Property dualism (i.e. dual-aspect monism), for instance, is not "hidden".

Property dualism (i.e. dual-aspect monism), for instance, is not "hidden” — 180 Proof

But it’s more about how it’s being used more than any particular philosophy. Any stance on philosophy of mind can make these category errors, though it’s particularly pervasive in materialist conceptions.

Maybe; but so what? It's not an inherent defect or entailment of "materialist conceptions".

Maybe; but so what? It's not an inherent defect or entailment of "materialist conceptions". — 180 Proof

I stated the so what in the OP.

This muddling of the two is where the hidden dualism comes into play. It is this constant category error that trips people up into not understanding any "hard problem". It leads to blind scientism, and a constant not "getting" the problems that arise from philosophy of mind. — schopenhauer1

:clap:

Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart meaning to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Ed Feser

so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Ed Feser

I'd agree with everything except the last part. That is yet to be proven. It is certainly correlated (to some degree), if not "identified with" (I take that to mean is one and the same as).

The neuron fires (process/behavioral). The neurons fire (process/behavioral). The networks form (process/behavioral). The sensory tissues/organs are acted upon (process/behavioral). A line or shape is processed in a visual cortex (mental). An object is perceived (mental). An object is recognized (mental). A long-term potentiation (process/behavioral). A memory is accessed (process/behavioral). "Fires together, wires together" (process/behavioral), associating one thing with another (mental). — schopenhauer1

How is that different from ADP chemically reacting (chemical process) to create ATP, which releases energy (chemical process) to power the reactions (chemical processes) that create cellular components (life processes) and operate cellular systems (life processes).

And please don't ask me to go into more detail. I'm already at the end, beyond the end, of my level of competence.

I'd agree with everything except the last part. — schopenhauer1

Sorry - what part don’t you agree with? If it’s that you can’t map thought content with neural data, I would have thought that was a clear implication of the rest of the argument.

We seem to agree that some thinkers get a little sloppy and pretend they can do away with subjectivity altogether.

I try to do justice to subjectivity without embracing dualism. I reject indirect realism as confused. [ It's parasitic on direct realism, takes the sense organs for granted, etc. ]

My ontology is 'flat' in the sense that all entities are semantically interdependent. Toothaches are not on a different 'plane' than quarks. Promises are not on a different 'layer' that talons.

The cartoon lightbulb appeared above my head on this issue when I was studying Brandom's inferentialism. Philosophers always already assume the philosophical situation itself, often without noticing it and appreciating the significance of this assumption.

Giving and asking for reasons is absolutely fundamental : More fundamental than any other ontological thesis.

I appeal to toothaches and earthquakes in the one and only inferential-semantic nexus available. All intelligible entities get their intelligibility from this single 'planar' nexus.

The 'logical sin' is bad philosophy is, as Hegel saw, almost always blind or unwitting abstraction. Basically we mistake a reductive map for the whole. We lose ourselves in a usefully simplifying fiction (map) of our situation.

The scientist and philosopher both often forget / ignore the mostly 'transparent' fact of their own project as participants in a discursive normative social enterprise. They think they can paint a picture of reality that doesn't include the painter. In many situations, it's best to not include the painter. But the ontologist can't do that.

so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Ed Feser

I agree that they can't be identified. We need only look at the different roles the concepts play.

On the other hand, my ignorant presupposition is that the brain is profoundly necessary for the world to be 'given' to a personality. I don't think the dead see hear feel or think -- because their brains are dead.

It is this constant category error that trips people up into not understanding any "hard problem" — schopenhauer1

This is a rich issue. Many purveyors of the hard problem are way too cocky about their grip on the concept of consciousness. But I understand their gripe as a reaction to certain thinkers on the other side who might make things too easy for themselves. My musings on the worship of technology are in a similar spirit. Philosophy is 'silly' to the degree that it doesn't help/hinder technology.

I personally found it clarifying to think of consciousness in terms of the being of the world grasped from a certain perspective. Direct realism. We all peep at the one and only world. The rest is round squares.

Too many purveyors of the hard problem take indirect realism for granted. They also take a sort of private language thesis for granted, missing that critical rationality is deeply dependent on the publicity or trans-egoic validity of its concepts.

Yet there 'is' sensation and feeling. Right ? Yes? Or at least roses are red and trumpets are blaring.

The whole monism/dualism question leads to a category error. Is everything derived from physical matter? Assuming yes, then is that the end of it for philosophy? Definitely not. Our biology has developed this ability to manipulate the non-physical at a complex level that departs from physical limits. How would you contain zeros or infinities in physical form without the extra-physical abilities of the brain? Materialism just fails at the level of complexity of our common mental environments.

The whole monism/dualism question leads to a category error. Is everything derived from physical matter? Assuming yes, — Mark Nyquist

Big assumption, and also question-begging. I would almost agree with the remainder apart from the appeal to biology. Or maybe you could say that the ability to perceive causal relations has imposed reason upon us - posed us questions that only we, amongst other denizens of the biological realm - can ask and be aware of asking. But is that still determined by biology alone?

So you have an issue with the big assumption and question begging. Going a little deeper, it's a yes no question and I leave it open to how you would like to answer it but the options are yes or no. A no answer tends to lead to abstractions which are a problem for me so I focus on the yes side of the answer. Another assumption is if the correct answer is singular. Or can both answers be correct. So my opinion, in short, is that everything is derived from physical matter and that excludes the no answer. Or is the original question flawed? How? So I'm saying everything is derived from physical matter but that alone doesn't explain our mental activities.

So the big picture is that we are looking for model that is singular and excludes other models.

The resolution to this "hidden dualism" is to recognize that the brain and its functions are also representations and, thusly, the brain-in-itself is not what one ever studies in a lab. E.g., neurons firing is an extrinsic representation (within our perceptions) of whatever the brain-in-itself is doing.

The next step is to realize that the brain-in-itself cannot be quantitative (for quantities never produce qualities and we know directly of qualities as our conscious experience).

After that, all that is left is to decide what is most parsimonious: a material (i.e., tangible) & physical (i.e., mind-independent) brain-in-itself, a immaterial & physical brain-in-itself, or immaterial & mind-dependent brain.

….the brain and its functions are also representations…. — Bob Ross

Odd innit? In the attempt for empirical knowledge, the irreducible origin of it is impossible to know.

Humans don’t think/cognize/comprehend in its rational method, in the same terms as the source of their knowledge requires in its physical method.

THAT’S the hidden dualism, I should think.

The resolution to this "hidden dualism" is to recognize that the brain and its functions are also representations and, thusly, the brain-in-itself is not what one ever studies in a lab. — Bob Ross

Undeniably fascinating insight, but I must object.

It's the familiar experience of the brain in causal relationships with other familiar objects that motivates [ a paradoxical ] indirect realism in the first place.

It's because indirect realism makes the brain it depends on an 'illusion' that it fails.

The brain-in-itself (if you continue bravely along the path as you seem to be doing) starts to sound 'mystical as fuck.' I don't think it can be given meaning that it doesn't steal from 'mere appearance.'

I can follow your thinking to some degree. Your point is justified and fascinating within the framework of indirect realism -- but the framework don't work, seems to me.

I claim that methodological solipsism only works properly at the level of the entire species. But this gives us an anthropocentric direct realism.

How is that different from ADP chemically reacting (chemical process) to create ATP, which releases energy (chemical process) to power the reactions (chemical processes) that create cellular components (life processes) and operate cellular systems (life processes) — T Clark

They're both biological processes, for one. I'm not sure what you would like me to get from that. Do you see a distinction between something that is mental versus a physical process? What you did was just go from process to process and not process to X (mental). This could be making the exact mistake I am describing. That is to say, mental events and processes/behaviors are used interchangeably when they shouldn't be.

Sorry - what part don’t you agree with? If it’s that you can’t map thought content with neural data, I would have thought that was a clear implication of the rest of the argument. — Quixodian

That thoughts can't be identified with brain processes. It is at least correlated with that physical phenomenon, so it's not like you can completely disconnect it.

Philosophers always already assume the philosophical situation itself, often without noticing it and appreciating the significance of this assumption. — plaque flag

Yep. Hence the hidden dualism problem that does exactly this.

I appeal to toothaches and earthquakes in the one and only inferential-semantic nexus available. All intelligible entities get their intelligibility from this single 'planar' nexus.

The 'logical sin' is bad philosophy is, as Hegel saw, almost always blind or unwitting abstraction. Basically we mistake a reductive map for the whole. We lose ourselves in a usefully simplifying fiction (map) of our situation.

The scientist and philosopher both often forget / ignore the mostly 'transparent' fact of their own project as participants in a discursive normative social enterprise. They think they can paint a picture of reality that doesn't include the painter. In many situations, it's best to not include the painter. But the ontologist can't do that. — plaque flag

But we are back at square one. Some processes are not mental. Why? Or if they are, how do you get past the incredulity of saying that rocks and air molecules, or even a tree has "subjectivity" or "consciousness", or "experience"?

Whitehead had a nifty theory that "occasions of experience" (his atoms) were communities that were either equally distributed (like a rock), or hierarchical (like an animal system). The hierarchical communities are the experiential ones.

I am not sure how much that answers the question either as it begs other questions.

I find it interesting how many materialist/physicalist accounts of the mind assume the very thing they are explaining. This is often called a "hidden dualism" and amongst other things, I take this to mean that the dualism is "hidden" from the arguer. — schopenhauer1

I think most materialist/physicalist accounts are that of a form of materialistic monism, or physicalism, that rejects dualism altogether. The claim is that there is only one kind of thing - and that is the physical. Someone with such a stance would say your mistake is in trying to talk of the physical and mental as two different kinds of things.

This claim might be right or wrong, but I don't think it is a claim of hidden dualism.

I am unconvinced by this clam as it appears to me that the mental is categorically different to the physical, even if we are able to perfectly map the mental to the physical (individual neurons firing).

Do you see a distinction between something that is mental versus a physical process? What you did was just go from process to process and not process to X (mental). — schopenhauer1

I was making an analogy. Higher levels of organization, e.g. mental processes and life processes, are a mixture of higher level processes and processes from lower levels of organization, e.g. chemical processes and neurological processes. That's the way hierarchies and emergence work.

I actually agree with this. Materialists often propose a brain/body dualism that is just as fraught as mind/body dualism, and for the same reasons.

I personally found it clarifying to think of consciousness in terms of the being of the world grasped from a certain perspective. Direct realism. We all peep at the one and only world. The rest is round squares.

Too many purveyors of the hard problem take indirect realism for granted. They also take a sort of private language thesis for granted, missing that critical rationality is deeply dependent on the publicity or trans-egoic validity of its concepts.

Yet there 'is' sensation and feeling. Right ? Yes? Or at least roses are red and trumpets are blaring. — plaque flag

Direct realism assumes the human animal has a god-like view of the universe. As if we are seeing it for "what it is in reality". There is no mediating factors (contra something like Kant). That seems pretty fantastical that we just happened to have this view. As a squirrel, a fish, a bat, a rat, and a bee all have their own view, and yet, do they have direct access to the world too? If it is different, then certainly there is something that mediates between directly observing the object, and processing it (i.e. indirect realism). Surely something is causing differences upon the objects perceived between species.

The resolution to this "hidden dualism" is to recognize that the brain and its functions are also representations and, thusly, the brain-in-itself is not what one ever studies in a lab. E.g., neurons firing is an extrinsic representation (within our perceptions) of whatever the brain-in-itself is doing. — Bob Ross

Yes, this is indeed the proto-panexperientialist view. The map isn't the territory. But that doesn't say much either towards a solution, it just restates the problem. This doesn't then immediately point to anything because there is no explanation why other territories don't seem to have the same properties as this nervous system one.

I think most materialist/physicalist accounts are that of a form of materialistic monism, or physicalism, that rejects dualism altogether. The claims is that there is only one kind of thing - and that is the physical.

This claim might be right or wrong, but I don't think it is a claim of hidden dualism.

I am unconvinced by this clam as it appears to me that the mental is categorically different to the physical, even if we are able to perfectly map the mental to the physical (individual neurons firing). — PhilosophyRunner

Right, it rejects dualism, but that is precisely why these category errors can trip them up if they are not careful. If you switch (even inadvertently) from physical to mental without explaining how, as if both are the same thing, you have asserted the thing being explained in the explanation.

I was making an analogy. Higher levels of organization, e.g. mental processes and life processes, are a mixture of higher level processes and processes from lower levels of organization, e.g. chemical processes and neurological processes. That's the way hierarchies and emergence work. — T Clark

Just saying, "that's the way hierarchies and emergence work" doesn't explain how mental comes from physical processes.

I actually agree with this. Materialists often propose a brain/body dualism that is just as fraught as mind/body dualism, and for the same reasons. — NOS4A2

It's like one is made apparent and the other is assumed (but not acknowledged). It's interesting. Like we know mental has to come out of the equation somehow. We know we observe physical objects and processes. And language can often confuse the two as it weaves in and out of scientific and psychological accounts. Correlation becomes identity etc. but without any explanation of how. And thus the hidden dualism.

But we are back at square one. Some processes are not mental. Why? Or if they are, how do you get past the incredulity of saying that rocks and air molecules, or even a tree has "subjectivity" or "consciousness", or "experience"? — schopenhauer1

Some physical processes are information processing apt, while most physical processes aren't information processing apt. If what we refer to as mental processes can only supervene on information processing apt physical processes, then we are some distance from square one.

Just saying, "that's the way hierarchies and emergence work" doesn't explain how mental comes from physical processes. — schopenhauer1

As I pointed out, the relationship between chemistry and life is analogous to the relationship between neurology and mind. Are you saying there is a hard problem of biology too? If that's true, then there must be a hard problem of chemistry also. Otherwise how to explain all those atomic processes all mixed up with chemical processes.