I ask many times - why dualism and not solipsism, pantheism or panpsychism? You can have shapes and colors (which are just relations of some kind, nothing brutal), while still perceiving those shapes and colors. As an analogy, when we look at other people, they have faces, but we can never see our face directly. Why then assume that self-description should be innate quality?Sensible objects have colours, shapes, sizes, smells, tastes. But my reason assures me that it is positively confused to think of my mind as having any of these qualities. So my mind does not appear to be a sensible object. It may still be, of course, for appearances are sometimes deceptive. But where's the evidence?
My reason also tells me that I have free will, yet tells me at the same time that I would not have free will - not of the robust responsibility-grounding kind that it insists I have - if everything about me traces to external causes. Yet if I were a sensible object, everything about me would trace to external causes. So my reason tells me, once more, that I - my mind, that is - am not a sensible object.
And on and on it goes - there are loads of these arguments (I think I have about 14). They're not decisive, admittedly. But each one counts for something - each one is some evidence, prima facie evidence, that our minds are not sensible objects.
What countervailing evidence do you have that our minds are sensible objects? — Bartricks
Ok...first off I'll say that as a student of philosophy and science, both, I'm surprised at how little stock philosophers seem to put in the science involved with brain injuries and operations - including split-brain operations. In all of these, damage to the brain directly affects qualia. Can you explain that? — GLEN willows
most philosophers don't believe free will is possible, using THEIR reason (to use your words) so that point is debatable to begin with. — GLEN willows
Why do you say this? What's your proof of that? If we have free will, but it IS part of the brain, what would the difference be? — GLEN willows
But it just as clearly interacts with the brain. — Bartricks
and good evidence that the mind interacts with radically different objects such as the brain — Bartricks
Solipsism denies an objective world. Materialism and dualism both require it.Solipsism is not a view about the nature of the mind, but the number of minds in existence (it is the view that there is precisely one mind in existence - your own). Solipsism, then, is neutral between materialist and immaterialist views about the mind. — Bartricks
It can have implication about the mind, because it spiritualizes matter, making it conscious. In other words, it can become a theistic version of panpsychism.Pantheism is a view about God. So quite why you're raising it I do not know. — Bartricks
What is so silly about it? You can have mind and it can be the result of your material embodiment's innate ability for experience.And panpsychism is just silly and not implied by any of the arguments I gave. — Bartricks
Solipsism denies an objective world. Materialism and dualism both require it. — simeonz
It can have implication about the mind, because it spiritualizes matter, making it conscious. In other words, it can become a theistic version of panpsychism. — simeonz
What is so silly about it? You can have mind and it can be the result of your material embodiment's innate ability for experience. — simeonz
You still didn't answer why you believe automatically that the mind must have inherent ability for realization of its own form? (The faces analogy.) — simeonz
The problem is that if you intend to include free will, B must also affect A. We need to corroborate this, and if we cannot perceive it, then it appears to be just your axiom. Which is fine, but little can be debated here. It cannot be confirmed.When I ask for evidence that the mind is the brain, that's all I'm ever given. Yet it rests on a simple mistake: the mistake of thinking that if A affects B, A 'is' B. — Bartricks
This would be panpsychism, wouldn't it?And b) even if it wasn't a rubbish objection, it would not imply the mind is a sensible thing, so much as that sensible things are in fact made of mental states. — Bartricks
If there is just one mind, what would draw a boundary between the mind simply being compelled by unnatural forces and the mind being part of a physical world? Those two options become distinguishable only terminologically. There is no other sense of distinction between them.No, that's just confused. Solipsism is a view about the number of minds that exist. It is 'not' a view about the nature of the mind. One can be a materialist solipsist, one can be a dualist solipsist, one can be an immaterialist solipsist. — Bartricks
You didn't state whether you are theist, so I provided a theist option.What? I made arguments in support of the view that our minds are not sensible objects. No premise in any of my arguments (I gave 2, I have 14 - and what I am about to say is true of all 14) assumed a position on deities. — Bartricks
What is the problem? I thought that the problem is how can the mind exist. It solves that problem.There's nothing to be said for it. It doesn't solve any problems. It's just silly. — Bartricks
You said that your mind tells you that it doesn't have colors. I wanted to tell you through analogy that the mind may have features that it cannot perceive unaided. The same way we cannot perceive that we have face without mirror. (Or photo, or description from another person.)I am afraid I don't know what you mean or what your faces analogy was supposed to illustrate. — Bartricks
If you justify this presupposition as being evident to you, then there is little that can be said about it. It is not evident to me. Nothing wrong altogether (doesn't make us both right either), but it is a difficult debate when the fundamental perspectives of two people cannot align.It does not make sense to wonder what colour, shape, smell, texture, or taste one's mind has — Bartricks
If there is just one mind, what would draw a boundary between the mind simply being compelled by unnatural forces and the mind being part of a physical world? Those two options become distinguishable only terminologically. There is no other sense of distinction between them. — simeonz
You didn't state whether you are theist, so I provided a theist option. — simeonz
What is the problem? I thought that the problem is how can the mind exist. It solves that problem. — simeonz
If you justify this presupposition as being evident to you — simeonz
I provided an option that afforded it in case you were theist, because otherwise you may not have subscribed to the others. It is related to the mind, as I said, because if matter is inherently spiritual, then it is also conscious. You cannot have soul and not mind, in a theist worldview.I didn't state it because it is not relevant. You can be a theist materialist, a theist dualist, and a theist immaterialist. Theism is the view that God, or a god, exists. It is not a view about the nature of the mind. — Bartricks
It makes no sense to ask it as unaided self-reflection, but that doesn't mean that through some assisted view (externally) your mind could not see itself better.It is self-evident to virtually everybody. "Is your mind rough or smooth?" makes no sense. It's like asking "how loud is 3?" — Bartricks
Yes, well on your scheme no matter how many times I give an argument for immaterialism about the mind it will never constitute evidence in support of the thesis. — Bartricks
1. If one's mind is a sensible object, then it makes sense to wonder what colour, shape, smell, texture or taste it might have.
2. It does not make sense to wonder what colour, shape, smell, texture, or taste one's mind has
3. Therefore, one's mind is not a sensible object. — Bartricks
and appears causally to interact with sensible objects. — Bartricks
"Exist" is just another word for having a form. But the only way we define the idea of form is through the account of our interactions, through phenomenology. How can we talk about objectivity vs subjectivity of the form we perceive when there is only one subject. The two ideas are indistinguishable even conceptually to me. But I must say, I see where you are coming from. You are not asking the question epistemically at all it appears and to you the ontic difference is evident.That's just the thesis. Materialism 'just is' the thesis that there is an objective - that is, 'existing extra-mentally' - reality. — Bartricks
It makes no sense to ask it as unaided self-reflection, but that doesn't mean that through some assisted view (externally) your mind could not see itself better then you mind alone can. — simeonz
Likewise, my reason represents my mind to be an immaterial thing, for it says of it that it makes no sense to wonder about what sensible properties it might have. — Bartricks
If it didn't have some degree of privacy we could never lie.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. — Banno
Sure, and that's the first argument I gave on the thread. I asked "What's the relative molar mass of Love" — khaled
I was expecting some study or something showing that when people raise their arms, the causal chain leading to the movement starts arbitrarily, suddenly, without any detectable material causer. That's what we would expect to see if immaterial minds really did interact with material brains.
That would constitute evidence. — khaled
Where's your argument for this? — Bartricks
That's not my argument. That's just a question. — Bartricks
No, that's just you being confused and begging the question. It's what you do. — Bartricks
Argument? That momentum and energy are conserved? I have none, because it's not a conclusion arrived at by argument. It's a conclusion arrived at by observation. Centuries of it. — khaled
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