Materialism is logically imposible

[Ginkgo]

Maybe this is one area where a return to 19th century style Gonzo science and self experimentation could be helpful?

It's already been done in the form of existentialism.

If I was a gambler (which I'm not), I'd put my money on the answer to consciousness being at the Planck scale or even smaller. If there is one domain where perhaps information cannot be lost it might be at that very baseline of physical reality, too small to meaningfully be thought to be subject to space and time.

The Planck scale is the smallest units of measurement whereby the laws of physics still apply. I think consciousness obeys the laws of physics. More so quantum physics.

Emotions and morality appear to be key aspects of qualia. Take them away and you have sensory and abstract processing that could theoretically be readily replicable by advanced general AI. Take away emotions and morality and the idea of the remaining "consciousness" being fundamental becomes less controversial. Consciousness is simply having some idea what's going on, and given that every particle interacts with others in specific ways they certainly do "know" what's going on in their environment, even if they have no opinion. Opinions aren't fundamental, but the information, the relationships, on which opinions are built appears to be.

In general terms qualia refers to the crude sensations of our experiences. Our senses exhibit a certain quality of our experiences. The raw feeling of emotion is just one aspect of qualia.

Is consciousness without emotion synonymous with consciousness without qualia?

Emotion can be seen to be synonymous with qualia.

[Ginkgo]

Fortunately a definition is at hand. Some materialists would say that pain is a disposition to behave in a certain way.

Thought we debunked that definition. I claim a machine feels hunger. The laptop makes no attempt to imitate human hunger behavior. The point of hunger is not to pass a Turing test.

There is no doubt we could build a machine to exhibit all the outward signs of feeling pain.As far as these materialists are concerned there is nothing more that can be added to the quality of pain. Having said that, would you be happy to claim your pain is just the way you behave or is there something more than just outward behaviour?

No, not behavior. Pain is how it feels, but how it feels to a human is a human thing, and the similarity of the experience of pain seems to be a function of the similarity to a human. An ape probably feels very human-like pain, where an insect or a robot experiences it quite differently. None of that suggests that human pain requires some entity not required by something else to perform the same function.

Computer science at the moment is at a level that falls well short of machine having any feeling or emotions.

I didn't say emotion. That seems to be a chemical difference. It is unclear if emotions are due to chemical changes, or the chemical changes are due to emotions. Probably considerable feedback, making it a bit of both. Emotions can be altered with introduction of chemicals, and the onset of said emotions seems completely out of conscious control. I cannot convincingly act out an emotion that I don't hold. I cannot voluntarily dump the various chemicals in my bloodstream. If one could, there would be no need of roller coasters and slot machines.
As for feelings of hunger which I do not classify as an emotion, my assertion stands that a laptop experiences it. Better programming is not required. As a naturalist, I work from the assumption that a human is just another machine like the laptop, albeit more complex.
Give me a definition that makes the distinction, which is not simply "experiences human hunger". Why should it? It isn't human. Why is an entire separate immaterial ontology required for a human to do what the laptop can do without it? This is what I'm attempting to answer with this inquiry.

The p-zombie functions at the level of the easy problem. I am of the opinion that it would not be able to function at all without the inclusion of the hard problem.

Chalmers said otherwise. The entire argument seemed to hinge on the plausibility of the p-zombie being able to function undetectably. If it does, clearly the mind is optional and adds nothing to the fitness of the creature.

That makes it epiphenomenal, except for the ability to talk about it. I admit I talk about it only in imitation. So maybe I really don't experience what is so obvious to the ones that do. Why must p-zombies be a thought experiment? Why can't I be one?

I am not really sure how to answer your objections. A machine feels nothing, not hunger, fear, pain or any short of experiential state. It is just a machine designed and programmed for specific functions. How could a machine possibly feel hunger or pain?

The p-zombie has a mind, it just lacks experience. You can't be a p-zombie because like all humans you have experiences. You are a combination of the easy problem and the hard problem. They cannot be separated in humans.

[Immanuel Can]

Having given it some thought, I'm now considering that we may not have much more we can say on this subject.

Your view of both "Materialism" and "logic" makes it impossible to interpret the OP, it seems, as apparently neither word has a stable, objective meaning within your paradigm. Those words certainly have different meanings for me, as I do not believe that paradigm. And absent a meaning binding us both to coherent claims, it's very difficult to see how we can discuss without simply speaking past each other.

That would explain our ongoing differences. But where to go from there, I cannot see.

[uwot]

...absent a meaning binding us both to coherent claims, it's very difficult to see how we can discuss without simply speaking past each other.

In other words, if you don't accept Mr Can's definitions, argument and conclusion, he won't engage.

[Terrapin Station]

Your view of both "Materialism" and "logic" makes it impossible to interpret the OP, it seems, as apparently neither word has a stable, objective meaning within your paradigm.

In my view, there are no objective meanings period.

[Immanuel Can]

In my view, there are no objective meanings period.

Does the above utterance have an objective meaning?

To test your claim -- would you have any objection to someone interpreting it to mean "there are objective meanings," if one were so disposed?

[Hobbes' Choice]

In my view, there are no objective meanings period.

Does the above utterance have an objective meaning?

To test your claim -- would you have any objection to someone interpreting it to mean "there are objective meanings," if one were so disposed?

If I thought you knew what the word "objective" was properly used for then this question of your would still be nonsense.

[Terrapin Station]

Does the above utterance have an objective meaning?

Of course not, since there are no objective meanings.

To test your claim -- would you have any objection to someone interpreting it to mean "there are objective meanings," if one were so disposed?

First, it's important to understand that meaning isn't the same as any publicly observable expression. Meaning is a mental event, and can't be made into something extramental. We correlate expressions--like text messages, for example--with meaning, but the meaning part stays inside our heads. I'd not be able to make much sense out of someone interpreting me to mean something that they'd correlate with an expression that's a negation of what I had expressed, but I'd assume that for some reason doing so makes sense to them. Maybe they could explain that to me in a way I could understand, maybe not.

[Immanuel Can]

Maybe they could explain that to me in a way I could understand, maybe not.

I doubt it. The words they would be trying to use would have no objective meaning. Nor, I guess, would the words that form your interpretation of what you perceived him as trying to say.

[Terrapin Station]

Maybe they could explain that to me in a way I could understand, maybe not.

I doubt it. The words they would be trying to use would have no objective meaning. Nor, I guess, would the words that form your interpretation of what you perceived him as trying to say.

Obviously I do not believe that understanding depends on there being objective meaning. Subjective meaning does just fine. By the way, you know that objective/subjective here simply refers to the location where meaning is occurring, right? Subjective=mental phenomena, or in my opinion as a "materialist"/physicalist--the subset of brain phenomena that is mental phenomena. Objective=the complement of mental phenomena, so "extramental phenomena," or phenomena occuring outside of brains functioning in mental ways.

[Immanuel Can]

Obviously I do not believe that understanding depends on there being objective meaning. Subjective meaning does just fine.

Am I to take it that that is an objective position? Or am I free to pretend it means something other than you intended to convey? Are you objectively asserting it, or merely speaking from your subjectivity?

By the way, you know that objective/subjective here simply refers to the location where meaning is occurring, right?

I think that's the problem. You're very impressed with the idea that things like maths, logic and assertions are all products of human beings. And that is true, of course, apart from the possibility of divine sourcing. But you're sliding from that into the self-contradictory idea that therefore what they assert cannot be objectively true. The one does not at all entail the other.

2+2 does indeed equal four, and does so objectively and for everyone, even if it takes a mathematician to say so.

[Terrapin Station]

Am I to take it that that is an objective position?

What would an extramental position be?

But you're sliding from that into the self-contradictory idea that therefore what they assert cannot be objectively true.

I agree with the standard analytic philosophical view that truth is a property of propositions. And the view that "truth" isn't the same thing as "fact." Facts can be objective (which is non-controversial). On my view, truths can not be objective, because propositions, as meanings, and an adjudged relationship of propositions to anything else can't be extramental.

2+2 does indeed equal four, and does so objectively

That would only make sense if you were to buy realism for some abstracts. I don't. I don't know what you'd think that abstract existents are, exactly, as something extramental.

[Immanuel Can]

What would an extramental position be?

"Position" in your sentence is presumably a synonym for "attitude" or "opinion": in which case, of course all such are mental. But the thing they are a position-on is not mental, but comes from the objective, external world, no? Or would you hold that ALL reality is merely mental and subjective? (i.e. are you a Monist-Idealist, rather than any sort of Materialist?)

On my view, truths can not be objective, because propositions, as meanings, and an adjudged relationship of propositions to anything else can't be extramental.

Is the above statement, then, not aimed at or grounded in in a common "truth" that you would say you and I should both believe? Do you not think I (rationally, not morally) "ought" to believe that "truths cannot be objective"? And would you not think me (rationally) "wrong" or "incorrect" if I did not?

And if not, then why state it, since you would then have no expectation of us having any reason to agree on it?

We might add that the proposition that all propositions are relative or subjective is also surely self-defeating.

That would only make sense if you were to buy realism for some abstracts.

No, that doesn't follow. I think it's a bit of a category error there.

Numbers have a sort of adjectival function, not a nominal function. We don't have to make them into concrete nouns in order for them to do their work: they are descriptors of attributes of quantity in the objective world, not things-in-themselves. So we don't need to posit realism for numbers themselves: only to the state of the objects to which they refer.

That being said, their application to the objective world seems very direct and predictable, does it not?

[Terrapin Station]

What would an extramental position be?

"Position" in your sentence is presumably a synonym for "attitude" or "opinion": in which case, of course all such are mental. But the thing they are a position-on is not mental.

That's fine, but you asked if the position was objective, not whether what it's about is objective.

It's similar to if we're talking about a book on Yellowstone National Park. There's the book and what the book is about. The book might be in the library, but Yellowstone National Park isn't in the library. If you're asking about the book, I'm going to answer about the book. If you want to ask something about the extension of the topic of the book, then you'd ask that.

A position on, say, the future viability of some particular flora or fauna in Yellowstone National Park is going to be subjective, because of what positions are, but the future viability on some particular flora or fauna in Yellowstone National Park isn't subjective. You had asked about the status of the position I stated however.

Or imagine a book on the Yellowstone River. If I were to say, "Books are not made of water," but then I talked about a book about the Yellowstone River, you might ask, "Is that book made of water?" I'd say, "No. How would you suppose a book made out of water would work, anyway?" If you'd wanted to ask if the Yellowstone River consisted of water instead, then you wouldn't ask about the book per se.

You had asked about the position per se.

Is the above statement, then, not aimed at or grounded in in a common "truth"

I don't even know what you'd be referring to by "a common truth." Again, in my view, truth value is a judgment about the relation of a proposition to something else (the something else depends on just what approach to truth someone is using, whether correspondence or coherence or whatever). I don't know what a "common judgment" would be, unless you're just saying a judgment that's statistically common.

that you would say you and I should both believe? Do you not think I (rationally, not morally) "ought" to believe that "truths cannot be objective"? And would you not think me (rationally) "wrong" or "incorrect" if I did not?

Again, it's important to understand the standard analytic distinction between facts and truth. It seems like you're conflating the two. It's a fact that truths are not objective, and that's an objective fact. It's not an objective truth. Truth is something different (again, it's a judgment about the relation of a proposition to something else.) Re normatives ("should," "ought," etc.), there are no factual normatives, there can be no true or false normative statements (and that's a fact, and it's objective as such). Personally, I don't normally "do" normatives like that--"you should believe" etc. I will utter normatives in cases where either (a) I'm saying what I'd like to be the case ethically, or (b) I'm giving advice to someone I care about when I know a goal they have in mind and I think that something specific will help them reach that goal (like "You shouldn't eat a gallon of ice cream every evening if you want to lose weight"), but those are usually the only situations where I'd say anything like a normative.

And if not, then why state it, since you would then have no expectation of us having any reason to agree on it?

I indeed have no expectation that anyone is going to agree with anything I say in forums like this. I say what I do because I like to express myself, I like to broadcast what I think. I do that especially when I think something different than the norm in context, because that's what I tend to find most interesting myself--people who think something unusual.

We might add that the proposition that all propositions are relative or subjective is also surely self-defeating.

That's only the case when you assume that someone wouldn't say, "It's true that all truth-statements are relative" is relative. But that is relative. Surely, for example, you'd assign "F" to "It's true that all truth-statements are relative."

That would only make sense if you were to buy realism for some abstracts.

No, that doesn't follow. I think it's a bit of a category error there.

Numbers have a sort of adjectival function, not a nominal function. We don't have to make them into concrete nouns in order for them to do their work: they are descriptors of attributes of quantity in the objective world, not things-in-themselves. So we don't need to posit realism for numbers themselves: only to the state of the objects to which they refer.

Wait, so numbers in your ontology are "descriptors of attributes of quantity." What exactly, as existents, are those? What are they made of, for example?

That being said, their application to the objective world seems very direct and predictable, does it not?

Just like natural languages, I'd say.

[Noax]

I am not really sure how to answer your objections. A machine feels nothing, not hunger, fear, pain or any short of experiential state. It is just a machine designed and programmed for specific functions. How could a machine possibly feel hunger or pain?

Such words are usually used to label human experience of what is effectively detection of low fuel or damage. The closer to a human something is (a mammal say), the more we're likely to apply the word. But nobody will draw a line where the word no longer applies. They reach for something safely distant from the line (a laptop) and say that doesn't experience hunger, which only means it experiences it in a sufficiently different way.
But my objection is that the two are the same thing: A detection of low fuel, and each evidenced by a reaction to the detection. I see humans as much as a programmed device as anything. I don't see any essential difference so defies classic explanation that it requires some immaterial substance.

The p-zombie has a mind, it just lacks experience.

Really? I thought the mind was the immaterial thing and the zombie lacks that. 'Experience' is obviously being defined differently between us, since I would consider any detection of something to be experience. What does the zombie do that enables it to not walk into things, and motivates it to avoid injury? If not experience, then what word is used to describe the zombie's detection of its environment?

You can't be a p-zombie because like all humans you have experiences. You are a combination of the easy problem and the hard problem. They cannot be separated in humans.

I don't know what the word 'experience' means to you though. How do I know I have it? I have the thing the zombie needs to sense its environment. Take away what I consider to be 'experience', and I'd not be able to do that, so I don't think we're talking about the same thing.