The symbol grounding problem is related to the problem of how words (symbols) get their meanings, and hence to the problem of what meaning itself really is. The problem of meaning is in turn related to the problem of consciousness, or how it is that mental states are meaningful.
Not really. Like all biologists, he sees the line defined by the combination of metabolism and replication. Life has to have both the chemistry and the control. — apokrisis
The symbols "1.2,3" for example, must be used in the conventional way in order for the arithmetical concepts to exist. These conventions do not exist "in physical form inside our head", they exist as relations between us. Since the existence of a concept can only be understood through reference to relations between human beings, then we cannot say that the existence of a concept is something "inside our head", because it is just as much something outside our heads, in between us, as it is inside our heads. — Metaphysician Undercover
Life cannot have arisen solely from a primordial chemical reaction, and the process of natural selection cannot account for the creation of the realm of mind.
--Nagel?subjective consciousness, if it is not reducible to something physical, … would be left completely unexplained by physical evolution—even if the physical evolution of such organisms is in fact a causally necessary and sufficient condition for consciousness.
--Nagel?Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.
There is no inventor, no intelligent design. Nonetheless, natural selection subjects all traits to the most exacting tests, and the best designs win out. It is a natural laboratory that belittles the human theatre, scrutinising trillions of tiny differences simultaneously, each and every generation. Design is all around us, the product of a blind but ingenious process. Evolutionists often talk informally of inventions, and there is no better word to convey the astonishing creativity of nature. To gain an insight into how all this came about is the shared goal of scientists, whatever their religious beliefs, along with anyone else who cares about how we came to be here.
Again - there is an implied agency in this sentence. — Wayfarer
something that produces or is capable of producing an effect
There is a sense in which science has moved into the role previously occupied by religion - as the kind of court of appeal for what ought to be considered real, the ‘umpire of reality'. And that shows up as physicalism, the attitude that 'whatever can be known, can be known by means of science'. — Wayfarer
The 'law of the excluded middle' and the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 did not come into being as a consequence of anything Darwin discovered. — Wayfarer
So sure, every concept exists as a pattern of neural activity. It is a set of physical marks. But where in your physicalist conception of this situation is the meaning of the marks? I see only syntactical operations - the mechanics. I don’t see physicalism accounting for any semantics, any interpretance. — apokrisis
This is why AP winds up in modal realism. Unicorns might not exist in our world, but they could have evolved in some other world with the same natural laws. So they are a definite possibility. — apokrisis
A brain of course evolved. But brains are not machines or computers. — apokrisis
But science of course has moved on, both in physics, but especially in biology. And this is returning us towards a more sophisticated Aristotlelian "four causes" ontology. AP feels so last century now. You are dealing with a historical curiosity is all. — apokrisis
Well, you did say that thoughts, language and reason 'exist in an ontological sense' as brain processes. But now you say that 'all we can do is experience them'. So - does the nature of first-person experience need to be understood in terms of brain processes, in order to understand them? Are they really physical or neurological in nature? That question is the basis of the well-known 'hard problem of consciousness' first articulated by philosophers David Chalmers. — Wayfarer
I'm dubious about treating evolution as an agency. The expression 'given to us by Evolution' seems to me an example of the way that modern culture tends to attribute to biological evolution the agency that was previously attributed to God (especially because Evolution is capitalised.) — Wayfarer
But without wishing to detract from the science, the problem is that such thinking is reductionistinsofar as it wishes to understand reason, language and abstract thought purely through the lens of the biological sciences. But biological science is not directly concerned with such faculties, except for in a secondary sense; the point of the theory of evolution is to explain the origin of species, not to solve complex problems of philosophy of mind. — Wayfarer
And again, identifying language and reason with neural processes begs the question of where reason receives it warrant. If it is indeed only a matter of successful adaption to the environment, then in what sense could it be said to be true? This actually is a very deep question, and is the subject of many philosophy texts. — Wayfarer
But, concepts are not physical. If you had a brain injury - God forbid - your brain might have to vastly re-organise its activities so as to compensate. In such cases, the part of the brain that is normally associated with one aspect of cognition can be re-purposed to deal with another, in order to compensate. (This is one of the findings of neuroplasticity.) So, if the process was only physical, then this couldn't happen, because changing the matter, i.e damaging the brain, would stop you from being able to count or understand numbers (which in some cases it would.) But in cases where the brain successfully re-configures itself to be able to count, then the cognitive requirement is actually changing the physical configuration. It's 'top-down causation' in this case. — Wayfarer
Whether knowingly or not, your general approach could be described as being in line with scientific materialism - which is of course a very influential attitude in modern culture, but which I think ought to be questioned. — Wayfarer
This use of "ontology" for example, looks like it should be "metaphysical." This goes back to your example of Pegasus: in metaphysical terms, talking about Pegasus is nonsense. There is no Pegasus. But clearly and obviously there is, and he comes with a long history. The way out of this contradiction is to recognize that it is not a real contradiction. Metaphysically, no Pegasus. But "Pegasus" is meaningful name. One simply asks, what does "Pegasus" mean, and then what it means for there to be such an idea as Pegasus - and so on. — tim wood
You ought to consider that any "laws" are just human constructs. like any other concepts If you think that the "laws of nature" are some independently existing laws, then how would we know whether the humanly constructed laws are a proper representation of the independent laws, or "fictions"? We'd have to ask, are the humanly constructed laws compatible with the independent laws. But all that we have to go on is the world we perceive, the humanly constructed laws, and logic and reason. So it's quite clear that Parfit's suggestion doesn't solve the problem of distinguishing fictitious ideas from non-fictitious ideas. — Metaphysician Undercover
Furthermore, if you were to try and ascertain the sense in which 'neuron pattersn and such' constitute'human thoughts', then this would require interpretation and judgement: that this pattern of data means or equates to such and such a thought. But the nature of meaning, and the nature of judgement, is precisely what it is, that such an analysis is intended to explain. So such a judgement can't help but be circular or question-begging. — Wayfarer
If it's true, then where is the evidence? Where are all these lipids which are spontaneously forming in the right conditions? Or is it simply the case that "the right conditions" just don't exist and therefore lipids just aren't spontaneously forming? And, "the right conditions" is a convenient fiction which substitutes for "magic". — Metaphysician Undercover
That's why Requarth said "speculation far outpaces evidence" in Lane's book, and why I say you invoke the magical appearance of a membrane. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm educated in high school chemistry, biology, and physics. The existence of lipids is not caused by "atomic forces". You really don't seem to know what you're talking about. — Metaphysician Undercover
I would call that magic. — Metaphysician Undercover
Notice the quote "speculation far outpaces evidence in many of the book's passages". As I explained to you, it is a waste of time to read speculation which goes in the wrong direction. The evidence is on the side of the non-physical. — Metaphysician Undercover
Let me rephrase C then, if you want to nit pick. No inanimate physical thing is capable of doing such organizing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, but they are already lipids. I used "magic" to refer to apokrisis' description of the appearance of the membrane, as if it just suddenly appeared without the need for any prior lipids or proteins. if you want to go further and talk about the creation of lipids and proteins, prior to the creation of a membrane I'm still going to ask the same questions, where did the lipids come from, spontaneous generation (magic)? — Metaphysician Undercover
My use of "magic" was warranted. Apokrisis described at length, how the existence of life is dependent on an asymmetrical relation between protons and electrons, as if this were the essence of life. Then apokriisis casually added "suddenly all it took was a membrane". So the key feature, which accounts for the emergence of life is not the asymmetrical relation between photons and electrons, but the magical appearance of this special membrane. It's not hard to refute an argument for abiogenesis which relies on the magical appearance of a special membrane. — Metaphysician Undercover
OK then, here's the issue. We observe all sorts of things which have been created artificially through human activity. I think you will agree with that. The dualist apprehends what is obvious, that non-physical things like ideas and concepts, and the associated activities of reason, logic, intention and will, are responsible for the coming into being of these artificial things. The physicalist, for some unknown reason denies the obvious, that these things are non-physical, but then has no real way to account for the coming into being of artificial things. Artificial things are seen as natural, coming into being as a natural effect of living things. This just defers the problem because the coming into being of living things needs to be accounted for. — Metaphysician Undercover
OK, so your dismissing inductive reasoning as not capable of assuring truth. That's not an unusual tactic, but we might just as well say that we can never be sure that a premise is true. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'll spell it out again so you don't have to go back. The living physical body came into existence as an organized structure. Therefore the "organizer" precedes the physical body. It is well known from the observation of inanimate physical things, that no inanimate physical thing is capable of doing such organizing. Therefore the organizer must be non-physical. — Metaphysician Undercover
The only objection came from apokrisis who said that there is no evidence of anything "non-physical". But both wayfarer and I replied by referring to the fact that the evidence of the non-physical is right there within our own minds. — Metaphysician Undercover
To simply ignore this logic, and proceed to adopt abiogenesis as a principle, and then attempt in some haphazard way to support abiogenesis with science, is nothing other than unreasonable behaviour. Did you read my reply to apokrisis, who postulates the magical appearance of a membrane? — Metaphysician Undercover
Did you read my reply to apokrisis, who postulates the magical appearance of a membrane? — Metaphysician Undercover
The living physical body came into existence as an organized structure — Metaphysician Undercover
Nick Lane’s latest book indeed makes the case that life anywhere could only take the form of electron respiratory chains and proton gradients. — apokrisis
This is consistent with my claim. At the bottom of such physical activity, the most fundamental, there is still a need to conclude existence of the non-physical to account for the cause of existence of such physical activity. — Metaphysician Undercover
Abiogenesis is unsupported, random speculation, therefore unreasonable. — Metaphysician Undercover
I read some of the referrals, I found it wildly speculative, as I said, and uninteresting. Read Parfit seems to try to make a point by referral, and I don't like that form of argument. If Read understands the material, why not explain it to me in a way which relates to my point, rather than referring me to various articles, which don't seem to be relevant to the point I am making. — Metaphysician Undercover
Consider that the entire living body, any living body, consists of directed activities. I think that there is evidence of this, that every part of the physical body is active, and directed in the sense of acting as a part of a whole. This means that no physical part of the living body could come into existence without consisting of a directed activity. — Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore we must conclude that the thing which directs the activity of the physical living body is prior in time to the physical body itself. This is the non-physical soul. Do you see what I mean? If the living body only exists as directed activity, then the thing which directs the activity must be prior to the physical body. — Metaphysician Undercover
What Aquinas argues in this passage is that the intellect and the soul of the human being are united as one, such that the human soul is an intellectual soul. The soul was always understood as separable from the body, even following Aristotle's definition, designating it as the form of the body, because forms are in principle separable. The question considered by Aquinas was whether the intellect is separable in the same way that the soul is separable. Aquinas argues that the human soul is an intellectual soul. So the soul maintains its status as the form of the living body, but in the case of intellectual beings, the soul is an intellectual soul
So it is not as you claim, that Aquinas changes the meaning of "soul" to "mind". What he argues is that the soul of an intellectual being is a special type of soul, an intellectual soul. "Soul" maintains its definition as the first actuality (form) of a living body, but he gives the intellectual soul special status in comparison with the vegetative soul, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover
The article you referred describes the chemical composition of DNA, and the duplication of genetic material, it does not describe what created it, or caused its existence. Nor does evolutionary theory explain this cause. — Metaphysician Undercover
Aristotle's definition of soul: the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially in it. — Metaphysician Undercover
No metaphor here, this is a description of reality. Prior to what I think you mean by "gene expression", we need to account for the creation and existence of genes themselves. If we are describing things in terms of semiotics, we cannot just refer to the reading and interpreting of signs, we must account for the creation and existence of signs. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is often the case that we can describe the same act by referring to either a physical agent or a non-physical agent. If we say that a certain person did such and such, the person, a physical human being, is a physical agent, acting in the world. But if we turn to the person's intent, then we must account for the non-physical cause of that physical agent's action. Here we must turn to a non-physical agent. — Metaphysician Undercover