Primal

This is simply a non sequitur. Quite simply, to advocate a certain ontological position one need not know all the specifics concerning the phenomenon in question or all phenomenon at all.


For example, I personally lack a great deal of knowledge concerning how automobiles work. But is this ignorance on my part reason for me to suppose automobiles have spiritual or other immaterial components in them?


Likewise scientists do not literally know everything about how the human mind works, but that is not reason enough to propose a radical new substance.


In short materialism is an induction, an inference: not an absolute law.

At any time it is possibly wrong.

*Maybe* a car does have spiritual components hiding somewhere. Perhaps but not likely.

And materialism is a position concerned with what is likely.


Now, given that everything we know of so far is material, what is a bigger stretch:

1) To propose everything else is likewise material.


2) To propose that there is a radically different substance hiding somewhere, AND other things are material as well.


Obviously number one is more parsimonious, so number one is more probable: meaning it as a position wins out.


Total understanding is not required from this, only general understanding based on inference.

Hence scientists may not have fully explained how the brain or mind works: fine. There is a lot of stuff scientists have not fully explained: cancer, DNA, metabolism.

That does not mean however that they are 1) Fully unexplained and 2) Immaterial. In the face of this materialism remains the most parimonious of all ontological positions, so it remains established by default. Likewise the brain remains the most parsimonious vehicle for the mind, so it likewise remains by default.

Again, since we are dealing with probability: not absolutes. We are not concerned with a perfect understanding, only a partial or general one from which we may make parsimonious inference.

Wyrdsmyth

Boneyard,

I appreciate your summary and restatement of your earlier points. But perhaps just as you feel none of us have successfully refuted or engaged any of your points, some of us may feel the same way, in reverse. Perhaps it would make it more clear for us all if you directly engaged the posters in a dialogue, instead of just allowing us to "connect the dots." Otherwise, I feel the conversation is somewhat truncated, and to some extent, we are talking past each other.

For example, I would like to see you directly address my previous post, and some of the others' posts, in a point for point commentary or rebuttal. I know this may be tiresome, but I think it is the most effective way for us all to engage each other's positions.

Earlier I wrote: ... how do you see qualia, and its implications about reality? As some kind of spiritual dualism, or what? What do you think is going on here? I'm curious how you think reality is. Do you think we are disembodied souls linked to physical bodies, or what?

I'm still curious as to what your answers are to these questions. If you are going to say materialism cannot be true, what are you proposing is the alternative? What do you believe is the "case about the world"?

sodium

The argument is that materialism is the best explanation, certainly better than any coherent alternative. You seem to think that if materialism can't mathematically be proven to be true, then it must be false.

My view is that when your brain is able to recognize certain general types of brain states. So, it can come up with a name, like "lust" for a process it has just undergone. It is fair then, to say that lust refers to a general class of brain states.

This view doesn't require that matter has any surprising mental properties. It is perfectly consistent with materialism. And I think it is more or less what people who identify themselves as materialists tend to believe.

Now, I agree that a sensation may be conceptually different from a general type of brain state, but then, water is conceptually different from H2O. But both concepts refer to the same real-world entity.

excreationist

But AI projects that use neural networks even today only use thousands of neurons (rather than our 100 billion)... they can be taught to do things like tell the difference between male and female faces but like mice, etc, due to their lack of neurons there would be limits to what they are capable of learning.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:



This may be true regarding the definition of consciousness that you posted. That definition, however, isn't remotely like anything I've been discussing.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:

It doesn't matter what scientists know. As I have already pointed out scientists research the data. Materialism is an interpretation of the data. The question is what is the most reasonable interpretation of the data: one that explains all the data or one that doesn't.

No one is proposing a radical new substance. Sentient experience has been around at least as long as humans have and most likely longer. I wouldn't call that new.

boneyard bill

Wordsmyth writes:





I have already stated that I was doing what I did the way I did it because I am having computer problems. I keep getting error messages and then I get shut down. That's why I have to give quick, brief answers and post them quickly. I've already been shut down twice in just these few posts.

That's why I'm not addressing these issues point by point. I've already done that. But you didn't see the product because my computer shut me down several times after I writtten lengthy replies.

boneyard bill

Wordsmyth writes:

Sometimes I get shut down when I click to send the msg. Giving a lengthy reply to the above post would be extremely cumbersome.

Frankly, however, it is also tedious to have to explain to another poster what has already been explained and clearly either not read or not understood. So I think there is some responsibility on the part of the posters to this thread to make an effort to understand what the discussion is about. With an occasional exception, I am the only one arguing this side of the issue, and I can't repeat the same arguments and same refutations for everyone who wants to take issue just because they haven't bothered to read the previous posts or, having read them, havn't bothered to study them seriously enough to grasp the point.

boneyard bill

Sodium writes:

Materialism is the best explanation for what? Sentient experience? Materialism has no explanation for sentient experience. At least it has no explanation that meets the standard that materialist philosophers themselves admit that it must meet.

boneyard bill

Sodium writes:



The proper referent here would be "vision" rather than lust. Lust is not, strictly speaking, a sentient experience. I don't deny that vision refers to a general class of brain states. I deny that it is a general class of brain states. Brain states are one thing and vision is another. If you claim the two are the same thing, then that is a postulate of your system that carries ontological implicaltions. You've just repeated the identity theory and I've just refuted it again. If you've got a counter to my refutation, please give it. If you don't understand the refutation, please re-read my argument posted above. Why do we have to tread the same ground ad infinitum?