Thoughts don't exist, the brain does. — Garrett Travers

Thoughts don't exist IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD, but the brain does.

That is a necessary improvement. Because thoughts do exist, albeit not in the physical world.

Proof:

I think of my child how he is lonely and pining for a beer while he is away doing his studies.

So I wire him some money to buy a bottle of beer.

My thought made me do something.

Something that does not exist can't have a role in a causative process. Only existing things can cause change in the chains of causation.

My thought, which was created by my brain, if you wish, is independent from my brain. My brain is physical, my thought is not physical.

Yet my thought did cause an action.

Therefore my thought exists. (Without being physical.)

Surety, then ruin (Engıa pára d'ate)

No more than, for example, traffic lights "cause" drivers to step on the breaks or the gas. Simply put, they are only signals which inform habits, and when circumstances warrant they can be overriden (ignored), unlike "causes" which cannot. — 180 Proof

Thank you. Can this be analysed as follows:

In the case of traffic lights, the traffic lights going red are a necessary condition for stepping on the brakes. It's not a sufficient condition because it can be overridden, and for other reasons as well. You can drive through the lights anyway. Is that right?

So, to do your work for you, applying this to the hunger example, feeling hungry is, sometimes, a necessary condition for eating. That is to say, were it not for you being hungry, you wouldn't eat. But it can be overridden. This falls short of a cause in your thinking, yes?

On the other hand, the causes of your eating cannot be overridden. Is that right? Are they necessary and sufficient for eating?

What are the causes of eating? Is it, say, low blood glucose levels, which gets picked up by some bodily mechanism (excuse my ignorance), then the brain consequently initiates motor movement. I know that's skipping all the detail but you get the idea. Is that what you have in mind as the cause? This is both necessary and sufficient for eating to occur?

What if there is food readily available, but there is another factor, an intruder with a knife just enters the kitchen, and threatens you. You run from the room, presumably through some similar causal story about biological processes, without eating. Has the cause of eating been overridden by another cause?

I just want to see how you analyse all this. I invite you to talk about this particular situation, rather than in general, as I find that easier to understand.

I think I understand Gerson's thesis and its relation to the development of the scientific method.

Since you spoke approvingly of phenomenology, I was asking where you thought it fit in Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand"

Phenomenology is not materialist nor mechanistic. It does look for a nature or environment where events happen. Does it require the possibility of "perfect cognition" that Gerson has on the Platonist checklist? And so on.

Since you spoke approvingly of phenomenology, I was asking where you thought it fit in Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand" — Paine

I suppose you could say that phenomenology is a 'third way' that escapes the opposition that Gerson sees between Platonism and naturalism. It is of note that there are many touch-points between phenomenology and Buddhism, because the latter likewise eschews the 'substance and attribute' metaphysics of classical Western thought.

(Here's a good article on Buddhism and phenomenology. I'd skip the first half, scroll down to the image of the eye. The subsequent passages discuss many of the points that have come up in this thread. )

Since you spoke approvingly of phenomenology, I was asking where you thought it fit in Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand" — Paine

Here, once again, we can see how it is useful to separate Plato from Platonism.

From the Timaeus:

So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised. But if we provide likelihoods inferior to none, we should be well-pleased with them, remembering that I who speak as well as you my judges have a human nature, so that it’s fitting for us to be receptive to the likely story about these things and not search further for anything beyond it. (29c-d).

His imprecision is seen here as well:

As for all the heaven (or cosmos, or whatever else it might be most receptive to being called, let us call it that) … (28b).

Why not be more precise? Isn’t it imperative to be precise in matters of metaphysics and cosmogony?

We are human beings, capable of telling likely stories, but incapable of discerning the truth of such things. In line with the dialogues theme of what is best, Timaeus proposes it is best to accept likely stories and not search for what is beyond the limits of our understanding.

Socrates approves and urges him to perform the song (nomos). Nomos means not only song but law and custom or convention. In the absence of truth there is nomos. But not just any song, it is one that is regarded as best to accept because it is told with an eye to what is best. One that harmonizes being and becoming.

In several places Socrates calls the Forms hypothetical. In the Phaedo he combines a hypothetical account based on Forms together with an account based on physical causes.

In short, Plato cannot be situated on either side of Gerson's schema.

In this discussion of 'materialism', I have been looking for a way to acknowledge Nagel's narrative of how the scientific method came about without accepting that it restricts all of its possible outcomes to descriptions of physical stuff isolated from all other physical stuff. Models have to agree with phenomena. The phenomena never signed an agreement listing what could be revealed by the process.

In that context, Gerson's schema is a response to Rorty's rejection of Plato. That conflict has its own terms that are far away from how to understand original texts. As far as I understand it, I disagree with both of them. I make no special claim at understanding either of them.

As for what Gerson thinks himself outside of that debate, there are many points where I disagree. Apart from his 'schema', I have read a number of his arguments devoted to Aristotle's text that I doubt the old guy would agree with.

Maybe there should be a discussion devoted to Gerson. He seems to be a big man on campus here.

Edit to add: I just ran a search on Gerson on the web site. This has been going on for years.

I have been looking for a way to acknowledge Nagel's narrative of how the scientific method came about without accepting that it restricts all of its possible outcomes to descriptions of physical stuff isolated from all other physical stuff. Models have to agree with phenomena. — Paine

The problem as I see it, is that his argument rests on the shoulders of Descartes and the problem of judgment based on mental representations. It leads to an insoluble skepticism. In other words, we have no way of knowing whether models agree with phenomena. Although he did work on optics and medicine, his description of physical stuff is based on reason rather than empirical evidence.

The term 'phenomena' is being used here as a general synonym for 'everything' or 'the totality'. Interestingly, the original meaning of phenomena is 'that which appears', and there was at least an implicit distinction between phenomena, 'what appears', and reality, 'what truly is'.

In Platonism, generally, as also in the later idealist philosophies, 'what truly is', is discernable only by reason (augmented at least until the Middle Ages by illumination.) 'The sage' is one who is able to discern 'what truly is'.

Whereas, due to the overwhelming influence of empiricism, science has come to be defined as empirical-sensory knowledge, instrumentally validated. So the idea of an intelligible reality in the earlier sense is no longer considered. Which is why 'phenomena' becomes practically synonymous with 'what truly is' (as Carl Sagan said, 'cosmos is all there is', and by that, he means the cosmos as discerned scientifically.)

Maybe there should be a discussion devoted to Gerson. He seems to be a big man on campus here. — Paine

I think I learned about Lloyd Gerson from mentions on this forum or its predecessor. I also listened to his lecture Platonism vs Naturalism which I've posted several times here. As I've mentioned, I find him very hard to read, as so much of his writing is addressed to other academics. But I'm generally sympathetic to what I take to be the gist of his writings.

Plato cannot be situated on either side of Gerson's schema. — Fooloso4

Gerson has considered this:

Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients were correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism."Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics. In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."

Whereas naturalism, nominalism, mechanism, materialism, relativism and scepticism are overall highly characteristic of much modern philosophy.

I read Gerson's lecture; you gave me the link to the text of it. I have read a good portion of the book that lecture is basically the preface of. The "Ur-Platonism" is interesting as a general narrative but has lots of problems in the close reading of actual texts. I won't go on at length about what you have not read of Gerson.

Phenomena is what is shown and experienced. Science is empiricism. When you say Carl Sagan said, 'cosmos is all there is', and by that, he means the cosmos as discerned scientifically," is Sagan truly reducing phenomena to what can be proven in a model? Is his observation not similar to the humility expressed in the Timaeus? We live in this place. That circumstance and the conditions bounded by its existence is the foundation of anything that happens within that circumstance.

In regard to Nagel to describing the origin of the scientific method, my difficulty with relating it to the meanings of 'materiality' is whether that is an observation of what those descriptions will not satisfy or a limit on the practice itself. Do you think of it as a garbage-in garbage-out scenario?

When you say Carl Sagan said, 'cosmos is all there is', and by that, he means the cosmos as discerned scientifically," is Sagan truly reducing phenomena to what can be proven in a model? — Paine

I think he's of the conviction that natural science is the only sure pathway to knowledge. But then, science, in that understanding, restricts its scope to what can be objectively understood and measured. From that Tricycle article I linked to above:

There’s a limitation built into science, [Giorgi] explained. What we usually think of as science is physical, or natural, science—an empirical discipline that originated in the study of the physical world. When natural science uses the same quantitative and experimental approach that rendered physical phenomena intelligible to try to make sense of human phenomena like culture, psychology, or religion, it falls short.

But why?

“Because human beings are different from physical objects,” he stated matter-of-factly. “They have consciousness!” [which is exactly the point made by the Hard Problem argument.]

Humans live in a realm of meaning, values, ethics, and purpose, Giorgi explained. And that is not made intelligible in the same way the physical world is. Approaching humans with the same assumptions, methods, and goals that worked on atoms, galaxies, or cells is like using a hammer to pound in a screw—it is just not the right tool for the job.

Further down:

Giorgi is a proponent of an intellectual tradition called human science [which I mentioned previously, 'geisteswissenschaften'], which originated in late 19th-century European philosophy with the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey. Human science was developed by a long progression of esteemed thinkers, including some of the most innovative and heavy-hitting theorists of the Western philosophical tradition, such as Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone deBeauvoir, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur. Phenomenology comes from human science, as does modern hermeneutics (the study of the nature of interpretation), and the tradition has influenced a wide range of fields in the humanities and social sciences.

Recognizing the shortcomings of applying a natural science approach to human beings, these thinkers developed a science specifically tailored to the task. Like natural science, human science seeks knowledge that is secure, replicable, and verifiable. But it starts out with nonmaterialist assumptions, and it uses different methods—qualitative rather than quantitative ones.

So, in this sense - which is the sense that I think Hegel and Husserl would understand 'science' - there's a qualitative dimension to science which is almost entirely absent in Anglo-american and analytical philosophy. But I'm sure that Sagan does not draw on that perspective when he says that 'cosmos is all there is' - that what he understands by 'science' is just the objective sciences. Which is why I think he can fairly be accused of 'scientism'.

Do you think of it as a garbage-in garbage-out scenario? — Paine

It's not nearly that simple. The materialist conception of nature developed out of many centuries of thought and debate. When we discuss it here, we necessarily have to try and describe it in perfunctory terms, especially considering the limitations of Internet fora, where posts generally need to be short and to the point. But the underlying issue is a very deep one.

For instance - Nagel, as we have been discussing, has been critical of scientific materialism from an avowedly agnostic or atheist perspective - he eschews any kind of religious commitment whatever (same can be said of Raymond Tallis, Mary Midgley, and several others). However when Mind and Cosmos came out in 2012, he was promptly accused of being 'a friend to creationists'. Why? Because to question the physicalist consensus is to be suspected of being religious, even if you say you're not. And that's because of the history, whereby 'science' became defined in sharp distinction to 'religion' - you either accept one or the other. And that attitude, I contend, is actually descended from the 'jealous God' of Christianity, which gave rise to the scientific revolution in the first place. ('The jealous God dies hard'.) It's just that in the mainstream conception, the physical cosmos and natural science has displaced God, or occupied the place previously assigned to God. So you're obliged to accept that it completely displaces anything vaguely metaphysical or religious, on pain of being declared outcaste.

A famous phrase from Richard Lewontin's review of Carl Sagan's last book, Demon Haunted World:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. — Richard C. Lewontin, Billions and Billions of Demons - JANUARY 9, 1997 ISSUE NY Review of Books

Which desribes down to a T the attitude of the physicalist poster who was here recently. And that cultural dynamic underlies many debates in my view.

I am going to take some time answering. Thank you for assembling your answer.

In the case of traffic lights, the traffic lights going red are a necessary condition[signal] for stepping on the brakes. It's not a sufficient condition because it can be overridden, and for other reasons as well. You can drive through the lights anyway. Is that right? — bert1

Yeah, that's how I see it: "traffic lights" are just (semantic) signals, not (physical) causes.

That is to say, were it not for you being hungry, you wouldn't eat. But it can be overridden. This falls short of a cause in your thinking, yes?

Okay.

On the other hand, the causes of your eating cannot be overridden. Is that right?

Right.

Is that what you have in mind as the cause?

'Maintaining homeostasis' is the physiological (ergo physical) complex of causes of hunger (effect) that then signals – stimulates reflex-like – 'eating'. It's only the signal/stimulus, IME, which can be overriden (superceded or blocked) by other signals/stimuli.

Thanks 180 that's helpful. From what you say it seems to me that these signals are part of the 'how', not just post-hoc rationalisations, teleologoical 'why-answers' with no causal role in the process at all. If you took out the signal, the chain of events is broken, no?

If you took out the signal, the chain of events is broken, no? — bert1

The "chain of events" would be unbroken but otherwise, that is, it'd remain first-order (i.e. meta-free).

The thought exists in the material world in a very real, very particular, dynamic configuration of synapses and neurons in your brain. Every thought is made of exactly that sort of fleshy matter.

Lewontin views the matter ideologically for purposes that do not address the limits of scientific method. If the method rejects the top-down structure of divine intellect as an explanation of causes, it no longer has a bottoms-up either. All of the formal elements used before the method to help explain the causes of phenomena are now phenomena themselves. If that half of the dyad is no longer given, the other half no longer has a job. The comparison of simple and complex beings, that was partially given by the structure of Nature as Aristotle understood it, must now be worked out in the models.

The models keep changing because they are being tested against objective criteria. How far the method may get to discovering the nature of the whole cosmos is not circumscribed by its use. There are models that use information theory and the structure of development to explain phenomena. The need to confirm these objectively is different than claiming only certain models are possible.

As I mentioned earlier, Chalmer's hard problem may be too difficult to solve. At the very least, Chalmer is not declaring victory nor defeat. The problem with the 'scientism' model is that it gives itself a limit that the method itself does not.

‘Scientism’ is not a model, it’s an attitude, but from what you’re saying, one that you don’t endorse, so let’s leave it at that.

Every thought is made of exactly that sort of fleshy matter. — Michael Sol

So what is a word ‘made of’? Or a sentence? Why, that would be letters and words. And the same idea, the same proposition, can be conveyed in all manner of combinations of words, and in different languages, while still retaining its meaning. So the meaning is independent of the physical form.

It is a model in so far as it allows to have the 'physical' to be taken for granted.
But I will leave it there. I see that my reasoning only interests you up to the point where I don't support this "attitude."

It's more that I couldn't find anything to disagree with in what you wrote. In fact where this particular conversation started was with me trying to make a point in support of yours.

I remember. I acknowledged that but wanted to emphasize that the observation did not pit mind against matter. What stands as objective criteria is what is in tension with experience as it is experienced.

The thought exists in the material world in a very real, very particular, dynamic configuration of synapses and neurons in your brain. Every thought is made of exactly that sort of fleshy matter. — Michael Sol

You're describing the brain, not the thought.

The thought has no location and can only be experienced. Regardless, qua thought, it exists. I prove its existence via the experience of the thought.

Like the experience of pain proves the existence of pain, the experience of the thought proves the existence of the thought.







Then we turn to the assumption or inference that creatures similar in structure to ourselves also have the experience of thoughts.

One experiences Thoughts and Emotions, but they are experiences formed out of the material operations of your body. Every thought has a unique place in the brain, and if that part of the brain was not functioning, you would neither think nor feel.

You would like to separate the experienced Thought, the Idea, from its material genesis, but however aerie and unreal Thought seems to you, it never ever ever happens without a Brain. Therefore, no Thoughts that are actually Immaterial ever exist. Cognition, which arises from the operations of the brain, is evanescent and fleeting, but, just like the unsaved work existing in the Random Access Memory on a computer goes away when it is powered down, it is still the product of that temporary material configuration of the instance it is experienced.

So, Thought, qua Thought, is a material phenomenon in your Brain, and completely inseparable from your experience of it.

Similarly, you cannot show me a Process, cannot even Conceive of one that does not employ the creative powers of some mysterious being who operates outside of the causal Universe, to create a Consciousness than through the billion-years process of Evolution; and as Evolution only takes place in the Material World, then every existent Consciousness -even your own- is proof of the Material World.

So whatever you Subjective impressions of Thoughts and Emotions, they are all still made up of Cells Doing Their Things. And as Sagan -and Hawkins, and Ellis, and on and on - have said, there ain't nothing here but the Cosmos.

Similarly, you cannot show me a Process, cannot even Conceive of one that does not employ the creative powers of some mysterious being who operates outside of the causal Universe. — Michael Sol

And does this 'mysterious being' have a name?

I refer to all of the mysterious beings, from Zeus to Jehovah and before and after, Humanity has invented to explain their own and the Universe's existence - and refer to them above to exclude them from my argument (that Consciousnesses carry implicit Proof of an Extant Material Universe), while challenging the Reader to even Imagine another Natural means of Consciousness birth other than Evolution.

The point is, that the only alternative anyone ever suggests is the logical black hole of a Creator of some kind, and that's useless, for of course, tor then comes the question of how the Creator's creator came to be; and who created the Creator's Creator, and so on Infinitely back, which is Absurd. Logically, the first Consciousness must be the creation of Natural Process.

And, having now a complete a priori hypothesis as to how Consciousnesses are created, why don't we go out and find some Empirical Proof? Oh, wait, we already have a Fossil Record...

I believe this issue here could be your differences on the nature of predicate, type, or substance dualism between the mental and the physical.

Denying predicate dualism seems to lead to having to accept reductionalist physicalism, but I don't think many people consider the repurcussions of this stance. Arguably, all the special sciences, biology, meteorology, medicine, neuroscience, seismology, etc. only exist because of human priorities. Describing brains differently from other types of matter, using terms like earthquake or tornado, instead of talking about the physics of motion, all result from the psychological import of such phenomena. Vortexes appear in the Earth's atmosphere at all sorts of scales and are unexceptional. Hurricanes as a concept exist because we care about exceptionally large vortexes that effect humans, but it's just turbulence and molecular motion.

The second issue is the scientific status of phenomenology. Phenomenology is certainly empircle as I understand it, although I'm not super familiar with the field outside Husserl, who I'm also not super familiar with. It makes factual claims. However, it is unclear how the study can be falsifiable. If someone claims they experience life one way, who can gainsay them?

If you take Popper's critique of pseudosciences (e.g., psychoanalysis, Marxism) it seems they could apply here. Both examples make predictive claims and use data to vet their claims, but have problems being falsified. However, "pseudoscience" does not entail "false," "illogical," "bad," or even lacking in scientific.or explanatory merit. Insurance companies still pay for Jungian treatments despite falsifiability issues for the field because statistical analysis shows it being beneficial for resolving mental health issues. The term just means it doesn't have the same epistemological status as science.



I believe the truthmaker for phenomenology would be that people agree that its descriptions of internal mental life are accurate. This allows for a hypothesis based on empircle data, predictions based on said hypothesis, and verification using data on people's comments about if the theory holds true or not.

I do think you're on to something with it not being the same as accepted sciences though. Unfortunately, the line between science and non-science is always blurry, and even science will rely on ad hoc explanations to save physical laws (e.g., we didn't jettison Newtonian physics when it failed at predicting planetary orbits.)

I think the problem for phenomenology as a science is that any one person can reject its claims about internal experiences and then how do you decide if they are lying, an anomaly, or correct? It seems like the claims will always be unfalsifiable or conversely, unprovable.

That said, I think it can and has had a lot of scientific value in helping cognitive scientists develop hypotheses and explain their findings, but the two are distinct in terms of epistemological status, with phenomenology unable to claim the high bar of a science.

I believe the truthmaker for phenomenology would be that people agree that its descriptions of internal mental life are accurate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Argumentum ad populum fallacy. "People agree" may be a consensus, Count, but that's not corroborable or ostensible evidence (i.e. truthmaking).

Argumentum ad populum is only a fallacy in some cases. If the question is something like, "who is the most popular football player in New England," and your supporting data is a representative survey showing Tom Brady in first place by a landslide, then popular opinion is valid evidence for the claim: "Tom Brady is the most popular football player in New England." It's valid because opinion is what you are intending to measure.

If opinions could never tell you anything, then survey data would have no validity, and you might as well throw out huge swaths of the psychology and political science literature.

You can use people's responses to statements as data for vetting hypotheses about people's opinions/feelings vis-á-vis X (various biases influencing error rates not withstanding). Since phenomenology is the study of how conciousness appears to people, survey data seems like your best bet for any sort of rigorous analysis (and indeed psychology tackles the subject this way).

Of course, the way people perceive conciousness and the way it seems to actually work appear to often contradict one another. Psychology can sort this problem out with clever experiments and by collecting data on behavior to juxtapose actions with people's descriptions of their perceptions and experience. In some cases, it's possible to collect solid physical data on the topic at hand (e.g., the finding the voluntary movement begins before the sensation of "deciding" to move occurs used this sort of method).

Point being, you can certainly collect data from people on how conciousness appears to them. The problem is that such data alone seems like pretty weak evidence when compared with the multipronged data collection methods of psychology when it attempts to answer some of the same questions. There is also the confounding issue of cultural influence on descriptions of subjective experience.

Uh huh, subjective consensus (e.g. "We believe America is the greatest nation on Earth!") is still not a truthmaker (i.e. corroborable or ostensible evidence).