but the ground-and-consequent nature of the argument ought to be clear.
— Wayfarer
Great, then provide a short summary of it, not the two claims which you quoted — Isaac
a purely physical description of the neuro-physiological and other physical processes that give rise to experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, will therefore omit the subjective essence of the experience without which it would not be a conscious experience at all. — Wayfarer
What further conclusions are we to draw given acceptance of the veracity of this argument? — Janus
Are we merely to conclude that physical science cannot explain everything? — Janus
So the argument is that the objective science - neuroscience being one - will always be deficient in respect of providing an account of the nature of experience. — Wayfarer
Perhaps reading the book, or the remainder of the column from which the argument was summarized. — Wayfarer
Do you agree with the claim is that 'the nature of consciousness is strictly a matter for neuroscience'? If not, then I'm probably not addressing your position. — Wayfarer
Trick question. I don't. I believe they're a deterministic aspect of sentience endowed existence — javra
That's actually what I meant by "come about", I should have been clearer. I meant to distinguish it from my understanding that such laws are made-up, like maths. I don't believe laws can evolve. I don't really believe in laws at all, other than as a human-constructed convenience. — Isaac
Supplementary question: if the empirical sciences cannot address laws of thought (whatever they turn out to be), then how would philosophy have a better chance? Empirical science's measure of rightness is predictability, what would philosophy's be? — Isaac
The evidence we have is that consciousness arises when certain biological processes are present... — khaled
it is dependent on a crucial limiting step at the start, specifically, subtracting from the physical world as an object of study everything mental – consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose. — Wayfarer
I'm beginning to think there is no argument in favour of this position and it is simply taken as dogma, but in the spirit of charitable interpretation, I'll ask one more time. — Isaac
First and foremost, let it be presented that the presence of being is (in the strict philosophical sense of the term) 100% absurd. — javra
Were it to have developed over time, hydrogen atoms might have been other than hydrogen atoms long before helium atoms came about - and so might have helium atoms, etc., till the law of identity presented itself within being. — javra
our knowledge of laws of thought stem from introspective observation of referents that are, at least in one sense, immutable. — javra
If laws of thought are an innate aspect of being, and if the presence of being is (technically) absurd, then the best and only thing we can do to better understand them is enquire into them via philosophy. — javra
One big difference between philosophy and the empirical sciences is that the former can and does address that which is not observable via our physiological senses (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, etc.). — javra
Science, after all, is founded upon philosophy, namely the philosophy of science. And not the other way around. So, for example, that "all humans have thoughts" is not philosophy-devoid science. Rather, to the extent this trivial fact might be scientific, it is science built upon a foundation of philosophy. — javra
I think the central claim is a matter of common knowledge: that at the formation of modern science, a conception of nature was formed that excluded from the physical world as an object of study everything mental - consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose'. You don't think that is so? — Wayfarer
What do you think psychology is the study of? Neuroscience? Sociology? Psychiatry? - These are all fields of science studying mental phenomena. they do so by assuming that the external signs of such phenomena that we observe in others indicate the same mental events which we experience when we display those signs. — Isaac
I don't know what 'being' is. — Isaac
I'm frankly terrified of your world — Isaac
Not relevant to the issue at hand. — Wayfarer
This is a philosophy forum and the purpose of it is to discuss just these ideas, which you're not going to encounter elsewhere. — Wayfarer
we can't assume that a child in pain is having the same experience I'm having when I show those external signs. — Isaac
There's nothing I have said that can remotely justify this claim, although why you think that is interesting. — Wayfarer
Not relevant to the issue at hand.
— Wayfarer
You asked me if I agreed that science had removed everything mental from it's field of study. The answer is emphatically no. How's that not relevant? — Isaac
Central to the claim that science cannot study mental events is that mental events are subjective, first-person and cannot be understood by their external manifestations alone. — Isaac
Yes, and "what it's like" there is doing the job of "similar but not necessarily identical". — Isaac
know what it is (like) to
to be familiar with how it feels to be or do something — Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
Drug companies have a huge financial interest in promoting their drug, it's not the same thing as research scientists who have no interest other than knowledge acquisition. — Isaac
'mind is what brain does'. But that's not an issue for the science of neuroscience — Wayfarer
That doesn't rule out the 'study of the mental' but it generally supposes that 'the mental' supervenes on, or is a product of, physical processes - which is the underlying conviction of much modern science. — Wayfarer
Mental conditions and the mind, generally, are categorically different to the study of physical entities, of which physics is the paradigmatic example. — Wayfarer
Yes, and "what it's like" there is doing the job of "similar but not necessarily identical". — Isaac
Sorry, I don't think it is. I know I didn't use it to convey that meaning. :razz: — Pattern-chaser
know what it is (like) to
to be familiar with how it feels to be or do something — Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
Full dictionary entry here. — Pattern-chaser
And who pays the wages of these pure and unbiased scientists? Oil companies; tobacco companies; pharmaceutical companies...? Do you think they would carry on paying if the results (of the scientists' work) went against their capitalistic needs? — Pattern-chaser
the very word I queried the meaning of isn't even necessary to the sentence you've given as an example of its use. — Isaac
What words would you use to answer "what is it like to be conscious?" — Isaac
I would love to have words to answer that question. So would many other philosophers. We've been trying to answer this since at least Hume, if not before. — Pattern-chaser
Like has many uses, listed in many dictionaries. Look here, and see how many different uses the Cambridge English dictionary lists. — Pattern-chaser
I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about here. I don't recognise a thing 'being' to say whether it's presence is absurd or not, I don't know what 'being' is. — Isaac
... from nothing to being there is no logical bridge. — William James quoted on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being
How does a human way of thinking affect physics? There's no such thing as hydrogen atoms, there's no such thing as helium atoms, these are both human constructs, there is only stuff (presuming you are a realist about the external world at all). — Isaac
Our laws of thought are about the way we've decided to break up the world, so they're an entirely human invention too (although I think some animals may we have evolved the same or similar tactics). — Isaac
The evidence (which I know is unpopular around these parts) contradicts this idea. Very young children do not necessarily display an innate understanding of the law of identity, nor of object permanence, nor theory of mind. — Isaac
If laws of thought are an innate aspect of being, and if the presence of being is (technically) absurd, then the best and only thing we can do to better understand them is enquire into them via philosophy. — javra
I don't follow this line of argument. Are atomic forces not an innate aspect of being? I mean life would be impossible without them. We also have no idea why atomic forces came to be so. Does that mean that atomic forces should be studied by philosophy also? — Isaac
The fact the it talks about it is not evidence that it addresses it. Otherwise the same is true of psychology. It definitely talks about "that which is not observable via our physiological senses", so why does philosophy get the honour of 'addressing' the problem? — Isaac
The thing about philosophy is that there is no body of knowledge. Absolutely every position is it possible to hold is held by some philosopher somewhere, and on most matters there is still widespread disagreement. — Isaac
Being can be expressed as the generalized notion of "anything which was, is, or will be", although as Wayfarer noted, in many philosophies it is more typically expressible as "any awareness which was, is, or will be". Either way, I stand by my claim that it is 100% absurd - due to its presence being arational. — javra
There are such things as hydrogen and helium atoms - even if our knowledge of them is imperfect and perpetually improving. You do not agree? — javra
to keep things more concrete - the law of identity is something that we've invented??? When do you suppose this invention occurred? — javra
But please explain how any of the aforementioned do not exhibit use of the law of identity. — javra
all philosophers agree that being holds presence. How is this not knowledge? — javra
But you just said that consciousness can be identified in philosophy by presuming the experiences of others are the same as ours, that's how we can talk to each other about the topic. So why can't science presume that when people say they're experiencing something, they are experiencing what we experience, and call the same thing? If science can't make that presumption (and still claim to be investigating 'consciousness'), then how can philosophy claim to be talking about 'consciousness with other philosophers without having the same identification problem? — Isaac
Yes, but "so far haven't" doesn't even make sense here either. What I'm asking is how can there possibly be coherently a concept which we presume is there but can't properly identify. On what grounds do we presume it's there other than having identified some pattern which we wanted to give a name to? — Isaac
I agree, but where I disagree is in saying that if some pattern in reality exists but we can only identify it by it's relation with other patterns, not by its structure, then it's relationship with other patterns is all it is. That is what we've identified and given a name to, so that is what the name refers to and nothing more. It doesn't then go on to refer to some imagined structure which we simply presume is the way we imagine it to be. — Isaac
I'm not disagreeing with this, but you can't go from a statement of fact here to a conclusion that it is therefore missing something. You have to first prove the 'something' exists. Physics doesn't deal with ghosts, but that's not a problem unless ghosts exist. — Isaac
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