(August 29, 2014 at 12:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(August 29, 2014 at 12:02 pm)Ben Davis Wrote: Reality would exist irrespective of our ability to experience it. We know this because we've been able to demonstrate mechanisms which work irrespective of the existence of experience.

Really? I think we should slam on the brakes right here, and you can explain how we demonstrate things without the necessity of them being experienced.

That's really the core problem with the issue. Reality apart from our experience is to my mind a pretty meaningless concept. We can say something likely exists, but that's it. It's as unknowable as God is.

(August 29, 2014 at 2:22 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: What can be inferred is that an external object exists which makes an impression on your mind, which to your sensations appear be the constituents that you have conceptualized as a "desk." The nature of that object as it really exists, however, apart from its relation to your human experience of it, remains unknowable.

At this point I ask myself, about what kind of knowledge are we talking. What part of the object remains unknowable that could not conceivably be known? Sure no one can know a body (physical object) in all its fullness at one time. People are not omniscient, but people can learn. This type of knowledge, about the nature of bodies that are subject to change, is always tentative and uncertain.

However, anyone can learn by experience that similarities between some bodies comes from their shared participation with non-physical attributes, like 'unity' and 'extension'. This type of knowledge, because it is based on things that do not change, forms and/or categories, is both definitive and certain.

(August 29, 2014 at 12:19 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(August 29, 2014 at 6:11 am)pocaracas Wrote: Aye... neither is the mind as an independent entity from the physical brain.

We just don't know really. I'm not saying I think a mind can exist independent of physical properties, as in floating along in a vacuum of some sort, but that they may be interdependent on one another in ways a that purely physical analysis of matter and energy cannot account for, I think that is at least an open possibility until further loose threads are more tightly bound together.

Quote:Actually, if any of these views is to be properly explained by any model of physics, the emergent mind seems to be the only possibility.

Perhaps, but then is there a universal law of nature that says "when matter and energy configure into X, you get mind?" How fundamental to the Cosmos is this law?

I think you'll find there are many different X's that will fit the bill, at least 7 billion on this planet.

I think the brain is far more complex than we can account for.... and the way it works is even more complex...
Actually measuring all those inner workings might very well be impossible without killing the subject, so our best way to try to understand them is by postulating something and implementing that in a computer model, like has been done with ANNs... clearly insufficient to solve the problem, but apparently one step in the right direction.

(August 29, 2014 at 9:55 am)bennyboy Wrote:

Quote:Did you miss the part about people are working on it? Do not conflate "haven't shown" with "cannot show."

Either something has been shown, or it has not been. You don't get to write a raincheck, even (especially?) in the name of science, because "yet" is a statement of faith-- Scientism rather than science. You only get to say "we're working on it" when the conclusion is only a function of time-- for example, if you say, "We haven't finished mapping the genome of this particular species of butterfly yet, but we should be finished sometime early next year."

Have you ever done research? If you had, you would know that it is nearly impossible to put a time constraint on when something will be discovered. Plus, science has a very good track of always discovering something about a topic in the future.

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Quote:On a seperate note, another requirement of a good model is that it has to be falsifiable. What test can be done where the results would be inconsistent with idealistic monism?

I'd start with the inclusion of mind in physical formulas, with physical descriptions which adequately describe what mind is, with concrete criteria which can be used to establish whether any given physical system does or does not experience, and with an even halfway-plausible mechanical description of subjective experience.

Wow, that is a long sentence with pleanty of conditions that effectively don't answer the question. I'm impressed.

I'll give you the physical monism answer so that you might have a better idea of what I'm asking. Physical monism can be falsified if there is an observations that cannot be linked back to physical processes. Good examples would be: telekinesis, telepathy, or any other physic powers. Also, mind over matter phenomena like a hologram existing outside of the holodeck as depicted on a Star Trek episode.

The existence of a mind is not such an example, because we have never seen a mind existing outside of a physical brain. Due to the complexity of the brain (~1E11 neurons in the brain with ~7000 connections per neuron), mapping it is extremely difficult with our current technology; hense, progress on discovering how the human brain works has been slow. Other observations have linked the mind and brains as well like the drugs that affect neural passage ways and their affect on the mind, and physical damage to neurons and their affect on the mind. With all these observations, it is likely that the complexity of the neurons and their connections give rise to a mind.

P.S. My definition of the mind is 'the faculty of consciousness and thought.' Please inform me if this definition is unsatisfactory for some reason. Otherwise, I will assume we are using this definition.

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Pickup_shonuff Wrote:(My apologies in advance if you find my self-injection into your guys' conversation obnoxious--which I am enjoying immensely by the way).

By all means join in on the fun. It looks like pocaracas and Rhythm want to be your sparting partners.

(August 29, 2014 at 1:32 pm)Surgenator Wrote: I'll give you the physical monism answer so that you might have a better idea of what I'm asking. Physical monism can be falsified if there is an observations that cannot be linked back to physical processes. Good examples would be: telekinesis, telepathy, or any other physic powers. Also, mind over matter phenomena like a hologram existing outside of the holodeck as depicted on a Star Trek episode.

The existence of a mind is not such an example, because we have never seen a mind existing outside of a physical brain.

A physical brain? I wonder why you felt the need to qualify the word "brain" in this way?

You and Ben Davis seem insistent on equating idealism with a refusal to accept that the brain is a real thing. However, I've had some experience with the brain via textbooks and neuropsychology classes, as well as seeing brains in TV documentaries. The brain is a coherent part of my experience, as much as it is of yours. What you haven't asked, and should have, is this: is the framework in which the brain resides really a physical monism, or is this view of things a symbolic representation? Do the neurons in the brain exist as more than an idea? How about the atoms? How about the QM particles?

What's the difference between a gazillion QM particles vibrating in space and a brain? I'll tell you-- it's a concept imposed on collections of particles by a mind which experiences life symbolically. Without a mind to make that categorization, there's no such thing as a brain.

Quote:
P.S. My definition of the mind is 'the faculty of consciousness and thought.' Please inform me if this definition is unsatisfactory for some reason. Otherwise, I will assume we are using this definition.

Mind: the subjective experience of the interaction of ideas and percepts.

(August 29, 2014 at 1:18 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: At this point I ask myself, about what kind of knowledge are we talking. What part of the object remains unknowable that could not conceivably be known?

This makes me think back, perhaps ironically, to my favorite chapter of The God Delusion in which Dawkins' writes:

"'Really' isn't a word we should use with simple confidence... 'Really,' for an animal, is whatever its brain needs it to be, in order to assist its survival. And because different species live in such different worlds, there will be a troubling variety of 'reallys.' What we see of the real world is not the unvarnished real world but a model of the real world, regulated and adjusted by sense data--a model that is constructed so that it is useful for dealing with the real world.The nature of that model depends on the kind of animal we are."

Although Dawkins concludes the chapter with the statements, "I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding... we may eventually discover that there are no limits," I think he in fact eloquently outlined that there are unbreakable limits: that we are human, and can only experience a human model of the world. So, to answer your question, "What kind of knowledge are we talking?" My answer: knowledge of the "unvarnished real world," that unregulated domain that is free from the adjustments that our brain has made, our conception of "physical brains" also being a part of that "model" that the brain has somehow, almost paradoxically, itself created.

Quote:However, anyone can learn by experience that similarities between some bodies comes from their shared participation with non-physical attributes, like 'unity' and 'extension'. This type of knowledge, because it is based on things that do not change, forms and/or categories, is both definitive and certain.

True, but those categories are only useful for the world of experience, which is only to say, I don't see how it could be possible for metaphysics to aid us in an ultimately fruitless search of the Truth (with a capital T) of the origins of our physical existence. (That's a lot of "ofs" there...Sheesh. And I'm not really down with being so pessimistic...so if anyone has a solution out of this knot I have tied myself in, feel free to cut it loose!)

(August 29, 2014 at 2:20 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(August 29, 2014 at 1:32 pm)Surgenator Wrote: ]
P.S. My definition of the mind is 'the faculty of consciousness and thought.' Please inform me if this definition is unsatisfactory for some reason. Otherwise, I will assume we are using this definition.

Mind: the subjective experience of the interaction of ideas and percepts.

So we are using different definitions of mind. It's funny how you define the mind that only makes sense in your world view, and not in any world view like my definition. No wonder we're arguing in circles.

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(August 29, 2014 at 1:32 pm)Surgenator Wrote: I'll give you the physical monism answer so that you might have a better idea of what I'm asking. Physical monism can be falsified if there is an observations that cannot be linked back to physical processes. Good examples would be: telekinesis, telepathy, or any other physic powers. Also, mind over matter phenomena like a hologram existing outside of the holodeck as depicted on a Star Trek episode.

The existence of a mind is not such an example, because we have never seen a mind existing outside of a physical brain.

A physical brain? I wonder why you felt the need to qualify the word "brain" in this way?

Fine, a physical(-like) brain. Happy now.

Quote:What you haven't asked, and should have, is this: is the framework in which the brain resides really a physical monism, or is this view of things a symbolic representation? Do the neurons in the brain exist as more than an idea? How about the atoms? How about the QM particles?

I'm not sure why your asking me these questions. You already know what I'm going to say. The framework is really represents physical monism. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Quote:What's the difference between a gazillion QM particles vibrating in space and a brain?

The types and their arrangement.

I noticed that you didn't provide a better answer to my question on falsifiability. I provided the observations that would disprove mine. Where is yours?

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Just to make sure. this is my definition of reality: "the world or the state of things as they actually exist." Please provide yours.

(August 29, 2014 at 6:49 pm)Surgenator Wrote: So we are using different definitions of mind. It's funny how you define the mind that only makes sense in your world view, and not in any world view like my definition. No wonder we're arguing in circles.

I find physicalists strangely jealous of the duelist or idealist vocabulary. We already have sufficient words to describe the physicalist model: brain function, interaction, data processing, input/output, etc. Why is it that the physical position so eagerly attempts to make words objective that are specifically intended to talk about the subjectve?

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Quote:A physical brain? I wonder why you felt the need to qualify the word "brain" in this way?

Fine, a physical(-like) brain. Happy now.

No, I still don't understand what the qualifier is for. Just say "brain." I think any honest idealist will understand that by brain you refer to the pink stuff in one's head which is so intimately connected to experience.

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Quote:What you haven't asked, and should have, is this: is the framework in which the brain resides really a physical monism, or is this view of things a symbolic representation? Do the neurons in the brain exist as more than an idea? How about the atoms? How about the QM particles?

I'm not sure why your asking me these questions. You already know what I'm going to say. The framework is really represents physical monism. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Okay. So let me ask: is a desk a solid surface, or is it a gazillion particles, each unobservable by the senses, vibrating in 99.99999% space? (with the .00001% probably being pretty generous)

Quote:I noticed that you didn't provide a better answer to my question on falsifiability. I provided the observations that would disprove mine. Where is yours?

You did no such thing. You rolled out a bunch of fanciful baloney which is not coherent in any educated person's experience, and said that if that baloney were found true, you would accept it as evidence.

You also ignored my reponse by discarding it as not answering your question. So I'll repeat it: you can falsify idealism by showing that physical monism can adequately handle the fact of subjective experience, since my argument for idealism is that it is the simplest view which encompasses all of human experience. If you can do the following, you are the hands-down winner:
-establish criteria which allow one to determine whether a given system does/does not experience qualia
-demonstrate a plausible mechanism for the existence of subjective qualia in an objective physical framework
-include the fact of mind in the mechanical calculus which is supposed to encompass all of reality

Quote:

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Just to make sure. this is my definition of reality: "the world or the state of things as they actually exist." Please provide yours.

The conformity of an idea with the source of the experiences from which the idea was drawn or inferred.

I can even provide a definition of physical reality to assist you with YOUR model: "Locatable, at least theoretically, in time and space." Want to guess what % of QM particles meet this definition?

(August 29, 2014 at 7:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I can even provide a definition of physical reality to assist you with YOUR model: "Locatable, at least theoretically, in time and space." Want to guess what % of QM particles meet this definition?

Depends on how accurate you want be :p

(August 29, 2014 at 12:19 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Rhythm, your children do not have toys that have "personal feelings" or "sensuous experiences." If they do, you'd better make sure your children treat them with the utmost respect and care!

Of course they do, but not because toys are so advanced as to adequately emulate human beings - more because (and I guarantee you this) you wont be able to tell me what a "personal feeling" or "sensuous experience" -is- that does not also apply to some sort of machine logic/language/architecture (bet I could map either to a pocket calculator, btw).

The "just different" explanation is, honestly, implied in your response. You've written off machines before we even begin.

(they treat them like shit, of course. Daddy appreciates...but that's because daddy had to play with balsa airplanes and milk duds sailboats when he was their age)

I'm watching yall turn this into a circlejerk of assumptions and useless claims. It bothers me. We have practical, observable, quantifiable systems that can offer insight. We have practical, observable, quantifiable experiments involving "mind" and brain (and our ability to manipulate one by manipulating the other, etc). It's almost like we have to avoid them because they're "diseased".

For Benny-

Quote:What's the difference between a gazillion QM particles vibrating in space and a brain? I'll tell you-- it's a concept imposed on collections of particles by a mind which experiences life symbolically. Without a mind to make that categorization, there's no such thing as a brain.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around....... Brains exist, they existed even when "minds" did not. The particulars of what they may be- and how they might possibly operate, well - that's a little bit shaky eh? Lets not confuse the boxes that we can draw conceptually with physical lines in the biological sand, eh?