Any Defenses of Materialism?

[sayak83]

You're trying to say that the differing nature between brain and mind is irrelevant, but pretending it's not ontological. You're not even making arguments anymore, youre drowning.

No, its you who is ranting. I have made plenty of arguments, in reply you have simply made irrelevant comments or just plain ignored them.

 

[sayak83]

Linguistic use? You mean that colors in brain have feelings of love and pain?

And who is claiming origin of consciousness in brain? You or the brain?

Didn't understand the sentence about colors. Love and emotions reside in the brain, not the heart as common linguistic usage believes. That was my point. What does that have to do with colors?
I am a part of the brain. So I, a process in the brain, is claiming that this I is a process in the brain. Simple.

 

[atanu]

Yes. None of my beliefs are possible without the health of my brain.

A Disney character analysing health of Walt Disney. Ha Ha.

What is reality to someone who is insane?
Is it the same reality that you and I experience?
why or why not?

Fault in a machinery can produce errors. That does not mean that the machine itself is the creator of the product.

Not much.

Not much? How do we even know that, given that some inert processes pre-determined how we will think?

There is none, if you really want to go there.

Right.

And it's what we are doing, isn't it? Pretending to know things that we don't know? Making **** up because we feel like there has to be something out there?

No. I do not know the source of intelligence. I have never claimed it. I know that it is. It is you who are sanguine that the source of intelligence is some unconscious so-called material process.

Do those objects exist apart from you - or do they exist because you perceive them?

Do you exist apart from the objects that you dream?

Again, how much of the world did you know about before you were born?

How much of the waking world you recognise in dream and how much of it exists in sleep? The unborn condition is very much available as experience here and now.

I always find it strange that arguments from your side like to reference quantum mechanics, as if that helps in some way... Everything you know about it comes from the materialist world of observation, does it not? Regardless of how kooky or improbable some quantum actions appear, they're still factually part of the material world. You would not know about them otherwise.

Please do not be irrelevant. This was a metaphor even as both Newtonian science and Quantum Mechanics may be valid at same time, objects of material world can be cognised in awareness. We see the objects and forget the pervasive background.

 

[atanu]

...What does that have to do with colors?
I am a part of the brain. So I, a process in the brain, is claiming that this I is a process in the brain. Simple.

Simple eh? You, the I, generated of a process, know that process? Simple?

Can you kindly note down the mechanism here?

 

[1137]

No, its you who is ranting. I have made plenty of arguments, in reply you have simply made irrelevant comments or just plain ignored them.

Awesome! So can can provide a mechanism, address solipsism, explain placebos, show why "folk psychology" is effective, etc?

 

[sayak83]

Simple eh? You, the I, generated of a process, know that process? Simple?

Can you kindly note down the mechanism here?

Brain represents other objects of the world as well as each and every part of the body, similarly it represents itself through a model. This model is the process called the self.

 

[sayak83]

Awesome! So can can provide a mechanism, address solipsism, explain placebos, show why "folk psychology" is effective, etc?

I have already provided evidence of how placebos also have a neural impact that reduces the sensation of pain. See the meditation is efficacious link in the other thread. The brain, on observing that a medicine has been taken, down-weighs the pain sensation from "very urgent" to "less urgent"; anticipating that a solution has become available. So it down-modulates the pain signals. That is how placebo works.

 

[1137]

I have already provided evidence of how placebos also have a neural impact that reduces the sensation of pain. See the meditation is efficacious link in the other thread. The brain, on observing that a medicine has been taken, down-weighs the pain sensation from "very urgent" to "less urgent"; anticipating that a solution has become available. So it down-modulates the pain signals. That is how placebo works.

Even if we pretend this is anything but a fallacious preassumption of materialism, care to address any of the much more grueling questions from that list?

 

[1137]

This thread is running in circles now. Let's make a summary.

Mechanism: no mechanism has been shown to explain how brain states arise as "consciousness". As pointed out even in this thread we understand what pretty much each part of the brain does, and none explains how consciousness arises.

Folk Psychology: why do things like counseling work and get recommended, rather than having someone visualize changes in brain chemistry, or simply focusing on medication?

Axiomatic Self: we can each know that the statement "I exist" is true in some way, and the internal mind is the only thing we can directly interact with. All else gets processed through the mind. Not only can the mind not be eliminated, but it must be questioned whether anything external exists at all, let alone in reductionism.

Correlation: correlation isn't causation. I'd hope people know this.

Which can we address here?

 

[sayak83]

Even if we pretend this is anything but a fallacious preassumption of materialism, care to address any of the much more grueling questions from that list?

Folk psychology
Folk astronomy had been extremely effective (in helping people plan their lives, agriculture, sailing etc, etc.) for thousands of years despite being completely wrong about almost everything (the sky was not a blue dome that rotates around a fixed earth, and the sun is not bright lamp that is driven around the earth by a god before sinking in the water..etc.) Same for folk physics (Aristotelian) and folk medicine. They are rough models that get the job done within certain limits. Indeed it because we have not progressed yet beyond folk psychology is that our grasp in the human mind, its diseases and ways to improve it beyond what it naturally can do has been far less limited when compared to what we can do with nature where we have transcended folk theories centuries ago.

Solipsism

I have addressed this in a post to atanu. Here it is again

You are arguing from idealism. I can construct a theory that is identical to materialism based on first person idealistic framework alone. In such a situation all "objects" are entities in the phenomenological space and my theory of how to categorize them is based on pragmatic considerations of self-interest. So external objects are seperated from internal object by virtue of emotional and interest valence (it hurts if this toe is crushed but does not when that toe over there is crushed etc.) Similarly the identity inference between the bones I feel directly and the pictures in the X-ray is based on similar pragmatic considerations. In such a situation I make no ontological commitments at all, rather every theory is a model whose "truthfulness" is based on its impact in the quality of my first person experience upon adopting it.

In such a stance, the self is also just another object in this phenomenological space. Its a persistent object, but so are many other things, like time, only it is the object with the highest valence in the phenomenology of the conscious field

I can discuss the phenomenological stance in detail if you like. But I may point you to excellent introductory books like "The Phenomenological Mind" by Dan Zahavi .


Mechansim
I can address the advances made so far by neurosciences on the mechanism that makes consciousness possible as a brain process, but I feel it is a waste of time until you accept the plausibility of the identity theory based on the arguments for equivalency I presented before which you have simply refused to accept despite failing to refute them.

Axiomatic Self
I do not consider the self to be an axiom. It is an object who presence is felt in the phenomenological field, but it may disappear as well. (I have experience this in meditation as well as in trance or in-the-zone type experiences). The self becomes ubiquitous when I am doing verbal reasoning or conversing, which is why the "I" is so prominent in language, but other times this is not the case. The only thing that is certain is that the conscious field exists when its active in the waking and the dream states. Everything else is up for grabs.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Can you explain why non-materialism relies on free will? Possibly without pathetic fallacies if possible?

Sure. Determinism/causality is a property of the physical universe. If the mind is causal, it is necessarily either material or the effect of something physical. Since many of your assertions in this thread implicate the mind as an 'actor'(something remotely enacting brain states) that leaves only freewill.

Of course, you could argue that the remote signal transmission originated from another physical brain/mind, but then we have an infinite regress of puppetmasters controlling puppetmasters controlling puppetmasters.

 

[1137]

Sure. Determinism/causality is a property of the physical universe. If the mind is causal, it is necessarily either material or the effect of something physical. Since many of your assertions in this thread implicate the mind as an 'actor'(something remotely enacting brain states) that leaves only freewill.

Of course, you could argue that the remote signal transmission originated from another physical brain/mind, but then we have an infinite regress of puppetmasters controlling puppetmasters controlling puppetmasters.

I don't think that the mind needs to be a free agent to reject materialism. Who says that of idealism is true there's not still determinism?

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

I don't think that the mind needs to be a free agent to reject materialism. Who says that of idealism is true there's not still determinism?

Idealism?

Anyway, I would say any additional complexity to your argument, especially if you are now postulating that the properties of the physical universe apply to this Nebulous spirit world or whatever(not sure, you haven't given much to work with besides 'the brain is a radio '), would require a hefty amount of support.

You should work on building an actual case for what you have already said first. Up to you.

 

[Willamena]

Folk Psychology: why do things like counseling work and get recommended, rather than having someone visualize changes in brain chemistry, or simply focusing on medication?

What would "visualizing brain chemistry" look like?

Folk psychology refers to ordinary people inventing their own theories about how the mind works, which then get popularized and adopted. I don't know why things like counseling wouldn't work: people make their own solutions as well as the problems.

 

[1137]

What would "visualizing brain chemistry" look like?

Folk psychology refers to ordinary people inventing their own theories about how the mind works, which then get popularized and adopted. I don't know why things like counseling wouldn't work: people make their own solutions as well as the problems.

I thought this was an argument foe identity, that when we describe conscious states we are actually incorrectly describing brain states. Did I misunderstand?

 

[1137]

Idealism?

Anyway, I would say any additional complexity to your argument, especially if you are now postulating that the properties of the physical universe apply to this Nebulous spirit world or whatever(not sure, you haven't given much to work with besides 'the brain is a radio '), would require a hefty amount of support.

You should work on building an actual case for what you have already said first. Up to you.

I don't currently have an argument or solution to provide. The last one did not work.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Let me help..here's a few things you might want to cover.

How is this signal transmitted?

By what method is it received? What part of the brain acts as a receiver? (It would help if you could show evidence of a brain acting as a receiver)

How does a physical brain detect and translate non material signals?

Why can a physical brain pick up these spiritual signals but not any physical instrumentation?

How can memories and experiences exist without senses or a brain to store them?

Why would a spiritual being that can experience things without a body that is, presumably free from physical ailment stick around in say, a cancer victim, or an abused child? Why not just shut down the signal and chill in the spirit world?

I could go on, but that's a start right? Just saying" a brain and a mind are different things, therefore, magic"(and let's be honest, that is the sum total of your case to this point over 3 threads on this topic) isn't going to convince anyone.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Here you go, something to work with that just occurred to me. Mainstream Setians assert that consciousness is a field effect, much like magnetism.

Now what if the incomprehensbly vast amount of information being taken in by your senses, and processed by your brain, were giving off a consciousness 'field', much like the magnetic field of a computer, only it would be a field of awareness. Then you are left with a non physical mind spawned by a physical brain. I guess this would be the median position.

I of course, can't support this as it's speculation, but it would solve your quandary without stepping too far from the known world.

 

[Willamena]

I thought this was an argument foe identity, that when we describe conscious states we are actually incorrectly describing brain states. Did I misunderstand?

I think so. The argument was that conscious states may better be represented in materialistic terms, based on a sound model (where otherwise they have no model) and secure analytical footing (rather than pretty metaphorical pictures). How we choose to describe the world depends largely on how it was "scribed" in the first place.

 

[1137]

Let me help..here's a few things you might want to cover.

How is this signal transmitted?

By what method is it received? What part of the brain acts as a receiver? (It would help if you could show evidence of a brain acting as a receiver)

How does a physical brain detect and translate non material signals?

Why can a physical brain pick up these spiritual signals but not any physical instrumentation?

How can memories and experiences exist without senses or a brain to store them?

Why would a spiritual being that can experience things without a body that is, presumably free from physical ailment stick around in say, a cancer victim, or an abused child? Why not just shut down the signal and chill in the spirit world?

I could go on, but that's a start right? Just saying" a brain and a mind are different things, therefore, magic"(and let's be honest, that is the sum total of your case to this point over 3 threads on this topic) isn't going to convince anyone.

Interesting questions to ponder for sure.