Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 10:48 am
But suppose we explain what we mean by the word
consciousness by saying it's 'awareness of our selves and our environment'? The next questions could be 'But what is awareness?' Is an amoeba aware of its self and its environment? Or a hamster? Where does awareness/consciousness kick in? Is there a tip-over point in neural development? Do dogs have minds, and if not, why not?
And possibly an irrelevant aside, back in the 60s attibuting emotions, intentions, experiencing to animals was considered speculative at best in science. It could even damage your career to, in a professional context, attribute such things to animals, even primates.
And we can play the same game with 'experience' and 'experiencing'. Point is: why are questions about consciousness, experiencing - mind, knowledge, truth, identity, intention, will, etc, etc - hard to answer? Why not apply the Razor?: there's no reason to think of these nouns as names of things that therefore may or may not exist, and that, if they do exist, can be described.
There's no reason to
think ?
Occam's Razor would lead to some kind of idealism, if we use the OR in the popular and I think misguided way, since we have experiencing and we posit things based on experiencing as causes. And all our words lead back to meanings within experiencing: even simply adjectives like 'hard'. Even a word like brain refers to (an ever changing) set of associations within our experience. I'm not arguing antirealism here, but if we want to push parsimony, something like 'brain' is actually a lot of experienced associations.
Suppose these 'things' are mysteries invented to explain mysteries of our own invention? We use nouns to name things, but the meaning of a noun is not the thing it names.
Sure, but that holds true for all nouns.
And abstract nouns (misleading name) need not be names of things at all.So the supposedly tough questions - what are mind and consciousness, and so on? - are profoundly misleading misfirings.
Can you show this? And why those and not other nouns?
Okay. But I think this (commendable) demystification of the mind radically changes the mind-dependence/mind-independence distinction.
OK, but the mystification via substance claims holds for physicalists, monists, dualists, any anyone else who takes a stand on substance.
Do you want evidence for the existence of 'an experience', as another wants evidence for the existence of 'reality'?
Not in this discussion. I asked where as a literal question. Where is the experiencing taking place? I can't remember if you equate mind with brain, or think that mind is a made up idea for what is really brain, but that's where I am probing. Are you saying that experiencing is happening in the brain? Where are dreams, thoughts emotions, those things that get posited in minds? The brain, the body, within the body in and around the body? If it's really a physical thing, where is it? I am not saying there is no answer to that. I am interested in your answer, and then more questions will come up.[/quote]
Again, it seems to me these questions arise from a misconception. If 'having an experience' is a physical thing, it must have a physical location.
right, so if you think it's physical, where is it?
Or try another philosophical question: what and where is knowledge? In the brain? Or is it also in muscle memory? Or can it be in books and librairies? Or try: what and where is information?
That's a bit different from 'experience'. Knowledge can, yes, be in things, even for physicalists, for example. It's a term with a broader set of main meanings, in this kind of discussion of ontology.
The mistake is always the same: think a noun is the name of something; ask what and where that thing is; if it has no physical identity, conclude it must be non-physical; call it a Form, or a universal, or a concept, or an abstraction; finally, invent a place where such things exist - such as the mind.
Though I was focusing on experiencing.
But why does the word 'physical' have no meaning?
Well, first off, can't I use your argument above, that it's an abstraction and a noun? But then more specifically because the qualities something needs to have or need not have keep changing. If something is considered real, it will be called physical by physicalists, regardless. I see no reason to think this process will stop.
Why is 'stuff that we consider real' not an explanation?
Calling something physical is not an explanation. It no longer adds any information.
And suppose we use 'real' to mean 'consisting of energy or the form of energy we call matter', or 'consisting of the stuff studied by physicists and other natural scientists'.
Matter no longer means anything either. Energy means the ability to do work which is not a substance. And anything new we find, regardless of what it is like will get batched in that general category, if we continue to do what has been done for the last few centuries in making this expanding set. Not just an expanding set with individual examples, but expanding in terms of 'what kinds of things' are now considered real and then get called physical.
Doesn't the term 'non-physical' then have at least a reasonably clear use?
Every second 100 trillion neutrinos are passing through your body without contacts. And neurtrinos have mass. There are massless particles, particles in superposition and so on. As I said in the other longer post: Medieval theologians if shown the qualities of what is currently considered physical might say 'oh, well, if you call that stuff physical, perhaps angels would be called physical in your language.' If we go back to the original substance battles that I think underlie the current physicalist and materialist clinging to these empty categories, I think the silliness can be more clearly seen.
Signs can mean only what we use them to mean - and explanations come to an end.
And if we keep changing the meaning...I don't think they are meaningful. Or, better put, they just mean 'real' or 'verified to our satisfaction at this time to be considered real'. They aren't substance claims, and my guess is because of the old (and current) battles between different paradigms they are clung to despite this.
Yes. The problem of labels and their baggage. And my point is that, if we recognise this, we can't rationally carry on talking about mind-dependence and mind-independence - which is what VA and others want to do - in the context of subjectivity and objectivity.
I am not saying there is a monism, not that there is no dualism. I don't think that's really meaningful.