Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[The Grand Nudger]

So let's say that all possible world views must incorporate the possibility of the existence of ideas, and that everything humans ever experience, including the experience of knowledge, is experienced as an idea (basically by definition).

We'd agreed to that -long- ago, but it's uninformative /w regards to proving a metaphysical claim and more specifically uninformative with regards to any implication-sans-proof between idealism or materialism.  What's the problem...and does idealism incorporate this, as materialism does with comp and information theories, or does it simply state their existence as brute fact? That would be important, to me.

Generally, when one model is capable of explaining what another refers to as a brute fact...I abandon the latter in favor of the former.

[Reforged]

- Abstract concepts will always have physical counterparts and physical effects. Mathematics especially requires a baring in a physical world to make any sense because it is the language of matter. When used correctly you can calculate matter exactly and even predict its behavior. It was conceived by physical beings, it is used by physical beings and it effects physical beings. It is a mental tool, one which we could measure the moment someone summons it within their brain. Even thoughts are measurable, physical phenomena and to deny it as simply correlation is like denying my bones hold me up or my saliva digests food. If you challenge that you have to challenge those too.

ok... i'm trying not to be rude as you put it... but sometimes I wonder if you try. abstract concepts by definition are not physical... abstract- "existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence." and no... mathematics is not a 'language of matter.' if it was, then you would 'have' to associate a number to an object. but you don't. you can think of a number without thinking of an object it represents. and yes... it's a mental tool. but that's the point isn't it? you said "You cannot comprehend something that has no physical properties or effects." numbers don't have physical properties or effects. they do nothing except help us understand implications by means of calculation. they're really just a certain type of logic. that makes them a counter example that proves you wrong...
and no... you don't get to try and sidestep the issue by saying "but all thoughts correspond to brain activity.' that's irrelevant. your argument is we cannot comprehend anything that has no physical properties or effects. even if I grant you're right, that still doesn't change abstract concepts themselves have no physical properties or effects but are nonetheless understood.

- "Beyond reality" is in the definition of metaphysical wherever you look. You just made a metaphysical claim, one that discounts part of its very meaning as "incoherent".

no it's not. there may be some controversy on who metaphysical is defined... but no one has ever used the words 'beyond reality' to define it. go ahead and try to prove me wrong. here's my source:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaph...rMetConMet

Epistemology figured out the very basics which philosophy is good at doing. It also made a tremendous amount of mistakes before it even touched upon the basics which philosophy is also good at doing and even when it did there was no indication to outright demonstrate which was right and which was wrong. You are engaging in confirmation bias. You are ignoring all of the misses.

first, you haven't pointed out any 'mistakes.' second, even if there were mistakes that's how information develops in science isn't it? theories and hypothesis get disproven all the time... third, epistemology has done more than just make unverifiable claims. I suggest you look into topics before you share your ignorance on the topic.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

The thing which is different now is that we have syatems which work infinitely better. When you clicked the mouse did it explode and maim you? Did the fibre optics randomly transform in a snake? Did anything other than what you predicted would happen occur? No? *Science* accepts your thanks.

really... science doesn't 'cause' reality to conform to a regulated pattern thus preventing my mouse from randomly exploding... I mean really? look up non sequitur... then don't do that...

Whatever your metaphysical leanings they may have entertained you for hours but they have not served you practically in any way or proven anything true or false "Materialism" has and you have no problem with it usually, do you.

I don't think something needs to be useful to be true. personally I prefer to have true beliefs rather than false ones. if you want to argue against the logic, then do so... stop dodging with these irrelevant sidetracks...

- The comparison is apt. They both have as much proof or use in the real world.

i'm not going to grant you that just because you stated it...

And excuse me? Loons? How do you know they're not correct in some metaphysical way we can't demonstrate?

yes, loons. I would call flat earth theorists loons. I know of no other group more deserving of the name. and the fact that they can't demonstrate it is exactly the point... the flat earth theory is a physical claim anyways. you obviously don't see the difference... a physical claim is about the behavior or appearance of matter. a metaphysical claim is concerning an explanation for the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it. see the difference? see why flat earth theory is not a metaphysical claim?

 No. It wouldn't. The firing between synapses at the same time as thoughts and actions occurring is sufficient physical evidence. Evidence we have acted upon and successfully treated patients with. Thats a demonstration  of physical causes and physical effects.

yes... but that's physical causes and effects concerning the physical components alone. the evidence does nothing to establish there is no immaterial component.

This is what the entire debate is about. You claim the mind is partially metaphysical. You have yet to demonstrate this. Would you please do so.

I did present an argument. would you care to address it?

Alot of people don't visualize their leg muscles when they walk. Should I assume theres something metaphysical at work there too?

first, acting and conceptualizing are not the same thing. performing a tedious action many times enables you to perform it without thought. second, you're right in the first half. you don't have to picture leg muscles when thinking about walking. but you do have to picture legs... which are material...

Your point is circular. There is no metaphysical claims on it therefore I will make no metaphysical claims on it. The mind has demonstrably physical counterparts that correlate with each other just like the flame example does.

why are you repeating this? we already established mind has physical counterparts it correlates to... move on.

The difference is that you've decided you don't like one of these being solely physical and have decided to challenge the premise.

lol. I didn't challenge anything based on what I like or don't like... I presented the argument because I think it's sound... not because of what I like...

However this challenge could be raised for anything and everything. Why solely the mind?

you'll have to demonstrate to me how the argument with its given premises with minor alterations can apply to... anything and everything...

By definition proof is tied to both physical components and logic.

do I really have to throw a dictionary for every word you sputter out? proof- "the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning."

If you don't like that then lend me some metaphysical proofs we can work with.

the argument in the OP doesn't work because...

I would wager you did not spend an hour wondering if the enter key will do exactly the same thing it did last time or launch a death trap before you sent this. You didn't because you have physical evidence to suggest that wouldn't happen and it was good enough for you.

this same non sequitur argument again? what is with you and straw manning my position to be 'we don't know anything at all'? and you don't even need physical evidence to reasonably come to that conclusion... it's simply reasonable to presume you repeat the same action... and you get the same results... to think otherwise is quite literally insane.

At no point did you ponder whther the metaphysical had changed its function.

that's not how metaphysical works... non sequitur...

Effects is not the same as produces?

look them up... tell me the difference... i'm tired of looking up definitions for you...

Would the brain damage be there five minutes before you cut out 3/4 of your brain? No? Would it occur five minutes after? No? Then in what sense is it "effecting" it? It would have to already be present to "effect" it.

what does any of this have to do with what I said? all I said was correlations between mind and brain don't establish causation. and you go off on whether brain damage occurs at the time of brain damage or not? do you see a connection? because I don't...

That is not denying it. That is stating what has been proven by physical evidence.

making a statement that contradicts another is the same as denying... unless you're proposing both contradictory statements could be true...

No, what you started this argument for was to make claims on what is or isn't metaphysical. In this case the mind. These claims need to be defended as they so far have no strength to them.

it wasn't just to make claims... it was to prove it. the conclusion is defended by the premises. do you deny the premises? do you deny the validity of the logic?

Unless you mean "possible world" with the implication we occupy a multiverse then this is not even remotely proving anything even if I were willing to take solely your words as evidence.

by possible world, I mean a hypothetical situation that can be conceptualized. and you can't take the first part and say "this doesn't prove anything." of course it doesn't... it's the first premise. you don't get to proof until you get to conclusions...

"Possible world" is not an "actual world"

exactly right. nor was it meant to be conveyed as such.

That term was never made to outright prove something exists but to ponder the consequences if something did exist as with most philosophy.

and that's exactly what premises 1-2 do... did you stop reading after the first sentence of that brief overview of the argument? because you would know what I meant if you saw where I said "there's no difference between mind in a possible world and mind in the actual world (by Leibniz Law), thus mind is not reducible to matter."

Does that mean you can then proceed to ponder things and then assume they're true on the basis you can think of them?

tell me exactly what part of the argument is assumption or bias?

I got irritated by the quoting system and given the sheer volume this is easier.

well it was hard to know which statements were addressing what when they're expressed as bullet points without putting the quote it's responding to. I had to go back and forth several times to see what you were addressing.

Alright, I'm done with this quote for quote bullshit. This is not a natural and flowing way to debate. *You* have to sift through *my* stuff? Thats a laugh. I just went through all of these softballs one by one and then pressed back by accident. Enough.

The brain damage is relevant because either you are suggesting it is coincidental or some kind of siide-effect. Telling us which would give insight and better outline what you're stating.
I do not have to be making *any* statements regarding the reality of metaphysics because noone with any honesty can. Your statement on mind claims you have knowledge of metaphysics no human being could possibly have. So how do you have it? You say you've proven it but I've sifted through your points and all I see is "I imagined it so it must be true".
As for attacking me on definitions? *What*? What do you think contributes to peoples reasoning? Look it up. You don't know the difference between effect and produce? Definitely look that shit up. Thats insane you don't know that. And no, of course I don't think science makes nature conform to it. You know I don't; stop trying to muddy the waters. Science uses evidence to establish patterns. Patterns that are used to make the products that litter your home to a high degree of success and accuracy. At no point do you concern yourself that whatever metaphysical wizardry occurring in the background will malfunction. You're more than happy to take it at face value. You do not concern yourself with it at all until it comes to the mind. Maybe theres a metaphysical explanation that means the world is flat but it looks round? They could certainly invoke that and there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it except to say "Don't be so fucking stupid".

Lastly, the law is saying theres no difference *in concept*. If I'm imagining my mind in a possible world its not like I'm making an exact imaginary replica. I don't have enough knowledge about my mind to do that, noone does. It would imply a kind of perfect clarity noone has. Even if I did manage to imagine it in a possible world *exactly* then so what? At that point I'm beyond a genius but that doesn't mean its anything more than a figment. At best it would be a way of predicting how I would behave should if such circumstances come to pass but in order for them to come to pass there would have to be matter. To say "oh well then the mind has a metaphysical side to it" is beyond reaching. 
Frankly, I'm going to ignore the rest because its blatantly there to sidetrack me and considering the insulting tone of some of it I don't think it deserves my time. I'm bored, my girlfriend is round in a couple of hours. I've got shit to do.

Ignore everything before this part. Erase it from your mind. You say you have reasoning *proving* the mind has a metaphysical side. Given language and concepts are basically thoughts formed based on physical objects through physical (you would say also metaphysical) things in us and in order to state otherwise you would have to yet again invoke that the mind has a metaphysical side to it; where is your proof?
No more bullshit. Where is it? Its in none of the stuff we've discussed; show me what it is you think proves the mind has a metaphysical side to it because all of your points seem to add up to "I can imagine my mind, therefore it can be metaphysical." and its not good enough.

[bennyboy]

We'd agreed to that -long- ago, but it's uninformative /w regards to proving a metaphysical claim and more specifically uninformative with regards to any implication-sans-proof between idealism or materialism.   What's the problem...and does idealism incorporate this, as materialism does with comp and information theories, or does it simply state their existence as brute fact?  That would be important, to me.

Generally, when one model is capable of explaining what another refers to as a brute fact...I abandon the latter in favor of the former.

I find the explanations of physicalism with regards to (for example) mind to be so question begging that they are equally useless-- no matter how detailed they are. Saying "the brain causes mind" feels right, but actually it's a non-sequitur if you don't know where our experiences of brains ultimately come from. . . and no, you don't get to just say, "the brain, of course," because circles are bad.

[The Grand Nudger]

We'd agreed to that -long- ago, but it's uninformative /w regards to proving a metaphysical claim and more specifically uninformative with regards to any implication-sans-proof between idealism or materialism.   What's the problem...and does idealism incorporate this, as materialism does with comp and information theories, or does it simply state their existence as brute fact?  That would be important, to me.

Generally, when one model is capable of explaining what another refers to as a brute fact...I abandon the latter in favor of the former.

I find the explanations of physicalism with regards to (for example) mind to be so question begging that they are equally useless-- no matter how detailed they are.  Saying "the brain causes mind" feels right, but actually it's a non-sequitur if you don't know where our experiences of brains ultimately come from. . . and no, you don't get to just say, "the brain, of course," because circles are bad.

You said that world views must incorporate

the existence of ideas

Check -  Comp and information theory explain how the material -could- support them, even if our mind does it Some Other Way™ or is made of Some Other Stuff™.

and...

and that everything humans ever experience, including the experience of knowledge, is experienced as an idea (basically by definition).

Check - Comp and information theory explain how the material -could- support this experience, even if our mind does it Some Other Way™ or is made of Some Other Stuff™.
.

Neither of these things -are- but if you cannot provide an idealists explanation of mind - then why would it matter if there -were- no materialist explanation? How important can this be to you?

[bennyboy]

Neither of these things -are- but if you cannot provide an idealists explanation of mind - then why would it matter if there -were- no materialist explanation?  How important can this be to you?

I see physicalism as essentially exclusive, and idealism as essentially inclusive, and that's why the difference is important. "Show me the evidence or stfu" with regards to issues of mind, or philosophical issues like those of morality or of beauty, ignores an important facet of human experience-- that not all experiences are sharable or reproducible. To idealism, this is nothing at all: some ideas are sharable, some are personal, and so long as we agree which ideas those are, we're peachy.

Physicalists can not really explain why matter exists, any more than idealists can explain why mind exists; brute facts are a push for all. However, the issue of compatibility weighs in favor of idealism: given mind, it's easy to explain physicalism in those terms, since all our observations and inferences are made in mind. Given physicalism, it is very hard to explain mind: in fact it's not even possible to determine that any physical system, inclucing other people, IS mindful, without the question-begging acceptance of correlates as sufficient evidence.

As for IT, it seems to me that it does a better job of explaining how the brain, which seems to have no conscious "center," nevertheless allows for the sensation of a unified experience, than to explain why qualia exist rather than not. If you don't see it that way, maybe we should make a thread about IT, because it's deep enough to make it worth while.

[Mudhammam]

Definitions:
Mind- simply that which produces consciousness. you can think of it as a product of material interactions or its own substance, but either way it cannot be denied mind exists.
Argument:
1. a metaphysically solipsist world (a world where only a mind exists) cannot be proven false due to epistemic limitations.
2. it is unreasonable to presume solipsism is impossible given 1, therefore it must be reasonably granted solipsism is possible.
3. given 2, it is possible for mind to exist in a solipsist (immaterial) world while it is not for matter.
4. there is therefore something that it true of mind but not of matter. this means they cannot be the same thing and mind is not reducible to matter.
5. substance dualism has been proven false due to the interaction problem (substances can only interact via shared properties and substances cannot be fundamental and share properties).
6. therefore, all is mind and monistic idealism entails.

Your assertion in 4 that mind and matter are separable on the assumption that solipsism is a logical possibility is unwarranted. From here you merely beg the question. Why should we grant that simply because the mind can imagine itself to exist independent of any physical components then such a state must be actually possible? What would a mind that precedes matter be like? How could you even begin to speak of its functions or what purposes it might serve? Does it conceive of objects that it has had no experiences of? Does it recall when it is in contemplation and forget when it is distracted? Upon what basis? If mind is inextricable from matter, and neither 1 nor 2 necessitates that that should not be the case, then 3 is not true. How have you solved the "interaction problem" as you call it? If the mind produces only immaterial objects which it then perceives in differentiated form from objects of thought, impelled to call the former material and the latter immaterial, you've merely rephrased "matter" and "mind" as "immaterial A" and "immaterial B," as their properties still differ in all of the respects in which they appear to, and from which the "interaction problem" becomes a problem in the first place. So, what does that solve?

[emjay]

Neither of these things -are- but if you cannot provide an idealists explanation of mind - then why would it matter if there -were- no materialist explanation?  How important can this be to you?

I see physicalism as essentially exclusive, and idealism as essentially inclusive, and that's why the difference is important.  "Show me the evidence or stfu" with regards to issues of mind, or philosophical issues like those of morality or of beauty, ignores an important facet of human experience-- that not all experiences are sharable or reproducible.  To idealism, this is nothing at all: some ideas are sharable, some are personal, and so long as we agree which ideas those are, we're peachy.

Hi Benny. I was wondering if you could clarify something for me about your position? Here you talk about issues of morality and beauty and sharable and reproducible. Is it your position that certain aspects of conscious experience, like the experience of beauty, are not hypothetically reproducible... or have I got the wrong end of the stick? In other words if you hypothetically made an exact copy of a brain in a particular state of processing, right down to the quantum level, that it would not reproduce certain conscious experiences such as beauty? This being regardless of whether it's a materialistic reality or one that acts like it is.

[bennyboy]

I see physicalism as essentially exclusive, and idealism as essentially inclusive, and that's why the difference is important.  "Show me the evidence or stfu" with regards to issues of mind, or philosophical issues like those of morality or of beauty, ignores an important facet of human experience-- that not all experiences are sharable or reproducible.  To idealism, this is nothing at all: some ideas are sharable, some are personal, and so long as we agree which ideas those are, we're peachy.

Hi Benny. I was wondering if you could clarify something for me about your position? Here you talk about issues of morality and beauty and sharable and reproducible. Is it your position that certain aspects of conscious experience, like the experience of beauty, are not hypothetically reproducible... or have I got the wrong end of the stick? In other words if you hypothetically made an exact copy of a brain in a particular state of processing, right down to the quantum level, that it would not reproduce certain conscious experiences such as beauty? This being regardless of whether it's a materialistic reality or one that acts like it is.

I can't comment confidently on how, or if, a cloned brain would feel-- specifically, I don't/can't know if such a construct would be a philosophical zombie.  I suspect, as you probably do, that if you could exactly reproduce a brain, it would think it was the original, and would not know that it was a clone; and it would have all the feelings and experiences that the original had.

I didn't really intend to talk hypotheticals, though.  I'm talking about the fact that while I can drop a rock, and you will see it drop, I cannot imagine dropping a rock, and have any confidence that you will imagine an identical dropping rock.  My contention is that science is really a system for organizing and communicating about shared experiences, and is independent of a physicalist world view.  It doesn't matter, for example, if the "real" rock is really in the Matrix; so long as gravity is consistent and can be experimented on, science can be done, and you don't need to take a gnostic position on the real nature of whatever is underlying your observations.

[The Grand Nudger]

If you point to science, you are pointing to a set of necessarily materialist propositions.  You cannot argue using the truth of such propositions, for a position that argues against the truth of those same propositions. If the universe, for example, is not made of stuff - then what science tells us, -that this happens because of the properties of "stuff a and stuff b in medium c" is of absolutely no consequence. Those explanations are inaccurate and non-representative. It is ludicrous to point to them and say "well, if idealism is true then "ideas" work like we think stuff works"...., no, because stuff doesn't work at all, it doesn't even exist..............are you telling me that ideas work just like the stuff that doesn't exist works, or that any difference between ideas and "stuff" -which does not exist- is indistinguishable?

If mind were made of "ideas" ..-if this were true-, if mind was a product of non-material "idea interactions" and thusly some idealist conception of the same better explained our mind......it wouldn't matter.  That still does not tell us what the universe is made of even if we accept it as absolutely true without any argument /w regards to mind.

What am I supposed to make of this sort of response anyway? One minute science is good enough to claim whole-cloth for your position, the next it's uninformative. How does idealism explain the workings of the universe? Apparently, effectively (if not functionally) the same way science does. Them, for some odd reason.......that all breaks down at mind? You're awfully selective about when you find science to be compelling and when you don't.

[emjay]

Hi Benny. I was wondering if you could clarify something for me about your position? Here you talk about issues of morality and beauty and sharable and reproducible. Is it your position that certain aspects of conscious experience, like the experience of beauty, are not hypothetically reproducible... or have I got the wrong end of the stick? In other words if you hypothetically made an exact copy of a brain in a particular state of processing, right down to the quantum level, that it would not reproduce certain conscious experiences such as beauty? This being regardless of whether it's a materialistic reality or one that acts like it is.

I can't comment confidently on how, or if, a cloned brain would feel-- specifically, I don't/can't know if such a construct would be a philosophical zombie.  I suspect, as you probably do, that if you could exactly reproduce a brain, it would think it was the original, and would not know that it was a clone; and it would have all the feelings and experiences that the original had.

I didn't really intend to talk hypotheticals, though.  I'm talking about the fact that while I can drop a rock, and you will see it drop, I cannot imagine dropping a rock, and have any confidence that you will imagine an identical dropping rock.  My contention is that science is really a system for organizing and communicating about shared experiences, and is independent of a physicalist world view.  It doesn't matter, for example, if the "real" rock is really in the Matrix; so long as gravity is consistent and can be experimented on, science can be done, and you don't need to take a gnostic position on the real nature of whatever is underlying your observations.

I wasn't really wanting to talk hypotheticals either. I've finally managed to get to the end of the thread reading every post carefully and slowly so I think I have a fairly good understanding of everyone's position, but I did think that what we all had in common was the belief that the brain in a particular state directly correlates with a certain experience... so that even if the world was 'monist idealist' it would still appear to be correlated in exactly the same way even if there was no 'real' material behind it. I.e. if the monist idealist world is functionally identical to the material world then science would produce the same findings whichever it was. So with that in mind I just wanted to check whether you believed that the brain accounted, or appeared to account for all aspects of consciousness and conscious experience. As it stands I'm torn between yours, AKD's, and Rhythm's positions but I did think we all had that one thing in common and just needed to check.