Why Physicalism is Wrong

[surreptitious57]

As I have said before what you say makes perfect sense to me from a philosophical perspective
But I cannot accept it as there is no evidence for it and this is something that I actually require
But I do not see why a difference of opinion should be a barrier to try and learn more from you

[Dontaskme]

As I have said before what you say makes perfect sense to me from a philosophical perspective
But I cannot accept it as there is no evidence for it and this is something that I actually require
But I do not see why a difference of opinion should be a barrier to try and learn more from you

The only barrier here is me showing you there is no barrier.

[Brent.Allsop]

I tried to read through some of this but couldn’t get to far. There was too much meaningless stuff, (especially in the list of stuff that was being argued against) which I’d imagine has no expert consensus support at all. How many people here have read all 316 posts, to date? Will anyone read any of this a year from now? Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could say, concisely and quantitatively, what everyone is trying to say here? In a form that would be useful, which maybe people would want to read, going forward as things progressed.

Rather than writing hundreds of responses like this, it would be much more efficient if everyone would work to build expert consensus on the best theory over at Canonizer.com (a wiki system with camps).

The leading consensus building survey topic on consciousness is the “Theories of Consciousness” topic. There is only one camp that has any amount of consensus, and that is “Representational Qualia theory”. Nobody has been willing to even put forth a camp even close to “physicalism” so why even bother, if no serious thinkers support this kind of thinking anymore? This leading camp describes a theory that is also verifiable, or falsifiable, if you will. Or at least, it describes a way to verify or falsify various theories of what qualia are (described in the many sub camps). It describes how to detect qualia, or if you will “eff the ineffable”, by not being “Qualia Blind”.

[Atla]

The leading consensus building survey topic on consciousness is the “Theories of Consciousness” topic. There is only one camp that has any amount of consensus, and that is “Representational Qualia theory”.

In other words, this theory predicts there is some set of physics, possibly some we already abstractly know all about, that is the physics of the redness we experience. Each sub camp is predicting various candidates for the physical properties we experience as redness.

Sounds good so far.

For example, “Representational Functionalism” predicts “functionality” is primal, and that a redness qualia can “arise” from many physically different computational systems correctly implementing the “redness” functionality.

Nope, functionalism/computationalism in this context is just an abstraction too. This idea is simply a reification fallacy / magical thinking that doesn't explain anything.

“Representative Materialism”, on the other hand predicts that physical matter is primal - without the right matter, no redness.

This is somewhat better, but it talks about matter being primal, which is wrong. As far as we can tell "matter" and "qualia" are one and the same thing. It's just a Western centuries long superstition to divide the world into two such categories.

without the right matter, no redness.

Anyway, this by itself seems quite correct. The only question is, which matter is the red.

Just my 0.02$: so far, the human mind seems to be best approached by roughly 1-100 Herz standing waves in the electromagnetic field, held in place by neuronal activity. (Obviously this "field" isn't actually separate from other "fields", and might also be just an appearance of a more underlying "field".)

So "red" might be, or might be best approached by, some 1-100 Hz standing wave in the EM field, which may be testable one day. The main problem here might be that such fields may be useless without the neuronal network working in conjunction with them.

I mean we can already knock out or stimulate parts of the human mind with EM fields, but these are very crude methods.

[Belinda]

Atla wrote on qualia and matter:

This is somewhat better, but it talks about matter being primal, which is wrong. As far as we can tell "matter" and "qualia" are one and the same thing. It's just a Western centuries long superstition to divide the world into two such categories.

Few philosophers are superstitious; you have the wrong word.

My main point is that east and west are both right. Qualia, and matter, are two perspectives for describing reality or as some call it 'nature'.

[Atla]

Atla wrote on qualia and matter:

This is somewhat better, but it talks about matter being primal, which is wrong. As far as we can tell "matter" and "qualia" are one and the same thing. It's just a Western centuries long superstition to divide the world into two such categories.

Few philosophers are superstitious; you have the wrong word.

My main point is that east and west are both right. Qualia, and matter, are two perspectives for describing reality or as some call it 'nature'.

But the West is literally talking about two things, or one primal thing and one illusion. Not about two made-up perspectives.

[Belinda]

Atla wrote:

But the West is literally talking about two things, or one primal thing and one illusion. Not about two made-up perspectives.

The west's talking about qualia and matter as two ontic substances is limited to substance dualists. Neutral monists hold that mind and extended matter are both the case and that mind and extended matter are both perspectives on nature , or reality.

[Atla]

Atla wrote:

But the West is literally talking about two things, or one primal thing and one illusion. Not about two made-up perspectives.

The west's talking about qualia and matter as two ontic substances is limited to substance dualists. Neutral monists hold that mind and extended matter are both the case and that mind and extended matter are both perspectives on nature , or reality.

Neutral monism is pretty rare; most people who aren't substance dualists are either idealists or materialists (one primal thing and one illusion / "emergent" thing) and still maintain a duality.

Yeah neutral monism is similar to Eastern nondualism. The main defect of neutral monism is that it still assumes a neutral substance, but reality has no substance.

[Belinda]

Atla wrote:

The main defect of neutral monism is that it still assumes a neutral substance, but reality has no substance.

My main source for neutral monism is Spinoza. For Spinoza nature does not have substance but is the unique uncaused substance.

Your "but reality has no substance" contains not one but two propositions. One of those negates substance , and the other ("has") proposes attribute.

When we get to the ultimate uncaused substance the concept of substance metamorphoses into something incomparable .

[Atla]

Atla wrote:

The main defect of neutral monism is that it still assumes a neutral substance, but reality has no substance.

My main source for neutral monism is Spinoza. For Spinoza nature does not have substance but is the unique uncaused substance.

Your "but reality has no substance" contains not one but two propositions. One of those negates substance , and the other ("has") proposes attribute.

When we get to the ultimate uncaused substance the concept of substance metamorphoses into something incomparable .

I didn't mean to propose attribute, I don't think that's possible in this context. What I meant to say then is that: reality is no substance either.

What's the point of talking about some substance anyway, when it's just an unnecessary mental projection.

Although it's true that several interpretations of Advaita propose something similar to substance too, they reify the Brahman too much. Such interpretations of Advaita are ultimately defective too.

[TimeSeeker]

When we get to the ultimate uncaused substance the concept of substance metamorphoses into something incomparable .

How do we test if something is an uncaused substance? That will break our current conception of epistemology e.g the falsifiability criterion. The way I solve this problem is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information

We can measure information ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informati ... nformation ) and that is good enough for a scientist. Philosophers will object. Naturally.

And I am happy to put my foot in my mouth as soon as somebody falsifies information OR entropy - because that is the good kind of wrong

[Belinda]

Atla wrote:

What's the point of talking about some substance anyway, when it's just an unnecessary mental projection.

"The point" is always somebody's point. My point , or agenda, is to combine philosophy east and philosophy west in a whole understanding, for me largely inspired by the immediate need to protect the biosphere within twelve years as we are reliably informed.

TimeSeeker, Spinoza used deduction , imitating the language of Euclid. I really don't know if anyone nowadays believes that is possible. I don't , much as I love Spinoza. The imagination of Spinoza's grand metaphysics which culminate in explaining the mechanism of human freedom does impress me so that uncaused cause must be the ultimate resting place for all determinists.

[TimeSeeker]

"The point" is always somebody's point. My point , or agenda, is to combine philosophy east and philosophy west in a whole understanding, for me largely inspired by the immediate need to protect the biosphere within twelve years as we are told.

You have a pragmatic goal (teleology) in mind which is grounded in reality! You are already one step ahead of any philosopher. Eastern or western.

This will drive your search by helping you discard what is 'useful' and what is 'nonsense'.

[Belinda]

I hope so TimeSeeker, anyway, there is neither use nor good in nottrying.

Atla wrote:

Although it's true that several interpretations of Advaita propose something similar to substance too, they reify the Brahman too much. Such interpretations of Advaita are ultimately defective too.

Wouldn't you say that that LaoTsu ' describes' it well?

[TimeSeeker]

I tried to read through some of this but couldn’t get to far. There was too much meaningless stuff, (especially in the list of stuff that was being argued against) which I’d imagine has no expert consensus support at all. How many people here have read all 316 posts, to date? Will anyone read any of this a year from now? Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could say, concisely and quantitatively, what everyone is trying to say here? In a form that would be useful, which maybe people would want to read, going forward as things progressed.

Rather than writing hundreds of responses like this, it would be much more efficient if everyone would work to build expert consensus on the best theory over at Canonizer.com (a wiki system with camps).

The leading consensus building survey topic on consciousness is the “Theories of Consciousness” topic. There is only one camp that has any amount of consensus, and that is “Representational Qualia theory”. Nobody has been willing to even put forth a camp even close to “physicalism” so why even bother, if no serious thinkers support this kind of thinking anymore? This leading camp describes a theory that is also verifiable, or falsifiable, if you will. Or at least, it describes a way to verify or falsify various theories of what qualia are (described in the many sub camps). It describes how to detect qualia, or if you will “eff the ineffable”, by not being “Qualia Blind”.

Depending on your criteria for 'serious thinkers' qualia are about as abstract as every other linguistic concept.

"Representational Qualia theory" is just a dumbed down version of Object Oriented Programming languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-or ... nd_classes

Whether they are 'real' or 'not real' is just another philosophical language game. It's just an arbitrary classification/taxonomy.

To appeal to the 'experts' is to appeal to authority.