No, it is you that is missing the point. The materialist just says that the mind is matter and there you go, now mind is just a process of matter and we have immediate access to matter. To say that what exists out there is different than what exists in here is the mistake dualism makes. Causation occurs across the boundary of mind and matter, in other words they are both the same substance. The problem comes when you want to call that substance, "mind" because that would be like a tree calling the primary substance, "wood" because that is what the tree would have immediate access too.You are all missing the point (well most of you anyway). Destroying the thesis of materialism is easy. Berkeley just applies a sophisticated form of Cartesian doubt and 'poof' materialism crumbles away. Hume does the same thing afterwards aimed at all forms of knowledge.
The theory that Berkeley replaces materialism with does seem to be 'better' than Descartes at least in instrumental terms. It also competes with Locke's theory and if you accept God then it is also 'better' instrumentally.
The weakness I am trying to expose is Berkeley's reliance on the same 'insufficient empiricism' he accuses Locke of using, Berkeley admits this but says that his 'notions' of minds and God are immediate to us in a way that matter is not.
Is he right? — Jamesk
But then matter is so mind-like that materialism loses it charge. — sign
The materialist just says that the mind is matter and there you go, now mind is just a process of matter and we have immediate access to matter. — Harry Hindu
The materialist just says that the mind is matter and there you go, now mind is just a process of matter and we have immediate access to matter. — Harry Hindu
What is its "charge"? I'm not sure what you're referring to there. — Terrapin Station
Which is a claim with no immediate proof. Many scientists, especially in neurosciences are having a hard time with materialism and cannot rule out some form of dualism. We understand less about our own minds than we do about matter, note I said minds not brains.
Philosophy of mind is one of the most active departments where ll the modern 'rock stars' of philosophy are making names. — Jamesk
If we say that everything is matter and yet that matter includes mind as a process, we aren't saying much in some sense. The drama or edge of the initial statement is quickly replaced by a sense of renaming the same old experiences. — sign
It makes no sense to call the substance outside of you one thing and the substance inside of you another. They are both the same substance because they interact.I'm not for or against mind as a process of matter versus matter as a process of mind, but something occurs to me. If matter includes the process of mind, then the 'immediate access' we seemed to gain is lost. I only have immediate access to matter if I have immediate access to its mindlikeness. I would surely, I might think as this materialist, have immediate access to myself as a process of matter. And yet I keep questioning and overhearing myself, as matter exploring matter.
It seems to me that trying to collapse either concept into the other just sweeps the complexity of the situation (which inspired the imperfect but serviceable distinction in the fist place ) under the rug. And for the materialist, this is very conversation about matter is a process of matter. Which is fine, but matter is more or less the same protagonist as mind at that point. Matter does philosophy. And the idealist crashes into 'mind' that also known as a telephone poll. — sign
I don't think anyone is a materialist/physicalist to be dramatic or edgy. What we're saying is simply that mental stuff isn't something different than material/physical stuff, contra claims otherwise (for example, from Wayfarer). — Terrapin Station
That's what I've been asking all along. If there is no difference (You've finally come around to seeing that they're the same thing), then it doesn't matter what we call it.What we're saying is simply that mental stuff isn't something different than material/physical stuff, contra claims otherwise — Terrapin Station
It makes no sense to call the substance outside of you one thing and the substance inside of you another. They are both the same substance because they interact.
Now, what do we call the substance? Does it make a difference? — Harry Hindu
don't mean edgy as in disruptive. I mean that the weight of the idea is reduced as matter swallows what used to be called mind. At most the distinction can be theoretically abolished. We live 'toward' two basic kinds of entities, persons and non-persons, in very different ways. I talk to persons. I care about what they think. I don't talk to beer cans (usually). We live a certain dualism in a way that makes any reduction highly theoretical and secondary, one might say. (Really we have something like a continuum, because we don't experience dogs as we experience clouds or stones.) — sign
Different things are just different arrangements of the primary substance (whatever we decide to call it). If you define "substance" as something that allows things to interact, then everything is made of the same "substance" and making a distinction between "substances" would be incoherent.I'd say the distinction is imperfect but useful. I agree that their interaction shows the limitations of the distinction. At some point these issues lead back toward meaning and language. While I understand your point, that interaction implies identity of type leads to abolishing just about all distinctions. The world is full of different kinds of things that interact. We perhaps categorize them according the specifics of these interactions. I don't interact with a human as I do with a can-opener. Both are things from a point of view of maximum abstraction, but this doesn't say much. It just grasps them as separate and otherwise indeterminate unities. — sign
That's what I've been asking all along. If there is no difference (You've finally come around to seeing that they're the same thing), then it doesn't matter what we call it. — Harry Hindu
If there is no difference ..., then it doesn't matter what we call it. — Harry Hindu
Consciousness does not appear to be material. — Jamesk
For the umpteenth time, What does it mean to be "material" as opposed to "mental"?Consciousness does not appear to be material. No one can be sure what the mind is about. We will find out with AI if we can create a consciousness in which case a lot of philosophy will be debunked. — Jamesk
I'm not getting him to say that. He's performing all these mental gymnastics to avoid the questions I'm asking.See, Harry, you get people saying things like this. — Terrapin Station
I don't understand what this means if you're not simply talking about different arrangements of the primary substance.subject-likeness and substance-likeness — sign
Different things are just different arrangements of the primary substance (whatever we decide to call it). — Harry Hindu
I'm not getting him to say that. He's avoiding the questions I'm asking. — Harry Hindu
I'm open to this. I think it's fair, however, to question whether it makes sense to talk about a primary substance. Maybe it does. The mind (or matter in a mind-like mode) seems to aim at unifying experience this way. Let's grant your point. Then all the apparently plurality (all the different kinds of things) would seem merely to be renamed as 'arrangements' or 'modes' of a primary substance. So there is 'really' just one kind of thing. But it's the nature of this primary thing to express itself not only in different modes that ask for useful and illuminating categorization but also this categorization itself.
The primary substance has to be the kind of thing that can mistake itself as a plurality. Moreover the primary substance has to be able to exist in the form of the question too. The primary substance unveils itself as primary substance, within time, by having a conversation with itself. — sign
I don't understand what this means if you're not simply talking about different arrangements of the primary substance. — Harry Hindu
<Turns down the poetry knob> — Terrapin Station
For the umpteenth time, What does it mean to be "material" as opposed to "mental"? — Harry Hindu
Material is made up of atoms that we can empirically measure. Mental states produce thoughts and ideas which cannot be empirically measured. — Jamesk
Consciousness does not appear to be material.
— Jamesk
See, Harry, you get people saying things like this — Terrapin Station
This has yet to be proven. — Jamesk
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