/sci/ - Science & Math

>why can't materialists refute this argument?
define "consciousness"

>>10822146
defining consciousness is like googling google.
also this:
>According to Nagel, a being is conscious just if there is “something that it is like” to be that creature, i.e., some subjective way the world seems or appears from the creature's mental or experiential point of view. In Nagel's example, bats are conscious because there is something that it is like for a bat to experience its world through its echo-locatory senses, even though we humans from our human point of view can not emphatically understand what such a mode of consciousness is like from the bat's own point of view.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#CreCon

Faulty premises.

>>10822150
explain

>>10822144
>identifying material phenomena identifies what it is like to be the subject, for the subject.
What did he mean by this.
I’m not sure that sentence has any meaning. How can identifying an object correspond to an experience? Can you say that sentence in a different way?

>>10822177
>Reductionists are those who take one theory or phenomenon to be reducible to some other theory or phenomenon. ...The type of reductionism that is currently of most interest in metaphysics and philosophy of mind involves the claim that all sciences are reducible to physics. This is usually taken to entail that all phenomena (including mental phenomena like consciousness) are identical to physical phenomena.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/red-ism/
>Can you say that sentence in a different way?
If the mental (what it is like to be the subject, for the subject) is identical to the physical (e.g. the brain), then identifying that physical phenomenon is necessarily identifies what it is like to be the subject since they're literally the exact same thing.

>>10822207
>If the mental (what it is like to be the subject, for the subject) is identical to the physical (e.g. the brain), then identifying that physical phenomenon is necessarily identifies what it is like to be the subject since they're literally the exact same thing.

brain is not consciousness
brain facilitates consciousness through vaguely understood electrochemical processes
this is like saying cell is sugar breakdown
is this philosofags trying to stay relevant?

>>10822144
Because it's correct but they're too brainlocked to step outside the popsci worldview

>>10822220
You're talking about consciousness as if it's an irreducible phenomenon in its own right, which means you're abandoning reductive materialism as the argument in the OP concludes.
You're not identifying consciousness with a physical phenomenon like we how we identify water with H2O, you're not identifying consciousness as being something more basic than itself.
If you're not reducing consciousness then the argument doesn't apply to you, but you've only opened up new problems for yourself

>>10822207
Your argument assumes the conclusion in premise 2. You haven't identified a reason why, with sufficient understanding of material phenomena occuring in the brain or material phenomena interacting with it, we won't be able to identify "what it's like to be" somebody. The strongest argument against reductive materialism I believe is inductive, which is that phenomena and epiphenomena can generally be reduced to component parts (You can reduce the tide to water and the gravitational effect of the moon for instance) and that nobody has successfully identified components of qualia yet. It has remained essentially ineffable.

>>10822220
the actual process isn't perfectly understood but it's still true that our current understanding of brains and the world in general doesn't seem remotely connected to the existence of conscious experience. if we're defining 'material' as the stuff current scientific knowledge is about then there will have to be a really batshit explanation for how experience is a material

>>10822144
Premise 2 is false and not based on observable phenomena.

>>10822247
>Your argument assumes the conclusion in premise 2.
That's impossible, that would suggest the form of my argument is circular but I can prove it's not since it takes the form of argument known as Modus Tollens (which is a valid argument form and rule of inference):

1. P⊃Q
2. ¬Q
C. ∴¬P

1. If consciousness is reducible to physical phenomena (P), then identifying physical phenomena identifies what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. (Q)
2. Identifying physical phenomena does not identify what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. (¬Q)
C. Consciousness is not reducible to physical phenomena. (¬P)

>we won't be able to identify
You're already admitting premise 2. You realize that you can identify what the physical phenomenon you're reducing consciousness to (e.g. the brain) but simply identifying what the physical phenomenon is fails to identifying what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. If the physical phenomenon and the mental phenomenon were literally the exact same thing then it's impossible for that failure to happen. That's like saying you can identify your hand but you can't identify the five fingered thing attached to your hand: they're the exact same thing so you cannot identify one but fail to identify the other.

>>10822264
Premise 2 is indeed based on observable phenomenon. We can identify the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements when we are describing a subject but this alone fails to identify what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. This is contradictory if consciousness (what it is like) is identical to such basic elements and functions, if A=B then identifying B identifies A. But you're trying to tell me that's not the case, which is logically impossible.

>>10822287
prove it you excluded middle fuck. your proofs suck

>>10822273
That's like saying you can identify your hand but you can't identify the five fingered thing attached to your hand
Oops, meant to say attached to your arm

>>10822287
This would be down to a consciousness that carries alternative meanings to a subject. It would still take down the stimuli, although cluttered with whatever bias it held. The limit to creativity.

>>10822273
I agree with you insofar as I don't think consciousness can be reduced to material phenomena. I don't think you've been at all successful in proving it though.

>>10822293
I already have. Cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind Dr. Daniel Dennett explains the empirical point I'm making right here:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3a2FFoRpzQ
We empirically observe the basic elements of physics and its functions and describe its quantities but this fails to describe the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience. If I were wrong about this then you would be able to introspect for me simply by observing whatever physical phenomenon you're reducing my consciousness to, which we can empirically falsify by noting how we can't do that in everyday life. otherwise nobody could lie about anything and we could read minds so to speak

>>10822320
no your last picture you assfuck math ruining fuckface

>>10822320
So, question, are you an interactionist dualist? A dualist of some other stripe? Panpsychist? Idealist?

>>10822306
I have proven that the argument is indeed valid since it takes the form of Modus Tollens. The conclusion definitely follows logically from the premises, there's no question about that without calling into question the very rules of logic themselves.
The only question is if the premises are true or false. Which premises do you think are false and why?

>>10822155
"consciousness" is an underdefined term. The premises are not even wrong.

>>10822326
You're asking me to prove the law of excluded middle? do you even know what an axiom is?
>>10822328
I'm an idealist

>>10822334
>underdefined
I already went over this here: >>10822148

>>10822320
Just because we cannot do that in every day life does not mean we can't do it in laboratory conditions.

>>10822235
>You're talking about consciousness as if it's an irreducible phenomenon
no clue where did you got that
>You're not identifying consciousness with a physical phenomenon like we how we identify water with H2O
I absolutely do
I just do not identify consciousness with brain in the same way I don't identify water with cups and jugs

>>10822341
Well, I'm also an idealist. My reasoning is quite apart from yours though, firstly the inductive reason I pointed out, which is that so far nobody has identified any material phenomena that can be directly identified with consciousness somehow, but secondly and probably more importantly that any materialist phenomena leaves the hard problem altogether unsolved or attempts to presuppose illusionism which is as far as I'm concerned, wrong prima facie.

>>10822346
We can identify what a phenomenon is in everyday life and in laboratory conditions. The problem with reductive materialism is that we cannot identify consciousness (what it is like) in everyday life or in laboratory conditions by simply identifying physical phenomenon. If they're identical then that's logically impossible.

>>10822348
You're not saying consciousness is the same thing as the brain or electrochemical processes, you're saying such physical phenomenon merely ***facilitates*** consciousness. So the mental phenomenon is not identical to the physical phenomenon, the physical merely facilitates the mental. If they were identical and the exact same thing then there's nothing to facilitate.
>I absolutely do
Then what are you reducing consciousness to? We say that water is just H2O, that water is nothing more than H2O. So for you then it's that consciousness is just....? consciousness is nothing more than...?

>>10822350
>the hard problem
that's essentially what this argument is capitalizing on. Basically I'm pointing out how if reductive materialism were true then there wouldn't be a hard problem of consciousness, but there is a hard problem of consciousness, hence reduce materialism cannot be true. There can't be an explanatory gap between the mental and physical is the mental is identical to the physical, but the fact that there is contradicts the thesis of reductive materialism.

>>10822352
Yes you can. By observing a brain structure and finding the root of the stimuli and finding the output we can trace back what it did to change the initial input. Then apply it to related inputs and see what sticks. This will allow us to essentially hack a persons brain.

>>10822380
Of course the brain is an ever evolving apparatus, thus the modifications of the reading will rely on any changes, gravitational to mechanical, however, it will give VERY close results for the better part of a few months with little to no change under sterile environments.

>>10822380
You're not identifying what it is like to be the subject, for the subject at all with any of this. We're not talking about mere functions of consciousness we're talking about phenomenal consciousness, the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience: what it is like for you to smell a rose, to hear music, to feel sand on your feet. We can look at the brain all day but it doesn't give us that first-person subjective experience

>>10822392
You're essentially pointing out that when we look inside the brain, we don't find a Cartesian theatre, not even in the electrochemical processes, and not even in any emergent properties. Dennett points out in the video you posted that even finding a kind of Cartesian theatre wouldn't even be of any help because it would in and of itself require an explanation, which would eventually collapse into idealism. The only way around the problem is illusionism, which is a nonsense position.

>>10822360
>You're not saying consciousness is the same thing as the brain or electrochemical processes
sure
>you're saying such physical phenomenon merely ***facilitates*** consciousness
I'm saying brain facilitates consciousness, through its internal processes, aided by sensory input.

I'm sorry I just really feel like we are having some sort of miscommunication here. As far as I know reductionism is about explaining complex stuff through breaking it down to its constituent parts, but here we are talking about whether we should just go brain=consciousness
>Then what are you reducing consciousness to?
awareness, thoughts, emotions, etc
>We say that water is just H2O, that water is nothing more than H2O.
I'm not getting it
both H and O have protons and electrons which are supposed to also be composed of a fuckton of even smaller stuff, like quarks, so I don't see where did you want go with that.
maybe my English is just not up to par

>>10822401
Yes that is what I'm pointing out you're almost there, you said something very crucial:
>The only way around the problem is illusionism, which is a nonsense position.
You can see how Dennett realizes physical properties alone doesn't give us mental properties, and since he's a faithful physicalist he must eliminate mental properties to maintain his commitments. But we all know eliminativism is nonsense, it's contradictory to deny the existence of consciousness. This means both reductive materialism and eliminative materialism fail.
I'm not making an argument for idealism in the OP, merely refuting reductive materialism.

>>10822424
A photocopy of a mind will yield that persons brain. This photocopy can be interpreted as thoughts and emotions. Place a virtual reality device and browse a few memories, am I not experiencing as the person has? Perhaps without the aid of adrenaline or cortisol, but I have taken a fraction of his qualia.

>>10822404
>awareness, thoughts, emotions, etc
that's just more mental phenomenon, you're not reducing the mental to something more basic than itself like physical phenomenon.
>miscommunication
Reductionism is about identifying a phenomenon with another, I explained this here: >>10822207
we would say water is nothing more than H2O, water=H2O. We don't say H2O facilitates water, that's nonsense, water simply IS H2O. Same goes for the mental and the physical. If the mental is identical to the physical then they don't facilitate each other since they are actually just the exact same thing.

>>10822444
Yet, H2O can be seen as steam and in space it disperses into hydrogen and oxygen without the weak covalent bonds. Our observation of H2O as water is based simply on what has been convenient, and indeed, facilitated.

>>10822441
I'm not seeing how this is coherent. what's a "photocopy of a mind?"
>am I not experiencing as the person has?
from what little I can make sense of this I'm not seeing how this wouldn't be just you experiencing the world from your own subjective perspective and merely playing a video game that includes some drugs with it. That wouldn't mean you're experiencing the world from their perspective, you're just simulating theirs from your own, which we do in everyday life without any need for virtual reality

Proofs of premise 2?

>>10822452
notice how you don't hold steam to be some irreducible phenomenon, you identify it with hydrogen and oxygen without the weak covalent bonds. You don't do this with consciousness at all, you leave it as a phenomenon in its own right without identifying it as something more fundamental.

>>10822463
see: >>10822320

>>10822467
Yet it is fundamental. I could reduce it further if I wished. To subatomic particles, to energy.

>>10822444
>that's just more mental phenomenon, you're not reducing the mental to something more basic than itself like physical phenomenon.
The fact that you call something "mental" doesn't really erase its physicality.
At the bottom of "thoughts" or emotions" are physical processes we've already touched upon.
If you wanted something like a diagram, I would have to map 100 billion neurons forming 100 trillion synapses and point out which ones fire up when you stroke your cock, or see a fluffy animal, or think about that grill you had a crush on 20 years ago and also fully explain all under the hood stuff going inside of those neurons while they're firing up.
I'm sorry but this is currently fully outside of my ability. Not only mine but everyone else's.
The fact that I cannot, nor wish to explain consciousness as a single "physical phenomenon", because it's clearly a multitude of physical phenomena supported by countless internal and external factors, together creating what you call consciousness, doesn't make it in any way inexplicable, metaphysical, spiritual, supernatural or magical.

>>10822485
>Yet it is fundamental.
consciousness is fundamental? if that's true then it's irreducible.
>I could reduce it further
you haven't reduced it all in the first, you just went from mental to mental, not from mental to physical.
>To subatomic particles, to energy.
you can try but you won't be able to do so without eliminating the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience, which is a contradictory position.

>>10822499
Energy is reducible. If consciousness is fundamentally energy, I have some disturbing news for you.

>there are people who refuse to believe that consciousness is just the byproduct of a network of electrical connections
Anthrocentrists should be shot

>>10822493
>At the BOTTOM of "thoughts" or emotions" are physical processes we've already touched upon.
key word here is bottom. You're an emergentist and a property dualist and don't even know it. You think the brain "gives rise to" consciousness, that thoughts and emotions emerge or arise from physical processes but are not the physical processes themselves. This means you agree with the conclusion of the argument in the OP, you're not reducing the mental to the physical, you're saying the mental emerges from the physical.

>>10822503
Well I have disturbing news for you, if energy is producible as well, then consciousness can be rebuilt in a heartbeat.

>>10822503
good thing consciousness is not fundamentally energy
>>10822505
>still believing in dualism

>>10822509
You little bastard. Hohohohoho.

>>10822513
>meme arrows with no substance
Boyo you sure got me there

>>10822144
There’s no basis for premise 2. Please delete the thread now.

>>10822516
>uses "meme arrows"
>talks shit on meme arrows
wew lad
You're falling into the exact same problems as the other guy, which I already explained if you would just read: >>10822508
the think consciousness is not reducible to the network of electrical connections, you think it's a byproduct of that network. This makes you a dualist of sorts and thus you inherit the problems that come with it like the mind-body problem. Good luck with that one

>>10822513
>good thing consciousness is not fundamentally energy
If reductionist materialism relies on material, and all matter is just mass,
and E = MC^2

Then you are right.
Consciousness is less than matter. It is an element of it.

>>10822517
see: >>10822320

>>10822528
>buzzwords buzzwords buzzwords
Your only mechanism for arguing is shitposting

>>10822529
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
I WON'T BE ABLE TO SLEEP NOW THANKS TO YOU
*HISS*

>>10822529
If reductive materialism were true then consciousness wouldn't be fundamental, but since consciousness is fundamental then reductive materialism is not true. This would mean consciousness is not an element of matter, but rather is foundational to reality and is basic (meaning it can't be explained in terms more fundamental than its own).

>>10822535
wow, the irony of your post is stunning. I gave a valid argument and you hand-waived it as mere buzzwords. you're failing to refute arguments that prove you wrong:
Please explain to me how consciousness being a by-product of this neural network is coheres with the idea that consciousness is nothing more than the neural network. How is this not blatantly contradictory?

>>10822508
>You think the brain "gives rise to" consciousness, that thoughts and emotions emerge or arise from physical processes but are not the physical processes themselves.
what the everloving fuck are you even saying?
I literally finished my post explicitly stating that I don't make any distinction between mental and physical.
Every thought you have. Every decision you make. Every memory you recall - experienced or fabricated - is literally just an aggregate of what you've seen, heard, touched, tasted and smelled and you use those experiences to form thoughts, reinforced or weakened by aping your parents, then peers, then everyone else who happened to catch your fancy and your brain constantly makes associations between different types of the raw data it receives through the sensory input and compares them to your past experiences to take next step.

>>10822531
>Dude just look at every neuron in my brain oh you can’t then magic xD

Worst threads on /sci/

>>10822560
>what the everloving fuck are you even saying?
I quoted you directly stating:
>At the BOTTOM of "thoughts" or emotions" are physical processes we've already touched upon.
If you don't like the implications of your theory don't get mad the guy pointing them out, just get a new theory bro.
>I don't make any distinction between mental and physical.
then you're going to have to explain how it is remotely coherent to identify the physical while failing to identify the mental. I can establish what a brain is but this fails to establish what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. If the mental is the exact same thing as the physical that shouldn't be possible.
>emotional appeal
not an argument

>>10822561
>straw man - the post
nice reddit spacing, newfag

>>10822556
Keep digging your hole deeper retard

>>10822598
>to intelligent to give a rebuttal

>>10822605
A rebuttal to what? Shitposting? Keep replying faggot

>>10822572
>I quoted you directly stating:
you quoted me and then dropped mother of all fallacies
somehow me saying that thoughts and emotions are neurons communicating turned into:
>dude mind is a separate thing from matter
you are fishing for reactions or you need to work on your reading comprehension
>then you're going to have to explain how it is remotely coherent to identify the physical while failing to identify the mental.
I didn't fail to identify a goddamn thing
>I can establish what a brain is but this fails to establish what it is like to be the subject, for the subject.
because that doesn't even make fucking sense for fuck's sake
you can establish what is an internal combustion engine without ever being able to establish what is it like to be exploding gasoline for the gasoline
What the fuck does that even mean?
I gave you a - not to brag or anything - fairly comprehensive breakdown of what happens when you're deciding, thinking in general or recalling a memory in like 3 separate posts, without going into any sort of metaphysical mumbo jumbo and all you got out of that was
>emotional appeal
that's a direct example you fucking scene queen
it's not my business if it shook you, I just wanted to drive a point across

>>10822608
I pointed out a contradiction in your worldview: you're holding that consciousness is a by-product of the neural network while also trying to hold consciousness as nothing more than the neural network itself. You can't have it both ways, you must choose one. if you pick the former then you agree with the conclusion of the OP, if you agree with the latter you've contradicted your statements from earlier.

@10822628
LMFAO

>>10822576
>Muh straw man
>Muh Reddit

“We empirically observe the basic elements of physics and its functions and describe its quantities but this fails to describe the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience. If I were wrong about this then you would be able to introspect for me simply by observing whatever physical phenomenon you're reducing my consciousness to, which we can empirically falsify by noting how we can't do that in everyday life. otherwise nobody could lie about anything and we could read minds so to speak”

There’s no strawman. That’s exactly what you said. I can not observe all of your neurons, or their action potentials, so there is no way for me to know what you’re thinking, you troll.

>>10822627
You said at the bottom of thoughts are physical processes. You're talking about a lower level and higher level, that there is the physical base at the bottom and phenomena like thoughts and ideas arise from that bottom. If ideas and thoughts are simply the exact same thing as the physical then there is no higher level or lower level, there's no "at bottom" there would simply be the physical. You're the one making the distinction between thoughts/ideas and the physical base at the bottom, not me. I'm just the guy pointing it out.
>I didn't fail to identify a goddamn thing
yes you did, you can't identify what it is like to be the subject, for the subject by simply identifying physical phenomenon like the brain.
>because that doesn't even make fucking sense for fuck's sake
then you're admitting reductive materialism doesn't make any sense.
>what is it like to be exploding gasoline for the gasoline
nobody is saying those things are conscious so there is no "what it is like to be exploding gasoline, for the gasoline." I think it's you that needs to work on their reading comprehension.
>fairly comprehensive breakdown
you really didn't, it was just rhetorical dribble really. You didn't explain at all anything regarding phenomenal consciousness and how we can establish what it is like to be the subject, for the subject
>if it shook you
you're the one swearing and getting all emotional right now, if anyone is shook its you

>>10822636
>@10822628
go back to twatter faggot and don't come back until you have an actual rebuttal. in fact, just don't c

>>10822656
Imagine stuttering in a textual format

>>10822648
>That’s exactly what you said.
No it isn't, you even quoted me directly so we can all see for ourselves that's not what I said. I didn't argue that we can't look at every neuron in the brain hence consciousness is not the brain. I argued that if the mental is identical to the physical then identifying the physical necessarily identifies the mental since they're the exact same thing. This isn't the case though, hence reductive materialism is false. I proved how this argument is formally valid here: >>10822273
you cannot deny that my argument is valid without denying the rules of logic...

>>10822657
imagine being such a newfag that you don't even know how to tag another poster

>>10822273
you assert (not Q), but I don't see how that is justified

>>10822674
see: >>10822320

>>10822666
> I argued that if the mental is identical to the physical then identifying the physical necessarily identifies the mental since they're the exact same thing. This isn't the case though

Prove it.

>>10822692
see: >>10822320

>>10822699
Wrong. You don’t identify the material correlates of the mind by looking at people, you dumb troll.

>>10822670
Imagine responding to obvious bait over the course of 10 posts

Sorry I'm late to the party and I don't want to read it all
>identifying material phenomena identifies what it is like to be be the subject for the subject
Obviously not ? It identifies what it is like to be the subject for the observer identifying it.
Of course observing a phenomena is different from being a phenomena.

>>10822235
Emergent phenomena are irreducible and are still physical in nature, but they only emerge from the complex interaction of the parts of a system, but can't be reduced to the way the parts behave individually.
Conceptual systems and other cultural phenomena are emergent social phenomena but in the end they are the result of the complex interactions of physical parts (humans and artifacts). Same with consciousness and neurons/nerves/symbols/subsystems/modules. Looking at an individual neuron won't tell you much about consciousness. Looking at the interactions of neuron systems will get you further, and looking at the interactions of supersystems beyond even closer. That's why they're called complex systems. One can have a materialist POV without being a complete reductionist anon

>>10822701
Of course we don't, and that's because reductive materialism is false. You've only admitting I'm right.
>>10822703
imagine being so desperate for attention that you make bait posts and then actually walk away thinking you're the winner in that exchange

>>10822320
Maybe I'm understanding this wrong but the guy says something along the lines of 'the soul is made of neurons'.
Also, I don't think we can rule out that I could introspect you if I had complete information about the state of every relevant physical characteristic of your brain and your environment, plus the necessary processing power to do anything with it.

>>10822729
>Of course we don't, and that's because reductive materialism is false.
.......no, it’s because the mind is the brain, not your skin and eyeballs and body hair.

>>10822144
1. If a chemical reaction is reducible to material phenomena, then identifying material phenomena identifies what it is like to be a chemical reaction, for the chemical reaction.

2. Identifying material phenomena does not identify what it is like to be a chemical reaction, for the chemical reaction.

Conclusion: Chemical reactions are not reducible to material phenomena.

>>10822714
>irreducible
>physical
you're going to have to choose one. Either it is reducible to the physical or not reducible to the physical. Saying the whole is greater than the sum of its parts is like saying 1+1=3. Emergent phenomenon makes sense when it's 1+1=2, in which 2 is nothing more than 1+1, but when you have this irreducible other on top and get a whole new number like 3 then it's just incoherent.
>One can have a materialist POV without being a complete reductionist anon
I'm well aware, I've specifically noted that this is an argument against reductive materialism. I know there are non-reductive materialists out there and my argument does not apply to them. A separate argument altogether is used to refute non-reductive materialists.

>>10822652
>You said at the bottom of thoughts are physical processes. You're talking about a lower level and higher level, that there is the physical base at the bottom and phenomena like thoughts and ideas arise from that bottom. If ideas and thoughts are simply the exact same thing as the physical then there is no higher level or lower level, there's no "at bottom" there would simply be the physical. You're the one making the distinction between thoughts/ideas and the physical base at the bottom, not me. I'm just the guy pointing it out.

fuck this is tiresome
I was saying this whole time, And I will keep saying that thoughts are electrochemical reactions in the brain.
This is it. This is the why.
The how EXACTLY? way above my fucking pay grade, mate.
That's all I'm saying.
I can give a gist. I did in fact. several times.
you don't give a shit.
>yes you did, you can't identify what it is like to be the subject, for the subject by simply identifying physical phenomenon like the brain.
brain is an object
I'm tired of your shit at this point
I type down what brain does to actually do the thinking stuff and you just go lalalalalalalala and recite the mantra about a fucking physical phenomenon that cannot be identified with mental processes
what the fuck is wrong with you?
>nobody is saying those things are conscious so there is no "what it is like to be exploding gasoline, for the gasoline." I think it's you that needs to work on their reading comprehension.
you have no working concept of what's going on inside the brain and my attempts to illustrate it result in you going fullretard over and over again
>you really didn't, it was just rhetorical dribble really. You didn't explain at all anything regarding phenomenal consciousness and how we can establish what it is like to be the subject, for the subject
>just rhetorical dribble really
holy fuck look who's talking
just re-read that sentence and then kys

>>10822731
>complete
that doesn't make any sense, you're talking about this like its on a spectrum rather than it being binary. A=A, it is not the case that A≠A. Either the mental is identical to the physical or not. Let's look at the definition of the word identical:

Definition of Identical: “Similar in every detail; exactly alike.” Synonymous with: “exactly the same,indistinguishable, undifferentiated.”
Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/identical

It doesn't make any sense for the mental to be indistinguishable from, exactly the same as, and similar in EVERY detail as the material while being able to identify the material but no the mental. If mental=physical then once you've got the physical you've got the mental, but since you realize something isn't quite "complete" then it can't be the case that the mental=physical
>>10822737
>it’s because the mind is the brain
no because if that were true then I could simply read your mind by reading your brain. if they're the exact same thing then it's contradictory to claim I can identify your brain but not your mind.

>>10822743
>what it is like to be a chemical reaction,
nobody is saying chemical reactions are conscious so there is no what it is like to be a chemical reaction. read: >>10822148

>>10822753
>Emergent phenomenon makes sense when it's 1+1=2, in which 2 is nothing more than 1+1
Not at all anon. Complex systems are studied using non-linear dynamics for the dame reason that we are looking at determinist systems in which linearity cannot be assumed/doesn't work for analysis. This is basic complex systems theory.

>>10822771
>thoughts are electrochemical reactions in the brain.
then how is it remotely coherent to hold that identifying what electrochemical reactions are fails to identify what it is like to be the subject, for the subject? If what it is like to be you is nothing more than the electrochemical reactions then all I have to do in order to establish what it is like to be you is to establish what those electrochemical reactions are in the brain. But this isn't the case, we can't read thoughts by reading the brain nor we do get this first-person subjective experience from the subject's point of view.
>you have no working concept of what's going on inside the brain
>The how EXACTLY? way above my fucking pay grade, mate.
oh the irony
>holy fuck look who's talking
me, the guy who is actually giving an argument to support their claims. you must be the other guy

>>10822791
>Not at all anon.
Yes, anon. Look at this face made of legos: there is nothing more to the face than the legos that compose it. The face is not 'over and above' the legos, it's not an irreducible phenomenon that arises from these basic elements we're calling legos. This is a good example of weak emergence (the game of life is another good example). strong emergence is the idea that there is a new phenomenon that is not reducible to the parts and has causal powers as well. this is pure nonsense, it's hardly different than saying 1+1=3

>>10822776
>If mental=physical then once you've got the physical you've got the mental
I can know different amounts of physical.
If you tell me the current firing rate of some of your visual neurons I might be able to tell that you're looking at vertical stripes, but that's about it. The more physical information I gather, the more I can know about the mental. It may be that there is some amount of physical information where I can fully characterize your mentality, which is what I mean by complete.

>>10822819
forgot to post pic

>>10822824
>amounts
you're still talking like this is on a spectrum when this is binary. Either the mental is literally exactly the same thing in every single detail as the physical or it is not. If they're not the same in every single detail then by definition they're not identical. It would be contradictory to claim otherwise.
Don't forget the distinction between the easy problems of consciousness and the hard problem of consciousness. We can make way on the easy problems all day, but that doesn't even scratch the surface on the hard problem

OP here, taking off for awhile. got shit to do

>>10822805
> we can't read thoughts by reading the brain
We're closing in on that, just a matter of technology
>nor we do get this first-person subjective experience from the subject's point of view.
Well of course since external observation is external. To get first-person experience you need to be that first-person.

>>10822852
"Is there really a Hard Problem? Or is what
appears to be the Hard Problem simply the large bag of tricks that constitute
what Chalmers calls the Easy Problems of Consciousness? These all have
mundane explanations, requiring no revolutions in physics, no emergent
novelties. They succumb, with much effort, to the standard methods of cognitive
science."

>>10822805
>then how is it remotely coherent to hold that identifying what electrochemical reactions are fails to identify what it is like to be the subject, for the subject?
I don't see how this is incoherent in any way.
I don't use definition of electricity to describe internal processes of a computer because electricity provides power and acts as a medium to transfer bits of information. There is no inherent property of electricity essential to calculations or rendering of graphics, yet is does exactly that inside of a computer, and yes, I'm comparing brain to a fucking computer because that's literally what it is. Brain is a computer. Mind is a software.
They are both their own things, but you are shit out of luck with one without the other.

Now if you want to argue that computer software isn't a physical thing, be my guest, but I'm fucking out of here if that's the case.
By the way, currently we are already at the point where people who write software can't tell what the fuck is going on with software written by other software. Not because it's magic, but because it's just too fucking much to sift through and fully understand by a human being, even though you can look at any part of it and still be able to fully break it down and explain it.

>But this isn't the case, we can't read thoughts by reading the brain
yet
>nor we do get this first-person subjective experience from the subject's point of view
I would probably need a pound of quality weed to even begin seeing the reasoning behind this horseshit

>>10822144
False premise.

>>10822867
>We're closing in on that, just a matter of technology
you shouldn't even need any technology, it makes no sense that you can establish what something is but you can't establish something that is literally identical to it without the aid of technology. That's contradictory.
>To get first-person experience you need to be that first-person.
that makes no sense, why is consciousness this special phenomenon that we can't access using good old fashioned science? I don't need to be a rock to establish what a rock is. Why do I need to be that subject in order to establish what it is like to be that subject? You're admitting there's an explanatory gap where there should not be one.
>>10822896
What you're talking about is eliminativism and it's contradictory:
>But eliminativism seems much too strong a reaction to the hard problem, one that throws the baby out with the bathwater. ...it is highly counterintuitive to deny that consciousness exists. It seems extremely basic to our conception of minds and persons. A more desirable view would avoid this move.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/#SH3a
>>10822957
>I don't see how this is incoherent in any way.
Either it is the neural network or not the neural network. You can't have both. Get it? If it simply is the neural network then it is not a by-product of it, it is reducible to the network itself. If is a by-product then it is more than the network itself and it thus not reducible to it.
>Brain is a computer. Mind is a software.
proof?
>They are both their own things
how do they interact?
>yet
you're only admitting your theory has been falsified. there shouldn't be any way at all, you should be able to access these thoughts directly just as you access your own directly without any need to wait for some technological advancement to do it for you.
>I would probably need a pound of quality weed to even begin seeing the reasoning behind this horseshit
what do you not understand about first-person subjective experience?

>>10823075
Now YOU are contradicting yourself. The rock is not what is being established. We are establishing the rocks very 'conscience' as you describe it. The active phenomenon requires exact reproduction in order to replicate experience. The very fact this is possible proves that all can be reduced to matter and reproduced as 'qualia'. However, seeing as you are a staunch advocate for this 'idealism' of yours, tell me, what would convince you otherwise. Do I have to make a conscious AI? Do I have to make the stones dance and laugh and play for you? What is it?!

>>10822144
Consciousness isn't even real though.

>>10823100
>We are establishing the rocks very 'conscience' as you describe it.
No, you're getting lost. I brought up the rock merely as an example of establish what something is (identifying a phenomenon). I don't need to be rock to establish what a rock is, I don't ned to be a tree to establish what a tree is, why do I suddenly have to be the subject in order to establish what it is like to be the subject?
>replicate experience.
I don't think we can do that but even if you can cram certain "experiences" into another's mind that doesn't identify what it is like to have that experience. There's a subjective perspective from the first-person: there's what it's like for you to hear beethoven vs. what it's like for me to hear beethoven.
>what would convince you otherwise.
Solve The Hard Problem of Consciousness:
https://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

>>10823107
>I think that I don't think!

>>10823126
Give me a physically impossible thing to do, under the assumption YOU are correct. Solving the problem is trivial.

>>10823075
>Either it is the neural network or not the neural network
are you actually fucking mental?
I've spend 3 hours of my life trying to lay this shit down as simply as I could and you keep harping this nonsense?

>>10823132
>solving the problem is trivial.
prove it by solving it.
>Give me a physically impossible thing to do
try taking a shit without taking a piss, it's impossible bro

>>10823141
Like, in general? One at the time? Throughout a lifetime?

>>10823133
You wanted to know what's incoherent about what you're saying so I broke it down for you. Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to...

>>10823145
one at a time, it's brutal like that

>>10823149
Everyone does it one at the time.

>>10822743
So the hard problem of consciousness don't real because you have asserted that consciousness is a material phenomenon? Good job. You're a real genius.

>>10823107
Speak for yourself, p-zombie.

>>10822867
No, in principle, if you're right, then you don't need to be that person. The color red must be some kind of physical thing that can be replicated outside of an individual mind. There cannot be a difference between external and internet if the mind is a material phenomenon.

>>10823158
No no, he is talking about what it's like for the energy between the molecules to BE a chemical reaction. Again, what I said before, consciousness is energy, and all material is simply energy at the cosmological constant. I will be going now. To take a singular shit. Without pissing myself. Good day sirs.
>>10823149

>>10823146
>You wanted to know what's incoherent about what you're saying so I broke it down for you.
you didn't break down fucking shit.
you threw up a word salad and called it a day.
you've spend hours trying to get me to equate brain with what's going on inside of it, and you did not provide a single fucking reason to do that.
a limb burns sugar with oxygen to contract muscles which produce movement
a brain burns sugar with oxygen to send electrochemical signals between neurons through synapses to produce thoughts
there is no functional difference beyond the complexity of those things
what the fuck are you even trying to establish? That thought is not an object?
it's not
thought is use/manipulation of stored information
information stored physical objects - a cluster of neurons
you are demonstrably unconscious when deprived of all senses and memory. You might as well not fucking exist at that point because you can't even form a thought without any sort of memory linchpin and no way to acquire new ones
I'm thoroughly done with your philosowank

>>10822293
Modus Tollens is constructive

>>10823172
>you didn't break down fucking shit.
I certainly did: either a proposition is true or that proposition's negation is true. Either the mind is the neural network itself or it is not the neural network it self. If it's a by-product OF the network then it's not the network itself. Steam is a by-product of an engine, that doesn't mean steam is the engine...
>get me to equate brain with what's going on inside of it,
This whole time my argument has been phrased in terms of "if...then..." meaning IF you're a reductionist then the argument applies to you. If not then the argument doesn't apply to you. This is why you need to make up your mind. Either you're reducing consciousness or not, you're going to have to choose.
>I'm thoroughly done with your valid arguments and rules of inference!
I'm sure you are

>>10822144
Newton's Flaming Laser Sword. Get fucked.

>>10823420
sounds great till you turn the sword on itself, then it's just contradictory. pic definitely related

>>10822144
Because it's semantical and doesn't contradict materialism.
Also, fuck off to /lit/.

>>10823476
>not a shred of support
just plain ole fuck off in general. i don't care where you go, just go

>>10823471
It is experimentally provable. You need merely to demonstrate that the amount of energy expended on untestable questions before they are solved is vastly greater than experimentally testable ones.

>>10823497
>It is experimentally provable.
Nope, that would be circular reasoning.
Logic and science in general is predicated on various axioms which are themselves not empirical or provable. To conclude them in an argument would require one to hold it as a premise, which is simply begging the question.

>>10822148
There is "something that it is like" to be the chair that you are sitting on, right now: static material existence strained by your fat ass.

>>10822148
>>10823568
HOLY SHIT FUCKING BTFO

>>10823568
>>10823572
wtf I hate logic now

>>10822144
>he can’t into emergence
The 1960s called. They want their philosophy 101 class back.

>>10823612
The argument in the OP is against reductive materialism. If someone wants to affirm a non-reductive materialism that holds consciousness as a strongly emergent phenomenon (usually a property) that is irreducible then they already agree with the conclusion of my argument.
There's other arguments emergence that can be deployed like pic related

>>10823650
arguments against emergence*

>>10822144
There is a "thing in itself" from which conscious, subjective experience arises. Consciousness itself cannot be described in objective terms, but the noumenal, "pure" reality that is free from the filter of perception can be modeled through objective means (all of objectivity is an attempt to model "pure" reality (noumena)). The noumenal world from which consciousness arises (the brain) *can* be modeled and this is as close as we can get to reducing consciousness to "material phenomena" as you put it.

>>10823774
>consciousness arises
proof?
If phenomena is ultimately reducible to noumena then there is no real distinction between phenomena and noumena. If you want to be a non-reductionist and hold a real distinction between the two then you can agree with the conclusion of my argument just fine but you'll open up new problems as noted here: >>10823650

>>10823802
It’s trivially easy to solve. Phenomena has no causal effect on reality.

>>10822144
Materialists should deny the existence of the argument or that arguments have anything other than physical properties.
It's a light field produced by photo-electric elements, not an 'argument' that needs 'refutation'.
By admitting there's an argument they've lost before they've even begun.

>>10823822
>arguments aren’t material

Oh my

>>10823822
>It's a light field produced by photo-electric elements, not an 'argument' that needs 'refutation'.

Excuse me light, can we have a word?

>>10822207
177 here
Isn’t that identical to the following argument?
P: if computer programs are reducible to their hardware, then identifying the hardware identifies program being computed by the hardware
P: identifying the hardware doesn’t identify the program being computed
C: therefore computer programs aren’t reducible to the hardware.

It seems like we just don’t have a sufficient understanding the the material interactions in the brain to be able to deduce the consciousness, just as even the most skilled computer engineer would (i imagine) be unable to reduce the program from the interaction of hardware components)

>>10823819
Wow, an unironic epiphenomenalist. Denying mental causation is far from trivial, it is intuitively obvious that our mental states have an effect on our behavior. I felt a pain hence I moved my hand from the burning stove, had I not felt the pain the hand would remain. There's tons of arguments against epiphenomenalism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/#TraArgBConEpiRes

>>10823855
>Isn’t that identical to the following argument?
Yes it is, and it's a valid argument with true premises so it's a sound argument. Software is not identical to hardware.
>a sufficient understanding
That's logically impossible. Look at the definition of the word identical:

Definition of Identical: “Similar in every detail; exactly alike.” Synonymous with: “exactly the same, indistinguishable, undifferentiated.”
Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/identical

if they're identical then it can't be the case that they are the exact same in every single detail while also not being exactly the same in every single detail. that's a contradiction. Identity is a matter of necessity (A=A) so if identifying the brain fails to identify the mental then by definition they can't be identical. No amount of time can make contradictions less contradictory

>>10823859
>it is intuitively obvious that our mental states have an effect on our behavior.

Intuitive, but perhaps wrong. Such has been the case before.

>I felt a pain hence I moved my hand from the burning stove, had I not felt the pain the hand would remain.

“It is often said that pains cause withdrawals of affected parts of the body. In extreme cases, however — for example in a case of touching a hot stove — it can be observed that the affected part is withdrawn before the pain is felt. These cases cannot show that pain never causes withdrawals, but they do show that pain is not necessary as a cause of withdrawals.”

Why the hell did you use an example your source argued AGAINST?
In less extreme examples, we observe pain-sensing nerve cells sending electrical signals through the peripheral nervous system to the brain, from which more impulses are sent to the limbs to command them to retract from whatever is causing the pain signals to be sent.
Where is the place of the “mental causation”? You are quite literally claiming that we should observe violations of the conservation of energy inside of brains. Particles being affected by something other than their fellow particles. Until I see the interaction problem solved by confirmed measurements of nonmaterial causes affecting the brain, I must be a epiphenomenalist.

>>10823894
https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2112
Not even in extreme cases. Consciousness seems to lag behind decision-making. This study suggests we make decisions before even being conscious of it.

>>10823894
>Such has been the case before.
Granted, but denying mental causation appears to be more contradictory than some mere bullet that is hard to bite.
>Why the hell did you use an example your source argued AGAINST?
this is an encyclopedia entry, it aims at being objective and presenting both sides. just because both sides are presented that doesn't mean one side is not clearly stronger than the other.
This is common example because it is common sense.
>Where is the place of the “mental causation”?
If you start with the distinction that there are two distinct kinds of causes then you have this problem of where the mental fits in since physical effects have physical causes and the physical world is causally closed. You can see how the mental fails to have any causal powers here, but you've artificially created this problem by holding on to this dualism in the first place. If you hold on to a monistic view, which is far more parsimonious than dualism since it doesn't have a bloated ontology with unnecessary epiphenomenal entities, and begin with irreducible consciousness, then all causation is actually mental causation hence there is no issue of competing causes (mental vs physical). David Chalmers notes in the advantages of holding such a position:
>[this view] has strengths stemming from unity and comprehensibility of the fundamental properties, as well as a particularly straightforward story about causal interaction, which comes down to mental-mental interaction in the mind of a single subject. …Overall, I think cosmic idealism is the most promising version of idealism ...It should be on the list of the handful of promising approaches to the mind–body problem.”
Source: Chalmers, David (forthcoming). Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem. In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge.
>the interaction problem
As Chalmers alluded to earlier, an idealist position can dissolve the interaction problem altogether.

>>10823938
>If you start with the distinction that there are two distinct kinds of causes then you have this problem of where the mental fits in since physical effects have physical causes and the physical world is causally closed. You can see how the mental fails to have any causal powers here, but you've artificially created this problem by holding on to this dualism in the first place.

I am only drawing a distinction between two things.
Causes from particles. Photons, molecules of iron, etc.
And causes that are not from particles, whatever the hell that means.
If there are no causes that are not from particles, then materialism could be true, with “mental causes” actually being identical to “material” ones. Epiphenomenalism could also be true, where “mental” phenomena is caused by the material but does not in turn affect the material.
Or idealism could be true. In that case, the material would actually be mental as well, but if such is the case, idealism can not be differentiated from materialism OR epiphenomalism through any method.

Alternatively, we could detect causes in the brain that are NOT from particles.
In that case, idealism or dualism could be true and differentiated from materialism and/or epiphenomenalism.

Show me a study documenting observations of “causes” in the brain from something other than particles. Good luck with that.

>>10823974
>whatever the hell that means.
I'm going to have to press you on this a bit. Epiphenomenalists usually take the mental to be an emergent property that is not reducible to physical properties. This is a form of property dualism that merely holds the mental property to lack causal powers. Would you say this is your formulation as well or do you somehow reduce the mental to the physical?
>implying atomism is true
how do you deal with mereology? how do you answer the special composition question?

>>10823989
>Epiphenomenalists usually take the mental to be an emergent property that is not reducible to physical properties. This is a form of property dualism that merely holds the mental property to lack causal powers. Would you say this is your formulation as well or do you somehow reduce the mental to the physical?

I believe that the material gives rise to the mental in such a way that significant knowledge of whatever qualia is being experienced can be gleaned from observation of the material neural correlates provided sufficient understanding is obtained, and that qualia itself does not have any effect on the material in turn. Interactive dualism seems a bit intuitive but absurd to me when given more than a moment’s thought, as it would imply a consistent, ongoing apparent violation of the conservation of energy in an object as mundane and common as a human brain, and I know of no such experiment that ever observed such. Idealism seems, as you say, “intuitively obvious” to be wrong and absurd, as I find it simply contradictory to call any of my surroundings “mental”. I must put off further judgement until some experiment is performed that confirms or denies the presense of “non particle” causation in the brain, as a falsification would allow us to toss out interactive dualism and some forms of idealism and leave us with epiphenomenalism, materialism, and some forms of idealism.
But if a form of idealism lacking entirely in “non particle” causation is the case, and all that we observe going on in there is particles, apparently now non-material, whatever that’s supposed to mean, bouncing around, how could that ever be differentiated from materialism or epiphenomenalism? Why do we see these “brains” at all and why is there so much apparent activity in them?

>>10824060
So then you wouldn't say you're a property dualist or a non-reductive materialist? is the mental irreducible or is it reducible?
>Idealism seems, as you say, “intuitively obvious” to be wrong and absurd, as I find it simply contradictory to call any of my surroundings “mental”.
You're not pointing out any contradiction here at all, you're just stating that there is one but I'm not seeing one. Dreams are something you experience where all of your surroundings are "mental." You wouldn't call the objects you see in dreams as being actual physical objects, they would just be a mental construct.
>particle causation
why do you insist on putting the parts as prior to the whole? do you not have an answer for the special composition question?
>Why do we see these “brains” at all and why is there so much apparent activity in them?
pic related

>>10823989
>how do you deal with mereology?

I’m not sure what you’re asking. I don’t recall ever using the word “atomism”.

>how do you answer the special composition question?

I’m unsure. I hold that many things generally defined as “things” don’t really exist and are constructions of convenience, and first encountered the topic in biology from arguing about species concepts, and ultimately decided I don’t care and all that matters is that the categories we divide things into are convenient and useful. Am I an eliminativist if I don’t think archipelagos actually exist?

>>10824087
>I’m not sure what you’re asking. I don’t recall ever using the word “atomism”.
You didn't exactly say the word "atomism" but you are clearly formulating an atomistic theory by putting priority on these particles. You could also call this pluralism, a view that holds the parts as prior to the whole. You don't take the whole to be fundamental, you take the particles as fundamental and composing the whole. Mereology is the theory of parthood relations, so I'm wondering how you deal with questions in mereology like how do parts compose a whole.
>Am I an eliminativist if I don’t think archipelagos actually exist?
Where do you draw the line? which composite objects qualify as concrete while the rest merely abstract?

>>10824070
>So then you wouldn't say you're a property dualist or a non-reductive materialist?

I think “neutral monist” is the most accurate term.

>You're not pointing out any contradiction here at all, you're just stating that there is one but I'm not seeing one.

“Mental” is me, you, and a dog. “Mental” is not a stick.

>You wouldn't call the objects you see in dreams as being actual physical objects, they would just be a mental construct.

That’s dreams, which, oddly enough, are correlated with brain activity.

>why do you insist on putting the parts as prior to the whole?

What are you talking about?

>pic related

Why on earth would it do that? Maybe if I think hard enough, I can grow five inches in height.

>>10824109
>I think “neutral monist” is the most accurate term.
There's a few things I could say here but it really depends on your formulation of "neutrality." Do any of these 5 in pic related seem to be what you hold to?
>“Mental” is me, you, and a dog. “Mental” is not a stick.
what about that stick you see in your dream?
>That’s dreams, which, oddly enough, are correlated with brain activity.
indeed they do correlate with brain activity, in ways very similar to waking life in fact... almost as if there isn't much a difference between waking life and dreaming.
>What are you talking about?
particles. you think there are particles that are basic and fundamental, they are what cause most things and you just make room for non-particle causation.
>Why on earth would it do that? Maybe if I think hard enough, I can grow five inches in height.
why would it do what? just because something is mental that doesn't always mean it's volitional, otherwise we'd never have anxiety or nightmares.

philosophy is total bullshit, there is zero truth. Science is truth

>>10824094
>You don't take the whole to be fundamental, you take the particles as fundamental and composing the whole.

Yes, pretty much.

>Where do you draw the line?

It’s pretty arbitrary. I’d say iron exists, and I’d say carbon exists, but would I say steel exists? ...Yes, but somehow less so. If you made a big plate of steel, I’d say that exists, but if you used that as a door, I’d go so far as to say that it ceases to be a door when it’s no longer used as such, and reverts to just being a bit of metal. In the vein of “Is a box a chair if used as one?”.

>>10824126
>philosophy is bullshit!
>fails to realize that is itself a philosophical claim
kek, btw science is built on philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkX3AErRPGQ
>>10824127
>Yes, pretty much.
why? why not take the whole as prior to its parts?
>It’s pretty arbitrary.
I appreciate the honesty but this leaves a big whole in your metaphysics. I have no interest in committing the continuum fallacy so I won't make the exaggerated claim that you're now committed to mereological nihilism (there are no concrete composite objects). However, Sorites paradox does seem to arise here and the nihilist does have a novel way to dissolve this paradox while you will seem to be wrestling with it endlessly as philosophers have for millennia

>>10824123
>Do any of these 5 in pic related seem to be what you hold to?

Very similar position.
https://youtu.be/gUqxRJbIrYI

I advocate for creating a new category known as “stuffism”, in which everything is stuff.

>what about that stick you see in your dream?

In that case, the phenomena of “stick” is not reflected in any external sensory input and is instead constrained to the brain.

>indeed they do correlate with brain activity, in ways very similar to waking life in fact... almost as if there isn't much a difference between waking life and dreaming.

I don’t know about you but I easily differentiate between the two. My dreams are noticeably less detailed than waking life in retrospect, absurd, and are revealed as mere dreams whenever I ask myself in them “Am I dreaming”? After which I obtain some ability to manipulate my environment and quickly wake up from. This trick doesn’t work in real life, very unfortunately. I’ve tried. Didn’t get me out of that cell. Maybe that actually works for someone and that’s where stories of wizards come from.

>particles. you think there are particles that are basic and fundamental, they are what cause most things and you just make room for non-particle causation.

Only because it’s what we observe and it has been well and intensely modeled. Maybe something has effects that isn’t a particle of some kind but I’ve never seen it. Atoms hit eachother, transfer kinetic energy. Heat radiates as photons, impacts other atoms which then absorb the thermal energy, so on and so forth

>why would it do what?

Why do all these creatures have “emergent constructs” of brains? Why’s the brain necessary? Why can’t the “mind” play puppetmaster with the nervous system without having to link it neurologically to a big chunk of meat? How on earth does sex and mitosis work?

>>10824156
>Very similar position.
I'm aware of this video and me, along with other commenters have pointed out, that there really isn't anything neutral about TMM's neutral monism. he's really a physicalist.
>in which everything is stuff.
I'm all up for unique and novel philosophies. how would you describe this "stuff"?
>In that case,
but what's the difference between that case and waking life? there's times people have woken up from a dream and thought they were in "the real world" only to wake up yet again and find out they were still in a dream the whole time.
>in retrospect
while it's happening all that apparent, until later on after you wake up in retrospect. this happens with our memories about waking life in general. I've had dreams that are so vivid and realistic they're like waking life in HD, a lot of people report that when they become lucid in a dream (what you described earlier about being aware you're in the dream and controlling it) that it becomes all the more realistic and vivid.
>This trick doesn’t work in real life, very unfortunately.
because it's your dream. when you "wake up" you don't have as much control because it's not your dream but someone else's. Are you familiar with the movie inception? Think of God as the architect of this dream world we call waking life.
>Only because it’s what we observe and it has been well and intensely modeled
We observe particles surely but that's no reason to place priority on them. though we're used to a kind of pluralistic/atominstic framework in the west it has been noted for thousands of years the paradoxes that arises from such a view (e.g. Sorites paradox).
>Why do all these creatures have “emergent constructs” of brains? Why’s the brain necessary?
The brain is the image of the mind, it is a representation of consciousness.
>Why can’t the “mind” play puppetmaster with the nervous system without having to link it neurologically to a big chunk of meat?
you're thinking of dualism.

>>10824142
>why? why not take the whole as prior to its parts?

I literally can not. It makes no sense to me to discuss anything divisible as being prior to its constituents, primarily because anything that HAS constituents came to be by its constituents coming together over time rather than just appearing from the aether fully formed.

>I appreciate the honesty but this leaves a big whole in your metaphysics.

I keep a distance from such problems because they’re pedantic to me and unhelpful. It makes no difference as long as we know what objects are being discussed.

>However, Sorites paradox does seem to arise here

I could just be a real faggot and assign the term “heap” some definite quantity such as “Any mass of loose debris containing more than 25 distinct objects”. Any mass of loose debris containing less than 25 distinct objects is merely a pile, which ceases to be a pile at a particle quantity of one.

>>10824172
I’m gonna go to sleep now. Thanks for talking to me

>>10823126
>>10823075
>I don't need to be a rock to establish what a rock is.
No, but you need to be a rock to establish what being a rock *is like for the rock*.
Consciousness is nothing special, this applies to any phenomena : you can't "access" something by only observing it. We can observe consciousness in others, we can't experience it, just like we can observe a stone but cannot experience it.

>>10823167
>There cannot be a difference between external and internet if the mind is a material phenomenon.
Of course there can, if fact there must be. It's a basic matter of material situation. You don't observe the same things from two different places, you don't observe the same things through a microscope and a telescope, just like you don't observe the same things from the first person (which materially is your body) and the third (another body).

>>10823870
>Yes it is, and it's a valid argument with true premises so it's a sound argument. Software is not identical to hardware.
I disagree. If someone could analyze all the physical properties of hardware, including the state of all transistors, then they could figure out exactly what the software is like just from that. That's because there is a direct correspondece between the state of the hardware and the software. You can't have exactly identical hardware on two computers but they run different differently. If all the transistors in two computers are in the same state, then they have the same software. The attributes of the software are entirely prdicated on the state of the hardware.

>>10824427
>If someone could analyze all the physical properties of hardware, including the state of all transistors, then they could figure out exactly what the software is like just from that.
what the fuck?

>>10824431
Prove me wrong
Look at pic related. If we know the imputs, connections and logic gates, can we not EASILY identify the outcome, and precisely how it was calculated? If we add more imputs, connections and logic gates, does that stop being the case? Because how a computer "thinks" is literally just pic related, except massively more complex. Why shouldn't we, in principle, be able to analyze it and figure out the software from looking at the hardware? At what level of complexity does this magical extra property you insist on enter the equation? And no, just because I can't actually take a look at my computer hardware and figure out what data I have saved doesn't mean it's physically impossible, it just means it's too complex for me to figure it out. It's a matter of not having sufficient mental resources.

>>10824437
Forgot pic

>>10824437
I can see what you're getting at, but proposing that looking at workings of hardware can actually tell you what kind of software is being run on it at the moment is outrageously wrong.
It's not a question of complexity, it's question of software having practically limitless ways of being written and encoded.
What you will see when looking at processes inside computer parts will give you raw binary calculations and it will give you zero insight on what the fuck is actually being calculated.

>>10822852
>An A press is an A press, you can't say that you've only done half an A press!
That is what you sound like right now.
Modify your mode of thinking, before trying to discuss subjects you don't understand with other people and telling them they can't possibly be correct.

I read through the thread and it seems not much fruitful discussion has been had here. If somebody is stupid enough to think that "arguments are material", or doesn't get
>>10824389
>No, but you need to be a rock to establish what being a rock *is like for the rock*.
it's not worth your time going back and forth with them.

>>10824575
Agreed, just a bunch of idealist claiming ,yet again , that they´ve trumped materialism

>>10822144
1. According to reductive materialism, each person's unique conscious experiences are dependent on specific physical phenomena in the brain.

2. Therefore you cannot experience someone's unique conscious experience without the specific material phenomena of their brain.

3. Identifying these phenomena in their brain does not turn your brain into a copy of theirs

4. Therefore identifying physical phenomena does not give you conscious experience according to reductive materialism.

>>10822144
Consciousness is hard to understand. How would you feel if everybody was solving your issues like you ware fucking stalked popstar? Leave the conciusness alone and accept that it is and it exist.

>>10824544
Yes it does, it's no different than looking at an abacus to see what calculation is being done.

>>10824719
That's a gross oversimplification and still wrong.
Calculations themselves don't represent the output.

>>10824721
Of course they do. Your argument fails.

>>10823870
Sis material equivalence means that outsiders need to be in the same state to recognize the equivalence. elephant A is equivalent to elephant A whether or not the guys standing in front of and behind it agree that they’re looking at the same thing. Your understanding of the meaning of a set of states on a piece of hardware is analogous to this geographical difference in perspective. Since you’ve agreed that the arguments are the same, if you recognize my point above then you would need to recognize that it’s possible for consciousness to be materially equivalent to processes in the brain, and both the experiencer of the consciousness and the observer who understands the state of each cell is experiencing the same consciousness.

>>10822352
You are conflating identifying subjective experience with experiencing subjective experience. If they are the same then P2 is wrong. If they are not the same then P1 is wrong.

>>10824544
>It's not a question of complexity, it's question of software having practically limitless ways of being written and encoded.
So what? The point is that you know what the software is from looking at the hardware (the physical representation of the code in the form of transistor states). It's true that there are many ways to programm the same thing, so inferring code from the programm doesn't work, you're right about that. But that's not the point. The point is that you can deduce the programm from the code.
By analogy, there may also be many ways a brain can be that lead to the same subjective experience, but there is only one way a subjective experience can be as a result of a given brain state.
What you will see when looking at processes inside computer parts will give you raw binary calculations and it will give you zero insight on what the fuck is actually being calculated.
That's only because it's too complex to comprehend for a person. How about this: if there actually is some magic element, when does it occur? Is such an element present in >>10824442?

>>10824811
The second to last line was meant to be a quote.

>>10824731
no u

>>10822352
>The problem with reductive materialism is that we cannot identify consciousness (what it is like) in everyday life or in laboratory conditions by simply identifying physical phenomenon.
There are 2 possible answers to this problem
1. Consciousness isn't entirely the result of brainstates and hence materialism (likely) is wrong
2. We just haven't figured out how to do it
How did you exclude 2 as an answer?

>>10822144
What do you think it is then?
Will I be a ghost when I'm dead or am I just the sum of my conscious parts? You know the conscious stone thing.

>>10824181
>just appearing from the aether fully formed.
then where did the atoms come from? they just appeared from the aether fully formed? If we can conceive of atoms being metaphysically foundational then how come the whole can't be?
>pedantic, unhelpful, makes no difference
I understand mereology isn't as popular as some other topics in philosophy but coherence is still crucial for one's ontology. If your breaks down at that level then it should be discarded.
>25 distinct objects
I'm curious as to how you got that number

>>10824389
>No, but you need to be a rock to establish what being a rock *is like for the rock*.
rocks aren't conscious so there is no "what it is like to be the rock"
>ust like we can observe a stone but cannot experience it.
wut?

>>10824712
>unique conscious experiences
A rock is a rock, right? you wouldn't say you can study this rock that is of the same in type but not the other. Why is consciousness so special if it's reducible to just another physical phenomena? We can study trees without being a tree, we can study rocks without being a rock, why is consciousness this exception if it's just another objective phenomenon like trees and rocks?

>>10824822
see: >>10823870

>>10824768
To identify is to establish what something is. If we can establish what it is like to be the subject then that is the same as having that experience. A virgin can't identify what it is like to really have sex without having sex

>>10825046
Actually I wonder if you're actually onto something here OP. You may have identified a powerful problem, if I have you right, which is that if physical phenomena (and maybe emergent products of physical phenomena) utlimately are consciousness, they by identifying them it would be the same as experiencing life as that person. If we experienced life as that person we wouldn't be experiencing life as ourselves.

>>10822636
Loser brainlet, leave this board.

>>10825063
yes exactly, you see what I'm getting at. If consciousness is reducible to such physical phenomena, meaning it's nothing more than that physical phenomena, then once you've establish what that is then it follows you must have established what it is like to be that subject. It would be the same as experiencing life as that person as you so accurately put it. Reductive materialists try to avoid this intuition but in doing so they end up sounding like they've abandoned reductionism by noting how you can identify a physical phenomena but not what it is like to be the subject, even though they're supposed to be identical.

>>10825109
I thought something along these lines myself when I was much younger, came to a conclusion but wrote nothing down and forgot it. I'm sure that if you follow this there's a fully developed contradiction which rules out materialism altogether. I might have been wrong, though.

>>10825047
That video was absolutely entry tier. I made the thread precisely to get to the next level of dialogue beyond it. You literally crashed the omega point you're supposed to be building.

You are literally brainlets in a universe where there is no physical law placing an upper limit on the size of an emergent self-creating intelligence.

>>10825121
That's cool that you've been thinking critically like that for so long, I wasn't that deep a thinker when I was younger and I'm still working on it now that I'm older. So far this seems to just be an argument against reductive materialism but maybe you're right: perhaps there could be a way to turn this on non-reductive materialists that I haven't noticed yet

OP has BTFO of everyone ITT and has effectively shown that consciousness is NOT reducible to physical phenomena necessarily.

>>10825145

>>10825145
>>10825149
My guys, all that we see is indeed a dream within a dream, and team dream reigns supreme.

>>10825145
>implying op didn't get his ass handed to him multiple times

>>10825152
And you literally cosmic brainlets deleted the thread where I was going to lead you to the next level of emergence where mind can directly imprint itself on matter. You were prepped for awakening and chose universal aneurysm instead.

>>10825109
So, after a lot of shitposting, what are your other views on consciousness (and perhaps the mind)? I think panpsychism (all physical phenomena having an inherent level of consciousness) is the most likely explanation for subjective experience (aka consciousness). Somehow, these subjective experiences exist in different "perspectives", non-physical spaces containing sets of different experiences.

>>10825014
What is it like to experience nothing and have no consciousness?

>>10825166
It's more like people raised objections that just fundamentally misunderstood OP's point and then threw tantrums when they got told so.

>>10825152
>team dream reigns supreme
this, materialists can't compete

>>10825169
I'm an idealist. In more detail I hold to a specific form of idealism in which a single mind is fundamental, with metaphysical explanation dangling downward from this one cosmic mind that subsumes macro minds and the universe. I'm debating as to whether are all ultimately identical to this cosmic subject or are proper parts of this cosmic subject.
I agree with panpsychism in that consciousness is fundamental, but they suffer from what is known as The Combination Problem which I believe to be fatal to panpsychism.
> The problem is that this is very difficult to make sense of: “little” conscious subjects of experience with their micro-experiences coming together to form a “big” conscious subject with its own experiences
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/#CombProb

>>10825197
One starts a materialist, becomes a dualist, and then a panpsychist, finally one becomes an Idealist.

It's the simple question
>How is it that I am "me" and not "you"
No one has ever been able to answer this simple question. And it's likely that no one ever will.

>>10825175
I disagree. OP has just repeatedly asserted that subjective experience isn't the result of brainstates without presenting much evidence besides "durr hurr if you look at a brain you don't instantly know what it's like to be that person."

>>10825035
>A rock is a rock, right? you wouldn't say you can study this rock that is of the same in type but not the other.
The brain you need to study a rock does not depend on which rock you are studying. The brain you need to experience a consciousness does depend on which consciousness you are trying to experience.

>Why is consciousness so special if it's reducible to just another physical phenomena?
It's not special. A rock is different from every other rock even though they are reducible to the same phenomena. One rock is not made into another just because you can understand what they are made of, just as one consciousness does not experience another just because you can understand what they are made of. None of this contradicts reductive materialism, it's just your lack of understanding.

>>10825014
>rocks aren't conscious so there is no "what it is like to be the rock"
Doesn't matter if they are or not. You can't experience what it is like to be something by observing it.

The answer to OP is that subjectivity is a material reality. It consists in being the thing, and it is fundamentally and materially different from not being the thing.
It is materially impossible to get an experience as it is "for the subject" when you're not the subject, like it is materially impossible to see the same thing from two different viewpoints.
The first premise is wrong.

>>10825209
Chalmers said that in a recent paper of his called "Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem." He just might move from panpsychism to idealism before he passes

>>10825221
I'm paraphrasing him actually.

>>10825046
>If we can establish what it is like to be the subject then that is the same as having that experience.
No it's not. I can identify what it's like to look at a room from a different vantage point via physics, it's incredibly simple. But I can't experience what it's like to be in that vantage point without the unique sensory inputs from that vantage point going through my brain. When something is reductive to certain phenomena that means it's also dependent on them.

sound like a whole fucking lot of nobody cares

>>10825197
Hmm, idealism is a pretty radical view and most of the normies ITT would just outright discard it. I'm sceptic of it myself too, because it somehow seems like a less intuitive and straightforward explanation than some form of dualism.

>> The problem is that this is very difficult to make sense of: “little” conscious subjects of experience with their micro-experiences coming together to form a “big” conscious subject with its own experiences
Thanks for raising that point and the link, but I have to ask - isn't emergence able to explain this rather straightforwardly? Little conscious subjects would get merged into a larger emergent subject when they're "close", same as what happens with atoms and our bodies.

>>10825210
Different perspectives, different sets of experiences (including memories and personality). Don't ask me what exactly a perspective is though.

>>10825217
You're implying a sort of dualism in which consciousness is somehow distinct from the phenomenon you're reducing consciousness to. If consciousness is literally identical to the brain, meaning they're exactly the same in every detail, then how does it make sense to claim you can establish what the brain is but you can't establish what it is like to be the subject? they're supposed to be the exact same thing, exactly the same in every detail. that's like saying you can identify your hand but you can't identify the five fingered thing attached to your arm: they're identical.
>It's not special.
well there you have it, you shouldn't need to be in this privileged position to simply identify it then. You can identify a rock without being a rock, so it should be possible to identify what it is like to be the subject without being that subject.

>>10825210
>>How is it that I am "me" and not "you"
>No one has ever been able to answer this simple question.
You just don't accept the simple answer : because you and me are different pieces of matter.

>>10825238
>You can identify a rock without being a rock
Yes, but you can't identify what it is like to be a rock without being a rock.

>>10825220
>>10825226
I should have tagged in this reply since my answer is essentially the same here: >>10825238

>>10825139
>>10825168
Nevermind I managed to save state. The next level of dialogue is unlocked on a video related to that one.

>http://youtu.be/iFEBOGLjuq4

Get psychic.

>>10825250
there is no "what it is like to be a rock"
a creature is conscious if there is something it is like to be that creature, rocks aren't a conscious creature

>>10825221
I hope not, because I'm still "stuck" in panpsychism and don't quite see a way to "move up" to idealism just yet. Still pretty skeptical of idealism. To me it just feels like a step too far. Panpsychism seems strange enough on its face, but not if you think about for a while/have enough information where it just sort of comes together.

>>10825210
We'd have been able to answer it if you'd left my thread up and allowed actual scientific dialogue to emerge.

>>10825250
You're agreeing with OP in one sentence and disagreeing in the next. It doesn't make sense. Either you can objectively (from the outside) find out what being a rock is like (materialism), or you can't (materialism debunked).

>>10825259
Doesn't matter if they are conscious or not. Before that comes into question, you can't experience what it is like to be something by observing it.

>>10825245
That skirts what the question is really about. I was like you once: not understanding the question.

>>10825271
Well, what excites (and terrifies) most about non-materialist ideologies is the potential technological implications. If space and time at least as we presently experience them are projections, something like time travel isn't ruled out. Not that I'm optimistic any such technology will be developed in my lifetime.

>>10825267
I only wrote one sentence in that post.
You can't find out what being something is like without being that thing, for the same reason you can't see the same thing from two different places. Viewpoints are material reality.

>>10825245
Your "answer" doesn't explain how it's possible for two conscious entities to merge into one (end be split apart). It doesn't explain how it's possible for "lesser" consciousnesses to merge into one single "higher" consciousness, which is what a human brain in fact is. It doesn't explain why "me" and "you" are consciousness "wells", like gravity wells, separated by areas of lesser consciousness. It doesn't explain anything at all.

>>10825281
Time travel as such is already possible on the quantum scale.

>>10825297
That was just an experiment on a quantum computer. Let me know when they've found a way to skip back the clock weeks, months, or years.

>>10825230
Defenders of idealism like George Berkeley defended the view on the grounds of common sense and more contemporary authors argue for it on the grounds of parsimony and it's ability to dissolve problems that have constantly plagued mainstream alternatives like dualism and materialism.
Materialism has the hard problem of consciousness.
Dualism has the mind-body problem.
Panpsychism has the combination problem.
Idealism has none of these problems and preserve the reality, irreducibility, and causal efficacy of consciousness. It gives us the muscle of these other views but without the fat.
>isn't emergence able to explain this rather straightforwardly?
Not quite, material constitution is problematic in itself though a bit easier to grasp for most people. But subject's summing to form another one is not as easy to grasp. Subject's have a perspective that is phenomenally bound, you can have 2 subjects but that's just 2 phenomenal spheres so to speak. Put them as "close" as you want but there's still just 2, you don't get a 3rd perspective out of nowhere.

>>10825294
But the experience of being a thing isn't objective. It only exists in a specific (non-material) viewpoint and can't be accessed from the outside or examined objectively or physically. Thus, it's not objective or material.

>>10825271
I understand. You get stuck because you started with the idea that "me" is not an activity of your body.

>>10825295
There's nothing to explain, it's all in plain sight. Consciousness is an activity of an organism, it can coordinate with another one because they can exchange information, like neurons do.

>>10825310
> It only exists in a specific (non-material) viewpoint. Thus, it's not material.
Way to put your conclusion as a premise.
The reality is that it only exists in a specific material viewpoint : the organism in question.

>>10825314
>Consciousness is an activity of an organism
how do you solve the hard problem of consciousness?

>>10825300
That would probably require an ability to manipulate the laws of physics. As much as I'd like to be optimistic about our future prospects (we'd absolutely have to gain this ability if we're to survive a universe-ending cataclysm) I just can't imagine how entities that are governed by the laws of physics could manipulate them. You'd have to find some sort of "back door" through which you could gain entry to what makes the laws of physics be what they are. But that seems to necessitate being somehow "outside" of physics, which we are obviously not. Despite our having this apparently mysterious consciousness component, our physical bodies are still governed by the laws of physics we seek to circumvent. "We", our consciousnesses, are still just "along for the ride" so to say. We only have the illusion of control. Never mind that what most think of as "free will" itself might be a big sham. But that's another topic.

>>10825325
Would you say there's no mental causation?
Just to be clear, this isn't the same as asking if there is free will, even if there is no free will that doesn't mean minds aren't causing anything per se.

>>10825314
All activity must necessarily stand apart from the awareness OF the activity, which is a better definition of consciousness.

>>10825321
>hard problem
>how something feels

spat my fucking coffee

>>10825333
Causation is also a minefield. I don't really want to get into a (potentially endless) discussion of either causation or free will. Consciousness alone is a tricky enough subject on its own.

>>10825338

>>10825308
I always rather take the pessimistic stance on what I can't know for sure, and idealism always has sounded "a little too good to be true" IMO. What I'm trying to say, there clearly are very rigid external rules we operate operate under in the "real world", and there are other entities who seems so very different from ourselves. If this all wasn't the result of a weird physical world that is shared between all of its actors, how did these rules come to be so rigid and why can't I feel any connection to other parts of the world? This is basically my only argument against idealism, but it does seem to make intuitive sense.

I think emergence *should* be able to explain how panpsychism works - if two physical subjects are close, they could get merged into a combined "field" of consciousness, similarly to how electric and magnetic fields work. A sufficiently complex field would correlate to something like human consciousness. That still raises questions, like what a consciousness field would look like, how close its parts need to be to interact, and whatever else.

>>10825314
>Consciousness is an activity of an organism
That's just absolutely laughable. This is what a fourteen year old might believe, as I did when I was fourteen.

>>10825318
If the organism in question is the viewpoint, where inside it can I find the experiences it contains so that I can physically examine them and know what they feel like?

>>10825294
>you can't have two eyes

What the fuck?

>>10825238
>You're implying a sort of dualism in which consciousness is somehow distinct from the phenomenon you're reducing consciousness to.
No I'm not. You're ignoring that reductive materialism doesn't say everything is the same just because they are reducible to the same thing. Different arrangements of the same matter have different properties.

>If consciousness is literally identical to the brain, meaning they're exactly the same in every detail, then how does it make sense to claim you can establish what the brain is but you can't establish what it is like to be the subject?
If "establishing what it's like to be the subject" is an abstraction that all brains can perform then P2 is false. If it means experiencing a subjective consciousness, which is dependent on having a specific arrangement of matter in the brain, then P1 is false. Pick one interpretation and stick to it. Your argument is akin to the following:

1. All bats are animals
2. Some wooden objects are bats
3. Therefore some wooden objects are animals

>>10825352
It's all a minefield. Truth, knowledge, reality, it's all an intellectual free fall. I just wanted to make sure I understood the post I was responding to. It sounds like you're an epiphenomenalist, that the mental has no causal powers, but maybe you're not. Just curious really

>>10825325
>which we are obviously not
[citation]

>>10825360
I mean you could say that this is like Hilary Putnam's "the soul of an ax is to cut." You could say that the main activity of the human brain is the production of consciousness. Consciousness being just the activity of the sensation of stimuli. This still seems incomplete. What accounts for the sensing? To reply, "it's neurons firing" isn't enough. The firing neurons are "borrowing" something from the world. Something that is not inherent in the neurons themselves, nor in the activity of firing that they perform.

>>10825365
In short, yes.

>>10825380
Hmm. Good point.

Every time I read one of these threads I come away from it with my head spinning. It's all so strange

>>10825364
Not him but what's your point? How is P2 false? How is P1 false?

>>10825359
>I always rather take the pessimistic stance on what I can't know for sure
Then it sounds like idealism would right at home with you. The materialist and dualist often posits a reality distinct from our perception which always brings us into skeptical scenarios like the matrix where people end up asking "am I in the real world???". Well with idealism that's not an issue, perception is reality so we don't posit this unknown mystery world that is allegedly outside of perception.
>how did these rules come to be so rigid and why can't I feel any connection to other parts of the world?
Ever seen the movie Inception? Think of God as the architect of this dream world. There is a single mind that grounds the universe and we are all like the characters you perceive in your dreams: they're a part of your mind (or are identical to your mind, depending on how you frame this) and are subsumed within your mind and when you're lucid you can control the dream and structure it any way you desire. The cosmic dreamer that has structured what we call waking life has ordered the universe the way that it is and is our creator.
>I think emergence *should* be able to explain how panpsychism works
I'm not seeing how. panpsychism has the advantage over the strong emergentist who thinks consciousness arises from non-consciousness since they just hold consciousness to be fundamental. But I'm not seeing how a similar problem doesn't arise when it comes to subjects in particular. If consciousness cannot be explained in terms more fundamental than itself so we take it to be fundamental, then how is this not the case with macro subjects since we don't explain human subjects in terms of micro subjects that combine to make us somehow

>>10823509
I'm unconcerned with any of that. There is undoubtedly more utility is explored testable questions than untestable ones, as demonstrated by this thread and the history of philosophy as a whole for the last several hundred years. NFLS doesn't need to be internally consistent, it only needs to bear out in reality.

>>10825364
>No I'm not.
well then once you've established what that physical phenomenon is then you have necessarily identified what it is like to be the subject since they are exactly the same in every detail. You said yourself there is no dualism here. You can't get around this by making any distinctions without lapsing into dualism and thus contradicting your reductive materialism.
>dependent on having a specific arrangement of matter in the brain
why is it that I can establish what a rock is without having to be that rock but in order to establish what it is like to be the subject I must be that subject? Conscious subjects shouldn't be treated any differently than rocks, trees, particles, etc. We don't need to be in some special privilege position to establish what they are but to establish what it is like we do? How is this not an abandonment of reductionism?
>Your argument is akin to the following
That is indeed a valid argument but you're just accusing me of equivocation when I've made my terms quite clear. See: >>10822148

>>10825407
I already explained. If "identifying what it's like to be the subject" means an abstract understanding then any brain can obtain it and P2 is false. If it means a unique conscious experience then this requires that you have the unique material arrangement of matter present in the brain of the subject that produces it, so P1 is false since having an abstract understanding does not change your brain into the subject's brain. OP's argument rests on the conflation of these two things.

>>10825408
>Well with idealism that's not an issue, perception is reality so we don't posit this unknown mystery world that is allegedly outside of perception.
Well, in this area I strongly agree with you. Experience is everything, it's the "real world" (the solipsist world view). The question between panpsychism and idealism is, is there an objective world behind our experiences? Or is experience all there is? I still think the former is more probable, due to the strictness of the rules I have to play by in the "canonical waking world" I spend most of my time in.
>Ever seen the movie Inception? Think of God as the architect of this dream world. There is a single mind that grounds the universe and we are all like the characters you perceive in your dreams
But would it be reasonable to assume that we'd be conscious in this scenario? I doubt the characters in my dreams are conscious.
>But I'm not seeing how a similar problem doesn't arise when it comes to subjects in particular. If consciousness cannot be explained in terms more fundamental than itself so we take it to be fundamental, then how is this not the case with macro subjects since we don't explain human subjects in terms of micro subjects that combine to make us somehow
I'm not 100 % sure I understood correctly, do you mean something like why don't multiple humans combine into one larger consciousness? To this I have no definitive answer - maybe they do, but we merely experience a small part of it. Or maybe the physical separation between brains keeps the "consciousness fields" of different humans from interacting. Either way, the key is that the combination happens according to physical rules, but the end results exists on the subjective plane somehow, that's why it's hard if not impossible to be the subject and examine the parts that make you up, since they exist on a different plane and you're only the sum of them.

>>10825430
>this requires that you have the unique material arrangement of matter present in the brain of the subject that produces it
There's that dualism again. Apparently there's a you that has a body, as if you and the body are not the same thing. Apparently there's a distinction between the brain and the subject, and as long as matter can be arrange the same as "yours" then they would be "you" essentially.

>>10825428
>well then once you've established what that physical phenomenon is then you have necessarily identified what it is like to be the subject since they are exactly the same in every detail.
Then P2 is false. You refuse to define what you're talking about because it directly leads to your argument failing.

>You can't get around this by making any distinctions without lapsing into dualism and thus contradicting your reductive materialism.
Reductive materialism directly implies the distinction, since different brains are dependent on different phenomena.

>why is it that I can establish what a rock is without having to be that rock but in order to establish what it is like to be the subject I must be that subject?
I already explained this. A rock is not dependent on a specific brain, consciousnes is. You keep ignoring this.

>Conscious subjects shouldn't be treated any differently than rocks, trees, particles, etc.
They aren't treated differently in general. If you were taking about what a rock depends on then the discussion would be the same. But you're talking about what consciousnes depends on.

>We don't need to be in some special privilege position to establish what they are but to establish what it is like we do?
We need to be in a special position to be a rock. Again, clarify whether you are taking about an abstraction or an experience, and then we can talk.

>That is indeed a valid argument
No, it's invalid since P1 and P2 have no connection to each other. P3 does not follow since they are talking about two different things.

>you're just accusing me of equivocation when I've made my terms quite clear. See: >>10822148 #
That says the definition of consciousness is what I'm asking you to define. It doesn't define what I'm asking you to define.

Either subjective experience is an abstraction available to all brains or it is dependent on a specific brain. Choose one.

>>10825334
>All activity must necessarily stand apart from the awareness OF the activity
No it mustn't.
>>10825362
>where inside it can I find the experiences it contains so that I can physically examine them
In the nervous system.
>and know what they feel like
That you can't, because that means experiencing things with a different body than yours, which is materially impossible, since your body is what allows you to experience things and can't be exchanged.

>>10825363
Are you implying that your two eyes see the same thing ? We developped two eyes specifically because two give us more information than what one would.

>>10825474
>Then P2 is false.
P2 means that you can take apart a physical object and experience its consciousness by examining it. You can't do that, so P2 isn't false. QED

>>10825450
>is there an objective world behind our experiences?
exactly, and as we can see here it is clearly the panpsychist that is saying there is this transcendent noumenal world that can't know for sure, which is ironically precisely what you stated you have a pessimistic stance on. By your own pessimism the idealist has the high ground. The idealist sticks to what is known, the panpsychist is like the dualist in going beyond this in a supernatural fashion.
>the rules
as I've noted earlier, idealism can account for these "rules" quite well with a single mind as being fundamental.
>But would it be reasonable to assume that we'd be conscious in this scenario?
of course: I think, therefore I am.
>I doubt the characters in my dreams are conscious.
you'd be surprised. researchers have tested the cognitive abilities of dream characters with some surprising results:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2717365
>I'm not 100 % sure I understood correctly,
This author explains this much better than I could:
http://consc.net/event/reef/colemancombination.pdf
what I'm getting at is just as how we both (idealist and panpsychist) do not reduce consciousness to something more fundamental than itself, so it is with macro subjects. We don't talk about minds in terms of atoms, just like how we don't talk about macro minds in terms of micro minds.

>>10825453
>Apparently there's a you that has a body, as if you and the body are not the same thing.
Nothing I said implied that.

>Apparently there's a distinction between the brain and the subject, and as long as matter can be arrange the same as "yours" then they would be "you" essentially.
The brain is a part of the subject, having the same phenomena in the brain that consciousness reduces to means you experience that consciousness. Nothing you said actually replies to my post.

>>10825478
>In the nervous system.
Where in the nervous system can I find an experience? What's its color?
>That you can't, because that means experiencing things with a different body than yours
Why can't I do this as an outside observer like examining conductivity for example? Is it possibly because experience isn't objective (physical)?

>>10825479
>P2 means that you can take apart a physical object and experience its consciousness by examining it.
No that's what P1 says.

>You can't do that, so P2 isn't false.
If you can't then P1 is false. QED.

>>10825006
>then where did the atoms come from? they just appeared from the aether fully formed? If we can conceive of atoms being metaphysically foundational then how come the whole can't be?

They’re not! Atoms are themselves composed of the subatomic particles neutrons, protons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are further reductible into quarks, while electrons are elementary or genuinely “fundamental”. Atoms are merely these particles arranged into an “iron-ish” form of an”hydrogen-ish” form. There’s more to particles than mere atoms. As they said, it’s a “particle zoo”.

>I understand mereology isn't as popular as some other topics in philosophy but coherence is still crucial for one's ontology. If your breaks down at that level then it should be discarded.

I have no idea why you think I have to use some predetermined system, none of which I like.

>I'm curious as to how you got that number

Made it up on the spot. I might also suggest a definition based on volume. We can hold a vote on it or something.

>>10825474
>Then P2 is false.
how? you're just declaring that to be the case. i defined my terms and included a citation from the very beginning right here: >>10822148
>since different brains are dependent on different phenomena.
Since that phenomena is reducible then there's no reason to need to be in this magical special privileged position, you should be able to identify what it is like from a scientific perspective just as you could identify what a rock is. There's no dualism, remember? You're trying to hold there's nothing special about consciousness, you're supposed to be reducing it, not keeping it as a fundamental entity in its own right.
>You keep ignoring this.
the irony
>They aren't treated differently in general.
you're treating them differently right now. you can reduce the rock to terms more fundamental than itself with micro-level entities and so forth. You're failing to do this with consciousness.
>We need to be in a special position to be a rock
so you admit we don't need to be a rock to identify what it is. so why is this magically the case when it comes to identifying what it is like to be the subject? don't forget you're supposed to be a non-dualist and a reductionist here...
>No, it's invalid since P1 and P2 have no connection to each other
do you even know what a valid argument is?
>Choose one.
I've made neither of these claims so I don't have to choose either one, both of these things you're saying here sound like total nonsense

>>10825485
except for that direct quote I cited from you which you clearly talk as if there's a you that has a body. if you are the body then you don't have a body, you=the body... If you have an arrangement of matter then that implies there's "you" and the "arrangement of matter" that composes you.
>The brain is a part of the subject
so then you're not reducing the subject to the brain, you're not a reductionist after all. you're talking about a dualism in which there's a mental and non-mental component.

>>10825486
>Where in the nervous system can I find an experience? What's its color?
All over it. It's made of chemicals and electric charges, dunno what color they are.
>Why can't I do this as an outside observer like examining conductivity for example? Is it possibly because experience isn't objective (physical)?
You can't do this because it is bodies that experience, and to experience as another body you need another body, like you would need to be at a particular viewpoint to see from this particular viewpoint.

>>10825492
>Atoms are themselves composed of the subatomic particles neutrons, protons, and electrons
You misunderstood what I meant by the word "atom." I'm talking about these particles that you're saying compose everything and are the ultimate simples that make up reality. You're failing to realize how you fall into infinite regress because now we have to account for where these protons and electrons and whatever other tinier particles you want to posit came from. If you end the regress by holding them as foundational then I don't see how we can't just take the whole to be foundational.
>none of which I like.
quite frankly it doesn't matter what you like, what matters is what's true. If your ontology is contradictory then it needs to be discarded just like any other contradictory concept, no special pleading.

>>10825484
I'll have to read the papers some time tomorrow. But either way, like you were implying the two viewpoints are somewhat related - in the end it doesn't really even matter which one is true, since it won't make a practical difference to us personally - "reality" will still work the same way and we'll still have a similar model of what consciousness is, even if we disagreed about the entity that facilitates it.

It's been nice, thanks

>>10825508
>All over it.
This isn't really specific. If experience was purely physical, I'd be able to find it and know everything about it by examining it. This isn't true, however, since I can't know what it feels like to be a bat just by looking into its brain. So, experience is necessarily something else than just the physical brain.
>You can't do this because it is bodies that experience, and to experience as another body you need another body, like you would need to be at a particular viewpoint to see from this particular viewpoint.
What you're saying that experience is non-physical and has a subjective non-physical viewpoint.

>>10825514
I'm not so sure it makes no difference, idealism, or at least my formulation of it, seems to have more theistic implications which panpsychists can resist. But we really do have much in common, we both take consciousness to be a real phenomenon in its own right and take it to be fundamental. This gives us a huge advantage over mainstream views like materialism and I'm happy to consider panpsychists as more an ally than a rival in this department.

It's been nice as well, cheers.

>>10825513
>You misunderstood what I meant by the word "atom." I'm talking about these particles that you're saying compose everything and are the ultimate simples that make up reality.

Then we’re talking about fundamental particles only. A few could possibly break down into more particles, ie preon hypothesis, but there’s no evidence of this, and it’s not relevant where the matroishka dolls end as long as they do end.
There could also conceivably be an infinite regress, and there’s no problem with that logically, but there is physically, as we’d soon be talking about constituents that are sub-Planck length in scale or somehow bigger than what they make up.

>If you end the regress by holding them as foundational then I don't see how we can't just take the whole to be foundational.

You can if you want but I can’t hold things that have constituents to be foundational. Sounds like a contradiction to me.

>quite frankly it doesn't matter what you like, what matters is what's true.

It’s meaningless to assert any position as true, as there is no way to verify or falsify any of them.

>If your ontology is contradictory

No contradiction exists.

Anyway, how could idealism that lacks ongoing magic in the brain be differentiated from epiphenomenalism or materialism again?

>>10822144
why can't feminists refute this argument?
>>10822148
consciousness=Duat=the Devil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duat

>>10822144
>philosophy in charge of trying to find truth.
dont even need to look at the argument. you just know its cringe and bullshit by default, just like descartes trying to proof god by looking at hills
give me an single example of a philosopher discovering a non trivial truth about our universe using formal logic

>>10825588
>things that have constituents to be foundational.
I'm not, I'm talking about the constituents themselves, the parts. If the parts are foundational and that's coherent, then I don't see how the whole being foundational is incoherent. The whole can be simple and not made up of parts but rather de-composes into those little parts and particles. so the whole is prior to the parts. An infinite regress sounds far more incoherent than something like metaphysical foundationalism.
>It’s meaningless to assert any position as true
is that true?
>No contradiction exists.
depending on your mereology there just might be.
>differentiated from epiphenomenalism or materialism
Idealism preserves the reality, irreducibility, and causal efficacy of consciousness while materialism and epiphenomenalism does not.

>>10825611
>tfw science is built on philosophy
it's good to be king

>>10825626
>I'm not, I'm talking about the constituents themselves, the parts. If the parts are foundational and that's coherent, then I don't see how the whole being foundational is incoherent.

The parts are, but not whatever they make up. That structure only exists as long as it’s constituents are held into that form.

Foundational:
the basis or groundwork of anything:
the moral foundation of both society and religion.
the natural or prepared ground or base on which some structure rests.
the lowest division of a building, wall, or the like, usually of masonry and partly or wholly below the surface of the ground.

>The whole can be simple and not made up of parts but rather de-composes into those little parts and particles. so the whole is prior to the parts.

When the Hell has that ever happened? I sure didn’t teleport into reality with all of my cells fully formed.

>An infinite regress sounds far more incoherent than something like metaphysical foundationalism.

An infinite regress is perfectly coherent. A series can have as many terms as you like.

>is that true?

Yes, because I’m referring to positions on mereology, not positions on anything. Whatever position you take on it can’t be proven to be any more “true” or “real” than any other, and breaks down to the same differences in mere preference as ice cream flavors.

>depending on your mereology there just might be.

Not coherently possible, as different entities aren’t identical to other entities, so differences in classification can exist without contradiction. Even if a position on classification of the same entity or class of entity were to change, this would be a change in mereology rather than a contradiction within it.

>>10825626
>Idealism preserves the reality, irreducibility, and causal efficacy of consciousness while materialism and epiphenomenalism does not.

Why on earth does that matter? Why should we assume consciousness has any causal effect on the world? Why should we assume it’s irreducible? Neither materialism nor epiphenomenalism suggests it isn’t “real”. Bizarrely, you create a position IDENTICAL to reductible materialism >>10824172
here with your little picture. If the mind IS the brain, how is the mind NOT reductible to apparent brain behavior? To you, they are homologous, just as a reductible materialist supposedly believes. Identifying brain states IS identifying mental states if idealistic monism is true. What the Hell?

>>10825653
>The parts are, but not whatever they make up
right that's what I was getting at. I'm noting that if parts can be conceived of as foundational then it's possible to conceive the whole as foundational too.
>When the Hell has that ever happened?
the universe itself. see:
Monism: The Priority of the Whole
LINK: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ff0f/4e110da053d4ca1a2bacff43b42bb14ebdd3.pdf
>An infinite regress is perfectly coherent
not really. Without a foundation (“a ground of being”) then being would be infinitely deferred and thus never achieved.
>Yes
sounds rather contradictory to claim we can't claim anything to be true but then to go on to claim that is itself true... it's incoherent to claim "It’s meaningless to assert any position as true"
>mere preference as ice cream flavors.
I think you can make proof, but let's assume you can't: you can still argue that one position has more theoretical virtues than the other by noting how one is more parsimonious than other and has more explanatory power and so forth. A simpler explanation that can account the same, if not more, than its competitors should be favored among the alternatives.
>as different entities aren’t identical to other entities
you're going to have to give an answer to the special composition in a bit more detail if we're going to draw the line between what counts as a "different entity"

>>10825678
>Why on earth does that matter?
because consciousness really does exist, is irreducible, and has causal powers. any theory which fails to cohere with this truth needs to be discarded since contradictions can't be true. We're not assuming consciousness is irreducible and has causal powers, we know consciousness is irreducible and has causal powers.
>Why should we assume it’s irreducible?
I gave an argument to believe consciousness is irreducible in the OP
>Neither materialism nor epiphenomenalism suggests it isn’t “real”.
Eliminative materialism does, and Occam's Razor threatens the existence of the mental in epiphenomenalism since epiphenomal entities can be seen as unnecessary given they have no causal role to play anyway.
>Bizarrely, you create a position IDENTICAL to reductible materialism
I don't think you know what the word "identical" means. Yes I'm a reductionist in a sense, but I go the other direction: instead of reducing the mental to the physical, I reduce the physical to the mental. There's a BIG difference there.
>Identifying brain states IS identifying mental states if idealistic monism is true.
Nope, that's if reductive materialism is true. You need to go the other direction: identifying mental states identifies brain states, and this is made all the clearer with the neural correlates of consciousness. The correlates do not suggest brain causes mind, it suggests mental states are reflected in brain states

>>10825715
>is irreducible, and has causal powers
"no"
fuck off

>>10825518
>What you're saying that experience is non-physical and has a subjective non-physical viewpoint.
No, I'm saying that experience is physical and has a subjective physical viewpoint.
>If experience was purely physical, I'd be able to find it and know everything about it by examining it.
Yes. Everything *about* it, from your point of observation, yes. You can know *about* it, you can't experience it.
>This isn't true, however, since I can't know what it feels like to be a bat just by looking into its brain.
What it feels like is the experience itself from the viewpoint of the bat, which you materially can't get except from being the bat.

>>10825724

>>10825715
>because consciousness really does exist, is irreducible, and has causal powers.

You’re gonna have to provide empirical evidence of those last two.

>I gave an argument to believe consciousness is irreducible in the OP

You really didn’t. You can’t experience what others experience because there’s no neurological connection between their brains. There’s plenty of deformed people that can actually do that, though.

>Eliminative materialism does

That’s one kind of materialism.

>and Occam's Razor threatens the existence of the mental in epiphenomenalism since epiphenomal entities can be seen as unnecessary given they have no causal role to play anyway.

It’s irrelevant that it’s unnecessary. It is there nevertheless.

>I don't think you know what the word "identical" means. Yes I'm a reductionist in a sense, but I go the other direction: instead of reducing the mental to the physical, I reduce the physical to the mental. There's a BIG difference there.

No there isn’t. You’re literally just using a different word. Zero testable difference exists between the “material” and the “mental”. They’re meaningless garbage. That’s why “stuffism” is vastly superior to either.

>Nope, that's if reductive materialism is true. You need to go the other direction: identifying mental states identifies brain states, and this is made all the clearer with the neural correlates of consciousness.

If identifying mental states identifies brain states, identifying brain states identifies mental states if idealistic monism is true.
You are practically a reductive materialist, and your own argument is opposed to you.

>>10825500
>how?
Because they're exactly the same as you said.

>i defined my terms
You defined consciousness as "what it's like to be the subject." You didn't define what this means, which is the only thing relevant to your argument. You refuse to answer a simple question because you already understand the implications of answering it.

>Since that phenomena is reducible then there's no reason to need to be in this magical special privileged position
As I already explained and you continually attempt to ignore, it's specifically because it's reducible to specific phenomena that you need to be a specific position. It's dependent on that position.

>You're trying to hold there's nothing special about consciousness, you're supposed to be reducing it, not keeping it as a fundamental entity in its own right.
I haven't kept it as fundamental. Reducibility doesn't mean everything is indistinguishable. You completely fail to understand what you're arguing against. It doesn't even have to do with consciousness. One rock is distinguishable from another even though they are reducible to the same thing. The fact that your argument ignores such an obvious concept shows how faulty it is.

>you're treating them differently right now. you can reduce the rock to terms more fundamental than itself with micro-level entities and so forth. You're failing to do this with consciousness.
Nothing I've said implies consciousnes isn't reducible. Keep spouting nonsense while ignoring my argument.

>so you admit we don't need to be a rock to identify what it is. so why is this magically the case when it comes to identifying what it is like to be the subject?
The answer depends on your definition of the phrase you refuse to define. Either it is an abstraction like what a rock is and is no different, in which case P2 fails. Or it is not an abstraction but an experience dependent on specific sensory inputs and a specific configuration of matter in the brain, in which case P1 fails.

>>10825500
>do you even know what a valid argument is?
Yes, it means its conclusion follows from the premises. Since "bat" in P1 and P2 are not equal they cannot be combined to form the conclusion that some wooden objects are animals. How embarrassing that you think this is a valid argument when anyone can see it's not.

>I've made neither of these claims so I don't have to choose either one
So you admit you can't even clarify what your argument is about. It's an invalid conflation.

>>10825507
>except for that direct quote I cited from you which you clearly talk as if there's a you that has a body. if you are the body then you don't have a body, you=the body...
Are you done making up semantics? There's no substance here, just your obsessive ranting over a colloquialism.

>so then you're not reducing the subject to the brain, you're not a reductionist after all.
Doesn't follow.

>you're talking about a dualism in which there's a mental and non-mental component.
Nope, the mental is reducible to the non-mental.

>>10825824
>empirical evidence
I already have made my point regarding the irreducibility of consciousness, I even cited the cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett to make my empirical point about the failure of reductionism here: >>10822320
>You really didn’t.
Yes I did, I proved how this is not only an argument but is a valid argument right here: >>10822273
You'd have to deny logic itself to deny this as a valid argument since it takes the form of modus tollens which is a rule of inference.
>experience
notice how my argument isn't put into such terms. I've left it open as to how you establish what it is, the argument is only about establishing what it is like to be the subject. if you're really a reductionist then I don't see why you couldn't reduce consciousness and break down what it is like in more fundamental terms, i don't see why you're forced to "experience what others experience" if it's a phenomenon that can simply be reduced.
>That’s one kind of materialism.
and it can be argued that materialism in general lapses into a kind of eliminative materialism
>It’s irrelevant that it’s unnecessary. It is there nevertheless.
then you're just admitting your ontology is not parsimonious. occam's razor suggests we favor the simply theory over your bloated ontology. And how do you know it is there neverthless?
>No there isn’t. You’re literally just using a different word.
Yes there is a big difference and i'm not even using different words. I'm a reductionist but simply in the other direction. I'm not saying the mind is just the brain, I'm saying the brain is nothing more than the mind. Those mean two completely different things.
>Zero testable difference exists between the “material” and the “mental”.
I'm a monist so I ultimately think what we call "the material" is actually just "the mental" so yeah there really is no difference since there is only the mental.
>stuffism
still waiting for you to actually formulate what this is

>>10825824
>If identifying mental states identifies brain states, identifying brain states identifies mental states
Nope, because mental states are not reducible to brain states. only if the mind were nothing more than brain states could would that identify mental states. You've got it backwards.
>>10825886
>Because they're exactly the same as you said.
you're not making any sense
>You didn't define what this means
Yes I did and I even provided a citation if one wants more info.
>you already understand the implications of answering it.
I've already answered it. By the way, when you begin trying to read someone's mind that's a tell that you're experiencing cognitive dissonance.
>ignore
you can repeat yourself all day long but that doesn't negate the fact that I've already addressed this claim of yours and so have others for that matter.
>need to be a specific position
you don't known what reductionism is, do you? If you can't in principle identify that phenomenon with the scientific method then you've failed to be a reductionist. You're telling me you can't reduce the mental to something more basic, that you HAVE to be the subject and that science itself isn't good enough. that's the epitome of anti-reductionism... you're a dualist and don't even know it
>I haven't kept it as fundamental.
then you don't need that special magical position. just reduce it already
>they are reducible to the same thing.
no they're not, you don't understand reductionism...
>ignoring my argument.
you keep saying I'm ignoring while you're the one who still hasn't reduced consciousness at all...
>refuse to define.
I've given my definitions all the way at the beginning, I even included a source and everything. nice try.
>abstraction
what are you even talking about? I've already expressed that you're not making any sense. what are you babbling about? i never said anything about abstractions.

>>10825898
>Yes
You clearly don't know what a valid argument is: if it really is the case that all bats are animals, and some wooden objects are bats, then it really does follow logically that some wooden objects are animals. That is indeed a valid argument, to claim otherwise is to fail to understand what a valid argument is. There's no formal fallacy going on with this argument, there's only an informal fallacy: equivocation. Premise 2 is equivocal, but the form of the argument is indeed valid. cringe
>So you admit you can't even clarify what your argument is about. It's an invalid conflation.
I've clarified my terms perfectly fine and even included a scholarly citation for more info, you're just spewing total nonsense. you're not saying anything coherent and you're creating straw men by adding these new terms that I never used in my argument.
>>10825906
>citing me directly means you're doing a bunch of semantics!
maybe don't talk like a dualist and you won't be labeled a dualist? idk just a piece of advice...
>There's no substance here,
of course there is, I'm showing how you're contradicting your monistic commitments. you're not really a monist
>Doesn't follow.
yes it does, you're not saying the subject is the object like the reductionist, you're saying there's the subject and the object like the dualist.
>Nope, the mental is reducible to the non-mental.
so then you were wrong earlier when you said you have a body since you are the body?

>>10825937
>Nope, because mental states are not reducible to brain states.

They are identical if idealistic monism is true.
Change your mind or something?

>>10825955
See pic related. what you're calling brain states is just a mental phenomenon, it is reducible to the mental, but the brain is merely the image of the mind, so this does not have the same implications of reductive materialism since this isn't reductive materialism...
Reductionism=reductionism but idealism≠materialism. They're not the same position.

>>10826122
woops meant to post this pic

How did an OP affirming the consequent get 300 replies?

>>10825912
>I already have made my point regarding the irreducibility of consciousness, I even cited the cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett to make my empirical point about the failure of reductionism here:
You're completely misrepresenting Dennett. He's saying there is no single place in the brain where consciousness comes from but it's emergent from multiple processes in the brain.

>>10825937
>you're not making any sense
You: "well then once you've established what that physical phenomenon is then you have necessarily identified what it is like to be the subject since they are exactly the same in every detail."

>Yes I did and I even provided a citation if one wants more info.
Yet you can't answer a simple question about what you've claimed to define.

>I've already answered it.
You just said you wouldn't answer it.

>you can repeat yourself all day long but that doesn't negate the fact that I've already addressed this claim of yours and so have others for that matter.
Where specifically?

>you don't known what reductionism is, do you? If you can't in principle identify that phenomenon with the scientific method then you've failed to be a reductionist.
You can, if you define identify correctly.

>You're telling me you can't reduce the mental to something more basic
No, I'm not. You don't understand what reduce means.

>you keep saying I'm ignoring while you're the one who still hasn't reduced consciousness at all...
Why would I have to?

>I've given my definitions all the way at the beginning
So what? Your definition is too vague to prevent a conflation from occurring.

>what are you even talking about? I've already expressed that you're not making any sense. what are you babbling about? i never said anything about abstractions.
An abstraction is an understanding without an experience.

Answer the goddam question already so this thread can die.

>>10825946
>if it really is the case that all bats are animals, and some wooden objects are bats, then it really does follow logically that some wooden objects are animals.
NO you fucking retard. For that to be the case the bats in the first premise would have to be the same as the bats in the second premise. But they are not if the premises are true. If the premises are true they are completely different objects. How fucking stupid are you?

>There's no formal fallacy going on with this argument, there's only an informal fallacy: equivocation.
Wrong again, it's the fallacy of four terms. Stay in school.

>I've clarified my terms perfectly fine
You haven't, since you can't clarify the conclusion that destroys your argument.

>and even included a scholarly citation for more info
No one gives a fuck about your irrelevant citations.

>maybe don't talk like a dualist and you won't be labeled a dualist?
I haven't. Lying is not helping you, you just sound like a delusional piece of shit.

>I'm showing how you're contradicting your monistic commitments.
You've shown no contradiction in anything I've said while completely ignoring the one inherent in your argument.

>you're not saying the subject is the object like the reductionist
I never said anything to the contrary.

>so then you were wrong earlier when you said you have a body since you are the body?
I never said that. Stop lying.

>>10826551
I agree with you and your arguments thus far have been perfectly sound but I think the person you're talking to is retarded and so I feel I should inform you that you're leaving yourself very open to a pic related interpretation of your replies.

>>10826576
You seem to fail at basic logical reasoning from the very first thing you've said there.

>>10826581
I doubt it since he has simultaneously said that he won't answer the question and that he has already answered it. Of course he didn't and it's not because I'm refusing his answer. There is a dichotomy in how "identify what it's like to be the subject" can be interpreted so he can only choose one or the other.

>>10826584
Huh, please tell me more about how a syllogism with four terms is valid and not a formal fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_four_terms

>>10826591
"Some wooden objects are animals" is the correct logical conclusion given the aforementioned assertions, regardless of equivocation.
It's also an objectively correct statement in general.

>>10826388
The form of argument is modus tollens which looks like this:

1. P⊃Q
2. ¬Q
C. ∴¬P

That's a valid argument form. Affirming the consequent looks like this:

1. P⊃Q
2. Q
C. ∴P

>>10826524
You're the one misrepresenting Dennett: he's actually an eliminative materialist which means he hold the mind to not even exist in the first place. He hold this position precisely because consciousness is not this empirical phenomenon that is reducible to physical phenomenon like reductionists claim.

>>10826598
>"Some wooden objects are animals" is the correct logical conclusion given the aforementioned assertions, regardless of equivocation.
It's not, it's a syllogism with four terms, a formal fallacy. It's an objectively false statement in general since baseball bats are not animals. Keep digging yourself deeper into the retard hole.

>>10826551
>You
yup and you've done nothing to negate that statement.
>a simple question
>You just said you wouldn't answer it.
You're getting confused. I've defined my terms, that's the question I've answered, and you asked this other additional question about abstractions that I've told you are incoherent and don't seem to apply to what I'm saying and you just dig your heels into the ground by repeating the question and declaring victory by acting like I'm "ignoring the question." If what you're saying isn't coming off as coherent then maybe you should re-word your question...
>Where specifically?
I don't have time for this time wasting pseudo line of questioning: you know where your posts are and who responded to you.
>You can, if you define identify correctly.
1. Then solve the hard problem of consciousness already.
2. To identify is to establish what something is. I've already gone over this, you just keep repeating questions I've already answered...
>Why would I have to?
You're the one who claims we can reduce consciousness so the burden of proof is on you. prove it. Solve the hard problem of consciousness.
>You don't understand what reduce means.
the irony
>So what?
so maybe don't say I'm not defining my terms when I explicitly have indeed defined my terms.
>too vague
How so? explain in detail. I'm not seeing any conflations here.
>An abstraction is an understanding without an experience
okay you are clearly bringing in some weird metaphysical baggage into this conversation that you are not divulging. if it seems like we're talking past each other it's because you're assuming something is true and taking it for granted that we all agree. please explain in detail what you're talking about here because you're saying it like we all just know it but it sounds like something from some other discussion you've had with someone else entirely
>Answer the goddam question
I've already expressed that your other question here isn't actually coherent

>>10826609
No he holds things like qualia to not exist. He holds consciousness to exist. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

>>10826628
>"some wooden objects are animals" is objectively false because baseball bats are not animals
And you call me retarded. The statement there exists independently of whatever baseball themed argument you're trying to peddle.

Some wooden objects ARE animals.

>>10826576
>But they are not if the premises are true.
you have just proven that you don't understand the concept of validity in logic. All of the premises in an argument can be false while the form of the argument is still valid. Here's an example from my old logic textbook:

P1. all four-legged creatures have wings.
P2. all spiders have exactly four legs
C. all spiders have wings

Source: Copi, I. M., Cohen, C., & McMahon, K. (2011). Introduction to Logic (14th ed.) p. 29. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

This is indeed a valid argument. The conclusion does indeed follow logically from the premises, this is a valid inference. The only problem is the premises are false, so the this fails to qualify as a sound argument.
>the fallacy of four terms
that is itself a fallacy of equivocation, but you're wrong this isn't an example of the fallacy of four terms. There's only 3 terms here: bats, animals, and wooden objects. You should learn how to count.
>clarify the conclusion
are you saying you simply can't comprehend consciousness being irreducible here?
>I want more clarify!
>fuck your citations!
what do you want from me? You want more info, I give it, so you freak out and start swearing? you okay, bro?
>I haven't.
You have as I demonstrated earlier with a direct quote from you, just be more careful with your language is all.
>You've shown no contradiction
I have indeed and so have others. You say we have a body, not that we are the body. You don't think the subject is the object, you think there's the subject and the object. that's dualism.
>I never said that.
I did, i quoted you directly earlier. apparently "you have arrangements of matter"

>>10826631
>yup and you've done nothing to negate that statement.
I don't need to, it's either true or false depending on what you mean and either way your argument fails.

>I've defined my terms, that's the question I've answered
I didn't ask for s definition if consciousness.

>you asked this other additional question about abstractions that I've told you are incoherent and don't seem to apply to what I'm saying
Stop playing dumb, I've explained it several times, parallel to your argument. Either "identifying what it's like to be the subject" is dependent on having a specific arrangement of matter in the brain or its not. It's a dichotomy. Pick one. If you refuse then you admit you are being vague in order to conflate two different concepts. That's it. No more of your bullshit will be responded to.

>>10826635
>"To put it as clearly as I can: in his book, Consciousness Explained, Dennett denies the existence of consciousness. He continues to use the word, but he means something different by it. For him, it refers only to third-person phenomena, not to the first-person conscious feelings and experiences we all have. For Dennett there is no difference between us humans and complex zombies who lack any inner feelings, because we are all just complex zombies. ...I regard his view as self-refuting because it denies the existence of the data which a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain...Here is the paradox of this exchange: I am a conscious reviewer consciously answering the objections of an author who gives every indication of being consciously and puzzlingly angry. I do this for a readership that I assume is conscious. How then can I take seriously his claim that consciousness does not really exist?"
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1995/dec/21/the-mystery-of-consciousness-an-exchange/

do you even know what eliminative materialism is?

>>10826639
No wooden objects are animals and the only wooden objects that are bats are baseball and cricket bats. You completely failed to understand the argument.

>>10826659
>All of the premises in an argument can be false while the form of the argument is still valid.
I never said anything different, read my post again. Both premises are true but the argument is invalid. Illiterate dumbfuck.

>There's only 3 terms here: bats, animals, and wooden objects.
Bats in the first premise is a different term from bats in the second. Once refers to the animal best while the second refers to the sports equipment bat. The two have no overlap. You truly are so delusional that you can't see the obvious, even when given a wiki article that explains how conflation produces the fallacy. You're a waste of time.

>>10826660
>what you mean
if you don't understand what reductionism is you can just say so. This is explained here: >>10822207
If the mental is identical to the physical, meaning they're exactly the same in every detail, then it follows necessarily that establishing what the physical phenomena is establishes what it is like to be the subject since they're literally the exact same thing. This is simple law of identity here, basic logic: A=A.
>I didn't ask for s definition if consciousness.
I've defined reductionism, I've defined identify and identical, what else do you want?
>Stop playing dumb,
I've been over this exact question with you already, which is clearly different than your other schizo-tier question about abstractions. According to reductive materialism the answer to that dichotomy is: "it's not." Do you even reductionism, bro? if there's nothing special about consciousness and it's just another physical phenomena that can be reduced then you don't need to be in this special magical position to identify it. Otherwise you're flat out abandoning materialism. If you can't break it down into micro-level entities and fit it into a math equation but instead insisting you need to be the subject in order to grasp it then that is the epitome of anti-reductionism... I've said this over and over and you sit there acting like I'm ignoring you and you just declare victory, this is retarded...

>>10826664
Hahahaha wow, so your response to Dennett's own words is more antagonistic conflation? Your sources are meaningless if all they do is misrepresent the argument.

>>10826682
Then P2 is false, thanks for admitting your argument fails.

/thread

>>10826680
>I never said anything different
yes you did, you keep insisting that argument you presented before is invalid when it is literally provably valid. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's essentially a mathematical proof that it's valid and you keep insisting otherwise... you don't know basic logic
>Both premises are true but the argument is invalid.
See? you still think the argument is invalid, you don't even grasp validity. Let's see if you can grasp this, tell me if this argument is valid:

1. all humans are mortal
2. some organisms are humans
c. therefore some organisms are mortal

is this argument valid or invalid...? if it's valid then you've contradicted yourself since this argument literally takes the exact same form as the argument you presented before. if you think it's invalid then you're retarded and don't understand basic logic
>Bats in the first premise is a different term from bats in the second
only if you're equivocating which as been my whole point this whole time. You're not pointing out a formal fallacy (an invalid argument form like affirming the consequent) you're pointing out a formal fallacy like equivocation. by the way see for yourself in the wiki article, it says the fallacy of our terms is itself an equivocation fallacy, which is not a formal fallacy

>>10826688
that's a review from John Searle (PhD, Oxford), the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind at Berkeley and he's not alone in his reading of Dennett. When cross examined it is clear Dennett is denying consciousness and aligns himself with eliminativism not reductionism. He sees consciousness as a bag of tricks by the brain, that it's just an illusion. See pic related
>>10826693
You've given no reason for your claim here, you're just declaring that P2 is false with 0 support.

>>10826694
>You're not pointing out a formal fallacy (an invalid argument form like affirming the consequent) you're pointing out a formal fallacy like equivocation.
meant to say you're pointing out an INformal fallacy at the end there

>>10825295
>"higher" consciousness
Back to /x/, new ager

>>10825364
>>10826591
>>10826576
>>10825898
>NO you fucking retard. For that to be the case the bats in the first premise would have to be the same as the bats in the second premise. But they are not if the premises are true. If the premises are true they are completely different objects. How fucking stupid are you?
>Since "bat" in P1 and P2 are not equal they cannot be combined to form the conclusion that some wooden objects are animals. How embarrassing that you think this is a valid argument when anyone can see it's not.
Holy shit this guy. What's this, you're too simple to grasp elementary logic? Why are you even wasting everybody's time here?

>>10825430
>If it means a unique conscious experience
Obviously this, but not unique, just any experience such as the feeling of cold.
>then this requires that you have the unique material arrangement of matter present in the brain of the subject that produces it
No it doesn't, many people can feel cold without being identical.
>so P1 is false since having an abstract understanding does not change your brain into the subject's brain.
Indeed it doesn't.
>OP's argument rests on the conflation of these two things.
U-huh

>>10826669
>no wooden objects are animals
False.
>the only wooden objects that are bats are baseball and cricket bats
Also false.

bump

bump for interest