Philosophy Now Forum

"Equivalent " means "is and only is". For example, bachelor is equivalent to unmarried male. By adding "unmarried male" to "bachelor " I have added nothing to the concept "bachelor ".
Similarly, to say that pain is equivalent to c fibers firing adds nothing to the concept "c fibers firing". One cannot say (if one accepts the equivalence ) that c fibers firing causes pain. It would be similar to saying that being a bachelor causes you to be an unmarried male. The relationship is definitional, not causal.

raw_thought wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote:

raw_thought wrote:Obviously you are very confused. * I am not talking about hearing a physical vibration ( as in sound).
Similarly, I am arguing AGAINST the idea that one sees a physical triangle in one's brain. One however, can see a triangle, since I am quite certain that I can visualize one.
My point is that there is no physical triangle in ones brain. However, there is a triangle in your mind. ( otherwise you wouldn't be able to visualize one. )
Therefore, there is a triangle (the visualized one ) that is not represented physically.
* And very rude.

Not at all. Funny I've never visualized anything in my brain. I simply think of an item by reciting it's criterion. When I shut my eyes I see nothing but blackness. What kind of drugs do you do to see such things?

So you do not have dreams or daydream???
For me daydreams are thoughts not visualizations. Dreams are few and far between, and seem real while sleeping, but in fact it's just my mind manipulating the "physical" electro-chemical processes normally associated with sight, after all it's been a very repetitious process that started when I was a few months old. I'm going on 58 so that's 57 earth years of repeated performances. It's no wonder I can simulate the "physical" electro-chemical visual process. Pathways have been created. Hey maybe dreams are just short circuits between memory, and the visual portions of the brain, maybe an electrolyte imbalance, with a bit of creativity thrown in, maybe a bit of fear for those nightmares.


You are very unusual.
Or so you say! Good thing we can't check it huh?

But you said you RECITE the criteria. Can your inner voice be detected by a sound amplifier?

Quite possibly! It would depend on whether or not we could come up with a receiver sensitive enough to pickup my thoughts, isolate the exact signal responsible for the words, so as to decode them back into sounds as articulated by human mouth parts. Sure it's possible, but a project to be completed sometime in the future.

raw_thought wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote:

raw_thought wrote:“Neurons firing = (is and only is) pain” is only the statement that they are two words for the same thing. In other words a materialist defines neurons firing as pain. Their “argument” is mere semantics and disingenuous semantics!

That you don't understand biochemistry, anatomy, and other such physics of the human organism, is of no material.

I'm reminded of Doors lyrics: "...his brain is squirming like a toad."

I am not saying that pain is and only is C fibers firing. I am saying that materialists believe that.
I understand!

There are no subjective feelings (qualia) for a materialist.
Feelings are what laymen call fibers firing.

There is nothing ( according to materialists) that pain feels like.
I've asked you before, "what does pain feel like?" A fish?

Pain for a materialist is and only is C fibers firing.
Correct, all it is is physical, yes!

Your post shows that you are confused. I am not saying that neurons firing does not create the feeling of pain. I am saying that the concept "pain" and the concept "c fibers firing " are not equivalent.
Yet they are. Concepts are mans attempt to quantify things. First there was the word pain, much later there were c fibers, some day there shall be more, that shall supersede the previous beliefs, or rather simple incomplete concepts, with a more long winded exacting concept. Of course there shall always be hangers-on to old incomplete concepts, rejecting the new concepts for a more colorful one, that tickles their fancy.

If they were equivalent then saying that pain=c fibers firing would be a tautology, c fibers firing =c fibers firing. You mean like hexagon and six-sided polygon, (hex = six)? What you're missing is that pain is now more understood. Sure pain is nerve fibers firing, it's a newer definition, they are equivalent, yet actually not yet complete. Completeness shall only be found in the future, once we know all there is to know about human consciousness. For now we've gotten to fibers firing.

I'm curious, is this a god thing with you? To you, does qualia beg the question of a god, something you really want to believe in?

There is nothing ( according to materialists) that pain feels like.
I've asked you before, "what does pain feel like?" A fish?

I remember a quote from a famous musician - when asked what his new album 'sounded like,' he replied 'It sounds like hammering two oranges together.'

Wyman wrote:

There is nothing ( according to materialists) that pain feels like.
I've asked you before, "what does pain feel like?" A fish?

I remember a quote from a famous musician - when asked what his new album 'sounded like,' he replied 'It sounds like hammering two oranges together.'

So does the subjective expressions, of two oranges being hammered together, amongst all peoples, equate? Then it must be the work of qualia.

Though not as funny, I liked Queensrÿche's bit of including a mis-dialed cell phone message, "It's starting to hit me like a two ton heavy thing," at the beginning of their "Empire" track.

Artistic freedom, you gotta love it.

Poetry for a materialist is and only is ink patterns on a page. It expresses NO FEELING. If I am a materialist I do not love my wife .She only inspires certain of my neurons to fire.
Dennett does not believe in first person narratives. So when he woke up one morning he turned to his wife ( after sex ) and said, " it was good for you. Was it good for me?" That is how absurd his position is.

You asked what does pain feel like, a fish?
So you are saying that qualia are impossible because they cannot be put into words? That is the essence of feelings.* There are many things that cannot be put into words. Just one example, tell me (in words) how to move my thumb. Telling me to send electrical impulses from my brain to my finger will not be helpful.
* And reality. Everything is ultimately beyond words. If meaning is only a chain of signifiers then either that chain is an infinite regress ( what is a toothpick? Wood. What is wood? Cellulose fibers. What is cellulose fibers?....ad infinitum.) If the chain has a beginning then that word has no meaning. Either way, there is no foundation for our knowledge. Without consciousness words have no meaning. The ink pattern ( and only the ink pattern) " on" does not refer to the proposition that the light is on.
See "intentionality", "symbol grounding problem" at the site "Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. '
My name " raw_thought" takes the idea of "raw feels' ( qualia) and applies that to concepts. The subject is called " cognitive phenomenology". For example, my triangle argument is a tweaked version of "Mary's room". The visualized triangle is not a secondary property ( Locke) it is a primary property. Even a materialist cannot say that primary properties do not exist. However, here is a primary property ( the triangle) that has no physical form. There is no physical triangle in your brain when you visualize one.

You seem to keep missing my point. I am not saying that neurons firing do not facilitate my visualized triangle. In other words, yes, one could probably correlate certain brain states with my being able to see that triangle. I have no problem with that. However, you will not see a triangle. Similarly, Mozart's music correlates perfectly with the pattern of atoms in a CD. However, it is totally different to hear Mozart and holding his CD in your hands.

Asking if my motives in arguing for qualia is religious is an ad hominum.* It was gentle and polite but still a fallacy. If I am debating a tea partier about taxes it is bad form ( and a fallacy) to say that he is wrong because his motives are inappropriate. Attack the argument not the person, is true even if no offense is given.
here is an extreme example of an ad hominum.
1. Manson lies 99% of the time. ( We will assume such a high % is true for the sake of argument)
2. Manson says that 1+1=2.
3.Therefore, It is most likely ( 99%) that 1+1 does not = 2.
In other words the person has nothing to do with the validity of an argument. I have seen very smart people compose an illegitimate syllogism. I have seen very stupid people compose a perfect syllogism.

* There are many believers in qualia, Chalmers, Searle etc that do not believe in God. they are just willing to go where ever the logic takes them.

The materialist must say;
1. neurons firing are and only are what my visualized triangle is,
2. There is no physical triangle in my brain ( it has no triangular volume.)
3. Therefore, I cannot visualize a triangle.
To say that a materialist is not saying that one cannot visualize a triangle but only saying that visualized triangles do not exist. Well it is obvious that you are contradicting yourself.

raw_thought wrote:You seem to keep missing my point. I am not saying that neurons firing do not facilitate my visualized triangle. In other words, yes, one could probably correlate certain brain states with my being able to see that triangle. I have no problem with that. However, you will not see a triangle. Similarly, Mozart's music correlates perfectly with the pattern of atoms in a CD. However, it is totally different to hear Mozart and holding his CD in your hands.

If we can correlate certain brain states with seeing a triangle then why can't we see a triangle? Isn't there a contradiction into your two sentences?

raw_thought wrote:Materialists want it both ways. It would be legitimate (tho I believe wrong) to claim that consciousness does not exist.

I'm still not quite clear what people mean when they say this, do you mean awareness or self-awareness? Are you a dualist claiming that 'consciousness' is not part of the material world?

However, that would be obviously absurd. So they redefine "consciousness " as neurons firing. Such a redefinition is disingenuous. Consciousness is defined as awareness not as neurons firing.

But materialists do not say that one is aware of one's neurons firing, just that ones neurons firing appears to be what causes 'consciousness'?

A materialist can then claim that he believes in consciousness because he believes in neurons firing. ...

I'd have thought all philosophers since Descartes would say they know they are 'conscious', not that they believe they are? A materialist knows he/she is conscious, they just also believe, unlike Descartes, that there is a physical base and so far the CNS looks to be that base.

Similarly, I can claim that I believe in unicorns because I have redefined "unicorn" as the star at the center of our solar system.

raw_thought wrote:The materialist must say;
1. neurons firing are and only are what my visualized triangle is,

I'd have thought they'd say, 'When I visualise a triangle the neurons in my CNS activate to retrieve a pattern that was stored when I saw a physical triangle.'

2. There is no physical triangle in my brain ( it has no triangular volume.)

I'd have thought it more, 'The physical representation is in the form of a neuronal-net pattern which, when activated, is 'perceived' as a triangle in the visual-field'

3. Therefore, I cannot visualize a triangle.

Therefore I can visualise a triangle even tho' there is not one physically present in my perception.

To say that a materialist is not saying that one cannot visualize a triangle but only saying that visualized triangles do not exist. Well it is obvious that you are contradicting yourself.

Not sure who this was meant for.

raw_thought wrote:Poetry for a materialist is and only is ink patterns on a page. It expresses NO FEELING. If I am a materialist I do not love my wife .She only inspires certain of my neurons to fire.

And those neurons are the ones that in turn fire up the hormonal system to provide your feelings.

Dennett does not believe in first person narratives. So when he woke up one morning he turned to his wife ( after sex ) and said, " it was good for you. Was it good for me?" That is how absurd his position is.

Not sure about Dennett's position but first person narratives are tricky things not least because they already make one an other to oneself. There's a fair old argument that self-consciousness is the result of language.

2. There is no physical triangle in my brain ( it has no triangular volume.)

Wonderful example of philosophical nonsense. Triangular volume is meaningless - a pyramid may have volume, a triangle may have area, but triangular volume is something you just made up. When you have to make up senseless words to express your ideas, it is a sign that your argument fails right at that point. I don't know exactly what a 'physical triangle' is - perhaps a drawing on paper? the musical instrument?

As such, the drawing on paper represents a triangle just like my brain represents a triangle when I imagine it. No one would claim the drawing has a special evanescent aura that is inexplicable except by a dualist account of nature. Where in the paper and ink molecules will you find a triangle? Nowhere. Therefore, it must not be physical according to your argument - It lacks volume.