RE: Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?
October 31, 2013 at 4:45 am
(This post was last modified: October 31, 2013 at 5:04 am by genkaus.)
(October 30, 2013 at 8:25 am)bennyboy Wrote: Not at all. I can't show, or know, if there IS any difference. Given any physical structure or process, I cannot know for sure whether there is some kind of qualia "floating" around it.
If there's something special about the organic materials that is required for qualia, then a non-organic machine could never subjectively experience. If it's only the self-referential nature of the data being processed, as you've suggested in the past, then we might make something that really does experience, and doesn't just seem to.
But we could never know for sure that we had.
You are missing the point of the question - I'm not asking you to consider whether or not other entities are capable of subjective experiences (you've stated quite clearly that you cannot know that). I'm asking you to consider the nature of your own subjective experiences.
You take it as a brute fact that you are capable of subjective experiences.
You also accept the fact that your brain is capable of of processing information and that there are many, many forms of information processing going on in there.
I'm asking you to consider the hypothesis that "having subjective experiences" is one form of "information processing" going on in your brain. As evidence for this hypothesis, you have neuroscientific research suggesting that changes made in the information processing system changes the nature and quality of subjective experience.
The idea of a philosophical zombie rests on the premise that qualia/subjective experiences are not a form of information processing. That is the only way for the so-called zombie to have all the information processing capacities and still not be able to experience subjectivity. Therefore, in order to show any qualitative difference between you and a zombie, you need to show that having subjective experience is not a form of information processing - and the only way for you to do that is start with a dualistic assumption.
(October 30, 2013 at 8:25 am)bennyboy Wrote: I don't think "I" is an assumption. I think it's a label for "whatever it is that thinks and observes." But I agree that assuming there's a self, unique to and separate somehow from the rest of the universe, is potentially a false assumption.
The assumption here is not an "I". Like I said, you can regard the existence of "I" as a self-evident, brute fact. The assumption here is about the nature of "I", i.e. what "I" is. In dualism, the assumption is that the nature of "I" is something different and independent of what you see in the rest of the universe.
(October 30, 2013 at 8:25 am)bennyboy Wrote: Super-accurate definitions aren't always necessary, in my opinion. If I say, "Mind is thinking and imagining 'n' sich," and others understand what I'm talking about, that's good enough. Whatever mind is and matter is, if they are unique substances which interact, we'd need some hypothesis about how such apparently unlike substances COULD interact. That's probably where the ideas of "will" and "soul" come in: there's a third-party which is neither mind nor matter but reconciles them. I'm not sure if that's the Catholic trinity, but it's A trinity.
Generic definitions may suffice when when everyone superficially understands the subject matter - but when you intend to study it in depth, a more accurate description is called for. Otherwise, you end up making all sorts of unfounded assumptions - as you demonstrate here. You assume that mind and matter are "unique substances" without actually considering what they are. You pose a difficulty in interaction without understanding their nature. And based on that, you hypothesize a third party which may turn out to be completely unnecessary.
(October 30, 2013 at 8:25 am)bennyboy Wrote: Is this an existential argument, or a semantic one? It's often hard to tell when we're in this territory. Are you defining mind as "that which observes and learns?" Because this clearly begs the question. However, in a dualist view, I can't find a very satisfying definition either: "That which experiences qualia" begs the question in a similar way.
Its an epistemological argument and I'm not defining mind.
You made a comment about mind not being an observable property of matter - the implication being that we cannot know whether or not a particular material entity has a mind or not. You epistemological assumption here is that the only way we can know that an entity exists is by direct observational access to it - such as, we can know our mind exists but not anyone else's. The problem with this position is that we infer the existence of something from the effects it causes and without direct observation all the time. Which is why, observation in science refers to both direct observation and the observation of effects. Thus, my question regarding "in what sense do you mean observation?".
(October 30, 2013 at 8:46 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: You never ask what is it about matter that allows it to give rise to physical properties, do you?
Actually, we do ask that. The whole body of natural sciences is devoted to asking precisely that question. All those sciences do is study matter at different levels and ask "why does it do that?" or "how does it do that?".
(October 31, 2013 at 2:35 am)bennyboy Wrote: Nothing you experience tells you about the ultimate nature underlying those experiences. That includes the true nature of both the subjective self and the objective "other" that you contemplate, and the ideas that occur to you. And yet somehow we've arrived at a skew: the experience of other is taken at face value "Of course there's a physical world. I can hit you in the face with it," but the experience of self is not: "Just because you experience the self as unique and different to other matter doesn't make it so."
That's not quite accurate. As you say, if the experience of the "other" is taken at face value, the conclusion is "Ofcourse there's a physical world. I can hit you in the face with it". In the same vein, taking the experience of "self" at face value, the conclusion would be "Ofcourse there is a self, who do you think feels the pain of being hit in the face?"
Whether or not that "self" is unique and qualitatively different than the "other" can only be established by questioning their underlying nature - something, as you've accepted, that cannot be established simply by taking it at face value.
