Then again, is there any excluded middle in absence of any talk to apply it to? (Identity, instead, is presupposed by meaning; maybe identity is where ontology and logic meet.) — jorndoe
The argument from Aristotle is that a body is an organized existence, and an agent is required for any type of organization, as the organizer. Therefore the agent as organizer, is prior in time to the existence of the body. Of course abiogenesis is the basis for a denial of the secondary premise, but as the op points out, it's not a justified denial.
I thought I understood. But I had a typo. I meant "immaterial." I just wanted to verify that you are saying only material things can be organized. — Patterner
the point was that mind is temporal/process-like, come and go, occurs, is interruptible, has a more clear temporal demarcation than spatial, ... Where does intelligence fit in? — jorndoe
Evenly sized marbles inside a jar are organizedly stacked on top of each other, but there is/was no organizer that stacked up those marbles on top of each other. — night912
What do you mean? How did the marbles get into the jar? Isn't putting marbles into a jar an act of organizing them?
Yes, matter is a requirement of consciousness. At least the only kind of consciousness we're aware of. But we don't have to declare consciousness non-physical. Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that it's entirely physical. What is the physicalist explanation? Brian Greene is no slouch in the physical sciences, and he says there is nothing about the properties of matter that even hints at an explanation. Christof Koch paid off a 25 year old bet, admitting they don't know, after all that time he and Crick were trying.But it isn't explained through physicalism alone.
— Patterner
It does explain that the processes such as the consciousness are made possible by the physical bodies that we possess.
Here is the folly of the civilized humans:
It is us that labeled the consciousness as non-physical before we have an argument for it. Let us admit this much. So how is it that we have arrived at this conclusion without first explaining its relation to the bodies. In fact what's happening here is that we already have a notion of what is non-physical before we have a reasoning for it. And the way we win this claim is by saying "no", "no", "no" to the theory of physicalism. And we feel smug about doing this because the theory of physicalism, according to us, did not even provide an adequate account of the non-physical.
Why would they? We invented the non-physical notion. And yet our senses do not deny that there are physical bodies that we perceive -- with the help of the light, the air, the atmosphere, darkness, and particle invisible to our eyes, the mass, the texture, we come to know what a tree is, a table, a chair, another human being, animals, starts and the sky. Everything we do involves matter — L'éléphant
No, I am not opposed to this. These things are mechanical. We've had machines that can do these things for years. The question is why this is accompanied by a subjective experience of it, rather than taking place "in the dark." The physical processes don't need consciousness, and they don't suggest it. What I've read about theories doesn't include anything that explains it. Is it the phi of Integrated Information Theory consciousness? How? How is integrated information consciousness? Why is it not just integrated information?Physicalism can even explain mental functions, like how we perceive different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, differentiate between different wavelengths, and move to avoid things that will harm the body.
— Patterner
I am guessing this is a typo. Last time I checked, you are opposed to this. — L'éléphant
Why are immaterial things we deal with all the time that are organized not relevant? Logic and mathematics, for example.I thought I understood. But I had a typo. I meant "immaterial." I just wanted to verify that you are saying only material things can be organized.
— Patterner
That is what I meant. I don't see how we could assign any type of order to something which is completely immaterial. It's a difficult subject to discuss though — Metaphysician Undercover
Why are immaterial things we deal with all the time that are organized not relevant? Logic and mathematics, for example. — Patterner
I'm not talking about the act of putting marbles into a jar. I'm talking about the marbles are stacked up in an organized way. There's no organizer that stacked up the marbles on top of each other so that they'll stacked up in an organized manner. — night912
Why are immaterial things we deal with all the time that are organized not relevant? Logic and mathematics, for example. — Patterner
"eternal" in classical theism means "outside of time" — Metaphysician Undercover
Where does intelligence fit in? — Sep 22, 2024
What you say makes sense, and was what I was expecting you to say. But I'm thinking, we know a) it is possible for something that is immaterial to be organized, and b) the material that the immaterial caused is organized. Don't these two things present a good case for thinking the immaterial that caused the material was, itself, organized? — Patterner
There was no material or organization prior, but there was life? What Is unorganized life? And why assume this particular quality of the current existed in the prior, when no others could have?Your phrasing ("how non-living matter became living") betrays an underlying misunderstanding of the problem. Classical ontology premises immaterial Forms which are prior to, and the cause of material existence. In this ontology, there is no issue of non-living matter becoming living matter, there is an immateri — Metaphysician Undercover
Define subjective experience.The question is why this is accompanied by a subjective experience of it, — Patterner
You say material had to have been preceded by immaterial, and organized had to have been preceded by un organized. If not, the current would not have been preceded; it would simply be a continuation of. Perhaps I have that right? — Patterner
First of all, I don't know why that is the assumption. It could be the current is a continuation. if there was anything prior to the Big Bang, the Big Bang erased any empirical evidence of it. So we just don't know. — Patterner
There was no material or organization prior, but there was life? — Patterner
What Is unorganized life? — Patterner
And why assume this particular quality of the current existed in the prior, when no others could have? — Patterner
We have devices that can detect the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we call visible light. They can even distinguish different frequencies, 430 THz and 650 THz.The question is why this is accompanied by a subjective experience of it,
— Patterner
Define subjective experience. — L'éléphant
I can't know what it's like to be you, even though there is common ground between us. But I'm willing to believe there's something it's like to be you - for you. You have a point of view.But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something it is like for the organism. — Nagel - What is it like to be a bat?
It would be interesting, and I'm sure we'd think of ways to block the subjective activity, so a person would only detect like a machine. — Patterner
I agree. I'm just brainstorming a possibility of a physicalist scenario. I don't know if any physicalist agrees. But if physicalism is the answer to everything, then it will reveal the brain operations that are, literally, consciousness. @wonderer1 just suggested it might take another couple hundred years. But at that point, we will, perhaps, be able to literally see consciousness in some brain activity that we're unable to detect now. And then we could try what I suggestedI don't think so, and that is the problem I've been describing to you in the inverse form, (separating the pure immaterial subjective agent, sometimes called soul, or mind, or intellect) from the material object is not possible. — Metaphysician Undercover
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