Is There a Point To Living a Moral Life?

[Neo-Scholastic]

What you call "interpreting the significance of those symbols" is simply another form of manipulation and data-processing and there is no reason why a machine would not be capable of this.

All data-processing is algorithmic. Are you claiming that all conscious phenomena are the product of an elaborate algorithm? If so, that position strains credulity.

[MindForgedManacle]

Assuming naturalism is true and that the mind is ultimately reducible to the brain does not necessitate that one abandon the concept of meaning. In other words, even those naturalists who might argue for a position akin to this (no naturalist I can recall argues for this exactly) like the philosopher Alex Rosenberg make it clear that such is merely their belief regarding naturalism. Other naturalists have their own account of meaning, though I'm not overly knowledgeable on this aspect of naturalist literature on this topic.

However, it's not even clear if other views regarding consciousness solve this problem. How can a secondary, ephemeral substance be 'about' anything?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Assuming naturalism is true and that the mind is ultimately reducible to the brain does not necessitate that one abandon the concept of meaning.

Please explain how you think it is possible.

[MindForgedManacle]

Perhaps you shouldn't have been a quickshot McGee, as I had edited my post just prior to your new one. Further, explain how on your view as a substance dualist how meaning arises from a secondary substance and/or its interaction with its companion substance. It's not like yours is a privileged position that has already solved all these problems and thus is golden.

[FallentoReason]

What you call "interpreting the significance of those symbols" is simply another form of manipulation and data-processing and there is no reason why a machine would not be capable of this.

I'd hardly say a machine e.g. a computer that processes data, interprets the meaning of said data. A machine is simply a contraption that causally goes from A to B e.g. a civil engineer inputting loads on a model of a structure, then the computer via electricity and causal relations of electrons processing the input to arrive at the output i.e. how the building performs under those loads. But the conputer suffers from the same problems as I highlighted in my previous post: how can electrons and stored data in the hard drive be *about* something? The output data, which is causally being shown as pixels on a screen, are meaningless, until a conscious entity assigns anything meaningful to it. In this case, it's the civil engineer who assigns meaning to the pixels which represent the resulting axial forces, shear stresses and moments on the members. The computer isn't capable of such an interpretation. And this is rather obvious - it's not a conscious entity like the engineer.

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@MFM

Naturalists don't believe anything: how do brain states represent the proposition "naturalism is true"? You would be assuming that said brain states are *about* the proposition "naturalism is true", but that would be assigning meaning to something physical. Thus, a naturalist having *any* belief begs the question.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Perhaps you shouldn't have been a quickshot McGee, as I had edited my post just prior to your new one. Further, explain how on your view as a substance dualist how meaning arises from a secondary substance and/or its interaction with its companion substance. It's not like yours is a privileged position that has already solved all these problems and thus is golden.

No. You first. It's a common forum trick by atheists to turn the question back at the Christian rather than do the heavy lifting of defending your own position.

[MindForgedManacle]

@MFM

Naturalists don't believe anything: how do brain states represent the proposition "naturalism is true"? You would be assuming that said brain states are *about* the proposition "naturalism is true", but that would be assigning meaning to something physical. Thus, a naturalist having *any* belief begs the question.

Firstly, your point essentially brings up Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. Hence, I can easily falsify your objection there by adopting the coherence theory of truth. Since your objection rests upon the assumption that truth is 'out there' (i.e a correspondence between an assertion and a given state of affairs), it becomes inapplicable once I adopt the coherence theory, which does not see truth as such.

As for how I would resolve that *apparent* problem if the correspondence theory was in fact 'true', I don't think such is too hard. Firstly, I don't see the problem in a brain state being about the proposition 'naturalism is true' voids it. Is the correspondence theory of truth's assertion that 'truth is that which corresponds to a given state of affairs of reality' true, or is it circular? That's what your question seems equivalent to, to me, and just as misguided. On naturalism and acceptance of the correspondence theory of truth, all such a proposition would mean that it is in fact the case that the proposition 'Naturalism is true' contains neither a contradiction and accurately represents the brain's perceived reality and experience that naturalism is true.

[genkaus]

All data-processing is algorithmic. Are you claiming that all conscious phenomena are the product of an elaborate algorithm? If so, that position strains credulity.

Yes, I am saying that - though, I'd add, it is a process with a lot of errors in it. Why does it strain credulity?

[MindForgedManacle]

No. You first. It's a common forum trick by atheists to turn the question back at the Christian rather than do the heavy lifting of defending your own position.

Actually, this is a common theist and specifically Christian tactic and unlike you I'll explain why. Christians who get into philosophy - and even those whom become apologists - will stack the metaphysical deck, so to speak. This is apparent in both your responses to me, and other Christian teist arguments, especially the Moral Argument. You assume (or assert without support) that without God, X couldn't be the case, and never defend that. Similarly, to say "Well, on naturalism how do you account for meaning? How can atoms be *about* anything?" This assumes that their own position accounts for this problem without defending it. How can a secondary substance and/or the interaction between the two proposed substances be *about* anything would appear to be just as much a problem for a substance dualist as it is apparently for a naturalist.

Lastly, as I already stated I myself am not actually familiar with this topic.

[genkaus]

I'd hardly say a machine e.g. a computer that processes data, interprets the meaning of said data. A machine is simply a contraption that causally goes from A to B e.g. a civil engineer inputting loads on a model of a structure, then the computer via electricity and causal relations of electrons processing the input to arrive at the output i.e. how the building performs under those loads.

Whoa - Deja-vu!

Anyway, to say that assigning and interpreting meaning is a form of data processing is not to say that all forms of data processing amount to assigning or interpreting meaning.

But the conputer suffers from the same problems as I highlighted in my previous post: how can electrons and stored data in the hard drive be *about* something? The output data, which is causally being shown as pixels on a screen, are meaningless, until a conscious entity assigns anything meaningful to it. In this case, it's the civil engineer who assigns meaning to the pixels which represent the resulting axial forces, shear stresses and moments on the members. The computer isn't capable of such an interpretation. And this is rather obvious - it's not a conscious entity like the engineer.

When you say "conscious entity" - which level of consciousness are you talking about? Any entity can be conscious without being self-aware or sentient.

In college, we used to work with two or three different softwares where one would automatically pass on its output data onto the other for processing and so on, and all we had to do was see the final results. As far as the intermediate outputs were concerned, we never became aware of them. The only entities conscious of them were the next programs in line. Those programs - according to predefined categories - handles the job of interpreting results and assigning meanings. Clearly, the conscious entity at the level of engineer is not necessarily required.