Why the bias against materialism?

[Mentat]

Originally posted by sascha
You say "something like 'vision' is a word that describes a process, not something with a reality beyond the process. 'Seeing' doesn't exist, but objects, photons, and eyes do". The trouble with this idea is that if it were completely true, you would have no influence over the process.

Why not? When he said that "objects, photons, and eyes exist" he may have omitted neurons and synapses, but I think they were implied.
"Choice" itself can be explained in terms of nothing more than the processes of the brain.

The objects, photons, eyes etc. would do all of it. But in fact you can consciously control what you want to look at, i.e. you can look or not look (this is called "intentionality"). The idea which you and Mentat are exposing is contradictory with the facts as soon as one takes all of them into account.

Not so. In fact, I turn this accusation back on you, and challenge you to point out the flaw in my reasoning for why there cannot be a part of the mind that is not physical.

Of course one can choose to look at and thus 'see' (sic!) only part of the facts, but then this comes close to what Iacchus32 seems to address in saying you "sneak" us past something. We are not saying the engine is different from its running, but that you forget part of the engine and running.

I didn't understand this last statement, could you please re-state it?

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by sascha
I am not talking about your consciousness that is doing something, I am talking about your capacity of a willful choice, which is not explained in the machine model you present. Of course control makes all the difference, because there the machine idea is not applicable any more. Machines don't make and control themselves. You need a meta-machine (programmer, manufacturer, power, etc.) for that.

Machines can indeed control themselves. You do it every day .

Basically, your problem with the materialistic PoV is that you don't see how it can account for choices. Well, I don't see how you've explained "choices" in an Idealistic framework either.

There is, of course, my preferred explanation of "choice" from the materialistic PoV, and that is Daniel Dennett's from Consciousness Explained (this will be rather long, but I hope you endeavor to read it all before responding).

Basically (and I really mean "basically" since I couldn't possibly sum up the whole chapter in one post): An Idealist thinks of a "central id" or a "singular self" that controls the brain's functions. This is not allowable in the materialistic framework, and so we must completely eliminate the "center" altogether. In order to do this, Dennett proposes that all of the different parts of your brain can serve the multi-purpose of "asking" and "answering".

Now, there is an illustration that helps to explain what this means, and that is of the party game wherein one guest tries to figure out the content of a dream that the host (or anyone else really) has had. So, in order to figure this out, he asks each guest yes/no questions and tries to deduce the dream from their answers. However, there is a twist: the guests have not really been told a dream, but have been instructed to respond with a "yes" or a "no" depending on the last letter of the question that is asked.

So, if he were to ask you "Is the dream about the host's father", you would answer "no", because the last letter of the question ended in a letter that is in the second half of the alphabet. In this game, there is also the "non-contradiction" override rule, which doesn't allow you to contradict a previous answer, no matter what the last letter of the question was. So, if he later asked you "Is the dream about his dad?", you would still answer "no", even though the last letter is in the first half of the alphabet.

Do you understand the game? (If not, I can attempt to clarify any points you don't get.)

Dennett proposes that this is a very close model of what happens in our brains, all of the time (except, of course, for the fact that there is no central "questioner" but rather, all of the "answerers" also serve as "questioners").

Now, to apply it: Let's say that someone insults you. They thus trigger a response from the brain. The different parts of your brain involved (such as the language-producing parts, the parts that deal with emotion (since, obviously, this insult would affect how you "feel"), the "memory bank" (which is full of previous occurances that resemble this one), etc...) begin the question/answer process. This serves as a refinement of not only what you are going to say in response, but also if you are going to say anything at all.

Interestingly enough, this process doesn't necessarily stop after you respond with a witty come-back, since (as you've probably experience before) we often think about what "I should have said" (and sometimes, our memory is remodeled to think that we actually did say some of the things that we "wish we said").

I'm sorry for the length of this explanation, but it's not a matter easily addressed (and I've only given an outline).

The Cartesian Split has some logical drawbacks which you still seem to ignore. Hard luck, buddy.

It seems rather obsurd that you would direct a comment about the Cartesian division at Zero, when it is you who subscribes to a "mind" that exists separate from the "brain" (the main concept behind Cartesian dualism).

 

[sascha]

Mentat: Adding neurons and synapses (or anything else down the ladder) to objects, photons, and eyes won't change the principle. One can talk about choice as processes of the brain, at the price of nobody being responsible for anything any more (maybe this is what makes the idea so attractive to many). But this talk is an "explanation" only for the gullible, technicians who want to believe everything in the world is mechanisms. The point is not that the mind would not physical, because it evidently is, but that using it is not physical. The functioning of the mind as a "flow of consciousness" (as William James has been calling it) is not the same as your choosing what you want to be attentive to. If you were not capable of this choice, you could not coherently answer me there at your computer. You would be guided by whatever that mechanism happens to choose. That's where your flaw of reasoning is, or rather its blind spot (way back I gave the names of the logicians who proved all this). But famously blind spots are what one does not see in one's way of seeing. For the moment you seem happy this way. That's fine with me. You are free to believe whatever you like. But don't expect me to do so too. And insisting on a "blind spot" is close "sneaking us past something".

The part of control of a machine does not come from the machine itself, but from the programmer, designer, etc. You may not notice this fundamental dependency because you don't like the idea, but that's not my problem. BTW the alternative to Materialism is not Idealism. You will have to update your list. I have looked at Dennett's "Consciousness Explained", and I find he decribes a lot, but explains nothing. One can call his hypotheses "explanations", as many do, because as soon as they have some vivid imagery and scenarios, they believe they understand. But that's such a limited game. You never reach completeness, you only shift away the crucial points into ever new realms. You seem to think of the "id" as a "thing", and that's where you get off the track.

As I had expressed several times, more clearly than the usual account of the Cartesian Split, it arises every time concretely where a world view or activity is ruled by adopting the principle of distinguishing, describing, observing, measuring. This method logically inevitably entails a blind spot as to what can be distinguished, described, observed, measured. Your argument of my implying "a 'mind' that exists separate from the 'brain'" is mechanical repetition of what is often handed around as the Cartesian idea.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by sascha
I am not talking about your consciousness that is doing something, I am talking about your capacity of a willful choice, which is not explained in the machine model you present. Of course control makes all the difference, because there the machine idea is not applicable any more. Machines don't make and control themselves. You need a meta-machine (programmer, manufacturer, power, etc.) for that.
If the intellect were fully controlled by some mechanism, it would not be able to think freely, i.e. choose what it wants to think and check whether that corresponds. If your mind is under the control of something, then this is a good reason for me to stop communicating with you, because then what you think and say would be determined by that. There is nothing interestring in that, and nobody needs to lose his time with zombies.
So in what you say the problem is only shifted away into words. But of course any words can be uttered and believed in.
The real trouble is that the machine metaphore does not operate in categories that allow to think things like consciousness and personal identity in a noncompromised way. I have hinted at this many times. The Cartesian Split has some logical drawbacks which you still seem to ignore. Hard luck, buddy.

I think, 'buddy', that you need a different thread to deal with your issues...there are plenty of 'free will/determinism' threads for you to make your case in. There is no problem with a purely material brain 'running' in purely mechanical ways...except it doesn't make you feel special, does it?

 

[Zero]

Oh, and recall my earlier description of a plant 'choosing' to grow towards the sun. 'Consciousness' IMO, is nothing more or less than a highly complex form of simple biological function.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Zero
I think, 'buddy', that you need a different thread to deal with your issues...there are plenty of 'free will/determinism' threads for you to make your case in. There is no problem with a purely material brain 'running' in purely mechanical ways...except it doesn't make you feel special, does it?

Are you trying to suggest we're just automatons then? If not, then that would imply that "somebody" is at control of the helm. Which, is something we would rather not deal with -- and perchance sneak past everybody? -- because it gives rise to this awful notion of a soul. And that I'm afraid, is just too intolerable to think of!

Whereas poof, just like that, there goes your whole materialistic point of view.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
Are you trying to suggest we're just automatons then? If not, then that would imply that "somebody" is at control of the helm. Which, is something we would rather not deal with -- and perchance sneak past everybody? -- because it gives rise to this awful notion of a soul. And that I'm afraid, is just too intolerable to think of!

Whereas poof, just like that, there goes your whole materialistic point of view.

First off, no. Second, it doesn't imply anything. You are making up connections between ideas, not following from one logical conclusion to the next.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Mentat

Ok, I'll try that (and, perhaps, post some results). However, I feel it only right to inform you that people like Le Doux and Dennett (materialists who study the processes of the mind) have postulated that there are no such "emergent properties", and have explained (rather aptly, IMO) why this should be the case (just see my illustration (a few posts back, I guess) about the computer image. I came up with it from the information I gathered in these two Materialists' books).

And yet you haven't even read the opposing view?

however, you cannot (or, rather, shouldn't) use them as part of your definition of Idealism (except to say that Idealists believe that there is such a thing as an "emergent property").

And that is all I have done.

Erm...I probably shouldn't counter this, since it's not my main dispute with you, but I think you may be wrong. After all, the Materialist could tell the Idealist that the proposed kiss needn't be an indication of love, and thus "love" would still fall under the category of "things that cannot be shown to exist".

However, as I said, you may or may not be right about this and it probably makes no difference, as far as my main dispute with you goes.

Yes don't counter it cause you would be proving exactly what I was trying to prove. Don't you understand that the point of that example was not to defend Idealism? I wasn't trying to make a good argument for why love existed. I was merely trying to show that someone can take the view that it does because we cannot define "shown to exists". The fact that the materialist can make the claim you suggested just makes my point even more.

Whether the argument for or against materialism in my example is a good one or not is not the point. The point is that the definition doesn't lend itself to a debate on the topic at all. It just begs for more definitional clarification.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I think it's been said WAY too many times, for me to need to say it again: To say that something "exists inside of consciousness" is a completely Idealistic assumption. The true materialist cannot believe that something "exists within consciousness", since such things would not be material.

I again apologize for getting a bit "worked up", but I don't think I should edit this paragraph any further - as it may lose its "flavor".

I just don't get why you cannot accept this.Your view seems VERY extreme and impractical. What does the word "color" mean to you? Under your understanding of what "color" is, do you think it is a creation of your subjective experience or do you think color really exists?

Not at all! To ask "does the thing exist outside of consciousness" is a non-sequitor to a materialist, since nothing exists "inside of consciousness". There is no phenomenological "world", as such things (again) would have to be immaterial.

I feel that we are having severe semantic problems here. Just answer the question about color and maybe I can understand better what you're view is because it seems totally radical and unusable to me right now.

No, no, no, it's not about their existing in a "secondary" form (or existing as "useful concepts that owe their existence to the material interactions"). Since you probably still don't see the bias, I will spell it out: If something immaterial exists as a result of something material, then the materialist viewpoint (that all things are material)is wrong, since the things that "owe their existence to" material interactions would not themselves be material!

Am I wrong?

You are not wrong in your conclusion but your assumptions are wrong. I was trying to be extra careful so that you wouldn't make this claim but you did anyway. The labeling of the secondary "things" is simply assigning words to perceived effects to the processes of the primary "things". The word "color" is used to describe an effect of experiencing matter. Must people would agree color does not really exists but it is a very useful word for describing the effect. The materialists can easily make the conclusion that all things are material from this definition. The only bias here is desired bias. If you cannot see that this definition at least lends itself to helping people understand the distinctions between the views then I'm not sure what else to say.

And here you arrive at what I already posted some time ago: There is no grey area, from which to form a definition. You are trying to remain completely unbiased, but your attempt is in vain (AFAICS (as far as I can see)).

This is completely unreasonable for you to say there is no grey area. This goes against the whole idea of philosophy; claiming we cannot have a discussion on a topic because all the words are biased. When you started out participating in this thread you weren't saying this at all. You were disagreeing with me when I claimed that Zero's definition was biased and not effective for use in a discussion. Now you are trying to claim that it is impossible to come up with an unbiased definition of your view. So 2 things can be concluded from your view.

1) I was right. Zero's definition is biased.
2) There is no definition of materialism that will allow an opposing view. Because the materialists conclusion is built into the definition. And this apparently doesn't allow even a word to be assigned to an opposing view. Let alone an opposing argument.

This whole view to me is a lot like writing a dissertation that brings the theory of relativity and quantum physics together mathematically and then getting graded down for improper use of commas. Not practical, unreasonable and totally missing the point.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Zero
First off, no. Second, it doesn't imply anything. You are making up connections between ideas, not following from one logical conclusion to the next.

Well how about this. Does the body exist for the sake of that "somebody" at the helm? Or, does that somebody at the helm exist for the sake of the body? In other words, who (or what) exactly is in control here?

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Zero
I think, 'buddy', that you need a different thread to deal with your issues...there are plenty of 'free will/determinism' threads for you to make your case in. There is no problem with a purely material brain 'running' in purely mechanical ways...except it doesn't make you feel special, does it?

I've seen a few remarks of this nature in the last few pages and thought I would offer another perspective. The view that there is something non-material has been painted as a view where people think that they are "special" and not just another lump of mechanistic clay. That somehow these people believe this because it is more pleasant for them to believe it. I think in many cases this is a motivation for this belief. On the other hand, I will also point out that the materialists view that things are nothing but mechanics is generally consistent with the idea that there is no absolute meaning to people or life in general. This allows for each person to find their own meaning in life. To define ones own meaning in life and totally disregard the possibility of outside meaning is also a selfish position. As a matter of fact, it is probably the more selfish position. So I know many materialist desire to be materialist because it does eliminate any responsibility outside of what the self defines as important.

I don't think one view is better than another due to these motivations. But as someone who is more interested in learning rather than preaching, it helps to understand the motivations of people of all views.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
Well how about this. Does the body exist for the sake of that "somebody" at the helm? Or, does that somebody at the helm exist for the sake of the body? In other words, who (or what) exactly is in control here?

How about you don't start with such a huge assumption? You assume that the body is separate from the personality, that a person resides in a body. I say a person is their body, there is no distinction.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Fliption
I've seen a few remarks of this nature in the last few pages and thought I would offer another perspective. The view that there is something non-material has been painted as a view where people think that they are "special" and not just another lump of mechanistic clay. That somehow these people believe this because it is more pleasant for them to believe it. I think in many cases this is a motivation for this belief. On the other hand, I will also point out that the materialists view that things are nothing but mechanics is generally consistent with the idea that there is no absolute meaning to people or life in general. This allows for each person to find their own meaning in life. To define ones own meaning in life and totally disregard the possibility of outside meaning is also a selfish position. As a matter of fact, it is probably the more selfish position. So I know many materialist desire to be materialist because it does eliminate any responsibility outside of what the self defines as important.

I don't think one view is better than another due to these motivations. But as someone who is more interested in learning rather than preaching, it helps to understand the motivations of people of all views.

That's strange because, while I have seen many anti-materialists state that one of their reasons for opposition is a 'lack of meaning', I have NEVER seen a materialist claim that the support materialism as a vehicle for living a less than ethical life.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Zero
That's strange because, while I have seen many anti-materialists state that one of their reasons for opposition is a 'lack of meaning', I have NEVER seen a materialist claim that the support materialism as a vehicle for living a less than ethical life.

Did I say "less than ethical"? If I did then it was a typo. Materialists may be highly ethical for all I know. But they have the luxury of choosing their own ethic. That was my only point.

But it doesn't just stop at ethics. All aspects of life can be determined by selfish desires and be consistent with materialism.

Also, you would expect the "more" selfish view to be more careful admitting the truth wouldn't you

But I hear materialist making these comments in a round-a-bout sort of way about their view all the time. Usually you can hear it in complaints about the consequences of the other view.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Fliption
Did I say "less than ethical"? If I did then it was a typo. Materialists may be highly ethical for all I know. But they have the luxury of choosing their own ethic. That was my only point.

EVERYONE chooses their own ethic...so what IS your point? And, if you could, make it quick so we don't go too far off-topic?

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Zero
EVERYONE chooses their own ethic...so what IS your point? And, if you could, make it quick so we don't go too far off-topic?

Techinically this is true. But a non-materialist has limits to how often they can change their view, unless they change to materialism. To get up and change ones view kind of waters down the whole premise of an outside meaning to life to begin with. Credibility is certainly at stake. A materialists however can get up each day and justify anything and maintain consistency with their world view.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Fliption
Techinically this is true. But a non-materialist has limits to how often they can change their view, unless they change to materialism. To get up and change ones view kind of waters down the whole premise of an outside meaning to life to begin with. Credibility is certainly at stake. A materialists however can get up each day and justify anything and maintain consistency with their world view.

I'm not buying it...you have an idealized view that suits you, but I don't think it reflects reality. Everyone can wake up every day and do as they please, even in the framework of a superstition-based worldview, and many people do.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Zero
I'm not buying it...you have an idealized view that suits you, but I don't think it reflects reality. Everyone can wake up every day and do as they please, even in the framework of a superstition-based worldview, and many people do.

It is definitely true that if a person is going to hold that there is meaning in life beyond themselves then they are limited as to what they can claim from then on. All aspects of life must conform to that "meaning" if that persons lifestyle is going to be consistent with their beliefs(which is a big if). A materialist can justify anything and still be consistent with their beliefs. These are the facts. I wouldn't expect for you to "buy it" because it would mean you would have to refrain from the insulting comments to those that disagree with you.

 

[Fliption]

Going back to the real topic, I was thinking alittle bit about what Mentat and I have been discussing. And I'd like to ask a question to all the proclaimed materialists to illustrate a point.

My question is this..."What possible result from a scientific experiment would convince you that all things are not material?"

IOW, what would it take for you to change your mind? Be very specific please.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Zero
How about you don't start with such a huge assumption? You assume that the body is separate from the personality, that a person resides in a body. I say a person is their body, there is no distinction.

This is really not an assumption at all, because if "I" didn't consciously tell my body what to do -- unless of course I were an automaton -- my body itself would not respond. Indeed, sometimes I feel like I'm just dragging my body around with me (more so when I'm tired). Therefore it's most appropritate to make the distinction between my conscious identity -- and hence my personality -- and, my physical body. And for anyone to suggest otherwise is totally absurd.

By the way, what happens when you fall asleep? Where do "you" go? Your body is still there, but obviously "you" are not. That is, until "you" (not your body) wake up and become consciously aware of your body laying there.

Whereas this is the very argument which is necessary to substantiate the fact that you have a soul. And, just as with the example given of the radio, the signals that it receives, is a separate medium from the radio itself. Which is to say, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Fliption
It is definitely true that if a person is going to hold that there is meaning in life beyond themselves then they are limited as to what they can claim from then on. All aspects of life must conform to that "meaning" if that persons lifestyle is going to be consistent with their beliefs(which is a big if). A materialist can justify anything and still be consistent with their beliefs. These are the facts. I wouldn't expect for you to "buy it" because it would mean you would have to refrain from the insulting comments to those that disagree with you.

You haven't seen insulting comments from me...check your PM inbox later. I'll say that everyone does what they want to, and leave it at that.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Fliption
Going back to the real topic, I was thinking alittle bit about what Mentat and I have been discussing. And I'd like to ask a question to all the proclaimed materialists to illustrate a point.

My question is this..."What possible result from a scientific experiment would convince you that all things are not material?"

IOW, what would it take for you to change your mind? Be very specific please.

First off, you couldn't be 100% certain...ummm, this is a good question...can you change a law of physics for me?

 

[sascha]

Zero,
(1) The point is not threads for making a case of free will / determinism, but that the model of the purely material brain 'running' in purely mechanical ways can't explain freedom of mind beyond what a robot or animal does. This concerns your stance. So either you have a real explanation, which you did not disclose, or you do not, and then your stance is not worth while.
(2) Your desire to see a law of physics changed is quite revealing, because you don't say against what frame of reference you would be capable of understanding the change. The frame must be clarified. Or in other words, what is "a law of physics" to you? For example, in the course of time quite a few changes befell the law of gravitation. It was not always formulated in the same way. How do you distinguish one type of changes against others? Which version is the law as such?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by sascha
Zero,
(1) The point is not threads for making a case of free will / determinism, but that the model of the purely material brain 'running' in purely mechanical ways can't explain freedom of mind beyond what a robot or animal does. This concerns your stance. So either you have a real explanation, which you did not disclose, or you do not, and then your stance is not worth while.

Humans are animals...so you have no point, do you? If you had just said 'robots', you may have had a case, but since you included other animals, you showed where your bias lies...thanks for making it easy on me!

(2) Your desire to see a law of physics changed is quite revealing, because you don't say against what frame of reference you would be capable of understanding the change. The frame must be clarified. Or in other words, what is "a law of physics" to you? For example, in the course of time quite a few changes befell the law of gravitation. It was not always formulated in the same way. How do you distinguish one type of changes against others? Which version is the law as such?

Well, your concerns on this are fine, but I am talking about a major change in the physical world, with no apparent physical cause. Also, you seem to think that gravity itself is flexible?? Anyhoo, an example...Say, change the color of the sky...and, frankly, even then I would be skeptical.

 

[sascha]

So if I understand you correctly, there is nothing that distinguishes humans from, say, earthworms? Interesting, isn't it? Some earthworms being capable of formulating such complex theories on the universe, and even discussing whether they are true!

Gravity itself is a phenomenon, not a law. So is the blue of the sky. Or the speed of light. This is why you would first have to tell what you mean by a law of nature. Few physicists are clear about this.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by sascha
Mentat: Adding neurons and synapses (or anything else down the ladder) to objects, photons, and eyes won't change the principle. One can talk about choice as processes of the brain, at the price of nobody being responsible for anything any more (maybe this is what makes the idea so attractive to many).

Balderdash. There is absolutely nothing in the materialistic PoV that makes one exempt from the results of their actions. This conclusion can only be drawn if one still believes that the self and the brain are two different things, and thus I can assign guilt to the brain, while leaving the "self" exempt.

But this talk is an "explanation" only for the gullible, technicians who want to believe everything in the world is mechanisms. The point is not that the mind would not physical, because it evidently is, but that using it is not physical. The functioning of the mind as a "flow of consciousness" (as William James has been calling it) is not the same as your choosing what you want to be attentive to. If you were not capable of this choice, you could not coherently answer me there at your computer.

But I am capable of that choice. When did I ever say otherwise. I spent a very long amount of time posting a post that explained a possible framework for how I make choices, did you miss it completely?

You would be guided by whatever that mechanism happens to choose. That's where your flaw of reasoning is, or rather its blind spot (way back I gave the names of the logicians who proved all this).

Again, you are referring to the self as separate from the actions of the brain. Show how this is even possible, or stop bringing it up, please.

The part of control of a machine does not come from the machine itself, but from the programmer, designer, etc. You may not notice this fundamental dependency because you don't like the idea, but that's not my problem.

You may insist that such a dependency exists, but that's because you "don't like" the alternative, and that's not my problem either.

BTW the alternative to Materialism is not Idealism. You will have to update your list. I have looked at Dennett's "Consciousness Explained", and I find he decribes a lot, but explains nothing. One can call his hypotheses "explanations", as many do, because as soon as they have some vivid imagery and scenarios, they believe they understand. But that's such a limited game. You never reach completeness, you only shift away the crucial points into ever new realms. You seem to think of the "id" as a "thing", and that's where you get off the track.

Ah-ha! And here is where your reasoning will get kicked in the stomach by logic itself. If the "id" is not a thing then it is nothing. And if it is nothing, then it doesn't exist (obviously). So, either it's a thing, or it doesn't exist.

As I had expressed several times, more clearly than the usual account of the Cartesian Split, it arises every time concretely where a world view or activity is ruled by adopting the principle of distinguishing, describing, observing, measuring. This method logically inevitably entails a blind spot as to what can be distinguished, described, observed, measured. Your argument of my implying "a 'mind' that exists separate from the 'brain'" is mechanical repetition of what is often handed around as the Cartesian idea.

But you have yet to counter my reasoning for why the split of the "mind" and the brain is completely against logic.

I suggest you actually address my arguments (no offense), instead of assuming that you have it all figured out already, and need to "educate" me. This is exactly the mistake that Alexander used to make, and none of his discussions ever really got anywhere.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by sascha
So if I understand you correctly, there is nothing that distinguishes humans from, say, earthworms? Interesting, isn't it? Some earthworms being capable of formulating such complex theories on the universe, and even trying to checking whether they are true!

Ummm...we are still animals. We do teh thinking thing better than most animals, but that is a difference of degree, not kind.

 

[sascha]

So, Mentat, are laws (i.e. forms of order) things? Or do they not exist? (Sonme say minds make them up; but if the world were not ordered, nobody could distinguish anything and would not even have the possibility of inventing laws about it, since that requires an orderly organism).

And, Zero, do you think that thinking e.g. infinity is only a question of degree in thinking? How come then that robot / animal / formal systems have a limit which human thinking does not have per se? (remember Goedel, etc).

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Zero
I think, 'buddy', that you need a different thread to deal with your issues...there are plenty of 'free will/determinism' threads for you to make your case in. There is no problem with a purely material brain 'running' in purely mechanical ways...except it doesn't make you feel special, does it?

And I have given a perfectly reasonable (IMO) hypothesis (not my own, but I certainly approve of it) as to how a machine can run in "purely mechanical ways", so it's not like we're clinging to materialism out of some blind faith.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by sascha
So, Mentat, are laws (i.e. forms of order) things? Or do they not exist? (Sonme say minds make them up; but if the world were not ordered, nobody could distinguish anything and would not even have the possibility of inventing laws about it, since that requires an orderly organism).

And, Zero, do you think that thinking e.g. infinity is only a question of degree in thinking? How come then that robot / animal / formal systems have a limit which human thinking does not have per se? (remember Goedel, etc).

Laws are descriptions based on observation, no more or less...

What do you mean by "thinking e.g. infinity"? And why do you think that human thinking is qualitatively different from, say, canine thinking?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mentat
And I have given a perfectly reasonable (IMO) hypothesis (not my own, but I certainly approve of it) as to how a machine can run in "purely mechanical ways", so it's not like we're clinging to materialism out of some blind faith.

Of course not...we are the opposite of 'blind faith' proponents.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Zero
Ummm...we are still animals. We do teh thinking thing better than most animals, but that is a difference of degree, not kind.

That's what I've been trying to say for quite some time. A few of the members (Royce being a really good example) have also expressed the view that consciousnesss is nothing but a highly evolved form of what other (please note: "other") animals do all of the time.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
Are you trying to suggest we're just automatons then? If not, then that would imply that "somebody" is at control of the helm. Which, is something we would rather not deal with -- and perchance sneak past everybody? -- because it gives rise to this awful notion of a soul. And that I'm afraid, is just too intolerable to think of!

Whereas poof, just like that, there goes your whole materialistic point of view.

Puh-lease! It only implies that "somebody is at control of the helm" to you because you are so stuck in the Idealistic PoV. Think of this though (and please don't take this lightly), wouldn't the "somebody" who is "at the helm", have to also be conscious? Doesn't that mean that he too must have "somebody" at his helm (if you say "no", then that means that there is some other way to be conscious, and thus you have to explain why we aren't just conscious in that way), who - in turn - has somebody at his "helm", and so on ad infinitum?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mentat
That's what I've been trying to say for quite some time. A few of the members (Royce being a really good example) have also expressed the view that consciousnesss is nothing but a highly evolved form of what other (please note: "other") animals do all of the time.

Do you suppose this is the ultimate source of the bias against materialism, that it doesn't allow people to feel 'above' the rest of the animal kingdom? Maybe we should make a list of reasons for the bias:

1) Materialism isn't human-centered.
2) It doesn't provide a supernatural-based ethical foundation.
3) It requires more brain-sweat than believing in whatever makes you happiest.


Can you think of any more? I know I've missed a few.

BTW, I see many of these arguments are very 'religious', in that they depend on the same sort of thinking that requires exceptions and special cases to make sense. Cats, rats, and people have nearly identical brains...but somehow human consciousness must be different, so the 'soul' concept has to be engaged.

 

[sascha]

Sure, laws can be described as mere descriptions based on observation. But mere description does not justify any validity. There is more to a law than that. Or then it is not really a law.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by sascha
Sure, laws can be described as mere descriptions based on observation. But mere description does not justify any validity. There is more to a law than that. Or then it is not really a law.

Good point. We'll stop calling them laws. Can we move on now? (I seriously don't care about terminology, so long as we agree on what is being talked about)