Is the idea just physical? That's the point at issue. The physical reductionist says yes; the idealist - mental reductionist - says the physical is just the mental - @Wayfarer does this sometimes. I'm suggesting that they might well be the same thing under two different descriptions, two ways of speaking rather than two substances.

...the idea of... — Patterner

What's that, then?

Information content can be measured physically - that is where Landauer comes in - but that is only because there are agreed conventions of what constitutes meaningful information in the first place. — Wayfarer

:lol:

What's meaning, if not what what is done with the information? Meaning here is just another term for use.

And use is physical. It involves actual processes that produce measurable physical effects in the world.

Relating this back to the OP, the same "substance" might have multiple descriptions that are not reducible, one to the other.

We’ve established the difference cannot be discerned by physical means — Wayfarer

Well, no. How the system interacts with the data is physical. What we have is two differing descriptions of the same physicality.

If so, then there is no reduction and we must say that the sentence is "something more" than a thermodynamic value. — JuanZu

But isn't the physical description also "something more" than the intentional description? The intentional description makes not mention of oxytocin.

Neither description contains the totality of the other description.

Sure, but that's a different point to what you suggested first, that there is no physical difference between the two sentences. The difference in entropy is a physical difference.

No.

There would be no way to detect the difference between the formatted hard drive and the hard drive containing information, without interpreting the binary code on the medium. — Wayfarer

That's just not factually correct. The formatted disk containing data has a lower entropy than a disk containing no information. And this is so regardless of the data having been interpreted.

Landauer's principle, and Shannon's law, have nothing to do with semantics or semiotics. — Wayfarer

Semiotics requires symbols, which are produced by the consumption of energy, and hence involves Landauer's principle, and Shannon's law.

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog"

"quc hye vko jum tfb lrx dog wna zie ped ohr"

The difference is, obviously, that the first is a meaningful sentence, and the second is the same set of characters in random order.

Question: is that a physical difference? If so, what physical law describes it? — Wayfarer

I think I've answered that question.

But if someone says #2 can be described entirely in terms of #1, then that is what they are saying, and I would like to hear how it works. — Patterner

Just to be clear, the suggestion that a mental even is exactly equivalent to a physical event is not something I would defend, but at the same time not something that we can rule out.

The reasoning is pretty simple. There are a very large number of physical states that a brain can be in, and we reduce these to a very few intentional descriptions. If someone maintains an equivalence between some physical state and being in lover, they must maintain that there is a commonality between your brain when it is in love with Adam and when it is in love with Eve, and that whatever that commonality is, is also found in my brain when I am in love with Eve. A tall order.

And then go a step further. Supose someone maintains that a brain is in love if and only if it is in State L. And supose that they find someone who claims to be in love, but who's brain is not in state L. Do we say that they are wrong? Or do we say that the theory "a brain is in love if and only if it is in State L" is wrong? That is, there are big issues with falsification and verification here.

Hence anomalous monism - being in love is a physical state but not one that can be set out explicitly and universally as a law. And the power of this approach is not that it is right, but just that it might be right - that there may be no explicit reduction of the intentional to the physical and yet there is nothing more to the intentional than the physical.

Where do you see the measurable heat (Motion of atoms and molecules) in a sentence like:

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog". — JuanZu

See Landauer's principle, a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. But obviously, there are far more ways to arrange the letters randomly than there are ways to arrange them into a sentence of English, so that English sentence has a far lower entropy.

It's simply that if experience is coherent, then it follows that something is coherent.

Formerly, f(a) ⊢ ∃(x)f(x). If the individual a is one of the things that are f, then we can derive that there is an x such that x is f.

The class picked out by "f" is not empty.

"Substance" is a pretty archaic term, not much used by philosophers any more. So existential generalisation shows that there is an individual, rather than that something has a substance. Existential generalisation just affirms the existence of an individual satisfying a predicate; it doesn’t commit one to any particular metaphysical framework regarding substance. The vagueness of "substance" is apparent in the discussion in this thread. There's the Bundle theory to dal with - if substance is what "holds" properties, what difference is there between substance and a bundle of properties? Why not just drop the use of "substance" altogether? What is it that makes one substance different from another - and again, if it's just the properties they accept, why not just deal in terms of those properties? What is the relation between substance and essence? And the problem I focused on, how is it that different substances are able to interact?

Logic now pretty much deals in individuals rather than substances. Certainly that's the case in extensional first order logic.

Why Canberra loves the Liberals...

James Paterson was also asked about the Coalition’s plan to cut 41,000 public servants.

The host noted there were only 80,000 in Canberra, “so half of the public servants in this town will go”.

Paterson said the details would be outlined soon on how the Coalition will reach its target:

We’ve been very clear we don’t think Australians have got good value from the increase of 41,000 that’s happened on this government’s watch.
Asked if the government would need contractors in their place, Paterson again said that details would be coming soon:

I’m not going to go ahead on my colleagues who have announcements to make in that area until it is time to talk about it. — Gardian

A large number will be hired back as consultants for more cash and lower security, further undermining impartiality and lowering face-to-face service delivery.

Notice the play, "vote for us, but we won't tell you what we are going to do..."

Nice post.

So: is that a physical difference? — Wayfarer

Yep. Describable, as you hint, in thermodynamic terms or as Shannon entropy, or Kolmogorov Complexity.

And yes, there is also a difference in their intent.

I have Greens Adam Bant and Ellen Sandall as my Federal and State reps. — Tom Storm

That's the price of having good coffee.

I wish there was a viable alternative party, but there's not. — Wayfarer

At the least, put an independent before the ALP and give the buggers a scare...?

Take advantage of the preferential system to express your dissatisfaction while still not supporting the Libs?

I don't disagree.

From a few years ago:
_________________

1. Painted using a matte house paint with the least possible gloss, on stretched canvas, 3.5 meters tall and 7.8 meters wide, in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

2. An anti-war statement displaying the terror and suffering of people and animals.

Two very different ways of talking about the very same thing.

Do we need to reduce one to the other?

There is indeed a discussion to be had about how the selection of paint leads to the impact that Guernica has on the viewer. In the end you might be able to show the effect, but not to say it; there is nothing to say, when what is left is to look a the painting. A complete description of the tones and materials will not have the same impact.
_________________

None of which rules out the fact that the painting Guernica and the Taj Mahal are physical objects. It's the "just that" that is problematic. Note that wrote those words - I was quoting him. It might have been clearer if I had edited that or added (sic.).

So yes, the two differing descriptions do quite different things - which is why we have more than one description, and why we should look to the use of the utterance.

I maintain that the proposed dualism remains unsubstantiated... (see what I did there?)

The suggestion is, roughly, anomalous monism:

psychology cannot be reduced to physics, but must nonetheless share a physical ontology. — SEP

So you are not convinced by a fiver off your tank of fuel? But I'm guessing you don't drive a RAM...

Is there an independent in your electorate?

I was still asleep...

a very dull campaign — Tom Storm

Yep. But the results, with the possibility of a hung parliament makes the results potentially interesting. So the antics of the Greens and minor parties are worth a look, as well as the independents. That means looking locally.

Here, Pockock is a shoo in. Jessie Price is an independent standing in Bean, and who may shake things up a bit, against the ALP's David Smith. The Libs are of course doing their best to appeal to ACT voters by promising to sack 40,000 public servants.

Poll Bludger might be worth the look, aggregating and analysing poll data for our consumption.

Looks very much like a hung parliament.

the subject and object are two different things. — MoK

P1 is not about subject and object. It predicates coherence to experience.

There's no helping some folk. I'll leave you to it. Cheers.

But what language an archeological text is written in is an empirical question, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure. My point is not about archeology, but about the sentence you are reading now. To doubt that this sentence is in English is to doubt that you understand what this sentence says.

Point being that in order to engage with the text one must first accept certain propositions, even if not explicitly. That this post is in English being one such proposition. Such propositions are good candidates for hinge propositions.

That might not be a prerequisite for thinking but it is probably a prerequisite for replying coherently to this post - for continuing this discussion.

It's perhaps not an axiom, nor self-evident, maybe not even assumed, but it is what we do.

The language makes it clear that Egg is looking for a fight rather that a discussion. I'm not that interested, but I'll outline an approach that might help others.

The apparent suggestion is that there is no good or evil because one can set up a situation in which there is no good outcome. That's not an argument which supports that conclusion.

Of course one can construct "experiments" that put folk in an impossible situations. The feeling of "cleverness" is part of the attraction of the facile undergrad obsession with setting trolly problems, of which this is an unoriginal variation. On the serious side, there's a large literature on the Principle of Double Effect, which is the issue in such problems. Make of it what you will. But what this does not show is that there is no such thing as objective morality.

The moral wrong here is that someone set up the contraption.

The ethical course is to prevent this sort of sociopathic action.

For my part, I've been at pains to argue that there are moral truths, but to avoid the confused notions of the subjective and the objective. Kicking puppies for fun is about the character of the one doing the kicking. As is setting up intractable thought experiments. Anyone can kick a pup, and perhaps find it pleasing; cruelty is part of being human. Another part of being human is growing; of realising that one is part of a community, of developing the ability to consider the long-term consequences of one's actions, of moving from self-interest to nuanced considerations of fairness, reciprocity, and social responsibility. This happens around the mid- twenties in a "normally" developing individual, as the prefrontal cortex exerts greater top-down regulation over the limbic system, particularly the amygdala. Yes, that stuff about the Trolly Problem being an adolescent and undergrad obsession has a basis in biology.

PM me if you want further discussion. I don't think this thread worth further response. If that's condescending, so be it.

May 3rd.

So much for my sources. Nice timing, though, to keep attention off Dutton's reply last night. The timing also means that a day of Senate Estimates of the budget has been scrapped. Here's a neat summation. Basically he says he will be a strong leader, but in the wrong direction.

We wonder what qualia are good for... — PoeticUniverse

They are not good for much at all. If they are internal sensations unavailable to others, then they are private in the sense dismissed by Wittgenstein, and unavailable for our public discourse. If they are available to others, then they are no different to the sensations we call "red" and "rough' and so on, and we may as well simply use those.

At best the idea might be operationalised as a correlation between a sensory input and a neural pattern. But that would be to use the notion of qualia in a very different way to the philosopher who sees it as the epitome of conscious experience. If qualia are mere neural patterns, then they cannot take on the task of showing that there is something special about mind that is not found in physics.

...or rather than face the inherent inconsistency in the myth, folk might burry it, like a cat in the litter tray, in dissertation and interpretation. Hermeneutics is especially useful here. Interpretation becomes a way of never facing the problem head-on. Instead of acknowledging genuine tensions or incoherencies, the myth is protected by an infinite regress of meaning-making.

I dunno. The point made, way back, was that claiming ethics to be nothing but an emotional response fails to see what is going on in doing ethics. Sure, we like this and dislike that. But this alone does not explain what we ought do. In much the same way as for the adolescent Nietzsche fanboys hereabouts, one must move on from egoism to consider one's place in a community before one can understand what ethics is about. Folk usually do this in their late teens and mid twenties, with the develpment of the frontal cortex. Of course, not everyone makes that leap. Some stay stuck in a kind of perpetual ethical adolescence, treating morality as nothing more than personal preference or power dynamics. We give them jobs in real estate and banking, to keep them out of trouble.

There's a way of approaching myths, much in evidence in this thread, in which the myth is taken as true. It follows, of course, that anything that counts against the myth being true must be false. It remains only to point out this falsehood, and to explain it in any way - but further, if that explanation is found wanting, there must be another explanation. Becasue, after all, the myth is true.

I do not see anything else happening when one makes such statements. — AmadeusD

That's apparent. But seems to me that someone's preference for chocolate over vanilla is different to their thinking it wrong to kick pups. Part of that is that folk do not generally try to force their preference for chocolate on to others. Ethics inherently involves other folk.


Cool. It is a mistake to think of constitutive rules as an act of faith.

You are proposing that a qual can move between the ghost and the machine?

So of what substance is the qual - is it mind, or is it object? Or is it something else, a third substance, in which case we presumably need a forth and fish substance to explain how qualia interact with ghosts and with machines...

See this OP: and the idea:

If I have a conscious thought/belief that I am seeing something, could that thought/belief be doubted? — Kranky

It makes no sense, as one is having a thought, to also doubt that one is having that thought. Doubt has no place here.

You're anthropomorphising, projecting human emtions on to a device. — Wayfarer

Yep. Further, that's what you do when you say someone overdosed on oxytocin is in love. :kiss:

If he had lived to do a second edition, he might have re-phrased this bit.

Tries' here is clearly metaphorical — Wayfarer

Rubbish. It's sending the signal, but there is no heater connected that can respond. It is trying, but can't.

That description is quite clear, quite diagnostic of the problem, and not a metaphor.

And what about the reaction of a thermostat, or of iron to oxygen, requires an explanation in terms of 'intentionality'? — Wayfarer

Unplug the thermostat from the heater, and drop the temperature - the thermostat tries to turn the heater on, but can't... (a description in terms of intent, not physics)

That "Minds of all kinds display attributes which are *not* reducible to physical terms" is exactly the issue in contention.

The two descriptions - physical ind intentional - are not mutually exclusive. That your body is flooded with oxytocin does not mean you are not in love. I'll bold that for emphasis - both can be true at the very same time, and indeed probably are.

It's not required. Btu it can still be true.

Perhaps I am too used to disagreeing with you to notice when we agree. But

Obviously the reaction of a thermostat to the environment is just that - an energetic reaction which can be described entirely in physical terms. — Wayfarer

This does not rule out that the reaction of a mind to the environment is just that - an energetic reaction which can be described entirely in physical terms. A reaction that might also and equivalently be described in terms of intent. Hence my response, that the supposed dualism remains undemonstrated.

No need to use a Zulu when we can use Wittgenstein himself. He took "Folk have never been to the Moon" as a hinge, it seems...

106. Suppose some adult had told a child that he had been on the moon. The child tells me the story, and I say it was only a joke, the man hadn't been on the moon; no one has ever been on the moon; the moon is a long way off and it is impossible to climb up there or fly there. - If now the child insists, saying perhaps there is a way of getting there which I don't know, etc. what reply could I make to him? What reply could I make to the adults of a tribe who believe that people sometimes go to the moon (perhaps that is how they interpret their dreams), and who indeed grant that there are no ordinary means of climbing up to it or flying there? - But a child will not ordinarily stick to such a belief and will soon be convinced by what we tell him seriously.
107. Isn't this altogether like the way one can instruct a child to believe in a God, or that none exists, and it will accordingly be able to produce apparently telling grounds for the one or the other?
108. "But is there then no objective truth? Isn't it true, or false, that someone has been on the moon?" If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the moon. Not merely is nothing of the sort ever seriously reported to us by reasonable people, but our whole system of physics forbids us to believe it. For this demands answers to the questions "How did he overcome the force of gravity?" "How could he live without an atmosphere?" and a thousand others which could not be answered. But suppose that instead of all these answers we met the reply: "We don't know how one gets to the moon, but those who get there know at once that they are there; and even you can't explain everything." We should feel ourselves intellectually very distant from someone who said this.

but then...

97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.

Again, being a hinge proposition is a role taken on within a language game, rather than a property of certain propositions in all cases.

This is part of how hinge propositions differ from supposed necessary or a priori propositions.

This by way of agreeing that hinges are too bound up in living as a human to doubt them.

I glanced at it, thought it irrelevant and moved on. It remains that, for the OP, explaining the interaction of ghost and machine is problematic.

Notice the scare quotes. — Wayfarer

They were certainly intended. Few words are as loaded, especially in these fora, as "perceive". You again make the mistake of assuming there is a ghost in the machine, and then pretending you have demonstrated it.

The basic problem for substance dualism remains - explaining how the ghost interacts with the machine.

Yep.

But if you cannot reasonably doubt P, does it follow that you choose to assume P?

There is a difference between an assumption and a hinge proposition, not captured in Tim's recount. Perhaps the difference is a bit subtle, and perhaps one might just say that to assume is to exempt from doubt - but this would be to agree with Wittgenstein rather than to point out some error of his.