To argue against Steven French and argue for the non-eliminativist view, one will also need to argue that relations ontologically exist. — RussellA
My table would appear as objectively real to anyone seeing or touching it, yes. — Olivier5
You can come to my place and check the reality of my table. — Olivier5
Bradley must be wrong. Because it would be a miracle if the human mind had relations and nothing else did. — Olivier5
I don't like using terms like "external" and "internal" because it seems to divide the world into two (dualism) unnecessarily. — Harry Hindu
Steve French is misusing the term eliminativism...........Not neccessarily. — Harry Hindu
Then it seems that if the relations in our mind don't represent the world as it is then our understanding of the world is radically wrong. — Harry Hindu
If current conditions are not related to past conditions or to future conditions then causation (a type of relation) is false so all of our reasons for believing things would be wrong. There would be no justification for anything and the basis for ethics and politics would be false — Harry Hindu
In denying that relations have an ontological existence then you are implying that solipsism is the case. — Harry Hindu
In rejecting dualistic notions of reality, I believe that minds and everything else are the same type of thing, which I identify as relationships, processes, or information. — Harry Hindu
How is the "internal" contents of ypur mind different than the internal contents of say, your stomach? — Harry Hindu
Visually, you only perceive one side of the apple — Harry Hindu
This is a problem because other minds are external to yours. — Harry Hindu
In asserting that proto-consciousness is fundamental in the world, and that relations only exist in the mind, are you not admitting that relations exist in the external world? — Harry Hindu
Well, maybe, but I see no reason to believe that my table does not exist, nor any reason to attribute any protopsychism to it. — Olivier5
It’s from “There’s are No Such Things as Ordinary Objects” in the bookThe Nature of Ordinary Objects — Ignoredreddituser
My point was that the mind is no different than everything else in that everything is both the effect of causes and the cause of subsequent effects. The mind is not special or unique in this regard. What you described wouldn't be dualism as every thing (not just minds) has a causal relationship between it and the world (natural selection). So no, what I said is not dualism and you misinterpreted what I said.In any discussion of the mind the concept of dualism is unavoidable, as you say yourself: "We all know that the world has an effect on the mind and the mind affects the world", instantly setting up a dualism between the world and the mind. — RussellA
I can't disagree here. It's not my position to deny the existence of mind or world. I just think that the way we understand the relationship between them is "profoundly mistaken".The SEP article concludes with the line: "While it is true that eliminative materialism depends upon the development of a radical scientific theory of the mind, radical theorizing about the mind may itself rest upon our taking seriously the possibility that our common sense perspective may be profoundly mistaken" — RussellA
That's the thing though - is skepticism about what something is as opposed to how useful it is for our purposes warranted? Since we have different senses informing us of the same thing (the smell, taste and color of the apple informs us that it is ripe), is there anything else to an apple other than its ripeness? Why wouldn't our different senses inform us of other aspects of the apple if there were any? It seems to me that perceiving things more as how they actually are would provide an evolutionary advantage.When observing an apple, our mental representation of the apple must always be incomplete, in that we may only be looking at one or two sides, we may not be looking inside the apple, we may not be smelling the apple, etc. As our representation must inevitable always be incomplete, we can never represent the apple as you say "as it is".
The fact that any representation can never be complete does not mean that such representation is radically wrong, all we need is that such a representation is "good enough" for our present purposes. — RussellA
If these relations did not exist ontologically, then what reason would there be for us perceiving them?Between two objects in the world A and B we observe a spatial relationship - object A is to the right of object B. Because we observe a spatial relationship between A and B, it does not follow that in the world there is a something that exists between objects A and B independent of and in addition to the space between them, a thing called a "spatial relation" which exists as much as objects A and B.
Similarly, between two objects in the world A and B we observe a causal relationship - object A hits a stationary object B and object B moves. Because we observe a causal relationship between A and B, it does not follow that in the world there is a something that exists between objects A and B independent of and in addition to the interaction between them, a thing called a "causal relation" which exists as much as objects A and B. — RussellA
What is the relation between other minds if they are separate?For us to apply our reasoning and judgements, it is sufficient that spatial and causal relationships exist in our mind — RussellA
Time, space, matter and forces are the quantified mental representations of the analog relations that exist ontologically. What something is is a relationship between prior causes and what it effects. That's what your mind is, too - an accumulation of long-term memories and a working memory model of the world as it was a fraction of a second ago.To deny that relations have an ontological existence in the external world is not to deny that time, space, matter and forces don't exist. Why should the existence of an object in the external world depend on its being in an ontological relationship with something else ? — RussellA
Not me. Why would a solipsist have experiences of an "external" world if one didn't exist? How could that happen?Being an Indirect Realist, I believe the external world exists, but I don't know for certain. Isn't everyone a solipsist to some degree ? — RussellA
No, they are relations.If the mind and everything else, such as a table, are the same type of thing, are tables conscious ? — RussellA
What does that mean - "conscious"?I assume because my mind is conscious, but my stomach isn't. — RussellA
No, it's because you're using different sensory organs to apprehend the relationship. This is confusing the map (the way something is apprehended) with the territory (what is apprehended). Both senses are informing you of the same thing - the shape of the apple, not different things. How they are apprehended is different, but they refer to the same thing as both confirm what the other is showing to be the case.Yes, as you say, "you can feel all sides of the apple even though you can't see all sides of the apple".
Because you cannot see the relationships on all sides of the apple, yet can feel the relationships on all sides of the apple, these missing relations must have originated in the mind, not the world. — RussellA
None of this explains what "consciousness" or "proto-consciousness" is.I don't know for certain that proto-consciousness is fundamental in the world, and even if it is, it is still beyond my understanding, but it is the least implausible explanation that I have come across.
Yes, it would follow that if I believed in panpsychism this would lead me to concluding that relations ontologically exist in the external world, which is why I tend to protopanpsychism which doesn't require such a conclusion. — RussellA
The question is, where in the external world is the information that this particular set of elementary particles each located at a particular time and space is in the form of a table ? — RussellA
If consciousness did not come from a pre-existing proto-consciousness, then where did consciousness in the mind come from ? — RussellA
My point was that the mind is no different than everything else in that everything is both the effect of causes and the cause of subsequent effects. — Harry Hindu
None of this explains what "consciousness" or "proto-consciousness" is. — Harry Hindu
If these relations did not exist ontologically, then what reason would there be for us perceiving them? — Harry Hindu
Where is the information in the external world that the apple as an object exists independently of the table as an object ? — RussellA
If the apple exists as an object in the external world, then every pair of elementary particles in the external world would also exist as an object. — RussellA
If you can pick up apples for sixty pence a pound in Tesco, then you can pick up a pair of elementary particles for the same low price. — Cuthbert
If the world offers no information regarding the independent existence of apples and tables, then I cannot discover whether I just ate an apple or a table — Cuthbert
I regret to inform that the Eiffel Tower does not exist, although on the left bank in Paris there's a bunch of iron atoms shaped in the form of the Eiffel Tower. — Olivier5
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