Seeing red

[Neo-Scholastic]

A person who is of opinion 2 [physicalism] will simply point out all of the things that -are- "about something"...like every component of any computational system.

Such a person tacitly concedes the weakness of their position. The apparent intentional behavior of the hardware depends on software and programed instructions, both of which are immaterial forms that people impose on the hardware. Software isn’t just descriptive of the system; but rather, proscriptive (see below). It serves as an example of something immaterial that is distinguishable from the material in which it manifests.

Your position is that there are two distinct substances which are causally connected, but no interface. Because if there were an interface that is not one of those two substances, you'd be a triplist or a pluralist.

First off, the underwear gnome episode is one of my favorite Southpark episodes. Thanks for the laugh. Anyways, this objection begs the question by assuming up front that only objects of identical substance can causally interact. Maybe, maybe not.

The caricature of dualism as believing in some “ghost in the machine” simply misses the point. In essence, dualists consider the divide between Idealism and Materialism a false one. Idealism recognizes that forms and ends act proscriptively and considers material properties purely descriptive. Everything is phenomena free of any dependence on some nomena. On the other hand, materialism recognizes that matter and its properties act proscriptively and considers formal and functional properties as purely descriptive. Hence materialists use terms like abstractions and constructs when referring to immaterial objects because, to them, anything other than matter isn’t really real. Monist positions appear deficient in one direction or the other.

At root dualists see causality operating both upwards from material substances and downward from immaterial objects. Circularity isn’t just a description of various sensible bodies (wheels, cookies, gears, etc.) but rather a proscriptive principle. For example, the degree to which a wheel participates in circularity determines its effectiveness. The very notion of so-called emergent properties is based on the principle of downward causation. The arrangement, or form, truly has a type of causal power over the material below it. When sensible bodies exhibit natures that cannot be attributed to their parts, it shows that the material and immaterial interact even if neither can be alienated from the other. Forms and functions express themselves through matter without being matter. Matter adopts forms and performs functions without being those forms and functions.

Using Scholastic nomenclature ideas are not thoughts or sensations. Sensations are the means by which we know. Ideas are the means by which we think. Abstraction means to identify the essential properties of a sensible body, it quiddity, and disregard any accidental properties. A concept is a mental object that participates in the ideal form. The relationship between the mental object, or concept, and extra-mental sensible body is identical to the relationship between two sensible bodies that share the same essence.

My responses to some previous posts will provide examples of how the Scholastic approach applies.

… aboutness is what philosophers refer to as intentionality.

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For this, a simple counter-example will suffice. Every year there is a race held in the desert to compare completely robotic vehicles' performance on a pre-determined course. These vehicles use a variety of sensors to track the terrain as they drive along. They 'map' the road as they come upon it.

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To suggest that the data in these onboard computers is not 'about' the road in front of them is ridiculous.

In Scholastic terms the robot is a hylomorphic substance. Absent software it is just hunks of metal and plastic. Absent hardware it is a disembodied set of immaterial instructions.

As a hylomorphic substance, the robot cannot reduce to one or the other. Anyone can see that instructions are proscriptive purposes and ideas, i.e. final and formal causes. Instructions can play out on anything from transistor to vacuum tubes (even gears and cogs). They can be physically stored on anything from solid-state hard drives to punch cards. They can be expressed in a wide variety of symbols strings and languages. The efficacy of a string of symbols depends on the extent to which it participates, to greater or lesser extent, in something beyond the signs themselves, something that gives the symbols efficacy. Formal Causes. Final Ends.

… Let's say I were to arrange a bunch of black and white stones into a digital pattern on a beach, representing a Beatles' song. Is it a song, or isn't it? To me, it is, to anybody who doesn't know my mind, it couldn't possibly be. So perhaps something ONLY becomes information when a sentient mind arbitrarily imbues it with meaning.

I say they are an arbitrary symbol set that participates in a set of ideas beyond the symbols themselves.