Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

[_EAllusion]

Mikwut -

Idealism ranges from believing that ordinarily experienced properties of objects are purely mental constructs - that is to say things like time and space as we understand them are a function of how thought works - to believing that the world is made up of individual atom-like units of thought. The range is so huge that I don't think you can criticize or support the position categorically. It's not a matter of establishing Idealism, then figuring out which one is correct. These are just radically different views on the nature of the world.

I understand that the skeptic-brigade shouting "I believe in the real world. I believe in science!" is doing no one any favors here, but I don't see you putting on a coherent case for a particular idealist position. This is leading to weird range in the nature and quality of arguments. "If you're a materialist, what does the brain do when it sleeps?!" is such a dumb argument (sorry to offend), but on the other hand you also reference much more insightful material as well. This is terribly confusing unless a person has the background to sort through this.

[_Maksutov]

Mak,

Mikwut is trying to shift burdens of proof to those who've already proved their case. I objected.

Your simply wrong. Please meet the Randi Challenge I cited if you think I am shifting burdens.

mikwut

Demonstrate consciousness without a brain. That is your burden. We can show everything from forensic science to brain injuries to imaging to demonstrate that consciousness is located in the physical human body and its processes.

[_EAllusion]

Mikwut is trying to shift burdens of proof to those who've already proved their case.

So you're saying that physicalism is proven and therefore any future demand that it be established is shifting the burden of proof because it is up to those who disagree now to disprove it? Uh, can you point me to the resource in this thread or otherwise that you think is the victory lap for physicalism? I consider myself a physicalist and I'm shocked by this level of arrogance. Philosophy of mind is an ongoing, vibrant area of debate.

"Burden of proof" is being misused here in any case. The burden of proof is always on the person who is making a claim that is in doubt. Both the physicalist and the idealist have a burden of proof.

Should they all be considered in trying to solve the problem of whether the mind resides in the brain? Is it really a philosophical problem? How do you distinguish between which models to use and when? Who makes these decisions and for whom? Etc. There is potentially no limit to complexity but to what purpose?

Yeah, "What is mind?" is definitely a philosophical problem. As for "who gets to decide?" the answer is the same as it always is. The quality of the arguments decides, not anyone's authority. To the extent you have to defer to the views of experts, you should consider the sum-total of relevant academics the experts. The world is complex. It should not surprise you that some questions about it give birth to complexity. If your question is simply, "how do you tell a good argument from a bad one?" perhaps that should signal to you that you need to humble yourself and accept you need to learn more about the field rather than coming in guns a blazin'.

[_Maksutov]

Mikwut is trying to shift burdens of proof to those who've already proved their case.

So you're saying that physicalism is proven and therefore any future demand that it be established is shifting the burden of proof because it is up to those who disagree now to disprove it? Uh, can you point me to the resource in this thread or otherwise that you think is the victory lap for physicalism? I consider myself a physicalist and I'm shocked by this level of arrogance. Philosophy of mind is an ongoing, vibrant area of debate.

"Burden of proof" is being misused here in any case. The burden of proof is always on the person who is making a claim that is in doubt. Both the physicalist and the idealist have a burden of proof.

Should they all be considered in trying to solve the problem of whether the mind resides in the brain? Is it really a philosophical problem? How do you distinguish between which models to use and when? Who makes these decisions and for whom? Etc. There is potentially no limit to complexity but to what purpose?

Yeah, "What is mind?" is definitely a philosophical problem. As for "who gets to decide?" the answer is the same as it always is. The quality of the arguments decides, not anyone's authority. To the extent you have to defer to the views of experts, you should consider the sum-total of relevant academics the experts. The world is complex. It should not surprise you that some questions about it give birth to complexity. If your question is simply, "how do you tell a good argument from a bad one?" perhaps that should signal to you that you need to humble yourself and accept you need to learn more about the field rather than coming in guns a blazin'.

You're restating everything again. You're talking about physicalism and idealism, I'm talking about where the mind is. Try to focus. Concentrate on what I'm saying instead of what you want me to say.

I'm going to challenge someone who says the mind is not a product of the brain. Is that an "attack"? Not in a scientific context. You appear to be located somewhere else.

Should I know more than I do about everything I discuss? Absolutely. But you haven't offered anything I haven't already considered. I see no value added.

[_EAllusion]

Demonstrate consciousness without a brain. That is your burden. We can show everything from forensic science to brain injuries to imaging to demonstrate that consciousness is located in the physical human body and its processes.

Jesus H. Christ. That's an argument for physicalism. The argument is, "Anywhere we can observe consciousness, we also observe a functioning brain. Ergo, mind is a byproduct of what the brain does." Congrats, you're doing philosophy. But it's not this fact that is in dispute. It is the conclusion you are deriving from it that is. It's so self-evident to you that you don't even appear to pick up that it's possible to show that that one doesn't have to follow the other.

Here:

Suppose that everything you experience - the colors of the rainbow, the shapes of things, the sounds you hear, the passing of time - was a consequence of how the brain organizes a soup of quantum fields. Sounds, colors, objects, etc. aren't real things. They're constructs of thought. That is to say, you are necessarily bound by what you can subjectively perceive and the entire world as you perceive it is just one mental construct after another. In other words, everything you can talk about as an object is a metal construct.

Ok. This is an idealist stance. Now tell me how does the observation that consciousness is only observed in tandem with a functioning brain straight disprove it?

[Guest]

Hello DrW,

Mikwut,

First of all, I have enjoyed the discussion so far- no - really.

Thank you very kindly for the time you put into it too. I find it fascinating and interesting. I have really enjoyed it also. I take no offense at sharp disagreement over ontological ultimates. Really.

I won't be responding to you point by point, but will try, yet again, to lay out my position. In doing so, I trust that you will be able to overlook my relative lack of sophistication when it comes to philosophy (which deficit on my part seems to annoy you no end).

No offense. I can't hold a candle to your scientific experience, I am left to reading books and thinking. This was my first quantum physics introduction to the issue: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Enigma-P ... e-redirect I have since read vociferously about it. I post the arguments to learn and clarify and I appreciate your contribution. It's tough crossing the languages.

You commented that scientists typically have the same problem in this regard as I do. I am in no position to disagree, but perhaps this tendency is for good reason. Please continue reading.

At one point upthread you stated something to the effect that metaphysics (a branch of philosophy) is bounded by physics (a branch of science). Perhaps we could start there.

On this thread so far, we have been referring quantum mechanics (QM). I suppose that this stemmed from the video linked to in the OP and your referring to the von Neuman interpretation (of QM). QM is mainly concerned with probability waves, particles, superpositioning and the Schrödinger equation.

Let us instead talk about the most accurate and experimentally verified view of reality there is; quantum field theory (QFT). QFT is the most successful scientific theory of the century (many would say of all time) and provides for astonishingly accurate predictions in areas from particle physics to cosmology.

QFT has been indispensable in development of the Standard Model of particle physics and was the theory used to accurately predict the existence Higgs boson and to describe the Higgs field (which exists everywhere in space and imparts the blessing of mass to those particles who deserve it).

According to QFT, what you continue to refer to as physicalist "matter" is, in reality, ensembles of the particles that are localized excitations (vibrations) in their associated fields. These fields exist throughout space. They are quantized so can be referred to as quantum fields. Since matter and energy are interchangeable, mass exhibiting particles resulting from these vibrations in these fields, and their extended particle ensembles, are often referred to as condensed matter.

To be very specific here, the particles that make up all matter are simply vibrations at points in a field. Electrons and positrons are examples of the particles of condensed matter associated with electromagnetic fields. Photons are the electromagnetic force carrier. Condensed matter particles of the strong nuclear field (quarks) combine to give the more familiar protons and neutrons. The force carrier is the gluon. (These force carrying particles are referred to as gauge bosons. The Higgs is not a gauge boson.)

So, before you label most scientists as physicalists, you should consider that physical scientists are well aware that what underlies all of physics, indeed all of reality, are invisible force fields that permeate all space - sort of like your "mind force".

With these basics in mind (which basics you may well already know, but seem to have forgotten), perhaps you need to think about what other force fields your mind force would need to interact with in order to exert the influence you claim for it in the real world.

For example, one could write a book on the ways in which electromagnetic fields interact with the brain. Would you allow that the mind force could be characterized by a field? Would you think that electromagnetic fields might interact with the mind force?

There is a long history that is fascinating about this. It is one of the reasons for the terms materialism and physicalism which I have used inter-changeably. Here is a short quote from Daniel Stoljer that demonstrates our tension has existed for some time now:

Materialism as a theory of the nature of the world has had a curious history. Arising almost at the beginning of Greek philosophy, it has persisted down to our own time, in spite of the fact that very few eminent philosophers have advocated it. It has been associated with many scientific advances, and has seemed, in certain epochs, almost synonymous with a scientific outlook. … A system of thought which has such persistent vitality must be worth studying, in spite of the professional contempt which is poured on it by most professors of philosophy. (Russell 1925: v) Russell goes on to say that Lange’s book appeared “at the height of the period often described as ‘the materialist ’60s’”—that is, the eighteen-sixties. This period is remarkable from Russell’s point of view because it is a brief period in which materialism became influential. For most of the rest of the history of philosophy, he thinks, materialism is a minority view. Even Lange, whose book is sympathetic to materialism, is no materialist. Russell’s suggestion that the 1860s are exceptional in the history of philosophy is, because of its scope, difficult to assess; any claim about the entire history of philosophy is difficult to assess. But there is no doubt that he is right both about the period in which he was writing, and the period immediately preceding it. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, almost all professional philosophers were idealists of one sort or another; that is, they held that the world was in some fundamental sense spiritual or mental, rather than being in some fundamental sense physical or material (see Stove 1991). Russell himself was extremely influential in destroying idealism, but the kind of philosophy that replaced idealism was not materialist

This is because science has changed so much since then til now. We aren't only dealing with magnetic forces and such but all of the quantum world wierdness as well. So materialism kind of expanded semantically and is now referred to most often as physicalism - materialism has the old billiard ball connotation to it. Be that as it may the vast majority of scientists are indeed physicalists not withstanding the history of science in the 20th century and the present including wave probabilities and fields. You clearly fall into that spectrum. Fields and such are consistent with the current physicalism.

Is it possible that the gaps in knowledge or the failure of scientists to understand how subjective experience could come from the "mere matter" of the brain could simply be due to an incomplete understanding of how the various quantum fields interact with one another?

Possible sure, anything seems possible. But is it likely. We aren't dealing with a fossil record gap like the silly creationist issue that science does and is doing exactly what your suggesting respecting gaps. Take Ned Block for example a highly respected neuroscientist respecting an ultimate explanation, "We have nothing - zilch - worthy of being called a research program...researchers are stumped." (Consciousness pg. 211). Dr. Block is on your side of the fence with this too. QM is moving closer and closer to non-realism, I again i refer you to Randi Challenge I posted above. Your placing faith in narrow philosophical understanding of science. But hey I am a theist, I don't have a problem with faith.

Do you still insist on referring to me as a physicalist after all this?

Without reservation. But hey just read the comments, your the one sitting in the cumfy respected leather chair with a pipe with all the other physicalists; while I am just the lowly woo-ey guy, you should be happy about that. Please don't take that as passive agressive, it's just a joke. If Lemmie is reading, I've read some of the mentalgymnast stuff ;)

mikwut

[_EAllusion]

You're restating everything again. You're talking about physicalism and idealism, I'm talking about where the mind is. Try to focus. Concentrate on what I'm saying instead of what you want me to say.

What is the mind is central to the debate over physicalism and idealism. For some, that's the entire debate. That's why it is nearly the entire focus of this thread. Good job not clicking that link, because I'm pretty sure that's explained inside.

(Asking about its "location" already presumes something about its nature.)

[_mikwut]

Mikwut -

Idealism ranges from believing that ordinarily experienced properties of objects are purely mental constructs - that is to say things like time and space as we understand them are a function of how thought works - to believing that the world is made up of individual atom-like units of thought. The range is so huge that I don't think you can criticize or support the position categorically. It's not a matter of establishing Idealism, then figuring out which one is correct. These are just radically different views on the nature of the world.

I understand that the skeptic-brigade shouting "I believe in the real world. I believe in science!" is doing no one any favors here, but I don't see you putting on a coherent case for a particular idealist position. This is leading to weird range in the nature and quality of arguments. "If you're a materialist, what does the brain do when it sleeps?!" is such a dumb argument (sorry to offend), but on the other hand you also reference much more insightful material as well. This is terribly confusing unless a person has the background to sort through this.

Now this is criticism I can certainly absorb. Thank you EA. I don't subscribe to having a simplified and perfect powerpoint of my position. That is one of the reasons I enjoy the dialogue. I certainly could have been more specific as to what i was getting at with the sleep, no offense taken. Physicalism is so naturally absorbed it is difficult to concisely and quickly get across the point that there exists another paradigm that meets all the evidence as well. I'll try to think of a succinct way of stating my position and post it.

mikwut

[_Maksutov]

Demonstrate consciousness without a brain. That is your burden. We can show everything from forensic science to brain injuries to imaging to demonstrate that consciousness is located in the physical human body and its processes.

Jesus H. Christ. That's an argument for physicalism. The argument is, "Anywhere we can observe consciousness, we also observe a functioning brain. Ergo, mind is a byproduct of what the brain does." Congrats, you're doing philosophy. But it's not this fact that is in dispute. It is the conclusion you are deriving from it that is. It's so self-evident to you that you don't even appear to pick up that it's possible to show that that one doesn't have to follow the other.

Here:

Suppose that everything you experience - the colors of the rainbow, the shapes of things, the sounds you hear, the passing of time - was a consequence of how the brain organizes a soup of quantum fields. Sounds, colors, objects, etc. aren't real things. They're constructs of thought. That is to say, you are necessarily bound by what you can subjective perceive and the entire world as you perceive it is just one mental construct after another.

Ok. This is an idealist stance. Now tell me how does the observation that consciousness is only observed in tandem with a functioning brain straight disprove it?

This isn't a bunch of black boxes.

We know what each of the sensory organs does. We know how to enhance, repair, even replace parts of them. We know where they tie into the brain. We know where they tie into the brain. We have watched activity in those areas in real time. The combination of sensory inputs, organizing faculties and other neurological features we are only beginning to understand--but will--constitute consciousness.

Note that I did not need to use the terms "physicalism" or "materialism" or "idealism" or "philosophy" or any other abstraction beyond the facts above. I did not even use the words "irrelevant", "red herring", or "anachronism", either, in reference to the insistence on dualism and defense of arguments in support of it.

These biological systems are powerfully augmented by technology. That's an important area for expanding functional potential but also for unexpected consequences. The effects of telepresence, for instance.

[_EAllusion]

This isn't a bunch of black boxes.

We know what each of the sensory organs does. We know how to enhance, repair, even replace parts of them. We know where they tie into the brain. We know where they tie into the brain. We have watched activity in those areas in real time. The combination of sensory inputs, organizing faculties and other neurological features we are only beginning to understand--but will--constitute consciousness.

Note that I did not need to use the terms "physicalism" or "materialism" or "idealism" or "philosophy" or any other abstraction beyond the facts above. I did not even use the words "irrelevant", "red herring", or "anachronism", either, in reference to the insistence on dualism and defense of arguments in support of it.

I'm not saying it is a bunch of black boxes. I used to work in a neuroscience lab Mak. I focused on physiological psych in college. I think you'll have to trust that I know a fair amount about the science of the brain.

I think what I asked you to consider didn't actually land. Imagine that your experience of color (the greeness of green if you will) was purely mental. There is no "green" in the world out there - only in your thoughts. This does not mean there isn't a photons of different wavelengths. It means that "greeness" is a mental property. Imagine the feeling of a solid object. I'm sure you know that solid objects are almost entirely made up of empty space. Their firmness is you detecting electromagnetic interactions. Let's say the experience of "solid" is a mental construct. Now, if you are holding onto that notion, apply it to every other category of property you normally think of as physical. Time, space, etc. Even the very language you use to describe quantum mechanics and how the brain operates in the world is entirely made up of metal constructs. The only thing you ever get know are mental properties and therefore the world as you know it is purely mental.

I'm not saying this position is correct. I'm asking you to hold it in your brain for a second to contemplate it. Do you see how simply pointing out that only things with brains have consciousness doesn't refute it?