Consciousness Trilemma

[The Grand Nudger]

In the hardest interpretation, if experience is the subjective awareness of qualia -as you've defined..then it's blisteringly easy to identify what systems have that and what don't.  None of them.  

It's obvious that I've failed to explain eliminativism, since you think it might be further elimitivism to insist that there are no discrete systems in the universe.  I'm not the engine in my car.  We are discrete systems.  That would be true regardless of what either I or my car were made of.  The only way it's not true...is if I am the engine in my car, and it;s only then that any eliminitivism would apply. As of right now, we have a concept of our selves, of minds, that explicitly invokes the engine -and- an operator. Where is the operator? Do we require more than the engine to explain the behavior? There are conditions to satisfy for eliminitivism.

We can't just pump oxygen back in because the cells are damaged.  W're not talking about an analog array capable of retaining it's states when the electricity goes off. That is, btw, one advantage that machine brains would have over ours. Pumping oxygen into a busted balloon doesn't work either, for the same reason.  Before the cells suffer that damage, pumping oxygen in -does- restore function.  That's what resuscitation is. After that damage is sustained, any restoration of function will be limited-impossible.

*eliminitive materialism suggests that the reason your explanations fall apart when you try to express them, is the insistence on the preservation of inaccurate language.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The bigger question Khem, I think, is how does the eliminative materialist justify considering some systems discrete. Where does one system begin and the other end? It seems that the eliminative position is the opposite of what you are saying, i.e. that those boundaries are illusory. Nominalism is implicit in eliminativism. Systems and objects aren't really distinct; they are just descriptions to give the semblance of intelligibility to what is actually a seamless swirl of material activity.

[The Grand Nudger]

The bigger question Khem, I think, is how does the eliminative materialist justify considering some systems discrete. Where does one system begin and the other end? It seems that the eliminative position is the opposite of what you are saying, i.e. that those boundaries are illusory. Nominalism is implicit in eliminativism. Systems and objects aren't really distinct; they are just descriptions to give the semblance of intelligibility to what is actually a seamless swirl of material activity.

The same way that any system is considered discrete by anyone.  Why I am considered to be one thing, and my cars engine is another. Two discrete, and disparate systems.  Honestly, if we have to go this far down the rabbit hole just to not-even-disagree.....I don't know what the problem is -or- for whom it's supposed to be a problem.

Am I you? Am I god? Can we make a distinction between these three things?

In any case, if our brain (part of everything.....I think you'd agree) is a seamless swirl of material activity in whatever sense you mean that (I;m not sure that anyone disagrees....?), and no discrete system of "mind" exists within it, then the hardest position of eliminitive materialism is correct by default. There is no discrete mental state of self, qualia does not and cannot map to a discrete mental state, because there is no such thing.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The bigger question Khem, I think, is how does the eliminative materialist justify considering some systems discrete. Where does one system begin and the other end? It seems that the eliminative position is the opposite of what you are saying, i.e. that those boundaries are illusory. Nominalism is implicit in eliminativism. Systems and objects aren't really distinct; they are just descriptions to give the semblance of intelligibility to what is actually a seamless swirl of material activity.

The same way that any system is considered discrete by anyone.  Why I am considered to be one thing, and my cars engine is another.  Two discrete, and disparate systems.  Honestly, if we have to go this far down the rabbit hole just to not-even-disagree.....I don't know what the problem is -or- for whom it's supposed to be a problem.

Am I you?  Am I god?  Can we make a distinction between these three things?

That's not an answer. You haven't explained why it is possible to make these kinds of distinctions (and no, it doesn't necessarily entail invoking deity). The reason, we need to go down this rabbit hole, as you call it, is because eliminativism is fundamentally incoherent. Systems are defined by their forms and purposes. When they reduce everything to only material and efficient causes then eliminativists lose the ability to speak meaningfully about systems or processes. Ultimately their claim entails that reality is not intelligible.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sorry, edit /w add points of agreement.

There is no need for an answer.  Neither the position that there are dicrete objects (or systems) or the poition that there aren;t makes a difference.  If there are, it's an issue of either possessing such a system or not.  If there aren't - moot point, no one possesses a system that does not exist.

Either it's a problem or it's not, in and of itself, but it's not a problem for the position in question either way.

[bennyboy]

It's obvious that I've failed to explain eliminativism, since you think it might be further elimitivism to insist that there are no discrete systems in the universe.  I'm not the engine in my car.  We are discrete systems.  That would be true regardless of what either I or my car were made of.

This is a good example of a view that is commonly held, but actually doesn't hold up to scrutiny, methinks. The "driving" system includes both you and the car, and the combustion system involves both you and the car as well as the environment; the propulsion involves the road and so on. Then there's a connection by gravity. There's also your connection, through DNA, to events stretching back for billions of years, interacting in perhaps complex ways with the organisms whose corpses are now in your gas tank. How sure are you that what you call discrete things aren't really so only by concept? On what basis do you take the common view that "I'm an object, the car is an object, and I'm driving the car," while expecting that other equally pragmatic understandings of how we work in the world be suspended or discarded?

And how about QM? Are you ready to give up on "illusory" concepts like "solid" and "flat" and "red," and to discard them as meaningless for that reason? Surely, they aren't represented in a literal description of material reality as we understand it today.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is a good example of a view that is commonly held, but actually doesn't hold up to scrutiny, methinks.  The "driving" system includes both you and the car, and the combustion system involves both you and the car as well as the environment; the propulsion involves the road and so on.  Then there's a connection by gravity.

How sure are you that what you call discrete things aren't really so only by concept?

As sure as you are.  This one's a sinking ship Benny.  It doesn't matter.  If there are discrete systems, do we possess such a system as described by our conscious experience?  If there are not, then qed, eliminitivism is true by default. 

And how about QM?  Are you ready to give up on "illusory" concepts like solid and flat, and to discard them as meaningful for that reason?  Surely, they aren't represented in a literal description of material reality as we understand it today.

Ah but they are.  The table -is- literally solid to a creature of your size and composition.  It;s not just tables, either, a great many things you experience as "solid" would not seem that way to other creatures. The ground beneath your feet, for example.  

We already -know- where the mental states this maps to reside, and how it is possible for them to do and be so. Area s2 of the somatosensory processes inputs from your fingertips, for example, when mechanoreceptors in your dermis send a signal to that area - which they are hard wired into.  Your fingertips are mechanical pressure plates, area s2 is the light bulb that turns on when something hits them. We can watch the whole thing happen in realtime and so it's not quite as difficult to account for as the "qualia" referenced in the same example.  You feel it, but we can see the stuff that makes all of thi happen...we just can;t seem to find the you that's feeling.  The somatosensory, for example, does not then send that processing to any central place. So....the solidity of the table as represented by the nervous system isn't even remotely illusory in the manner that eliminative materialists might consider self or qualia to be illusory. I can't walk through a wall. Why I can't walk through that wall and why my material system presents this data to me is almost unremarkable. That I "feel" the pressure, well...a little more remarkable..wouldn't you say -particularly in that my material system does not appear to be presenting this data to any "I" in the first place- . ?

You know, this whole solidity business is a great example of what soprts of things eliminitive materialists might apply their trade. We had some folk beliefs concerning solidity. Turns out they were wrong. Solidity does not mean, after all..that there is no space between atoms...simply that there isn;t enough space for -us- to fit between those atoms. If we attempted an explanation of solidity that relied on there being no space, rather than no space for us, we would fail..agreed? The explanation would be necessarily inaccurate. Our beliefs regarding mind, in their opinion, are just another example of those same sorts of folk stories. Jut as compelleing as the idea that there was no space between atoms, and largely for the same reasons...but, ultimately, innaccurate.

[Whateverist]

How sure are you that what you call discrete things aren't really so only by concept?

You guys are conversing. Conversing requires referring to something. This involves concepts. Both sides of this argument seem to be doing it but one side seems to be trying it's darnedest to articulate 'a source' of the conversing and to wonder about the nature of what the conversing has been about. But we can't use language to describe anything without doing so through the medium of language.

Those who are arguing against eliminative materialism seem to be saying that language is foisting a lie on our understanding of the true nature of the world around us. But what alternative are you guys proposing? What use are you finding for the thought that "everything is everything"? Think I'll take the understanding that comes through the separation and classification of 'parts'. I'm obviously missing something you guys find important but I'm not sure there is really anything amiss here.

[The Grand Nudger]

To be fair, eliminitive materialists also suggest that language (among other things) foists a lie upon our understanding.  That's why I can't identify the actual point of disagreement (other than the notion that some theory of mind imperils a moral view).  Both eliminitive materialsts and the two conversing with me all agree that nothing in the brain accounts for our experience.  That there isn't anything in there that fits our description -of- experience. But hey, there I go making distinctions between discrete systems like "Benny", "Neo", and "Eliminitive materialists". Maybe we need a new term to refer to all three more accurately as one. I have suggestions, most of them in koine greek.........lol

They seem to be looking for a problem with the position itself, but can only muster an endless litany of ways that the position may rub against some other idea they have.  That;s not a problem with the position itself,  somebody is chasing ghosts.  

"But how does eliminitive materialism account for the specifics of my belief in the immaterial origin of consciousness and/or the entire universe!"

It doesn't.  Kindof goes without saying, doesn't it...as a materialist position on the nature of consciousness? Ultimately, where others must fall back on substance x, or alternate universe x...it just says "hmn, guess we were wrong about that".

"But how does it account for the possibility that objects are not discrete"

It doesn't, and doesn't have to, but the truth of that position would necessarily demonstrate the truth of their position.

[bennyboy]

This is a good example of a view that is commonly held, but actually doesn't hold up to scrutiny, methinks.  The "driving" system includes both you and the car, and the combustion system involves both you and the car as well as the environment; the propulsion involves the road and so on.  Then there's a connection by gravity.

How sure are you that what you call discrete things aren't really so only by concept?

As sure as you are.  This one's a sinking ship Benny.  It doesn't matter.  If there are discrete systems, do we possess such a system as described by our conscious experience?  If there are not, then qed, eliminitivism is true by default. 

You are matching local and general truth values into the same context for comparison. Ultimately, I do not know what is true-- only what seems true to me. If this is sufficient, then my consciousness may be taken at face value; if not, then by what standard will you judge, one way or another, assertions?

And how about QM?  Are you ready to give up on "illusory" concepts like solid and flat, and to discard them as meaningful for that reason?  Surely, they aren't represented in a literal description of material reality as we understand it today.

Ah but they are.  The table -is- literally solid to a creature of your size and composition.  It;s not just tables, either, a great many things you experience as "solid" would not seem that way to other creatures.  The ground beneath your feet, for example.  

No, I think this is special pleading, now. The table is not literally solid, because it consists mainly of empty space. It is solid in the sense that it seems so, and that our definition of solidity rests only on seeming so. This should sound familiar, because it's similar to the way in which consciousness is "literally" a certain way because it seems to be so.

We already -know- where the mental states this maps to reside, and how it is possible for them to do and be so.  Area s2 of the somatosensory processes inputs from your fingertips, for example, when mechanoreceptors in your dermis send a signal to that area - which they are hard wired into.  Your fingertips are mechanical pressure plates, area s2 is the light bulb that turns on when something hits them.  We can watch the whole thing happen in realtime and so it's not quite as difficult to account for as the "qualia" referenced in the same example.  You feel it, but we can see the stuff that makes all of thi happen...we just can;t seem to find the you that's feeling.  The somatosensory, for example, does not then send that processing to any central place.  So....the solidity of the table as represented by the nervous system isn't even remotely illusory in the manner that eliminative materialists might consider self or qualia to be illusory.  I can't walk through a wall.  Why I can't walk through that wall and why my material system presents this data to me is almost unremarkable.  That I "feel" the pressure, well...a little more remarkable..wouldn't you say -particularly in that my material system does not appear to be presenting this data to any "I" in the first place- .  ?

You know, this whole solidity business is a great example of what soprts of things eliminitive materialists might apply their trade.  We had some folk beliefs concerning solidity.  Turns out they were wrong.  Solidity does not mean, after all..that there is no space between atoms...simply that there isn;t enough space for -us- to fit between those atoms.  If we attempted an explanation of solidity that relied on there being no space, rather than no space for us, we would fail..agreed?  The explanation would be necessarily inaccurate.  Our beliefs regarding mind, in their opinion, are just another example of those same sorts of folk stories.  Jut as compelleing as the idea that there was no space between atoms, and largely for the same reasons...but, ultimately, innaccurate.

I would argue that there is likely NOTHING that is as it seems, and that therefore all our experiences should be thrown out on the basis that they are illusory. Then what? I think you're trying to have your cake and it eat, too, by conserving those views which you find pragmatic or comforting, and expecting those which do not accord well with your philosophical beliefs to be abandoned.


And again, we loop back to my pet idea of truth-in-context: the truth of statements seems to depend not so much on actual objective truth, but on the way in which we decide to frame our perspective and define out terms. I advise adopting a more flexible approach to truth. For example, in the context established by a material monist view, we can say that certain ideas of mind are untrue. On the other hand, in the context established by our subjective experiences, given that the self and the perceptions it experiences are brute facts, I would argue that such a monism cannot possibly express or explain those experiences.

---

Those who are arguing against eliminative materialism seem to be saying that language is foisting a lie on our understanding of the true nature of the world around us.  But what alternative are you guys proposing?  What use are you finding for the thought that "everything is everything"?  Think I'll take the understanding that comes through the separation and classification of 'parts'.  I'm obviously missing something you guys find important but I'm not sure there is really anything amiss here.

My argument is that eliminative materialism can be taken a lot farther than Khemikal is taking it, and it seems to me that the distinguishing line between what ideas should be accepted and what should be discarded is based more on philosophical predilections than on any actual material reality. In other words, it's an arbitrary distinction cloaked in material pragmatism.

What are the actual criteria by which a theory of mind (for example) would be accepted by eliminativists, I wonder?