Physicalism

[boneyard bill]

DBT writes:

The senses are physical stuctures. Physical stuctures that absorb light, pressure waves, airborne molucules, lenses, rods, cones, etc, and convert this information into nerve impulses that are conveyed to the related neural networks, correlated and processed.

None of the things you mentioned here are senses. Physical structures and senses are not the same thing at all. A physical structure doesn't see, hear, touch, feel, or taste. At best the physical structure transmits information to the organism.

Theoretically, information is all the organism needs. In other words, theoretically we could build a robot that would be perfectly functional without having any senses at all. All it needs in information. It doesn't information in the way that we receive it. It doesn't need the senses for functionality which raises yet another question in philosophy of mind. What is the function of consciousness?

We may not need the senses for our survival, but we have them nonetheless. So what purpose do they serve?

 

[boneyard bill]

Nitpic: we a lot more than five senses.
We have sensors for temperature, CO2, limb locations etc.

Of course they can. That is in the definition of a sense: it is signals from sensors.

Why is this such a common mistake? Everything within our experince can be reduced to physical processes and simulated in computers. It is the experience IN ITSELF that currently escape our attempts. Thst you can distinguish one musician from another in seconds just from the sound is fascinating but is not a principally hard problem.

The hard problem is the awarness, not its content.

Sorry, but signals from sensors are not senses. They are signals. Signals are physical, but the experience that receive is not physical. An electrical impulse in my brain is physical. It is an electrical impulse. But when I then see a sunset, the sight of the sunset is not physical.

Awareness is an added problem. We have no idea how to make a robot aware of itself, but I suspect that that problem is easier to get a handle on than the problem of the senses. It's the less hard problem.

 

[DBT]

DBT writes:

The senses are physical stuctures. Physical stuctures that absorb light, pressure waves, airborne molucules, lenses, rods, cones, etc, and convert this information into nerve impulses that are conveyed to the related neural networks, correlated and processed.

None of the things you mentioned here are senses. Physical structures and senses are not the same thing at all. A physical structure doesn't see, hear, touch, feel, or taste. At best the physical structure transmits information to the organism.

That is precisely what I said above. The 'organism' responsible for conscious representation of sensory information being the brain.
The role of the senses, which have the necessary physical structures to gather information, is to provide the brain with the necessary information for processing and response. There is no evidence of an unearthly, non physical element at work within the system.

A simple chemical imbalance, drugs, etc, can interfere with conscious perception...

 

[Juma]

Sorry, but signals from sensors are not senses.

The definition of a sens is not the experience but the actual sensors and the signal going to the brain.

But experiencing is not so hard. That is just about a system interpreting data.

Awareness is an added problem.

No. It is the only problem, the rest is a matter of managing information.

 

[Rilx]

Theoretically, information is all the organism needs. In other words, theoretically we could build a robot that would be perfectly functional without having any senses at all. All it needs in information. It doesn't information in the way that we receive it. It doesn't need the senses for functionality which raises yet another question in philosophy of mind. What is the function of consciousness?

We may not need the senses for our survival, but we have them nonetheless. So what purpose do they serve?

Our senses have evolved exactly for our survival. They inform us about our environment: the world we live in, the world where we must find our food, mate and shelter. They build us a view of our world, not an "objective" information storage but a subjective view about our relations with the world. We have not evolved into useless observers but actors and agents of our world.

Considering Nagel's question, "what is it like to be a bat", it is senseless, creating mostly mystical mental images. We must ask "what is it like to be a bat in this world", because the answer is in its relations with the world.


"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
- Aldous Huxley

 

[boneyard bill]

DBT writes:

The senses are physical stuctures. Physical stuctures that absorb light, pressure waves, airborne molucules, lenses, rods, cones, etc, and convert this information into nerve impulses that are conveyed to the related neural networks, correlated and processed.

None of the things you mentioned here are senses. Physical structures and senses are not the same thing at all. A physical structure doesn't see, hear, touch, feel, or taste. At best the physical structure transmits information to the organism.

That is precisely what I said above. The 'organism' responsible for conscious representation of sensory information being the brain.
The role of the senses, which have the necessary physical structures to gather information, is to provide the brain with the necessary information for processing and response. There is no evidence of an unearthly, non physical element at work within the system.

A simple chemical imbalance, drugs, etc, can interfere with conscious perception...

Yes. Information gets transmitted to the brain, and drugs and other factors can interfere with or distort that transmission. Nonetheless, the senses themselves are not physical. Information gets to your computer, and if you spill drugs on your computer it will probably distort your computers performance but it would not interfere at all with your computer's ability to see, feel, hear, taste, or tough because your computer can't do any of those things anyway.

The knower does know how he knows because the knower and knowledge are the same thing.

- - - Updated - - -

The definition of a sens is not the experience but the actual sensors and the signal going to the brain.

But experiencing is not so hard. That is just about a system interpreting data.

Awareness is an added problem.

No. It is the only problem, the rest is a matter of managing information.

You're just trying to define the problem away.

 

[boneyard bill]

Rilx writes

Theoretically, information is all the organism needs. In other words, theoretically we could build a robot that would be perfectly functional without having any senses at all. All it needs in information. It doesn't information in the way that we receive it. It doesn't need the senses for functionality which raises yet another question in philosophy of mind. What is the function of consciousness?

We may not need the senses for our survival, but we have them nonetheless. So what purpose do they serve?

Our senses have evolved exactly for our survival.

How do you that to be true?

They inform us about our environment: the world we live in, the world where we must find our food, mate and shelter. They build us a view of our world, not an "objective" information storage but a subjective view about our relations with the world. We have not evolved into useless observers but actors and agents of our world.

I don't deny that the senses are information. But information is not physical. Information is only information in relationship to a knower. But the senses ARE the knower. Information inputted into a computer is not information to the computer. It is only information to us.

Considering Nagel's question, "what is it like to be a bat", it is senseless, creating mostly mystical mental images. We must ask "what is it like to be a bat in this world", because the answer is in its relations with the world.

I don't disagree with this, but I don't quite get your point. We aren't interested in an abstraction like "batness" because it wouldn't mean anything to us. I might as well ask what fairy dust smells like. Nobody cares. We want to know what fairy dust does. Will it make me younger? Will it make me smart? Those are relevant questions about fairy dust. "Batness" isn't a relevant question about being a bat.


"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
- Aldous Huxley

 

[Juma]

You're just trying to define the problem away.

No. i 'm making clear what the problem is and what it isnt, you include a lot that is just information processing.

 

[DBT]

Nonetheless, the senses themselves are not physical.

How are the senses themselves not physical? Sense organs are physical structures made up of carbon molecules, proteins, etc. The architecture is in fact physical, prone to physical damage and deterioration, faults and flaws, both genetic and acquired.

If by 'senses' you mean sensory representation of information, something not done by the senses but the brain, the evidence supports the proposition that it is the electrochemical activity of the brain that generates this form of mental phenomena, including thoughts and emotions and motor response. What is not understood is exactly how the brain forms conscious representation of information. But there is no reason to claim non physical activity....whatever that is supposed to entail, or even mean.

 

[boneyard bill]

Nonetheless, the senses themselves are not physical.

How are the senses themselves not physical? Sense organs are physical structures made up of carbon molecules, proteins, etc. The architecture is in fact physical, prone to physical damage and deterioration, faults and flaws, both genetic and acquired.

If by 'senses' you mean sensory representation of information, something not done by the senses but the brain, the evidence supports the proposition that it is the electrochemical activity of the brain that generates this form of mental phenomena, including thoughts and emotions and motor response. What is not understood is exactly how the brain forms conscious representation of information. But there is no reason to claim non physical activity....whatever that is supposed to entail, or even mean.

Sense organs are physical. The senses are not. The act of seeing or feeling is not physical even if the objects seen and felt are. In philosophy of mind the response of materialists has been to do exactly what you are doing, which is simply to deny that there are any such senses or to claim that they are physical acts. But that hasn't convinced anyone who wasn't already a committed materialist. The problem has been even long before Descartes, but so far no one has been able to explain sense experience by reducing it to nothing but material processes.

 

[steve_bnk]

Nonetheless, the senses themselves are not physical.

How are the senses themselves not physical? Sense organs are physical structures made up of carbon molecules, proteins, etc. The architecture is in fact physical, prone to physical damage and deterioration, faults and flaws, both genetic and acquired.

If by 'senses' you mean sensory representation of information, something not done by the senses but the brain, the evidence supports the proposition that it is the electrochemical activity of the brain that generates this form of mental phenomena, including thoughts and emotions and motor response. What is not understood is exactly how the brain forms conscious representation of information. But there is no reason to claim non physical activity....whatever that is supposed to entail, or even mean.

Sense organs are physical. The senses are not. The act of seeing or feeling is not physical even if the objects seen and felt are. In philosophy of mind the response of materialists has been to do exactly what you are doing, which is simply to deny that there are any such senses or to claim that they are physical acts. But that hasn't convinced anyone who wasn't already a committed materialist. The problem has been even long before Descartes, but so far no one has been able to explain sense experience by reducing it to nothing but material processes.

What you 'feel' physically andemotionally is a physical process...and it can not be anything butunless you want to jump into 'imaterialism' and the like.


Trying to define thoughts andperceptions as not being physical from metaphysics alone is like adog chasing its tail.

Conceptually reconciling conscious thought and an apparent reality and perceptions with the physical brain is traditionally called the 'mind-body problem'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_problem

 

[fromderinside]

Gee. I wonder what the first being that had a chemical sensitive mechanism it used to discriminate edible and inedible substances thought when it found something it could usefully ingest. Was it "this feels like it's edible" or was it "gulp"?

 

[Rilx]

I don't deny that the senses are information. But information is not physical. Information is only information in relationship to a knower. But the senses ARE the knower. Information inputted into a computer is not information to the computer. It is only information to us.

Hmm... we are the knower, not our senses. But I see that that's not your problem. The problem seems to be that information cannot be reduced to any definite physical form. It is true, the same information can be transmitted and stored using infinite number of different forms. It is not a physical substance as distance and duration are not physical substances. But they are relations between physical entities regardless what form the knower uses.

Understanding the meaning of some information as a knower, means that by this information the knower becomes able to act meaningfully - change the world, so to say. Therefore, we can say that the information has induced a new physical dependence. Moreover, if the knower acts in the new way, the information has caused a physical effect.

So, even though information is not physical, it must have such a physical form that the knower can receive it and it must have such a content that the knower can interprete it; the content must be meaningful - executable - in the knower's world.

 

[Togo]

Gee. I wonder what the first being that had a chemical sensitive mechanism it used to discriminate edible and inedible substances thought when it found something it could usefully ingest. Was it "this feels like it's edible" or was it "gulp"?

'This feels like it's edible'. Or at least that's how it works with rats.

 

[fromderinside]

'This feels like it's edible'. Or at least that's how it works with rats.

So Togo votes for the rat as the first thing that had a chemical sensing mechanism.

 

[boneyard bill]

Nonetheless, the senses themselves are not physical.

How are the senses themselves not physical? Sense organs are physical structures made up of carbon molecules, proteins, etc. The architecture is in fact physical, prone to physical damage and deterioration, faults and flaws, both genetic and acquired.

If by 'senses' you mean sensory representation of information, something not done by the senses but the brain, the evidence supports the proposition that it is the electrochemical activity of the brain that generates this form of mental phenomena, including thoughts and emotions and motor response. What is not understood is exactly how the brain forms conscious representation of information. But there is no reason to claim non physical activity....whatever that is supposed to entail, or even mean.

Sense organs are physical. The senses are not. The act of seeing or feeling is not physical even if the objects seen and felt are. In philosophy of mind the response of materialists has been to do exactly what you are doing, which is simply to deny that there are any such senses or to claim that they are physical acts. But that hasn't convinced anyone who wasn't already a committed materialist. The problem has been even long before Descartes, but so far no one has been able to explain sense experience by reducing it to nothing but material processes.

What you 'feel' physically andemotionally is a physical process...and it can not be anything butunless you want to jump into 'imaterialism' and the like.


Trying to define thoughts andperceptions as not being physical from metaphysics alone is like adog chasing its tail.

Conceptually reconciling conscious thought and an apparent reality and perceptions with the physical brain is traditionally called the 'mind-body problem'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_problem

Of course, if you're a physicalist then the senses must be physical because nothing else exists. And yes, if you reject the idea that the senses are material, then you are left with a non-materialist explanation.

But the fact remains that the senses are not material no matter how much the physcialists insist that "they must be physical." That is to preference the ideology over the evidence. Unless someone can find a way to reduce sentient experience to physical processes the "mind-body" problem that you refer still exists and is still a real problem. The failure of physicalism to solve the problem has led to new ideas and new discussions in this area that look for non-materialist solutions. Many materialists have simply given up and now look elsewhere and hence aren't materialists anymore.

 

[boneyard bill]

I don't deny that the senses are information. But information is not physical. Information is only information in relationship to a knower. But the senses ARE the knower. Information inputted into a computer is not information to the computer. It is only information to us.

Hmm... we are the knower, not our senses. But I see that that's not your problem. The problem seems to be that information cannot be reduced to any definite physical form. It is true, the same information can be transmitted and stored using infinite number of different forms. It is not a physical substance as distance and duration are not physical substances. But they are relations between physical entities regardless what form the knower uses.

Understanding the meaning of some information as a knower, means that by this information the knower becomes able to act meaningfully - change the world, so to say. Therefore, we can say that the information has induced a new physical dependence. Moreover, if the knower acts in the new way, the information has caused a physical effect.

So, even though information is not physical, it must have such a physical form that the knower can receive it and it must have such a content that the knower can interprete it; the content must be meaningful - executable - in the knower's world.

I don't think what you say here is much in dispute. Yes, we receive information through physical processes. That is accepted by virtually everyone except those involved in psychic studies who suggest that there might be other ways. (Although even these other ways could be physical substances that we aren't aware of). But an electrical impulse is not a sentient experience. It is an electrical impulse. Still, it plays a part in stimulating a sentient experience. I think that it pretty much agreed upon.

 

[steve_bnk]

Physicalism is neither a failure nor a success.


It is one of many subjective ways of looking at reality.


Religion is a useful metaphysics for many in providing a way to position one's view of self in theuniverse.


Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are paradigms of the individual's place in the universe.


In ancient times before western Christianity and Islam philosophy served the purpose relgion does today.


For me Naturalism works best as aphilosophical perspective.

 

[DBT]

Nonetheless, the senses themselves are not physical.

How are the senses themselves not physical? Sense organs are physical structures made up of carbon molecules, proteins, etc. The architecture is in fact physical, prone to physical damage and deterioration, faults and flaws, both genetic and acquired.

If by 'senses' you mean sensory representation of information, something not done by the senses but the brain, the evidence supports the proposition that it is the electrochemical activity of the brain that generates this form of mental phenomena, including thoughts and emotions and motor response. What is not understood is exactly how the brain forms conscious representation of information. But there is no reason to claim non physical activity....whatever that is supposed to entail, or even mean.

Sense organs are physical. The senses are not. The act of seeing or feeling is not physical even if the objects seen and felt are.

How do you know this? What exactly is the nature of 'non physical senses?' How does this non physical thing you call ''senses'' interact with the physical world?

In philosophy of mind the response of materialists has been to do exactly what you are doing, which is simply to deny that there are any such senses or to claim that they are physical acts. But that hasn't convinced anyone who wasn't already a committed materialist. The problem has been even long before Descartes, but so far no one has been able to explain sense experience by reducing it to nothing but material processes.

I'm not denying anything that is supported by evidence. I am questioning claims that are apparently not supported by the evidence that is available. I'm not aware of descriptions of non physical things. Nor of non physical things that interact with the physical world on a macro scale...such as neural networks. If you have an explanation of consciousness in terms of non material processes, or non material activity, please provide it. I think you'd find it difficult to find much more than a tiny minority of neuroscientists who support dualism.

But the fact remains that the senses are not material no matter how much the physcialists insist that "they must be physical."

How is it a fact? When was this established? How was it established?

 

[Togo]

I'm not denying anything that is supported by evidence. I am questioning claims that are apparently not supported by the evidence that is available. I'm not aware of descriptions of non physical things.

How about an interest rate? Surely that's not physical? Or Hogwarts?

The problem is what you allow as a 'thing'. Our world contains a great many concepts, ideas, sensations and so that are not physical. For physicalism to work, you need to reduce everything to physical processes without information being lost. Thus far, subjective experiences of various kinds, including sensations, have proved very difficult to reduce.