An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative (atheist, quote, believe)

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

But, honoured master, what I miss is something like "what materialist physicalism has to do in order to turn dualism into monism is to find a nuts and bolts link between the input information (presented as a structure by the brain as a recognisable information code by another part of the brain) and the phenominational output which, (it is theorised) is itself a form of structure by the brain".

Ontologically, the output is the phenomenal experience (or, at least, it is some sort of physical processing) - this is the physicalism/monism that your and I agree on. But if the phenomenal feeling is the process, as we agree, then the epistemological asymmetry/"logic of subjectivity" has to apply. The aspects of the process that are objectively observable can, of course, be observed by multiple people. Lots of people can observe the physical aspects of the process in my brain that counts as being the process of me "experiencing red". Furthermore, if all of these observers are, themselves, "experiencers of red" then they can, in principle, know everything that is useful to know about my experience of red. But the reason they can know everything about my experience of red is because they have experienced red for themselves so they can use their imaginations to put the subjective piece of the puzzle into place.

(1) They study the objective activity, and realize that it is the physical correlate of "seeing red".
(2) Based on their own subjective experiences of red, they imaging "seeing red."
(3) Voila! The puzzle is complete. They know everything useful that there is to know about my experience of red.

Step #2 is logically necessary if, as you and I agree, the experience of seeing red is a physical process in my brain. As physicalists, you and I agree that seeing red is being a physical system undergoing a certain physical process. But only I can be the process that I am. You cannot be that process. You can be a distinct similar process, and thus you can have a qualitatively similar experience, and thus "complete the puzzle" - but your ability to complete the puzzle absolutely logically depends on step #2. If, for any reason whatsoever, you are somehow incapable of seeing red for yourself and/or imagining your own experience of seeing red, then you are logically prevented from completing the puzzle.

Given that you consider yourself to be bound by the principles of logic (specifically, the principle of identity), then you do not have the option of believing that someday a materialist will complete the puzzle by studying just the objectively observable properties of a process. Any knowledge that is logically dependent on being X is a subjective form of knowledge, and therefore cannot be known by any entity that is not X. You and I seem to agree on the monism "seeing red" = "physical process" so my experience of "seeing red" has to be a physical process of which I am composed. Unless you are composed of the same process (i.e., you are me), or you are composed of a similar process (i.e., able to subjectively experience "seeing red" for yourself), you cannot know everything interesting that there is to know about the experience of seeing red.

(BTW: Here is the Law of Identity, just for fun)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSYjlz_ijb4
(I get an odd kick out of the fact that the anime girl is wearing a headset microphone - like, I'm not going to hear her without that ;-)

...to validate some mysterious never -to -be -reconciled difference that is almost supernatural in concept.

I suppose that the brute fact laws of logic can seem "almost supernatural" insofar as they are not the sorts of things that can be "explained" because they are...well...brute fact fundamental. I am comfortable with the logical necessity of having to accept certain brute facts as being the conditions for the possibility of thought in the first place, even if there is a certain aura of "unsolvable mystery" surrounding them. The physicalist claim of identity between qualia and physical processes logically implies the logic of subjectivity, which implies that not all knowledge can be reduced to purely objectively accessible terms. This is not something that anyone can ever have any logical choice about, even though somehow in your confusion you seem to think that in the future somehow someone will figure out how to gain objective access to subjective knowledge. You might as well be declaring that someday someone will figure out how to build a square circle. Is there some weird "woo-like" supernatural mystery that prevents us from building a square circle? I'd say no. The same goes for the logic of subjectivity.

The only problem is to say how this in terms of mental particles in a complex structure could amount to the effect of perception.

I don't know what you mean by "mental particles". As far as I can see, it is an incoherent concept.

We don't want to get dragged down Woo lane where Life is some magical quality that materialism can't account for...

I suspect that we will someday account for life in mostly objective terms insofar as "life" is defined in terms of various types of behaviors (e.g., metabolism, self-reproduction, etc.). But "life" as physical processes, and the subjective experiences of what is like to be alive are radically different types of knowledge. And this isn't "woo" or "supernatural" - it is just straight-up logic.

Even if materialism can't explain it yet, it does not mean that it never can.

Materialism probably can, in principle, explain the physical aspects of the processes of life, mind, etc., but insofar as materialism depends exclusively on objective descriptions of entities, etc., it won't fully account for the subjective feels of experience because - well, because the feels are subjective, which is to say, knowledge of certain aspects of these feels are only accessible to the physical process that (per the claim of physicalism: qualia = physical process) is the physical process who is experiencing the feels, or physical processes who can subjectively experience qualitatively similar feels of their own.

That said, I cannot identify this supposed irreconcilable divide between input mechanism and output other than we can't explain it -yet, which you say you don't reject.

For the purposes of understanding what you are not comprehending about the Hard Problem, you don't really need to know the mechanisms in detail. All you need to know is that the objective aspects of the mechanisms (no matter what they are) will always - by logical necessity - be inadequate to fully explain the subjective aspects correlated with being the processes that are undergoing subjective experience.

I'm looking not even to see whether I agree this non -substance dualism, but just to get what it is, and when I look where it ought to be, I can't see it

I don't know why you can't see it. That is the flabbergasting aspect of the gap between us. If it involved some long, twisted logical proof with a bunch of obscure twists and turns, I can see how you might fail to see how the conclusion follows, but that is not the case here. The law of identity is probably blatantly obvious (and, if it is not, watch the first minute of the video above), and the physicalist claim of identity between qualia and physical processes is something that you accept. The Logic of Subjectivity, in turn, follows very simply from a combination of the law of identity and the identity of qualia=physical process. The only other step is to recognize that I am referring to "materialism" in the sense of "explaining things in terms of objective descriptions of entities, laws, etc. It is the objectivity requirement of explanation the dooms materialism to an explanatory gap when it comes to qualia.

My claim is simply that physicalism can eventually explain qualia, but only insofar as some future conception of physicalism (via paradigm shift) open a path to some degree of phenomenological (i.e., 1st-person) investigation. Given that there are objective truths about subjective experiences, this future science can still be science, albeit via the critical paradigm shift along the way.

BTW: Although I do not consider the logic of subjectivity to be a form of "woo," I do have to say that, in the right frame of mind, it does inspire (for me, at least) a mind-boggling, full-blown, unashamedly spiritual experience of awe, wonder, amazement, and gratitude that there is "existence" at all, and raising this to a power of ten, comes the amazement that there is any experience of existence. It is a profound thing to acknowledge being, and it is even more profound to consciously recognize and acknowledge the experience of being the being that I am. This is not "woo" - it is simply being conscious of one's own conscious self-awareness. It is, plain and simply, an intellectual and emotional/spiritual reward of self-reflective self-knowledge. This type of spiritual experience is equally available to all conscious, sufficiently self-reflective beings, no matter what they have, or do not have, religious "faith" in.

[Tzaphkiel]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

....I don't know what you mean by "mental particles". As far as I can see, it is an incoherent concept.....

it is a very coherent concept, and Trans explained it quite nicely. It is discussed in posts 3220, 3222, and 3257.

and I totally agree with Trans and the points he is making and the process he is describing.

everything in the universe is made of the same "basic stuff."
This "same basic stuff" phases into and out of various forms: solid, liquid, gas, for instance.
This "same basic stuff" can "take form" as a diamond, an ultrasound wave, a thought, a violin solo, or a crowbar.

when the "same basic stuff" takes form as a thought, it is a mental particle.
that's how I read it anyway, Trans can let us know if that is what he means.

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Thinking is a rational process going on in the mind. Feeling is an instinct (innate or learned) of pleasure or fear or dislike or awe and tends to generate physical effects in parts of the body. That said the thinking and feeling process seems to be very much the same kind of mental process as input of pain or taste can be duplicated by the mental memory of that, though usually not so intense. So given that the mind is involved in both, the body is involved in feeling or experience.

I think thought IS physical matter or more correctly matter doing stuff, which we call energy. I believe it is all Particles of some kind doing physical work. That's why I think in time this can be understood and explained. I'm not certain but I seem to recall that thoughts and emotions and the work the mind is doing can indeed be 'measured' and in very surprising ways.

Yes. Though it would be more correct to say that consciousness is matter doing stuff, and all of the cosmos is matter doing stuff. The same goes for 'life'. But I make a distinction between the basic reactions and the highly complex and sophisticated ones we call life and consciousness. It is all the same stuff but just as a higher animal is more sophisticated than a nematode (which is quite complex enough) a distinction us needed though it is a convention and where you draw the line is anyone's guess. ....

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Matter takes on very different forms, but is the same stuff at base. You can't see x -rays or gamma rays, but they do stuff with you body as effectively as lead molecules going through your respected bod at muzzle velocity or iron molecules interacting with the cranium in the form of a crowbar.

UV and Infra read are as real as red or blue light particles, but we "Think" they are not real because our retinas are not adapted to register the information. Water as steam cannot be caught in a net, and superheated can't even be seen, but frozen, you can break windows with it.

And of course electricity does not appear to exist when it runs along the copper thread, but touch it and it will feel real enough. And thoughts are, or so the explanation goes, electricity, and is as real as that and as solid as particles go, as
particles that make up diamond. But considerably more precious.

[TRANSPONDER]

I'll have a look at that more closely (and the video) but it seems to be pointing at one of three ideas:

That I cannot comprehend unless I already knew what it was like.
That , even if I did know what it was like, and logic would suggests that the assumption that my experience was like yours, it would still not BE yours
Something else...forgot what...hang on.

Damn, I didn't save the post. I'll re do it later, but right now that video is hard work. Paltry music and a mechanical translator. It makes a big deal about defining characteristics that are distinct from the thing itself. It may be a convenient way of directing meanings, but it has no meaning separate from the thing. Like the angles of a triangle, take the material away and where are the angles? Nowhere. You'll recall that Aristotle (believe) talked of the principle of red, and I will agree that it is a useful categorising label to assist in our communication but cannot be anything more than a descriptive meaning.
Red is a characteristic of a cooked lobster, but before it was cooked, it was blue. What 'principle' has changed? Nothing but the way ther particles were rearranged by heat. The blue principle cannot be removed by you or me because it does not exist, any more than the triangle -angles do. You take away one mental label and find another that we agree fits the colour -characteristic of the cooked lobster.

I sometimes say on the boards 'meanings before definitions', that is; what a thing is is what it is, and not the dictionary definition we assign to it. In apologetics this is a rich field of misdirection that we have to counter, but here we haven't an axe to grind.

Just that the colour or characteristic labels are human conventions, and handy too, and may even refer to universal laws like geometry or mathematics. The do not exist of themselves and are not so much subjective as imaginary. I need hardly remind you that i observed that red can be all kinds of until it becomes morre appropriate to arrign the 'mauve' or 'orange' character. What 'principle' is hovering in the air then? No more than the handy but imprecise and often clumsy convenience -labels we use to communicate ideas.

This all seems basically flawed to me, and if in philosophic terms it is not, then I can only say that it is a game philosophers play with its' rules and it may have some use. Perhaps - as Deep Thought observed when the alien philosophers threatened to go on strike; "Whom would that incovenience?"

It doesn't seem to have relevance to material physicalism at least in science (rather than philosophy) terms, and seems irreleant and certainly isn't a problem concrete thinkers need worry about or even feel obliged to address.

This covers a bit of what i typed and forgot to save (1). As I recall I said that Me mot being you or it (whatever) is obviously true. A truism perhaps and so obvious and really irrelevant that i didn't think it could be what you meant.
I used an analogy of historians and Archaeologists not being able to be The Thing itself, unless they invent a time machine. In that respect it is indeed a "Hard Problem", and obviously true. They are trying to draw reliable models of the past from what data there is, and to ask the to address the problem itself is meaningless. Without, as I say, a time machine.

So material physicalism knows that it is dealing with stuff outside the room or inside the box, or on the radar -screen. But to ask us to do something about it is pointless. To say it is a problem that materialism has to address is meaningless. All that can be done is accept subjectivity as we accept remoteness from past events. Science, providing ways of getting reliable facts from Data and minimising 'imperfect human perception' is all that materialism has to worry about. The 'problem' itself is not.

Now I'll try to tackle that vid again...after i go out for milk, or I'll be drinking too much cider again. And if it seems impudent of me without a certificate to my name other than for a 1 day computer -course (2) to presume to find fault with the Great Thinkers of the past an present, I can only say that I have to be true to my concrete -thinking cerebral stodge. Weighed down by my concrete mind, I can only stand here; I can do no other.

P.s Did anyone notice that Arisophanes mocking Socrates and his foolish and atheistic argument that the clouds coinciding with rain implied a causal connection which relegated Zeus as the origin of rain to a less probable hypothesis, was actually the correct explanation. In fact Surely Aristophanes knew that?

(1) I'll save Mystic the effort of a post. "Ah - hah. Lapses of memory, possible the aged Transponder mind not working so well? Is this not perhaps the problem that bedevils all his posts with his implacably irrational refusal to accept my plonking Faith Claims at face -value?"

(2) which I earned by mastering the sequence of buttons to be pushed to be rewarded with a peanut, coming in fourth after a Capuchin monkey, a marmoset and a white rat.

[gabfest]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

I'll have a look at that more closely (and the video) but it seems to be pointing at one of three ideas:

That I cannot comprehend unless I already knew what it was like.
That, even if I did know what it was like, and logic would suggests that the assumption that my experience was like yours, it would still not BE yours
Something else...forgot what...hang on.

I think...a sort if idea that no matter how convincing our mechanical explanations are and how much verification can convince us we got it right, we can't know as we are (as my analogy) handling the stuff in the box through gloves.

I got the idea that I am not you, I am not the things, and my conscious mind is not even my own conscious mind and we are always inside the radar -room seeing green on the screen when it is actually red.

This is obviously true undeniable subjectivity. If this is the case, I get it, but it seemed to me to be such a truism that I didn't consider that it was what you might be getting it.

In any case it may be called a Hard problem in philosophy, but I don't see it as a problem at all. It is like history and palaeontology, which has tremendous problems in evaluating and interpreting the data, but that this is a problem that could be said to be impossible for the discipline to overcome is obvious but irrelevant. Historians and archaeologuists can't address this unless they invent some kind of Time machine, so it isn't worth worrying about.

Similarly that each of us is not the other person or thing isn't a problem that we need to address and asking what Material physicalism is going to do about it is pointless. We can do nothing about it (unless we invent a telepathy machine) and so it isn't anything we need to address.

Is this at all what the problem is, because I can't see what's the point of the discussion. Do we really need someone getting a university faculty stipend to tell me that I am not the same as you?

Gaylen obviously does not play below the belt, but isn't the above generally the purpose of wall-text?

[Tzaphkiel]

and more on the process that Trans is so adeptly describing
(by the way Trans, I take back what I said earlier, and now I do agree with your comment you made sometime last year that yes for the most part we do see things the same way and are on the same page. You were and are right about that.)

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Yes, but particularly how it works. I am thinking of perception -input along the neurons to the brain where it is turned into a mental phenomenon that not only makes sense to us (like an image of an airliner on a radar -screen) but triggers evolved reaction. sweet is nice. sour is...well it has it's points...Red means ripe fruit, trigger the gastric juices..oops it can also mean 'eat at your peril'. The reactions are instinctive, but we have some educated instincts in there too.

So I'm groping towards a particle mix that reacts to the info being input and produces a particle complex reaction (not to say chemical) which creates an appropriate experience sensation, the like or dislike reaction being a different function.

This to me is what my problem is about whether you call it Qualia or not. If Qualia isn't that, it isn't a problem. This experience mechanism was the Hard Question for me, even if it isn't the "hard Question" for philosophy.

In fact i have been discussing it with my good Peru mate and he seems to have grasped it quite well and is making some good point that indicate circumstantial evidence like educated instinctive preference - reactions to the sensation -experiences can be altered by us and by evolution. Which all sounds biological rather than mystical.

I am going to highlight this: reactions to the sensation experiences can be altered by us.
This is us using the process to program and effect change in our daily life, change in our thoughts, change in our physical body, change in our feelings, change in how we perceive our experience.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

That I cannot comprehend unless I already knew what it was like.

Close, but I would re-phrase as follow: I cannot fully comprehend the subjective qualities via purely objective concepts. If I already know "what it is like" via my own subjective experience, then I can bring that knowledge to the table.

That, even if I did know what it was like, and logic would suggests that the assumption that my experience was like yours, it would still not BE yours

True, but that is just the logical law of identity, which, in itself, is not the Hard Problem for materialism. It is, as you correctly say, a trivial logical fact. But this trivial logical fact (the law of identity), when combined with the identity claim of materialism (qualia = physical process), that triggers the epistemological asymmetry between objective and subjective knowledge. And this asymmetry, when combined with the materialist worship of objective data, gives rise to "the Hard Problem". Objective data, by itself, must necessarily logically always fail to convey the full meanings of subjectively known phenomena - specifically: It will always fail to convey the subjectively felt qualitative feelings of sentient experience which, according to materialism, are physical processes.

Repeat: It is materialism's claim of logical identity between qualia and physical brain processes, combined with the law of identity and materialism's devotion to purely objective description that triggers the Hard Problem. Just drop the unnecessary devotion to purely objective descriptions/data, and the Hard Problem goes away.

I think...a sort if idea that no matter how convincing our mechanical explanations are and how much verification can convince us we got it right, we can't know as we are (as my analogy) handling the stuff in the box through gloves.

But notice that the "gloves" are not the law of identity, nor are they the logic of subjectivity. Neither of these things, by themselves, logically prevents "taking the gloves off." No, the gloves are provided by the methodological dependence on purely objective data. The requirement of purely objective data puts an epistemological barrier between the "hands" of current science and the "feel" of the object itself - I.e., the way that the object would feel without gloves.

I can, in principle, feel "your pain" (i.e., I can feel pain that is qualitative identical to yours) and see "your red" (i.e., I can have an experience that is qualitatively identical to your experience of seeing red) assuming that pain and color are objective facts about the nature of subjective experiences (and, as a physicalists, I believe that they are). Thus science does not necessarily need to "wear the gloves" but "taking off the gloves" constitutes a paradigm shift for science - a shift that welcomes the methodologies of phenomenology into the pantheon of scientific methodologies.

This is obviously true undeniable subjectivity. If this is the case, I get it, but it seemed to me to be such a truism that I didn't consider that it was what you might be getting it.

Yes!!! It is a wildly self-evident truism, which is why I've been so deeply perplexed by what seemed to be your rejections of it. (Actually, I knew you would see it as a blatantly obvious truism once you saw it, so I knew you were simply misunderstanding me, but I couldn't get you to see that that is what I was aiming at.)

In any case it may be called a Hard problem in philosophy, but I don't see it as a problem at all. It is like history and palaeontology, which has tremendous problems in evaluating and interpreting the data, but that this is a problem that could be said to be impossible for the discipline to overcome is obvious but irrelevant. Historians and archaeologuists can't address this unless they invent some kind of Time machine, so it isn't worth worrying about.

But notice a major difference. There nothing logically impossible about finding some sort of crazy quantum weirdness way to accessing information directly from the distant past. (It might turn out to be infinitely impractical and/or naturally impossible - i.e., contrary to the laws of nature - but it is not logically impossible.) But given what I hope you now see as the self-evidence undeniable logic of subjectivity, it is logically impossible to fully explain the qualitative nature of subjective experience by purely objective means. Only subjective understanding can fully grasp the full meaning of subjective information.

Is this at all what the problem is, because I can't see what's the point of the discussion. Do we really need someone getting a university faculty stipend to tell me that I am not the same as you?

No, but apparently we need someone to explain that the undeniable logic of subjectivity necessarily implies that purely objective data cannot, even in principle, fully convey the subjective qualitative aspects of subjective information. (As the story of Mary, our beleaguered super-neuroscientist, keeps reiterating with noxious regularity.)

[Tzaphkiel]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

....No, but apparently we need someone to explain that the undeniable logic of subjectivity necessarily implies that purely objective data cannot, even in principle, fully convey subjective information.

a person has to participate in the process to know it more fully.
that's why reading about something or studying facts about something is not the same as first hand experience.

the process "our thoughts change our physical reality"
is not the same as putting that into practice and experiencing how our reality changes when we change our thoughts.


"understanding a process" and "using the process" are not the same thing.
I can fly in a jet (use it) without understanding how it works.
A person can understand how a jet works without ever flying in a jet or building a jet.


participating in a process gives a person information and knowledge and experience NOT available to those who do not participate in it.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

So material physicalism knows that it is dealing with stuff outside the room or inside the box, or on the radar -screen. But to ask us to do something about it is pointless.

Actually, it might not be so pointless. If you finally understand the pointlessness of trying to give a complete description of qualia via purely objective means (which, I think, maybe you now do - qualia being "inside the box" that "outside the room"), then we could, potentially, move on to discuss what type of contribution phenomenology might make to science without forfeiting the objectivity of science. Maybe sometime in a different thread.

To say it is a problem that materialism has to address is meaningless.

No, it is a problem for materialism insofar as materialism keeps itself yoked to the methodological constrains of purely objective data. But it is not a problem for us - nor is it necessarily an insurmountable problem for science, more broadly construed.

Now I'll try to tackle that vid again...

Probably no need to torture yourself with that again. I think you understand the law of identity just fine. X is X. Anything that is not-X is not X. Pretty mundane, really. I offered the video mostly for comic relief. I would only add that a significant number of important proofs in logic and math probably could not be composed without using the law of identity as a premise.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

What is your point, Tzaph? Who are you arguing with? I said nothing about what IQ tests measure other than they do test "G" which is an essential feature of cognitive processing that identifies intellectual competence. Emotional competence, social facility, and the myriad other aspects that affect human functioning and interaction seem to be your concern. They have nothing to do with intellectual competence and they cannot help you justify "woo" that flies in the face of scientific knowledge.

Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel

denigrating others does not display intellectual competence nor does it display rational thinking, sound judgment, or rational behavior, nor does it demonstrate the capacity for rational discourse.

You seem unable to NOT see denigration whether or not it is actually present, Tzaph. What in anything I said "denigrates" anyone? As to rational thinking and sound judgment, your apparent agreement with Arq suggests you do not see the conflict with your own beliefs.

[gabfest]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

You seem unable to NOT see denigration whether or not it is actually present, Tzaph. What in anything I said "denigrates" anyone? As to rational thinking and sound judgment, your apparent agreement with Arq suggests you do not see the conflict with your own beliefs.

...plot spoliers.