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Who specifically fears them? There's this weird thread in your writings of implication that naturalists or whoever you're talking about are emotionally invested in some sort of specific outcome.
Generally speaking, the people I'm referring to fall in the category of "philosophical materialists" - although this is a wide-ranging spectrum of folks, and (as you've pointed out) philosophical discussions can often be so "impractical" that it is hard (if possible at all) to pin down precisely what certain people are really trying to say. At the most extreme end of the spectrum are the "eliminative materialists."
From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted. Eliminative Materialism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
From Wikipedia:
Eliminative materialism is the relatively new (1960s-70s) idea that certain classes of mental entities that common sense takes for granted, such as beliefs, desires, and the subjective sensation of pain, do not exist.The most common versions are eliminativism about propositional attitudes, as expressed by Paul and Patricia Churchland, and eliminativism about qualia (subjective experience), as expressed by Daniel Dennett and Georges Rey. These philosophers often appeal to an introspection illusion.
From my perspective, eliminative materialists are the most absurd types of materialists, but I also see them as having the deepest and most self-consistent insight into a certain "cognitive tension" that I think is inherent in the basic idea that the qualitative nature of experience is fully reducible to empirically measurable (objective/third-person) entities. Most materialists these days don't want to see themselves as "behaviorists" (psychological theory promoted by B.F. Skinner, etc. that is now generally considered to be a scientific "dead end"), but I think that the deep absurdity that plagues behaviorism also plagues materialism in general.
An older and more firmly established from of materialism is "reductive materialism" aka "mind-brain identity theory" or "type physicalism." [ Type physicalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ] These approaches essentially assert that every mental event can, in principle, be "reduced to" or "fully explained in terms of" neural events. This is where the modern talk of "neural correlates" comes in. I think this is fine insofar as scientific investigation is concerned, but a lot of people who have a justifiably deep respect for the scientific method unwittingly "deify" this form of knowledge to the point that they loose track of logic in a broader sense. Science is essentially driven by models. The "operationally defined" entities postulated by science are models of reality, and there is no logical reason to expect that any model of reality captures the complete nature or essence of reality. The problem with identity theory crops up when someone claims that qualitative experience are "nothing but" neural activity. This "nothing but" takes the claim out of the realm of science and into the realm of metaphysical speculation. You can say that qualia are illusions or "mysticism" if you want, but I'd say that the concept of qualia it is really just a requirement of the logic of first-person experience.
Reasoning goes haywire when people make a metaphysical claim that they mistakenly think is a "scientific" claim, and this category mistake leads them into sanctimonious proclamations, to the effect that if it isn't science then it is mere "mysticism" - where the term "mysticism" is meant to be pejorative - basically just foolish, soft-minded wishful thinking. Mind-brain identity theory is excellent as a scientific research paradigm, but it leads people astray when they start to insist that mind is "nothing but" brain activity (or that all aspects of mind are reducible to objectively observable entities). The addition of the "nothing but" makes the claim not only unscientific, but downright illogical. I'm not sure how many people would stick to their guns on identity theory if you really pushed them to the wall on it; they might adopt eliminativism, or they might soften their language and admit that we have credible knowledge of some aspects of experience that are not, even in principle, fully reducible to empirically measurable entities (due to the logic of subjectivity, where "knowing" is rooted in "being" - i.e. you can't empirically observe "what it's like to be" a process unless you are the process, at which point the "objectivity" of the observation is lost).
And, to once again link this discussion back to the OP: Rejecting traditional forms of materialism does not, in itself, offer any positive support for "religious" views, although admittedly some people will see it as "leaving the door open" for various religious views. Personally, as I discussed earlier, I think that some variation of "dual-aspect theory" or "property dualism" is the best metaphysical ground for atheism because it eliminates most of the traditional religious mumbo-jumbo about disembodied "souls" but it does not leave you open to the logically unsupportable notion that mind is "nothing but" brain activity. I think a lot of people who rabidly defend straight-up materialism and attack "mysticism" with a vengeance would probably discover that they are, in fact, property-dualists if they were to fully understand the logical weakness of the "nothing but" terminology that is implicit in so many attempts to defend materialism.
Mind-brain identity theory is excellent as a scientific research paradigm, but it leads people astray when they start to insist that mind is "nothing but" brain activity (or that all aspects of mind are reducible to objectively observable entities). The addition of the "nothing but" makes the claim not only unscientific, but downright illogical.
Personally I think it likely it is "nothing but", however, I don't claim that we have conclusively proven that it is "nothing but", either, given that we don't yet entirely understand how the brain works. However, at the same time, I can see the "nothing but" claim is scientifically falsifiable, whereas, I can't necessarily see that "something more" is. At some point, if / when all observable and known aspects of mind can be adequately explained entirely in terms of brain activity, then "nothing but" is as reasonable a default to me as "no god" and the burden of proof isn't on me, since a naturalistic explanation is not an extraordinary claim.
The problem arises in how you define "adequately explained". For someone who really, really wants / needs there to be "something more" and really, really dislikes "nothing but", I have a feeling that no materialistic explanation will ever be "adequate". I am pretty sure we'll be back to the same touche-kicking contests we regularly see around theism, where we unbelievers are somehow supposed to take on the burden of proof for something that is not falsifiable.
There will always be subjective aspects of "what it is to have" mentation that are not intuitively explained in materialistic terms by natural mechanisms. Many truths are counterintuitive. Heavier than air flying machines are counterintuitive, the only reason we don't have cognitive dissonance about them is that from infancy we all see them flying and accept the concept as self evidently true.
Well it seems to be very similar to labeling an event, such as superposition and not being able to outline all the mechanic's or force's which would be necessary, so in these topic's of the unknowns which would be the business of science, labels terms and neurons get left with the whole ball of wax leaving real science suspended. Anyway that's my two cents worth for now. All the religion inferences one way or the other or any, don't seem to have anything to do with the scientific exploring and its too bad they have to be weeded out.
Personally I think it likely it is "nothing but", however, I don't claim that we have conclusively proven that it is "nothing but", either, given that we don't yet entirely understand how the brain works. However, at the same time, I can see the "nothing but" claim is scientifically falsifiable, whereas, I can't necessarily see that "something more" is.
It seems to me that you are interpreting "something more" in terms of substance, so you are, in actuality, expressing your discontent with substance dualism. But when I reject the "nothing more" approach, I am not embracing substance dualism. As I see it, the "something more" is simply the acknowledgement of multiple properties - some of which are only subjectively accessible. The Empire State building is 1454 feet tall, but none of us would be inclined to say it is "nothing more than" 1454 feet tall. We all know it has other properties, such as width, mass, number of windows, square feet of concrete, and so on. It also has a bunch of "less tangible" properties such as "it was once the tallest building in the world" or "it is where King Kong is imagined to have batted down airplanes," etc. All of these properties count as "something more" than just a list of all of the atoms constituting the building, and none of these properties contradict the fact that the building is, indeed, composed of its atoms. If the Empire State building had never been built, then the property "it is where King Kong batted down airplanes" would not be floating around somewhere in an etheric realm. This property is inherent in the overall physical presence and historical context of the building. (BTW: For those of you who are familiar with the idea of properties as being "universals" - I am thinking of properties as "Aristotelian universals" not as a "Platonic Forms.") You can contrast this with the notion of Cartesian "substance" dualism, where a mind could, in principle, exist without a body.
The weird thing about a qualitative mental property - e.g. "what it's like to see blue" - is that it exists as a unique perspective. Most properties of a thing can be observed from multiple perspectives. We can all measure the width of a building, for example. The property "what it's like to see blue" is a physical process, and it can be observed from multiple perspectives. But when it is observed from multiple perspectives, it is seen not as "what it is like to see blue" but, rather, it is seen as a "brain process." Well, if "what it is like to see blue" is a property of physical systems, why can't we all see it as blue as such? Answer: When you think of a blue quale, you perceive something as if it were an object, but it is not actually an "object" - i.e., it is not something that can, in principle, be observed from multiple perspectives. The "blueness of blue" that you focus on ("objectify") is actually a perspective-based process, and the perspective that it is based on is the perspective dependent on BEING the particular physical system that you are. No "other" physical system can BE the process that you are, so sheer logic suggests that no other physical system can observe the "blueness of blue" that you experience as such. The physical constituents of "the perception of blue" can be seen from multiple perspectives, but the "qualitative blueness that is seemingly perceived" cannot be observed from multiple perspectives because this blue is not an object of perception (it is not "out there"); it is a process of perceiving, that our minds objectify (makes it seem like, in some sense, "out-there-ish").
It is not a flaw of science that science can't objectively confirm the subjective feel of blue (other than record the objective behaviors of people who say "I see blue" or record their brain processes). To admit property dualism is simply to admit the logic of subjectivity - the "unique being-based quality" of experience.
It seems to me that you are interpreting "something more" in terms of substance, so you are, in actuality, expressing your discontent with substance dualism. But when I reject the "nothing more" approach, I am not embracing substance dualism. As I see it, the "something more" is simply the acknowledgement of multiple properties - some of which are only subjectively accessible. The Empire State building is 1454 feet tall, but none of us would be inclined to say it is "nothing more than" 1454 feet tall. We all know it has other properties, such as width, mass, number of windows, square feet of concrete, and so on. It also has a bunch of "less tangible" properties such as "it was once the tallest building in the world" or "it is where King Kong is imagined to have batted down airplanes," etc. All of these properties count as "something more" than just a list of all of the atoms constituting the building, and none of these properties contradict the fact that the building is, indeed, composed of its atoms. If the Empire State building had never been built, then the property "it is where King Kong batted down airplanes" would not be floating around somewhere in an etheric realm. This property is inherent in the overall physical presence and historical context of the building. (BTW: For those of you who are familiar with the idea of properties as being "universals" - I am thinking of properties as "Aristotelian universals" not as a "Platonic Forms.") You can contrast this with the notion of Cartesian "substance" dualism, where a mind could, in principle, exist without a body.
The weird thing about a qualitative mental property - e.g. "what it's like to see blue" - is that it exists as a unique perspective. Most properties of a thing can be observed from multiple perspectives. We can all measure the width of a building, for example. The property "what it's like to see blue" is a physical process, and it can be observed from multiple perspectives. But when it is observed from multiple perspectives, it is seen not as "what it is like to see blue" but, rather, it is seen as a "brain process." Well, if "what it is like to see blue" is a property of physical systems, why can't we all see it as blue as such? Answer: When you think of a blue quale, you perceive something as if it were an object, but it is not actually an "object" - i.e., it is not something that can, in principle, be observed from multiple perspectives. The "blueness of blue" that you focus on ("objectify") is actually a perspective-based process, and the perspective that it is based on is the perspective dependent on BEING the particular physical system that you are. No "other" physical system can BE the process that you are, so sheer logic suggests that no other physical system can observe the "blueness of blue" that you experience as such. The physical constituents of "the perception of blue" can be seen from multiple perspectives, but the "qualitative blueness that is seemingly perceived" cannot be observed from multiple perspectives because this blue is not an object of perception (it is not "out there"); it is a process of perceiving, that our minds objectify (makes it seem like, in some sense, "out-there-ish").
It is not a flaw of science that science can't objectively confirm the subjective feel of blue (other than record the objective behaviors of people who say "I see blue" or record their brain processes). To admit property dualism is simply to admit the logic of subjectivity - the "unique being-based quality" of experience.
You are an excellent teacher, Gaylen. I really enjoy your presentations but am dismayed at their relatively unsuccessful reception. In one way . . . it makes me less concerned that it is my poor presentations that cause the lack of understanding I encounter. On the other hand . . . it really disturbs me that human intellect seems so occluded to these kinds of philosophical issues. I understand the pragmatism that engenders it . . . but it is no less disappointing for all that. Thanks for posting here again, Gaylen. Your clarity of mind was missed. I still see your quest as quixotic, though. Consciousness IS the unified field (substrate) that establishes our reality. If that is true . . . a conscious universe is the pre-eminent description of God.
Generally speaking, the people I'm referring to fall in the category of "philosophical materialists"
Can you quote any of them actually saying they fear whatever it is you think they fear, or are you confusing rational disagreement with an emotional response on their part?
Quote:
The addition of the "nothing but" makes the claim not only unscientific, but downright illogical.
This would be a lot more believable if the "there has to be something more" side could do more than just make up riddles based on our lack of understanding. It is perfectly logical to reject the "is has to be something more" when no on can tell you what that something more actually is.
Can you quote any of them actually saying they fear whatever it is you think they fear, or are you confusing rational disagreement with an emotional response on their part?
This would be a lot more believable if the "there has to be something more" side could do more than just make up riddles based on our lack of understanding. It is perfectly logical to reject the "is has to be something more" when no on can tell you what that something more actually is.
I was using the word "fear" in a loose sense of avoidance - as in the beer commercial "Don't be afraid of the dark." The beer maker is not suggesting that anyone literally "fears" dark beer. Their point is that the beer they're advertising supposedly does not have a strong bitter taste - unlike most other dark beers. Obviously the materialists won't say they are "afraid" of qualia - that would be just plain silly (unless the qualia happens to be, let's say, the sensation of sawing your leg off without anesthesia...I, myself, would be afraid of that qualia).
And BTW: The term "qualiaphobic" (which is a term you will sometimes see connected to the "qualiaphiles" vs. "qualiaphobes" war - sorta like "skins" vs "shirts" on a playground) is not a serious psychological term. The "qualiaphobe" is simply a person who believes that qualia don't exist. This is mostly because the term 'qualia' is generally defined in such a way that it is necessarily "non-physical." In my case, however, I think that qualia are essentially physical processes, but I'm also saying that some aspects of physical processes cannot be understood solely in terms of objective empirical investigation. So, sorta like the makers of that dark beer commercial, I'm saying "Don't be afraid of the qualia." They are not "non-physical"; they are embodied mind/brain/world processes, but they have certain properties that cannot be fully understood in purely objective terms. Mary, the color-blind neuroscientist, could know absolutely every objectively-observable fact about the process that we refer to as "what it is like for me to see blue," and still not have a first-person understanding of "what it is like to see blue" UNLESS she somehow overcomes her color-blindness and is thus able to actually experience - subjectively - what it is like to see blue. This is because "what it is like to see blue" is an indexical property.
Quick note about the logic of indexical properties: I am a physical system with many properties. Some of my properties are objectively sharable, e.g., my height could be the same as your height, and we can objectively measure our heights to determine this. Some of my properties are indexical: My death is a process that no one can undergo but me. That's just what it means to say that a property is "indexical" ("me", or "here" or "now", etc.). What it is like for me to see blue is also an indexical property - no one other than me can "see blue for me" - it is something that I need to do for myself. You can observe MOST of the properties of my physical existence - including most of my indexical properties - but there are certain indexical properties that you cannot - even in principle - observe from your perspective. Why can't you observe them? Because of simple logic: You can't observe my indexically-dependent perspective from your indexically-dependent perspective. It is not a matter of "Oh, gosh, we just don't know how to do that yet, but someday scientists will figure out how to do it." No. It's not a technical limitation; it is a logical limitation. So, unless I can think of a way for scientists to re-write the laws of logic, I won't be holding my breath for the day when scientists completely reduce all of the properties of qualia to the measurable entities of physics.
I expect that we will find the physical correlates of qualia - we are already making some interesting progress - but our models of the physical correlates will not capture every indexical property of qualia. The logic is so "trivially true" that it shouldn't even be a subject of debate. Mary, the colorblind super-neuroscientist, will still not know "what it is like" to see blue unless she, herself, becomes the kind of physical system that "sees blue" - in which case she will no longer be colorblind. The key to understanding qualia is to realize that, in the process of subjectively "seeing blue" she has gained some understanding that she failed to attain via purely objective observations of other people seeing blue.
If you want me to explicitly point at the subjective properties of qualia, or give a clear operational definition of the indexical perspective-dependent properties of qualia that can be plugged into a mathematical model, then you've failed to grasp the logic of indexicality, and I think I've exhausted my bad of tricks for explaining that. (Ironically: I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.) And just to be clear: I did not say that we will never be able to give a clear operational definition of qualia. I did not even say that the indexical "what-it-is-like-ness" of qualia can't be modeled scientifically. (In fact, I'm trying to lay the foundations for such a model myself.) All I am saying is that certain indexical perspective-dependent properties of qualia will necessarily slip through the net of every model, no matter how excellent the model is.
And therein lies a mystery that science cannot "solve" for reasons roughly analogous to the reasons that science can "solve" the incompleteness/incoherence of mathematics (Gödel's theorem). The brute logical facts of reality are simply not "problems" for science to "solve." They are simply the awe-inspiring mysteries of being. So yes, in this light I fully confess to being a mystic.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 08-22-2014 at 09:24 AM..
Thanks! Although I have to admit that my reasons for posting here are mostly selfish. Any "teaching" that happens is a side-effect of my primary purpose, which is to learn something. Specifically, I am seriously trying to "grok" the minds of "qualiaphobes." I am not comfortable assuming that I have simply managed to see something that they have missed. If I thought that was true, then I would probably not be nearly so dogged about dripping every last drop of blood out of this type of debate. It is not pride, but fear that primarily motivates me here. In my experience, most heartfelt debates between intelligent people boil down to each participant grabbing hold of a different part of the same elephant. Each tends to be "a little bit right" while at the same time being "a little bit wrong." I am afraid that I am missing something. I'm trying to learn what part of my point of view might be "a little bit wrong." I keep perusing the professional literature and popular science/philosophy literature, but I also like to drop in to places like this from time to time (sorta like a talent scout cruising the small venues looking for undiscovered talent?) hoping to stumble upon a golden nugget or two that might be missing from other places I've looked. (Not so much that I depend on people to say profound things...in a lot of cases it is just that their disagreement, whether profound or otherwise, keeps pushing me to find more precise terms and clearer concepts.)
If/when I ever come to feel like I have "the truth" in my pocket I probably won't be selfless enough to spend a lot of time in places like this. (Maybe just enough time to say "Here's the truth: blah, blah, blah" then move on and let the chips fall where they may while I bask on the shores of Tahiti.)
If you want me to explicitly point at the subjective properties of qualia, or give a clear operational definition of the indexical perspective-dependent properties of qualia that can be plugged into a mathematical model, then you've failed to grasp the logic of indexicality, and I think I've exhausted my bad of tricks for explaining that.
From a point of view of someone who doesn't think there's anything substantial to what you're proposing, this sounds awfully suspicious. It's a great cop out - no matter what naturalistic discover about brain function, one can always retreat to "but that's not the unexplainable thing I'm hinting at".
I am sure that Mystic loves what he sees as upsetting the logical standpoint of materialistic atheism. However, these musings about qualia or the various brands of materialism that philosophy has seen fit to identify, label and pigeonhole are really of no more than academic interest.
What is interesting is that I am sure we have been here before. Blue we are sure is a mental reaction to a certain wavelength of light and has no reality. In another way, it is predictable, measurable and testable and does (therefore) have reality (1) . That fact of that mechanism is part of biological naturalism and thus materialism. What the conscious mechanism of the interpretive qualia common to all humans (2) might be is as yet unknown. That does not mean that Something More has to be the answer.
In the Atheist forum what 'Something More' means should be obvious. Just what that might be -substance or spirit - is not for the atheists, materialists or qualiaphobes to explain. It's the old burden of proof thing. Tell us what 'God' is and we'll have a definition.
That is pretty much how we grok and I believe that we are not so much qualiaphobes but use of qualia as proof of 'Something more' Aka God -phobes.
(1) The old axiom (and I am NOT going to get drawn into a debate about what an axionm is or is not) of reality (the universe) is an illusion, but it is a reliably repeatable one applies, again and again.
(2) the question of whether my blue is the same as yours is also academic. Logically we might assume that it was, especially as generics would indicate a similar response and subjective interpretation of blue as a cool colour suggests that it is the same. Thus the burden of proof is on anyone who wants to argue that it is not. If philosophy hasn't got that far yet, it it high time it did.
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Consciousness IS the unified field (substrate) that establishes our reality. If that is true . . . a conscious universe is the pre-eminent description of God.
