If you say that the mind is some physical thing we have no conception of i have a feeling physicalism is going to turn into idealism. — RogueAI

I think I am staying away form defining the physical description of the physical mind, because our discussion assumes that the physical world is assumed. I in several places mentioned that we have no certain knowledge of the physical world. So I don't want to treat it in our discussion as anything but something which is not purely of ideas, and the very certainty of its existence is unclear.

This makes it impossible in our course of debate (between you and me here) for me to declare any knowledge of the physical world, beyond the facts that 1. It may or may not exist, and 2. our knowledge of it is unreliable.

In this thread. — RogueAI

Could you please tell me on which page, and from the top, how manieth post it is that contains it? I really, but really don't want to read posts only to reject the necessity of reading them (because they are other than what the conversation between the two ancient men).

"Consider the following: two people from thousands of years ago can meaningfully talk about their minds, agreed? They can exchange meaningful information with each other about their mental states. Now, if minds and brains are the same thing, then two people in ancient times exchanging meaningful information about their minds must also be exchanging meaningful information about their brains. But of course, ancient peoples had no idea how the brain worked. They thought it cooled the blood. It's an absurdity to claim ancient peoples were meaningfully exchanging information about their brains, so the claim mind=brain entails an absurdity."

I don't need my senses to know that my mind is not physical, in the sense that materialists/physicalists use the word. It's simply not in that category of things, because it's missing physical characteristics. You're saying it could have those physical characteristics, except my senses could be fooling me, but I don't need my senses to know my mind isn't a physical object. I don't need to try and smell it to know it doesn't have an odor, or try and look at it to know it doesn't have a shape. — RogueAI

I think it’s not so much missing physical characteristics as undefinable by its physical characteristics - in a similar way that a photon is considered physical, yet undefinable by its physical characteristics as such. We know a photon by its predicted potentiality or by an observable result. In between is an event structure that is probabilistic at best.

The cost is discipline and time. And you're obviously not interested. Don't bother. You can stay in your post-truth worldview, and I have my worldview. — Dharmi

Yes, I know. But what you are missing is the metaphor. 'Trust me guys, if you just do [some difficult thing] then you'll see how right I am!' It's like asking a stranger to read your novel. In theory, you are possibly right, and maybe you are best friends with god. But there's something iffy about gesturing to prerequisites on a forum. Lots of people are eager to share their religion. It's a thing. And most people have come to some decision about it by now.

Were you born into it? Or did you join as an adult? — frank

I was joking! Though I did read Hubbard's crazy sci-fi as a teen.

'The true religion is no religion.' That sums up my actual position. (It's an overstatement, but I like it.)

I'm not asserting the existence of just one mind. I'm claiming that we know for certain that at least one mind exists. There might be one, there might be billions of minds, but there can't be zero minds. That's powerful. We don't have that kind of certainty about the existence of anything else, except logical/mathematical truths. — RogueAI

To me it's less wrong (but not quite right) to say that we know that there is language. Just because we have the words 'I' and 'mind' don't mean that they correspond to some absolute foundation for further reasoning. They only make sense within an entire language, and a language only makes sense in an entire world. It's all of a piece. *I'm coming around to the idea that there's always an error, in the sense that every grand statement leaves an opening for retort, gets something wrong. So the game proceeds forever.

I don't agree. I don't think our situation is that hopeless. — RogueAI

Fair enough. I can't prove my position, not do I think proofs of such matters are even possible/intelligible. Nor do I think that 'proof' has some exactly specifiable meaning. I think we learn to use lots of words at once in the context of other people, never quite grabbing them but getting things done nevertheless. That's why IMO it's the practical world (whatever that inexactly means) that already serves as the less unreal foundation of our existence --and that it's neither mind nor matter (though that phrase is merely less misleading than others to a goal lost in the mist.)

In this view of mind-body-environment no clear-cut interior or exterior can be discerned. — Joshs

:up:

Yeah, and there's maybe insufficiently critical use in general of 'physical' and 'mental.' The tendency is perhaps to talk about talk when one thinks one is talking about something outside of talk. The seemingly familiar is taken for granted and not examined before being passionately applied within a fool's-errand-in-retrospect.

(I talk about the futility of certain mental-physical debates, but I should myself consider the futility of talking about this futility. )

I cannot do that. It is inherently contradictory. I cannot pretend "you know nothing about reality except that you exist and you have a conscious mind" and that there are "some materialists" - trying to make their case.

Either I acknowledge the existence of some materialists, external to me - and therefore rather prove their point about the existence of the external world; or I am imagining them, which is to say - I am not imagining that I know nothing about reality.

Does it not bother you that the existence of the external, material world is beyond question outside of philosophy? Even you, RogueAI, who propose this, do so by assuming the existence of the physical world, of computers, and other people using their computers to read and respond to your post.

I could imagine I know nothing about reality except that I exist and I have a conscious mind, but then I'm stuck in an endless solipsism - where that is all I can ever know. That is the nature of the subjectivist victory over materialism; the cost of certainty is that the subjectivist can know nothing else but that he exists.

I would rather assume that the world exists external to me; and acknowledge this is at some level, an assumption. It's a safe and prudent assumption; one that recommends itself in all ways, such that I would need good reason to doubt it. Is there good reason?

There are many forms of physicalism.
For instance , what allows Barrett to reject naive realism is her indebtedness to Kantian idealism. That’s why she can talk about a veil of appearances separating us from a world we have no direct access to and must use interpretive faculties to understand. She would agree we can never access the thing in itself. That notion of the physical only emerged with Kant. So I would say the default position in most of the sciences is a physicalism
derived from , or at least consistent with, Kant’s idealism. — Joshs

Absolutely. Model-dependant realism I've heard it called.

I doubt It's much influenced by Kant though. The majority of scientists I know just tend to get on with what they do and any underlying assumptions and broader frameworks are questioned (when they're questioned at all) by their own intellect - coffee room discussions. They don't feel the need to borrow the intellect of an eighteenth century German. Just weird like that I suppose.

They don't feel the need to borrow the intellect of an eighteenth century German. — Isaac

Their beliefs and worldviews might have been influenced by Kant, unbeknown to them. Scientist do not live outside of society and they are influenced by the culture in which they live.

But again, this is where idealism has an advantage. We can ask "what is matter," we can ask "what is mind," but in the end, we know mind exists. We can't be wrong about that. — RogueAI

That we can't be wrong about it is a warning sign, not a feature. Is whether mind exists an empirical question? It's obvious because of the way we use 'mind' for something (roughly) that is closer to us than anything, more certain than anything.

After all, I create worlds populated by real-seeming people in my dreams, so isn't it entirely possible I'm still doing all that even when I think I'm awake? I think the knowledge of dreaming strengthens the idealist position. If world-building during sleep is a thing, than world-building during non-sleep (or what we think is non-sleep) is definitely on the table. — RogueAI

I agree that this is fascinating issue. But aren't you automatically interpreting dreams as insubstantial? Perhaps you are suddenly transported to a different parallel world, with some 'physical kernel.' If that sounds too wild, it's maybe just as wild to think of the real world as one more dream.

They don't feel the need to borrow the intellect of an eighteenth century German. — Isaac


Their beliefs and worldviews might have been influenced by Kant, unbeknown to them. Scientist do not live outside of society and they are influenced by the culture in which they live. — Olivier5

Perfectly possible. As is its opposite. They might also have been influenced by Kant's house-cleaner.

Kant's house-cleaner — Isaac

Popper, you mean?

Only half a joke, since Popper was Kantian and had an undeniable, modern influence on epistemology and philosophy of science.

My favorite quote from Hume:

“ For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception…. If any one, upon serious and unprejudic'd reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu'd, which he calls himself; tho' I am certain there is no such principle in me.” — Joshs

This is great quote, but an issue occurs to me. Hume refers to 'he' in the ordinary language way, as a unity, a person. He also uses 'I' in the normal way. So he makes one good point about the self while accidentally making a point about ordinary language. A self is also a public bearer of responsiblity, awash in the same language, a thing that has a notion of itself, who may be in the right about himself. Lots of complexities!

He also dissolves the self and yet still speaks in terms of perceptions, clinging to the image of a single something that perceives, that is separate from the world. He doesn't say that he finds telephones and biscuits in what he calls himself but only perceptions (implicitly mediated, by what?). Hume might be playing with us here.

Knowledge is never about ultimate truth, it is about what we can justify with reasonable confidence. — Tom Storm

:up:
emph added

I think ordinary language should be the default starting position. J.L.Austin explains why: — Andrew M

Yes. Start with that and the familiar world which doesn't even have to reduce to mind or matter or anything else. Why take such a project for granted? Especially after so many have shown what's questionable about it... Call it the 'lifeworld' or whatever. It's where we talk and what we talk about.

Popper was Kantian and had an undeniable, modern influence on epistemology and philosophy of science. — Olivier5

Probably. But none of that has anything much to do with whether he had an influence on scientists.

Scientists are very ambitious. They’re very competitive. If they really thought philosophy would help them, they’d learn it and use it. They don’t. — Lewis Wolpert

Although my absolute favourite is from Paul Dirac

[philosophy is] just a way of talking about discoveries that have already been made.

"Consider the following: two people from thousands of years ago can meaningfully talk about their minds, agreed? They can exchange meaningful information with each other about their mental states. Now, if minds and brains are the same thing, then two people in ancient times exchanging meaningful information about their minds must also be exchanging meaningful information about their brains. But of course, ancient peoples had no idea how the brain worked. They thought it cooled the blood. It's an absurdity to claim ancient peoples were meaningfully exchanging information about their brains, so the claim mind=brain entails an absurdity." — RogueAI

I am sorry, but I fail to see the relevance of this paragraph to our discussion. I am not saying that the mind is the brain. I am saying that we can dismiss any knowledge of the physical world when we say "cogito ergo sum". We already agreed that our physical world is a huge uncertainty for both its existence and its details of existence. Any forays into its workings or structure is futile. So we ought not to do that in this discussion. Therefore when I say "the mind is not known to be physical or an idealistic entity" I am saying it is not necessarily the brain, because the brain we perceive in the physical world, and therefore it is uncertain for its appearance, and physical qualities. I am saying instead, that since we can't rely on our senses that the physical world is as it presents itself, we can't say anything more about the mind if it's physical than that it's physical.

Kidney function: people talked about their pees, but they could not talk about their kidneys producing the pees.

A state of the mind is not the mind. I really don't even know what you or I mean by mind. If I am sad, is that the state of my mind? So it's not my mind, but a feeling it generates. Much like my pee is not my kidney, but what my kidney generates.

The state of one's mind is not the mind; it is its product. So no, it is not true that the ancients would have needed to know that the mind is the brain (and that is not my proposition, anyway.)

Probably. But none of that has anything much to do with whether he had an influence on scientists. — Isaac

Popper defined the boundaries of modern science based on a fairly robust synthesis of Hume's empiricism and Kantian idealism, to simplify a bit. Scientists were influenced alright, whether they like to admit it or not. And whether they are conscious of this influence or not. Don't take take their word for it.

Scientists were influenced alright, whether they like to admit it or not. And whether they are conscious of this influence or not. Don't take take their word for it. — Olivier5

Interesting. So what was the mechanism by which a scientist becomes influenced despite neither reading, nor being constrained by the writing in these publications? Is it telepathy?

Intersubjectivity.

Some scientists read Popper, argue with Popper, discuss Popper between themselves. The idea of falsifiability (and others) makes its way in the discourse.

Some scientists read Popper, argue with Popper, discuss Popper between themselves. The idea of falsifiability (and others) makes its way in the discourse. — Olivier5

And that's a one way system because...?

one way system — Isaac

Meaning?

Meaning? — Olivier5

Scientists discuss theory with Popper, they're "influenced by Popper". Popper discusses theory with scientists he's not "influenced by scientists"?

Or if he is, they why not just that we're all influenced by ideas that have come before us?

You've implied a route through published works of philosophy, then argued that even those who haven't read those works are nonetheless influenced by them via the social uptake of those ideas. So the same's true of Popper, right? Or is he immune?

was joking! Though I did read Hubbard's crazy sci-fi as a teen. — norm

Oh good.

So the same's true of Popper, right? — Isaac

Of course, Popper was influenced by scientists, mainly by QM. I happen to think he should have paid more attention to biologists.

Of course, Popper was influenced by scientists, mainly by QM. — Olivier5

Right. So they influenced themselves?

Point is, just because someone wrote something down is insufficient to say anyone after then has been 'Influenced' by it. You'd need either evidence they'd read the work, or evidence that the work was so unprecedented that any use of it could only have come from that source.

Anything less than that and you have only a much weaker version of 'influenced' into which the author themselves also falls, rendering the whole issue of who influenced whom moot.

Very few scientists seriously study Popper, even fear read Kant. Neither's ideas were earth-shatteringly unique. So you've not got that strong use of 'influenced'.

Scientists, as a loose collection, use, have used, and will continue to use, a weakly related collection of methods and assumptions which will be very broadly influenced by the general academic culture in which they were taught and work.

Scientists, as a loose collection, would not even exist in the first place if philosophers had not first carved up a safe space for freedom of inquiry, sometimes exposing themselves to significant risk of punishment in doing so, and if they had not used this space to invent the scientific method.

Scientists, as a loose collection, would not even exist in the first place if philosophers had not first carved up a safe space for freedom of inquiry, sometimes exposing themselves to significant risk of punishment in doing so, and if they had not used this space to invent the scientific method. — Olivier5

Historicism without a shred of evidence.