Clutch

I think I'm some sort of relativist. And I find myself using logic an awful lot. Am I an antinomy?

(No paralogisms of laughter, now...)

Dominus Paradoxum

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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Or I avoid the false trilemma altogether and simply go by the belief that your "mental states" are literally just neural activity.
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What would you do with someone who picked up a rock and told you it just is a tree? Presumably, you'd tell him that he was just abusing language or else was determined to think a contraduction. Well, I'm in a similar position here. The simple fact of the matter is, all that goes on in your brain is certain electrical-chemical impluses which mechanically cause neurons to go into certain states. All the "information" in your brain is just a certain frequency of synaptic impulses. *Nowhere* in the brain is this information "decoded" into the qualities you experience. On a physical level, all you'll find is certain interactions between point particles and the changing of certain feild values. All of this is completely and totally different from what we consciously experience. Thus the claim that they are "identical" is meaningless, unless you are using "indentity" in some bizarre new sense of your own.

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Neural hardware establishing certain dispositions?? Exegenetic tendencies in our mode of thought? Though I am not sure. This is more a question for neurology then philosophy. My lack of knowledge as to the specific or technical factors of how I get knowledge are irrelevant in the field of jusifying knowledge or a given existential position. That's kind of like asking an empiricist about the physiological mechanisms of the eye.
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No, it is not irrelevent. Even if I were to experience two things to be conjoined an *infinite* number of times, that would not be enough to establish that they were *necessairly* connected. If you are a rationalist, then you believe that there is synthetic a priori knowledge (since that's what seperates "rationalists" from "empricists"). For example "every event must have a cause" would be one kind of synthetic a priori statement. Another example would be the belief in the principle of the uniformity of nature, the assumption on which all science proceeds. Unless you can demonstrate that you can account for the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge in a materialist ontology, then you must either give up your materialism or reject your claim to be a rationalist.

Primal

Yes I do. I do not see how that information is atained through purely observation for then it is only probable. It is also an interpretation. A marxist for example may make the same observation and believe change happens through contradiction.

Likewise again the statement that "things change according to their nature" assumes that things in fact change. Also the statement that "things change according to their nature" is not the law of identity, which only states that A is A.

Observing that things change is to assume that they in fact change. The assumption is conceptual, for otherwise you may simply be like Plato or Xeno and presume the change to be an illusion. Are you saying all knowledge stems from observation?

Primal

I am not using the term matter in the strict sense of merely atoms and electrons, but in the sense of anything material/physical, which would include energy.

Primal

Please state what this means exactly. Are you asking if matter can be colorless and/or tasteless?


Identical to the matter as it is.


I fail to see why matter could not produce mental properties.


I agree here.


Or perhaps the mental is material. Idealism like I said makes too many problems, seems to sink into solipsism at the subjective level(which fails to allow for things like inference,ignorance and create superfluous mental processes unerlying causality).

So all that is in the universe stems from the mind.....but the mind did not create the universe? That makes no sense.


So then it does stem from, is created by the mind, which is following certain "mental rules" then.

So atomic theory and much of modern science must simply be rejected? Evolution as we know it did not occur....nor abiogenesis.


Why can't tje bare properties simply be material and base instead of idealist with underlying mechanisms?

Primal

Calm down Hugo, no need to act childish. My answer begins at this statement in the said article:


That means logical and illogical points of view are equal. That means there is no right or wrong and hence no reason to debate, reasoning will not support one position over another...so why even try?

Primal

I'd say he or see was fundamentally wrong if he or she saw it as a rock as well. If not I'd have to say I believe he or she is wrong on the basis of my sensations.

But that is assuming they cannot be identical a priori.

The fact is that while I may see the neurons firing and not the actual interpretation of them firing is not that they are fundamentally different but that I lack the equipment with which to do so.


To make an analogy to a blind person a computer has a certain feeling to it. This feeling the blind man identifies as a computer. Now someone states there is a certain look to the computer as well, but the blind man insists "well it cannot be,one is identified by a certain feeling another by how it looks." If it is the same computer how come he cannot see it? Is it because they are two different computer or the computer has two fundamentally different aspect to it with the computer seen not being the same as the one felt?

No, the answer lies in the fact that the blind man merely cannot see. It's a problem with processing certain aspects of the enviroment not any difference in the enviroment or object in question itself.

I imagine had I the wiring too more or less link up to another brain, I'd see exactly what they were seeing, feel exactly what they are feeling.

The neurons are equivalent to mental activity, the difference then between seeing mere neurons and seeing through the eyes of another, so to speak, is how the information is processed exactly. In one sense they are done so via the eye, in another by the mind directly. The difference is thus one of processing only.


True, but this is not about what is absolute or necessary but about what is probable and parsimonous.


I am not sure what this means, all I mean by "I am a rationalist" is that I believe certain knowledge is attained without observation or via what we call the traditional five senses. This actually seems to work very well as empircisists believe all knowledge is attained by means of the traditional five senses, without interpretation via anything but background data and is hence all provisional.


What do you mean by this exactly? I must be able to give an account of the actual, physiological brain processes before I can claim to be both a rationalist and materialist?

That seems very unreasonable. Why must I do this?

Or I must give some sort of justification for what I believe without "observation"? In this case I'd say at the basic level, by saying they are self-evident, and at a latter by deduction from self-evident concepts or from deduction from self-evident concepts combined with observations.

AnthonyAdams45

There are no mental properties, are there? Every property is material, because matter is all there is. If matter produces mental properties without your position becoming dualist, then the idealist can have material properties without being dualist.

Here is the crux of your misunderstanding. You have moved from my claim that "idealism is not about is some one mind" to "the mind did not create the universe." Unless you intend to explain how all minds are one mind, that move is not necessitated by idealism. Idealism is just as complicated with the problem of "other minds" as is materialism, though materialists are forced to call it "other 'minds'." I don't make the universe, nor do you. But all the properties of the universe are in some regard dependent on minds. Even if "mental" properties somehow arise through physical processes (ooh, and look out for those quotes), without minds how can it be determined if a given mountain is one mountain with twin peaks or two mountains? Without minds how can biological orders be sorted out? Now the question becomes, who's more parsimonious, you with "mental properties" arising from matter, or me, with just mental properties.

Never said it. Atomic theory describes properties. Genetics describes properties. Evolution describes properties. If properties need minds, and you want to be parsimonious, you get rid of matter, and keep the qualities.

AnthonyAdams45

While we're at it, let me take a shot at relativism.

Relativism is the position that all properties are relations, that is, no absolute qualities exist. Does this view hold that all systems of relations are the same? No, in fact, it almost has to deny equality between systems (that incommensurability thing Kuhn was always so worked up about). Does some absolute means for evaluating the relative merits of one system over another exist? Obviously not. Can one embrace some standard that can make such choices? Of course, although one is never absolutely vindicated in one's choices. Can one choose logic as that tool? Of course, so long as logic is not understood to mean the absolute arbiter of validity, but rather the arbitrary definer of validity. Thus, relativists can embrace logic, even if they are not required to do so.

Addendum:
One of my reasons for being atheist lies in this definition. If some absolute truth exists, then an absolutely true point of view is logically possible. Thus the danger of the divine.

If, on the other hand, no absolute point of view is possible, which relativism denies, then the divine, at least as generally described, is impossible.

Primal

I am speaking of mental in the psychological sense, not in the sense of a substance.



Ok but then you have moved from subjective idealism to objectuve idealism and must now posit some sort of super-mind, unless you are about to say that our minds taken together compose reality. In which case, then these minds do create reality and eachother, but then something exists "outside" my mind, i.e. other minds and we have a problem.

This because at one point you are claiming that "all that exists is in my mind" and then saying "but other minds not in my mind...exist." If you are merely saying "are dependent on a mind, not necessarily mind" then you are positing the external, in which case I can posit matter instead of many mental creators/maintainers.\.


Well then they are created by mind as perceptions and thoughts change.

Now you are confusing knowledge of an object with the object itself. If you are saying they are equivalent you have 1) Sunk into solipsism. or 2) Must posit "other minds" and hence multiple realities or some sort of super-overarching perception. Both of which are superfluous.

Also I am advocating only material properties(you are using the word "mental" in two different senses, presenting my position as a dualism) whereas you are invoking only the mental, in which case you are succeptible to my criticisms.


Yes but these "properties" only exist in the mind, are "mind dependent". This means genes and atoms didn't exist until the advent of atomic and genetic theory. This means evolution and abiogenesis could not occur because there was no human being there to witness it. This holds unless you are about tp posit some sort of supernatural force of super-consciousness.



OR equate the qualities to matter instead of mind.