The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, pp. 35-36)
The scientific revolution took its impulse from what the philosopher Bernard Williams called the Absolute Conception of Reality. This is a conception of the world as "it really is" entirely apart from how it appears to us: a colorless, odorless value-free domain of particles and complexes moving in accordance with timeless and immutable mathematical laws. The world so conceived has no place for mind in it. No intention. No purpose. If there is mind — and of course the great scientific revolutionaries such as Descartes and Newton would not deny that there is mind — it exists apart from and unconnected to* the material world as this was conceived of by the New Science.
If modern science begins by shaping a conception of the cosmos, its subject matter, in such a way as to exclude mind and life, then it shouldn't come as a surprise that we can't seem to find a place for them in the natural order so conceived. — Alva Noe, Review of Mind and Cosmos, quoted by Edward Feser
My own existence is certainly a fact - cogito ergo sum - but not of the kind that was mooted in the post I was responding to. After all, even Descartes himself noted that the existence of the world might be a spell cast by an evil daemon. — Wayfarer
But then, to avoid hypocrisy, the door should be open to alternative metaphysical commitments that don’t have any direct bearing on the conducting of the scientific method, no? — Baden
I suppose I am advocating for a kind of radical agnosticism as to the ultimate nature of things — Baden
they'd be claiming that consciousness is the foundational reality, beyond which there are no further explanations—it's simply taken as given — Tom Storm
Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is.
It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility—that is knowledge—which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality.
Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result—knowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought 'matter', we really thought only 'the subject that perceives matter'; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it.
Thus the tremendous petitio principii (=begged question) reveals itself unexpectedly; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the starting-point, the chain a circle, and the materialist is like Baron Münchausen who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs, and himself also by his cue. The fundamental absurdity of materialism is that it starts from the objective, and takes as the ultimate ground of explanation something objective, whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought, or after it has taken form, is empirically given—that is to say, is substance, the chemical element with its primary relations. Some such thing it takes, as existing absolutely and in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them adequately by means of it; whereas in truth all that is objective is already determined as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think the subject away.
Thus materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction).
But we have shown that all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and ever active in time. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained.
To the assertion that 'thought is a modification of matter' we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that 'all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject' - as its idea. Yet the aim and ideal of all natural science is at bottom a consistent materialism. The recognition here of the obvious impossibility of such a system establishes another truth ...the truth that all science properly so called, by which I understand systematic knowledge under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason, can never reach its final goal, nor give a complete and adequate explanation: for it is not concerned with the inmost nature of the world, it cannot get beyond the idea; indeed, it really teaches nothing more than the relation of one idea to another.
Are laws of nature natural? They’re never actually observed, only their effects can be discerned by measurement and observation. But the question why nature is lawful or what natural laws comprise, is not itself a question that naturalism has answers for. Naturalism assumes an order in nature, but it doesn’t explain it, nor does it need to explain it. That, I suppose, is what you’re getting at by saying that the existence of the world is ‘brute fact’ - which effectively forecloses any attempt to understand why things are the way they are, whether they are as they seem, and so on.
Yep. I had in mind that for those who argue that "all is consciousness" this is amounts to a brute fact -
Consciousness, like memories, is not a thing. It is a status that happens when our neurons get stimulated repeatedly. Our individual, unique memories, which we fondly call subjective are made possible by synapses.
The million pulses that have to happen in order to retrieve an image of an apple or a tree is not magic.
Arguably, the Principle of Sufficient Reason, a hallmark of many systems, seems to rule out brute facts. — Count Timothy von Icarus
"that the order of becoming and existence must be intelligible; that no phase of the process of contingent existence is intelligible in itself; and that therefore contingent existence is always relative existence, essentially referred, qua existing to another.” — Count Timothy von Icarus
I am representing David Armstrong's metaphysics, which I believe is the most comprehensive physicalist metaphysics out there.Are laws of nature natural? They’re never actually observed, only their effects can be discerned by measurement and observation. But the question why nature is lawful or what natural laws comprise, is not itself a question that naturalism has answers for. Naturalism assumes an order in nature, but it doesn’t explain it, nor does it need to explain it. That, I suppose, is what you’re getting at by saying that the existence of the world is ‘brute fact’ - which effectively forecloses any attempt to understand why things are the way they are, whether they are as they seem, and so on. — Wayfarer
Of course. But What's wrong with that?This just strikes me as mapping the common presuppositions of physicalism onto "what a complete metaphysical theory should be." — Count Timothy von Icarus
What makes you think that? I'm referring to David Armstrong's ontology- which accounts for everything that (unarguaby) objectively exists.It seems to presuppose the subject - object dualism that a great deal of 20th and 21st century explicitly targets as the cardinal sin of early modern philosophy. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes and no. Subjective idealism is not consistent with physicalism, and vice versa. What is in contention are complete metaphysical systems, and we can each judge which system a a better, or more compelling, description of reality.Such a definition surely defines subjective idealism out of contention from the get-go, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Please elaborate. I don't see how any sort of dualism fits into physicalism.But of course, probably the number one critique of (mainstream representationalist) physicalism is precisely that it axiomatically assumes an unresolvable dualism that makes skepticism insurmountable. — Count Timothy von Icarus
No, because "observing subjects" are objects that exist as a consequence of the way the world is and the specific history that it has.Ha! Isn't 'the observing subject who stipulates the axioms upon which it rests' another brute fact? — Tom Storm
"Are laws of nature natural? "
Yes. If they weren't, then all forms of naturalism would be false. — Relativist
"observing subjects" are objects that exist as a consequence of the way the world is and the specific history that it has. — Relativist
No, it doesn't. The standard model of particles physics is trivially consistent with his "states of affairs". The essential element of his ontology is that every thing that exists is a state of affairs (a particular with its attached properties and relations). Even quantum fields, or strings, fit this framework.Furthermore appealing to the entities of sub-atomic physics presents difficulties for Armstrong's style of physicalism. — Wayfarer
He's agnostic to interpretations of QM, but I doubt there's an interpretation that isn't consistent with his model. Armstrong defers such matters to physicists.. I don't know if Armstrong ever touches on the thorny question of interpretation in quantum physics, but I'm not sure it would support his overall approach. — Wayfarer
From an Armstrong perspective, this is semantics, not ontology.observing subjects" are only 'objects' to other observing subjects who, it is hoped, will be sufficiently perceptive to recognise them as subjects, rather than regarding them as objects. — Wayfarer
When Armstrong refers to "laws of nature", he's not pointing to scientific theories and equations in textbooks. He's referring to something ontological. Physics may approximate the law, or describe it in terms meaningful to us, but those descriptions and equations are not the law. The law is the physical relations that exist between (or among) types of things (a type of thing is a universal).
So when I said that laws of nature are necessarily natural, if naturalism is true, I was specifically referring to laws as something ontological, not descriptive. — Relativist
The essential element of his ontology is that every thing that exists is a state of affairs (a particular with its attached properties and relations). Even quantum fields, or strings, fit this framework. — Relativist
I'll try to explain with an example.But if they're not the laws described by physics, then in what sense are those relations physical? — Wayfarer
What Armstrong is doing is acknowledging a distinction between the actual laws of nature and the academic discipline of physics. Physicists endeavors to uncover laws of nature, and is likely correct in many cases, but ontology is not dependent on them getting everything exactly correct. Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation seemed to be a law of nature for quite a long time, but in fact - it had an error, one that was corrected by Einstein's theory. The law of nature didn't change, but the law of physics did change.I question that declaring everything to be physical, without any reference to physics itself, is even meaningful. — Wayfarer
The state of affairs of a quantum system is perfectly describable as a Schroedinger equation. In that respect, the quantum system evolves in a strictly deterministic way over time. A state of affairs exists at each temporal point of its evolution, and a relation exists between any two such temporal points. This is the case under all interpretations of quantum mechanics.But that is not true. Scientific realists, including Sir Roger Penrose and Albert Einstein, both criticize quantum physics precisely on the grounds that they provide no description of specification of what the 'state of affairs' of a quantum system is, prior to it being measured. This is why they both insist that quantum physics must be in some sense incomplete. Yet it has withstood every test that has been set for it. (I've published a Medium essay on this topic.) — Wayfarer
What Armstrong is doing is acknowledging a distinction between the actual laws of nature and the academic discipline of physics. Physicists endeavors to uncover laws of nature, and is likely correct in many cases, but ontology is not dependent on them getting everything exactly correct. Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation seemed to be a law of nature for quite a long time, but in fact - it had an error, one that was corrected by Einstein's theory. The law of nature didn't change, but the law of physics did change. — Relativist
The state of affairs of a quantum system is perfectly describable as a Schroedinger equation. In that respect, the quantum system evolves in a strictly deterministic way over time. — Relativist
Armstrong appeals to scientifically established theory as justification for his hypothesis that there are actually laws of nature, and he does agree that it is in science's court to determine what the laws are, but science makes mistakes - the laws of textbook physics may very well change over time. Let's assume General Relativity is 100% true - if so, it is a law of nature that was also true during Newton's time. The same thing could happen with other laws of textbook physics - so if his system were tied to current physics, his metaphysics would be falsified as soon some current law is falsified.And third, if Armstrong’s metaphysics is founded on the idea of scientific laws as real and necessary features of the world, then one would expect it to appeal to scientifically established theories. — Wayfarer
Each interpretation of quantum mechanics corresponds to a hypothesis about the an important aspect of reality. It's interesting to discuss these, and their implications (as did Schroedinger), but I don't see any reason to hold this against Armstrong. If physicists can't unequivocally demonstrate which interpretation is true, then certainly a philosopher isn't well-positioned to figure it out for them. So I really don't understand why you'd hold this against him. If one were to embrace his more generalized theory, it wouldn't preclude augmenting it with his favorite ontological basis for QM.You wonder why, then, Schrödinger published his notorious thought-experiment on the not-dead-or-alive cat. He sought to illustrate the fundamental indeterminacy that characterises the so-called 'fundamental particles' of physics by providing a hypothetical example of their absurd implications were they to manifest on the level of everyday experience. The fact that the equation is accurate is not at issue, as it is firmly established that the accuracy of the predictions of quantum mechanics exceeds anything previously discovered in history. It's what they say, or don't say, about the so-called fundamental constituents of reality that is the philosophical point at issue. In other words, it's the ontological implications that are at issue, not the practical effectiveness. The fact that Armstrong can blithely wave these away says something about his theories, in my view. — Wayfarer
Armstrong's physicalist metaphysics could be wrong (perhaps the mind isn't physical, or perhaps there are no actual laws of nature), but the same is true of any metaphysical system that has been, or ever will be, proposed. — Relativist
I think the only thing that a physicalist framework struggles with is theory of mind. — Relativist
If physicists can't unequivocally demonstrate which interpretation is true, then certainly a philosopher isn't well-positioned to figure it out for them — Relativist
Yes. If they weren't, then all forms of naturalism would be false.
Well, in a comparison of ontologies I suppose it might be considered question begging. Or on the question of "how might physicalism best be reconceived or reformed," it also seems to include problematic presuppositions.Of course. But What's wrong with that?
What makes you think that? I'm referring to David Armstrong's ontology- which accounts for everything that (unarguaby) objectively exists.
Please elaborate. I don't see how any sort of dualism fits into physicalism.
Isn't the 'brute fact' at the end of this one a necessary being or a circularity
I don't think that's the case for my claim, because I argue that reality there is a brute fact by logical necessity. Here's my reasoning:The proffering up of brute fact claims strikes me as primarily a manifestation of the inability to acknowledge mystery. — Count Timothy von Icarus
↪Relativist
Yes. If they [laws of nature] weren't [natural], then all forms of naturalism would be false.
I am not sure of this. The Physics, from which we get the term "nature" and other early forms of naturalism focus on "things acting the way they do because of what they are, i.e. because of their 'nature.'" So there are no extrinsic laws governing things and their behaviors, there is merely the natures of beings, — Count Timothy von Icarus
"Mere appearance"? I'll grant that our perceptions don't necessarily reveal the world exactly as it is, but I'd argue that they do present us with a reflection of reality. It also appears to me that we are indeed able to discern many aspects of reality, both directly through our senses, and indirectly through scientific investigation. How we discern and describe this is intellectually and semantically grounded in our own nature (this is inescapable), but that doesn't make it either invalid or untrue. If you are suggesting objective reality is completely indiscernible to us if physicalism is true, I don't agree. If you mean something else, then please elucidate.Representationalism wed to physicalism makes it such that phenomenal awareness is mere appearance, whereas reality is the "objective," requiring a "view from nowhere." — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think the only thing that a physicalist framework struggles with is theory of mind. — Relativist
I think its failure on that score is beyond reasonable doubt. The crux of that issue is logic itself, reason itself. I don't see how can there be any plausible physicalist account of the nature of reason, which inheres in the relationship of ideas, 'if-then' statements. — Wayfarer
What's the problem with the way Armstrong appeals to physics? (i.e. the basis for believing there exist laws of nature).If physicists can't unequivocally demonstrate which interpretation is true, then certainly a philosopher isn't well-positioned to figure it out for them — Relativist
Nor can philosophers then appeal to physics in support of what they describe as 'physicalism'. And if their physicalism is not supported by physics, then why does it deserve that designation. — Wayfarer
Computers demonstrate that logic can be mechanized, so I don't understand what you see as a problem. — Relativist
What's the problem with the way Armstrong appeals to physics? (i.e. the basis for believing there exist laws of nature). — Relativist
When Armstrong refers to "laws of nature", he's not pointing to scientific theories and equations in textbooks. He's referring to something ontological. Physics may approximate the law, or describe it in terms meaningful to us, but those descriptions and equations are not the law. The law is the physical relations that exist between (or among) types of things (a type of thing is a universal). — Relativist
Objects are made of these particles, and each particle has a well-defined set of properties. The existence of these particles were deduced, not perceived by the faculties of our "phenomenal awareness", but over time - their existence has been confirmed through measurements in particle accelerators. So tell me in what sense is this NOT objective reality. — Relativist
My point is that there's nothing about the application of logic that is inconsistent with physical mechanism, so the mere fact that we can apply logic doesn't falsify physicalism. How we evolved the capacity to do this is a different matter and a different discussion.Computers don’t come into existence de novo. They are artefacts built by humans according to human aims and purposes. In other words, whatever purposes they pursue are extrinsic. — Wayfarer
We interact with the world to survive. Successful interaction is dependent on our pattern-recognition capacity which enables us to distinguish types of objects and activities. We also have the physical capacity to make and hear various sounds also fitting recognizable patterns. Relating a recognizable sound (a word) to a type of object or activity doesn't seem at all problematic. The word then "means" the object or activity.I don't think physicalism can explain how semantic properties emerge from, or are identical to, these physical states without appealing to, or assuming, non-physicalist explanations of meaning. — Wayfarer
A universal exists immanently- in its instantiations, so the "something ontological" is the instantiations of a law of nature.What is that 'something ontological', and how can it be described as physical, when it's not described by physics? — Wayfarer
I disagree that this exceeds the bounds of empiricism. Empiricism in science leads to theories, established by abductive reasoning. By extension, we can abductively conclude there are laws of nature, on the basis that this best explains the success of science.But, he says, this assumption of natural order is itself a metaphysical commitment, one that exceeds the bounds of empiricism — Wayfarer
My point is that the set of properties that emerge are objectively present, as is the fact that they emerge when measured, and that the set of measureable properties is unique to each type of elementary particle. This isn't a matter of phenomenology giving us a questionable view of objective reality- which is what I was addressing.The properties of particles are not defined until they are measured. That is the central philosophical problem of modern physics. — Wayfarer
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