Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:27 pm There is only one substance which is either God or Nature.

Neither is a substance. Nature is just another word for existence, that is, all that exists. The entities that exist are substances, the concept meaning, "all entities," only exists epistemologically. God only exists in the imaginations of the superstitious.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 11:38 am I have my hands full with substance dualism.

What is, "substance dualism?"

You can make it simple just by saying what the two substances are.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:15 pmYou can make it simple just by saying what the two substances are.

Don't know how to work google, eh?

Anywho: in context, it's mind and brain. That is mind is one substance and brain is another.

And, yes, I know I'm wrong and dumb and misguided for believin' such things: you can spare me the lecture & essay.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:29 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:15 pmYou can make it simple just by saying what the two substances are.

Don't know how to work google, eh?

Anywho: in context, it's mind and brain. That is mind is one substance and brain is another.

And, yes, I know I'm wrong and dumb and misguided for believin' such things: you can spare me the lecture & essay.

Descartes believed something similar and he was brilliant. I think both you and he mistaken, not dumb or misguided. You certainly have better ground for your view than any physicalist who thinks the brain secrets consciousness like a ductless gland or it emerges by magic when there is enough complexity.

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute. Why does it have to be some kind of, "stuff?" Isn't it enough to know being conscious, thinking, learning, and consciously choosing are things those organism do which cannot be explained in terms of physical properties, without requiring some additional substance or stuff? Especially since there is no evidence for any such stuff.

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute.

And that makes you a dualist as well, a property dualist.

The tip off is not a physical attribute. If mind is an attribute or property but not a physical one, then you assume at least two classes or types or kinds of property. Physical and mental.

My problem with a property dualism is it's rooted entirely in the material and material is absent what you call volition (what I call free will) which is at the heart of mind. As i wrote elsewhere, consciousness (bein' open to the enviroment or experience) seems to be a mechanical thing. Lizards and Roombas are conscious, But both lack mind which is an entirely different thing that consciousness. Mind, it does not seem to me, is or can be merely a property. It is a substance with its own peculiar nature and properties.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 5:29 pm I'm not skeptical that knowledge is possible and valuable. I'm just pointing out ... that human knowledge is probabilistic ....

Call it what you like, but if the best you'll ever have is only probable, it is nothing but a surmise, a guess or estimate and hope something is true, it is not knowledge and anyone who believes that is a skeptic about true knowledge. If what one thinks they know may or may not be true, because the best one has is only probabilistic, they really do not know anything.

You do this all the time. You shout out, "I believe in knowledge," then whisper, "but you cannot know anything for certain of if anything is really true." If you cannot know anything for certain, you cannot even know that.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 5:29 pm I'm not skeptical that knowledge is possible and valuable. I'm just pointing out ... that human knowledge is probabilistic ....

Call it what you like,

That's what I like. It's also what epistemologists like. And it happens to be true.

but if the best you'll ever have is only probable, it is nothing but a surmise, a guess or estimate and hope something is true, it is not knowledge

Heh. You're an all-or-nothing believer, are you? Either there has to be NO possible doubt whatsoever, or you don't know anything? That's your assumption?

Well, in the first place, there's a million miles between a "guess" or mere "surmise," (sir) and a high-probability calculation. And all that knowledge requires or can require, is high probability. But zero probability? There is no empirical matter whatsoever that can offer you that.

So you would not "know" anything, if that were so.

If what one thinks they know may or may not be true, because the best one has is only probabilistic, they really do not know anything.

Nope.

It's the only way we DO know anything.

Try it out. Give me an empirical matter for which there is a 0% probability of you being wrong. Go ahead.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:04 pm

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute.

And that makes you a dualist as well, a property dualist.

The tip off is not a physical attribute. If mind is an attribute or property but not a physical one, then you assume at least two classes or types or kinds of property. Physical and mental.

Properties of the same stuff, not more than one kind of stuff, and there are more properties than just two. All metaphysical (natural) properties are properties of material entities and include what are usually called the physical properties (because they can be known by direct perception), life (which all organisms have) consciousness (which only some living organism have called animals), and mind (which only some conscious animals have called human beings). They are all different properties of the same material stuff.

I'm not trying to convince you, just explaining that one does not have be a dualist of any kind to understand life, consciousness, and mind cannot be understood in terms of physical properties alone and that there is no reason to suppose the physical properties are the only properties material entities can have. It's quite obvious there are living, conscious, mental entities, but there are no material properties (physical, life, consciousness, or mind) separate from those material entities. The properties only exist as attributes of the entities.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:04 pm My problem with a property dualism is it's rooted entirely in the material and material is absent what you call volition (what I call free will) which is at the heart of mind.

That's not my view at all. I do not agree with the physicalist view of, "cause," (events cause events). I believe everything has a cause only in the sense that nothing happens by magic or serendipity or caprice and can be explained. That explanation is that all events are only the behavior of entities and the bahavior of all entities is determined by those entities' nature. The merely physical entities behavior can be explained entirely in terms of their physical properties, because those are all the properties they have. Living organisms all have the property of life so the physical aspects of those entities can be described in terms of their physical properties but the living behavior can only be explained in terms of their life property. The same would go for organisms with conscciousness, and of course human minds. It is the property of the mind of human beings that makes volition both necessary and possible to all human behavior, because human beings must consciously choose all they consciously do. Their behavior is, "caused," but the cause is their conscious choice.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:04 pm ... Mind, it does not seem to me, is or can be merely a property. It is a substance with its own peculiar nature and properties.

Yes, I can understand why the mind would seem almost too profound to be attributable to a single property, but it is not a simple property. Mind is the unique kind of consciousness of human beings which actually consists of three characteristics of its own, volition (which requires conscious choice), intellect (which makes it possible and necessary to learn), and rationality (which makes it possible and necessary to think and reason), and all three are interdependent, none possible without the others.

Again, not trying to convince you, only explaining how dualism of any kind is not necessary to understand those aspects of reality which cannot be explained in terms of physical properties alone. If you are going call the fact there are more properties than physical properties some kind of multiple-ism, it would have to be at least, "quadism," physical, living, conscious, and mental. Seems awkward, though.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:59 pm Give me an empirical matter for which there is a 0% probability of you being wrong. Go ahead.

I am not about to play, "can you prove it," with you. Of course I can't prove it to you. No one can prove anything to you, because only you can prove anything to yourself using your own mind, and you have already demonstrated you have no intention of doing that.

I only need to prove it to myself. No one needs your agree to know what they know. Sorry!

It must be terrible going through life being so confused that when seeing a cat spread across the road with it's head off and its guts pouring out, you are not sure whether or not it's dead.

RC,

there are more properties than just two.

Of course, but in context, as it pertains to my substance dualism or your property dualism, dualism refers to two broad categories of substances or properties. In my case: mind and body/brain; in yours: mental and physical.

Mind is the unique kind of consciousness of human beings which actually consists of three characteristics of its own, volition (which requires conscious choice), intellect (which makes it possible and necessary to learn), and rationality (which makes it possible and necessary to think and reason), and all three are interdependent, none possible without the others.

As I see it: mind is comprised of reason, conscience, and free will, and it, mind, is not a property but a substance in its own right.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 2:39 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:59 pm Give me an empirical matter for which there is a 0% probability of you being wrong. Go ahead.

I am not about to play, "can you prove it," with you.

So you can't.

I only need to prove it to myself.

Okay, then tell me the way you use to "prove" it to yourself. If you're a rational person, that'll be good enough for anybody.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:33 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:29 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:15 pmYou can make it simple just by saying what the two substances are.

Don't know how to work google, eh?

Anywho: in context, it's mind and brain. That is mind is one substance and brain is another.

And, yes, I know I'm wrong and dumb and misguided for believin' such things: you can spare me the lecture & essay.

Descartes believed something similar and he was brilliant. I think both you and he mistaken, not dumb or misguided. You certainly have better ground for your view than any physicalist who thinks the brain secrets consciousness like a ductless gland or it emerges by magic when there is enough complexity.

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute. Why does it have to be some kind of, "stuff?" Isn't it enough to know being conscious, thinking, learning, and consciously choosing are things those organism do which cannot be explained in terms of physical properties, without requiring some additional substance or stuff? Especially since there is no evidence for any such stuff.

I agree. Further, not only is there no "stuff" that we call mind, there is no physical stuff either; no brain, no anythings, only experience .

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:09 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:27 pm There is only one substance which is either God or Nature.

Neither is a substance. Nature is just another word for existence, that is, all that exists. The entities that exist are substances, the concept meaning, "all entities," only exists epistemologically. God only exists in the imaginations of the superstitious.

To call Nature or God substance is philosophical jargon. To understand the "substance" metaphor most people cut their teeth on Descartes' Meditations.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 3:51 am

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 2:39 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:59 pm Give me an empirical matter for which there is a 0% probability of you being wrong. Go ahead.

I am not about to play, "can you prove it," with you.

So you can't.

I only need to prove it to myself.

Okay, then tell me the way you use to "prove" it to yourself. If you're a rational person, that'll be good enough for anybody.

...and I don't have to explain myself to anyone else. Especially not to you.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 11:34 am

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:33 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 6:29 pm

Don't know how to work google, eh?

Anywho: in context, it's mind and brain. That is mind is one substance and brain is another.

And, yes, I know I'm wrong and dumb and misguided for believin' such things: you can spare me the lecture & essay.

Descartes believed something similar and he was brilliant. I think both you and he mistaken, not dumb or misguided. You certainly have better ground for your view than any physicalist who thinks the brain secrets consciousness like a ductless gland or it emerges by magic when there is enough complexity.

I just don't see why a physical living organsim cannot have the attribute of consciousness without it being anything more than a perfectly natural attribute of that organism--just not a physical attribute. Why does it have to be some kind of, "stuff?" Isn't it enough to know being conscious, thinking, learning, and consciously choosing are things those organism do which cannot be explained in terms of physical properties, without requiring some additional substance or stuff? Especially since there is no evidence for any such stuff.

I agree. Further, not only is there no "stuff" that we call mind, there is no physical stuff either; no brain, no anythings, only experience .

You're close, but you've let your extreme view turn into solipsism. It's like saying I eat, but there is only eating, there is nothing I eat. I love, but there is only the love, I don't love anything. I experience, but there is only thr experience, I don't experience anything.

A contentless experience, an experience of, "nothing," is, "no experience." If you have an experience, that is just what everyone else means by stuff. It's only the name of actual experiences.

Do you have experiences? Are they all identical? Can you describe them? Whatever you describe as your experience, that is what everyone else means by stuff.

Of course there is only experience, but experience of nothing is no experience, and whatever the something one's experience is, that is physical existence. You don't have to call it that, just so long as you understand that's what other's mean by physical existence. When they have those experiences just like those you have called seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, they call the details that are seen, heard, felt etc. the actual experience, the, "stuff," they experience.