elativist
wrong thread? — Pfhorrest
Jaegwon Kim's answer is more appealing to me: he considers qualia to be epiphenomenal, a causally effete byproduct of minds. It's still not entirely satisfactory, but it makes more sense to me to consider it to be something that only minds have. The notion that rocks experience qualia makes no sense to me.That’s the part where my panpsychism comes in. Whatever it is besides mere function that human consciousness involves, I hold that EVERYTHING already has that in some form or another, and the specific form of it becomes more sophisticated along with the functionality, because it is the other half of functionality besides the behavioral output. — Pfhorrest
Well done on the dialog, but it needs to continue. As defined so far, the capacity for experience is inherent in anything we consider to have a persisting identity.Capacity for experience is not necessarily magical or non-physical. And granting it to everything is the only reasonable way of preserving the existence of minds in a physicalist account, since the only logical alternatives are that either nothing, not even humans, have any first-person experience (and so minds in the normal sense don't really exist); or else some things, like humans, magically get it from nothing (and so something non-physical happens)." — Pfhorrest
some arbitrary line somewhere, the line between things that are held to be entirely without anything at all like phenomenal consciousness and things that suddenly have it in full, — Pfhorrest
Sure, but you have the burden of showing that minds are things, not just a reified abstraction, and that these things have non-physical parts.If minds/consciousness consists of both physical and/non physical elements, then they cannot be properly taken into account in terms of one or the other. — creativesoul
The physicalism project is to account for mental activity, not some incompatible, abstract concept of "mind". — Relativist
If minds/consciousness consists of both physical and/non physical elements, then they cannot be properly taken into account in terms of one or the other.
— creativesoul
Sure, but you have the burden of showing that minds are things, not just a reified abstraction, and that these things have non-physical parts. — Relativist
This boulder has the capacity for experience, but it differs in two important ways from us: 1) it lacks self-reflection on those experiences; 2) it does not experience qualia. — Relativist
I can write a hundred sentences describing the pain, but nothing I say will be equivalent to the raw experience. — Relativist
Not all matter is wet, even in the slightest degree, but liquids usually are. — bongo fury
rocks don't have experiences. What is it like to be an electron? is a nonsensical question — RogueAI
If the claim is that things like rocks have experiences, you're so close to idealism, just go whole hog and ditch the physical. — RogueAI
Minds consist entirely of thought and belief. Thought and belief... correlations between different things. Correlations are not physical. Not much of a burden really. — creativesoul
Let's talk about the kinds of things that experience pain.I can write a hundred sentences describing the pain, but nothing I say will be equivalent to the raw experience.
— Relativist
Agreed. But that says nothing at all about what kinds of things can have such experiences. — Pfhorrest
And correlation occurs all the way down... — Possibility
I'm glad it's not going to be much of a burden, si make the case. Assertions don't do it. Show that the mind is a non-physical thing. I will then have a number of additional questions.Sure, but you have the burden of showing that minds are things, not just a reified abstraction, and that these things have non-physical parts.
— Relativist
Minds consist entirely of thought and belief. Thought and belief... correlations between different things. Correlations are not physical. Not much of a burden really. — creativesoul
Thoughts draw on memories. Aren't memories stored in the brain? — Relativist
How does an immaterial mind extract the data in a physical medium? The mind also stores data into the brain: we can remember past thoughts, so it can't just be a passive reading.Have you heard the theory that the memory is stored in the tissue of the body, analogous to tape recording, and the brain mere acts as the processor for accessing those memories? I think there is a name for it but I can't recall. ironic huh? — Merkwurdichliebe
How does an immaterial mind extract the data in a physical medium? — Relativist
The mind also stores data into the brain: we can remember past thoughts, so it can't just be a passive reading. — Relativist
Explain the physical-immaterial interface, both input and output. — Relativist
Is there a single point of access into the brain? — Relativist
Can the mind directly access every component of the brain? — Relativist
Can my mind interact with physical things other than my brain? If not, why not? — Relativist
What becomes of the mind when the brain is dead? — Relativist
Did it exist before my body? If not, when did it come to exist? Did it pop into existence all at once, or did it slowly develop, like the brain? — Relativist
No. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. So... — creativesoul
Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. — creativesoul
You need to account for the mind-brain relationship. — Relativist
For example, you say the mind is immaterial, but is it spatially located? If so, where is it? — Relativist
My thoughts can cause me to raise my hand. Why can't my thoughts cause your hand to raise? — Relativist
Thoughts draw on memories. Aren't memories stored in the brain? — Relativist
Memories become lost, or at least inaccessible, when the brain is damaged by trauma or disease. How do you account for that? — Relativist
If memories are in the brain, how does an immaterial mind access them? — Relativist
If my mind can access my memories, why can't it access yours? — Relativist
Let's talk about the kinds of things that experience pain.
Start with its function: it alerts us to damage, induces us to seek remediation, and to avoid the behavior that caused it. So only objects that can function in this way can have it: complex, living organisms. Maybe they don't all experience pain (do grapevines experience pain?), but this at least narrows it a good bit.
This doesn't get us any closer to understanding how to reproduce the experience in a robot. — Relativist
Not the way I see it. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a physical system capable of structurally manifesting evidence of that correlation.
Rock molecules manifest correlations with each other, transferring temperature changes, electrons, etc. If you break a rock, those molecules suddenly exposed to the air manifest a correlation with interacting oxygen molecules instead. The correlation may exist only in each instant of interaction, but there is physical evidence of its existence, nonetheless.
That evidence is relevant information to a creature capable of extrapolating the potential existence of correlations between different things. — Possibility
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