And this is often a problem I have with broad generalized terms. The general definition of a physicalist is "One who thinks everything is physical." But I don't. — Philosophim
Misrepresetnation of what is being said.
Also agreed. But they should be an assistance to understanding the argument being made, not something we try to fit the argument into. Its why when asked if I was a physicalist, I'm not. — Philosophim
and again.
Sometimes I am not of course, and I'll try to adapt and learn where I can. But what I am almost never aware of in a conversation is how other people define the terminology. I have learned that many people rarely use the formal definition of complex philosophical ideologies or terms. — Philosophim
They are not 'ideologies'. Such is to adhere to a form of Idealism.
People on philosophy forums do occasionally actually use philosophical terminology. You can say until you are blue in the face that what you are expressing is not a type of Physicalism, but it is. Just like someone going around killing random people can claim they are not a murderer, it does not stop everyone else from blatantly disagreeing. The murderer could argue that "being a murderer is not eveyrthing I am!" but they cannot rationally argue that they are not guilty of murdering people.
I hold to physicalism in some situation and not others. I can be liberal about one political problem and conservative about another. Neither rigidly defines me as either.
Because you are unwilling to accept that what you are saying adheres to some sort of argumentation from some form of physicalism, and instead repeatedly revert to 'I am not a physicalist!' like it is some harsh insult, you completely miss everything.
Maybe chat GPT can do a better job? Here is its take on your reply:
"Certainly. Here's a clear explanation you can give to this person regarding the philosophical problem they seem to be having—namely, the confusion caused by adopting a position that seems to commit to physicalism while denying that label, and the consequences this has for coherence in the philosophy of mind debate:
Hi [name],
Thanks again for the discussion. It seems to me that the issue you're running into is a classic one in philosophy of mind, especially when navigating between physicalist and non-physicalist frameworks. Here's the core problem, as I see it, and I hope this helps clarify some of the points raised earlier.
The Philosophical Tension:
You've said you're not a physicalist, because you don't think "everything is physical" in the broad, metaphysical sense. However, you also say that consciousness is physical, because that's where the science is pointing. That sounds like you're committed to at least token physicalism about consciousness (i.e., each instance of a mental event is identical to some physical event in the brain).
But if that's your view, then you're not rejecting physicalism — you're accepting a form of it, even if you're uncomfortable with the term.
So the tension is this:
You're trying to occupy a non-physicalist position while affirming physicalist conclusions about the mind.
That does raise confusion because labels in philosophy matter, not to stifle thinking, but to track arguments, commitments, and counterarguments. Without clear reference points (like physicalism, property dualism, emergentism, etc.), discussions risk talking past one another, as seems to have happened here.
The Supervenience Problem:
Now, if you're affirming that consciousness is physical — but still not reducible to physical states — that’s non-reductive physicalism, which relies on supervenience (i.e., mental states depend on physical states such that no change in the mental without change in the physical is possible).
But if you reject supervenience (or leave it vague), you fall into interactionist dualism, and then you're stuck with:
The causal closure problem: How does a non-physical substance cause anything in a physical system?
The pairing problem: Why does a particular non-physical mind interact with this brain?
And yes, the supervenience problem again: If mental states don't supervene on physical ones, then how do we explain regular, lawlike mind-brain correlations?
So even if you don’t want to use the term “physicalist,” your statements imply physicalist commitments. And that matters because the moment you say “consciousness is physical,” you enter territory with well-mapped problems, arguments, and consequences.
Let me know if you'd like this reworded more diplomatically or conversationally — but the goal here is to help your interlocutor see that clarifying terms isn't a pedantic game, it's part of responsibly navigating conceptual terrain."