Primal

First off Boneyard there is really no need for you to make 13 separate posts in a row to reply to my single post. Please in the future limit your reponse to as few posts as possible, as having to copy/paste a critique from 13 different posts is rather inconveniant.



Now you are just repeating yourself "there can be no explanation because there can be no explanation".

Repeating yourself in all caps changes nothing.

The materialist explanation is necessary for lack of others and need of a basic explanation.


That is a very misleading characterization of my argument. I am not saying materialists have an explanation in the sense of a in depth analyses of the specifics of the human mind. I am merely saying that given what we know supposing the substance for the mind are equal. That is reductive. One does not need an in depth understanding, at the level of lets say an anatomists understanding of respiration to posit a more parsimonious explanation.

Likewise I cannot, nor can anyone explain conclusively how humans evolved. Not the specirfics anyways. But that does not me we seriously reconsider the fact that humans evolved.

Now that's begging the question.




I don't see the distinction or why you are making it. One could simply say if one does not believe humans evolve for example "evolution is a law like explanation, not a reductive one" and insist then that showing the evolutionary explanation to be more parsimonious was irrelevant due to its being "law-like".

In order to support such a distinction though one needs evidence, otherwise the entire thing can be treated as non sequitur.


Or you could simply prove it. I'm not going on a wild goose chase on this basis. The Burden of proof is on you to prove your claim, not me to find your proof for you.


Ok you have given me an example of how dualism can be established in general, this tells me nothing of how your distinction between "law-like" and "reductive" explanations establish dualism. This whole thing is starting to feel like pulling teeth.



That is a ridiculous request. I ahev offered my evidence and arguments elsewhere. The above was mentioned only in order to clarify my position.

That would be similiar to me asking about what creationists believe:

"Well we believe in the Genesis flood, the 6 day creation"...

"Prove it."

"Ok I will get to my proof, let me explain my position."

"No, prove it now. Don't make stuff up."

See there is a difference between clarifying a point in order to avoid some sort of charge and proving that point. Asking for proof when I was merely clarifying then is inappropriate.




Ok that is my point. Now I need you to prove your point. And no, simply saying "its proven somewhere else" does not work. You have yet to offer an argument other then "its true by definition" and some sort of unexplained "law-like" vs. "reductive" distinction.

Again with the proof surrogate. Do you not have an argument?



Since we discovered matter and established the principle of parsimony.



So its not true by definition? That's begging the question.

It is the most parsimonious explanation: that's all.

I will try explaining how this works again. Lets say Mr. Smith gets sick. We are not sure what is causing the illness and what should for lack of a better understanding believe it germs. Dr. Norm lets say thinks its a virus or bacteria This makes sense in light of germ theory, at the evry least we will presume it a natural process.

Now Dr. Hovind comes along though and says its "Ghosts". He insists that we cannot "assume a natural cause of sickness from the onset" and wishes to bring in a parapsychology team to examine Mr. Smith.

Now the first explanation of germs or natural process is considered more probable then the other of "Ghosts" even though we do not know what specifically is making Mr. Smith sick. That is because for lack of strong disconforming evidence, we presume the already established explanation.


This involves then merely extending what we already know to be true instead of creating a completely new type of entity.

That works because if we just create new entities at will and consider them as probable as established ones, then people can just make stuff up where we are ignorant. They can propose spontanious generation, germ ghosts and any other thing they fancy.


If there is no need to explain it then why are you explaining it as composed of immaterial substance?

BTW we are not talking about specific of mental processes but what substance those mental processes are composed of.



If you are saying the mind is made of an immaterial substance, that is dualism. Saying "I'm not a dualist" then is no more genuine or evident then when an Intelligent Design advocate declares he is "not a creationist."

Dualism.



So then they are the same substance ultimately as rocks and plants then. Ok, that is what materialists are saying, everything is made of the same material substance. And this substance has multiple aspects to it, it operates a certain way in life, another in nonlife, one way as plasma, another way as a solid.

I think perhaps you are making a poor straw man of materialism.


Then "mind" would be a new substance or equivalent to matter.


Saying its "made of mind" does not work simply because the term is not mutually exclusive with either material or immaterial substance.

One could just as easily say "dirt is made of dirt"...ok. But dirt is also made of matter.



Total straw man. Keep in mind the key word "the image of the tree" is in your mind. Not the tree itself. No materialist is maintaining you have a tree in your mind, only that the "image" is material.

What do you mean by "logical processes"....we know plenty. Many things are not outlawed by logic. I for example could posit the mind as arising from spontanious generation and say it works by means of little spirit channels. Such a statement would fall totally within the bounds of logic.

What you seem to be saying is we do not have a complete scientific understanding of mental processes. And that is true, but irrelevant. For to suppose substance we do not need to get that specific. No more then we need to be able to understand every aspect of an unknown disease before we assume it is natural or that we need to dissect an animal before we assume it has organs.

spacer1

Adrian, I think that you mistakenly addressed Bill instead of myself, here, since it seems you were referring to my last post. Anyway, thanks for putting it into words better than I ever could.

contracycle

Adrian Selby

hi spacer1, cheers,

i think bill did refer to me as a property dualist at some point here, though i have addressed comments made to others, yourself included I think

Adrian

boneyard bill

Adrian Selby writes:

Yes. But that's not what sentient exerience is. First of all, it presupposes that the brain can be aware of anything. Secondly, it is quite possible for the mind to have knowledge of its environment without sentient experience. The mind only needs information about its environment to have knowledge of it. However, you claim that the brain is "aware" of its environment, and it's difficult for me to comment on that without knowing what you mean by the term "aware."

I have previously defined sentient experience as the five senses.

boneyard bill

Adrian Selby writes:

You make this claim, but how do you substantiate it?

There is nothing in the term "yellow" or "the experience of yellow" that involves electrical discharges. You have to put it in there by making a law-like claim i. e. a postulate. Your claim is not a proven fact.

spacer1

boneyard bill,

What would you consider to be a sufficient explanation of the mind's relationship to the body? Even if someone were to create a virtual reality machine whereby you could have a virtual (or somebody else's) experience, you would not be able to compare this experience to your own, because you would also have virtual memory, and so your only experience would be virtual. Or, if you were able to keep your current view of the world, and perhaps, have another's experience superimposed over your own, you would still not be able to say whether the experience was the same as your current experience of the world, since you would be viewing the other's experience through the filter of your own.

Likewise, from the third-person perspective, you cannot ever know with certainty (i.e., as we know our own experience) what the experience of a mind is like from the external perspective of the brain. However, the correlatory evidence of the effects on the mind from the physical consumption of drugs, from head injuries, and the like, is pretty much overwhelming.

Therefore, I agree with you that we will never be able to have sufficient evidence to objectively claim the mind's reduction to the brain, but then, how much evidence do you need?

boneyard bill

Adrian Selby writes:

Let is examine this more carefully in the light of previous claims.

A sentient experience is simply certain brain processes. What does this say about certain brain processes? It says that they are sentient experience. But brain processes are also third person reports. Therefore, third person reports are sentient experience. But sentient experiences are first person reports. Therefore, third person reports are first person reports.

Clearly, the argument is incoherent i.e. it contradicts itself.

boneyard bill

To Adrian Selby:

Continuing from the previous thread:

You cannot equate an objective datum (brain processes) with a subjective one (sentience), without simultaneously equating objectivity with subjectivity. But that makes a complete mockery of language itself. It makes post-modernists sound moderate in their claims.

You have not achieved a true reduction. To achieve a true reduction, you must eliminate subjectivity altogether, and when you do that, there's no one left to report anything.

boneyard bill

Adrian Selby writes:

I would say that "undergoing" IS a process and that the undergoing of a process is a redundancy. It is in the nature of processes that they undergo. Therefore you are saying that sentient experience is a material process and I have already dealt with that point in my two previous posts.