boneyard bill

Posted by excreationist:
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Originally posted by Totalitarianist
excreationist -
Mind and matter are correlatives, like positive and negative. You cannot have one without the other. They explicitly refer to one another.
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What happened before humans (and other creatures with minds) evolved...? Do you think there was a time when no minds existed, when only matter existed? Or did the mind of the universe or the mind of God exist? If God doesn't exist, did the time before human minds existed exist at all? If it didn't exist, how did it cause human minds to come into existence?

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Interesting thread. Matter is the content of mind. We cannnot know matter objectively i.e. we can't know the thing in itself. We can only know matter inter-subjectively. We reach a consensus among ourselves.

But if matter is the content of mind, what is mind without matter? Logic is mental and not material. But is logic possible without material content to work upon?

Mystics have an idea of mind without matter. They call it nothingness.

Creation would seem to be a process of thinking the thought (matter) into existence.

Idealism therefore seems to be a far simpler ontology than materialism because thinking a thought into existence is simpler than explaining how mind could arise from material processes. In fact, idealism seems to win by default because, at present, there is no way to explain how mental processses can be reduced to material ones.

Totalitarianist

Are you supposing that there is a thing-in-itself?

That is correct, but logic is also objective.

Yes. I would ask: Is material content possible without logic? Every discipline, any sort of thinking, absolutely everything, presupposes the laws of logic, e.g. that A=A, the law of contradiction, etc. I do not think that it is entirely true that we impose logic on the world; the world also imposes logic on us. Logic is the condition upon which existence depends; a thing existing without the laws of logic is self-contradictory; and since nothing self-contradictory is possible, a world without logic is impossible; hence logic is possible without material content, since it is the condition upon which all existing things depend. It is real independently of material content. Logic is therefore just as much objective as it is subjective. For it follows that the laws of logic still are true without the physical world -- without anything for that matter. That A=A does does not change when we die, or when all mankind die. For logic is the reason of things, the necessary condition of all existence.
Logic is possible without material content also because there is no sensuous element in formal logic. The laws of logic are real independently of sensuous objects.

Again, mind and matter are correlatives like cause and effect, or negative and positive. The laws of logic are real, that is, true. They do not exist, however. You cannot find them anywhere. They are concepts of the mind. Yet they are objective concepts, and are true necessarily. The time before human minds existed? Why are you using a human concept, i.e. existence, to describe that point at which human minds did not exist? To apply a concept such as "existence" to things which are said to be non-concepts is self-contradictory. Are these things which existed before our mind non-concepts? That is, did they exist independently of concepts? Or is it true that they did exist before us, and at the same time that they existed as concepts? For all we know about them is that they existed, that they were caused, that they had substance, that they had limitation (i.e. were not infinite), etc -- all concepts.

excreationist

boneyard bill:
....Matter is the content of mind. We cannnot know matter objectively i.e. we can't know the thing in itself. We can only know matter inter-subjectively. We reach a consensus among ourselves.....
I'm not talking about objective knowledge.... I'm asking if you think that matter *probably* existed before any minds evolved into existence on the earth.

...Logic is mental and not material....
Logic involves the patterns we see in the universe - like cause and effect, etc. Our brains can learn these patterns and associate them with language.

...Idealism therefore seems to be a far simpler ontology than materialism because thinking a thought into existence is simpler than explaining how mind could arise from material processes. In fact, idealism seems to win by default because, at present, there is no way to explain how mental processses can be reduced to material ones....
Why is it that things like brain damage and chemicals can affect our thoughts? It seems that the thought processes *intimately* rely on the physical brain.
BTW, perhaps vitalism (living stuff having a "life force") was simpler than the alternative a while ago, and back then there was an absence of knowledge too... we still don't fully understand life.

Totalitarianist:
Are you supposing that there is a thing-in-itself?
Well it seems that you have been assuming that other minds exist.... (besides the one we personally have) perhaps they are an illusion? But anyway, why do people tend to agree on what they sense if a universal reality of matter doesn't exist? Note that this matter may be in a computer simulation or something, but it still has a definite continuous existence.

....The laws of logic are real, that is, true. They do not exist, however. You cannot find them anywhere....
Yes you can in a way, the patterns that logic describes can be found in the world we interact with. That is where we derived them from and what we check them against to see if they make sense.

...The time before human minds existed? Why are you using a human concept, i.e. existence, to describe that point at which human minds did not exist? To apply a concept such as "existence" to things which are said to be non-concepts is self-contradictory...
Ok, what about 100 million years ago on earth. Was there only matter? Maybe you think that "100 million years ago" is a human concept...
What do you think happened over the last few million years... let's say that a few million years ago there weren't any "minds" - they evolved a bit later. I'm talking about a world where creatures without human-type minds existed. And before that, no mammals or birds existed, and before that, single-celled life existed. And before that, no life on earth.
What do you think about that? Do you believe in evolution? Do you refuse to comment because you think it is impossible to speculate about what happened before human minds existed?

boneyard bill

Posted by Totalitarianist:
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quote:
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Interesting thread. Matter is the content of mind. We cannnot know matter objectively i.e. we can't know the thing in itself. We can only know matter inter-subjectively. We reach a consensus among ourselves.
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Are you supposing that there is a thing-in-itself?

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I certainly don't think so. The matter we know intersubjectively is merely the phenomenal appearances that we agree upon. There is no reason to assert that these phenomena have any other type of existence than simply phenomena. (I think today philosophers would tend to use the term "information" rather than phenomena.) The point is, what useful role does the concept of matter serve? I'm not aware of any.

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But is logic possible without material content to work upon?
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Yes. I would ask: Is material content possible without logic? Every discipline, any sort of thinking, absolutely everything, presupposes the laws of logic, e.g. that A=A, the law of contradiction, etc. I do not think that it is entirely true that we impose logic on the world; the world also imposes logic on us. Logic is the condition upon which existence depends; a thing existing without the laws of logic is self-contradictory; and since nothing self-contradictory is possible, a world without logic is impossible; hence logic is possible without material content, since it is the condition upon which all existing things depend.

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Is it really that clear-cut? To say that A=A requires that I am able to separate A from what is not-A. Is logic possible in a void? Then equally, is logic possible in a plenum? Do we not need distinction for logic to be applied? In other words, doesn't mind need content in order to apply logic?

boneyard bill

excreationist asks:

=====================================boneyard bill:
....Matter is the content of mind. We cannnot know matter objectively i.e. we can't know the thing in itself. We can only know matter inter-subjectively. We reach a consensus among ourselves.....
I'm not talking about objective knowledge.... I'm asking if you think that matter *probably* existed before any minds evolved into existence on the earth

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BB: If matter is the content of mind, then mind must have existed before matter. But mind need not have existed on earth before matter existed.

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excreationist:

...Logic is mental and not material....
Logic involves the patterns we see in the universe - like cause and effect, etc. Our brains can learn these patterns and associate them with language.

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BB: I'm no logician, but I don't believe cause and effect is a logical category, nor is association. Logic involves necessity. Cause and effect are observed, but the cause doesn't, of necessity, produce the effect. The same is true of association. We observe certain phenomena and associate them, but this association is not necessary. A logical relationship is a necessary one. A square, for example, must have four sides because that is the definition of a square.
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excreationist:

...Idealism therefore seems to be a far simpler ontology than materialism because thinking a thought into existence is simpler than explaining how mind could arise from material processes. In fact, idealism seems to win by default because, at present, there is no way to explain how mental processses can be reduced to material ones....
Why is it that things like brain damage and chemicals can affect our thoughts? It seems that the thought processes *intimately* rely on the physical brain.
BTW, perhaps vitalism (living stuff having a "life force") was simpler than the alternative a while ago, and back then there was an absence of knowledge too... we still don't fully understand life.

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Our brain processes information just as a computer does although the brain is vastly more complex. Nonetheless, even though our brain processes information, the brain isn't the information. The mind is the information. It's the difference between hardware and software. If the computer's hardware is defective, the information will not get processed properly even though the software is flawless.

excreationist

boneyard bill:
...If matter is the content of mind, then mind must have existed before matter. But mind need not have existed on earth before matter existed....
I had "Matter is the content of mind" in bold because *you* said it - I actually disagree with that statement.

I'm no logician, but I don't believe cause and effect is a logical category, nor is association. Logic involves necessity. Cause and effect are observed, but the cause doesn't, of necessity, produce the effect. The same is true of association. We observe certain phenomena and associate them, but this association is not necessary. A logical relationship is a necessary one. A square, for example, must have four sides because that is the definition of a square.
Ok so maybe cause and effect don't have much to do with logic, but my point is that I think we learn ideas similar to logic through our experiences with the world. We usually would infer things though - or subconsciously use fuzzy logic. We can pretend we have certain knowledge about the world and make (perceived) logical deductions. e.g. we could believe that a large mass of heavy metals will fall if it is released above the ground. We might see a large mass of heavy metals (a helicopter) being released above the ground and "logically" conclude that it will fall.
About the square - it involves a name ("square") that is given to anything that has four equal sides - and ONLY things with four equal sides. Therefore anything called a square has four equal sides (and four equal angles). The name "square" only applies to a single pattern and if any part of that pattern isn't satisfied (the four sides part) then that isn't the right pattern and it isn't a square. It is kind of about pattern recognition and that is initially learnt in the physical world. e.g. we would learn to recognize individual faces, places, etc, though those faces or places could vary a bit and still be the same person/place.... (other things are more static, like language and words like "square").

Nonetheless, even though our brain processes information, the brain isn't the information. The mind is the information. It's the difference between hardware and software.
I pretty much agree with that.

If the computer's hardware is defective, the information will not get processed properly even though the software is flawless.
I think that we begin with some instinctual behaviours/desires (like preprogrammed software) and the rest (of the software) is learnt. If our hardware is defective then the initial software and/or later software would probably have problems.... i.e. the software would be flawed.
BTW in a computer, if you damaged the CPU and harddrive and RAM a little, it would lead to software errors... and the software would be corrupted, even on the harddrive.
Why do you think the software would be flawless? Let's say someone had Alzheimer's and there were large physical holes in their brain (due to that disease). Their memories and personality ("software") would have severe problems... are you saying it would in fact be completely intact and flawless? Where would those intact memories exist? Not in the brain's hardware I guess.