Are words immaterial?

[Speakpigeon]

The point of the thought experiment is to show that there are two completely different accounts for what happens at a certain point due to the duality of body and mind.

What duality of body and mind?

There is no duality in the scientific account of body and mind.

There is no duality either in your subjective experience of your own mind and of anybody's body.

There is a duality between the scientific account of the mind and your subjective experience of your own mind. That's very different. That's not really a duality. That's just differing perspectives.

I'm not aware that anybody ever showed that there was a duality of body and mind.
EB

 

[ryan]

It is controversial; please see, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#TheCon and http://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=consciousness .

Can you quote the parts that question the proposition that it is the brain that generates consciousness?

I actually agree that the brain generates or causes the consciousness to emerge.

Where is the argument for a non material component? Who are the supporters for the presence of a ghost in the machine?

There are plenty of arguments for a nonphysical consciousness and nonphysical qualia. See part 9.9 of the first link. It doesn't even get into very much.

But I do believe it emerges. No posts of mine say it doesn't.

Then let's take an orange tree as a example of properties. An orange tree has a hard wooden trunk, bark, roots that burrow into the ground, unpalatable leaves...yet it produces a soft, succulent delicious fruit, unlike any other aspect of the tree. The fruit is like no other part of the tree. It is completely different. How is this possible? Is it the work of a non material agency? According to the reasoning that experience is nothing like conscious neural activity (how do you know), the orange is nothing like the plant it grows on.

The parts of the orange are all that matters; the qualities we decide to give the whole is completely arbitrary. The parts stay constant; softness is something subjective and arbitrary. The parts can be traced back to the tree, soil, CO2, etc. The conscious experience can't be reduced to parts; it may be fundamentally irreducible.

 

[ryan]

The point of the thought experiment is to show that there are two completely different accounts for what happens at a certain point due to the duality of body and mind.

What duality of body and mind?

There is no duality in the scientific account of body and mind.

There is no duality either in your subjective experience of your own mind and of anybody's body.

There is a duality between the scientific account of the mind and your subjective experience of your own mind. That's very different. That's not really a duality. That's just differing perspectives.

I'm not aware that anybody ever showed that there was a duality of body and mind.
EB

Well, duality comes to mind when I think about how the mind observes but cannot be observed, and non-mental entities can be observed but can't observe.

 

[Juma]

Well, duality comes to mind when I think about how the mind observes but cannot be observed, and non-mental entities can be observed but can't observe.

You dont know that mind cannot be observed.

 

[ryan]

Well, duality comes to mind when I think about how the mind observes but cannot be observed, and non-mental entities can be observed but can't observe.

You dont know that mind cannot be observed.

The "part" of the mind that I was referring to is the "part" that observes/experiences. Experiencing another's sensual experience cannot be the same thing as the other's sensual experience. Moreover, experiencing and being experienced seem to be fundamentally different.

 

[Kharakov]

Well, duality comes to mind when I think about how the mind observes but cannot be observed, and non-mental entities can be observed but can't observe.

You dont know that mind cannot be observed.

I know that mind cannot be unobserved.

 

[Juma]

You dont know that mind cannot be observed.

The "part" of the mind that I was referring to is the "part" that observes/experiences. Experiencing another's sensual experience cannot be the same thing as the other's sensual experience. Moreover, experiencing and being experienced seem to be fundamentally different.

Again. You dont know that. Flying was thought impossible until it someone realized it wasnt.

"I cant think of a way how" is not the same as "cant be done"

 

[DBT]

Can you quote the parts that question the proposition that it is the brain that generates consciousness?

I actually agree that the brain generates or causes the consciousness to emerge.

Which still raises the questions;
1- what is the nature of this ''non material?''
2-how does this 'non material' emerge from the material activity of the brain?
3- how does this 'non material' interact with the material world?
4- how does the proposition of 'non material consciousness' explain experience...how does it help us understand ir?

There are plenty of arguments for a nonphysical consciousness and nonphysical qualia. See part 9.9 of the first link. It doesn't even get into very much.

I don't see an argument in part 9.9, there are only references to speculative 'theories' - but no evidence for the presence of 'non material,' no explanation for this 'non material' - whatever it may be - or how it is supposed to work in relation to neural activity.

The parts of the orange are all that matters; the qualities we decide to give the whole is completely arbitrary. The parts stay constant; softness is something subjective and arbitrary. The parts can be traced back to the tree, soil, CO2, etc. The conscious experience can't be reduced to parts; it may be fundamentally irreducible.

How do you know it can't? The experience of looking at the objects and events of external World entail acquiring information from the external World, pressure waves, molecules, EMR, etc, converted to nerve impulses, ion flow, and represented in virtual form. The 'how of the virtual form' is the par that is not yet understood, but proposing 'non material' as solution for something we don't yet understand is not, for the given reasons, a solution.

 

[Togo]

Is proposing 'material' as a solution for something we don't understand a solution? Or are they both equally vague?

 

[Juma]

Is proposing 'material' as a solution for something we don't understand a solution? Or are they both equally vague?

"Material" refers to the world as we know it. How could that be vague?

 

[Togo]

Is proposing 'material' as a solution for something we don't understand a solution? Or are they both equally vague?

"Material" refers to the world as we know it. How could that be vague?

Because it doesn't refer to the world as we experience it, it refers to a subset of that world. The vagueness you're talking about isn't made of anything. The statement you've made isn't a material object. The feeling of scepticism you experience (if any) isn't obviously constructed of any kind of stuff. You can make the claim that all these things are actually material, we just don't know how, but it's no less vague a solution than calling them immaterial.

Think of it this way - there is subjective experience, which is not adequately explained. What explanatory power is conveyed by assigning this experience the label of immaterial? What explanatory power is conveyed by assigning it the label of material? They're simply equally vague labels that in themselves explain nothing.

 

[Juma]

What explanatory power is conveyed by assigning this experience the label of immaterial?

None.

What explanatory power is conveyed by assigning it the label of material?

What is the explanatory power of saying that this part of the ocean is water?

 

[Togo]

None.

What explanatory power is conveyed by assigning it the label of material?

What is the explanatory power of saying that this part of the ocean is water?

It tells you something about the qualities of this part of the ocean. What explanatory power is conveyed by assigning subjective experiences or abstract concepts the label of material?

 

[DBT]

Is proposing 'material' as a solution for something we don't understand a solution? Or are they both equally vague?

Material has definable properties: mass, charge, spin, orientation, position, velocity. Properties that can be examined and tested, while the term 'non material' - presumably being the absence of matter - implies that there are no properties to examine and no way to test this 'non material' ..... whatever it is. Even saying 'whatever it is' seems wrong because by definition, it is not physical, so it is nothing. It's the realm of Ghosts. 'Non material' consciousness is the proposition of a ghost in the machine.

 

[ryan]

Is proposing 'material' as a solution for something we don't understand a solution? Or are they both equally vague?

Material has definable properties: mass, charge, spin, orientation, position, velocity. Properties that can be examined and tested, while the term 'non material' - presumably being the absence of matter - implies that there are no properties to examine and no way to test this 'non material' ..... whatever it is. Even saying 'whatever it is' seems wrong because by definition, it is not physical, so it is nothing. It's the realm of Ghosts. 'Non material' consciousness is the proposition of a ghost in the machine.

The elementary particles of the world which make up matter are like words in a book. And the sensory experience is like the act of reading. The latter just cannot come from the latter.

Different combinations of particles are different combinations of particles; there are no objective wholes outside of the mind.

 

[Speakpigeon]

What duality of body and mind?

There is no duality in the scientific account of body and mind.

There is no duality either in your subjective experience of your own mind and of anybody's body.

There is a duality between the scientific account of the mind and your subjective experience of your own mind. That's very different. That's not really a duality. That's just differing perspectives.

I'm not aware that anybody ever showed that there was a duality of body and mind.
EB

Well, duality comes to mind when I think about how the mind observes but cannot be observed, and non-mental entities can be observed but can't observe.

Ok, so you're definitely not talking about substance duality at all. A relief if you want to know.

You're just saying that certain different things have certain different properties. Ah, good.

And also, you just happen to know which things have which properties.

Well, sure, it all makes sense. The mind observes so it would know if it was observed but it doesn't know that so it's definitely not observed. And, non-mental entities can be observed so the mind can observe them and therefore knows that these things definitely can't observe. It's tight!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Well, duality comes to mind when I think about how the mind observes but cannot be observed, and non-mental entities can be observed but can't observe.

You dont know that mind cannot be observed.

Do you yourself know that ryan doesn't know?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

You dont know that mind cannot be observed.

I know that mind cannot be unobserved.

I put in bold what I think should be seen as a bold statement.

A kind of generalisation of the Cogito even?

Descartes would have disapproved.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

The "part" of the mind that I was referring to is the "part" that observes/experiences. Experiencing another's sensual experience cannot be the same thing as the other's sensual experience. Moreover, experiencing and being experienced seem to be fundamentally different.

Again. You dont know that. Flying was thought impossible until it someone realized it wasnt.

"I cant think of a way how" is not the same as "cant be done"

Esp. ESP.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Different combinations of particles are different combinations of particles; there are no objective wholes outside of the mind.

I would have thought that's precisely what you were trying to say with your insistance on structure being non-material in the sense of not being matter per se. In other words, you should be saying that objective wholes do exist outside the mind as immaterial physical things just like structures in the physical world exist outside the mind as immaterial physical things.
EB