Is there anyone left here that does?
The Tyranny of Physicalism: You’re Either a God or a Goofball
- Thread starter Bucky
- Start date
Is there anyone left here that does?
Bucky
Member
As usual it's the problem of consciousness.
Strict physicalism says matter (whatever that is) is the only stuff necessary to explain mind. A less strict definition is one that doesn't exclude consciousness being an intrinsic property of matter, technically panpsychism, but I suspect it will be materialism 3.0.
Agreed.
But how does physicalism gets away with claiming to be monistic where there's no plausible candidate for the ontological substance?
Point particles aren't made of other stuff, they are what they are... so how is this reconciled with the necessity for an irreducible ingredient of everything?
And should we find the primordial "strings" (or whatever label you want to use) that make up every particle, how is this supposed to help with the impenetrable problem of 1st person experience?
Once you are cornered in that intellectual box you're only left with Dennet's gambit. Which is in poppycock, to be a gentleman.
The trees in your yard are in mind (at large) not outside of it.
By the way, I think you already had this discussion with Kastrup in this very forum.
And yet some propose supernatural solutions to the quantum enigma (MWI) and are even ready to drop falsifiability tout court, with the argument that that's the only "proper" solution to the mystery.
It badly hides the kind of desperation in which this type of thinking is cornered into...
Bucky
Member
Maybe herself? :)
No one thinks the models are complete. The title of the article is "The Tyranny of Physicalism." I don't think he did a good job of convincing me that there is something in the non-physical or supernatural that we are missing or, more importantly, that we will miss in principle. But if all I'm supposed to take from the article is that we shouldn't get too impressed with our own accomplishments, I have no argument.
~~Paul
He is venting, I don't think that he was particularly interested in convincing the skeptics, just trying to point out what he perceives as a fallacy.
Say we discover the mindon or the consciousness field. Does it then matter whether we say we still have physicalism or now have something else? I don't see how it really matters.
I don't think physicalism claims that there is only one fundamental substance. It just claims the the category of the physical exhausts everything there is. Likewise, I don't see how idealism can claim there is only one fundamental thing, either. The only way we get away with saying "mind" is everything is by no further attempt to explain how things work.
What is the Dennett gambit?
I've had it many times. It always requires that we admit there is something we don't experience. Then we have to make the just-so claim that that thing is mental, even though we have no mental experience with which to make the analogy.
But you don't see anyone stopping there, do you?
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9510007
~~Paul
Bucky
Member
Seems like you're proposing that idealism and physicalism could be one and the same.
How so? The proposed ontological primitives are very different.
Monism is characterized by one irreducible substance. Not an undefined category of unspecified stuff.
The more we try to pin down what materialism is the more it slips away like a wet soap bar :)
Well that's the same as saying that an electron is a point particle. It's not that it explains what it is really. If all is made of point particles we'd have the same problem. We can't further explain.
From you, that's rich.
Eliminativism about Qualia. It's an argument that can only convince it's proponents :)
Interesting that you propose controversial theories, for a change :D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-...ve_properties_and_possible_experimental_tests
There are so many problems with MWI that one wouldn't even know where to begin... I mean, compared to this, Morphic Fields are a done deal. But I appreciate the materialist effort to defend the beloved metaphysics.
Wanna make a bet? Should the experiment give some positive results we'd be able to find an alternative explanations (or rather, interpretation) that doesn't need a gazillion new universes to be generated every femtosecond. Occam and parsimony are still valued in scientific inquiry, right?
Our wishy-washy proposals sound different now. Let's see what happens when we have a complete understanding of how things work. Maybe the result will sound physical or mental, or maybe it will sound like something else.
I don't think so.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
I'm not asking for idealism to explain what the ideal "really is." But I am asking for an explanation with rich details about how things work, in the scientific sense. For example, why are the trees in my yard consistent from one viewing to the next?
Even if Dennett is an eliminativist, eliminativism is not what some people think it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism
Dennett says that once we understand qualia, they won't be anything like our common sense assumptions about them. That is not complete elimination.
This summary is much too simplistic. If physicists test hypotheses about MWI, then they are doing science. Perhaps they will find that MWI fails. Meanwhile, Sheldrake better do the same thing: Propose hypotheses and test them. So far not much is going on with this. In fact, one by one he must admit that we don't need morphic fields for various mysteries. It's a done deal only if you like "There are some things we don't understand, so let's be impatient and plug the holes with morphic fields."
Make a bet that MWI is the correct interpretation of QM? I like it, but not enough to bet on it. And I'd watch the Occam gambit. Either we have multiple worlds or there has to be a mechanism to prevent them. Which is more parsimonious?
~~Paul
Last edited:
Bucky
Member
Please elaborate your thought instead of throwing book-length links that won't elucidate what you have in mind.
The explanations that our sciences offer for why trees feel solid and consistent over time is not at odds with idealism. I am not sure why you're expecting an alternative science?
If we're going to reply by throwing links around...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained
(I have already posted this somewhere else)
The "synopsis" section should suffice.
Perhaps the various phenomena that conspire to create the sense of a single mysterious phenomenon have no more ultimate or essential unity than the various phenomena that contribute to the sense that love is a simple thing.
Unfortunately the parallel between consciousness and love is just a terrible argument, as there is really nothing else we can compare the former to.
Love or fear or any other emotion presupposes consciousness.
I have no idea how you can think of eliminating consciousness. But I understand the need to force it somehow in the materialistic framework.
Partial elimination? That doesn't sound wishy-washy! :D :D
You gave me a good laugh :)
There's vastly more evidence for morphic fields than the literally non-existent support for MWI. The fact you may not know about it is a different business, although it sounds like your usual passive-aggressive tactic.
You must despise theoretical physics! :D
We plug holes all the times: dark energy and matter, string theory, quantum loop gravity, MWI, super symmetry, M-theory ... in fact most of our knowledge, regardless of the field, is filled with plugged holes!
If you don't have an idea for how a certain problem could be solved you will never find a direction to investigate it.
A monism requires that all the fundamentals are of one "class" or "type," not that there be only one fundamental.
What maintains the trees when no one is looking at them? Some sort of universal "background" consciousness? If so, we need an explanation of it, don't we?
He is eliminating the unity of consciousness, not consciousness.
Perhaps it's a bad analogy, but meanwhile he is not eliminating consciousness.
I'm not eliminating consciousness. I'm proposing that it is not a single, wholistic thing. Instead, it's a set of processes with a veneer that makes them appear unitary.
So now some links are in order. Point me to two or three papers with the great evidence for morphic fields. In particular, it would be cool to learn that someone has actually found evidence for the field.
We already had this conversation. If that's all physicists did, then Sheldrake would be a physicist. But physicists don't stop there. And they acknowledge your theory-of-the-gaps concern, which is why the string- and M-theorists get beaten up mercilessly. I have no problem with Sheldrake making a proposal and then pursuing it.
I did not say that morphic fields aren't an idea.
~~Paul
Bucky
Member
So physicalism posits that there only exists physical stuff made of physical stuff.
Will it also stop chasing its tail at some point?
It seems you're referring to 18th century idealism.
Once again Kastrup has addressed the problem several times. I am not his spokesperson though, so you'd better read his material instead of reiterating the same questions like a stubborn infant with an hearing problem.
If you need to refresh your memory, this is a succinct argumentation, although older than his latest book, where I find it's better articulated.
(already written elsewhere)
In his exposition of the "Cartesian Theater" he states that consciousness must be made of lesser agencies that are distributed in the brain and are themselves not conscious. [1]
How does this work?
He then goes on for 20 minutes blabbing about magicians, magic tricks and illusions, none of which address the problem of non conscious bits creating an "illusion of consciousness", which in itself is also a contradiction in terms.
Right.
He's created an even bigger problem than the one he was trying to solve. How unconscious bits can illude a non-existing, non-conscious subject of being conscious.
It's not even a rational argument.
http://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance
End of page
No, but you said we don't need morphic resonance. To which I've replied that maybe we don't need theoretical physics too, by the same line of reasoning...
But in fact we need theories to explain phenomena we observe but don't full comprehend.
So I don't see why a double standard should be used.
cheers
How is this different from any other monism?
He has not addressed this issue. We had a long conversation about it and it remains an issue. You have to assert that there is some kind of nonconscious mechanism keeping things consistent, yet you have no evidence for that consciousness nor can you use human consciousness as an analogy.
"None of this requires that there be another mind ... visionary experiences are simply contents of consciousness that are generated by a segment of consciousness that we do not identify with."
Possibly, but all we can do is assume so.
"It only requires that that segment is able to maintain the state of the storyline. That this is possible ... is known empirically from the examples I just mentioned."
What he mentioned are things like dream continuity and schizophrenic long-term hallucinations. However, he is begging the question if he assumes that these continuities are due to nonconscious mind.
I don't know how it works, but that does not mean it's eliminated.
Now you are reverting to the Hard Problem. We agree that we do not know how consciousness is brain function.
There is only one study there, from 1992. Sheldrake has to get moving.
Comparing morphic resonance to all of theoretical physics is absurd, especially since morphic resonance is physics. You might compare it to M-theory, but M-theorists receive their fare share of crap for not having experiments to decide whether the theory is correct. Also, the amount of work on the two hypotheses is completely different. Sheldrake needs to push his hypothesis along.
I'm not suggesting that Sheldrake stop. On the contrary, he needs to keep moving.
~~Paul
No good thread on consciousness is complete without a superficial analysis of Dennett.
~~Paul
Bertha Huse
New
Why don't you two just refer each other back to your own comments in previous threads where this same debate has taken place at least a thousand times?
Jerks.
"Superficial" would be to imply that he looks like an embittered version of Santa (which he does, BTW). This leans towards "pointless".
Max_B
Member
There's no physical/objective state until we measure/observe.
Bucky
Member
It seems ill-defined.
With an elusive, ever changing defintion of physical stuff. I guess this drives philosopers nuts :) Personally I don't care.
Are you saying there is no evidence for mind-at-large, the fundamental substance in idealism?
How is this different from materialism postulating an ultimately unknowable stuff outside the reach of consciousness?
Ontologies require a fundamental assumption which then is verified against the rest of our experience and knowledge. Hopefully you undestand that most of the available ontologies are equally compatible with our current understanding of reality. Materialism is actually the most difficult one to endorse from a purely rational standpoint, given its fundamental limitations.
If there's one thing Kastrup has done very effectively in his writings is pointing out the physicalists' fallacies and deflate their hubris.
Also, idealism seems a good candidate for a more pasimonoious and elegant way to make sense of the reality we experience and investigate, although I don't have a preferred solution. "Mysterianism" is probably the type of "ism" that I would subscribe to :D
Ironically you need to be conscious to come up with such a stupid idea :D
It's not that consciousness and it's hard problem are such separate things!
But of course, for morbid reductionst there can be a huge difference...
But for any other issues in the physicalist camp promissory notes are more than sufficient... good to see double standards never go out of fashion :)
(By the way, there's actually quite a lot of evidence from already existing experiments with crystals, plants, animals and even galaxies that support MF hypothesis)
Last edited: