Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[Gemini]

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I believe the tenacity of materialism/physicalism has very little to do with sound metaphysics or contemporary scientific confirmation; but rather, the lingering influence of post-Enlightenment industrial culture. In Western societies, people habitually rely on the metaphors of machine production and interchangeable parts to make sense of themselves and the world around them.

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I think the argument from explanatory success and a tendency toward empiricist epistemology have more to do with the prevalence of mind/body physicalism here. The machine metaphor is obviously outdated to any one with a passing familiarity with contemporary cognitive and neuroscience.

[bennyboy]

@OP (sorry if I missed a couple pages of chat)


To be frank, I don't think the science of mind is really science at all. Science is a process of physical observation, collecting information, and drawing inferences into theory. However, the science of mind faces a REALLY nasty problem-- you can't observe mind. The solution? Say mind is brain function, and then observe the shit out of the brain. But this obviously begs the question in a particularly unprofessional way. It would be akin to saying, "We all know that God is the Sun, so when we study it, we are studying the sun." The "science of mind" is really the "science of correlates I've already decided to accept as mind." It's not useful, for example, in determining whether a non-organic-brain system does/doesn't have the ability to experience the Universe via qualia.

Theories like information theory, etc., I consider as PHILOSOPHICAL positions, rather than scientific ones.

[Neo-Scholastic]

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I believe the tenacity of materialism/physicalism has very little to do with sound metaphysics or contemporary scientific confirmation; but rather, the lingering influence of post-Enlightenment industrial culture. In Western societies, people habitually rely on the metaphors of machine production and interchangeable parts to make sense of themselves and the world around them.

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I think the argument from explanatory success and a tendency toward empiricist epistemology have more to do with the prevalence of mind/body physicalism here. The machine metaphor is obviously outdated to any one with a passing familiarity with contemporary cognitive and neuroscience.

The theoretical models work until they don't. Newtonian physics is extraordinarily successful for ordinary scales. Nevertheless it doesn't tell the whole story at extremely small and extremely large scales. Nearly all the materialist/physicalist theories of mind are based on 18th century physics and they haven't delivered. That approach has been a dismal failure for well over 100 years and yet the various proponents of materialist/physicalist monism continue to issue the promissory note that a solution will be forth-coming...someday, maybe. I would note that idealistic monism suffers from a similar problem in reverse.

[The Grand Nudger]

 Nearly all the materialist/physicalist theories of mind are based on 18th century physics and they haven't delivered.

What on earth are you talking about?  We didn't even have a working hypothesis of mind until the 50's.  When we realized that a certain type of machine could solve abstract problems.  It wasn't fleshed out until the 60's and 70..when it enjoyed immense success, and is only now in competition with sub-branches of it's -own- working assumptions. It's been delivering the entire time.

[Whateverist]

Yes, we know.....because, apparently, a dead body isn't still us.  Meanwhile, in the real world, they very much appear to be the same. I saw my dad on a slab years ago.  It was my dad.  I don't know what else to tell you.

I am sorry for your loss. I personally haven't lost anyone very close to me.
Rhythm, I'm trying to illustrate a point, other than we are not the body. We are who we are. You are the person who is your father's son. You know your father better than anyone, probably. Your father is much more than 100kg of flesh and bone on a slab. We all are meatbags so to speak, we know that, but then what? Ending the conversation and the point where we are biological creatures with biological functions inhibits real research. The experience of life is not a biology text book.

All the persons I've ever met were living meat bags.  All the dead persons I've encountered were just rotting meat bags.  Have you yourself encountered a person not associated with his or her own meat bag?  Because I haven't.  

This sort of attempt at suggesting that meatbags are extraneous to the person experience has never really gotten off the ground here.  I can only imagine you're trying to make room for an immortal soul.  What you believe is entirely up to you but I haven't heard any rational argument for anyone agreeing with that who isn't already motivated to find room for the same.  Backward looking rationalizations aren't enough to push the cart forward for the rest of us.

[bennyboy]

 Nearly all the materialist/physicalist theories of mind are based on 18th century physics and they haven't delivered.

What on earth are you talking about?  We didn't even have a working hypothesis of mind until the 50's.  When we realized that a certain type of machine could solve abstract problems.  It wasn't fleshed out until the 60's and 70..when it enjoyed immense success, and is only now in competition with sub-branches of it's -own- working assumptions.  It's been delivering the entire time.

Ru-heally?  Tell us about this immense success, and how it delivers.  Tell us, for example, how it even determines WHETHER something has a mind, without making goofy question-begging definitions like "Mind is calculation" or something like that.

[The Grand Nudger]

You can tell yourself.  If it didn't exist you wouldn't have anything to object to, lol. This is more of the usual gap making for gap filling. It's not like we haven't learned a single fucking thing about our minds or brains in 50 years, now is it?

[Tangra]

I am sorry for your loss. I personally haven't lost anyone very close to me.
Rhythm, I'm trying to illustrate a point, other than we are not the body. We are who we are. You are the person who is your father's son. You know your father better than anyone, probably. Your father is much more than 100kg of flesh and bone on a slab. We all are meatbags so to speak, we know that, but then what? Ending the conversation and the point where we are biological creatures with biological functions inhibits real research. The experience of life is not a biology text book.

All the persons I've ever met were living meat bags.  All the dead persons I've encountered were just rotting meat bags.  Have you yourself encountered a person not associated with his or her own meat bag?  Because I haven't.  

This sort of attempt at suggesting that meatbags are extraneous to the person experience has never really gotten off the ground here.  I can only imagine you're trying to make room for an immortal soul.  What you believe is entirely up to you but I haven't heard any rational argument for anyone agreeing with that who isn't already motivated to find room for the same.  Backward looking rationalizations aren't enough to push the cart forward for the rest of us.

I never said anything about a soul.

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It doesn't really matter what I believe. Each post on this thread belongs to its owner. What I am curious to is why everyone is so bent out of shape? After all, we are here to share ideas, no?

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The only argument I've made - which we can't seem to get past - is that knowledge and experience of the world are not necessarily synonymous with the human body.

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And I can prove it.

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[bennyboy]

You can tell yourself.  If it didn't exist you wouldn't have anything to object to, lol.  This is more of the usual gap making for gap filling.  It's not like we haven't learned a single fucking thing about our minds or brains in 50 years, now is it?

Wait a minute, now, we were talking about hypotheses or theories of mind, not the description of neural correlates to mental experience.  You claimed that a theory of mind "wasn't fleshed out until the 60's and 70..when it enjoyed immense success, and is only now in competition with sub-branches of it's -own- working assumptions.  It's been delivering the entire time."

I don't think any theory of mind enjoys that status, and I'd like you to explain why you think it does.  And you can start by explaining how those theories identify what physical systems are or are not capable of subjective experience.


See, here's the thing. Science requires observations, and you cannot observe subjective experiences. You can only observe correlates to subjective experience, and this requires a question-begging assumption. There really is no way to dispute this, unless you redefine terms so that correlates ARE mind-- which is exactly what you do.

But I can redefine anything as anything else, and will have the same problem you do-- that there was still something there in the first place that people had a real interest in, and since you've stolen their word, you've really only posed a minor inconvenience-- how to talk about the thing they've been talking about for thousands of years. So if I say that "apple" means "red," and insist that every time I see something red, it's an apple by definition, then what happens next? Trees will still produce the same juicy red fruit, and people will still use actual apples in their pie, and will not accept ketchup in their discussions about apple pie.

I'm interested in ACTUAL mind-- that is, the experience I have of sensations and ideas. And until you can demonstrate how material functions arrive at that state-- and I mean even a PLAUSIBLE mechanism, nevermind a "fleshed out" theory, then you're really just refusing to engage in a discussion about the thing I'm talking about.

[The Grand Nudger]

You can tell yourself.  If it didn't exist you wouldn't have anything to object to, lol.  This is more of the usual gap making for gap filling.  It's not like we haven't learned a single fucking thing about our minds or brains in 50 years, now is it?

Wait a minute, now, we were talking about hypotheses or theories of mind, not the description of neural correlates to mental experience.

That -is- a hypothesis of mind......

You claimed that a theory of mind "wasn't fleshed out until the 60's and 70..when it enjoyed immense success, and is only now in competition with sub-branches of it's -own- working assumptions.  It's been delivering the entire time."

I don't think any theory of mind enjoys that status, and I'd like you to explain why you think it does.

There -is- no theory of mind.  Nevertheless, the hypothesis have been producing results.  

And you can start by explaining how those theories identify what physical systems are or are not capable of subjective experience.

The same way you've determined whether or not I'm capable of subjective experience.  I don't even know why you repeat this so often.  Trying to explain the existence of subjective experience automatically assumes that such a thing exists.  Candidates are hardly a problem.  You're one, I'm one...we're all candidates.  Whatever difficulties we have in establishing whether or not, say cats or moths have it...aren't relevant or informative as to those examples we do have and wish to explain.  

See, here's the thing.  Science requires observations, and you cannot observe subjective experiences.  You can only observe correlates to subjective experience, and this requires a question-begging assumption.  There really is no way to dispute this, unless you redefine terms so that correlates ARE mind-- which is exactly what you do.  

Yeah yeah yeah, the science isn't science.  More gap creation.  

But I can redefine anything as anything else, and will have the same problem you do-- that there was still something there in the first place that people had a real interest in, and since you've stolen their word, you've really only posed a minor inconvenience-- how to talk about the thing they've been talking about for thousands of years.

People have been talking about all manner of silly shit for thousands of years.  In their case, it's understandable.  In our case, it would be unforgivable.  

So if I say that "apple" means "red," and insist that every time I see something red, it's an apple by definition, then what happens next?

I;m not sure you mean by "what happens then".  You've already translated the term for me from your language to mine.  

Trees will still produce the same juicy red fruit, and people will still use actual apples in their pie, and will not accept ketchup in their discussions about apple pie.

Well of course. Cat and gato are the same thing too....wonder of wonders.

I'm interested in ACTUAL mind-- that is, the experience I have of sensations and ideas.  And until you can demonstrate how material functions arrive at that state-- and I mean even a PLAUSIBLE mechanism, nevermind a "fleshed out" theory, then you're really just refusing to engage in a discussion about the thing I'm talking about.

I'd only offer the science that isn't science.  I hardly see the point. After pages and pages across threads and years now....it's a little bit idiotic to claim that I refuse to engage you on the subject.