Does the "hard problem" presuppose dualism?
The so-called "hard problem" of consciousness was introduced by philosopher David Chalmers. Chalmers basically divides the problem of explaining consciousness into two parts: hard problem, and "easy" problem. The easy problem is discovering all the biological and physical mechanisms of consciousness, while the hard problem concerns explaining the subjective first-person quality of being conscious.
Chalmers is a well known dualist when it comes to the philosophy of mind, and I suspect that his framing of consciousness into two problems is a manifestation of property-dualism. The mental properties of the mind corresponds to the hard problem, while the physical properties of the mind correspond to the easy problem. My question is if dualism isn't correct, would there be a need for two problems of consciousness? I don't think so.
Must we insist that explaining consciousness at a mechanistic level any easier than explaining the subjective first-person experience aspects of consciousness? My hunch is that the so-called easy problem of consciousness at a mechanistic level is equally as difficult as the so-called hard problem at the subjective level. They might even be the same problem.
Chalmers is a well known dualist when it comes to the philosophy of mind, and I suspect that his framing of consciousness into two problems is a manifestation of property-dualism. The mental properties of the mind corresponds to the hard problem, while the physical properties of the mind correspond to the easy problem. My question is if dualism isn't correct, would there be a need for two problems of consciousness? I don't think so.
Must we insist that explaining consciousness at a mechanistic level any easier than explaining the subjective first-person experience aspects of consciousness? My hunch is that the so-called easy problem of consciousness at a mechanistic level is equally as difficult as the so-called hard problem at the subjective level. They might even be the same problem.
Comments (89)
However I do think the answer to the “hard problem” proper is trivial, and all the actual hard work is in answering the “easy problem”. And that the substantive question of why we have the specific kind of first-person experience that we have, rather than the trivial question of why we have any first-person experience at all, is bound up in the “easy problem” as well, because experience and behavior are inseparably linked.
Do you think this is the case with meditation, inner dialog, imagination, hallucination and dreaming?
One solution that is a monism is a kind of panpsychism. Perhaps all matter has an experiential facet. The various cognitive abilities and functions depend on the complexity and structure of the matter, but at some base level there is interiority in all matter. So, consciousness is not some exception, but rather a facet of matter and there is no need for dualism. (I am not suggesting this as the solution to be critiqued and defended per se, but rather just to say a solution could be monist)
Yes, because by "behavior" I'm not speaking only of gross motor functions, but all of the stuff that our physical bodies do, including subtler internal behaviors. The particulars of our experiences -- including mediation, inner dialog, imagination, hallucination, dreaming, etc -- correspond to particular things our brains do.
Quoting Coben
Exactly this.
I can see where you're coming from. The fact of the matter is that Dualism implies and is implied by The Hard Problem Of Consciousness. It's, in logical terms, a double implication or a biconditional: Dualism <--> The Hard Problem Of Consciousness.. Another way of expressing this biconditional relationship would be Dualism is true if and only if there's The Hard Problem Of Consciousness
Suppose D = Dualism and H = The Hard Problem Of Consciousness
D <--> H = (D --> H) & (H --> D)
We know, for certain, that D --> H (This is why you're saying dualism presupposes the hard problem of consciousness and you're correct). When we assume dualism, the hard problem of consciousness is true. However, we can't prove dualism with D --> H. All we can do with the statement D --> H is to falsify dualism when ~H is true using modus tollens.
However, we can prove dualism using the other half of the biconditional relationship viz. H --> D and applying modus ponens. If The Hard Problem Of Consciousness is true then Dualism must be true and that's what David Chalmer's is up to.
My two cents...
Interesting read here, in that they may be kindasorta equally difficult problems, but they are certainly not the same problem: http://cogprints.org/1617/1/harnad00.mind.humphrey.html
Just had to agree with Pfhorrest on this one.
The hard problem for dualism is to explain how these two opposing substances (material vs. immaterial) interact. Essentially dualism creates the problem by asserting that there are two opposing substances.
It arises as a result of thinking that you see both the world as it truly is and that you see your mind as it truly is. How they both appear is irreconcilable if you actually believe that how you see to world and mind is actually how they actually are.
For all of them subject and object are not causally related entities but merely poles of interaction. They derive material causation from a more primary form
of motivation(Being, intending, construing).
Close behind this group, and eminently more satisfying than Chalmers,would be pragmatists like Dewey and Rorty, post-structuraliats following Nietzsche, 4Ea enaxtivists like Gallagher, Ratcliffe and Fuchs, auto-poietic models from Varela and Thompson, and constructivist hermeneteutics following Gadamer.
Yeah, I’m fine with that brief. Personally, I would then ask, if science solves the hard problem by relating the physical mechanisms of brain to the metaphysical mechanisms of subjectivism......what has really been accomplished? I rather think no one will care, except the scientists.
From Zahavi:
“ Chalmers’s discussion of the hard problem has identified and labeled an aspect of consciousness that
cannot be ignored. However, his way of defining and distinguishing the hard problem from the easy problems
seems in many ways indebted to the very reductionism that he is out to oppose. If one thinks that cognition and
intentionality is basically a matter of information processing and causal co-variation that could in principle just as
well go on in a mindless computer–or to use Chalmers’ own favored example, in an experienceless zombie–
then one is left with the impression that all that is really distinctive about consciousness is its qualitative or
phenomenal aspect. But this seems to suggest that with the exception of some evanescent qualia everything
about consciousness including intentionality can be explained in reductive (computational or neural) terms; and
in this case, epiphenomenalism threatens.
To put it differently, Chalmers’s distinction between the hard and the easy problems of consciousness
shares a common feature with many other recent analytical attempts to defend consciousness against the
onslaught of reductionism: They all grant far too much to the other side. Reductionism has typicallyproceeded
with a classical divide and rule strategy. There are basically two sides to consciousness: Intentionality and
phenomenality. We don’t currently know how to reduce the latter aspect, so let us separate the two sides, and
concentrate on the first. If we then succeed in explaining intentionality reductively, the aspect of phenomenality
cannot be all that significant. Many non-reductive materialists have uncritically adopted the very same strategy.
They have marginalized subjectivity by identifying it with epiphenomenal qualia and have then claimed that it is
this aspect which eludes reductionism.
But is this partition really acceptable, are we really dealing with two separate problems, or is experience
and intentionality on the contrary intimately connected? Is it really possible to investigate intentionality properly
without taking experience, the first-person perspective, semantics, etc., into account? And vice versa, is it
possible to understand the nature of subjectivity and experience if we ignore intentionality. Or do we not then run
the risk of reinstating a Cartesian subject-world dualism that ignores everything captured by the phrase “being-
in-the-world.” (Intentionality and phenomenality
A phenomenological take on the hard problem)
Ehhhh.....none of that interests me.
The frameworks themselves are incapable of taking account of that which consists of both external and internal things, and the correlations drawn between such things... and that is how consciousness emerges and evolves. The subject/object and physical/mental dichotomies are both used by folk guilty of taking a whole, arbitrarily dissecting it and then pondering over the dissection, without ever realizing that consciousness consists of both, and more
Ce la vie.
The "easy" answer to the problem of Life, Consciousness, & Everything is Dualistic, hence too complex to be a final answer, a singular solution. All physical mechanical change requires are least two elements : Energy (causation) and Matter (malleable stuff). But the only answer to the "hard" problem is Monistic.
The absolute monistic answer goes all the way back to the beginning of everything. Some call that perfect singular solution "God". But I call it "BEING" : the power to be. All else stems from that indispensable root cause. Hence, the potential for emergence of Life & Consciousness must originate in the First Cause : BEING. You can't prove the existence of the power to exist, except as a Logical Necessity. It's that simple. :smile:
The "easy problem" is easy because it entails describing certain mental activity as mechanisic/algorithmic processes. It's true we can't map that into neurological activity (so it's still "hard" in that sense), but it's "easy" in the sense that mechanisic/algorithmic processes are consistent with physicalism.
The "hard problem" is hard because it entails mental activity that isn't describable mechanistically. Is that fatal? I don't think so, but it does mean we need to account for these mental functions in some novel way.
Wouldn't be too sure about that. In his original Facing Up to the Hard Problem, he says:
[quote=David Chalmers]by taking experience as fundamental, there is a sense in which this approach does not tell us why there is experience in the first place. But this is the same for any fundamental theory. Nothing in physics tells us why there is matter in the first place, but we do not count this against theories of matter. Certain features of the world need to be taken as fundamental by any scientific theory. A theory of matter can still explain all sorts of facts about matter, by showing how they are consequences of the basic laws. The same goes for a theory of experience.
This position qualifies as a variety of dualism, as it postulates basic properties over and above the properties invoked by physics. But it is an innocent version of dualism, entirely compatible with the scientific view of the world.[/quote]
Also
(David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996), p.357)
What’s the big issue with dualism? Why’s it such a boo word?
Quoting Wheatley
In reviewing all the other responses, I don't believe this will be very popular, but perhaps, after Kant and after Wittgenstein, we can let go of the need for the "subjective" or "consciousness" or "experience". The personal, secret, suppressed, etc., occupy the same place in our world and language, except one. Philosophy has never been able to do without an internal, unique, special quality for me (e.g., my "thoughts", my "being", my "existence"), say, among other goals, to fulfill the desire to be unknowable or to have my expressions fixed to something certain or controllable ("intention" "meaning" "perception").
Quoting creativesoul
All(?) "conscious experience" is meaningful? We are unavoidably pierced through with "our experience"? constantly bombarded with meaning? How can we differentiate from the mundane, unmeaningful? Perhaps this is just to hold the keys to the castle--we have "meaning" and then we "attribute" it. That picture certainly makes it easy to ensure meaning, or wiggle out, or avoid our answerability to others for our expressions. Perhaps it is sufficient that something is meaningful enough to us that we say something, take a stand, disagree, etc.--and in this sense: be, exist--and simply leave it that our language (along with the world) works apart from (and before) any need for some hidden, private, mental process. Perhaps we are simply not as special as we would like to imagine.
Apparently, Descartes ruined it for everybody else. Also, there seems to be this fear that any non-material conclusion leads to woo. Which is bad, because we should have a nice, tidy empirical explanation for everything. Or something.
So you are no longer interested in the subject if it no longer resides in the domain of philisophy and becomes part of the domain of science. I can understand this. Unsolved mysteries are interesting to philosophers. Solved mysteries are no longer interesting to philosophers but are interesting to scientists. :cool:
However, we should be careful not to allow our interest in keeping it a mystery prevent us from solving the problem. The answers were never guaranteed to be interesting to everyone for every goal that they may have.
To keep some mysteries a secret is the same as pervasive skepticism over the possibility of relieving ourselves of ignorance of their objects. So, yes, good philosophy’s interest should not contain an over-abundance of dogmatic skepticism.
Strawson argues that Descartes was not a substance dualist at all, but a kind of property dualist. I'm not a Descartes scholar so I can't comment on that, but I'm not convinced there are any genuine substance dualists at all. Even people who believe in souls and spirit etc do not, when pushed, typically say these things are made from a separate substance, as they will want to say that these things clearly interact with regular physical bodies, so they can't, ultimately, be utterly different in substance from matter. Either matter is reducible to spirit, or spirit to matter, or both reducible to some third thing, or both are irreducible properties of one substance. Everyone is a monist it seems to me.
Charitably, it's a boo word for a good reason: the interaction problem is rightly considered fatal to substance dualism.
Less charitably, some think that dualists (substance or property? Unspecified?) necessarily believe silly spooky things that every sensible grown up non-magical thinker knows don't exist.
I don't think there are actually any substance dualists. I haven't met any at least. Maybe there are some on the forum, I don't know.
:nod:
One of the big problems with this terminology is the meaning of ‘substance’. The word Aristotle used was ‘ouisia’ which was translated into Latin as ‘substantia’. But it means nothing like ‘substance’ in ordinary language i.e. ‘a particular kind of matter with uniform properties.’ It’s nearer in meaning to ‘being’ or ‘subject’. Imagine re-framing Descartes’ dualism as proposing there are two fundamental modes of being, mental and physical - it’s still an abstraction, still a model. But it’s less likely to suggest a literal ‘thinking thing’ which is the practical consequence of ‘res cogitans’.
Given that caveat, I’m drawn towards a form of dualism, but it’s based on the idea of matter and form, rather than matter and mind. But both matter and form, in Aristotelian philosophy, are like explanatory principles, not theories in the modern sense. It’s not about something that is findable in principle by scientific means, it’s more like a suggestive metaphor. But as I say, I’m drawn to it, in fact I’m probably a likely candidate for the title ‘substance dualist’.
There are two perspectives, first person, and third person. The brain, uniquely, is an object that can be experienced from either perspective. Simultaneously, with the right equipment.
Science is the endeavor of explaining third person facts with third person facts. But to explain consciousness, science must make the perspectival leap, and explain first person facts with third person facts. This required leap is unique to this problem, and is what makes it the Hard Problem.
So I'm experiencing my brain? Here I thought I was experiencing the world the whole time. Is your post in my brain or in the world that my brain accesses?
Quoting hypericin
Sounds like dualism is presupposed to me.
The first person experience is a manifestation of the way in which sensory information is presented. Sensory information includes information about location relative to the body. A perspective, or view, IS information about location relative to something else.
Third-person information does not include information about location relative to something else, which is why we call it a view from nowhere. Which view we talk about depends on what our present goal is - knowing about location relative to the body, or not.
To illustrate by way of example: third person perspective is 'witnessing an accident'. First person perspective is 'being in an accident'.
From Daniel Dennett:
Dennett's point being that there's no ineliminable difference between first- and third-person perspectives.
Quoting Tom1352
'Qualia' is a word that was introduced to this argument by the 'eliminativists' and you only ever read the word in this context. I regard it as jargon and a term that Chalmers makes his case without needing:
From David Chalmer's Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness:
The way I interpret it is that he's simply talking about 'being' - as in 'human being'. 'Being' is the precondition of any statement or theory whatsoever, including Dennett's 'objective physical science'. Dennett has spent his entire career contriving to deny that this has any particular significance. That is what Chalmers says has to be 'faced up to'.
Any externally originating experience is both the experience of the world, and a phenomenal event generated by your brain. And, you can experience the brain from the third person, by looking at one, even your own with the right instrument. As well as your everyday experience of the brain in the first person.
Quoting Harry Hindu
But only the dualism of perspective presupposed by everyone: the world out there vs the world in the head.
Quoting Harry Hindu
This is not what I had in mind.
You can regard a brain as a lump of grayish, convoluted tissue. This is the third person perspective of the brain.
Or, you can experience it as a rich internal universe. This is the first person perspective.
The hard problem is to reconcile these two perspectives. In particular, it seems that no matter how much you elaborate the working of the brain scientifically, from the third person, there is no conceivable way to make the leap to explaining the first person experience.
The answer may somehow involve substance dualism. But posing the problem certainly does not presuppose it.
My point was that talking about first and third person does not make sense in this context. Which perspective the mind is experienced from does not affect whether the mind can be considered as physical or not.
Are you saying that the rich internal universe IS the brain, just from a different vantage point? Where is this (first-person) vantage point relative to the other vantage point (third-person)? Are you a realist or solipsist? Is there a "rich external universe" that corresponds to this "rich internal universe"? Using these terms, "internal" vs "external", presupposes dualism.
Quoting hypericin
The problem is in thinking that the way the brain/mind appears in the third person is how the brain/mind really is.
Not that there aren't topics that we are more or less informed, relative to something else. There clearly are areas of research which are harder than others in terms of complexity. Psychology is harder than physics because there are too many factors involved, whereas physics, while technically very difficult, studies "simple structures".
But when it comes to foundational questions, it's far from clear that one can make an easy/hard problem distinction. Along with McGinn, and foreshadowed by many, of the classical figures, it looks to me that every aspect of nature is a mystery.
I used to not understand this point well, but I think it clear(er) to me now, as Darwin once said, roughly, that we shouldn't regard thought arising in matter as more marvelous than the properties of gravity, magnetism and so on, also properties of matter. It may be unbelievable for us, or extremely hard to accept. But that's then a problem of our nature, and thus an epistemological issue, not pertaining to the nature of the actual world.
But the problem with that, is that the qualities of thought are different in kind from magnetism, gravity, or other properties associated with matter. For instance, intentionality or ‘aboutness’. There’s nothing even analogically similar to intentionality amongst physical phenomena. And, related, representation, where a sign stands for or signifies something else. That too is a fundamental activity of the mind for which there doesn’t seem to be an analogy in physical science.
How are they different in kind? It's not at all clear to me. We always presuppose intentionality, true, but it's all we have. So when we analyze gravity, magnetism and so forth, whatever behavior they may exhibit absent our framework of understanding (if there are any), we don't know. But it's still possible, that gravity and so forth do things we can't perceive. So if you say intentionality is something not found in all these other properties, we can't say more, because there's nothing to compare it to.
In other words, we can't compare consciousness with anything else, but we cannot compare gravity to anything else either. Is there an analogue in nature to any of these fundamental properties? I wouldn't know what such an argument would amount to. To be clear, I'm not denying the complexity of consciousness, but our bafflement in relation to it is relative to our nature.
And if you look at the history of gravity, as explained say, in Chomsky's What Kind of Creatures Are We?, you'll see that even Newton, and many of his distinguished contemporaries, were completely baffled about the properties of gravity. Newton even said:
"It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it." (added emphasis mine)
The thing is, we've accepted that we don't understand gravity, and simply move on with the equations that seem to work. But we've left behind the goal of understanding it. Again, Chomsky's book is quite insightful in these matters.
I think it's indisputable that there are many things about apparently ordinary physical things we don't know. Newton's famous 'hypothesis non fingo' was made in respect of gravity, as you say. I do recall reading Chomsky on that particular issue. although I haven't read that book. (Looks interesting, though.)
But the point about intentionality or 'aboutness', is that there's no obvious analogy to that in physics. That's the significance of the concept of intentionality, introduced to philosophy by Brentano. Intentionality seems on face value to be irreducibly mental in nature, as it requires or implies both the obvious meaning of intentionality with respect to some object, but also implies representation regarding what the object is about. That's why it suggests dualism - there's nothing that maps against that in physical laws. It's not enough to say that, well, gravity and magnetism are mysterious, and so is consciousness! I think there are fundamental attributes of the mind which are incommensurable with physical laws and descriptions - hence the suggestion of dualism!
Exactly this.
Quoting Wayfarer
Once upon a time, sure. But based on current knowledge, it doesn't suggest dualism, since we know of other physical laws that yield that sort of mirage of intentionality.
Sure intentionality is mental, but the mental is physical, no mental property suggest dualism at all, it only highlights ignorance. Our physical laws are incomplete, and it could be that, as they currently stand, they can't say much about consciousness and maybe they never will. But again, I don't see what's analogous to gravity or electromagnetism in nature either. We are simply talking about different aspects of nature.
That's the entire point that shows why Quoting Manuel
doesn't follow.
Well, can "physical laws" say anything about psychology or literature or even the consciousness of a dog? Yet it seems to me that psychology and dogs are physical phenomena, and the laws of physics work quite well, in the domain where they can be applied, which is limited.
By saying "mental", I'm following Galen Strawson here, we merely want to say that within physical reality, which encompasses all reality, we are focusing on the mental aspects of the physical, instead of the chemical aspects. This emphatically is not "eliminitavism", or anything like that, the physical is not physics, it's everything. Which is to say that the physical is much stranger than what we initially suppose.
You'd need to explain why there needs to be something else besides the physical. So I don't see any inconsistency here.
I for one, do not share this intuition.
Quoting Manuel
Dualists and panpsychists would not accept this assertion given the hard problem.
The argument usually being made, if I understand it, Is that in order to fully explain consciousness in physical terms you ought to be able to do it entirely with the physical actions of the brain. In other words, physical laws and chemistry. At least if I have understood it.
Physicalists nowadays either hope that sometime in the future there will be such an explanation due to the advance of science or they deny that there is a problem at all. However, people who do not have that trust in physicalism have reason enough to bet on panpsychism or dualism if they so please.
Quoting Manuel
Well they would refer to the hard, easy problems. I might even risk my skin and say that hard emergence of consciousness from matter is evenly absurd and magical as the interaction problem dualism faces. And since you say here that you do not deny that there is mental, a la Dennet, I cannot see how you go around it.
Physicalism, as is it commonly used today, means whatever science (especially physics, but not exclusively) call tell us about things, though I think using that word is misleading. I think science, though without a doubt our greatest intellectual achievement, is quite limited in terms of what it can give insight to. In this respect "physicSalism" tells us almost nothing about human beings.
I think, like Russell, Strawson, Schopenhauer, etc., that consciousness is the phenomena in nature we are most acquainted with out of everything, it's rich, vivid, extremely sophisticated and complex. Dennett denies qualia - that's insane. It's totally irrational to me to even consider this view.
As for emergence, our disagreement is plain. I think it's something that happens in nature, and we have no idea how it happens, another mystery. One of many.
Begs the question. If we don't know what is phtysical, then how can you say it's physical?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Do 'we' now? Such as?Quoting Manuel
'Phenomena' are 'what appears', so 'consciousness' is not a phenomena, when considered from a first-person standpoint. Instead, it is what phenomena appear to, it is what interprets experience as phenomena (per Kant and Schopenhauer).
Quoting Kenosha Kid
The 'interaction problem' only occurs if you treat 'consciousness' as some kind of objective 'substance' or 'thinking thing' (following descartes.) But this itself is an abstraction or model. In reality, 'consciousness' or 'mind' is something that we can never stand outside of, so it's never present as an object. Of course, from the scientific viewpoint, we can only consider phenomena that are present as objects, hence the attempt to 'objectify' conscious experience.
What I should have said from the outset, is that I'm essentially formulating Priestley, Galen Strawson and Chomsky in slightly different terms, but the main point is, is that everything is physical. The brain is modified physical stuff, the universe is physical and so are the creatures within it. That is, if we are going to refer to the thing out there, and use a word to describe it, then it seems to me that "physical" is a good word to use.
I wouldn't say that the term "mental" is just as good, if we are simply going to use one term to refer to the whole of reality. Why not? Because I don't believe that everything is mental, or depends on mind, such that even if human being disappeared, nothing would remain in the world. I don't think that is the case. By using "physical" in the way Strawson does, it serves to highlight the ignorance we have of the nature of physical reality. But we are acquainted with the experiential character of consciousness better than anything else in the world, this is a given.
But I would also say that consciousness always presents itself to us in a certain way. We do not know its nature apart from experience, or how it comes about. I don't think experience is all there is to consciousness, one needs a brain too as well as something for the consciousness to react to. Schopenhauer argued, perhaps plausibly, that the nature of the world is will, consciousness does not show the nature of the world "in itself" - for him - but it helps us approximate what it could be, which in his case was "will". With consciousness and the aid of the intellect, we gain some understanding of it, but its nature in itself, we do not know, though again, will is the closest approximation we have.
Natural selection :)
‘Physical’, meaning what, exactly? It used to mean indivisible particles, now it means fields, however they’re conceived. For all we know there might be biological fields or mental fields - current science doesn’t think in those terms - but in any case it’s no longer possible to define ‘physicalism’ other than 'a general sense of allegiance to scientific method' - science as the arbiter of what’s real.
Post Descartes, ‘the world’ was divided along the lines of res cogitans and res extensia. Res cogitans became associated with idealism and religious philosophies, res extensia, extended stuff, the locus of interest for science (and engineering!)
[quote=Dan Lusthaus]The term "Idealism" came into vogue roughly during the time of Kant (though it was used earlier by others, such as Leibniz) to label one of two trends that had emerged in reaction to Cartesian philosophy. Descartes had argued that there were two basic yet separate substances in the universe: Extension (the material world of things in space) and Thought (the world of mind and ideas). Subsequently opposing camps took one or the other substance as their metaphysical foundation, treating it as the primary substance while reducing the remaining substance to derivative status. Materialists argued that only matter was ultimately real, so that thought and consciousness derived from physical entities (chemistry, brain states, etc.). Idealists countered that the mind and its ideas were ultimately real, and that the physical world derived from mind (e.g., the mind of God, Berkeley's esse est percipi, or from ideal prototypes, etc.). Materialists gravitated toward mechanical, physical explanations for why and how things existed, while Idealists tended to look for purposes - moral as well as rational - to explain existence. Idealism meant "idea-ism," frequently in the sense Plato's notion of "ideas" (eidos) was understood at the time, namely ideal types that transcended the physical, sensory world and provided the form (eidos) that gave matter meaning and purpose. As materialism, buttressed by advances in materialistic science, gained wider acceptance, those inclined toward spiritual and theological aims turned increasingly toward idealism as a countermeasure. Before long there were many types of materialism and idealism.[/quote]
I agree ‘mental’ is not a particularly good word. Nor ‘consciousness’ except for in certain contexts. I prefer ‘mind’ , but really the key term, which has long dropped out of philosophical discourse, is the Greek term ‘nous’ (which ironically is still used in colloquial English as a term for cunning or penetrating intelligence).
Quoting Manuel
I read Galen Strawson's paper on panpsychism again recently - it was a subject of discussion on one of the many threads on this (vexed) topic. I agree with Strawson's criticisms of Dennett - as I think you do also - but I still think his model is essentially materialist. More here
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Now there's a can of worms for you. But I think we can both agree that Darwin's theory is first and foremost a biological theory regarding the origin of species, right? So it doesn't contain anything inherently referring to epistemology, or the nature of mind, except insofar as these can be understood through biological principles. Which then naturally assumes the form of 'biological reductionism' and general neo-darwinian materialism.
It doesn't matter. The point is that optimisation in nature can occur without teleology. Even if you disagree that natural selection is incidentally true, it is trivial to see that it is possible. Seeming intention does not require actual intention. The idea is extendable to completely different fields of study (e.g. cosmology, market forces).
That quote from Newton a few posts back simply shows that he could not believe that the materialism of his time, based on contact mechanics, wasn't true of the world. That's why he was surprised. Now that view of materialism if false. If we are to use the term "material" or better yet, "physical" to attempt to refer to anything that is going on in the world, then the physical must mean "whatever there is". But I wouldn't at all say that this means that everything physical can, even in most cases be solved by the sciences, or even be hoped to be understood by said methods. In that respect I am very much a "mysterian".
I find it useful to say that I'm a "real physicalist" as a reply to those who believe in Dennett an co.'s line of reasoning, which denies the existence of consciousness as mere reaction or epiphenomenon or bad folk psychology or whatever else they say, and I also think that it's a useful exercise to grab an object, any object a book, a laptop, whatever, and say, this is physical, and then you see how much the physical encapsulates everything, and how little one may know about it, but this is a preference.
I agree with your assessment of Strawson concerning Dennett, but I wouldn't say he is one of those science types at all. His writings of the nature of the self, narrativity, identity metaphysics should dispel beliefs in that view. I don't know what you make of panpsychism, but as articulated by him and in fact by anybody that I know of so far, I don't believe it to be true, though it is a hard problem.
At the end of the day speaking of "physical", "non-physical" or whatever else is more terminological than anything else, although not only that. So I can't really quibble with you choice of word "nous", it's a good word.
It depends on what is meant. There's nowadays a neo-aristotelian trend in biological sciences, precisely because of the discovered need for a final cause, the reason why x exists. Having ditched 'teleology', biologists had to invent the word 'teleonomy' to allow for the 'appearance of purpose'.
And the discovery of the so-called anthropic principle seems to radically undercut the idea of life arising solely by chance; the sequence of events leading to the formation of life-bearing planets stretches back to the big bang itself, to the way the universe is constituted.
I don't doubt the principle of natural selection, but I do question that it provides a basis for philosophy of mind, other than some species of utilitarianism. (Nagel again.)
Quoting Manuel
What about the elements of judgement - 'is', 'is not', 'is greater than', 'is equal to', and so on. I claim that those elements have no counterpart in the physical domain, and yet they're fundamental to judgements about what constitutes 'the physical'.
Let's re-consider the term 'mental universe'. There was an OP of that name published in Nature some years back by a physicist by the name of Richard Conn Henry. I don't think he meant that objects are literally mental or 'made from' anything mental. It's more that whatever we know, whatever nature discloses to us, is the product of judgement, in the sense elucidated by Kant. I think understanding the idealist view requires a shift in perspective. 'Naturalism' is very much the default attitude, that what is 'out there' is the persistent reality, we ourselves are simply ephemeral individuals on life's stage. But we don't see the part our own mind plays in constructing that stage; we don't see it, because we are it. We instinctively 'read' the world as I-and-it, self-and-other, within which things are designated physical, mental or whatever; but the idealist analysis operates on a different level, that of becoming aware of the mind's constructive role in generating our world. That's where philosophy starts.
Quoting Manuel
A book is physical, for sure. But what of its contents? Consider some classic text that has been edited and translated for centuries. Any given book is just one version of that story, but the story itself is independent of any particular presentation. The story is 'in' the book only in a metaphorical sense. So in what sense is that 'physical'? In what sense is 'the brain' physical? Surely it can be injured physically, but it can also be altered by intentional acts; hence 'mind-body medicine', neo-plasticity and the like. Maybe 'physical' is just a reference point, something to hang on to in the vast uncertainty of today's world.
You keep talking about the counterparts or aspects "not found in the physical domain". I'm not denying that we play a huge role in construction of what we take to be "the given". When I say physical, I'm not remaining at the level of physics at all. I don't have in mind reducing the experience of seeing an orange, or reading my favorite book to some sub-processes in my brain, that would be crazy and is precisely what I think is literally bad philosophy. I only put in the caveat that without the brain, we wouldn't have consciousness even if I admit, along with you I suspect, that we begin with consciousness. In what respect is the story in my favorite novel physical? In the sense that I interpret the story through some processes in my mind/brain. Intentionality is also a process of the brain/mind, both play a role, one we experience as directly as anything (mental), the other we do not experience at all, minus a headache (the brain).
I think we might be getting stuck by using the word "physical", as it carries connotations to empirical science. Let's then call it by the more neutral term "worldly". The book is worldly, the story is worldly the mind is worldly. We still talk about the mental aspects of worldly reality, or the biological aspects of worldly reality, or we can do literary analysis of stories, which are created by worldly creatures.
The point is, as I take it, why add something to worldly, if we cannot say where "worldly" reality stops, and some other reality begins? Why introduce metaphysical differences, instead of talking about different aspects of the same reality? I mean, would you say that vision and hearing are two metaphysically different things, or two aspects of one thing? I see benefits to the latter, no benefits to the former, so far as metaphysics is concerned.
No, I mean 'the contents of the book' - the story or other content. That comprises a set of ideas, or a narrative, or perhaps instructions. Sure, the book is physical, the ink is physical, the eyes which read the book are physical - they can be extracted and put in a jar - but what of the process of interpretation? What is it, that interprets a story, and discerns its meaning? Why is it you can translate all of the contents into different languages and even media, yet still tell the same story? The physical representation changes but the meaning does not. That's a hint for dualism right there!
You might say, well, that's what 'the brain' does. But we can't see 'the brain' doing that. If you conduct minute analyses of the vast amount of neuro-biological activity that goes on in any brain, you will not see anything like inference or ideas as such. Furthermore, you will have to invoke these very capabilities of inference and reasoning to interpret the data you do have. So, I'm arguing those capacities of intepretation and reasoning are internal to the operations of thought. They are not physical in any sense.
This ties back to the meaning of 'nous', that being 'the faculty which discerns truth.'
[quote=Wikipedia]In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is [the faculty] that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. This therefore connects discussion of nous to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways (which, I could argue, is close in meaning to Chomsky's 'universal grammar'). Deriving from this, it was also sometimes argued, especially in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of a spiritual and divine type. By this type of account, it came to be argued that the human understanding (nous) somehow stems from this cosmic nous, which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it. [/quote]
This was actually the predecessor of Descartes' dualism, but Descartes transformed in such a way that it became untenable. Aspects of it are still maintained, however, in neo-Thomist philosophers, such as Maritain and others. That is the overall understanding I'm drawn to.
Quoting Manuel
I'm dubious that Chomsky would ever describe the mind as physical. He questions whether 'the physical' is even a coherent idea.
[quote=Chomsky, Language and the Problems of Knowledge]There is no longer any definite conception of body. Rather, the material world is whatever we discover it to be, with whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the purposes of explanatory theory. Any intelligible theory that offers genuine explanations and that can be assimilated to the core notions of physics becomes part of the theory of the material world, part of our account of body. If we have such a theory in some domain, we seek to assimilate it to the core notions of physics, perhaps modifying these notions as we carry out this enterprise.[/quote]
But then, such a definition of physicalism falls prey to 'Hempel's dilemma':
I also found in this paper the following:
meaning that Chomsky would not agree with the claim that 'everything is physical', on the basis that 'physical' is insufficiently defined. (Likewise, Chomsky says 'I'll tell you if I'm an atheist if you can tell me what it is I'm supposed to deny' :-) )
Quoting Manuel
Because humans by and large have a false conception of the nature of reality. It is that, which philosophy is the antidote for.
I entirely agree with most of the first portion of your analysis. It's evidently true that we can't see things like inferences, or abstractions or anything of the like when we see neurophysiological images of brains. That's completely true, and shouldn't be controversial. Where I do take issue is when you say:
"So, I'm arguing those capacities of interpretation and reasoning are internal to the operations of thought. They are not physical in any sense".
There's no doubt a massive explanatory gap exists between the data of science and the experience we have of it. But why isn't the process of the operations of thought "physical"? All it means is that physics, as we currently understand it, is radically incomplete and furthermore, will likely never be completed. I can't understand the idea that in between our brains doing something with data, and we experiencing that something as experiential phenomena, that there is something "non-physical" occurring. That would imply, or could be taken to imply, that something non-natural is taking place in between what my brain does, and what I experience.
I think everything is natural, but we have substantive gaps in understanding, given the creatures that we are. I mean, I could say, something "nous-like" is happening with the operations of my thoughts, but I don't understand how to interpret that, other than taking it as meaning something in additional to the physical is happening when I interpret data. Why introduce something in addition to what we already know is radically incomplete on its own terms, namely the physical?
As for Chomsky. Here I can speak with some confidence. You are correct about the "atheism" bit, I got to meet him too, he's really awesome. :) You are correct that he doesn't make metaphysical commitments outside of his "methodological naturalism", there is only one world, which we try to understand, theoretically, meaning scientifically, naturalistically, as we do with anything else we can more or less study in a systematic manner.
On the other hand, if you take a look at Chomsky and his Critics, where in his "replies" section he talks about Strawson's argument of Real Materialistic Monism, as presented in Strawson's essay Real Materialism and Chomsky says that "RMM does "ontologize" the methodological stand, in a way that seems to me to be quite reasonable..." (2003, p.268).
He also states in What Kind of Creatures Are We? that "Galen Strawson develops the first option in an important series of publications. Unlike many others, he does give a definition of "physical," so that it is possible to formulate a physical-nonphysical problem. The physical is "any sort of existent [that is] spatio-temporally (or at least temporally) located)." The physical includes "experiential events"(more generally mental events) and permits formulation of the question of how experiential phenomena can be physical phenomena-a "mind-body problem," in a post-Newtonian version." (p.120)
But Strawson then argues that experience is physical, the problem is the non-experiential aspects of matter or stuff that has no experience (ordinary objects, the universe, etc.), that's the real mystery for him, until he went down the panpsychist direction.
But you're correct, Chomsky prefers to speak of "methodological naturalism" and not "physicalism".
Nevertheless, whether we use the word "physical" or "world", Chomsky would certainly say that there aren't any metaphysical distinctions, they made sense when Descartes proposed them, but that view collapsed with Newton
So called non-material explanations (explanations in terms of reasons) are only appropriate in regard to human, and some animal behavior. They only "lead to woo" if we try to apply them (as with teleological explanations for cosmic and biological evolution, for example) beyond their proper ambit..
But don’t you see how you’re in a self-reinforcing loop here? ‘We don’t really know what “physical” is, but everything must be physical, otherwise it’s not natural!’ What it says to me, is that you assume scientific naturalism to be the sole valid epistemology, whatever can’t be fitted into that methodology is to be rejected, probably because there’s no credible or coherent world-picture to associate it with. Therefore, you say, the mind itself must be physical - even if we don’t know what ‘physical’ is!
And with respect to what is real being located in space and time: what about maths? Mathematics is also 'internal to the operation of thought' and yet it has been spectacularly successful in the arena of scientific discovery. Doesn't that say something?
Natural selection itself doesn't need to. The point stands: the appearance of intention does not imply intention. Fool me once...
That's idealism.
I think science is the best founded knowledge we have, but it's far from the only knowledge we can have. Scientific enquiry if valid for theoretical understanding, but most aspects of life don't fit under this domain. History, international relations, ethics, aesthetics are not sciences, and it is far from clear than psychology and sociology are scientific in any relevant sense. I take it that philosophy is the study of mysteries, so it isn't a science per se.
I think everything that exists is natural, and that the world around us is physical, including our brain/mind. It's a useful terminology to employ, but as soon as you interact with any object, you discover how little we know about the nature of the physical, or if you prefer, how little we know about the nature of the world. As for mathematics, I tend to agree with Russell and Strawson. Strawson says "A concrete phenomenon must be more than its purely formal or structural properties, because these considered just as such, have a purely abstract mathematical representation, and are, concretely nothing - nothing at all." So math is real, but abstract. Applied math, such as is used in physics, only describes the structure of things, not there intrinsic natures, which are left untouched.
You've said that the operations of the mind cannot be physical, because they don't resemble anything in the physical sciences. What resembles something physical? Those things described by physical science, but not mental properties. That doesn't go very far either.
At the end of the day, most of this is terminological. The biggest substantive difference here would be metaphysical dualism and emergence. Like I said a while ago, I don't think we are going to proceed much further along this path of talking about terminology.
I have no idea what the term "physical" means. I take it to be a nonsense word, but a convenient place holder for as assumed stability.
We don't really know what any word means, definitions only sketch there meaning, outside of natural numbers, which seem to be true by definition. Having said that, touch your computers or your keyboard, and you would say it is physical I presume. All I'm saying is that everything else is physical, including the brain which is where consciousness emanates from, and thus experience. This only means that what we ordinarily think of when we use the word physical, is much, much more than what we initially supposed. It includes our thoughts, dreams, ideas and so on.
But, if that's not convincing for you, you can just as well call is "?-ist" and say everything is ?-ist. The main point is monist, there is only one fundamental kind of stuff. I'd like to see someone explain to me how metaphysical dualism can be articulated. How can there be two distinct but basic kind of substances in the universe. How do they interact at all? If they do interact, what the nature of the point of contact between two fundamentally different kinds of things, and so on. I'm not saying any more than that.
I'm not sure I disagree. Which bit of what I said are you replying to? Sorry it's not obvious to me.
I said that the elements of reason and logical inference are purely intellectual, they comprise the relationship of ideas. Physicalists will depict them in terms of neurological substances and activities, something that 'the brain does', and tie them back to the physical through that argument. I said that this can't be done as a matter of principle, to which I think you agreed. So there is something that is not physical, that we're all familiar with, namely, the operations of reason. And physicalism, or any coherent philosophical argument, relies on that faculty. Hence the fallaciousness of physicalism.
I think we agree more than we disagree. Those physicalists you are talking about, tend to be people like Dennett, The Churchlands, the most extreme of them all being Alex Rosenberg. But there are scientists too, that attempt to take the physical roughly in that regard, Sean Carroll, Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson and so on.
Yes, there is a definite explanatory gap between what goes on in the brain, and what we experience, which goes way beyond any sense data and gives us a rich, complex, multi-faceted world. I don't think the physical those people are referring to is the physical that actually exists, which would be the physical of, for example, Susan Haack and even C.S. Peirce, all the way back to Joseph Priestley. The physical they have in mind, is the physical that actually exists in nature, and it includes experience.
What I should have made more explicit, is that, given the creatures that we are and the constitution we have as said creatures, there is no possible way any "theory of the physical", will ever explain to us how the "purely intellectual" works. If we can't understand gravity, as Newton admitted, I think it's a safe bet to say we won't be able to understand consciousness and the mental domain. Having said that, another highly intelligent creature, an alien somewhere, might be so built so as to understand how the brain works in such a way that we get the experience the way we do. Absent such a creature, I'd say, if such a being as God exists, it would be obvious to him. But it's a mystery to us, and will remain so.
But let's say you are correct, and as a matter of metaphysical principle, the physical cannot, in any respect, explain the mind. That raises an additional problem, such as the interaction problem. Something "purely intellectual" then has some property or set of properties, that arise out of no discernable thing. Unless you have an explanation of some kind for that.
The 'interaction problem' arose from Cartesianism, because of the way Descartes conceived of mind as a 'thinking thing'.
Husserl criticized Descartes for 'naturalising' res cogitans, treating it as a 'thing' - indeed, 'res' means 'thing'. Even though Husserl credits Descartes with the discovery of transcendental philosophy, and indeed emulates Descartes in many respects, he says that:
This is what lead to the notion of a 'thinking substance'. This was further complicated by the conflation of the common word 'substance' (meaning 'a material with uniform properties') and the philosophical meaning of the term 'substance', derived from ouisia, meaning something nearer to 'subject' (as in 'a human subject') or 'being'.
Anyway, this lead to the conception of mind as being something objectively existent. But the real problem is in that process of 'objectification'. After all, the natural sciences presume as an axiom the division of subject and object - the intelligent subject analyses the objective realm. ('Naturalism assumes nature', I like to say.) And surely 'mind' appears nowhere within that realm, save in the apparently-intelligent utterances and actions of other rational beings, and that is internal to their being, so to speak (hence the solipsism conundrum). So when you look at it from a naturalistic perspective - which is very much Daniel Dennett's perspective - then mind can't be considered real, as it's never an object of cognition, it is not a phenomenon at all. It is literally nowhere to be found. (And yet....!)
That's why Husserl initiated an entirely new approach in philosophy, namely, phenomenological analysis. Won't go into that here, other than to say that the 'interaction problem' itself is a manifestation of a false conception of the nature of the mind, as an 'it', a 'something' which has to 'interact' with 'something else'. As Chomsky says, this is so utterly ill-defined as to be not worth considering. It leads to something which is plagues modern philosophy and indeed modern life generally, namely:
Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis. (Boring book, by the way!)
Where mind plays a foundational role is not disclosed by treating it as something 'out there', but by discerning the way mind constructs or creates our world-picture. This requires a change of perspective from the assumed subject-object duality of naturalism. Embodied cognition is a good place to start - Embodied Mind, by Varela & Maturana et al, has a chapter on 'the Cartesian anxiety'. It integrates phenomenology (via Merleau Ponty) and also elements of Buddhist Abhidharma (philosophical psychology).
I've read a bit about Husserl by scholars such as Dan Zahavi, who seems serious, but very little of what Husserl himself wrote about. Aside from his own quite obscure jargon, part of which seems useful I'll admit, he was constantly elaborating his views. So I've heard from different sources, people who know Husserl well, to begin with Ideas, others told me to do the Investigations first, yet another one told me that his Cartesian Meditations are his best book. I'm not interested enough to read all three honestly, there's too much stuff to look into on all topics outside philosophy too, so I don't know how to proceed with him, outside of reading some essays by scholars.
I've read some more on embodied cognition, and although there are slight variants within this line of thought it seems to me, they remind me of Heidegger to some extent. And I know Husserl did not agree with Being and Time. I'll keep in mind that book you recommended, as I've already given you a few. Good to know that whatever differences we have, it's mostly terminological as I see it, and less about substance.
And yeah, Dennett is the epitome of the most extreme irrationality possible, denying consciousness and then denying that he denies it. Kind of arguing with a person who insists that the sun is made of cotton or something like that, but worse, because if you need evidence for the existence of consciousness, you need some serious help. But Rosenberg is far worse. If you want a good laugh, try his Atheists Guide to Reality, it makes Dennett look like Einstein.
Actually, I would like to press the point a little, if only for my own edification.
What I said was that there is no physical counterpart for the elements of rational judgement (is, is not, compared to, and so on.)
So you asked the question,
Quoting Manuel
To which I replied that the 'interaction problem' is really a product of Cartesian metaphysics.
But the question still remains, how can an incorporeal mind influence physical bodies? And I think there's an answer to that is wholly consistent with the broader philosophical tradition (which is not generally materialist in orientation.) And that answer is, the rational intellect (nous) is able to discern principles which are themselves not visible to the corporeal senses*. That includes, for example, scientific laws and geometrical principles, such as the Pythagorean theorem. None of these are in themselves physical, although they may play a role in determining the behaviour of physical things.
Look around you (presuming you're not ensconsed in some sylvan wilderness zone). Everything you see, every artifact, has been invented by humans 'peering into the realm of possibility', and then bringing back some invention, some discovery, some artefact, from that realm. Yet we can't seem to appreciate the power that makes it possible.
In Greek philosophy, it was taken for granted that reason, the rational faculty, was what made h. sapiens, sapient. H. Sapiens can 'see' things that animals cannot see (even if bats can see moths by sonar and owls can see a kilometer by the light of a candle.) H. Sapiens can 'see' the causes of things, the relationships between phenomena, and so discern governing principles. This is where science began. Shame that many of its advocates have lost sight of it.
--------------------------
* This idea, I have discovered, is at the basis of the Medieval doctrine of the 'rational soul'. I'm still investigating this topic, which is a deep and difficult one, especially for those without a background in the classical literature of Western culture.
What you describe, even if you are referring to the ancient Greeks, can also be found in the Cambridge Neo-Platonists, specifically Ralph Cudworth, who Chomsky thinks is more interesting than Kant. And he might be correct, Cudworth is interesting, and it points to the kind of thing you are attempting to describe. I'd frame the issue slightly differently, which would be to say they everything we interact with, even in the wilderness too, can only be recognized as such, manifestly, as "given" to us, by the specific nature we have, which tends to assume a "naïve realism" of sorts.
These types of ideas, of recognizing that things like BEDS or MOUNTAINS, are mental constructions and thus do not reside in the mind-independent world, is something that is awe-inducing. I mean, if all human beings disappeared over night, there would be something "out there", but it wouldn't be a BED or a MOUNTAIN because these are human concepts.
But then I'd ask if it is even very coherent to think of senses absent the intellect. I mean, we could say that certain creatures might exhibit a behavior of this kind, say maybe a mosquito or some other simple animal, in which they have senses but probably no, or very little, intellect. I just don't see why you'd say that corporeal senses are physical in a way that mind is not.
The traditional problem, as you pointed out, and as discussed after Descartes by Locke and especially Priestley (and others too) is the question: how the heck can matter think? How can this "dead and stupid matter" have properties associated with something as sublime as the mind? The mistake, I think, was to assume that matter is in its nature "dead and stupid", it isn't. As Priestley pointed out:
"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion ; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. Different as are the properties of sensation and thought, from such as are usually ascribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the same substance, unless we can shew them to be absolutely incompatible with one another.”
But they're not incompatible with one another, I think it's a mistake to assume they do. But you don't agree, because you think that "rational intellect (nous) is able to discern principles which are themselves not visible to the corporeal senses. That includes... scientific laws and geometical principles... None of these are in themselves physical, although they may play a role in determining the behaviour of physical things."
That's a fine formulation, I don't see the problem, we just so happen to disagree on this point.
Why thankyou! I hadn't thought of that connection, but it's a flattering comparison. (I've tried reading up on Cudworth but there doesn't seem to be a decent compendium of edited writings and the original text is very hard to follow.)
Quoting Manuel
I believe that would be a reaction to Liebniz' remark:
[quote=Liebniz]It must be confessed, moreover, that perception, and that which depends on it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions, And, supposing that there were a mechanism so constructed as to think, feel and have perception, we might enter it as into a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to explain a perception. This must be sought, therefore, in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine.[/quote]
I don't put the explanatory gap down to ignorance, in the sense of 'lack of information', but because of a difference in kind between the properties of matter and the capabilities of reason. And indeed the first-person nature of consciousness generally (which brings us back to the 'hard problem'). That is what Liebniz means by 'simple substance' (where 'substance' means 'ousia', 'being'.)
Quoting Manuel
I think this distinction recognised in both ancient and medieval philosophy. The senses are physical in that they receive physical signals from physical objects. Any sentient being, including animals, will sense objects by these means, whether by sight, smell, touch or hearing (and leaving aside the vast range of sensory ability). That process I take to be physical. All of the elements of that process can be studied through physiology, biology, cognitive science and so on.
But in addition to physical sensing, there is, in the human, also the process of apperception, interpretation and judgement. Rational thought comprises that synthesis (in the Kantian sense) of both the sensory and intellectual elements. You also find a similar formulation in Aquinas. That is the intellectual process, taking place in the mind. It is that process which is not amenable to physical reduction, for many reasons; hence 'dualism' of, not of mind and matter, but matter and form (hylomorphism).
[quote=SEP, Dualism, 4.6 The Aristotelian Argument in Modern Form (d)]
Numbers, it would seem, are abstract objects, yet our intellects operate with them all the time. How does a physical brain interact with an abstract entity? A similar problem could be raised for concepts in general; they are abstract, general entities, not physical particulars, yet they are the meat and drink of thinking. For a dualist about intellect there does not appear to be the same problem. The immaterial intellect is precisely the sort of thing that can grasp abstract objects, such as numbers and universals – in the Aristotelian context, the immaterial intellect is the home of forms. [/quote]
That last sentence illustrates the point.
Quoting Manuel
Good thought. But consider this idea: Einstein said 'I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man.' I also believe the theorem is there to be discovered by any rational intelligence. But the key point is, such a principle can only be recognised by a rational intelligence. So even though it's not dependent on your mind or mine - not 'mind dependent' in that sense- it is nonetheless an idea, so 'mind-dependent' in another sense, namely that only a rational mind can perceive it. So it's not as if with no humans about, the universe ceases to exist, but that any conception we have of 'existence' is 'constructed' around such principles. So the mind is bringing something to experience and reality is not apart from or outside of that. Very tricky idea, I know. I do understand I'm throwing a lot of ideas at you and really appreciate your responses. Thank you.
Yes Cudworth is very hard to read. Which is why I suggest you take a look at his A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. It's not too long, some 230-ish pages, and it was the appendix to Volume III of his True Intellectual System. Only the first 40 to 60 pages are about morality, the rest is epistemology, stating in essence what Kant said, using almost exactly the same phrase, but develops the idea in a different direction. It's easier to read by several orders of magnitude, compared to the main work.
I am familiar with Leibniz passage, and he is entirely correct. The topic of "lack of information" is tricky. Some people, mostly scientists working in physics and some neuroscientists, treat information as "bits" of nature. But the type of information, in the scientific domain, is not the "information" we have, when we see any phenomenal object, at least not in the manifest side of things. This "explanatory gap", is epistemic in nature, a lack of a faculty that prevents us from seeing some aspects of the world. But without epistemic constraints, we would not be able to form any "picture" of the world at all. Thus, I do think it is lack of information, in terms of missing certain mental/brain faculties. So the issue would be "properties of matter" vs. the "capabilities of reason". I think the latter are "properties of matter", but we have no idea how matter does what it does, we only describe its effects, we don't know "internal causes", as it were. But I like the intuition, it's quite rational and I could be wrong about matter.
As for the "abstract objects" part, Aquinas' general description is correct, in so far as thoughts are abstract. The problem might be in our natural insistence to pick out aspects of objects and claim they are things existing in nature. What I mean by this, is that, when we look at an ordinary apple, we pick out attributes such as REDNESS, SWEETNESS, ROUNDNESS and so on. And then we look for other objects that might also look red, be sweet and so on. This might be a mistake. But an object may just as well be the instantiation of all these properties (and more, including things-themselves, which might bind them together, and other aspects of object we can't easily discern)that we tend to take apart, so we may be "cutting" nature in the wrong place.
I would entirely agree that reduction makes little sense. In fact, let's grant to Rosenberg his great insight, and say that "there's nothing but bosons and fermions", or whatever. That literally makes no sense, because, I'm speaking to you and we understand each other, more or less. If it were only bosons and fermions that really existed, we wouldn't be able to talk at all, much less make sense of anything.
As for your last part, there's something I do find attractive. It could be the case, that things like the Pythagorean theory, are only accessible, only discloses themselves, to creatures who reach a certain level of sophistication, otherwise these things would remain true but unknown. And I'd go even further, I think there are other such truths, which must exist, which we have no access to.
I'd only add that I should say thanks to you too, I'm learning things about Aristotle and Husserl which I had previously been ignorant of. :)
Agreed. What I am agreeing to is therefore not exactly clear, but for me this is one of the bigger realizations that I associate with philosophy. We are sleeptalkers, taking the vague intelligibility of our grunts for granted. We don't meow what we are barking about. (This doesn't mean that we can't get things done nevertheless, but it may mean that certain things can't be done, whatever that's exactly supposed to mean.)
Exactly. The talk of 'there's only X' is silly if taken at face value (or taken 'metaphysically.') An entire lifeworld-and-language is presupposed in any statement.
Husserl was mentioned above, so I also link to a great & short online text: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/husserl_philcris.html
[quote=Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism]Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.
….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. [/quote]
"You could not think if materialism is true."
Yes. If by matter, one is referencing the "matter" that was postulated to exist prior to Newton's discoveries.
"...since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too..."
I doubt you could take thinking "out" of the brain, and have pure consciousness. It's a thought experiment we can do for fun, or as an exercise of some kind, but not something you could do in practice. You'd have to show how instances of consciousness absent brain, or matter.
But if it helps, you could even think of matter as "immaterial", in a sense, as Strawson points out:
"At first…one takes it that is simply solid stuff, non-particulate…Then…one learns that [this object] …is composed of distinct atoms - particles that cohere more or less closely together to make up objects...one [goes on] to learn that these atoms are themselves made up of tiny, separate particles, and full of empty space themselves...[o]ne learns that a physical object like the earth or a person is almost all empty space. One learns that matter is not at all what one thought."
This is not even mentioning, all the weird aspects of quantum physics, fields and so forth. One should do away with the image of matter a "solid lump of mass", which remains as such the further down you go in to investigate it.
So if matter is strange, why can't it have properties of thought?
Thanks for sharing, these are quite helpful.
Yeah, it's hard to comprehend how it is that we do all kinds of things, which we do not know well or even understand. It's almost as if this stuff is innate, waiting to be activated by nature. :)
The more we understand something the better we do manipulate it?
With this I mean that we don't even need to be able to explain something in words, translate it into language, invent new categories or refer to intuition. If we are able to manipulate, to control it, we do understand it.
Then we can be more or less successful to explain it, sooner or later we explain them, but many times this language-based-explanation takes a long time because the culture and social context do not have the categories or because it is too biased but cultural inheritances.
Why do I say this here?
Because if you agree somewhat with this principle and we look at recent works of neuroscience on consciousness and the self (by Georg Northoff, Stanilas Dehaene, Greg Gage, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, and a long long etc...) we realize we're capable to manipulate the brain in such a way that we can create well defined states of consciousness: slowly dissolve the self, change personality, increase and decrease certain types of intelligence, etc.I'm talking about heterophenomenology, making our subjective world an object of science.
This shows incredibly successful and powerful but it goes so fast that our language, our culture has not been able to absorb it yet.
(ANOTHER typical EXAMPLE: same as the quantum mechanics world... we use more and more words like entanglement, superposition of states, qubits, symplectic phase etc. ... hard to explain but scientists understand it because engineers are able to manipulate them and create new technologies out of it)
Not only the results of the manipulations of our brain are a hard proof of the progress and understanding in this discipline but the progress in Artificial Intelligence and deep learning. The features of convolution networks together with the discoveries of the people I mention above makes us realize that we're going beyond certain naif intuitions like the "easy/hard problem" of Chalmers.
For me the "easy/hard problem" approach has already been dissolved, it is dead.