Get back to the quote feature - this wall text makes it hard to read your arguments.
What you are missing is that even if you identify two separate types of causation, the causal event being looked at remains the same. Since you brought up Aristotle's causal theory, take his own example. In making of a bronze statue, the formal causal chain would be described as the cast being made, the material being melted and poured into it. The efficient causal chain would be the artisan shaping the cast, choosing the material etc. However both descriptions pertain to the same event - they are not separate. Similarly, whether you view an item as a collection of atoms being held together or you analyze it as a single entity - say, a ball - you are talking about the same thing. Why wouldn't the same principle apply to the entity that is 'you'. Whether you study your consciousness as a series of electrical impulses flying around inside the brain or you view it as a single entity - you are still talking about you.
On the contrary, physical theories do have to account for the formal, mental properties. That is the other side of neuroscience - psychology and psychotherapy. The ideal theory would meet somewhere in the middle, but right now, we are starting from both ends.
(February 26, 2013 at 12:42 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: This leads to the next objection: “…different descriptions do not make either of them any less real - nor do they indicate that they are separate chains of causation.” I agree with the first part of this statement, but not the second. You can present different descriptions of the apparently identical events precisely because you can make distinctions between mental-properties/processes/states and material-properties/processes/states. But I disagree with the second part of the statement, because we can recognize two types of causal relationships: efficient causes and formal ones. Efficient causes relate only to the material. Formal causes relate only to the mental.
What you are missing is that even if you identify two separate types of causation, the causal event being looked at remains the same. Since you brought up Aristotle's causal theory, take his own example. In making of a bronze statue, the formal causal chain would be described as the cast being made, the material being melted and poured into it. The efficient causal chain would be the artisan shaping the cast, choosing the material etc. However both descriptions pertain to the same event - they are not separate. Similarly, whether you view an item as a collection of atoms being held together or you analyze it as a single entity - say, a ball - you are talking about the same thing. Why wouldn't the same principle apply to the entity that is 'you'. Whether you study your consciousness as a series of electrical impulses flying around inside the brain or you view it as a single entity - you are still talking about you.
(February 26, 2013 at 12:42 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I believe physical theories are inadequate because they ignore formal, mental properties, and the role they play in literally ‘informing’ material properties and constraining physical interactions.
On the contrary, physical theories do have to account for the formal, mental properties. That is the other side of neuroscience - psychology and psychotherapy. The ideal theory would meet somewhere in the middle, but right now, we are starting from both ends.
