Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[Bunburryist]

I think the argument from explanatory success and a tendency toward empiricist epistemology have more to do with the prevalence of mind/body physicalism here. The machine metaphor is obviously outdated to any one with a passing familiarity with contemporary cognitive and neuroscience.

Yes, but the basic context of "thing makes mind" is still there.  Sure, it's not exactly "mechanistic," but it's still a matter of explaining experience in terms of something happening in a thing in a material world - as opposed to (and this is the crux of my post) the idea that material world is not a world that exists and in the terms of which experience is explained, but rather is a way we learn to think about this experience we learn to call "the world."  I know that sound rather vague, but it's what I call a "world of difference difference."  They present two fundamentally different realities.

[Bunburryist]

It may help you to know that I find myself increasing moving toward Thomistic philosophy.

Can you give me a link to a site that explains Thomistic philosophy particularly well?

[Gemini]

The theoretical models work until they don't. Newtonian physics is extraordinarily successful for ordinary scales. Nevertheless it doesn't tell the whole story at extremely small and extremely large scales. Nearly all the materialist/physicalist theories of mind are based on 18th century physics and they haven't delivered. That approach has been a dismal failure for well over 100 years and yet the various proponents of materialist/physicalist monism continue to issue the promissory note that a solution will be forth-coming...someday, maybe.  I would note that idealistic monism suffers from a similar problem in reverse.

Two cases where were in a similar position. Alfred Wegener had evidence that continental drift had happened, but he didn't have a mechanism to explain it. Darwin had evidence for evolution, but the mechanisms driving it wouldn't be apparent until the discovery of genetics. Those promissory notes turned out good. It's fine to have evidence for something without a robust explanation of mechanism. 

Right now the options are that we could explain consciousness within the framework of the standard model of physics (invoking metaphysics, perhaps, like neutral monism), or we could explain with new physics. The latter would of course be a sweeping, breathtaking change for the mind/body physicalist position, but it would still be physicalism.

[Neo-Scholastic]

It may help you to know that I find myself increasing moving toward Thomistic philosophy.

Can you give me a link to a site that explains Thomistic philosophy particularly well?

I am old fashioned. I read books. I take notes with a fountain pen.

Books:
"Elementary Course in Christian Philosophy" by The Brothers of the Christian Schools
"Saint Thomas Aquinas" by G. K. Chesterton
Mortemer J. Adler is always worth the a quick read.

Lately though I go straight to the source.

I haven't read this one but the reviews seem very positive. Probably a little basic for me but a beginner might do well...

"Scholatic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introuction" by Ed Fesser

I also follow a few blogs with a neo-Scholastic Bent"

Maverick Philosopher
Strange Notions
Ed Fesser

[LadyForCamus]

Are you serious?  If you don't pretend to know what happens after we die why do you say:


What exactly do you know about what happens to us after we die that permits you to rule out the possibility that we aren't also our body?

Is a dead body a person?

A dead body is a dead person.  And of course we know what happens after we die:  Autolysis and putrefaction.   

[The Grand Nudger]

I understand why you put the disclaimer in there, but again....obviously learning about nuerotransmitters, for example, tells us something about experience. 

Actually, what we know about neurotransmitters tells us absolutely nothing about experience. 

..sure, whatever you say, I guess.

There is no physically described, or describable relationship between neurons and the experience of yellow.

If you say so.

Is there a relationship - absolutely.  Within the context of the material worldview - and this is one of the fundamental problems with it - there is no way to bridge the gap between physically describable systems and any experience of any kind.  Not only is there not an "obvious" connection between neuronal processes in a material world (I don't think such a world exists - but that's another story), there's not one in fact.  Show me one physical connection between neuronal processes and any experience of any kind.  There is a correlation between physical models we derive from this experience and our experience as a whole.  Certainly.  But that doesn't mean it has to be the one the materialist worldview says it is.

Go get drunk and get back to me.

[Ben Davis]

[bennyboy]

Two cases where were in a similar position. Alfred Wegener had evidence that continental drift had happened, but he didn't have a mechanism to explain it. Darwin had evidence for evolution, but the mechanisms driving it wouldn't be apparent until the discovery of genetics. Those promissory notes turned out good. It's fine to have evidence for something without a robust explanation of mechanism. 

The difference is that continental drift and the unknown mechanism both share the same context-- earthly stuff, doing stuff. Mind/brain/materialism etc. is very much different than that. To draw a parallel, it would be like you have to ASSUME that there are fossils there, despite nobody being able to actually see them, or even really describe them very well, and THEN explain the mechanism for their presence. Nobody would say that's science, I think.

[Gemini]

The difference is that continental drift and the unknown mechanism both share the same context-- earthly stuff, doing stuff.  Mind/brain/materialism etc. is very much different than that.  To draw a parallel, it would be like you have to ASSUME that there are fossils there, and THEN explain the mechanism for their presence.  Nobody does that.

A point of contention between mind/body physicalists and their critics is how different mind actually is from matter. To use an example, some philosophers think intentionality is irreducible to physical components. But that's a controversial claim. My view is it's perfectly fine to explain intentionality within the framework of computational systems that can carry out operations that reference other operations.

Qualia is more difficult, but just because we have trouble connecting them to a neural explanation doesn't mean they're something completely different from neuroprocessing. The explanatory gap is presently neutral with respect to what kinds of explanations we could close it with.

[The Grand Nudger]

Two cases where were in a similar position. Alfred Wegener had evidence that continental drift had happened, but he didn't have a mechanism to explain it. Darwin had evidence for evolution, but the mechanisms driving it wouldn't be apparent until the discovery of genetics. Those promissory notes turned out good. It's fine to have evidence for something without a robust explanation of mechanism. 

The difference is that continental drift and the unknown mechanism both share the same context-- earthly stuff, doing stuff.  Mind/brain/materialism etc. is very much different than that.  To draw a parallel, it would be like you have to ASSUME that there are fossils there, despite nobody being able to actually see them, or even really describe them very well, and THEN explain the mechanism for their presence.  Nobody would say that's science, I think.

Is your experience of qualia just an assumption?  If not, then stop. The science is science regardless of whether or not you appreciate or agree with it's conclusions. It's fine to be opposed to them, it's ludicrous to argue that they are not what they are.

It's obvious that you cannot accept what science has to say about qualia, our minds, or our brains...but that you also feel the need to be considered by yourself and others as a scientific and rational person. Faced with this impossible dilemma, you seem to think that the only way to maintain the integrity of your position and your self appraisal, is to claim that the offending body of science simply doesn't exist, that it's "not-science". Can you recognize the absurdity of this situation, and of your suggestion?

OFC it's science, you just don't agree with it. Internalize that, own it. Stop trying to rationalize your way around it.