It's very simple: anyone who believes the universe existed before it contained any minds is a physicalist, as long as they don't posit a transcendent mind. We may not be able to exhaustively and comprehensively define physical substance, but what we know gives us good reason to think it is at base energetic.

Talk of mental substance, when everything we know tells us that mental phenomena are entirely dependent on this energetic foundation seems to me to be incoherent. We may not fully understand the idea of physical substance, but we have no idea at all of what mental substance could be.

I find the attempt to dismiss physicalism on the grounds that it entails the idea that everything should be explainable in the terms of fundamental physics to be a red straw herring.

By my estimation we're a group of people who either aren't doing philosophy or don't wish to be doing it. — fdrake

I think that very much depends on what you would count as "doing philosophy".

It doesn't seem as though any reductive physical explanation could account for the obvious semantic/ semiotic aspects of things. It doesn't follow that the latter is non-physical, it's just that purely mechanistic explanations cannot cut it when it comes to signification, reference and meaning.

Mechanistic explanations are digital and deterministic, whereas it seems that reality, the physical, is most plausibly analogue and non-deterministic.

O right, sorry—I've merged two discussions here, so it's a case of 'half-wrong thread'. That said, the topics are closely related; "mind-created world" vs 'physically existent world'.

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. — Wayfarer

Yes, I understand that, but such silence does not constitute a philosophical position. That said, bear in mind that I am no advocate of holding philosophical positions, but the subject of the thread was as to what is the best argument for physicalism, and I stated that physicalism, understood as the idea that there are mind-independent existents, seems to me the most plausible inference to explain the world we experience.

I don't see a cogent distinction between the idea of an 'Alaya' or 'storehouse' consciousness and the notions of a universal or collective consciousness, deity or God; they all seem to me to be variations of the same theme with few differences between them that make a difference. The only difference that makes a significant difference seems to me to be the idea of a personal God.

Worth a mint too I imagine. I think I prefer albino blues guitarists. — Tom Storm

The latter are probably even rarer than albino ravens, so they should be worth even more than a mint.

Is the OP question regarding the metaphysical/ ontological or the epistemological notion of physicalism?

Naughty boy...paraphrasing war criminals!

I understand that all non-black things are non-ravens. — Tom Storm

Albino ravens are apparently a thing.

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. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by "objective reality"? A mind at large in the 'God' or 'universal mind' sense is not an object, but if we want to say it is real, then we are positing it as an actuality, no?

Bad luck about the traffic fine...it appears that traffic radars have no conception of "happy new year".

Then give us a physical explanation of why folk sometimes do not stop at the red light. And what often happens next. — Banno

In case you failed to notice this:

In any case physicalism does not necessarily entail that everything must be explainable in terms of physics, although of course that may be one interpretation of the meaning of the term. — Janus

That said, human behavior may be explainable in neuronal, that is physical, terms, but it does not follow that neurology is reducible, in the explanatory, if not the ontological, sense, to physics.

SO explain, using only physics, why folk stop at the red light. — Banno

So, you're not asking about the physical workings of traffic lights but about human behavior. Of course, people don't always stop at red lights, so the question is inapt.

In any case physicalism does not necessarily entail that everything must be explainable in terms of physics, although of course that may be one interpretation of the meaning of the term.

From the essay:

Each being possesses this storage consciousness, which thus becomes a kind of collective consciousness that orders human perceptions of the world’ — even though this apparent world does not possess an intrinsic reality.

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?

Crappy Newt's Ear!

What is the alternative to physicalism? The only alternative I can think of is idealism. What are the differences between them? The former says that there are mind-independent existents, and the latter says there are not. Which seems the more plausible? To me physicalism seems more plausible because it can explain how it is that we and the animals (judging from their behavior) all perceive the same world, without positing a god or universal mind.

So, for me, I tend towards physicalism as being the inference to the best explanation for the world as we experience it. At the same time, I don't deny that there is a semantic or semiotic aspect that is inherent in physicality, so a kind of pan-semiosis, which becomes all the more evident as biological life has apparently evolved into ever more complex forms.

As the a.i.'s continue to improve, and achieve human level AGI, people are going to look to the sciences to provide answers to basic questions: are these AGI's conscious? What rights do they have? How should we treat them? These questions will then become the most outstanding problems in science.

Where do you disagree with that? — RogueAI

To me it doesn't matter how much AGI may look like human intelligence—I'll consider them conscious when it becomes obvious that they actually care about anything.

Odd then, that physics can't even explain how traffic lights work. — Banno

What do you think is missing in the physical explanation of the workings of traffic lights?

:up:

But an acorn is not an oak-tree; it is the possibility of an oak-tree. — Ludwig V

Yes, but a particular acorn and the oak tree it becomes (if indeed it does so, of course) are linked, and hence their identities are linked, in a way that neither is linked with other acorns and oak trees. They are linked as phases of a particular process of growth and transformation; a unique history so to speak.

The problem is with Kant. How can he discover what is necessary and universal just from experiences using transcendental deduction?

I think we already use the categories to make sense of experiences. It is on the basis of reflection upon how experiences must be for us in order that we can make sense of them that the synthetic a priori is generated, as I understand it.
— Janus

Yes, we use the Categories to make sense of experiences.

However, Kant's transcendental deduction derives the Categories from these very same experiences.

How is this not circular? — RussellA

We can reflect on the general nature of experience or perception and derive the ineliminable attributes. For example, perception of objects is unimaginable without space, time, form and differentiation.

Kant's twelve categories are:

Quantity: Unity Plurality Totality

Quality: Reality Negation Limitation

Relation: Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident) Causality and Dependence (cause and effect) Community (reciprocity)

Modality: Possibility Existence Necessity

These categories seem to be Kant's attempt to pinpoint what is essential to the ways we understand things. Do you not think we can reflect on our experience and thinking in order to discover the essential elements?

Nagel's argument is focused on the nature of reason itself and how certain principles, like those of logic and mathematics, are not just human constructs but are instead intrinsic to any rational thought. The idea is that to even argue against these principles, one would have to use them, thus demonstrating their inescapable nature. (This is also the basis of his rejection of accouting for reason in terms of evolutionary adaption - to appeal to successful adaptation as the grounds for reason, attempts to provide a grounding outside of reason itself, thereby undercutting the sovereignity of reason.) — Wayfarer

When we identify the characteristics that are essential to reason, that is to human reasoning, and formulate them as principles that is a different thing than conjecturing about how our capacity to reason may have evolved. Kant's categories show us how we can think about quantity, quality. relation and modality. Someone might come up with some other categories that Kant didn't think of. For example, it occurs to me that 'nullity' might have been included in the 'quantity' list of categories.

It seems reasonable to think that the categories reflect the nature, not just of our thinking, but also of the things we think about. Reason could not have evolved, and cannot exist, in a "vacuum", it must have something "outside itself" to work with. How do I know what I said in the last sentence is true? By reflection on the nature of reasoning; it's a phenomenological insight, not something that can be empirically demonstrated perhaps. It's akin to Kant's:

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

But then it seems a bit too clever. It's not like I don't understand what people mean by these terms even though these distinctions can be brought up. — Moliere

I tend to think that anywhere a valid distinction can be drawn then it should be drawn, while keeping in mind that in some contexts the distinction probably doesn't matter.

Of course. The rhetorical question I posed was, does it make sense to say that (1) this a creation of the brain and (2) is therefore "physical"? — Wayfarer

If something is a creation of something physical, it would seem to follow that it is physical. What is the problem with saying that the physical has both a potential and actual affective, semantic or semiotic dimension?

Did 'the law of the excluded middle' - a basic logical principle - come into existence as a result of evolution? Or rather, did we evolve to the point of being able to grasp something that was always already so? — Wayfarer

The law of the excluded middle is just a formulation of the fact that two things cannot occupy the same space and time (for us at least). In other words, it is entailed by Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles. Any thing is either this thing or some other thing; there is no middle position.

I see the clear odorless liquid coming out of the faucet and presume it's H₂O — Moliere

It is very unlikely to be pure H2O. You could make an argument that because water commonly contains all sorts of solutes and is yet still referred to as "water" that 'water' is therefore not equivalent to H2O. The truth or falsity of such an argument would depend on perspective, though, so perhaps there is no unequivocal fact of the matter there.

Therefore, what happens in the world, the Bishop moving diagonally, is necessary and universal once the rule has been made, even though the rule itself is neither necessary not universal.

For Hume, no knowledge about the world, discovered by a constant conjunction of events within experiences, can be either necessary nor universal, in that, even though the sun has risen in the east for 1,000 days, there is no guarantee that on the 1,001st day it doesn't rise in the west. — RussellA

The chess rules could be changed, just as we might think the laws of nature that determine that the Sun rises in the east could change. In fact it is far easier to see how the rules of chess might be changed.

However, Kant wanted to show that it is possible to discover knowledge about the world that is both necessary and universal from experiences of the world using a transcendental argument. From a careful reasoning about one's experiences, it is possible to discover pure concepts of understanding, ie, the Categories, that are necessary and universal, which can then be used to make sense of these experiences. — RussellA

I think we already use the categories to make sense of experiences. It is on the basis of reflection upon how experiences must be for us in order that we can make sense of them that the synthetic a priori is generated, as I understand it.

Good analysis!

Citation please. I searched and could find no clear answer to this question. They are obviously not bonded as they are in either liquid water or in ice. In any case, when water evaporates, it is referred to as water vapour.

there are no lone molecules of water. — Moliere

Are there lone molecules of H2O?

And I'm pointing out that what counts as an individual is nothing to do with substance, but with how we choose to use names.

You are using a screw driver as a hammer. — Banno

I think this is right as far as it goes, but on the other hand biological organisms can generally be identified by their DNA, and this would seem to be the most reliable method of identification.

If we wanted to posit that an organism could be you or me, but have a different DNA, then what criteria could be used to identify the organism as you or me? As I see it, stipulation won't cut it.

The lone H₂O molecule floating through space is not wet, and so there are some predicates which apply to water but which do not apply to H₂O, and so we can say that these are two different things. — Moliere

The lone molecule of H2O is equally understood to be a lone molecule of water, so I don't think this argument stands up.

People may argue that we don't know how the brain produces consciousness, but this applies to other emergent phenomena as well. We don't know how agitated molecules in substances produce heat or how applying heat produces agitated molecules in substances which in turn causes the substance to rise in temperature. We can say it's due to friction, or due to photons, but we can then ask, " how does friction produce heat or how do photons agitate molecules"? And so on....

What we do know is that there is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere apart from biological organisms, so we really have zero reason to think that consciousness can exist apart from biological organisms, and every reason to think it cannot.

Of course, this does not prove consciousness cannot exist apart from biological organisms, but as I already said, nothing in science is ever proven; proof is only possible in rule-based formal systems such as logic or mathematics.

Why would there be a motivation to believe empirical facts that are of no practical consequence? — Janus

This was not addressed. I think all this thread helps to demonstrate is the absurdity of the notion that there could be moral facts in any sense analogous to the way that there are empirical facts.

Well, there is such a thing as being English, but it's not a biological or behavioural feature of people; it's a legal status. — Michael

Yes, but being English in the sense you've described is a matter of fact, not a quality of "Englishness" manifested in behavior.

If humans are conscious and if consciousness is non-biological then consciousness is evidence that humans are more than biological organisms. — Michael

Right, but there is no evidence that consciousness is non-biological—all the evidence points to it being a biological phenomenon.

We don't know whether or not consciousness is biological and so we don't know whether or not humans are just biological organisms. — Michael

If by "we don't know" you mean that it hasn't been proven, then I agree; nothing in science has been proven.

.

Thanks for the explanation—it seems I misunderstood your point, failing to realize you were being ironic with "fake physicists".

Because no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge? — Michael

I did say "if Englishness exists".

And, of course, the assertion that humans are just biological organism begs the question. — Michael

We know humans are biological organisms; do we have any evidence that they are more than that?

If it is you're not going to find it by putting my body under a microscope. — Michael

No, that's right, it would be observed in behavior, also a physical phenomenon.

When I describe myself as English the word "English" is an adjective, being used to describe me, but "Englishness" isn't some physiological thing. — Michael

Would not "Englishness", if it exists, be some manifest quality or qualities?

That seems right...ice absorbs less, and reflects more, heat than liquid water...the so-called "albedo effect:

The Greenland ice sheet may be even more sensitive to the warming climate than scientists previously thought.

A new study finds that rising air temperatures are working with warm ocean waters to speed the melting of Greenland’s seaside glaciers.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, shed new light on the forces driving ice loss on the world’s second largest ice sheet.

The Greenland ice sheet is losing an average of around 250 billion metric tons of ice per year. These losses are speeding up over time, studies have found—and there are two main processes causing it.

Warm air temperatures cause melting to occur on the surface of the ice sheet—that process accounts for about half the ice Greenland loses each year. The other half comes from glaciers at the ice sheet’s edge crumbling into the sea.

Losses from these seaside glaciers have, until now, been mainly attributed to warm ocean waters licking at the edge of the ice. But the new research finds that rising air temperatures have a big influence as well.

Warm air causes the surface of the ice sheet to melt, and that meltwater then runs off into the ocean. When that happens, it churns up the waters—and that turbulence helps heat rise up from the depths of the ocean and warm up the waters coming into contact with the ice. That, in turn, melts the glaciers faster.

Lead study author Donald Slater, a scientist at the University of Edinburgh, likened the process to ice cubes in a glass of water. They clearly melt faster when the water is warmer. But they also melt faster when the water is stirred.

Rising air temperatures in Greenland “effectively result in a stirring of the ocean close to the ice sheet, causing faster melting of the ice sheet by the ocean,” he said in a statement.

The researchers used a combination of observations and models to investigate the melt rates at the edges of Greenland’s oceanfront glaciers, and then to tease out the roles of ocean versus atmosphere.

From here

I have some ability of course. I live by the sea, and empirically I observe none of the supposedly world-shattering trends that people talk about. So I'm having to take someone else's word for it that there is in fact something going on. — Tzeentch

Sea level rise may show up much more in low-lying areas for obvious reasons, but also it has to be taken into account that it is understood not to be uniform over the planet, so what you observe locally may indeed not exhibit the more radical changes being experienced elsewhere.

So Darwin explains Kant? — Wayfarer

I wasn't referring specifically to Darwin—he certainly has no patent on the idea of evolution. It seems plausible to me that over the course of human history, ("history" here taken to include so-called "prehistory") humans have progressively reflected on their experiences and exercised their imaginations, constrained by logic (itself the child of such reflections) which has culminated in the last few thousand years in the evolution of the dialectical process we refer to as "the philosophical tradition". A major part of this has consisted in generalized characterizations of the necessary nature of human experience, which is what constitutes the categories relating to phenomena such as Aristotle and Kant, for example, have explained them.

A similar, but less radically evolutionary, because more traditionally constrained, process also happened in the East. This difference between East and West is also reflected in the arts. music and literature and of course the evolution of science in the West.

Though it seems to me that Kant is saying something different to Hume, in that we can know certain axioms existent in the world of necessity and universally. The question is, how exactly? — RussellA

I think we can only know what experience, and reflection on the nature of experience tells us. We can also elaborate and extrapolate from formal rule-based systems like logic, mathematics, chess, Go etc.

So you don't believe you have any ability as an educated layperson to critically assess the plausibility of scientific claims?

I'm asking why there is a motivation to be moral if moral facts have no practical implications. — Michael

Why would there be a motivation to believe empirical facts that are of no practical consequence?

I just take note of typical grifty tactics, like narrative shifting, and as the list grows my trust shrinks. — Tzeentch

So, for you it's all a matter of trust or lack of it, not a matter of exercising your critical intelligence?

Yes, and it's an unjustified generalization to say that models are always wrong in any case.