Philosophy Now Forum

The first installment of a two-part article by Mary Midgley.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/47/Soul ... nd_Planets

Can anyone tell me why it is so common to think that matter and consciousness must be, in some fundamental way, mutually exclusive? What's the big deal with "stuff"? Why do people think that matter couldn't possibly result in the type of consciousness we experience?

Or to turn the question around, why are people much more ready to accept that concepts such as ghost or soul are compatible with consciousness? As far as I can see, the only thing we can say about these concepts is that they are "not matter". Well, again, so what? Why is immateriality seen as more compatible with consciousness than materiality?

All right, I'll talk with myself.

Maybe we (the human race in general) don't like "stuff", because it so obviously deteriorates at our death. If we are stuff and only stuff, well, death's not pretty, is it? But if we convince ourselves that the "real us", the self-aware conscious part of us is not made of stuff, is somehow non-stuff, then we can hope to survive death. So, antipathy towards matter is a coping mechanism to take away the sting/fear of death.

blackbox wrote:Can anyone tell me why it is so common to think that matter and consciousness must be, in some fundamental way, mutually exclusive?

I think Midgely's article explains it pretty well!

blackbox wrote:Can anyone tell me why it is so common to think that matter and consciousness must be, in some fundamental way, mutually exclusive? What's the big deal with "stuff"? Why do people think that matter couldn't possibly result in the type of consciousness we experience?

Do people really think so? In what way could matter and consciousness be "mutually exclusive", since both obviously exist simultaneously?

blackbox wrote:Why is immateriality seen as more compatible with consciousness than materiality?

Because consciousness itself is immaterial, just like computer code and novels are immaterial. As far as we know, they need to be expressed by matter to exist in reality, but they do not actually consist of that matter.

blackbox wrote:Maybe we (the human race in general) don't like "stuff", because it so obviously deteriorates at our death. If we are stuff and only stuff, well, death's not pretty, is it? But if we convince ourselves that the "real us", the self-aware conscious part of us is not made of stuff, is somehow non-stuff, then we can hope to survive death. So, antipathy towards matter is a coping mechanism to take away the sting/fear of death.

I think you are right. However, that does not mean that the self-aware conscious part of us is made of "stuff", though it might be dependent upon "stuff" to exist.

Notvacka wrote:Because consciousness itself is immaterial, just like computer code and novels are immaterial. As far as we know, they need to be expressed by matter to exist in reality, but they do not actually consist of that matter

Bit lost here Notvacka. They may not be run but they exist in matter by being text?

Arising_uk wrote:

Notvacka wrote:Because consciousness itself is immaterial, just like computer code and novels are immaterial. As far as we know, they need to be expressed by matter to exist in reality, but they do not actually consist of that matter

Bit lost here Notvacka. They may not be run but they exist in matter by being text?

If I write down the words and musical notation for a song, and send this to you, it might be reasonable to say 'I'm sending you this song'. That doesn't mean the song consists of ink-marked paper, does it?

Hmm...well to me that particular song does 'consist' of what you've sent. But I suppose we're down to what the word "consists" means. The thing is with Notvackas idea is that I think it implies that this song is actually immaterially 'out there' somewhere?

Thundril wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:

Notvacka wrote:Because consciousness itself is immaterial, just like computer code and novels are immaterial. As far as we know, they need to be expressed by matter to exist in reality, but they do not actually consist of that matter

Bit lost here Notvacka. They may not be run but they exist in matter by being text?

If I write down the words and musical notation for a song, and send this to you, it might be reasonable to say 'I'm sending you this song'. That doesn't mean the song consists of ink-marked paper, does it?

Thanks, Thundril. That's it.

Arising_uk wrote:Hmm...well to me that particular song does 'consist' of what you've sent. But I suppose we're down to what the word "consists" means. The thing is with Notvackas idea is that I think it implies that this song is actually immaterially 'out there' somewhere?

That depends on what you mean by "actually" and "out there".

Seriously, no such thing is implied. However, the possibility of such a thing is implied, which is not the same.

We have been over this before in several threads. Let me quote a previous exchange between Chaz and myself about this:

Notvacka wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:This symphony exists, on paper...

No, only dots of ink exist on the paper. A conscious effort is required in order to interpret the dots as a symphony.

chaz wyman wrote: as sound waves...

The sound waves are only ripples in the air. A conscious listener is required to recognize them as music.

chaz wyman wrote:and as memories in the brain...

Now we are getting closer. The memories are a chemo-electrical pattern, part of a larger pattern which forms cosciousness. But the fact that the pattern is chemo-electrical is of no consequense. Cosciousness is the pattern.

chaz wyman wrote:All you are saying is that it does not exist unless you make it material...

No, I'm saying that id does not exist (in any meaningful sense) unless you experience it consciously.

chaz wyman wrote:...playing it is an expression of a physical phenomenon.

No, the other way around: Playing it is a physical expression of an immaterial idea.

chaz wyman wrote:I agree that there is an ineffable side to consciousness that resists comparison with rocks and mountains, but adding an extra dimension of an immaterial world does absolutely no work to explain anything.

I'm not adding an extra dimension. Consciousness is how we exist and perceive the world. It's the primary dimension. The physical dimension is deducted from within consciousness.

chaz wyman wrote:You problem is that your dualism give you the possibility of being something you are not; possibly able to survive death and escape your body.

It's you who have a problem with supernatural interpretations, but that's another discussion, really.

My point is that consciousness emerges on the data level, not the physical level. The data is expressed by physical processes, but the data itself is immaterial. You don't have to actually believe that the data could exist independently from the physical processes, to understand this.

I could sing you a song I last heard fifty-odd years ago, sung to me by my Grandad, who himself learned that song as a child, and has never heard it again. If this song has never been written down, where has it been all this time?
If I look at a pattern carefully engraved into the surface of a copper plate, in what sense does the pattern actually exist, as distinct from the sense in which the copper plate exists ?
And is the existence of a 'surface' a different kind of existence from both the copper and the pattern?
In my view, the problem is one of communication.
We, materialists and idealists both, are attempting to communicate thoughts about certain aspects of the world, as each of us perceives it. We have inherited a set of words, and some associated 'definitions'. Sometimes we get tricked into thinking these definitions constitute the rules of communication. Maybe it would be useful to proceed by agreeing before the discussion proper starts, that we will use one word to signify one idea, another word to signify another idea, and so on, in a temporary, ad hoc way, without appealing to the 'authority' of the dictionary, if that appeal would just clog up the discussion.
So if, for example, we agree by observation that a series of separate areas of the copper plate are marked in some similar way, such that we perceive a pattern, we can find some way to discuss more fruitfully the distinction between the existence of the copper plate, the existence of 'surfaces', 'shapes' etc, and the existence of the pattern. Because we are all agreed, are we not, that there are differences?

Thundril wrote:I could sing you a song I last heard fifty-odd years ago, sung to me by my Grandad, who himself learned that song as a child, and has never heard it again. If this song has never been written down, where has it been all this time?

Your grandad's song has been in your brain. It is composed largely of calcium, was the result of an electro-chemical reaction where the voltage was sufficient to result in the calcium doing its thing, and we call it a memory. There is no reason to think it has some sort of immaterial existence.

Notvacka wrote:Playing it is a physical expression of an immaterial idea.

But everything we know about ideas is that they are material. They are complex arrangements of neurons and synapses. They are the result of chemicals energised by electrical charges. What reason do you have to say that ideas are immaterial?

blackbox wrote:

Thundril wrote:I could sing you a song I last heard fifty-odd years ago, sung to me by my Grandad, who himself learned that song as a child, and has never heard it again. If this song has never been written down, where has it been all this time?

Your grandad's song has been in your brain. It is composed largely of calcium, was the result of an electro-chemical reaction where the voltage was sufficient to result in the calcium doing its thing, and we call it a memory. There is no reason to think it has some sort of immaterial existence.

I don't think it exists on some ethereal, magical 'plane'. But the existence of some connections between some synapses in the lump of grey-pink jelly that would spill out if you broke my skull open is not at all the same as the existence of said bone-dome itself, is it?

blackbox wrote:But everything we know about ideas is that they are material. They are complex arrangements of neurons and synapses. They are the result of chemicals energised by electrical charges. What reason do you have to say that ideas are immaterial?

How difficult can this be to understand?

I'm thinking of a flower right now, a bright yellow sunflower. I close my eyes and picture it in my mind. Now, a flower exists in my imagination. It's a very immaterial sunflower, but it does exist, as an idea in my mind.

How can you not see the obvious difference between a material flower growing in my garden and an immaterial one conjured up by my imagination?

Allright. I concede. This is difficult to understand, because there is a bit more to it.

I could paint you a picture of the sunflower in my mind, as well as a picture of the sunflower in my garden. Or I could write the word "sunflower" on a piece of paper. None of the pictures wold be a sunflower in itself; the paint would not turn into flowers, nor would the written letters. The paintings and the text would be material representations of an immaterial idea, not the idea itself. A conscious mind would be required to recognise and recreate the idea of a sunflower. But, interestingly, the same goes for the material flower in my garden. A conscious mind is required to recognise it as a sunflower. In itself, it's just something that grows and reproduces, at best, since it's a living thing after all. Dead stuff is just "stuff".

However, material things that exist in reality are more obvious than man-made representations. For instance, it doesn't take a human mind to recognise the flower in my garden. A bird would know what it is in some sense, and perhaps seek out the seeds for food. If my artistic skills are up to it, perhaps my painting could fool a bird for a short while from a distance, but the written word would still mean nothing to it.

In another topic, about notes by Wittgenstein, no less, I have tried to explain the difference between mere material existence and meaningful existence.

Where things truly exist, is in our imagination. Some things are born there, other things are gathered from physical reality and given "proper" existence as we perceive them. Reality becomes what we perceive it to be in the process of consciousness. Whithout a conscious mind to make sense of it, all you have is undefined, meaningless "stuff".

You can't break down consciousness into neurons and synapses, nor reduce immaterial ideas to the materials that represent them, because what you get are just tissue, electricity, paper, ink etc.

Note that there is nothing necessarily supernatural about this distinction between the two main forms of existence: physical reality and conscious imagination.

Notvacka wrote:

blackbox wrote:But everything we know about ideas is that they are material. They are complex arrangements of neurons and synapses. They are the result of chemicals energised by electrical charges. What reason do you have to say that ideas are immaterial?

How difficult can this be to understand?

I'm thinking of a flower right now, a bright yellow sunflower. I close my eyes and picture it in my mind. Now, a flower exists in my imagination. It's a very immaterial sunflower, but it do exist, as an idea in my mind.

How can you not see the obvious difference between a material flower growing in my garden and an immaterial one conjured up by my imagination?

Haha, don't worry Notvacka, I completely understand your frustration. I'm feeling exactly the same.

It's the difference between a flower and a concept of a flower. Both are physical, but one is a plant, the other is an idea in your head. So, I recognise the difference, but I also insist that thoughts (ideas) are things. Made of stuff. So, don't have a flower in your head. You don't even have an immaterial flower in your head. You have some brains cells, physical ones, connected up physically, and the particular arrangement of these things is experienced as the impression of a flower. That conscious impression is utterly physical. If we could, and we extracted the physical neurons, your impression would disappear. Because it is physical.

I think you can say they're immaterial because we can't pick up brain cells as easily as rocks. If we could, and that's only a technological limitation, I doubt you'd be insisting that they are not material.