by which he means the capacity (for a few of us) to intuit truths that are independent of the mind, such as mathematical or logical truths, cannot be explained by evolutionary theory alone. Neo-Darwinian theory must explain the appearance of faculties such as reason as somehow adaptive, but we cannot explain the capacity for insight into the truth in terms of adaptation for survival. And in a chapter on ‘Value’ Nagel argues that our capacity to make correct moral judgements is based on the objectivity of good and bad, it being an objective matter that certain actions are good and certain bad, which is similarly inexplicable in terms of materialism alone. For each of these broad areas – consciousness, cognition and value – Nagel sketches what might count as more satisfactory explanatory theories. One such sort of theory would be intentional – that God has set up the natural order is such a way that there is consciousness, that we can intuit the truth and know good and bad. But Nagel does not explore intentional theories as he does not believe in God. He plays with panpsychism – the theory that mind is somehow in everything – but does not find this kind of metaphysical theory very useful. His preferred tentative solution is what he calls ‘teleological naturalism’...the theory that the natural order is biased in some way towards the emergence of life and consciousness, as more-than-likely directions or potentials of development. He does not develop this theory but merely indicates that it might at least be along the right lines. — A Reviewer

That general tendency of thought is called 'orthogenetic', the idea that evolution has a direction or tendency. And you know, this actually against the current dogma:

* All extant species are equally evolved. — Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, 1995 (11)
* There is no progress in evolution. — Stephen Jay Gould, 1995 (12)
* We all agree that there's no progress. — Richard Dawkins, 1995

It's interesting to ask yourself whether this dogma, which strikes me as manifestly absurd, is itself a scientific hypothesis at all, or if it has to be maintained, purely as a defense against any kind of teleological suggestion in evolutionary biology.

It's interesting to ask yourself whether this dogma, which strikes me as manifestly absurd, is itself a scientific hypothesis at all, or if it has to be maintained, purely as a defense against any kind of teleological suggestion in evolutionary biology. — Wayfarer

Science eliminates the notion of inherent telos because it cannot, and does not pretend to be able to, deal with any form of intentionality.

That’s how you get to the absurdity of Dawkin’s ‘apparent’ design - looks like ‘a design’ but really it’s simply a series of accidents. ‘Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.’ ~ J B S Haldane

By making the argument that science can NEVER explain the mind, you are implying that they don't interact... — Harry Hindu

That's not true. The scientific method is a very specific empirically based method. If two things are interacting, and only one of them can be observed empirically, then "scientific understanding" can only be extended to that thing which can be observed. One could make predictions about how the unobservable thing would influence the observable, and these predictions may or may not be reliable, but since this could produce no statements about what the unobservable thing is, it doesn't qualify as an explanation of that thing.

Very true, Metaphysician Undiscovered.

From Nagel’s book:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.

(pp. 35-36)

By this move, the mind is to all intents declared out of scope for science, right at the outset.

I think it's more the case that the scientist cannot help describing nature in terms that make her (see!) sound purposive. This is especially the case with accounts of animal behavior. There may or may not be some "higher purpose" behind nature (they are simply the two logical possibilities) but science cannot concern itself with that question. No higher purpose is manifestly obvious, and science only deals with what is observable, and causal explanations induced from, and in terms of, observable phenomena.

The issue of interaction is even more complicated than you might think. Plato proposes a tripartite person, such that interaction between the mind and body is carried out through a third thing, spirit, or passion. This third thing, which is a medium between body and mind, makes it even more difficult for science to get to the mind. Science cannot even get a grasp on the emotions, which are proper to that third thing, the medium, the spirit, because it has no access to the influence of the mind on the spirit.

Can someone explain the epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem to me? A pure experience that does not interact causally with anything else in the world. My first thought was, "experience of what?" which implies a causal interaction.

http://scholar.google.nl/scholar_url?url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hasker_Davis/publication/17089213_Davis_HP_Squire_LR_Protein_synthesis_and_memory_a_review_Psychol_Bull_96_518-559/links/5667246f08ae34c89a022c37/Davis-HP-Squire-LR-Protein-synthesis-and-memory-a-review-Psychol-Bull-96-518-559.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm1_whEH6HFzk5VU8bZpuBhBw-vGcQ&nossl=1&oi=scholarr&ved=0ahUKEwijr8q36qHXAhUH1xoKHZooDlEQgAMIJygCMAA

This might be a start. Protein synthesis is a requirement for long term memory, which is involved in learning.

Thanks, but let me know when you've found an explanation of human learning in strictly biological terms which starts (for example) with a desire to learn how to play a violin (including the requisite decision-making and planning processes), continues with intention and volition, and ends with either self-directed or social learning (instructional action which successfully implements learning goals). After all, an explanation is what is required (not bits and pieces of research which may be relevant, accompanied with a vague psychological explanation of long term memory somehow being involved in learning).

Can someone explain the epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem to me? — Benkei

Epiphenomenal ectoplasm was proposed by Horgan and Lewis in 1983, in which they stated, a possible world (a world that could possibly exist) W is identical to our world in the distribution of all mental and physical characteristics (i.e. they are identical), except world W contains an experience called epiphenomenal ectoplasm that does not causally interact with that world. If supervenience physicalism is true, then such a world could not exist because a physical duplicate of the actual world (the world that is known to exist) could not possess an epiphenomenal ectoplasm.

Thank heavens for supervenience physicalism, eh? One less thing to clean off your windscreen.

Thank heavens for supervenience physicalism, eh? One less thing to clean off your windscreen. — Wayfarer

Epiphenomenal ectoplasm is where I draw the line on meaningful philosophical discussion, but that's just me.

I kind of like the sound of it, though.

It never ceases to amaze me, the ease with which people seem to assume that 'we're just animals', when the difference between h. sapiens, and every other creature is so manifestly and entirely obvious. It's kind of a cultural blind spot, an inability to recognise the obvious. — Wayfarer

I agree. Sure, for a biologist we are animals. But since when is biology the most fundamental word in our self-interpretation? In short, it's scientism. One might argue that humans are never sufficient finished to be defined in the first place. And who's doing this defining if not the unfinished human? I'm not saying that we are not (also) animals, but stressing that there's something complacent in such a reduction. The idea that we are only clever monkeys is "faithful" and "religious" in a generalized sense of the word. It isn't neutral or objective away from its narrower employment. It interprets existence.

After all, an explanation is what is required (not bits and pieces of research which may be relevant, accompanied with a vague psychological explanation of long term memory somehow being involved in learning). — Galuchat

I'm not sure that's fair. Shouldn't the point be that an explanation should be possible instead of an explanation being complete for the idea of physicalism to at least not be absurd? Also, I'm not sure explanations and proof have much to do with a metaphysical theory. The success of science has increased the intuition that physicalism is true and a lot of research into biochemistry and neurobiology is pursued assuming these things can be quantified. Regardless of that success, there could be more reasons why that endeavour could fail than "obviously physicalism isn't true".

Thanks, I read the Stanford entry on this which I had trouble with understanding. As I understand experiences, they are about something. So an experience that does not causally interact with the world seems a contradiction in terms to me.

OK on a more serious note, I think I do have an explanation for that. I’ve said in a number of threads, there’s a very deep problem with the way the understanding of Descartes’ ‘res cogitans’ developed. It literally means ‘thinking substance’ and that is the way it has become understood. I guess ectoplasm is pretty near the mark. But it’s all a colossal mistake, a category error, a misreading. The philosophical term ‘substantia’ is not ‘substance’ as we understand it, but ‘that in which attributes inhere’. It was the Latin translation of the term ‘ouisia’, which is nearer to ‘being’ than ‘stuff’ So the mental ‘substance’ ought really be understood more as a type of being than a type of ‘stuff’. There’s quite a good online encyclopaedia article called 17th Century Theories of Substance which discusses how Descartes, Liebniz and Spinoza used the word ‘substance’.

since when is biology the most fundamental word in our self-interpretation? — t0m

Oh, since about the middle of the 19th century.

Yes, science will never be able to explain "first person" experience in "first person" terms, but then it doesn't, and cannot ever, given its methodology, do, or even aim to do, that. — Janus

Good point. For me this notion of explanation itself is also insufficiently analyzed. What is an explanation? https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-explanation/ Is this the "deeper" kind of explanation that we vaguely have in mind in the first place? I don't think so. But this kind of thinking threatens a certain kind of scientistic metaphysics, too. How satisfying can any explanatory abstraction really be here? What does it really accomplish?

In a broader context, why do we assume origin determines the meaning of the situation we find ourselves in. How we got here is not necessarily significant. Do certain configurations of non-conscious "parts" become conscious if put together a certain way? That seems to be the case. I wasn't here. My mother conceived and converted her food into the bodily foundation of my consciousness which seems to have "faded" into this body --or so it seems.

Did life as a whole "erupt" this way from swirling non-conscious stuff? Did a hard-to-find God stuff a soul into a fetus? Are there millions of possibilities that haven't occurred to me? How is this origin significant? If that hard-to-find God is still around to help, then maybe it is. But the significance flows from the still-around-ness. In short, what is the situation now? Are we limited by our origin, whatever it was? Is the argument about origin "really" aimed at cultural criticism? If so, do we need the origin apart from the questionable general sense of the origin's centrality?

The success of science has increased the intuition that physicalism is true and a lot of research into biochemistry and neurobiology is pursued assuming these things can be quantified. — Benkei

And the success of philosophy is found in exposing this intuition as nonsense. As for assumptions, I'm sure every scientist knows what they say about you and me.

And the success of philosophy is found in exposing this intuition as nonsense. As for assumptions, I'm sure every scientist knows what they say about you and me. — Galuchat

Never mind the rest of my post, eh? Where has philosophy definitely relegated physicalism to the nonsense bin? I'm not aware of it.

Also, not sure what you think scientists are doing but if scientists don't assume science can say something about the mind they wouldn't be pursuing research in those fields. So far all you're doing is putting a burden of proof on people who think physicalism could work, without really having made a coherent point yourself. It's only assertions so far.

You said: "If materialism is true, human learning should also be explained in the literature of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics."

I more or less replied that it should read: if physicalism is true, human learning could also be explained in the literature of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

Do you agree? If not, why not? Why are such explanations fundamental to the truth of physicalism according to you? And even if such explanations aren't possible, why can't there be other explanations as to why science cannot explain it than "obviously physicalism doesn't work"?

Never mind the rest of my post, eh? Where has philosophy definitely relegated physicalism to the nonsense bin? I'm not aware of it. — Benkei

It hasn't.