an integral aspect of the material brain — GLEN willows

What does that mean? If you just mean the brain causes or creates the mind then everyone can agree there I think.

Isn't this still hopeless dualism, and our primitive tendency to believe in spirits, souls etc.? — GLEN willows

If you believe that mental activity is a phenomenon that is special in some sort of way due to the fact that science is incapable of explaining it, you are a dualist. You've divided the world into two distinct phenomena: (1) those phenomena scientifically explainable and (2) those phenomena not scientifically explainable.

Where in your own dualism (as I've identified it) do you commit to the existence of spirits? Are you not just asking the distinction between property and substance dualism in your OP?

Thanks for the reply - yes it does seem like the current mood in philosophy is materialism. But what of people like Chalmers who still cling to a form of dualism? And there still seems to be some blowback when I suggest (even to some philosophy profs) that the brain is all there is. The argument goes "can you scientifically prove that." And as I understand it you can't ("yet" I would say)." My argument is more that the whole belief in a separate consciousness is based on folk psychology....as the Churchlands would suggest. (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong in any of this).

I don't believe in dualism - b/c of the interaction problem. That's the point of my question - who would still be a dualist in 2021? Unless you believe in other intangible undetectable things like God.

Or...are you saying that the statement "some things are explained by science and some things aren't" is dualism. How so?

My argument is more that the whole belief in a separate consciousness is based on folk psychology....as the Churchlands would suggest. — GLEN willows

Possibly. But the origins of the belief do not determine its truth value.

But what of people like Chalmers who still cling to a form of dualism. — GLEN willows

I happen to agree with him. But the site is generally very divided on the issue. The last time someone mentioned the cursed word “Qualia” it went on for 2000+ posts I think. And no one changed their minds (or brains).

But you haven't answered my question though, what does it mean that the mind is an "integral part of the material brain". Because

If you just mean the brain causes or creates the mind then everyone can agree there I think. — khaled

If you believe that mental activity is a phenomenon that is special in some sort of way due to the fact that science is incapable of explaining it, you are a dualist. — Hanover

...perhaps there are no strict laws explaining mental events - anomalous monism.

folk psychology meaning as a philosophical theory. That terms that we use everyday are often based on simplistic beliefs and not proper scientific theories. Like we say"the sun rises everyday" even though we haven't believed that for quite some time (smiley face). Or use the heart to symbolize love.

The Churchlands argue that "consciousness" in this sense is a folk psychological term, that they believe should be replaced. I'm not that militant about the need to replace it myself.

Sorry - my phrase just means I'm a full reductive materialist. Full stop!

"...perhaps there are no strict laws explaining mental events - anomalous monism."

Yes perhaps. Or perhaps everything is physical. This and Chalmers seem to want to say that the mind is the "source" of consciousness, but at the same time it's separate. I have trouble with that, unless it's explained to me better.

The Churchlands argue that "consciousness" in this sense is a folk psychological term, that they believe should be replaced. I'm not that militant about it myself. — GLEN willows

Davidson has another neat argument here...

Suppose that in my office of Minister of Scientific Language I want the new man to stop using words that refer, say, to emotions, feelings, thoughts and intentions, and to talk instead of the physiological states and happenngs that are assumed to be more or less identical with the mental riff and raff. How do I tell whether my advice has been heeded if the new man speaks a new language? For all I know, the shiny new phrases, though stolen from the old language in which they refer to physiological stirrings, may in his mouth play the role of the messy old mental concepts.

On the very idea of a conceptual scheme.

Have a peek at Anomalous Monism

The idea is, contrary to Hanover's suggestion, that the mind is entirely the result of physical processes, but that no causal link need be constructed between some physical state or process and a given mind state. So being in love might never be equated to the excitation of specific nerve clusters; and yet remain entirely a result of activity within the mind.

Problematic, but promising.

but that no causal link need be constructed between some physical state or process and a given mind state. So being in love might never be equated to the excitation of specific nerve clusters; and yet remain entirely a result of activity within the mind. — Banno

The more I read you the less I understand about your position. From a glance this seems to be exactly what I think. Yet you don't like the word "Qualia" even though it seems there is plenty of room for them (The sense of being in love which is not the same as the excitation of specific nerve clusters). I'll check out the SEP page.

Sorry - my phrase just means I'm a full reductive materialist. Full stop! — GLEN willows

Depends on what you mean by "material". How heavy is the smell of the ocean? Or are you saying the experience doesn't exist?

"Material" started out being things we can touch and smell like rocks and grass. Then the category broadened to include things we can neither touch, smell, nor see like electrons (at the time they were proposed we couldn't see them). And now the category includes things that don't make any sense like quantum wave functions, that we cannot touch smell or see.

Point is, whenever I see people say "everything is material" usually they are using such a wide definition of "material" that they might as well have just said "Everything is a thing". The way they use the word is so broad so as to somehow include experiences as "material". In that case, what is left to be described by the category "mind"? That would just make them monists.

That or they think that experiences don't exist, and I don't know how they could.

The Churchlands are not saying a new language, they're saying replace folk psychological terms with the specific scientific terms your talking about. I'M saying I'm not crazy about that idea, because it would require statements like (exaggerated for comedic effect):

"I just had a stinging sensation to nociceptive-specific neurons located at the margin of the dorsal horn."

Instead of

"I just had a sharp pain."

The more I read you the less I understand about your position. — khaled

Thanks - much appreciated. The objection I have to qualia is quite specific: if they are private, then they can't be the subject of conversation. But love - we can talk about that. So it's not a qual.

Oh, understood - and I agree. Instead of a new language, we might just modify the existing language...

How could I tell that when you say "I just had a stinging sensation to nociceptive-specific neurones located at the margin of the dorsal horn" you were not really thinking "I had a sharp pain"?

We know quantum wave functions exist because we've done experiments that have proven their effects in the real world - like particle interaction, no? There is no such proof for God, nor for consciousness. But I think there will be, in the same way that electrons were thought to be invisible until science proved otherwise. Science still has strict rules for what is "material" - it seems to me anyway.

I'm not sure I want to start this again. I would simply just restate the whole isomorphism thing I said last time. Love can feel radically different to different people but as long as the feelings are isomorphisms of each other then communication is possible.

Color would be easier. We all know what inverted colors are. If I was born with "inverted vision" I would still be able to talk to you just fine. Because when I look at grass and see what you would call red, and you see what you would call green, we would still use the word "green" to describe it.

I guess I'm the materialist in this discussion. I have absolutely no problem with believing (yes it is a belief, as you have opposing beliefs) that love is an outgrowth of brain chemicals. THAT'S my whole point, as in my original question.

What makes you think that love is something floating outside of the brain, as opposed to being IN the brain as the result of neurochemical interaction? Because it SEEMS to you to be something "special" and (dare I say) holy? Reducing it to pure science would take the romance out of it (literally)?

Not attacking you, just trying to "get" this.

I'm not sure I want to start this again. — khaled

I agree. But in fairness I'll repeat my reply to your isomorphism. I effect, I agree with you, expect that you have the argument around the wrong way. You say " Love can feel radically different to different people but as long as the feelings are isomorphisms of each other then communication is possible", moving from isomorphism to communication. But there can be no evidence of this isomorphism, and so the only direction the argument can go in is from the fact of communication to the supposition of isomorphism. That we talk of love leads us to think that we are talking of the very same thing; but that conclusion is misguided. Indeed, I'd go a step further and say that there is no "thing" to be isomorphic, that all we have is the communication...

Ok you understand that I'm not endorsing this idea right? I think it's untenable. But the argument goes "we used to say 'that man over there, acting strangely has been possessed by the devil' - now we say "that man appears to be exhibiting schizophrenic behaviour involving hallucinations - or he may have Tourrette's Syndrome."

Eventually we won't talk about consciousness/emotions/qualia but the brain chemicals that are interacting.

We had to lear those terms in order to discard the false ideas we were afflicted with.

Isn't love a bit complex? Are you familiar with the notion of a family resemblance? "Love" would have to be such a term, avoiding definition... So why should we expect there to be a brain state that is shared by all folk who are in love? Yes, I understand that you are not disagreeing with this, I'm looking to reinforce the monist sentiment expressed in the OP.

If I'm in disagreement with anyone here, it's Hanover.

But there can be no evidence of this isomorphism, and so the only direction the argument can go in is from the fact of communication to the supposition of isomorphism. — Banno

Maybe we're not on the same page here. "Isomorphism" is a relation of two sets. It means that all their elements are related to each other in the same way.

So our experiences of sight can be isomorphisms of each other. As in, anything you would call red, I would call green had I had the experience you were having.

What I am supposing, is that we both have some experience when looking at grass. I don't think we disagree there.

And when having that experience we can communicate it only by saying "I see green grass"

My point is the experience need not be the same for both of us to say "I see green grass" and for us to even understand each other.

It could be the case that if you had my experience you would say "I see red grass".

But as long as what seems red to me seems green to you at all times, we would both communicate our experiences using the word "green"

But maybe we ARE on the same page because this:

I'd go a step further and say that there is no "thing" to be isomorphic, that all we have is the communication. — Banno

Makes no sense to me. Had you said that there was a thing that we cannot talk about I would have understood that. But this just seems to be denying that we experience things.

The "thing" is experience. I am willing to wager experiences preceded our ability to communicate them. So I don't see how we can only have communication.

I remember the first time I felt angry and I didn't know what the word was. I learned after the fact that that experience is called "anger". Or maybe that's just a manufactured memory. Regardless, I am pretty sure children can feel angry or afraid before they know what the word means.

That doesn't mean my experience of anger is your experience of anger, only that we both call it anger and that we (hopefully) have it in similar situations (or else one of us has an anger issue)

I have absolutely no problem with believing (yes it is a belief, as you have opposing beliefs) that love is an outgrowth of brain chemicals. — GLEN willows

No one is denying that. Every time "love" happens we see the same or similar brain activity (well I don't know about that but I'm assuming we do). That can't be coincidence.

The question is, is the experience of love, itself, a chemical. If so can you tell me its relative molar mass?

What makes you think that love is something floating outside of the brain — GLEN willows

I don't think it's a physical thing so I don't think it's "floating" anywhere.

yes - this is why I'm still a student haha. Of course there's different kinds of love, even when people say "real love" it could be different for each of them. And I THINK you're also making the deeper argument (Wittgenstein?) of the problem of other minds? That we'll never know exactly what another mind experiences?

So I defer to you on that, but the essential question is still "do all kinds of love reside in the brain, as part of a materialistic process, not separate." Love isn't magic, floating in a fantastical sphere of it's own. Again I THINK you're agreeing with that?

I don't know what moral mass means. I'm going with your statement that love isn't a physical thing. My argument is simply that - I agree. The feeling of love is a result of neurochemical interaction. Eventually science will prove this and we'll know that "love" isn't really a thing, although we'll still use the term "love", just as we'll still say it resides in the heart, even though we know THAT'S not true either.

SPOILER ALERT - atheist statement ahead. The same way we say "for the love of God" even though we know God is not real either.

What I am supposing, is that we both have some experience when looking at grass. I don't think we disagree there. — khaled

I'm saying: that we might, or that we don't, is irrelevant. Isomorphism is not required.

Anyway, too far off topic.

I don't know what moral mass means — GLEN willows

Relative molar* mass. It is how much a mole of a chemical would weigh.

My argument is simply that - I agree. — GLEN willows

Then you're not a materialist. Materialists would try to say that the experience of love doesn't exist. All that exists are the chemicals.

The feeling of love is a result of neurochemical interaction. Eventually science will prove this and we'll know that the "love" isn;t really a thing — GLEN willows

Doesn't follow. "The feeling of love is a result of neurochemical interaction" does not lead to "We'll know that (the feeling of) love isn't really a thing". No the feeling of love will remain a thing. A thing that results from a specific neurochemical interaction.

I'm saying: that we might, or that we don't, is irrelevant. Isomorphism is not required. — Banno

What do you mean?

If we DO have experiences, and we can communicate them well, then the experiences are isomorphisms of each other (by definition).

So are you saying we don't have experiences? Or are you saying that those experiences need not be the same or we don't even need to be having the experiences (which is what I'm saying)?

Anyways I have to go now, some time later.

Wittgenstein, yes - and I am as much a student as you.

"do all kinds of love reside in the brain, as part of a materialistic process, not separate." Love isn't magic, floating in a fantastical sphere of it's own. Again I THINK you're agreeing with that? — GLEN willows

Hmmm. I don't think love resides in the brain, so much as in the relationship between the lovers... but that's probably tangential. i agree with you that the interaction problem is good reason to dismiss dualism. Some mental events causally interact with some physical events.

If we DO have experiences, and we can communicate them well, then the experiences are isomorphisms of each other (by definition). — khaled

Oh, Ok - I'll take your word for it. i suggest that any further talk fo qualia occur elsewhere - PM me? I don't wish to derail Glen's thread.