boneyard bill

Primal writes:

It isn't vaccuous. More significantly, it isn't an analogy.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:

Since we don't know what it is, it must be made of matter. Where is the logic in that? We know what we mean by the term matter. We can define it. We know what sentient experience is. If sentient experience were made of matter, why don't we know that? Why doesn't it fit the definition?

boneyard bill

Primal writes:

You've got the analogy reversed. Your argument is a "materialism of the gaps argument." I know what sentient experience is. We all know what it is. There's no mystery here. This is only a "problem" for materialists who insist that nothing exists that isn't reducible to matter or materials processes. Problem is they can't reduce sentient expereince to those things. So they have a "mystery" that has to be solved.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:

That grossly mischaracterizes the argument. In context, the claim is that mind is unexplainable in the materialist model. I claim there's no need to explain it. It's fundamental.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:

Not at all. First of all, I'm not arguing for dualism. In the last post I defended Cartesian dualism as being just as logical as the identity theory, but that is not the position I have been arguing for throughout most of this thread. If you would go back and study the points that have been made so far then I wouldn't have to repeat these points over and over again.

The position I have been arguing for is known as "property dualism" within the philosophical community. However, that is not a good name for it since it doesn't argue for two substances but only that mind and matter are different aspects of a single substance. So I claim that it is really a mind/matter monism.

Secondly, I don't claim that it is self-evidently true. I claim that it accounts for all of the data and materialism does not.

boneyard bill

Primal writes:

If my mind is made of mind i.e. it is fundamental; I don't see where that is a radical new substance. But it is also clear that you didn't even study my response to Mr. Selby very carefully or you would have seen how ridiculous it is to say that the mind is made of matter. I refer to my point about the tree. The image of the tree is in my mind. But the tree, and the image, are roughly twenty feet tall. That simply won't fit inside my brain.

The mind represents the tree to me as being twenty feet tall and located in a certain place. This seems to be something akin to a logical process. But we know of no logical process that can produce sentient experience.

spacer1

boneyard bill,
Is it your position that property dualism is incompatible with materialism?

contracycle

Please explain why you fail to find the explanataions offered unsatisfying. At the moment, all you are arguing is "convince me". That might be briefly entertaining, but why should anyone care about your comprehension difficulties?

What basis do you have for claiming that it is fundamental? Merely becuase it is your stance of perception? Seems to me you are tacitly claiming to be the centre of the world. Animals that believe the world exists for their benefit tend to meet untimley ends, I fear.

Except that this silly analogy has already beend debunked. You have no basis for claiming an image should be 20 feet tall - an image is property of the propagation of light through a medium and image size changes depending on context. secondly, the idea that there needs to be an image in the brain is firstly nonsesnical and secondly unsupported. This argument is, in short, rubbish.

What about... evolution?

spacer1

boneyard bill,

I guess my last question was a little silly, since property dualism (I have since learned) is considered anti-reductionist. I was guessing as to the meaning of property dualism from your description: "that mind and matter are different aspects of a single substance." This is similar to my understanding, except I do not make the additional claim that the mind cannot be reduced to matter.

To begin with, I think it's important to remember that the mind is not an object; it is a continual process. (A process cannot logically exist without time, whereas an object can.) The brain (as well as the body) is the object which causes the process of the mind to occur. Therefore, the mind has no substance.

Since the first-person perspective is only accessible by one individual, it may be considered a reasonable claim that no third-person perspective could ever reduce the mind to the brain (since others don't have access to your mind). However, this is a very restricted and narrow view.

I, like you, think that the first-person perspective is fundamental. However, I also take the existence of the external world and other minds as fundamental. I assume you do, also, or else we wouldn't be having this discussion. The existence of language itself should be ample evidence that the majority of our experiences are extremely similar. I know that you are conscious, just as I am sure that you know I am conscious. I can infer it from your responses, just as I would if we were in the same room. I am as assured that you are conscious and having a first-person experience very similar to my own, as I am that the keyboard I am now typing on is a "real" object.

I am not stuck purely within a first-person perspective and neither are you, despite your philosophical musings to the contrary. Much of your knowledge was taught to you, and accepted by you (including the ability to understand what I am now writing), by accepting and understanding the knowledge of many third-person perspectives throughout history. Therefore, while another person cannot see a mind by looking at a physical brain, there is no doubt that a mind is there, given that the person shows signs of consciousness.

What is the experience of the mind though? This can only be described from the first-person perspective. I have highlighted the problem associated with making such a complete description here. However, I think it more parsimonious to say this is only a limitation of how the mind works, rather than saying that a non-materialist explanation would better describe the facts.

To get back to my original point, I would agree "that mind and matter are different aspects of a single substance," only in relation to the brain. I now realize that your understanding of the sentence is that a single substance must contain both mind and matter. My understanding, however, is subtley different. I would rewrite your statement as: "mind and matter are different perspectives of the brain."

From a third-person perspective you see the grey matter which is the brain. Using brain-scanning technology, we can gain a third-person perspective of the processes of that brain, which is the mind. While the perspective of that mind may differ between the person receiving the scan (first-person) and the scientist looking at the scanned results, it is still one process occurring in one material object.

boneyard bill

Spacer1 writes:

Yes. They are different ontologies and they carry different implications for the whole of science and for our understanding of ourselves and the world.