A defence of the immaterial mind.

Strafio
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A defence of the immaterial mind.

Before I started I thought I should make some points:
1) I know that there have been a several topics of this topic in the forum that I could have put this in but I thought that this one was significantly different enough to warrant its own thread.
2) You'll notice that I am using the word 'immaterial' in a different way to traditional philosophy. I have two reasons for this, that I think it is closer to how we use it in everyday circumstances and that the philosophical version was a perversion of this by trying to squeeze it into our 'world description' frame of language.
The other version is that the philosophical version (as Todangst shows in the topic I link to) is incoherent so this version is the only way the word can have a significant meaning.

This is specifically aimed at Todangst and DeludedGod who have written various essays on this subject, but all views will be welcome.
Todangst has written an essay claiming that immaterial is a broken concept while Deluded God has done a series of essays that deal with the subject.
As I understand it, they both subscribe to physical reductionism, which in contemporary philosophy is the most metaphysically correct position, but one that is at odds with many (if not all!) of our intuitive concepts of the mind.
My aim is to give a conception of the mind that is coherent, respects both materialistic metaphysics and the results of neuroscience and also retains (and vindicates) the common intuitive conceptions of the mind.
(That's right Chris, that fucking nobel prize will be mine for sure! Eye-wink)

This essay will be done in three steps:
1) Define the immaterial mind in a way that is coherent and respects materialist metaphysics.
2) Show that such a conception is compatible with neuroscience and how that traditional 'interactionism' problem is not an issue for this one.
3) Explore how this immaterial mind favours our intuitive conceptions of mind.

Defining the immaterial Mind
Todangsts essay argues that nothing immaterial can exist.
I agree with the essay so have decided to go with denying the 'existence' of the immaterial mind - I've decided that the question of "does the mind exist?" is a bit like "what is the weight of yellow?" is a category error.
So if the mind isn't a 'thing' that 'exists' then what exactly is it?

We use language for a variety of things.
We can greet people, give orders, ask questions, describe the world, etc.
Describing the world is the language we use for science and it is this mode of language that metaphysics is also based on. Everything that we describe is matter and/or motion - material.
Immaterial means not material.
As Todangst has argued, 'immaterial things' are not even defined within the discourse of description, so if I am going to be putting forward a concept that isn't material then it will have to be of a different discourse other than describing and our mental concepts will need a different purpose rather than to describe the world that we live in.

Although we do sometimes use mental concepts to try and describe 'how we are' to another person, this doesn't mean that they descriptions in the same sense as the ones of physical object. E.g. I can describe a table in terms of objective properties like height and colour but with an experience I have to try and work out where my friend might've experienced something similar.
Why do we make such descriptions of our mind to friends?
A common purpose is to explain our actions or to discuss future or hypothetical actions. So we could say that the concepts of mind serve a social purpose, to regulate and make sense of our behaviour.
We use it to explain our actions to other people.
So mental concepts can have a coherent use without being 'things' that exist in the descriptive sense. This allows them to be 'immaterial'.
(I believe that mathematics are also 'immaterial')

One might try and give them a material existence the following way:
Premise 1) Mental concepts are applied in a material setting.
Premise 2) This means that they exist as concepts applied in a material setting.
Conclusion) Mental concepts have a material existence.

However, I disagree with premise 2 as it appears to misuse the word 'existence'. If mental concepts like beliefs and desires exist like that, then so do non-existent objects like unicorns exist as concepts we apply. Actually existing things like tables have multiple existences - existence as the table and existence as the concept of the table... Jesus would have over a billion existences.
'Existence' as used in premise 2 leads to such absurdities that this argument to call 'mind' (or maths) material fails.

So to summarise this first section:
1) I agreed that everything that exists is material and that if something was 'immaterial' then it would have to be a concept from a different use of language rather than to refer to a 'thing' that exists.
2) I gave an alternative use of language to world description, i.e. regulating and making sense of our actions, that would allow mental concepts to be coherent in a 'not material' way. i.e. immaterial.
3) I suggested a possible argument that would claim that such concepts were still material, but I countered that such an argument depended on a misuse of what it was for something to be 'material'.

That leaves me with a coherent immaterial conception of mind that allows materialist metaphysics to be correct. The next question is, does this conception of mind survive the interactionist problem and even if it does, does it cohere with the results of neuro-science?

The immaterial mind meets the brain
The traditional downfall of the immaterial mind is when it comes to interaction with the body. We believe that light stimulating the eyes causes us to experience colours and that the decisions we make cause our actions, but causation as traditionally defined is a relation between two physical concepts. Even emergentists with their physicalist ontology have had difficulties in linking their mental properties with physical ones in a causal chain. If we are going to have the kind of causation as described in the examples above between a material body and non-material mind then we are going to have to take a fresh look at the concept of causation.

The skeleton structure of the concept causation is the counterfactual:
If A hadn't have happened then B wouldn't have happened
How can we know that if A hadn't have happened then B wouldn't have happened?
In physics it is quite easy as we can see situations where the laws of physics would lead from event A to B.
E.g. If I hadn't let go of the coin then it wouldn't have dropped, as the force of gravity on the coin was only countered by the force of my grip on it.
So how can we get a line of causation from my decision to let the coin drop (a mental concept) to the coin's dropping?

Remember I claimed that mental concepts, rather than refer to 'things', were concepts we employed in our human practice of regulating and making sense of our actions. As with all linguistic concepts there are correct ways and incorrect ways to apply them.
Take the greeting 'hello'. The word 'hello' doesn't refer to anything - it has a different linguistic purpose rather than refer to 'things' but there are still correct applications and incorrect applications that we can link with physical situations.
For example, the physical scene of two people meeting is the correct time for them to use the word 'hello' while use of it while parting would be a mis-use.
So although the word 'hello' doesn't refer to anything physical, there is still a connection between the word and the physical situations where it is correct to apply it. This link between the immaterial concept and the physical situation where one should apply it is the meeting point between immaterial mentality and physical actions.

Take the mental concept; Jim deliberately dropped the ball - this concept is a mental concept as it talks of intentions but it is clear that there are limited situations where it would be applicable. A biological machine would have to make the movements whereby a ball is released from it's grasp.
The mental concept involving Jim's intention is to be applied in scene that could be described purely physically, with no intentions or emotions in it. So here we have the supervenience between a mental concept and a physical event. From here we can use the counterfactual version of causation to show a causal relation between the immaterial mental concept of intention and the physical event of the ball dropping to the floor.

We start with the following premises:
Premise 1) Making a decision to 'drop the ball' causes the action 'drop the ball'.
(based on our everyday use of the concept "to make a decision to act")
Premise 2) If we apply a concept of "dropping a ball" then a physical event has occured that involves a biological machine moving in a way that a ball falls from its grasp.
(based on our everyday use of the concept of "dropping the ball")
Premise 3) A biological machine moving in a way that allows a ball to fall from its grasp will cause the ball to drop to the ground.
(based on the laws of physics)

Now for the following steps:
Step 1) If the biological machine hadn't released the ball then it wouldn't have dropped.
(follows from Premise 3 and definition of counterfactual causation)
Step 2) If the concept of "dropping the ball" is applicable if and only if the biological machine releases the ball.
(follows from Premise 2 and definition of counterfactual causation)
Step 3) If the concept of "dropping the ball" hadn't been applicable then the ball wouldn't have dropped.
(follows from steps 1 and 2)
Step 4) If "the decision to drop the ball" hadn't been applicable then neither would the dropping of the ball.
(follows from Premise 1 and definition of counterfactual causation)
Step 5) If "the decision to drop the ball" hadn't been applicable then the ball wouldn't have dropped to the ground.
(follows from steps 4 and 5)

Conclusion) "the decision to drop the ball" causes the ball to be dropped to the ground.
(follows from Step 5 and definition of counterfactual causation)

The argument might not be absolutely logically perfect in the details, but you can see how there can be a 'causal' connection between an immaterial concept and a physical event, thanks to the link of the rule of correct application.
This means that this version the immaterial mind respects materialist metaphysics and the closure principle (that every physical event has a physical cause) without losing its potential for causal relations between itself and the physical body.
The question I must now answer is whether this causal connection fits well with the results of modern neuro-science.

Does this conception of the mind fit in with modern neuro-science
I'm going to admit straight up that I'm not really familiar with the results of modern neuro-science. Instead, my argument is going to be based on what I believe the methodology of neuro-scientific experiments, and try to argue that the very nature of those experiments allows for the mind to be immaterial in the way that I've described. I still start by stating what I understand to be the procedure for empirically verifying connections between the neurological structure of the brain and states of the mind. (Hopefully DeludedGod will be able to confirm or refute my argument.)

Presumably the neuro-scientist will scan the brain somehow to determine what it's physical state is, and find relations between the physical state of the brain and the 'state of mind' that the person is in. They will find the state of the brain using the scanning methods and then see which states of mind it relates to.
But how do they decide which states of mind it applies to?
How do they know that the 'state of mind' that relates to this part of the brain is what they say it is? Presumably, they apply mental concepts as we usually do and are thereby relating the 'state of the brain' with the 'appropiate use of the concept'. So whatever results neuro-science finds, it will be compatable with this 'immaterial mind' as the link between the brain and the mental concept can be explained this way.

To summarise:
1) I explained how an 'immaterial mind' could have a 'causal' connection with physical events, by using the skeletal form of the counter-factual cause and using the "situation of appropiate use" link between certain mental concepts and the physical events the supervene over.
2) I showed that the method of neuro-science ensured that my 'immaterial' theory is compatible with any results it could give. My theory would merely give a different interpretation of those results. Rather than claim that those states of brain are the mental states there's the more intuitive claim that they are just the state of the brain when we apply mental concepts - there would be the same practical purposes.
How this 'immaterial' mind favours lots of intuitive ideas about it.
It's commonly agreed that Descarte's view of the mind was very intuitive, and that it's a shame that he couldn't metaphysically explain such an intuitive picture. The concepts of the mind just didn't seem to behave the same way as spacial ones. If physical reduction has all the metaphysics going for it - the only reason for someone to reject it is if they thought it mis-represented the mind in some way.

Other than pure intuition, this view of the mind does seem to agree with how we generally use mental concepts in real life. We usually explain our actions in a social context and depend on our understanding of other people's beliefs for a sense of security around them, that we can predict and handle how they are going to behave.
It also seems to be the most natural explanation of mental content, especially with Putnam's arguments for 'externalism'.

My main motivation, however, is how it fits our decision making - it allows for libertarian free will. Determinists have traditionally argued that events are either caused or random, and this is true for physical objects because the causal explanation is how we order them and without one they appear to be random. I showed that physical actions can have a causal line from our 'making the decision' to the action itself.
However, the mental concepts that characterise how we make decisions, e.g. desires and beliefs, do not have to have a causal structure. This allows for a spontenaity that allows for a libertarian free will.

This doesn't contradict that the physical world is determined, and in that sense our actions are all determined by the laws of physics. But when we give an explanation that involves 'will' and 'decision making', we aren't giving a physical explanation so different rules apply. This is very similar to Kant's argument for free will, that although the deterministic empirical explanation of the world was deterministic, as not all explanations are based in empiricism then explanations of the mind need not be determined in the same way. His arguments against Hume's compatibilism would support my position too.

This was a relatively rough sketch of a new idea, and it crammed several major topics (ontology, causation, practical use, scientific method etc) into one so it's bound to be very simplified and not account for everything. But I hope that where holes will be found that they will be minor details rather than the core ideas surrounding the theory.


Strafio
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I'll have to make this my

I'll have to make this my last post before I go to bed.
I just thought I should clarify on a point that I made at the beginning.
I was re-defining immaterial as the traditional one was incoherent and I thought that a coherent one that correlated to how people really use the word was possible.
All the concepts that people tend to call 'immaterial' are ones that have the grammar of a noun but don't refer to something material.

So take a number.
It doesn't refer to something material.
You claim that the representation is material and I have no problem with that. But the word doesn't have a material referent and when we talk about things 'existing' we are talking about the referents. Otherwise we have the double existence of concepts with existing referents etc.
To say that the mind was 'immaterial' was to say that the concepts weren't referential concepts, despite being nouns.

todangst wrote:
This is what I mean, vis-a-vis my problem with the use of 'category error'. There is a weight to yellow. The weight of 'yellow' is the weight of whatever matter is required to represent yellow.

When we say "the weight of x is..." we are talking about the weight of the physical thing that x refers to. So when I ask what the weight of the yellow car, would you ask me which one I wanted to weigh? The yellow or the car?

I think you are seriously abusing language with your 'anti-category error' arguments.

Quote:
You must actually present this discourse and use it to provide an ontology. Otherwise, merely noting that there are 'other ways to talk' sans reference is of no signficance here.

I disagree. Philosophers were allowed to use referential language before they had explicitly recognised formal rules for it's use. Besides, all these formal rules were based on our intuitive grasp of the language in the first place.

Quote:
How is this not material?

Well, remember I believe that materialism can account for the being of these concepts. In that sense they 'exist' as a linguistic practice. It's just that when we say "tables exist" we are not referring to the concept of a table - we are referring to the table.
So if I say that a concept isn't material, I mean that it doesn't refer to something material.

Obviously linguistic practices happen within a material setting.

Quote:
Don't just assert that there are other ways, demonstrate how these other ways can provide the terms with meaning! Pay heed to the fact that you've not even attempted to do this here - recognize this failure to even make the attempt and ask yourself why you're not presenting it here now, in lieu of this complaint.

The thing is, I did provide a possible linguistic practice.
I gave a non-referential use for mental concepts involving behaviour regulation. It perhaps hasn't been done very well - it is a difficult task after all, but I think it's unfair to accuse me of dodging it altogether.

The rest of your critique relied on your 'they exist as abstractions' claim.
I still hold you're being inconsistent when you say "x exists"
If x has a referent (like a table) then you mean the referent exists.
If x hasn't have a referent (like a number) then you mean that the concept/representation exists instead.
I think I also need to question your and Topher's arguments that numbers/mental concepts are abstractions as I think they are based on questionable linguistic premises. I'll need to do some reading up before I do that though.

Quote:
If you assert that numbers do not exist, then you're already contradicting yourself.

Explain. Is it because I used the concept of a number to deny the existence and that the number exists as a concept?
Wouldn't that make it similarly incoherent to deny the existence of anything?


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Topher wrote: Reductionists

Topher wrote:
Reductionists may redefine mental concepts away from our intuitive notion of what we think they are, but so what!? Intuition is just that, an instinct, what feels right, not what is right.


Strafio wrote:
Remember Socrastein accused you of holding to an objective standard of language? You didn't explicitly say "I hold to an objective standard of language" but this is exactly the implicit assumption behind this passage.

Please explain how anything I said implied objective language. All I’ve said was that what we think it right, intuitively, is actually false. Just like thinking the soul is the seat of intellect is false. This says NOTHING about language.

Strafio wrote:
Intuition is more than 'just' an instinct.

Then what it is?

Strafio wrote:
For starters, the results of philosopher of mind is prior to neuroscience. For experimentation to be possible a theory already needs to be in place - otherwise, how could you possibly know what to test for?

Well the reductionist will make predictions and then look to neuroscience to see if they are accurate. That is what I am saying. But, if for instance neuroscience demonstrated reductionism of the mind was false I would change my mind (not that I’m a reductionists about everything anyway).

Strafio wrote:
The only difference would be the interpretation of the results. The reductionist says "that brain state is desire" while the emergentist/anomalous monist says "that brain state correlates with an application of the concept of desire".

No, the emergentist would say the mental state emerges from physical states, not  that it “just correlates”.

Strafio wrote:
Obviously you shouldn't use intuition for scientific hypothesis' that can be dealt with by the scientific method.

And the mind has nothing to do with science?

Strafio wrote:
We're talking about the very root of reason that the rules of reason depend on. Obviously these very roots need to be rooted in something other than reason as they are the very foundations that need to be there before reason is possible.

They’re rooted in the brain. Before any reason, decision, desire or even language is possible, there must be a brain. Everything runs via the brain.

Strafio wrote:
There would be no purpose to consciously re-define these concepts as the scientific ones don't seem to have a use or purpose, not within scientific explanation or anywhere else.

This is an absolutely ridiculous comment! Of course there is a purpose to scientific explanation and study of these things. To understand how the mental functions (in order to study a host of conditions for instance) you need to turn to the brain, which entails turning to neuroscience.

Strafio wrote:
So you take an argument from some people, that subscribe to one of many Christian theologies, which is one of many world views, and decide that that is what all free will is about?

I’m saying that typically, the only people who actually argue from free will do so for theological reasons.

Topher wrote:
Free will as we use it everyday is more akin to how the compatalist defines free will, rather than the more absolute free will of libertarianism/theology.


Strafio wrote:
Then how come compatibilists (like all determinists) have to argue from metaphysics then? How else do you defend determinism without arguing from metaphysics?

I don’t see the relevance of this point?
I am saying the ‘free will’ most people tend to refer to is not absolute free will, but rather merely the ability to choose which is closer to the compatalist definition of the term.

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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It seems that rather than

It seems that rather than try to understand where I am coming from you seem to be assuming that I'm just re-hashing the same old tired arguments that you've seen over and over. --Strafio

 That's the impression I've been getting from lurking this thread for the past few days.

The second somebody hears the word immaterial, they start ranting about how much they hate tired dualist arguments for the soul and God. 

I cannot believe how much text has been devoted to the topic of substance dualism, common theist arguments, and the like in this thread.

 The mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. -- Aristotle

There seem to be people in this thread incapable of this. Topher, you said yourself that you won't even accept the possibility (entertain) of an idea unless you hear a good argument for it! You want to be convinced of an idea if you're going to bother going through all the trouble of trying to understand it. 

Please explain how anything I said implied objective language. All I’ve said was that what we think it right, intuitively, is actually false. -- Topher

 Strafio is talking about our intuitive understanding of words and ideas, not of objective reality.

So, if you're saying our intuitive understanding and use of words like mind and decision and desire are "actually false" (which means objectively false, in case you didn't realize it) then you're tacitly assuming that there is some objective standard of language against which we can measure the way we actually use a word.

This wouldn't be the first time. You've done this many times with the word "agnostic", insisting that you have the "true" meaning of the word and everyone else is misusing it. This is mental masturbation at its finest, forsaking mutual understanding for self-righteous rantings.

 However, if weren't doing this, and you say you weren't talking about language at all, then you completely misunderstood Strafio's point, yet again. He isn't talking about our intuitions toward objective reality (the sun must revolve around the earth, for it moves through the sky), he is talking about our intuitive grasp and use of words and ideas related to the mind.

If I had to guess, I'd suspect that you didn't intend to argue for objective language standards (but as I pointed out you can't blame me for thinking it likely) but rather you simply misunderstood and were quick to misconstrue Strafio's argument.

I said it before and I'll say it again, not to be a prat, but because I think you have a lot of potential that is trapped behind even more ignorance...

...if you were half as eager to read and understand your opponent's arguments as you were to respond and attack them, you'd find yourself having a lot more meaningful discussion. 

 Years ago I used to do the same thing. I was so eager to show off what I had just learned in a new article, or to throw around arguments and points I had heard from people I admired, I forgot to actually listen to what the other person/people were saying. I look back at those debates and I'm embarrassed, as I suspect and hope you one day will be. 

 Don't confuse this for an argument. I'm not saying "You're wrong because I know better and I used to think the same". I'm just giving advice to someone who's zeal and naiveness seem painfully familiar. 

 

Todangst 

If everything exists as you say, then existence exists, and he is turning in his grave at the way you've butchered his name.

 Do you and Topher want to know where I really think most free will supporters are coming from? I will concede that a lot of them have very "sophisticated" ideas they got from Sunday school about their supernatural souls starting their own causal chains through choice, and thus attack it from their theistic view point, but I think they are the minority.

Most people don't buy the "free will is an illusion" arguments because their bull shit detectors go off the scale when people have to redefine and skewer what were prior, and have been for a long time, intuitive, easily grasped concepts of the mind.

When someone tries to tell you that what you mean when you use a word isn't really what you think it means, it doesn't take a course in the philosophy of language to see that something is amiss. 

 That's exactly what's happening here. Words like mind, existence, desire, decision, will, and others all have mutually understood meanings and uses. People use them all the time intuitively, and coherently. You three are trying to tell us and everyone else that the way we are using these words isn't right. Science has shown us what these words actually mean. Apparently, even though we didn't know it, for thousands of years people have been referring to things they weren't even aware of! Lucky us, science came along and showed us that our understanding of language was bull shit, and there is a right way to use the words we've been using. 

 You've got it all wrong Todangst. Strafio doesn't really need to present an argument, though he's been so kind as to do so numerous times. He's not the one making positive assertions here, he's not the one who should carry the onus. 

All he's said is that for thousands of years humans have been using mental concepts without referencing physical things, and he's challenging the reductionists' assertion that the way we've been using these words is wrong, and we've been referring to things the whole time, we just didn't realize it. He's asking for a good reason why that might be true.

When we're dealing specifically with language, the ultimate show-stopper is the way people actually use a word or idea. No, gay doesn't "really" mean happy. There is no "really" with language, there is no "actually" or "objectively". There is only "commonly" and "mutually" and "socially". If everyone is referring to homosexuality when they say "gay" then that's what it means, end of discussion. Etymology is interesting, but nothing more than fun facts. Yes Topher, Huxley had something else in mind when he used the word agnostic. No Topher, that doesn't mean dick when everyone else in the present day uses it another way. If someone asks me if I'm an agnostic, I say yes. Why? Because I know exactly what they mean by it, and as such it's fairly simple to answer yes or no. If you feel smug enough to try and tell someone that the "right" way to use that word is such and such, it's no wonder you're having such a difficult time with the philosophy of language, and I can't help but again point out the irony in the fact that you get off on derailing an otherwise meaningful discussion with your semantics but aren't a fan of Wittgenstein because he got too hung up on the words and didn't get to the meat of the problem!

 

Why is the mind immaterial? Because that's how the word is used.

 

If you want to argue that that's not how we "should" use it or that's not what it "actually" means, let me see it. 


todangst
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Socrastein

Socrastein wrote:

 

Todangst

If everything exists as you say, then existence exists,

I don't say 'everything exists", in stead, I state that to exist is to exist as something, to have identity, to have attributes, a nature.

Second, your bizzare misreading of my words leads to an even more bizzare non sequitur, as you're using existence as a predicate in order to make your claim.

Is this all you have, childish word games?

If so, can you stop wasting my time?

 

Quote:

That's exactly what's happening here. Words like mind, existence, desire, decision, will, and others all have mutually understood meanings and uses. People use them all the time intuitively, and coherently.

People use the word 'god' all the time too, coherently... because they steal from naturalism to do so. 

These words have meaning because they steal from materialism.

 All you are doing is begging the question that some terms are non material, and then asserting this as 'evidence' of immateriality. I already identify this as one of the most inept responses for immaterialists.

So, you can't just beg the question. You have to present an argument.

Do you actually have an argument?

No.

Quote:

You've got it all wrong Todangst. Strafio doesn't really need to present an argument,

No, you've got it all wrong. You can't merely beg the question of immateriality, based on a stolen concept fallacy. 

Quote:

 Why is the mind immaterial? Because that's how the word is used.

I can't take you seriously. Strafio, please... is this a put on?

Why is afaskljfhasejkfha coherent? Because I just aslfjakfjasdkded this morning.

Wow.. what fun. Just assert, beg the question, and completely ignore your epistemic duty altogether.

Please, just go away. 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Strafio wrote:

Strafio wrote:
I'll have to make this my last post before I go to bed.

Just go to bed.

 I blame you for bringing this other guy to our site, he makes creationists appear profound.

 

Quote:

I just thought I should clarify on a point that I made at the beginning. I was re-defining immaterial as the traditional one was incoherent and I thought that a coherent one that correlated to how people really use the word was possible.

Seeing as this begs the question that people do make coherent references to immateriality without stealing from materialism, you're not actually making an argument.

How can you refer to the immaterial? Just answer the question. Answer the question or just concede the issue.

When you find that you can't answer, you'll see the problem for yourself.

As long as you keep dodging this problem you'll be confused as the guy who says "immateriality is coherent coz people believe they refer to immateriality"

Quote:

All the concepts that people tend to call 'immaterial' are ones that have the grammar of a noun but don't refer to something material.

Abstractions are material, but without a physical correlate. This doesn't mean that the abstraction itself isn't material.

Are you just going to keep repeating this error over and over?

 

Quote:

So take a number. It doesn't refer to something material.

    Whether a number refers to someting with extra mental existence is MOOT, because the abstraction itself is material.

Numbers are material, they exist in neurons. They can be represented in another medium and translated/interpreted by sentient brains.

 

Quote:

You claim that the representation is material and I have no problem with that.

Then the discussion ends. This is all that matters. Literally.

Now all you need to do is work out that the existence of a real world correlate for numbers/abstractions is entirely moot.

 

Quote:
Don't just assert that there are other ways, demonstrate how these other ways can provide the terms with meaning! Pay heed to the fact that you've not even attempted to do this here - recognize this failure to even make the attempt and ask yourself why you're not presenting it here now, in lieu of this complaint.

 

Quote:

The thing is, I did provide a possible linguistic practice.

No, you have not. There is no way to discuss anything without relying on materialism directly or as a contradistinctive. None. 

 

Quote:
If you assert that numbers do not exist, then you're already contradicting yourself.

 

Quote:
Explain.

You can't be serious.

Numbers exist as abstractions, in neurons. 

I'm sorry, but this thread is just...

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


deludedgod
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Quote:

Quote:

I'm going to argue that our naive pre-relativity concept of time is sufficient for mental concepts

But our pre-relativity concept of time is false.

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After all, mental concepts are limited to being applied within our direct preceptual grasp of time.

Again, can you not see how badly wrong our intuition is in this case?

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Relativity is based on a concept of time that must account for events beyond our direct perception.

So?

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What's more, I believe that the arguments for relativity are are a-posteriori, so valid within the language of science rather than the concepts of mind.

Are you serious? What exactly is your argument? That our concept of the mind intuitively founds itself on our naive pre-relativity concept of time hence...our mind exists in a form of time to which relativity does not encompass. Can you see the depths of absurdity which you are attempting to encompass to sustain the nonsensical nature of your position. Dismissing our neuroscientific concept of decision making and exectutive function is one thing, but to deny Relativistic Temporality is quite another...

The fact of the matter is that our intuition is wrong. Time is a physical entity.

Quote:

That mental concepts are temporal doesn't mean that they require the same concept of time as physical concepts.

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Are you essentially saying that mental concepts exist in a form of time outside Relativistic Kinematics? Are you upholding our absurd intuitive grasp of time?

Your position is becoming more and more untenable. Our intuitive grasp of time is WRONG. That we do not subconsciously acknowledge it is irrelevant. That you are attempting a refutation based on the idea that our mental concepts may be referencing time outside Relativistic Kinematics is utterly ridiculous. If I was standing in the street holding a stopwatch which timed to something hyperaccurate like 10sf, and you were in a formula one car doing half mach with the same stopwatch, your watch would read just slower than mine. That is how reality works. We are prisoners of Relativistic Kinematics whether we acknowledge it or not.

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That physical concept of time has an a priori justification, and is based on time as an 'out there' phenomenon. The 'time' on mental events is internal and is the temporal structure of our perception rather than the 'out there' temporal structure on the existing universe.

This does not mean anything. 

Your style of argument is absolutely infuriating. When someone puts forth an argument, as in, a real one, with substance, linking concept X to concept Y, you dance around it by claiming that the concept Y to which we are referring MIGHT not be the same as another usage of concept Y in a different linguistic context, especially those which conform to our intuitions, which are, in this case, about as wrong as it is possible to be. It has no substance to it, but it does annoy everyone else in rapid order. Its like trying to argue with one of those stereotypical psuedowise meditating monks. What you are doing ad nauseam is making a denying the correlative fallacy, which is the repeated and unreasonable denial of a necessary link between two concepts based on flimsy and often incoherent argument. It is the introduction of false alternatives where none actually exist. Time MIGHT not be a physical entity in concordance with our prerelativity intuition. Neuroscientists MIGHT not be showing a function which is necessarily the one to which we are referring to in everyday life. Therefore, just to be really annoying, I'll just introduce the false alternative (such as that time can conform to our intuitive notions, or that mental functions may be seperate from relativistic kinematics). To wit, imagine if I walked into the lab and asked the technician to prepare a flourescent glass microarray of the entire E Coli genome and he said to me:

"Ah, but you are assuming that we are both referring to the same thing when we say "flourescent glass microarray of the E Coli genome"

Me: No. I know that we are referring to the exact same thing when we say "a flourescent glass microarray of the E Coli genome". A Microarray is a tiny square on which we can array the genome or a section of genome of any organism we care to test. Each gene is arrayed on it’s own tiny glass square subunit within the array. A mixture of nucleotides is then passed over the array, which bond to the ones aligned on the array. These nucleotides have fluorescent chemical tags attached to them, and thusly, they light up. The rate of gene expression can be monitored based on the fluorescence of the nucleotides to which a particular gene is tagged. In this way, thousands of genes can be monitored simultaneously, the effect of adding or removing any gene can be monitored, different conditions on the gene set can be monitored, and the entire GRNP (Gene Regulatory Node Pathway) can be completely constructed, and the result of evolutionary changes on the GRNP can be monitored to a degree of exact detail. 

Tech: Ah, but now you are assuming that reality exists!

Now, put yourself in my position.

Me: Being that time is a physical entity and can only be affected by physical entities a la Relativistic Kinematics, it makes sense to conclude that anything occuring within the realm of time (such as mental states) must be physical or the emergent result of physicality.

You: Ah, but what if a different concept of time existed in which our thoughts took place.

Me: Denying the correlative fallacy. There is absolutely zero difference between your style of argument and the hypothetical scenario with the tech, except that I can just fire the tech, while with you I may just bang my head into the wall until I get brain damage.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

Books about atheism


Strafio
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Topher wrote: Topher

Topher wrote:

Topher wrote:
Reductionists may redefine mental concepts away from our intuitive notion of what we think they are, but so what!? Intuition is just that, an instinct, what feels right, not what is right.


Strafio wrote:
Remember Socrastein accused you of holding to an objective standard of language? You didn't explicitly say "I hold to an objective standard of language" but this is exactly the implicit assumption behind this passage.

Please explain how anything I said implied objective language. All I’ve said was that what we think it right, intuitively, is actually false. Just like thinking the soul is the seat of intellect is false. This says NOTHING about language.

You brought up intuition when I said it was the way that we judge whether we are using language correctly or not.

Strafio wrote:
Intuition is more than 'just' an instinct.

Topher wrote:
Then what it is?

Intuition is what we call thought that we haven't consciously reasoned. It manifests in a variety of ways.
While it's hardly infallible, and there are some types of question that it is inefficient at dealing with, it is still mostly reliable and can be better suited to answering certain types of questions.
Conscious reasoning tends to be better at dealing with problems where the concepts have already been finely defined and the boundaries clearly drawn - e.g. science.
If such a clear, simplified conceptualisation isn't an option (and this includes making new discoveries in science) the intuition is more suited to the task.

If you want justification for these claims on intuition then here's a book that justifies it with reference to both common sense reasoning and psychological experiments.

Quote:
And the mind has nothing to do with science?

Some questions about the mind are answered by our grasp of the concepts involved and it was those that I was applying intuition to.

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Well the reductionist will make predictions and then look to neuroscience to see if they are accurate. That is what I am saying.

It is still wrong. The basis for making these predictions and verifying them relies on the philosophical theory being pre-supposed to a degree.

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No, the emergentist would say the mental state emerges from physical states, not that it “just correlates”.

Yes. But if you ever ask them what it is for something to emerge, you find that it is merely a correlation with a counterfactual added in. I've asked you to explain what you mean by 'emerge' or 'originate' or whatever other words you use to describe the relation between the mind and brain. You are yet to do so. It is the same with emergentists.

Strafio wrote:
We're talking about the very root of reason that the rules of reason depend on. Obviously these very roots need to be rooted in something other than reason as they are the very foundations that need to be there before reason is possible.

Topher wrote:
They’re rooted in the brain. Before any reason, decision, desire or even language is possible, there must be a brain. Everything runs via the brain.

Even if reductionism was right then this would be wrong.
I wasn't asking for physical dependence, I was asking for rational dependence. I wasn't looking for a causal explanation for how reason came about - that would obviously lead all the way back to the big bang. I am talking about the root of justification for argument. Obviously the brain isn't the root of justification as our knowledge of the brain itself must be justified. The root of our reason is our natural grasp of language. That is the rational foundations that reason is based on.

Strafio wrote:
There would be no purpose to consciously re-define these concepts as the scientific ones don't seem to have a use or purpose, not within scientific explanation or anywhere else.

Topher wrote:
This is an absolutely ridiculous comment! Of course there is a purpose to scientific explanation and study of these things. To understand how the mental functions (in order to study a host of conditions for instance) you need to turn to the brain, which entails turning to neuroscience.

I think you need to re-read what I wrote.
Ofcourse there is a purpose to scientific study and neuroscience.
You can do these studies but recognise that these brain states merely correlate with our use of mental concepts rather than trying to re-define our mental concepts to be these brain states. It is this re-definition that is purposeless.

Topher wrote:
I’m saying that typically, the only people who actually argue from free will do so for theological reasons.

I know you were.
I just wanted to show you how absurd that claim was.
For starters, why do you think I'm arguing for it now?
Second, the reason why you hear about it more from theologians is because

Topher wrote:
Free will as we use it everyday is more akin to how the compatalist defines free will, rather than the more absolute free will of libertarianism/theology.

Strafio wrote:
Then how come compatibilists (like all determinists) have to argue from metaphysics then? How else do you defend determinism without arguing from metaphysics?

Topher wrote:
I don’t see the relevance of this point?

If compatibilists had grasped free will as we really use it then they wouldn't need to argue for determinism. Free will advocates just point to decision making in our everyday life and say "that's how it is". Some accept that determinism is compatable, but even so they only accept determinism because it was argued from metaphysical arguments of causation. If that was how 'free will' naturally ran then this wouldn't be necessary.

I think you over-estimate the coherence of compatibilism.
I've not really looked into the arguments but I've come across some that I found different to face. I'm working on other points right now so if we take this further it will have to be another time. Maybe I will post up Kant's evaluation of compatibilism and why he was disatisfied with it later.


Strafio
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deludedgod wrote: Our

deludedgod wrote:
Our intuitive grasp of time is WRONG.

What you mean is, "Our intuitive grasp of time does not correlate with time of external reality".
And you are right.
However, your premise that mental concepts were temporal used a different concept of time - our internal perceptual form of time.
So your argument equivocated.

If not, what justification have you got for mental concepts being temporal in the 'external' sense of time?
Our experiences themselves do not have a timeline beyond our perception, unlike the events of spacetime.
If you meant that our mental concepts were temporal as in the sense of the 'out there' time then your premise was at best unjustified.


Topher
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Socrastein wrote: There

Socrastein wrote:
There seem to be people in this thread incapable of this. Topher, you said yourself that you won't even accept the possibility (entertain) of an idea unless you hear a good argument for it! You want to be convinced of an idea if you're going to bother going through all the trouble of trying to understand it.

No, what I meant was I will not accept something as possible without hearing an argument for why it is possible to begin with. This doesn’t mean I won’t entertain the idea, it’s just the possibility of it will depend on the arguments.

Socrastein wrote:
Strafio is talking about our intuitive understanding of words and ideas, not of objective reality.

Yes, and we are saying that these intuitive words and idea DO NOT negate objective reality. The fact that many people think our identity is located in a soul does not negate the fact that it is wrong. The fact that people think X is immaterial doesn’t mean it is. That is what we are saying.

Socrastein wrote:
So, if you're saying our intuitive understanding and use of words like mind and decision and desire are "actually false" (which means objectively false, in case you didn't realize it) then you're tacitly assuming that there is some objective standard of language against which we can measure the way we actually use a word.

When I refer to them being false I am not talking about the words themselves… I am not saying there is some kind of objective language. What is actually being said is that our intuitive ideas do not negate the objective reality; hence believing that decisions are immaterial does NOT change the fact that this is not true… we can show that decisions are physical. This is ALL we are saying here. Are you going to continue to ignore this?

Socrastein wrote:
This wouldn't be the first time. You've done this many times with the word "agnostic", insisting that you have the "true" meaning of the word and everyone else is misusing it. This is mental masturbation at its finest, forsaking mutual understanding for self-righteous rantings.

Here I am simply talking about coherent terms. And lets not forget that you also were part of these discussions!

Socrastein wrote:
I said it before and I'll say it again, not to be a prat, but because I think you have a lot of potential that is trapped behind even more ignorance...

...if you were half as eager to read and understand your opponent's arguments as you were to respond and attack them, you'd find yourself having a lot more meaningful discussion. 

 Years ago I used to do the same thing. I was so eager to show off what I had just learned in a new article, or to throw around arguments and points I had heard from people I admired, I forgot to actually listen to what the other person/people were saying. I look back at those debates and I'm embarrassed, as I suspect and hope you one day will be. 

 Don't confuse this for an argument. I'm not saying "You're wrong because I know better and I used to think the same". I'm just giving advice to someone who's zeal and naiveness seem painfully familiar. 

Well it seems you have not even understood what is being said. We are NOT disagreeing with Strafio that we have intuitive ideas about certain things, we are just saying these intuitive ideas are often wrong, and in any case, do not change what the evidence actually points to.

You keep reiterating to what Strafio is talking about and yet in doing so you completely miss the point since no one is disagreeing with the fact we have intuitive ideas. In the processes you do not see/ignore what is actually be said!

Socrastein, I completely agree with you that words and ideas are defined socially, intersubjectivly, by their use, etc, however no one here is disagreeing with this so why do you keep repeating it!? The matter under contention (which has clearly gone over your head) is whether what these words point to or describe is true, and it has been shown multiple times that our intuitive ideas on this topic are simply wrong. We intuitivly think that the mind is immaterial, but this is demonstrably wrong.

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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Strafio wrote: Topher

Strafio wrote:
Topher wrote:
Well the reductionist will make predictions and then look to neuroscience to see if they are accurate. That is what I am saying.

It is still wrong.

If you talking of the correlation, the this is a denying the correlate fallacy.

Strafio wrote:
The basis for making these predictions and verifying them relies on the philosophical theory being pre-supposed to a degree.

One can make a prediction regarding the relationship between mental states and the brain (based on particular idea in philosophy of mind) and then see if it is accurate via neuroscience. If it isn’t that idea can be dropped. For instance, we can predict that consciousness can be reduced (note: I’m not sure it can be), and then look at the various evidence/research. If we fail to find evidence that it can be reduced -- whilst not evidence against the prediction -- would provide a justification to turn to emergent materialism with respects to consciousness and being less sure of reduction of consciousness.

Strafio wrote:
I've asked you to explain what you mean by 'emerge' or 'originate' or whatever other words you use to describe the relation between the mind and brain. You are yet to do so. It is the same with emergentists.

I have explained this, but in any case, it isn’t difficult. I’m quite amazed that I have to explain this (again). What about the term do you not understand? To say mental states emerge from the brain is to say they are produced, formed, by the brain. In other words, without the brain, they cannot be.

Strafio wrote:
You can do these studies but recognise that these brain states merely correlate with our use of mental concepts rather than trying to re-define our mental concepts to be these brain states. It is this re-definition that is purposeless.

But it has already been shown that there is a direct causal relationship.

Strafio wrote:
Topher wrote:
I’m saying that typically, the only people who actually argue from free will do so for theological reasons.

I know you were.
I just wanted to show you how absurd that claim was.
For starters, why do you think I'm arguing for it now?
Second, the reason why you hear about it more from theologians is because

I never said all people who argue for free will do so for theological reason, I said this is typically the case.

(The your post seems to be cut off at ‘because’ ??)

Strafio wrote:
If compatibilists had grasped free will as we really use it then they wouldn't need to argue for determinism.

But they argue that both are compatable, hence the need for determinism. They argue for determinism since free will requires determinism. In every day use, most people do not use free will to be mean 'absolute choice' or 'spontaneous choice' they tend to simply mean a 'non-coerced choice'. That is now people tend to use the term free will and that is how compatalist use the term. They then argue that this definition requires determinism (which it does).

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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Topher Read what I said

Topher

Read what I said once again. I said specifically that we're not talking about objective reality.

Strafio is talking about our intuitive understanding of words and ideas, not of objective reality. --Me

So why do you keep mentioning objective reality? This is the point you've been missing for weeks. Mental concepts don't describe objective reality, so when you keep arguing "But objective reality works this way!" all I can think is "So what?". 

Your example of the soul perfectly demonstrates this. This is an example of someone's intuitive idea of how reality works. That's not what we're talking about. I mentioned the example of the sun revolving around the earth, which seems to be intuitively true, and I said that's NOT the kind of intuition that's being discussed here.

You can attack this sort of intuition all you want, you can keep saying "Why aren't you getting it?", you can assume I'm ignoring you, but all the while you'll be kicking the shit out of a straw man that has nothing to do with what's being said. 

What we're talking about is our inuitive grasp of how mental concepts are used, and what they mean. Not our intuitive ideas of how the brain works, or where our soul lives, or anything that has to do with the way things actually are. 

We're dealing with the way words are actually used. Deludedgod also missed this point with regard to the temporarl properties of mental concepts.

 

Todangst

There's nothing admirable about being the guy who everybody thinks is an asshole unless they already agree with you.

If the RRS is all about trying to convince people that there are more rational ways to view the universe, where does treating everyone like a piece of shit who disagrees with you fit into that? Is that an effective way to convince people? Is that a good way to spread the word of atheism? If you were just some chump asshole it wouldn't be such a big deal, but from what I can tell you're sort of an ambassador for this site and thus for atheists, and that's kind of embarrassing. 

Anyway...

If numbers exist, then words exist too, right? In the brain, as neurons, of course, according to your scewed use of the word "exist". Do you disagree? Then what were you complaining about? I said the word existence exists, and he's rolling in his grave at how you are misusing his name. It wasn't meant to be a strict logical argument, in case you didn't notice. It was a playful jab at your abuse of language. 

Let me be the first to say that if you want to apply the word existence to things the way you do, and you want to say that every idea, and word, and "abstraction", exists in so far as it physically exists in the brain, then according to this retarded use of the word existence there would be no such thing as immaterial.

Did you catch that? If I was to follow the rules of your language game, no matter how ridiculous they are, then I would also come to the conclusion that all that exists is necessarily material.

So what is my beef then? Everyone else in the real world uses the words in a different way. I said before that there are no objective standards to language, there are only mutual standards, social standards. 

The fact is, whether you like it or not (and you obviously hate it), the way mental concepts and the way the word existence is commonly used does allow for immaterial things. Aside from you and a few others I'm sure, everyone else agrees that numbers exist, but don't physically exist. They agree that the idea of green for instance exists as a concept, but has no physical existence. It doesn't have a supernatural existence either, I'm not saying that. It's not "out there" in some platonic realm. 

This false dichotomy of yours stems from your assumption that words must refer to physical things if anything. So there's material things, or there's metaphysical things, and since metaphysical things are incoherent (which I AGREE with) then all that's left is material things.

However, if you stop assuming that words can only refer to physical things, then immaterial stops being such a bad word. 

You keep getting so worked up and you don't even realize that the things you keep hammering are mostly things that Strafio and I agree with. So when you're attacking ideas that aren't even being disputed, I get the impression that you should calm down a bit and work more on your reading comprehension than your insults. 

You, Topher, and Deludedgod obviously know a lot about science. However, it's even more obvious that your grasp of the philosophy of language is terribly lacking. Which is why Strafio and I keep hammering the linguistic points, and you keep falling back to scientific points, even though they aren't relevent.

If when you respond you can't control your urge to personally attack me, then don't respond at all. Please just say something along the lines of "I no longer wish to discuss with you". If I wanted to be personally abused in my debates I'd get on a New Age forum and start questioning the science behind "What the Bleep do we Know?". I came here for meaningful discussion. 


Strafio
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Alright, last night I was

Alright, last night I was tired and taking things waaay too seriously.
Now the gloves are on and I'll be sending up philosophical whup-ass your way! Sticking out tongue

todangst wrote:
Just go to bed.
I blame you for bringing this other guy to our site, he makes creationists appear profound.

Last night I was a bit put out that you didn't like him, but then I remembered that you were the worst when it comes to judging on first impressions. Sticking out tongue

Quote:
Seeing as this begs the question that people do make coherent references to immateriality without stealing from materialism, you're not actually making an argument.

How does it beg the question?
It assumes that it is possible that someone might mean something coherent by immaterial?
I've even given a coherent definition now:

Immaterial:
In language, nouns are usually used to refer to something material.
However, there are exceptions to the rule.
Some nouns share the grammar of referencing nouns but don't actually refer to anything material. So they have the grammatical properties of referencing but lack the semantics.
Because of this, we call them 'not material' as although they grammatically remind of material concepts they do not actually refer.

Whether people really use the word like this is up for debate, but I personally see it to be a good fit.

Quote:
How can you refer to the immaterial? Just answer the question. Answer the question or just concede the issue.

Duuuuude... you've seen my definition of immaterial.
How do you expect me to explain about 'referring' to 'the' immaterial when it would blatantly refute my position? Have you gotten too lazy to refute me yourself? Sticking out tongue

Quote:
Whether a number refers to someting with extra mental existence is MOOT, because the abstraction itself is material.

I can't really criticise an argument 'from abstractions' as I've not worked out what you guys mean by them yet. (Topher showed me a Wiki article which might help)
However, I have this feeling in my gut that they depend on propositions on the philosophy of language that I outright disagree with. For now I want to deal with the other issues at hand. If it's necessary then I'll deal with abstractions later.

Quote:
Numbers are material, they exist in neurons.

Lets hypothetically give you the premise that the idea of a number exists as neurons, just as the idea of a table or an idea of God does.
You see the problem with saying numbers exist?
You are either claiming that a number references it's own idea (which can surely only end in viscious circularity) or you are claming that the idea of something and it's referent is the same thing.

Anyway, I think I've kept the 'point countering' to a minimum because I get the feeling that all we're doing here is repeating our pre-suppositions. If I want to break the trend then it seems that a more positive explanation of the fundamentals at work is required. I'm going to try and start with premises so basic that even you can't deny them.

1) The meaning/point of a word/phrase is determined by how we would use.
This ought to go without saying really.
"Hello" is a word we use to greet people.
"That dog is green" refers to a dog and makes a claim about the colour. etc.

2) The word 'existence' is a word we use in the context of describing things.
It's when we are describing the world that the question of whether something exists or not. The ontology is how the thing would exist (e.g. as a piece of matter or as combination of physical events etc) and the existence is whether it exists.
A concept with ontology can potentially refer to an actual material thing while an existing object actually does refer to an actual existing thing.

3) We aren't necessarily using nouns to refer to things.
This simply states that just because something is a noun, it doesn't mean that it has to refer to something. There are potentially other uses for nouns other than referring to (or potentially referring to) material things. There are two consequences to this:
a) These nouns will be grammatically similar to referencial concepts but not actually refer to material things. This means that they will share the grammatical properties of the material concept but they don't share the material properties. e.g. coords in spacetime, causal relations with other material things, existence, etc.
b) Because their purpose isn't to refer to things, they don't require an ontology to be meaningful.

4) From here, I'll re-introduce that definition of immaterial:
Immaterial:

In language, nouns are usually used to refer to something material.
However, there are exceptions to the rule.
Some nouns share the grammar of referencing nouns but don't actually refer to anything material. So they have the grammatical properties of referencing but lack the semantics.
Because of this, we call them 'not material' as although they grammatically remind of material concepts they do not actually refer.

And by the previous premises, immaterial concepts do not need to refer to existing things or even have an ontology to be meaningful, as the requirement of ontology is one for concepts that wish to refer to the material world.

5) Numbers are nouns that do not refer to material things.
That numbers can be nouns should be obvious to anyone who has a basic grasp of our language. They are certainly treated as nouns in the logical language that mathematicians use.
That they don't refer to material things should also be obvious from the way we are taught them. When we are taught a word, we are taught the rules of it's use. To use the word 'chair' we are taught to associate the word with the object chair.
To use numbers we are taught to use the words properly by learning the rules of counting. '5' isn't taught to refer to a material thing, it is the word we say after '4' when we are counting. When you use a number, would you ever use it to refer to something? You might sometimes call the representation of the number the number. e.g. the '4' on the blackboard is the number '4', but mathematicians frown on this definition of a number and have specifically made the distintion between 'number' and 'numeral' to counter it.
Numerals are representations of numbers.
E.g. 'II' and '2' are both different numerals but both the same number.

Because the mind is a different kettle of fish, I've decided to leave it until we've done with 'immateriality' and mathematics. That's what I should have done in the first place with this very topic! Laughing out loud


Topher
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Socrastein wrote: Read

Socrastein wrote:
Read what I said once again. I said specifically that we're not talking about objective reality.
….
What we're talking about is our inuitive grasp of how mental concepts are used, and what they mean. Not our intuitive ideas of how the brain works, or where our soul lives, or anything that has to do with the way things actually are. 

This is where you are wrong and the root of your misunderstanding. We are NOT just talking about our intuitive ideas; we are talking about the actual relationship between the brain and the mind, and whether our intuitive ideas operate in this relationship. This is precisely what Strafio is trying to do here… he is trying to fit our intuitive ideas into the relationship between the mind and the brain. Yet it has been shown that our intuitive ideas do NOT fit into the relationship between the mind and body. THAT is precisely the problem here! Our intuitive ideas are all well and good for social interaction and communication (where we intuitively understand the terms), I agree with that, but when it come to the mind-body problem, where these intuitive ideas are actually scrutinised, they fall apart. So they are fine for social interaction and effective communication, they are entirely irrelevant for dealing with the mind-body problem, the very issue under contention here.

Until you realise this you’ll continue to miss the point!

And it is somewhat ironic that Strafio constantly emphasises the different discourses in which language must remain separate, while at the same time he trying to squeeze our intuitive ideas into a discourse in which they are completely irrelevant.

Again, please understand what this discussion is actually about: the actual relationship between the brain and mind and how, if at all, our intuitive ideas fit into this relationship. Simply pointing out that people intuitively use words and ideas in a certain way misses the point!

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


deludedgod
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Quote: However, your

Quote:


However, your premise that mental concepts were temporal used a different concept of time - our internal perceptual form of time.
So your argument equivocated.

No, I'm not. I speak the language of physics. When I use "R", I am not referring to a letter, but Boltzmann's constant. When I say "mole" I am not referring to an animal but Avogadro's contant. Likewise, when I say temporal I mean within Relativistic temporality. When I said it was absurd to claim that mental concepts were not temporal, I did mean spatiotemporal not because of our intuitive grasp of time but rather because relativistic Kinematics does not permit it. 

Furthermore, the "time" which we are intuitively grasping is spacetime, the utter arbiter of our existence. That is why if you could travel at light speed wearing a wristwatch, it would stop. You would realize Ponce de Leon's dream. You would not age. It is the reason that black holes cause so many fuck ups in theoretical physics, it is the reason that the "time" which you actually perceive is slower when you (as A) are travelling faster relative to stationary point B than observer C. Of course I am equivocating since the the two "times" are the same thing. If they weren't, none of our experiments would work! The only reason we cannot intuitively grasp this is because it does not become noticeable until a reasonable fraction of c (light speed). My point stands. "Time" as we intuitively percieve it IS spacetime. Reality would be inherently absurd if this were not the case! 

Did you read the part on DTC fallacy? 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Topher wrote: One can make

Topher wrote:
One can make a prediction regarding the relationship between mental states and the brain (based on particular idea in philosophy of mind) and then see if it is accurate via neuroscience.

I guess that denial of supervenience between body and mind is a philosophical position that is refutable by neuroscience. However, I don't think that any philosophical positions hold to that - not even the substance dualists. It happens that neurology is even compatible with Leibniz and
So given the positions that reductive physicalists are competing with, neuro-science can neither help nor hinder them.

Quote:
I have explained this, but in any case, it isn’t difficult. I’m quite amazed that I have to explain this (again). What about the term do you not understand? To say mental states emerge from the brain is to say they are produced, formed, by the brain. In other words, without the brain, they cannot be.

So you have the counter-factual dependence relation?
If the body wasn't here then the mind wouldn't be either.
It's a shame you don't have Kim's book on philosophy of mind as he has a really good section on how counter-factuals aren't sufficient relation between mind and body, that such counter-factuals need to be based on more general rules.

e.g. the reductionists could base such a counterfactual on physical causation between physical concepts, and in turn reduce physical causation to physical laws.
e.g. my philosophy of mind justifies the counter-factual by rules of applying mental concepts, that if there wasn't a physical person to apply the concepts too then no mental concepts would be applicable.

The emergentists certainly reject the first one as that would require them to adopt reductionism. That is why I see emergentism as closer to my theory than reductionists and that my philosophy would be a vindication of emergentist intuitions.
If we go back to our discussion on MAP, you agreed at some point that mental concepts were of a different context to physical ones. Perhaps you retract that now, but if you don't then you can't make use of the reductionists connection either.

Strafio wrote:
Second, the reason why you hear about it more from theologians is because

Quote:
I never said all people who argue for free will do so for theological reason, I said this is typically the case.

(The your post seems to be cut off at ‘because’ ??)

Not sure what happened there...
I must've left it to finish another point and then forgotten about it.
I meant to say 'because' the theologians are the ones who are more likely to make a big deal out of free will while those who believe it normally don't need to convince the rest of the world - they're just happy to quietly disagree. The theologians have more of a motive to debate passionately.

My original point was that people's standard intuition, by the grasp of the concepts of choice, etc. was that they have free will. The determinists use metaphysics to argue their point. But if the debate depends on who has the correct grasp of the concepts then the free will people will have the advantage as that's what their argument is based upon.

Quote:
But they argue that both are compatable, hence the need for determinism. They argue for determinism since free will requires determinism. In every day use, most people do not use free will to be mean 'absolute choice' or 'spontaneous choice' they tend to simply mean a 'non-coerced choice'.

I am aware. It was an elegant solution to try and combine our intuitive idea of free will with the conclusions of metaphysics. However, it still relied on a metaphysical influence rather than being of a pure intuition. The "caused or random" dichotomy is one that applies to material concepts and isn't necessarily applicable to others unless you are treating them like material ones. The "caused or random" argument was one of the compatibilist arguments that Kant refuted in his "Critique of Pure Reason" book.

I've decided that I'm going to study that passage over the next week or so. When I have, I'll quote the best bits to you.


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deludedgod wrote:

deludedgod wrote:
No, I'm not. I speak the language of physics.

If that's the definition of 'temporal' you are using then justify your claim that mental concepts are temporal.

Quote:
When I said it was absurd to claim that mental concepts were not temporal, I did mean spatiotemporal not because of our intuitive grasp of time but rather because relativistic Kinematics does not permit it.

And what justification do you have that 'relativistic Kinematics' has any bearing on our mental concepts?

Quote:
Furthermore, the "time" which we are intuitively grasping is spacetime, the utter arbiter of our existence.

If this was the case then our intuitive grasp would be spot on.
If our intuitive grasp of time is different to 'time' as it 'really is' then they are clearly different things. When I say different, I don't mean absolutely separate with no connection - they are clearly very much connected. But they are not identicals either.
This is why you cannot leap from "mental concepts are under our intuitive grasp of time" to "mental events are under the relativistic concept of time".
The intuitive grasp of time follows a priori from the very form of our perception. Einstein's relativity is an a posteriori model of cosmology. These differences are enough to make treating them as the same concept as an equivocation.

Quote:
My point stands. "Time" as we intuitively percieve it IS spacetime.

Yet we had to overcome our intuitive notions in order to get spacetime?

Quote:
Did you read the part on DTC fallacy?

I'll take another look.
Are you talking about this:

Quote:
Your style of argument is absolutely infuriating. When someone puts forth an argument, as in, a real one, with substance, linking concept X to concept Y, you dance around it by claiming that the concept Y to which we are referring MIGHT not be the same as another usage of concept Y in a different linguistic context, especially those which conform to our intuitions, which are, in this case, about as wrong as it is possible to be. It has no substance to it, but it does annoy everyone else in rapid order.

Your argument depends on certain assumptions that I am questioning. You make it sound like I'm merely picking holes in your argument while providing none of my own. The thing is, I have provided the argument for my position. You sent in a refutation and if your refutation is based on questionable premises then you must defend those premises.

I can see that you're not familiar with the philosophy of language.
You perhaps can't see the method involved so my arguments come across as just poking scepticism because you cannot absolutely prove things. The truth is, if you recognised the issues when it came to language you would recognise the necessity of my arguments and their relevence.

Justifying one's use of language depends on intuition - FACT.
This is because our grasp of language is prior to any principles of reason - for such principles of reason to be possible, language must already be in place. That means that our grasp of language is more or a skill rather than a 'truth'. It is more about familiarity with the use of language rather than conforming to some scientific principles.

What's more, it seems that you are still pre-supposing that all our discourse must be discussed in the language of science. When you put forward a premise that mental concepts must be temporal I was genuinely intruigued because it seemed like you were working with some genuine empiricism on mental concepts rather than imposing scientific structure on them by default.

When you carried on to say that you had been talking about the scientific concept of time and justified this premise with a scientific law for scientific concepts, it was greatly disappointing.
Given that this was a premise to justify your argument that the everyday use of mental concepts was rooted in the scientific use of language... well could the question begging be more blatant?

When you justified your "mental concepts are temporal" with 'relativistic kinematics', had you forgotten that your "mental concepts are temporal" was supposed to justify treating mental concepts like physical ones rather than presuppose it?


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Quote:   If that's the

Quote:

 

If that's the definition of 'temporal' you are using then justify your claim that mental concepts are temporal.

I did. You just ignored it. Time as we percieve it slows down as you go faster. The reason this is not intuitive (which you ignored) is that it is almost impossible to notice this until perhaps around (c/20 ms^-1)

Quote:

  If this was the case then our intuitive grasp would be spot on.

Bangs head on wall. I already told you, the reason we cannot intuitively detect this is because it does not become noticeable until (c/20ms^-1). But regardless, time as we intuitively percieve it is relativistic. They are the same thing because if they were not, the whole thing would not work. 

Quote:

 f our intuitive grasp of time is different to 'time' as it 'really is' then they are clearly different things.

*weeps*. No they aren't. It is just that reality as we are experiencing it is too slow to notice Relativistic kinematics. But we can still test it applying relativistic Kinematics. At UC they did an experiment with two cooridnated atomic clocks, one on the ground, and one in a plane going .75 mach, and the clock on the plane measured several millionths of a second shorter than the clock on the ground (atomic clocks are much more accurate than 6dp so there would be no error here).

Quote:

 This is why you cannot leap from "mental concepts are under our intuitive grasp of time" to "mental events are under the relativistic concept of time".

Yes I can. We are experiencing relativistic temporality. We can prove we are experiencing relativistic temporality. We just do not intuitively percieve it because at the speeds of everyday life, reality is too slow, not different. This is really not difficult to understand. Mentally, we are not perciving "a different form of time", we are simply moving at speeds too slowly to notice. That is why your assertion "they are linked but not the same" is utter nonsense. They are one and the same. 

If you did physics, you would know this too. There is another reason they must be the same. Gravity. I have thus far been referencing special relativistic kinematics but in my haste forgot about general relativistic kinematics. GRE is what generates gravity. Without it, there would be no motion (because there would be no point of absolute reference). Indeed, you can demonstrate that you are actually percieving spacetime by existing. Gravity is a spatiotemporal effect. Its the reason that Earth orbits the sun. It is the reason we are all here. Reality cannot function without it, and it is indeed what you are percieving.

Quote:

  Yet we had to overcome our intuitive notions in order to get spacetime?

You already know the answer to that.

Quote:

  And what justification do you have that relativistic Kinematics has any bearing on our mental concepts?

The apple falls. 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Strafio wrote: So given

Strafio wrote:
So given the positions that reductive physicalists are competing with, neuro-science can neither help nor hinder them.

How on earth did you reach that conclusion? Neuroscience may make or break certain reductive claims. In fact, my position on reductivism and emergentism depends entirely what can be drawn from neuroscience. My position is a-post priori.

Strafio wrote:
If the body wasn't here then the mind wouldn't be either.

Do you hold that the mind can exist externally from the brain?

What I am saying is that in order for there to be a mind, there MUST be a brain. Hence we have a direct relationship between the two. The mind and consciousness emerge from the brian (but perhaps some concepts can be reduced to the brain).

Strafio wrote:
If we go back to our discussion on MAP, you agreed at some point that mental concepts were of a different context to physical ones. Perhaps you retract that now, but if you don't then you can't make use of the reductionists connection either.

I make a distinction between the physical form of the mind, which is the brain, and the intuitive notion of the mind, which is an abstraction that emerges from the brain. It is these abstractions which apply to social communication and interaction. So, for effective social communication we should turn to the intuitive notion of mind. But when looking at the actual relationship between the brain/mind, the mind-body problem, we must turn to the brain, via neuroscience. It is an error to turn to the intuitive ideas when dealing with the relationship since they are technically false and only have purpose in effective communication, as such, they are completely irrelevant to the actual relationship. In addition, the actual relationship is objective, while the intuitive ideas are intersubjective. Do you see the issue now?

Strafio wrote:
I am aware. It was an elegant solution to try and combine our intuitive idea of free will with the conclusions of metaphysics. However, it still relied on a metaphysical influence rather than being of a pure intuition.

So what? The compatalist use of the term free will is as people everyday use it: a non-coerced choice. You seem to go to some kind of extreme intuitive notion of free will, and absolute free choice, which no one, save for theists, actually hold. So between your use of the term and the compatalists, it is the compatalist who is actually closer to how the term is used every day.

Strafio wrote:
The "caused or random" dichotomy is one that applies to material concepts and isn't necessarily applicable to others unless you are treating them like material ones. The "caused or random" argument was one of the compatibilist arguments that Kant refuted in his "Critique of Pure Reason" book.

Well something is either random, or caused. What is the middle option? How can something be ‘not quite caused’, or ‘not quite random’?

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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Quote: Well something is

Quote:

Well something is either random, or caused. What is the middle option? How can something be ‘not quite caused’, or ‘not quite random’?

Actually, yes! The middle is paradoxically an option, only in QM though. Probability waves. Don't get into that stuff. It will fuck with your head. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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deludedgod wrote: Yes I

deludedgod wrote:
Yes I can. We are experiencing relativistic temporality. We can prove we are experiencing relativistic temporality. We just do not intuitively percieve it because at the speeds of everyday life, reality is too slow, not different. This is really not difficult to understand. Mentally, we are not perciving "a different form of time", we are simply moving at speeds too slowly to notice. That is why your assertion "they are linked but not the same" is utter nonsense. They are one and the same. 

Now I’m the first to say physics is not my strong point, far from it, but even I can easily grasp this.

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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deludedgod

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

Well something is either random, or caused. What is the middle option? How can something be ‘not quite caused’, or ‘not quite random’?

Actually, yes! The middle is paradoxically an option, only in QM though. Probability waves. Don't get into that stuff. It will fuck with your head.


Yes, I know QM is completely weird like this, where the deterministic view of the world falls apart, but as I understand it, it doesn’t apply to most matter, such as the context we are discussing (i.e. the brain, every day actions, decisions, beliefs, etc), it only applies to a very specific level. Is that right?

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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It only applies below

It only applies below subatomic level

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Topher wrote: deludedgod

Topher wrote:
deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

Well something is either random, or caused. What is the middle option? How can something be ‘not quite caused’, or ‘not quite random’?

Actually, yes! The middle is paradoxically an option, only in QM though. Probability waves. Don't get into that stuff. It will fuck with your head.


Yes, I know QM is completely weird like this, where the deterministic view of the world falls apart, but as I understand it, it doesn’t apply to most matter, such as the context we are discussing (i.e. the brain, every day actions, decisions, beliefs, etc), it only applies to a very specific level. Is that right?


There was a recent group of BBC Four shows on the Atom. Very good. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/atom.shtml

I can't find an online version, but here's a clip from it.... Schrodinger's Cat for real!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN-jCuV7BoU

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

What's more, I believe that the arguments for relativity are are a-posteriori, so valid within the language of science rather than the concepts of mind.

Are you serious? What exactly is your argument? That our concept of the mind intuitively founds itself on our naive pre-relativity concept of time hence...our mind exists in a form of time to which relativity does not encompass. Can you see the depths of absurdity which you are attempting to encompass to sustain the nonsensical nature of your position. Dismissing our neuroscientific concept of decision making and exectutive function is one thing, but to deny Relativistic Temporality is quite another...

The fact of the matter is that our intuition is wrong. Time is a physical entity.

Yes. And this seems to sum up their argument.

Quote:

That mental concepts are temporal doesn't mean that they require the same concept of time as physical concepts.

Quote:

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Are you essentially saying that mental concepts exist in a form of time outside Relativistic Kinematics? Are you upholding our absurd intuitive grasp of time?

Your position is becoming more and more untenable. Our intuitive grasp of time is WRONG. That we do not subconsciously acknowledge it is irrelevant. 

Thank you.

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"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Socrastein

Socrastein wrote:

  

Todangst

There's nothing admirable about being the guy who everybody thinks is an asshole unless they already agree with you.

If the RRS is all about trying to convince people that there are more rational ways to view the universe, where does treating everyone like a piece of shit who disagrees with you fit into that? 

Look at your own behavior. You began by basically comparing your opponents on this matter to creationists, yet your argument in favor of your claim  amounts to this:

People say 'sun rise and sun set"

So geocentricism is true.

So to sum up:

You tossed an insult

And then made one of the an insultingly stupid argument. Even managing to strawman my arguments into the gradeschool error of using existence as a predicate.

So, in conclusion: look at your own behaviors, and consider the possibility that losing your support ain't a big loss. You're a troll with bad arguments, where's your upside?

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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deludedgod wrote: I did.

deludedgod wrote:
I did. You just ignored it. Time as we percieve it slows down as you go faster. The reason this is not intuitive (which you ignored) is that it is almost impossible to notice this until perhaps around (c/20 ms^-1)

In which case it is too minute to be perceived.
You started this reply before I edited the second half the post in - that was my fault for posting when it was half complete.
The gist of that second half was basically pointing how you are a fish out of water in this conversation because the issues deal with the philosophy of language but you are still determined to argue from science, even when I've pointed out that such arguments rely on linguistic assumptions.

If we recap on the history of how we got to this point:

Me: How do you justify that these brain states have anything to do with the concepts of beliefs or desires?
You: Because this is how we use the concepts in everyday life.
Me: But that can't be right as you are going against the conclusions based on people's grasp of the language. How do you justify your position that our everyday mental concepts are physical?
You: Because mental concepts are temporal, and according to relativity, time and space are connected, so mental concepts must be spacio-temporal.
Me: Hang on... our intuitive concept of time doesn't have that conclusion.
You: I'm not talking about intuitive concepts, I'm talking about scientific ones.

And there we have it - in your quest to justify treating mental concepts scientifically you resorted to arguing from science.

Quote:
I already told you, the reason we cannot intuitively detect this is because it does not become noticeable until (c/20ms^-1).

Unfortunately, I aren't an expert enough cosmology to detect exactly where your fallacy/conflation lies. All I have to go on is this:
The a priori intuitive concept of time is different to the a posteriori relativistic concept of time. This might be because the intuitive version is a rough sketch of the relativistic one and the relativistic one fills in the details.
The point is, when one says that "mental concepts are temporal", one is saying that mental concepts are subject to the structure of our intuitive grasp of time. Does it follow that if a concept is subject to our intuitive grasp of time that it is subject to the a posteriori grasp of time?
No. Otherwise we would not have needed empirical evidence to prove that relativistic time is as it is rather than as our naive intuitions thought it should be.

The two are conceptually different.
(I notice that in the quote you cut out the bit where I pointed out that they were still connected so you could put in some "they're completely unconnected" strawman in)
Because they are not absolute conceptual identities, to treat them so in an argument is to equivocate.

Quote:
It is just that reality as we are experiencing it is too slow to notice Relativistic kinematics.

And our intuitive grasp of time rooted in reality as we are experiencing it rather than reality than it 'really is'. You see why you can't treat them as conceptual identities now?


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Strafio wrote: Alright,

Strafio wrote:
Alright, last night I was tired and taking things waaay too seriously. Now the gloves are on and I'll be sending up philosophical whup-ass your way! :P 

I see no reason to again point out the same errors in your post.

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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 Strafio

Strafio wrote:
todangst wrote:
Just go to bed. I blame you for bringing this other guy to our site, he makes creationists appear profound.
Last night I was a bit put out that you didn't like him, but then I remembered that you were the worst when it comes to judging on first impressions. Sticking out tongue

Sorry I missed this. I'm actually quite good on first impressions. He's one of the most incompetent assholes I've met on these boards. You know me, you know how willing I am to take on the mentally retarded, in fact, I work with them, and this guy's abject stupidity made me cringe.

Quote:
Seeing as this begs the question that people do make coherent references to immateriality without stealing from materialism, you're not actually making an argument.


Quote:

How does it beg the question? It assumes that it is possible

Thanks for answering your own question.


Quote:
How can you refer to the immaterial? Just answer the question. Answer the question or just concede the issue.


Quote:

Duuuuude... you've seen my definition of immaterial.


And I've told you that you're confusing the fact that an abstraction need not have a real world correlate, the fact that it lacks one does not make the 'content' or 'reference' immaterial'
 

Quote:
Whether a number refers to someting with extra mental existence is MOOT, because the abstraction itself is material.

Quote:

I can't really criticise an argument 'from abstractions' as I've not worked out what you guys mean by them yet. 

THIS, is the under-fucking-statement of the century.

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Topher wrote: The

Topher wrote:
The compatalist use of the term free will is as people everyday use it: a non-coerced choice.

There's more to it than that.
There is a certain kind of sponteneity to our natural concept of choice which is incompatible with determinism of any kind. Compatibilism 'reduced the damage' of determinism but it was still a compromise rather than full vindication of the concept. Compatibilism also treats desires like 'causes' and that's not how the concept works in everyday application.

Quote:
Well something is either random, or caused. What is the middle option? How can something be ‘not quite caused’, or ‘not quite random’?

The caused and random dichotomy only applies to physical concepts, remember?
Numbers aren't 'random or caused'.
Numbers have a structure that doesn't involve causation.
Explanations of physical phenomena tend to deal in causes as that is the primary way of ordering physical concepts.
Not every concept is physical though.


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What's with the

What's with the tippex/invisible ink look on your new post?
You thought you'd increase the suspense by making me highlight your arguments before I read them?

Strafio wrote:
How does it beg the question? It merely assumes that it is possible

todangst wrote:
Thanks for answering your own question.

Haha! Very funny.
You know very well that assuming something is 'possible' is the default position until there is a reason to rule it out or affirm it, so I'll take your "the impossibility of immaterial's coherence" to be an attempts at irony...

I guess it'll be the next post when I can look forward to you addressing the definition of 'immaterial' that I put forward?

Strafio wrote:
I can't really criticise an argument 'from abstractions' as I've not worked out what you guys mean by them yet.

Todangst wrote:
THIS, is the under-fucking-statement of the century.

Haha! What I meant was that I suspect the concept of being complete gibberish, making all the bad linguistic assumptions that I've set out to refute. That combined with that you'd had enough of my 'negative arguments' I thought I'd instead do a positive argument from linguistic principles that showed that such concepts as "abstraction" weren't necessary.

Anyway, I'm sure you didn't spend all this time demanding a positive argument only to ignore it when I finally wrote it, so I expect that you're working on it as we speak. Take as much time as you need. I'd rather wait three days for an answer than get a rushed one that missed the entire point of what I was saying.


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Strafio wrote: What's with

Strafio wrote:

What's with the tippex/invisible ink look on your new post?
You thought you'd increase the suspense by making me highlight your arguments before I read them?

 

Strafio wrote:
possible
todangst wrote:
Thanks for answering your own question.

Haha! Very funny.
You know very well that assuming something is 'possible' is the default position until there is a reason to rule it out or affirm it

Actually, this is wrong. Unless you can provide an ontology for your theory you are NOT justified in assuming your claim is possible.

 If you are without an ontology for your theory, you have NO epistemic grounds to hold that your terms are coherent.

 

 

Quote:

Haha! What I meant was that I suspect the concept of being complete gibberish, making all the bad linguistic assumptions that I've set out to refute. That combined with that you'd had enough of my 'negative arguments' I thought I'd instead do a positive argument from linguistic principles that showed that such concepts as "abstraction" weren't necessary.

I've demonstrated the problem in your argument. So had DG. I will do so again below.

 

Quote:
 

Anyway, I'm sure you didn't spend all this time demanding a positive argument only to ignore it when I finally wrote it, 

I didn't ignore it. In fact, I refuted it. Your claim is based on the error of assuming that an abstraction without real world correlate is pointing to immateriality.  I pointed this out in detail. With your foundation shown to be flawed, you have no grounds for your argument.

Again, in all seriousness: You'd be on the path to a nobel prize if you achieved your goal. Meanwhile, all I have to do is play defense.  You really never had a chance... 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Strafio wrote: There is a

Strafio wrote:
There is a certain kind of sponteneity to our natural concept of choice which is incompatible with determinism of any kind

And this idea of spontaneity is false.

 

Strafio wrote:
The caused and random dichotomy only applies to physical concepts, remember?
Numbers aren't 'random or caused'.
Numbers have a structure that doesn't involve causation.
Explanations of physical phenomena tend to deal in causes as that is the primary way of ordering physical concepts.
Not every concept is physical though.

Number themselves are acasual, but applying numbers, thinking of numbers, writing numbers etc, are casual, since they are done via the brain.

 But the point is, unless you’re in the realm of QM (and were not), if something is casual, it is casual. If it isn’t, then it isn’t. It cannot be a little bit casual.

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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Here an interesting brain

Here an interesting brain story: a young boy from Yorkshire (northern England) had a brain operation and has since completely lost his northern accent, and gain a 'posh' accent!

Link

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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Quote: In which case it

Quote:

In which case it is too minute to be perceived.

Correct. But it is still there, which means our temporal mental functions must be based on physicality QED. If you don’t like using Special Relativistic Kinematics to describe temporality, perhaps General relativity will do the trick. As I explained already, by our very existence, general relativity indicates that spacetime must be the final arbiter of reality. As I said before, the constraints on us placed by language are nothing to those placed on us by spatiotemporality. And Einstein was the only one who could solve Newton’s Bucket experiment, so he wins.

Furthermore, that we cannot intuitively perceive it does not mean we can empirically determine it, as I showed, but you ignored.

Quote:

You started this reply before I edited the second half the post in - that was my fault for posting when it was half complete.
The gist of that second half was basically pointing how you are a fish out of water in this conversation because the issues deal with the philosophy of language but you are still determined to argue from science, even when I've pointed out that such arguments rely on linguistic assumptions.

No, the gist of my argument was that you are making unreasonable and repeated denials of necessary links between concepts due solely to the fact that they do not conform to our intuitions. Heliocentricitity does not conform to our intuition, should we dump that as well? You are mining the depths of absurdity here. All you are arguing is that our intuitions refer to concepts in different manner than does the scientific attempts to describe the same concept. But, as I have pointed out, our intuitive use merely reflects inaccuracies in our language. That we describe time as if we were intuitive Newtonian Kinematists is utterly irrelevant, just as our intuitive observation would seem to indicate that the sun rotates around the Earth. The scientific description of the concept which our intuition attempts to reference is more accurate since it is demonstratably correct. I can demonstrate that relativistic kinematics must be true, and I did so three times! Which would hence lend itself to the notion that any concepts to which we reference as temporal must be physical even if we do not subconsciously acknowledge this because we intuitively grasp time as some sort of intangible unto itself! But your argument is utter nonsense. There is no dichotomy between Relativistic kinematics and intuitive time. Intuitive time is simply an inaccuracy in our language reflecting that we cannot perceive relativistic kinematics. Your defense of it is ridiculous. Your other defense of it (that intuitive time may be referencing a different concept than Relativistic Kinematics) is a genuine Denying the correlative fallacy. I could make that statement about anything (that we are attempting to reference two different things), but it has no backing whatsoever. Watch:

You: Light is a material substance which travels through luminiferous ether

Me: That is utterly ridiculous. The notion of LE has been debunked thoroughly. Light has no mass, it has wavelike and particlelike properties (As confirmed by the Double-split experiments), it travels through a vacuum (empty space time), and being that it has no mass, it is the stop on the speed of information in the universe.

You: Ah! But I am playing the language game of our intuition. We intuitively grasp light as if it were a substance travelling through luminferous aether.

Me: Yes, but that is false.

You: But you are referring the language game of science! Perhaps I might be referencing light as if it were indeed a substance travelling through luminiferous aether. Our intuitions cannot grasp the results of the Double-split experiments, therefore I might be referring to light as a substance travelling through luminiferous aether.

Me: But now you are simply mining the depths of absurdity! All you are doing is showing that modern photonics is at odd with our intuitions, and you are defending this on grounds that we might be referring to two different things solely on grounds that photonics of light and intuitive understanding of light are different! You aren’t showing anything at all, you aren’t establishing anything, all you are doing is driving up my blood pressure.

 This is exactly what you are doing. By contrast, I have shown that Relativistic Kinematics must be all encompassing. If I could take you on a space ship at (>c/15ms^-1), you would actually perceive time slowing down. Because for you, and me, time would slow down. We could be gone for moments and return years later to Earth. This is not idle speculation of physicists, this is how reality works. And we have confirmed it with accuracy that will blow your mind (>10dp) More than I can say for you.

Quote:

Me: Hang on... our intuitive concept of time doesn't have that conclusion.

Nor does our intuition reach the conclusion of the Double-slit property of light? Shall we instead embrace L.E since our intuitions like it? Would you defend L.E solely because it conforms to our intuitions so in everyday language we might be referring to light as if it had the properties of L.E? Do not lie, this is exactly what you would do! You are doing it right now with Newtonian mechanics versus Relativistic Kinematics. It is an absurd Denying the correlative fallacy. Our intuitions are wrong, can you not understand that? Is it a mental block? We can demonstrate that time as we are perceiving it is relative. And that indicates that our minds must be physical QED! It matters not that our intuition disagrees with this and it sure as hell does not mean we are intuitively referencing some “other concept” of time. All it means is that our intuition is wrong. Your dishonesty over this point is utterly stunning.

Quote:

And there we have it - in your quest to justify treating mental concepts scientifically you resorted to arguing from science.

So what? You are not making any argument with any substance whatsoever. All you are doing is making a denying the correlative and annoying half the people here! All you are doing is showing like a broken record that our intuitions might be referencing concepts which attempt to describe concepts in a different way that science describes the same concepts, and attempt to use this as viable justification for our intuition referring to different concepts than our scientific description of what scientists consider the same concept. There is no substance whatsoever to any of these claims, all it does is show how inaccurate our intuition are. We have two possibilities:

Me: Science overturns our intuitive grasp of certain concepts by proving that said intuitive grasp is false

You: Or our intuitive grasp of concepts is referencing something different to our scientific description.

My point has evidence to back it up. Real, testable evidence. Relativistic Kinematics and General relativity are so watertight that we can now compute time dilation to (>30sf). Your assertion is little more than skipping around anything and everything that would possibly necessarily connect the two concepts in question! By now, your repeated denial of the connection is so utterly unreasonable and absurd that your position is utterly untenable and extremely dishonest.

Quote:

The a priori intuitive concept of time is different to the a posteriori relativistic concept of time.

No it is not. If that were true, that experiment by UC would have failed, and Newton’s paradox would not work. Even if we do not realize it, when we say time we are referencing an utter inaccuracy. There is no such thing as time, only spacetime. Hence when we say I have 45 minutes left to do task X what we mean is: At the relative speed at which I am moving through spacetime, the dilating effect caused by the effect of my material body (and the L-F contraction resulting), means that depending on my mean velocity, I have 45min +/- 0.00000000000000012s to accomplish task X. Furthermore, my movement through this continuum as I accomplish this task only exists due the gravitational distortion of my body through spacetime a la the L-F contraction. As I move through spacetime, the dilating and distorting effects of general relativistic kinematics are what produce the movement of me as a body of mass, although unless I am to engage in a freefall while completing task X, there will be no accelerating being that due to gravitational distortion acceleration occurs only relative to the continuum itself not other material bodies.

Quote:

This might be because the intuitive version is a rough sketch of the relativistic one and the relativistic one fills in the details.

Or how we intuitively perceive time is totally and utterly wrong, why is this so hard to grasp?

Quote:

The point is, when one says that "mental concepts are temporal", one is saying that mental concepts are subject to the structure of our intuitive grasp of time.

Which is of course false. Our mental concepts are taking place temporally as in within Relativistic temporality, and if this were not true nothing would exist since relativistic temporality is the effect which generates gravity. This is why YOU PERCEIVE TIME SLOWING DOWN AS YOU SPEED UP WHICH DOES INDICATE THAT OUR MENTAL CONCEPTS ARE TAKING PLACE WITHIN RELATIVISTIC TEMPORALITY. THIS IS EMPIRICALLY DEMONSTRATABLE BANGS HEAD ON WALL.

Quote:

Does it follow that if a concept is subject to our intuitive grasp of time that it is subject to the a posteriori grasp of time?
No. Otherwise we would not have needed empirical evidence to prove that relativistic time is as it is rather than as our naive intuitions thought it should be.

How can a concept be “subject” to intuitive time when intuitive time does not exist? Really, this is the easiest fucking thing in the world to grasp. The only reason relativity is not intuitive is because it is too small in everyday life!

Your argument is incredibly dishonest. All you are arguing is that we do not intuitively perceive Relativistic kinematics therefore our mental concepts are not subject to it. Your position is absurd.  We can show that mental concepts need be dependant on relativistic kinematics! Everything needs to depend on REK! Reality would fall apart without it. You are making another denying the correlative fallacy by introducing a false alternative- that time might be something other than relativistic. Being that our mental concepts are temporal they must be subject to REK, because there is no alternative! Intuitive time as an intangible does not exist. We think it exists because we cannot perceive REK but we are wrong. This is the easiest thing in the world to grasp. I have provided evidence that even if we do not realize it, time as we are referencing it is relativistic! The false alternative you are introducing is that being we do not intuitively grasp this, there might be “another form” of time which is not relativistic. That is utterly ridiculous. If that were true, there would be no gravity.

Quote:

Because they are not absolute conceptual identities, to treat them so in an argument is to equivocate.

Relativistic Time is indeed an absolute entity. In fact, it is the only absolute entity in the universe!

Quote:

And our intuitive grasp of time rooted in reality as we are experiencing it rather than reality than it 'really is'. You see why you can't treat them as conceptual identities now?

So are you implying that intuitive time has validity? That is nonsense. Surely by now unless you have a reading comprehension problem, you will know why we perceive time as different to REK.

This is the most useless and pretentious argument I have ever engaged it.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

Books about atheism


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deludedgod wrote:

deludedgod wrote:

This is the most useless and pretentious argument I have ever engaged it.

Agreed, although I'd actually say Strafio's argument was better than his friend's, which says quite a bit... take a look at it, if you can stomach it...

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Topher

Topher

No, it has not been shown that our intuitive ideas do NOT fit into the relationship between the mind and the brain.

You say that pointing out how people intuitively use words and ideas misses the point of the discussion.

*sigh*

This discussion rests on whether or not mental concepts (mind/desire/choice/etc.) actually refer to physical things like the brain and neural patterns and the like.

So, Topher, tell me, if I asked you how a word is used and what it refers to, how would you answer that? Would you conduct a scientific experiment? Would you look at my brain state when I say the word?

I sincerely hope not. What you should do, assuming you're familiar with the word (I wouldn't expect you to know what un chat refers to for instance), is describe to me how it is used by most people and what most people refer to when they use it.

So, this debate is about what people mean when they say "mind", or "conciousness", or "desire". So, I can't help but wonder, why the hell you, and deludedgod, and todangst, keep referring to neuroscience experiments to address the issue of how a word is used.

If I ask you what love means, and you link me to an article about the chemical properties of someone's brain when they say they're in love, you've missed the boat... big time.

How do you not see this? Are you just so stubborn and so entrenched in your view that you can't see the simple folly of this?

Do you more clearly see now where the relevence of our intuitive grasp of a word comes in? Do you more clearly see now where the relevence of the common usage of an idea comes in?

You can't keep saying that our intuitive grasp, our common usage and understanding of a word was shown to be wrong by neuroscience.

You CAN use science to show our intuitive grasp of REALITY ITSELF was wrong. We used to think flies sponteneously generated from rotten meat. This was shown false. We used to think the sun revolved around the earth every time we looked at the sky. This was shown false. These were intuitive ideas about the way the world worked.

You CAN'T use science to show our intuitive grasp of the word beautiful is wrong. No experiment can presume to show people how they apply a concept is wrong. You CAN'T use science to show our intuitive grasp of the word freedom is wrong. How people apply the word is a social phenomenon, and if they use it a certain way then that is the way it is used. A=A. You CAN'T even use etymology to show that our intuitive grasp of the word agnostic is wrong. People use the word to refer to someone who doesn't believe in God, but doesn't deny that he exists/could exist. You call this weak atheism. So do I. But millions of people call this agnosticism. You're right that I used to back you up in such discussions. However, I grew out of that shit a long time ago. It's about time you do to.

Just the same, you can't use science to prove that the way we use the word mind is false. When did neuroscience become the new Webster? You still don't see, after all this time, that all the neuroscience in the world doesn't change the common usage of a word.

This is a linguistic argument. Nobody is positing that the mind exists as a discrete packet of supernatural energy at the top of the spine. Nobody is positing that the mind supernaturally exists in some platonic realm. Nobody is positing anything physical, in any way, whatsoever! So if this debate doesn't lie in the realm of physics, why would you find science to be of any relevence at all?

I'll use the example of agnosticism again, because it's one you're familiar with. Let's think back to those debates on agnosticism, and what it means to say you're agnostic. So here you are debating with Mr. X about the meaning of the word agnostic. You're saying that Thomas Huxley coined the term to refer to whether or not one can know that God exists, and Mr. X is arguing that everyone he knows uses the term to refer to someone who doesn't think God exists but is open to the possibility.

Now, what would you say if I jumped into the middle of this discussion and said "Hey, everyone check out this article on serotonin levels in people who say they're agnostic. It clearly proves that agnosticism refers to someone who has a higher than average level of serotonin levels."

How would you and Mr. X respond? Something along the lines of "But serotonin levels have absolutely nothing to do with how this word is used. It's just a conincidence that we apply this word to people who happen to have this physical characteristic."

And I would say "Well obviously we've been using the word the wrong way! Science clearly shows that if you're agnostic, you have high levels of serotonin in your brain. We have to throw out our old intuitive grasp of the word, obviously."

To which any rational person would say "This has nothing to do with chemicals in the brain! Language is defined by how it is used! If we use the word to refer to someone's beliefs, then that is what the word means!"

And I would of course say "You just don't get it. You keep ignoring the facts. Science has proven that the old concept was wrong. The latest studies have redefined the word, I understand that there is the common context that you guys hold to, and I think that it's still useful and interesting, but that doesn't change the fact that scientifically agnosticism is just a state of serotonin levels in the brain."

The above sounds pretty ridiculous, right Topher?

*EDIT*

YOU PERCEIVE TIME SLOWING DOWN AS YOU SPEED UP - Deludedgod

I'm no expert, but everything I've ever read about relativity has said that the principles of science, the speed of light, and our experience of time all remain constant now matter what velocity you're moving at. I understand that relative to you, everything around you would seem to be moving faster, and relative to everyone else, you would seem to be doing things slower, but from your own perspective, everything would seem normal. 

I just double checked it in 3 books I have to make sure. Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, and Michio Kaku all agree. Perhaps I misunderstood you.  


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I just had to point out how

I just had to point out how fucking lost you are:

 

Socrastein wrote:

If numbers exist, then words exist too, right? In the brain, as neurons, of course, according to your scewed use of the word "exist".

You've not demonstrated any misuse of the word 'existence' in any of my post. To do that, you need to quote where I 'misuse it' and then demonstrate the misuse.

You know, actually back up your claim.

 

Quote:

Then what were you complaining about? I said the word existence exists,and he's rolling in his grave at how you are misusing his name. It wasn't meant to be a strict logical argument, in case you didn't notice. It was a playful jab at your abuse of language.

No, it's a demonstration of your inabilty to follow my argument accurately. You've not demonstrated any actual error, you've just asserted one, most likely from a misreading.

 

Quote:

Let me be the first to say that if you want to apply the word existence to things the way you do, and you want to say that every idea, and word, and "abstraction", exists in so far as it physically exists in the brain,

Abstactions exist, signs exist, but their signifiers may not. Why is this so complex for you?

The fact that there can be abstractions without real world correlates does not point to 'immateriality'. It merely means that there are abstractions without extra mental existence.

Why is this so complex for you?

Numbers cannot exist without a sentient brain to conceive of them or interpret them (from some method of external symbolization).

Quote:

then according to this retarded use of the word existence there would be no such thing as immaterial.

You've not shown anything here to be 'retarded' other than yourself, particuarly your inability to even work out my position before you try to argue 'against it'!

You can't even be bothered to read the first paragraph of the first post here and figure out my postion.

You can't even demonstrate an understanding of my arguments.

I'm a material monist. My arguments are intended to demonstrate that immateriality is an incoherent concept.

The fact that this is all news to you says quite a bit, doesn't it?

Did you even bother to read the first paragraph in the first post in this thread?

Why don't you go read it, for the first time, champ?

Quote:

Did you catch that?

Yes. And I have no problem with the implication, seeing as I'm a material monist who argues that immateriality is incoherent.

Did you catch that? 

But you might try to actually present my argument as I stated it.

Quote:

If I was to follow the rules of your language game, no matter how ridiculous they are,

You've only demonstrated how ridiculous you are. You've not actually cut and pasted one of my arguments and shown a flaw.

In fact, you can't even WORK OUT MY POSITION!

Quote:

then I would also come to the conclusion that all that exists is necessarily material.

Can you work out yet that I'm a material monist?

Um... excuse me... but you don't even know what my position is.... and you think you're arguing against what I actually have said?

Calling you retarded was kind.

Quote:

The fact is, whether you like it or not (and you obviously hate it), the way mental concepts and the way the word existence is commonly used does allow for immaterial things.

The fact is, whether you like it or not, common usage does not point to correctness. People commonly say 'the sun rises', by your logic, geocentric theory is therefore validated.

What matters is this: can one actually refer to immateriality, or does one actually have to steal from materialism? If we cannot provide a coherent means of talking about immateriality, and we can in fact demonstrate stolen concept fallacies, then the fact that people believe that they can refer to the immaterial is moot.

What matters is this: can you present a coherent manner to talk about non physicality, or can you just assert that people DO it, regardless of whether they actually steal from materialism?

If only the latter,  please get lost.  

 

Quote:

Aside from you and a few others I'm sure, everyone else agrees that numbers exist, but don't physically exist.

Who cares? Ad populum is not a way to build a good argument.

Abstractions cannot exist without a sentient brain.

If most people don't know this, that's not a rebuttal.

If you can't provide a coherent way of talking about numbers without stealing from materialism, then, once again, you have no argument.

Quote:

This false dichotomy of yours stems from your assumption that words must refer to physical things if anything.

 Again, if you assert a claim, can you at least try to present an argument to back it up? Just once, for kicks?

You know, you start by actually reading your opponent.

And, you know, actually know his position, his arguments, before you write your counter argument?

So you can avoid ridiculously stupid things, like warning a material monist against a path leading towards material monism....

Then, you can actually try quoting an argument, demonstrating that you can follow it...

Then, do more than just assert that "lot's of people disagree"

Wanna try that?

Or do you just want to continue acting like a fucking idiot, launching into an argument and not even knowing what a person's position is?

******************

Terms like "supernatural" or "immaterial" are broken concepts: They are attempts at reference that cannot actually refer to anything. They are broken terms because they are defined solely in the negative (according to what they are not) without any universe of discourse (anything left over for them to be). As Deludedgod states (see link to his page at bottom) these terms are eliminative negative terms, which can only denote an empty set, meaning that any further talk using these terms is incoherent.

So we have words that tell us what something ISN'T, without anything left over for them to be.

Immateriality - defined as neither matter nor energy. So, what's left over for it to be?

Supernatural - defined as 'not nature' or 'above nature' or 'beyond nature'. So again, what's left over for it to be?

Now some might respond at this point: but we use negative definitions all the time in coherent attempts to make reference. And we can, provided that there remains something left over for them to refer to, indirectly. Negative definitions can provide information through their universe of discourse - what is not ruled out, is identified.

For example, if I were to hold out a box with a penny and a pencil in it, and say "the object in the box I am thinking of is not the penny", you'd know from the universe of discourse, the 'things in the box', that the object I was thinking of was the pencil. The negative definition and the universe of discourse provide the information together.

So the problem isn't just that terms like 'immateriality' and 'supernatural' are solely negative definitions, it is that they rule out any universe of discourse. There's literally nothing left over for these terms to refer to, so there's nothing left over for them to be. The terms are therefore meaningless, incoherent.

You might find yourself balking at this. You might feel that you use terms like 'immateriality' or 'supernaturalism' all the time, and the terms seems to make sense. Well yes, we may use the terms, and we may even feel that they 'make sense', but in reality the only way we can actually have them make sense is if we unconsciously steal from the concept of naturalism. And if you stop and think about it, this is what we do: we end up thinking of 'immateriality' in terms of materiality (i.e. energy), or 'supernaturalism' in terms of nature (something we can feel, see, hear, etc.).

You might also feel that you know of a way to solve the problem: by turning to euphemisms like 'beyond nature' or 'above nature' instead of 'not nature'. However, unless you can show how these distinctions lead to a difference, these euphemisms are all ontologically identical with 'not matter/not nature' - they still all rule out any universe of discourse.

 

For those who struggle to grasp the challenge:, here's some help in providing an ontology for your term:

1) Can you show that anything exists other than matter or energy? What are its "properties" - i.e. is it something natural? If not, how can we 'know" or "infer" anything about it. If we can't, what use is your 'hypothesis"? If it has no use, then why are we having this conversation?

Helpful guide: The most common error at this point is for the theist to respond by just asserting that something is immaterial. Please read the above refutation of this clumsy 'argument'.

2) How does something that is neither matter nor energy interact with our natural world?

Don't just assert that it 'does', provide a detailed positive account of how this occurs, without stealing from naturalism.

3) How do you avoid violating the principle of conservation of energy? If no physical energy or mass is associated with "immaterial things", then there is a serious problem: a fundamental principle of physics is that any change in any physical entity is an acceleration requiring the expenditure of energy - but if these things have no matter or energy, where does the energy come from? what you have here is something akin to the impossibility of perpetual motion - energy from nowhere. Dan Dennet states that these questions represent the fatal flaw in any dualistic argument (i.e. to immateriality) (- 1990 Consciousness Explained.)

Don't just assert that it works just like 'naturalism', in other words, don't steal from naturalism. Don't just glibly accept that it violates physics either.

 

Counter argument: Your argument appears to rely on 'referentialism', which is a school of linguistics currently out of favor.

Response: This is just lazy arguing. By that logic, every claim coming from every outmoded school of thought would be false. So this charge is immaterial unless you can show me how the specific referentialist arguments used here are flawed, and to do that you must actually go to the trouble of presenting an argument. What matters here is whether my usage of referentialism, concerning nouns and adjectives is out of favor, and it is not.

Certain types of words in a language set do and must to refer to things to be coherent, such as nouns and adjectives, and the word supernatural is, in literal context, attempted to be utilized as both. Again, the point before you is this: terms like 'supernatural' are defined solely negatively, without any universe of discourse and yet they are intended to denote something. How can such terms have any meaning? Please actually address the argument.

Related Counter argument Words do not necessarily need to refer to things to be meaningful.

Unless how you can show how this is relevant here, this charge has no weight. The matter before you deals with terms that attempt to make a reference that rule out ANY universe of discourse at all! How could 'other modes of making terms meaningful' could possibly help? Don't just assert that there are other ways, demonstrate how these other ways can provide the terms with meaning! Pay heed to the fact that you've not even attempted to do this here - recognize this failure to even make the attempt and ask yourself why you're not presenting it here now, in lieu of this complaint.

 

 

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Socrastein wrote:

Socrastein wrote:

So, this debate is about what people mean when they say "mind", or "conciousness", or "desire". So, I can't help but wonder, why the hell you, and deludedgod, and todangst, keep referring to neuroscience experiments to address the issue of how a word is used.

Of course you can't, because that would require you to actually read DG's post and respond to it.

You can't even work out what my position is...

Quote:

If I ask you what love means, and you link me to an article about the chemical properties of someone's brain

Not the love analogy.... no... please. What's next? Can you see the wind? A Hitler reference? 

Seriously, how old are you? 18? 19?

Can you stop with the assertions and the ridiculous analogies and actually respond to the arguments here.

Again, you begin by representing it.

Then you provide an actual counter argument. 

 

Quote:

You can't keep saying that our intuitive grasp, our common usage and understanding of a word was shown to be wrong by neuroscience.

Why not actually read DG' post and respond to his points rather than just toss your 111th naked assertion?

 You can demonstrate that an 'intuitive grasp' is wrong by showing that there isn't actually any 'intuitive grasp" of anything...

Which is what we do when we ask you to actually provide an ontology for your theory... to explain how one can refer to immateriality....

If all you can do is assert that we do it, then you have nothing.

Which is rather appropriate.... seeing as 'immaterialty' is a broken concept, it can only point to nothing.

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Quote: I'm no expert, but

Quote:

I'm no expert, but everything I've ever read about relativity has said that the principles of science, the speed of light, and our experience of time all remain constant now matter what velocity you're moving at. I understand that relative to you, everything around you would seem to be moving faster, and relative to everyone else, you would seem to be doing things slower, but from your own perspective, everything would seem normal.

In Relativistic Kinematics, only two things are constant:

c and space time (where c is light speed). So, when I said you percieve time as slower, I may have said something confusing. From your perspective, time is not slower, but due to the LF contraction, time as you are actually percieving it is moving slower than someone who was not moving. For example, if you were travelling at a reasonable fraction of lightspeed, you would be able to observe redshift (as in literally observe the red color that results from wavelength change). This is why if you travelled at those speeds, you could be gone for what appears to be a few seconds but was actually several years. It is incoherent, however, to talk of "time slowing down" or "speeding up" since time is relative to the observer. The correct thing to say is that time is faster for person A relative to person B, or vice-versa depending on relative motion.

There are philosophical problems associated with this. FOr one, since your thoughts essentially depend on how fast neurotransmitters can cross VGIC, do you actually percieve time as "slower" you speed up?

However, these problems can be dismissed by pointing out that no material body may travel at (>c/15ms^-1) anyway.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Does it concern you that

Does it concern you that he's simply not responding to the key points of your post?


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Quote: Does it concern you

Quote:

Does it concern you that he's simply not responding to the key points of your post?

You mean regarding neuroscience or relativistic kinematics? Or both. Indeed it does, but how long has it been since I have had an argument with someone who wishes to engage in a full length debate on the matter? One must get used to it. Often (and you will recognize this pattern) it goes like this:

-OP (or poster in general) makes a claim which is riduclous

-I just C&P from my compilation and tear it apart

-OP ignores

-I force the OP to acknowledge

-OP asserts that I am wrong.

I suppose, for the umpteenth time, I could link to these essays:

 "Vitalism"/"Immaterialism" and Christian "dualism" have long since been debunked. Response?

Which, being about vitalism being ridiculous, does point out that mental concepts are physical and why

and this one:

On the Problem of Interaction and the Concluding Piece of the Series: The Absurdity of an Immaterial Mind

But who has the time to go through so many words? 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Todangst Yes, I opened up

Todangst

Yes, I opened up in this thread with an analogy between the way you three are misusing mental concepts and the way creationists misuse the word theory. That doesn't mean I think you're a creationist, or even that you're like a creationist. It's just an analogy, all the is relevent are the analogous aspects of the comparison.

If I tell a pretty girl that her smile is as white as a daisy, and she responds "Oh, so I'm just a stupid little plant right? What, are you saying I'm lifeless? Are you saying I live in the dirt?" I'd assume she took the analogy too far. I think you did the same. I just used the first word abuse that popped into my mind, because as I'm sure you'd agree, it's an incredibly common one.  

Regarding your misuse of the word existence, you're right. I didn't demonstrate it. Strafio beat me to it, so I figured it'd be unnecessary to simply repeat what he said.  

You say common usage does not point to correctness. What I said was that the way a word is used defines what the word means.

Are you disagreeing with this?

Or are you referring more to something like "Square-Circles", and the fact that just because a million people started using the word to refer to a rectangle with four equal sides, every point of which is equidistant from the center, wouldn't change the fact that it's an incoherent term.  

Ad populum is not a way to build a good argument.

You're sort of right, you're just taking it too far. I completely agree that if we're discussing whether or not the Bible is an accurate depiction of how the universe works, how many people accept it is completely irrelevent.

However, what if we're debating about whether or not Americans supported the decision to invade Iraq? Obviously, the only way to truly settle this would be to appeal to what the majority thinks.

Some propositions derive their truth-value from majority opinion. When discussing such propositions, ad populum becomes not only a good argument, it becomes the only argument. 

When we're talking about what a word means, how everyone uses it is the only thing relevent. Nothing else matters, because language is defined socially. Do you disagree?

Terms like "supernatural" or "immaterial" are broken concepts: They are attempts at reference that cannot actually refer to anything.

Well, that's the whole point. If they referred to a thing, then they wouldn't be immaterial or supernatural. I'm sure you agree.

Where the debate lies, I think, is over whether or not it's meaningful to make reference to something that's not a thing. You say no, if it's not a thing, there's nothing else left. I agree that there's nothing physical left. 

1) Can you show that anything exists other than matter or energy? What are its "properties" - i.e. is it something natural? If not, how can we 'know" or "infer" anything about it. If we can't, what use is your 'hypothesis"? If it has no use, then why are we having this conversation?

Can I physically show that it exists? By definition no. Does it have physical properties? By definition no. How can we "know" it? Well, if we're referring to words and concepts, we know them through our grasp of language. An good example would be the idea of evil. It has the properties of being immaterial, it has the properties of being a linguistic concept, a mental idea. As such, it has no physical existence in any shape or form. You can't point to evil, you can't slap it. It has the properties of being morally repulsive, selfish, and destructive. It has the use of categorizing and making sense of certain behaviors. It is grasped by our mind. 

Please note, I'm not taking this as far as Plato infamously did. He stole the concept of existence from materialism and tried to apply it to ideas, like "green" and "good" and "beauty". I am not taking it so far. As such, asking things like how it impacts physics, or how we physically interact with it, etc. is irrelevent.

Now, I imagine you'll respond by saying that evil physically exists as neurons in our brain, so I haven't argued for anything immaterial, I'm so fucking lost, I'm so fucking ridiculous, etc.

I'll preemptively respond by asking if you're familiar with the idea of greedy reductionism, popularized by Daniel Dennett, because I think that's what you're utilizing when you use your neurons argument. 

When I say "Words and concepts exist as ideas that we intuitively grasp but aren't physically real" and you say "Words and concepts are nothing but neurons in your brain, ideas don't really exist" you're not explaining words and ideas, you're just explaining them away. 

Another more famous example which I'm reluctant to use but I'm going to anyway just to see how you handle it is qualia. *gasp*

Sure there are neurons in my brain, and light is just electromagnetic radiation, but what is color? I mean, the sensation of color? Where does redness exist? You can't point to a cluster of neurons and call them red. Any concious being knows very well that they are not the same thing. When I look at an apple, what's the ontology of the sensation of red I experience?

Are you going to just dismiss the question by saying "It has to be just neurons, because everything is material!" Wouldn't that just be begging the question? It's material because everything must be material? If it is just energy and matter, where does the dragon I dreamed of last night exist? Where is the energy and matter of that experience? Of that sensation? Of his scales, and his hot fire breath? There was nothing hot about my neurons, nothing scaly about my brain states.

How is qualia material?  


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deludedgod

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

Does it concern you that he's simply not responding to the key points of your post?

You mean regarding neuroscience or relativistic kinematics? Or both.

Actually both. But in the last post, he merely asserts that your argument will not work, he never actually present your argument or shows why it won't work.

Quote:
 

Indeed it does, but how long has it been since I have had an argument with someone who wishes to engage in a full length debate on the matter? One must get used to it. Often (and you will recognize this pattern) it goes like this:

-OP (or poster in general) makes a claim which is riduclous

-I just C&P from my compilation and tear it apart

-OP ignores

-I force the OP to acknowledge

-OP asserts that I am wrong.

 

Yes, or in this case, his comrade, who hasn't even demonstrated an ability to recognize what my position is. When he tried to stress that an implication of my arguments was that it would render immateriality incoherent, I began to wonder if his post was a put on.

Quote:
 

 

I suppose, for the umpteenth time, I could link to these essays:

"Vitalism"/"Immaterialism" and Christian "dualism" have long since been debunked. Response?

Which, being about vitalism being ridiculous, does point out that mental concepts are physical and why

and this one:

On the Problem of Interaction and the Concluding Piece of the Series: The Absurdity of an Immaterial Mind

But who has the time to go through so many words?

They don't even show a willingness to even cut and paste the argument, let alone respond to it. The strawmen born of their argument are just stunning. 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Socrastein

Socrastein wrote:

Todangst

Yes, I opened up in this thread with an analogy between the way you three are misusing mental concepts and the way creationists misuse the word theory.

But you don't demonstrate this, you just assert it.

Quote:

Regarding your misuse of the word existence, you're right. I didn't demonstrate it.

 

Here's a challenge for you.

1) Admit that your last post proves that you don't even know what my positon is.

2) Concede that you've not actually demonstrated an ability to present my argument.

3) Further concede that you've not even presented an argument.

Quote:

You say common usage does not point to correctness. What I said was that the way a word is used defines what the word means.

Please don't lie.

You wrote this:

Quote:


    The fact is, whether you like it or not (and you obviously hate it), the way mental concepts and the way the word existence is commonly used does allow for immaterial things.

You cited common usage here. You placed "common' in bold.

Please, don't waste my time with lies.

Please. 

 

 


"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Quote: Sure there are

Quote:

Sure there are neurons in my brain, and light is just electromagnetic radiation, but what is color? I mean, the sensation of color?

Color refers to how our optic nerve processes the different wavelengths of visible light. As for the sensation of colour, that sounds like a pathetic homunculus argument. Your visual field is contralateral and the processing from the eye meets along the convergence of the optic ducts called the chiasm to form via synaptogenesis, entering a new area of the VC called the lateral geniculate nucleus, which is divided laterally into monochromatic layers. In all six there are red/green and red/blue percieving neuron bundles. Which colour a neuron is assigned to depends on the chemical makeup of the neuron in question, since this will determine its processing of different electrical signals which result from different wavelenghts (this is analogous to rod/cone cells)

The synaptogenesis formed in the LGN winds along the PV1 deep inside the occiptal system, where the regions of colour processing are striatical and extrastriatical corticles, a striat being a distinct area of neuron bundles.

Inside the V1 corticles, different neuron bundles are assigned different wavelengths to process depending on their cell differentiation, which usually also depends on the magnitude of the light in question (which means that neural color assignment is not fixed  and sacroscant). The receptor neurons (it is theorize) have the computational capacity to discern the cone/rod ratio based on the electrical signal fired across the VGIC. The opposing clusters in the V1 have two areas: Green/red and blue/yellow, in which they compare the respective amount of each colour from the picture which was reassembled from the eye in the LGN.

The motion of the scene in question is processed somewhat differently, and which I wrote about in the essay:

Then, there are the lesser known, but equally important introperceptive senses, which regulate balance and spatiotemporal relative position and geometric orientation in the world (inner ear and cochlear tubes) called proprioception, the tracking of movement and muscle memory called mechanoperception (this one is quite remarkable, it is controlled by grid neurons which array a lattice-like projection of external reality, dividing it into grid squares, such that grid neurons corresponding to said squares fire when movement is detected in said squares. Obviously, your brain does not project this onto your vision, as that would be extremely annoying. As a matter of fact, your brain, while efficiently organizing reality, tweaks a lot of things so as not to appear unsettling. For example, the eyes never stop moving, they, even when fixed on a point, are making a jerky motion called sacchares. However, this is extremely unsettling in appearance so the brain eliminates it from the visual projection. It can be detected only by watching someone else’s eyes in the mirror.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Here's a challenge for

Here's a challenge for you.

1) Admit that your last post proves that you don't even know what my positon is.

2) Concede that you've not actually demonstrated an ability to present my argument.

3) Further concede that you've not even presented an argument.

I'll try to present what I believe your position to be, and you tell me how close/wrong I am.

You seem to be arguing from the idea that all the exists is matter and energy. Many people have made many attempts to argue that there is in fact more than just matter and energy, that things can have an immaterial, supernatural existence. The problem is, however, that every time somebody makes an attempt to do so, they end up resorting back to materialistic concepts, often not even realizing it. When they speak of God, for instance, they describe him as beyond space and time. However, they then speak of him having the ability to interact with space and time. This makes about as much sense as saying you can throw a baseball at the Gross National Product of Chile. If, by definition, they're two separate existences, how on earth could they interact? Causal interaction is a physical phenomenon, so to apply it to something nonphysical is to render it physical, and thus to render the concept broken.

To apply it more specifically to Strafio's and my argument, our attempts to argue for the immateriality of the mind and of other concepts, like numbers, also steal from materialism. We assume that just because an abstraction doesn't have refer to something physical, it must therefore be immaterial. However, all of these concepts and abstractions exist, physically, within our brains as emergent phenomenon from our neural patterns. 

All of our attempts at immaterialism have not been positive assertions, they've simply been negative ones. We've done nothing more than say "Immaterial is anything that's not material", and when you've responded "Well then what are they?" we simply say "Duh, not material!" which of course isn't any sort of description at all. We've described no properties of immaterial things, we've described no ontology of immaterial things, we've said absolutely nothing of what they are, we've simply asserted what they are not as if that was some sort of an argument. 

Was I even close?  


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Quote: To apply it more

Quote:

To apply it more specifically to Strafio's and my argument, our attempts to argue for the immateriality of the mind and of other concepts, like numbers, also steal from materialism. We assume that just because an abstraction doesn't have refer to something physical, it must therefore be immaterial. However, all of these concepts and abstractions exist, physically, within our brains as emergent phenomenon from our neural patterns.

Well done:

I wrote:

The crux of all this is that the dualist who asserts that materialism cannot account for X abstraction is that they are making a fallacy of conflation between reductionism and materialism. Reductionism is merely one arm of the materialist school of thought. We also have to take into account, for this exercise, emergentism, which materialism does indeed encompass. Emergentism is the doctrine that properties emerge from systems that are not necessarily reducible to their constituents. They exist only when the system is in place, and are hence not reducible to the sum of their parts. This is the schism in materialism between reductionism (whole=sum of parts) and emergentism (whole>sum of parts). The point is, these are both materialist positions. Neither invocates dualism or magic. So when the dualist is asserting that the materialist is denying the existence of X because it can be reduced to smaller constituents, they are making the greedy reductionist fallacy. Regardless of whether the system in question is emergentist or reductionist, the fallacy holds. It is analogous to saying:

1. The clicking on hyperlinks can be reduced to electrons being fired across LCD electron guns and photons through ethernet and fiberoptic cables. Therefore hyperlinks do not actually exist, only electrons and photons.

2. An atomic nuclei can be reduced to individual protons and electrons, which in turn can be reduced to quarks, which in turn can be reduced to bosons and fermions. Therefore, atoms do not actuallly exist, only bosons and fermions.

You will find that many materialist systems are indeed emergentist. That means that they cannot be reduced to their constituents, they only emerge when the complexity of the system reaches a certain point, but, the crux: They are still materialist. Emergentism is an arm of materialist philosophy. Many naturalists regard consciousness and the mind as an emergent property of the brain. Some others hold that the mind can be divided and is hence, with respect to the whole brain, reductionist, not emergent. I am sympathetic to a middle ground position . Obviously when we reduce the system to a certain degree, we find the property which we were examining in the first place disappears. Hence to some degree the two positions of emergentism and reductionism are valid and mutually reconcilable in much the same way that empiricism and rationalism are reconcilable. In fact, I do not think there has been a “pure” empiricist or rationalist since the days of Immanuel Kant. Likewise, the materialist philosophy does not usually find one taking a pure stance on emergentism or reductionism.

So, when the dualist makes the greedy reductionist fallacy by whining that the materialist is denying the existence of X by invoking reducibility, they are invalidated by both schools of materialism. Reductionism does not say that X does not exist, merely that it is a lower ontological category than its constituents Y and Z. Emergentism says that X exists of its own accord due to a synergistic effect between Y and Z. The latter can be invoked to explain many phenomenon from a materialistic perspective, especially consciousness and the mind. Regardless, any dualist asking for a materialist to explain abstract X is revealing their own unsurprising ignorance of materialist philosophy. Abstractions in this context are merely what a reductionist would call lower ontological categories that result from increasingly complex systems, or what an emergentist would call the result of synergistic effect in the system. Emergentist materialism is extremely important in my work, since one of the things I study is enzyme kinetics, drugs and medicine, where synergistic interplay is extremely important. The same logic which causes a Calcium Channel blocker and a Beta Blocker to work better together to lower blood pressure than the mathematics of their individual workings would have us believe is the same logic that may give rise to abstractions from material systems. In other words, this may cover thoughts, emotions, rationality etc. To a reductionist however, we can explain these in terms of direct reducibility to their electrophysiological activity in corresponding neurons. Regardless of which position you take, the abstract, the thought, is still generated. And hence for the dualist to accuse the materialist of denying said abstractions is just, well, stupid. And can only be described as immensely foolish. We shall soon see how easy it is to flip this on its head.

[/quote 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Socrastein wrote:

Socrastein wrote:

Some propositions derive their truth-value from majority opinion.

To argue that people actually use immaterial terminology without stealing from materialism, you must present a coherent manner of using immaterial terms.

You do not do that.

Quote:

Terms like "supernatural" or "immaterial" are broken concepts: They are attempts at reference that cannot actually refer to anything.

Well, that's the whole point. If they referred to a thing, then they wouldn't be immaterial or supernatural. I'm sure you agree.

Congratulations on actually quoting what I really say.

By doing this, I can show your error.

The reason these terms are incoherent is because they DO attempt to make a reference.

That is the problem.

Of course they can't refer to any 'thing'...but these terms are used in a fashion that they DO attempt reference, this is precisely why they are incoherent.

Quote:

1) Can you show that anything exists other than matter or energy? What are its "properties" - i.e. is it something natural? If not, how can we 'know" or "infer" anything about it. If we can't, what use is your 'hypothesis"? If it has no use, then why are we having this conversation?

Can I physically show that it exists? By definition no. Does it have physical properties? By definition no. How can we "know" it?

Clearly you can't know 'it' at all. Watch as you avoid dealing with this:

Quote:

Well, if we're referring to words and concepts, we know them through our grasp of language.

That's not answering the question, it's begging the question.

You must say how we grasp them.

I'm asking you how something works, and you're answer is basically 'beautifully!"

You can't just assert that we do it with language, you must explain how.

Provide an ontology or concede that the terms must borrow meaning from materialism. 

 

Quote:

A good example would be the idea of evil. It has the properties of being immaterial,

You're merely begging the question that it does, and then asserting this begged question as an example of immateriality! This is the precise blunder I point out in my essay!

You can't just beg the question here! You must demonstrate your claims!

Look, try thinking this through: To express 'evil' you must point to behavior, which is physical. Whatever level of abstraction you grant a term, you can't imagine 'evil' unless you instantiate it in some manner... the abstraction must be represented in some way.

What do you think when you think 'evil'? You must have some emotional tone which can cathect or connect to something auditory or visual, or something envisioned directly...

Think about it... don't just rush to assume and then assert. 

 

Quote:

it has the properties of being a linguistic concept, a mental idea. As such, it has no physical existence in any shape or form.

This is simply false and you'd see it if you considered how you concieve of an abstraction like 'evil'. To consider the concept, to express the concept you must instantiate it in some manner.

Please think this through. Your arguments are based on poorly begged questions....

You simply assume that a concept has no physical properites, but if this were the case, then it would have no ontology at all, no identity.  So you're just not thinking this through.

 

Quote:

Now, I imagine you'll respond by saying that evil physically exists as neurons in our brain, so I haven't argued for anything immaterial, I'm so fucking lost, I'm so fucking ridiculous, etc.

You're quite lost as this is not what I have said at all. 

I've demonstrated more than that.

I've shown that you merely beg the question that some abstractions are immaterial.

That you don't bother to consider that you never explain HOW one could make a reference to something without any identity.

You fail to consider that any abstraction must have identity, which in turn, points to a representation of something material (which of course, is also material, i.e. the neurons) 

 In short, you confuse abstractions for immateriality. 

 

Quote:

I'll preemptively respond by asking if you're familiar with the idea of greedy reductionism, popularized by Daniel Dennett, because I think that's what you're utilizing when you use your neurons argument.

Look, you can't even work out what my position is, so why not refrain from guessing? 

 

Quote:

How is qualia material?

Qualia is bullshit! I'm a material monist. I don't accept the idea of qualia as anything but nonsense. 

But let's not waste our time on that now, as you're too, too far behind.

Dude, really, you're just not thinking anything you assert through....

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"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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DeludedGod I found your

DeludedGod

I found your explanation of how light is processed by our brain very interesting. However, I see a part where it explained what qualia was, what it's ontology was, and where it existed.  


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Socrastein wrote:

Socrastein wrote:

Here's a challenge for you.

1) Admit that your last post proves that you don't even know what my positon is.

2) Concede that you've not actually demonstrated an ability to present my argument.

3) Further concede that you've not even presented an argument.

I'll try to present what I believe your position to be, and you tell me how close/wrong I am.

Why not concede that you were in fact wrong? You acted as if it would be a horror for me to recognize that a ramification of my arguments would be that it would render immateriality incoherent!

In your last post, you acted as if it would be a horror for me to come to terms with qualia being discounted.

 Here's what you need to do:

Post my arguments as written.

Ask questions.

And please, think through all your begged questions...

 Oh, and you missed this:

You wrote this:

 

Quote:

    The fact is, whether you like it or not (and you obviously hate it), the way mental concepts and the way the word existence is commonly used does allow for immaterial things.

You cited common usage here. You placed "common' in bold.

Please, don't waste my time with lies.

Please.

 

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'