And here we have the problem. All what we know via science can be known by any subject, not a particular one. However, 'experience(s)' have a degree of 'privateness' that has no analogy in whatever physical property we can think of. — boundless

I'm not grasping what you see as a problem for physicalism here.

My neurons are not interconnected with your neurons, so what experience the activity of your neurons results in for you is not something neurally accessible within my brain. Thus privacy. What am I missing?

But physicalism can't explain the existence of the experiences in the first place. — Patterner

It's not as if any other philosophy of mind can provide more than handwaving by way of explanation, so I'm not seeing how this amounts to more than advancing an argument from incredulity against physicalism.

The fact is, there is a lot of science explaining many aspects of our conscious experience.

For example consider the case of yourself listening to music in the sensory deprivation tank, as compared to an identica! version of you with the exception of a heightened cannabinoid level in your blood. The two versions of you would have different experiences, and this is most parsimoniously explained by the difference in physical constitution of stoned you vs unstoned you.

The fact that there is no comprehensive scientific explanation for your consciousness is hardly surprising, given the fact that it's not currently technologically feasible to gather more than a tiny subset of the physical facts about your brain.

Why are what amounts to hugely complex physical interactions of physical particles not merely physical events? How are they also events that are not described by the knowledge of any degree of detail regarding the physical events? — Patterner

Again, no one has a large degree of detail about the physical events occurring in our brains. Even if it were technologically feasible to acquire all of the significant details, human minds aren't up to the task of understanding the significance of such a mountain of physical details.

Is your idea that, if I knew your brain's unique physical structures in all possible detail, I would be able to experience your experience? — Patterner

No. You would need to 'have my brain' (and other physiological details, such as sense organs) in order to 'experience my experience'. Clearly not a possibility, but it is not a problem for physicalism that we don't have the experiences that result from brains other than our own.

Regarding 1st and 3rd person, there is no amount of information and knowledge that can make me have your experience. Even if we experience the exact same event, at the exact same time, from the exact same view (impossible for some events, though something like a sound introduced into identical sense-depravation tanks might be as good as), I cannot have your experience. Because there's something about subjective experience other than all the physical facts. — Patterner

It seems that you are ignoring an important subset of relevant physical facts, and that is the unique physical structures of each of our brains. So your conclusion, ("there's something about subjective experience other than all the physical facts") is dependent on ignoring important subsets of all the physical facts - the unique physical facts about each of our brains.

:up: :up:

Or the intelligent designers and evolutionary guides were sons of bitches who knew damn well they were putting bad code in the Big Plan. — BC

:up:

Though, to take the idea of panspermia somewhat more seriously...

Suppose humanity, 1000 years from now, were to embark on a project to seed biologically engineered life around other stars. It seems reasonable to think that any such seeding would amount to some sort of single celled organisms being fired into other star systems. I don't think such future biological engineers could be responsible for multicellular life that resulted. It would be too much of a crap shoot.

So individual human lives being a crap shoot doesn't seem incompatible with panspermia.

Some people clearly know more about why things behave as they do, than do other people.
— wonderer1

How so? — Metaphysician Undercover

Some people develop areas of expertise, e.g. auto mechanics and MDs.

What would be the point of me offering up a theory, when I readily accept as fact, that me, nor any other human being, has even the vaguest idea, or any sort of knowledge at all, concerning why things behave the way that they do. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you really think that is an accurate claim about yourself? Or do you recognize that an MD is apt to know more than most people, about why your body behaves the way it does?

Isn't it just sufficient to say that human beings simply do not know why things behave the way that they do? — Metaphysician Undercover

It seems pretty silly to me to think about the subject in such a black and white way. Some people clearly know more about why things behave as they do, than do other people.

I do agree he is correct as to the "if one planetary body, no matter how minute or seemingly insignificant is removed, great disarray and unrest would follow" claim. — Outlander

So we better not send anything from the Earth to the Moon or to Mars and leave it there, because doing so would result in the solar system flying apart.

Oh wait, we're doomed.

We are not limited to nature or by nature. We use science to know the rules and break the rules. :lol: — Athena

I disagree about the breaking the rules part. I'd say we use science to learn the rules, and learn what can be accomplished by doing things in accordance with the rules.

Have you looked into quantum computers?
— Athena

I've read up on them. Currently, they don't actually exist, and there is still some skepticism that they will operate as intended. — Wayfarer

Actually they do exist. For example, a quantum processor developed by Google is discussed here: https://www.tum.de/en/news-and-events/all-news/press-releases/details/exotic-phase-of-matter-realized-on-a-quantum-processor

You say universals “exist immanently as constituents of states of affairs.” But what does that really mean? If I say “this apple is larger than that plum,” the 'larger than relation' is not something you can isolate in either piece of fruit. It’s not inherent in either object, but grasped by an intellect making the comparison. — Wayfarer

It's not that hard. Just recognize that the apple and the plum are aspects of the same state of affairs - a state of affairs in which the apple has a larger volume than the plum.

epistemological pragmatist — Relativist

It seems I'd never considered that phrase before.

Google's AI overview was very close to my intuitive notion of what is suggested by the phrase. Is there a definition you particularly like?

You blatantly admit that physicalism is wrong, by accepting the reality of the nonphysical. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suggest you try rereading with greater care. Accepting that it is possible that physicalism is wrong is not "admitting" that physicalism is wrong. It's just expressing a fallibilist perspective.

↪Wayfarer A tendentious "just-so" story if there ever was one! — Janus

:100:

'I think i can safely say that nobody understands quantum physics' ~ Richard Feynman — Wayfarer

You interpret that as Feynman saying that engineering is like casting magic spells?

Engineers can harness it, like magicians who know the words of power, but nobody can finally say why the spell works. — Wayfarer

:roll:

Both the conscious and subconscious minds can create a new idea. — MoK

So, since the subconscious mind is not conscious (by definition) consciousness is not required for the creation of ideas?

I'm going to bow out of this discussion now, and leave you to consider the consistency of the way you are thinking about this.

Now you've shifted the goal post, from creating new ideas, to being conscious of new ideas.

Why think consciousness of an idea is necessary for an idea to be created? Consider the experience of having an epiphany, where one becomes conscious of a new idea which developed subconsciously.

You need more than stipulations and bare assertions.

Ideas are mental events that only conscious things can perceive. Ideas, therefore, are not shared by AI. So, AI cannot create ideas. — MoK

I note that you backpeddled away from saying talking about ideas is not possible on physicalism since I think few informed people would claim that ChatGPT is incapable of talking about ideas.

So that leaves creating ideas. Why think that ChatGPT or other modern AIs can't create ideas? Do you have more than the bare assertion that AIs can't create ideas?

Ideas are another anomaly in physicalism. How could they be created by the brain? How could we talk about them? etc. — MoK

How does ChatGPT do it?

One difference is that there is not the slightest reason to take any of those possibilities seriously. They are all fantasies. "Here be dragons". — Ludwig V

:up:

Okay so you're just supporting what I said earlier. How do you know what mistakes are if not by knowing what success is. By knowing the difference. — L'éléphant

One can recognize that events aren't meeting expectations and recognize that beliefs leading to those expectations were somehow mistaken. It's not obvious to me how "knowing what success is" is necessary to knowing what mistakes are.

They are also reluctant to outright contradict the prompter, so peddlers of the most ludicrous conspiracy theories try to claim they now have a legit cite, merely because the AI was too polite to shut down their nonsense. — Mijin

:up:

I grew up in the Baptist tradition which did not accept this doctrine and took issue with it. It also rejected the notion of hell — Tom Storm

It seems Australian Baptists have a very different perspective from USian Baptists. I think many USians Baptists would likely declare the Baptist tradition you describe to be unchristian

As far as subjectivism is concerned, Kant was indeed concerned to avoid the charge of “subjective idealism,” but that’s why the Critique insists that the forms of sensibility and categories of understanding are not personal idiosyncrasies but universal structures of human cognition. — Wayfarer

Of course Kant was wrong about that. We all have unique brains and it is the regularities to the world and language use that allow our idiosyncratic brains to be (somewhat) on the same page.

Come on people. We all know what essence is. — Fire Ologist

This doesn't suggest that you are willing to consider the possibility that you (and a great many others) are misunderstanding things.

What does mind deal in, if not essential form? — Fire Ologist

The mind deals in patterns recognized by neural networks. The recognition you have, of the patterns you recognize is a characteristic of your mind rather than a recognition of something essential to things which your mind recognizes as fitting some pattern.

Of course Plato didn't have the benefit of the neuroscientific understanding that is available to us today. So it is understandable that he foisted the notion of essences on so many philosophers. You, on the other hand, have an opportunity to develop a better informed understanding.

There's a real problem with the naturalist account of human nature, which is that it doesn't or can't acknowledge the sense in which we're essentially different from other animals. — Wayfarer

That's just your strawmanning of naturalism. I could talk of all sorts of ways we are different from other animals. Language use and cultural evolution being two important factors.

have you seen the first Existential Comic?

Then we have bleak future ahead of us then. — Punshhh

To me it seems likely that improved and more widespread knowledge of our natures is the best hope humanity has for avoiding the bleakness that the denial of our natures is leading towards.

I expect we'll all just continue acting like the social primates that we are, despite efforts on the part of many to deny our nature.

But if this structure weren’t there no one would be able to determine who was who and where one person ended and another began. Also we would all know each others thoughts all the time. The whole world would just be a chaotic mess. — Punshhh

Conveniently for physicalism, the fact that we have individual brains that are not neurally interconnected with the brains of other people seems to explain this nicely.

...to say that the special pleading is not special. — Banno

:up:

For example, in our day it is commonly believed that a social reality constituted of persons is reducible to persons. So someone in our day might say that a "family" is a fiction, and all that really exists in a family are the individuals.

On that assumption the Trinity is "illogical" (precisely because it contradicts the metaphysical doctrine of (2)). But a negation of (2) is not implausible. Families are arguably multi-hypostasis realities, and not mere fictions. The "superorganism" of a beehive is another example, where the hive is more than the sum of its parts. The Trinity will be seen as possible so long as we see unities which are more than the sum of their parts as possible. The Trinity is a bit like a beehive where the hypostases are in such elegant concert that it is hard to tell where one begins and another ends, and where the bees are nonplussed about this fact. This extreme unification is precisely why Christianity holds that Trinitarian activity ad extra is not differentiable from standard monotheism. — Leontiskos

It seems notable that the analogies you use (family, superorganism) are complex. Those seem like problematic analogies, for a God that is supposedly simple.

The brain might be a kind of interface or transceiver, not the sole producer of consciousness. — Sam26

It seems to me that a serious problem for such a notion is that our conscious minds have no conscious knowledge of how to work such an interface.

Do you consciously consider which motor neurons in your brain to activate and in in what sequence, in order to type a response to this post? I'm confident that the answer is, "No.", just as you aren't aware of which sensory neurons were stimulated in what sequence in the process of reading this post.

There is a lot of automated stuff going on subconsciously, underlying our conscious interactions with the world. Where do you locate these automated processes? In the physical brain, or in a nonphysical consciousness which is treating tne brain as a transciever?

Why think consciousness can occur without such subconscious automation?

I don't think the transciever hypothesis stands up to any serious scrutiny.

Understanding that pattern recognition, arising from neural nets taking inputs from senses, can result in recognition of relations (e.g. mathematical relationships) seems like it might clear up some incompatibility issues for some.

That's interesting, but can you tell me specifically what else is needed apart from the brain in order to think or have thoughts? — punos

Well, to have a normal modern human's capacity for thinking thoughts, a lot of brains over the course of history have been needed.

Lois Lane believing Clark Kent can or cannot fly is not a property of Clark Kent. It's not a property at all. — T Clark

Not a property at all, or a property of Lois rather than a property of Clark?

The best, though most unfortunate, explanation is simply that there's never really continuity. It's an illusion. — Mijin

Why unfortunate?

Some here may find the history of investigation of the Voynich Manuscript interesting.

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex, hand-written in an unknown script referred to as Voynichese.[18] The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438). Stylistic analysis has indicated the manuscript may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance.[1][2] The origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript are still debated, but currently scholars lack the translation(s) and context needed to either properly entertain or eliminate any of the possibilities. Hypotheses range from a script for a natural language or constructed language, an unread code, cypher, or other form of cryptography, or perhaps a hoax, reference work (i.e. folkloric index or compendium), glossolalia[19] or work of fiction (e.g. science fantasy or mythopoeia, metafiction, speculative fiction).