Inherently physical, inherently human, inherently alive, inherently inherent, inherently anything. The labels “inherent” and “physical” are what labelling devices label things as.
An it occurs to me to point out that “use of language is only possible by language users” is a tautology, which of course I agree with. I am asking what you call things.
If nothing is inherently anything, then it seems to me that whatever subjectivity is, it’s not only non-physical, but it’s foundational to something being physical. (And I’m not {just} talking about language; you need subjectivity, some “Point of View” in order to identify anything at all; let alone to identify noise from signal.)
IOW, the impression I got throughout this debate is that you were arguing that there is a physical universe from which subjectivity emerges. To me, that seems backwards; it seems instead that a physical universe emerges through subjectivity.
In other, other words;
SM: {Undifferentiated Universe----> “physical (universe)” ---->Subjectivity}
ow: {Undifferentiated Universe ---->Subjectivity----> “physical (universe)”}
or perhaps: {Subjectivity---->Undifferentiated Universe ----> “physical (universe)”}
How so? Why cannot subjectivity be the result of solely physical computational processes? I think an example might be useful: I’m sure you’ve heard of Shakey the Robot, yes? He could identify and label objects in his visual field via computational processing of the signal from a video camera. Could you tell me what you, a labelling entity, label non-physical about Shakey the labelling entity?
Like I say, I think this is tautological. Identification needs identifying apparatus: us! Given that we exist as identifiying devices, things can be identified/labelled/called names/liguistically referenced, whatever you want to call it.
You are labelling the universe “undifferentiated”. What justifies this label more than “physical”? I, the subjective labelling device, would put physical first.
His “Point of View” (assuming he’s got one, no matter how foreign (or similar) to ours).
Yes, but the identifying apparatus (AKA subjectivity) doesn’t meet your stated criteria for physical. You’ve said that when something is physical, its labels and functions are arbitrary.
While subjectivity’s label is arbitrary (you could call it “Point of View”, or “Awareness” or “Fred”) its function is non-arbitrary. In fact, it’s just the opposite; it’s absolutely specific. Your Point of View is yours; you can’t be Shakey the Robot, I can’t be you.
The function of a physical entity is not determined by the fact that it cannot occupy the same space at the same time as another physical entity. However, that fact it does mean that physical entities have an inherent point of view, hence, the Point of View of a given entity is necessarily specific, non-arbitrary.
It’s not necessesarily justified, which is why I included an alternate.
But based on these…
it sure looked like you considered the universe “undifferentiated”.
But do we agree that the computational processes which cause that “Point of View” are entirely physical?
Everything is, ultimately, arbitrary in what we label it.
I don’t see how. Its function is computational.
One physical individual can’t be another individual. There is still nothing non-physical about that labelling process.
And “specific” and “non-arbitrary” are themselves arbitrary labels.
Yes, I agreed, but you are, for some reason, labelling “labelling entities” as non-physical. Why can’t they be?
Since we’ve agreed that whether or not something is a “computational process” or “physical” depends on a point of view, no.
How is subjectivity computational?
I don’t understand what you’re saying here.
Is it arbitrary to describe something as an “arbitrary label”?
Is it arbitrary to label “labelling entities” as either physical or non-physical?
It seems to me that you two have worked yourselves into something resembling the opposite of solipsism — self as a whimsical phantom.
Depends tautologically on the ability to call things names. Let’s be clear: you are answering the question “Can your ability to label things result from physical processes?” with “No, because labelling ability is not physical.” I am asking you why it can’t be.
Shakey the Robot is a bunch of chips, RAM, lenses and the wave/photons of light and electron charges moving around in him. His subjectivity is caused by exactly the same kind of processes happening in the computer under your desk.
I’d suggest we stick with Shakey the Robot as a labelling entity. I can’t be Shakey - I can’t reside in the same volume of space as him. Arrangements of particles in spacetime are mutually exclusive in spacetime.
YES! I could call it a “rhino” BUT I DON’T, and I ask you WHETHER YOU AGREE.
YES! I’m asking what your labels are. My friend, please, listen to yourself. I am desperately trying to bring you off the roundabout but you seemingly cannot even take your eyes off it. You are the labelling entity whose labels I am interested in right now, and I don’t care what you label “arbitrary”. I care what you label “physical”, “alive” and “computational” no matter how arbitrary you think those labels are.
Heh heh, a ghost in the machine, perhaps? Not me - I suggest self is the unique string of memories and IF-THEN-ELSE responses in this biological computer in our skulls. And distancing myself from solipsism is no bad thing!
But isn’t it a bit like looking through a telescope and seeing the back of your head? Do you really think that the human brain operates so linearly? Isn’t thinking more than just computation? What does the computer actually understand? What does it find significant? What is its favorite aesthetic? How does it feel today? When has it told its programmer that it does not believe in him?
Which is possible in the correct arrangement of refractive material or, heck, using a mirror.
Don’t get me wrong - I don’t say that the processes are simple or linear: I follow the “massively parallel supercomputer” approach in which the brain comprises a vast number of simultaneously running cognitive modules, each shaped by billions of years of evolution and interconnected with the other modules in such a bewilderingly complex arrangement that it makes global climate look like a game of Pac-Man. Even amongst physicalists, I tend towards Dennet’s view of cognitive pandemonium rather than Fodor’s rather more bureaucratic model. But just as I consider that the weather is complex but ultimately physical, so I do with cognition, even human cognition.
I won’t pretend that there is anything like a convincing answer to this yet in cognitive science. We can only speculate that at some level, the logical combination of memories (or, in shorthand, the symbols representing them, even if those memories are “averages” of memories in order to produce something like a “concept”) is what ‘understanding’ is. Of course I agree that this is an utterly unsatisfactory state of affairs, whcih is why I always call it the challenge of the millennium.
If no significance judgement modules are part of the computer’s construction, nothing. The significance judgement modules in the parahippocampal gyrus of our temporal lobes are a wonder of billions of years of evolution. I suspect we will no more build one in a computer any more than we’ll ever construct a bacterium in the lab from separate molecules.
Of course, these are the big questions in the infant science of AI: no reasonable person thinks that computers have aesthetics, feelings, moods or existential beliefs yet. All we can do is ask why humans seemingly have these things, and whether they could be, amazingly, the outputs of biological cognitive modelues shaped by evolution.
Correction: a physical whimsical phantom self.
Perhaps I should ask this differently: What doesn’t have a Point of View? In what circumstances is subjectivity nowhere to be found?
Yes, I know… I said that two posts ago. I still don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.
Me? I label “physical”, “alive” and “computational” as (in the same order): “physical”, “alive” and “computational”. Where does that get us?
Sentient, I’m having a hard time seeing how you’re saying anything other than: “Everything is arbitrary, including physicalism. However, physicalism is better (arbitrarily)."
Hmm… that was poorly phrased. How about: “Everything is arbitrary, including physicalism and the standards within the physicalist system. However, as philosophical systems go, physicalism is better (arbitrarily).”
Well, we could start with the ability to label things, which I’m sure we agree is only found in certain complex arrangements of matter like silicon computers and human beings, requiring processing of sensory input in a working memory.
[quoteI still don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.[/quote]
In response to your “Your Point of View is yours; you can’t be Shakey the Robot, I can’t be you”, I am agreeing but suggesting that tyhis has no bearing on whether the labelling entity (ie. the thing with the Point of View) can be physical or not.
And exactly what are you labelling thus: human beings, or labelling entities in general? If so, I will have convinced you to become a physicalist - one who labels everythign in the universe including the outputs of cognitive apparatus as physical.
Better to me than the alternatives. How about you?
Physicalism, to me, appears consistent with philosophical principles (YES, YES, THEY’RE ARBITRARY TOO) such as Ockham’s Razor and sets forth a basis for cognition and those things which don’t seem physical (YES, YES, THEY SEEM LESS PHYSICAL TO ME, ARBITRARILY) which provides testable hypotheses (THE TESTS BEING ARBITRATING PROCESSES).
Now, one more time. What. Do. YOU, other-wise. Think?
I’ll tell you what I, Liberal, think — although I suppose that any differentiation between you, Sentient, and I, Liberal, is purely arbitrary. I think that the claim of having Ockham’s blessing (especially given his own renegade conceptualism) to the exclusion of non-materialist philosophies having it is just a mite brazen, if I may say so, in the context of the exchanges between you and Other-wise. It seems to me that a Gordian knot of exhaustive explanation has been offered, with entity piled on top of entity, and all of them arbitrary. Surely, the notion that all of that is supported by Ockham’s Razor is arbitrary as well, isn’t it? I don’t mean to sound touchy, my friend. But it’s a little tiresome being told that I disregard Ockham’s Razor in the construction of my own philosophy of existence, which is founded on the simplest possible existential premise.
Understand, friend, that this is other-wise*'s roundabout, not mine. Our usernames on this message board are the epitome of arbitrary choices of label. I don’t know why I have to keep agreeing with tautologies here, but I think we’re making progress in other ways.
Of oucrse, as I’ve said before we each consider that we are wielding Ockham’s Razor correctly. This is a personal opinion, a differing interpretation, rather than something each of us can prove to the other in anything like an objective manner.
What better word for “personal opinion” than that which has been flung around so many times in these past few pages that it’s rather becoming like the ubiquitous Crazy Frog ringtone?
Okely dokely. 
Sentient, early on, when you claimed that “Everything is physical”, I assumed (reasonably, I think) that you meant that there were some sort of distinguishing characteristics, or properties, or a description or definition that the word “physical” represented, and that a good case could be made that everything could be shown to fit this description or have these distinguishing characteristics (with no remainder).
Now, numerous posts later, I realize that my assumption was flat-out wrong: it seems that there are no distinguishing characteristics which would definitively identify something as “physical” (or anything else, for that matter); all such descriptions or definitions are arbitrary. Since any word (label) for any such description or definition is arbitrary too, statements like “Everything is physical” are unarguable.
With this new understanding, Sentient, I can step off the roundabout. What do I think? I think if one arbitrarily declares that the universe is arbitrary, we all become Humpty-Dumptys; posting words that mean just what we choose them to mean—neither more nor less. “Everything is Everything” is a statement that gives no information: it’s a roundabout.
If I have mischaracterized your position, let me know.