The fact science builds on earlier discoveries is not a flaw, it is one of the main causes of its spectacular success. But it's also indubitably a source of authority - not in the legalistic sense of enforcing laws, but in the sense of grounding the body of scientific knowledge. And in the context of this debate, about the reality of physicalism, the authority of science looms large. However, you're replying to my reply to someone else's post, so what you mean might be quite different to what I was responding to.

Authority doesn't really have anything to do with it. — wonderer1

Tosh. Science builds continually on previous findings which constitute a body of knowledge. Newton 'stands on the shoulders of giants'. That constitutes authority, albeit one that every individual scientist is expected to question as well as to accept. But here the discussion was about science:

science, which in turn is arguably the best way for humans to form conclusions about anything. — Christoffer

Notice the scope of that claim - not about those things which are objectively measurable and about which we may arrive at inter-subjective agreement, but anything. So here science is being presented not only as an authority, but as a moral authority.

Maybe (as I suspect) that's a claim that scientists themselves would not make, regardless it is true that science is looked to as the 'arbiter of reality'.

So a key premise of Russell's argument, is simply not true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree, and don't even understand why it gained traction.

Of course these results are tentative. — Banno

But they're also meaningless. Just because the term 'cause' doesn't appear, doesn't mean that it's not a central premise in physics. That's why I said it is implicit in physics, which you seemed to regard as some kind of sophistry or wordplay. But it's not! When a billiard ball strikes another, it causes it to move in a certain direction with certain velocity, as per your proferred example, even if it avoids the use of that terminology. All of science is concerned with causation - viruses cause illnesses, vaccines cause them to be cured, lift causes airplanes to fly, its absences causes them to stall, and so on.

Now, the history, this history since I am born and molded to the point of being able to conceive mathematical objects in their ideality and objectivity cannot be described in terms of physics. It is like founding epistemology from quantum physics. That doesn't make any sense. — JuanZu

I agree, but how or why you can then go on to maintain that this is ‘a materialism’, I don’t understand, but please don’t feel any obligation to provide further explanation.

I would posit myself as a physicalist emergentist. What type is still up in the air since that's a realm depending on yet unproven scientific theories. — Christoffer

That would be something like Popper’s ‘promissory materialism’, would it not? Popper coined this term to critique a particular stance within the philosophy of mind. This stance holds that physicalist explanations for all mental phenomena will eventually be found, even if current scientific understanding falls short. Popper saw this as a kind of "promissory note" – a belief in future explanations based on physicalism, despite a lack of current evidence or understanding. It is difficult to disentangle from scientism, the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion or marginalization of any other perspective. Like promissory materialism, scientism assumes that science will eventually provide answers to all questions, including those traditionally addressed by philosophy, the humanities, or religions.

The cardinal difficulty with both views is that it neglects or ignores a fundamental starting axiom of scientific method, which is limiting the scope of enquiry to the realm of objective fact, and in so doing, also disregarding the role of the scientist in choosing which questions to pose and how they should be posed. And that can’t be dealt with by the idea of emergence, because in that paradigm, the very faculty which poses the questions is supposed to be the outcome or effect of some prior and presumably physical causal chain, by some unknown means - which we’ll work out in future, promise!

I see what you mean. But what I’m wanting to differentiate is the sensory from the intellectual. Numbers and the like can only be apprehended by a rational intelligence that is capable of counting. It is that faculty which I claim that physicalism cannot meaningfully account for.

(And :100: for the first poster I’ve ever known to use ‘gnoseological’ in a post. :party: )

The evidence of Trump’s malfeasance is abundantly obvious to all, other than those who choose not to see it.

It’s not there, but has been mentioned in discussion of alternative platforms.

The predecessor forum to this one had a lot of bells and whistles that had been added over the years by Paul Kneirem, the owner/admin. It was quite good but the interface had become somewhat crowded. When Jamal started this one on Plush the simplicity of the interface was a positive, but there are some features lacking.

That is something that has been mentioned before, but I don’t know if this particular hosting platform provides the feature.

I would simply say that there are phenomena that are given. — JuanZu

So you think numbers are phenomena? I had thought they were intelligible objects and, as such, distinguishable from senseable phenomena.

Agree with your second point.

Here's a nice description of the physics of billiards, using formulae for conservation of momentum and so on. — Banno

It doesn’t? From the article: ‘When a body is subjected to a force, the second principle of dynamics asserts that its acceleration and speed change. When one body collides with another, momentum is created.’ The collision causes the momentum to be created. You don’t need to use the word ‘cause’ to convey that, which is why I said it is implicit.

Directly to the personal attack. Nice. — Banno

Well, when you’re out of ammo, you’ll resort to throwing anything.

One of the issues with thinking in terms of local efficient causes is that it ignores global conditions, which produces a false impression of strict linearity or "causal chains" instead of networks of energetic influences. — Janus

That’s the difference between classical physics and more recent science, systems theory, biosemiotics, complexity sciences and so on. They all take into account context in a way that Newtonian physics does not.

Cause" isn't a term used in physics, having been replaced by maths since Galileo. — Banno

Is that so? In making predictions, doesn’t physics implicitly appeal to causation? Isn’t causation implicit with every use of ‘because’?

What Galileo dispatched was telos, not causation as such.

Philosophy doesn't need to be the sort of anti-intellectual activity you would have it be. — wonderer1

That is hilariously mistaken but neo-darwinist materialism is a different topic so I won’t pursue it here.

That's all I mean by "substance," here, that there is an ontologically primitive type of thing that exists, whose interactions produce the apparent variety and change we see around us (with or without strong emergence, but probably without given Kim's arguments), as opposed to flux and process being fundemental. Substance is the "substrate" or "prime matter," a concept that seems necessary to make superveniance or causal closure work, at least in forms I am familiar with. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up: Thanks for the clarification. Much nearer to how I understand it also.

Why would brains be any less shaped by evolution than other biological organs? So "What could be wrong with that?", aside from your dislike of the idea? — wonderer1

Because evolutionary biology is not philosophy, per se, and never set out to address issues of epistemology and metaphysics. Also because of the role that evolutionary biology occupies in culture as a kind of secular religion. And because of its place in the materialist polemics of new atheism where it is presented as a philosophical perspective when it’s clearly not.

The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned. — Evan Thompson

:100:

the engineering in this array is truly mind-boggling. :scream:

Mind - or else, maybe, something mental, such as consciousness - is the metaphysical substrate in idealism; matter is the metaphysical substrate in materialism; and both are metaphysical substrates of equal importance in Cartesian dualism.

Do you see any flaw with the term “metaphysical substrate” as it’s just been made use of? — javra

Seems fine to me. I'm just calling out what I see as the obvious difficulties posed by the idea of 'mental substance' or saying that the world is 'made of something mental'. I'm not claiming any expertise in Aristotle, metaphysics, or Greek (none of which I have. The article I linked to was the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Aristotle's Metaphysics, by Joe Sachs, who is apparently well-regarded, specifically on the meaning of 'ouisia' which is what became translated as 'substance'.)

That seems to me to be a uniting theme on materialism -- something, be it qualia, intentionality, mind, or spiritual things, is somehow reduced to or explained away as a physical, material, or natural process of things. — Moliere

It's pretty clear isn't it? Evolutionary biology replaced the Biblical creation mythology, but it also elbowed aside a great deal of philosophy which had become attached to it as part of the cultural milieu. So it seems obvious to anyone here that mind evolves as part of the same overall process through which everything else evolves. And it's then easy to take the step that the human mind is a product of evolutionary processes in just the same way as are claws and teeth. Easy! What could be wrong with that? (That's why I'm an advocate of 'the argument from reason', although it's about as popular on this forum as a parachute in a submarine.)

I think we have a pretty decent idea of what mental substance, if one wants to use that term is.... — Manuel

If one does. I'm saying that 'substance' is a poor choice of words, for the reasons I gave. I'm not denying the reality of the mind.

Leaving aside the fact that the Constitution doesn't disqualify candidates on the basis of them being convicted of a felony (a major oversight in my view), do you think he'd be a viable candidate? Do you think the electorate and the Party would be willing to put that aside and vote for him anyway?

Do you think that if he is convicted of those crimes there's a possibility that the Supreme Court will uphold the Colorado Supreme Court judgement of 'disqualification because of insurrection'?

It certainly doesn't follow from that obvious truism that nothing existed prior to the advent of mind. — Janus

It's a philosophical point, not an empirical hypothesis, although I grant it might be a difficult distinction.

I think that will help Trump. — frank

So, do you think if Trump is convicted in the January 6th Trial, where he's charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding etc, and sentenced to prison (pending appeal), that he will nevertheless remain a viable candidate? (The trial is scheduled for 4th March this year.)

I can't quite see the distinction so far — Tom Storm

If indeed there were 'a mental substance', and if 'substance' is taken to mean something that actually exists, then why doesn't science detect that property in such a substance? What does 'mental substance' mean?

It's not a hard question to ask of physical substances, as they have objective and measurable attributes. The natural sciences as we all know have made great strides in the analysis of matter. So why can't any progress be made with respect to the purported 'mental substance?' I'm saying that the very simple reason is, that there is no such substance, but I also don't think that Kastrup defends any idea of 'mental substance' (which is the claim I took issue with).

All of reality is mind-at-large (his version of Schop's Will) and we are all dissociated alters springing form that cosmic consciousness, the way tributaries spring form a river. — Tom Storm

As I said in my essay on mind-at-large, this is very similar to mystical theology and to Advaita Vedanta (indeed recently listened to an absorbing dialogue between Kastrup and Swami Sarvapriyananda of the NY Vedanta Society on this topic.) But again, I don't believe that you can legitimately posit the existence of any such super-mind. At best it is an analogy or metaphor, but I think it's a grave error to 'objectify' any such conception, it leads basically to dogmatic beliefs which can never be adequately demonstrated. Essentially you fall back on 'belief in God' and have obtained no philosophical insight whatever.

anyone who believes the universe existed before it contained any minds — Janus

'Before there were any minds' is an idea that only a mind can entertain.

There are different flavors of idealism, but in general they have the same starting point as physicalism. The external world and other minds exist. This would include modern forms of idealism, e.g. Kastrup, or Hegelian absolute idealism. They simply claim that the external world is made of mental substance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As one who defends idealism on this forum, I have to take issue with this. I've read (and listened to) quite a bit of Kastrup, and I don't think he says that, although it you could provide a citation supporting the idea I would consider it.

Kastrup himself, describing his own philosophical development, says this:

I ended up as a metaphysical idealist – somebody who thinks that the whole of reality is mental in essence. It is not in your mind alone, not in my mind alone, but in an extended transpersonal form of mind which appears to us in the form that we call matter. Matter is a representation or appearance of what is, in and of itself, mental processes. — Bernardo Kastrup, magazine interview

Now I think that is different from saying that 'the external world is made of mental substance'. I think that use of the term 'substance' arises from the translation of the original Greek 'ouisia', which was found in both Plato and Aristotle, into the Latin 'substantia', and thence into the English 'substance'. 'Ouisia' is a form of the verb 'to be', and accordingly the original word now translated as 'substance' in philosophy (and as distinct from 'substance' in ordinary language') meant something nearer to 'being' (This article discusses the translation of 'ousia'.)

Whereas the phrase 'mental substance' carries the notion that there is some literally 'thinking stuff', or alternatively imbuing matter with mental qualities, as panpsychists such as Goff and Strawson do. And I know for a fact that Kastrup is severely critical of their form of panpsychism (see this post for instance.)

many physicalists embrace a sort of Kantian dualism and indirect realism, such that we don't ever "experience the world," but experience only "representations of the world." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Any examples of physicalists of that type? I had thought most of them, like those who post here, were naive or scientific realists (=mind-independent world.) I know that John Locke is classified as 'representative realist' but then, I don't know if we would call John Locke a 'physicalist' (although that term had not been coined in his day.)

What's the starting point for an idealist? — Relativist

The fact that knowledge of the world comprises the synthesis of ideas and sensations.

The point is to understand that the origin of everything so far known is physical, and shouldn't imply more than that.
— Philosophim

Feel free to point out an issue with my proposal. — Philosophim

That it is exceedingly vague. As pointed out by me above, and by the SEP article, at issue the question of what constitutes the physical. This is 'Hempel's dilemma': if physicalism is defined by reference to contemporary physics, then it is false — after all, who thinks that contemporary physics is complete? — but if physicalism is defined via reference to a future or ideal physics, then it is trivial — after all, who can predict what a future physics contains? It might include what we now consider to be mental. After all scientific ideas of the physical have changed enormously over history, and are changing even more now. The century before last nobody had the vaguest clue of electromagnetic fields, nowadays the atom is only seen as a point within them. Who knows what 'the physical' might turn out to mean in future?

In effect, and this is the way you use it, 'physical' amounts to a general deference to science as an arbiter of reality. To you, this is obvious, as you frequently say, never mind that a great deal of philosophy comprises questioning what is generally thought to be obvious.

There is no conceptual space for the role of the subject in that method
— Wayfarer

Saying this is ignoring philosophy of sciences. — Skalidris

Not at all, I am perfectly familiar with philosophy of science. See the following.

"Consciousness" is an empirical problem yet to be solved (i.e. testably explained) — 180 Proof

Do you think that could be done from some perspective outside of consciousness?

An explanation comprises explanans and explanandum. The explanandum is what it is that is to be explained, and the explanans that which provides the explanation. So in the case of consciousness, as any act of explanation is a conscious act, how could the one capacity, i.e. consciousness, provide both the explanans and explanandum?

When we try to explain consciousness, it becomes the subject of our inquiry—the explanandum. We're asking, "What is consciousness?" or "How does consciousness arise?" These are questions about the nature, origin, and mechanisms of consciousness. But any act of explanation, including the explanation of consciousness, is a conscious act. This means that consciousness is also a part of the explanans. When we articulate a theory or a model to explain consciousness, we are doing so using our conscious understanding, reasoning, and cognitive faculties. That immediately puts the question of the nature of consciousness in a different category to objective phenomena. We cannot step outside of our conscious experience to examine it in the same way we can step outside of a physical process or event. We are always 'within' our own consciousness, making it challenging to analyze it as an external, independent entity. It is like the hand, which is perfectly capable of grasping an object, trying to grasp itself. That is specific to this enquiry.

So you dismiss all the arguments against physicalism in the source article? Or is it more that you think we can safely assume they’re wrong? Or you haven’t considered them?

I’m not a particularly proactive mod, but I’m very much aware of how hard it is to moderate debates like the Middle East thread, and I take my hat off to those mods and I also support the decisions they have to make. It's a fine line between being heavy-handed or censorious, on the one side, or too laissez faire on the other. I think this forum in particular does a pretty good job of threading the needle but there will always be issues that tend to bring out very strong opinions.

smallism — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hey a new word. Don’t much like it, but that might just be my holism.

Hang on, wrong thread.

the truth compels us! :rage:

That SEP article also contains a section on the argument from abstract objects, which is also a killer argument in my view.

And

Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Ed Feser

What do you mean by "objective reality"? — Janus

That particular essay is attempting to stay within the guidelines of Madhyamaka philosophy - 'middle way'. When asked if the self exists or does not, the Buddha does not reply, but maintains a noble silence.

:clap:

I can't see any distinction between this idea of a collective consciousness and the idea of "mind at large". What would you say is the difference? — Janus

That 'mind at large' suggests an objective reality. That is the reification involved. A subtle but important point, discussed extensively in Buddhist scholastic philosophy and in debates with the Brahmins.

Oh, and Happy New Year to you, although it's already an old year, I copped a traffic radar booking on Day One. :fear: complete with double points.

Fair point. I wasn't suggesting that such discussions ought to be banned, just from time to time drawing attention to the sign on the door.

I would state that everything that we've discovered so far is physical in origin. — Philosophim

On what basis?

:clap:

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. — SEP

What about logical necessity? How is that 'necessitated by the physical'?

What about Hempel's dilemma? If we define "physical" as what is currently understood by physics, the dilemma arises because our current understanding of physics is likely incomplete and may change in the future. As a result, the claim that the mind (for example) is 'physical' might be false simply because our current physics does not fully capture all physical aspects of the universe. And If we define "physical" as whatever a future, complete physics will include, the dilemma arises because this definition is too vague and open-ended. We cannot currently know what the future physics will encompass, making it difficult to make meaningful claims about the mind being physical based on this definition.

fair enough, we'll leave it.

First part of the problem: we can never produce knowledge that perfectly matches reality. This problem isn't specific to consciousness. — Skalidris

As Joshs pointed out, there's an inherent issue in framing it this way. But I will add that you're overlooking the cardinal point of modern science, which is the objectification and quantification of measurable abstractions. It concentrates on what can be described in mathematical and quantitative terms, beginning with the motions of objects and the effects of energy, and then generalises this approach to all manner of phenomena. There is no conceptual space for the role of the subject in that method - or at least there wasn't until the measurement problem in quantum physics forced scientists to reckon with it, hence the Tao of Physics in 1974 and the whole quantum-consciousness connection which has happened since.

Would the experience of consciousness be any different if we weren’t “one soul”, “one individual”? — Skalidris

The following section touches on an interesting topic but doesn't do much to advance it. Individuation is indeed a fundamental part of human being, but mystics have long pointed to states of consciousness beyond that of 'me and mine'. It is fundamental to Buddhist philosophy, for instance, where 'all things are devoid of self (anatta).' Jesus Christ said 'he who looses his own self (i.e. consciousness of his separate self) for My sake will be saved (i.e. realises higher consciousness).

What do you think of this reasoning? — Skalidris

That it's very jumbled. It's full of mixed metaphors and partially-grasped ideas.

Since David Chalmers wrote that original paper, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness in 1996, it launched an entire philosophical movement (and won Chalmers tenure and an international reputation as a celebrity philosopher, a rare breed). The whole Consciousness Studies movement came out of that paper, and they have bi-annual conferences associated with the here]University of Arizona in Tucson[/url]. There was the famous mock Sgt Pepper's Album Cover graphic featuring some of the attending luminaries back in the 20th anniversary edition of the Conference:


Conference poster art for 20 year anniversary conference ‘Toward a Science of Consciousness 2014

Is it possible that the intention of subjecting consciousness to the rigors of scientific explanation – though noble and understandable – is misplaced? Are we trying to do something that, in fact, cannot be done? — Thales

Of course. That's the point. Your post sums up the whole issue in a nutshell. Most of the debate that has occurred in this thread consists of people not seeing that.

(Terrence) Deacon talks about the importance of zero, and how it twisted his thinking. — Patterner

Tied him up in nots :rofl: — Wayfarer

Couldn't let this one go by even if it's one of mine.....

Tied him up in nots :rofl:

Myself, I wonder why this particular forum, which is mainly concerned with philosophy, ought to accomodate never-ending threads on vexatious topics such as Middle Eastern politics, which is famously divisive. I hardly contribute to that thread, as I don't have a dog in the fight, and besides there's enough stress and bile going around without outsiders piling on with their own opinions. So let's bear in mind what the purpose of this particular forum is about, there are many other fora (reddit, quora, etc) where non philosophical issues can be canvassed.