We could say the same about all these pretty letters in our posts. Why do you bother?
It stands to “reason” only if one posits that awareness is tied to the mind. For me, reason is more than the statement of arbitrary postulates.
Precisely - we each put up some language to describe arguments which we find convincing. Mine does not convince you, and vice versa.
And it stands to “reason” that there are two different awarenesses, one temporal and one eternal, only if one posits that awareness is not tied to the mind. Entertaining or instructive as these exhachanges might be to others, we are just restating our positions here.
Then why do you bother?
No, I don’t have to posit a not; I need only leave your postulate aside — just as Lobachevsky-Bolyai-Gauss geometry leaves aside the parallel postulate of Euclid.
Beats working.
Do you posit an eternal awareness? I don’t.
I cannot possibly reconcile that “everything is physical” is not an ontological position, SentientMeat. Everything you say sounds awash in ontological claims. Care to help me out here?
Ontology is a branch of metaphysics relating to the existence of entities. However, anything that can be known epistemically (ie. by our senses), such as a rock, atom or synaptic discharge is ontologically irrelevant: Ontology only deals with the transcendental - that which is solely intuitive.
The position of physicalism is that the metaphysical does not exist: its very definition denies even the possibility of non-physical existence. Thus, an entire subject devoted to the existence of the non-physical strikes the physicalist rather like learningKlingon: an interesting but ultimately pointless study of a language invented solely for the sake of itself.
Pretty words. Mean anything? 
I don’t even posit awareness. I think it is an undefined term.
This is almost, but not quite, what I said. As far as I can tell, nothing affects awareness qua awareness.
If I take drugs and hallucinate, my awareness is unaffected: I remain quite aware of the hallucination. As far as awareness having some physical element, I dunno… awareness has no identifiable physical properties (I reject the insanely circular proposition that the set of physical properties includes “interacting with physical things”. The only times I’ve encountered that proposition is when someone’s trying to justify physicalism. If there are instances of it outside that context, I’d be interested in seeing them).
Well, there are elements of the neutral monist stance that I find appealing, but not enough to claim the mantle. Sentient, you’re just gonna have to accept that I do not accept the very concept of “-ist”s. Lib’s a theist. So’s Bush. Do you really think they should be considered members of the same “set”?
Sorry, but I can’t really answer your second question; it’s too loaded with physicalist assumptions to address properly.
I think we disagree even on such distinctions as this, SentientMeat. Where epistemology is the [study of the] limits and nature of knowledge, ontology is the [study of the] nature of being. So I would say that physicalism really does have an ontological character to it, by suggesting that “being” is “being physical”. It goes quite far in its assertion. In fact, I find such statements like “everything supervenes on the physical” to be of the same kind as “everything is mind,” “everything is matter,” “everything is mind-correlative,” at least to the extent that I have yet to understand how the statement is motivated without ontological considerations (as I hope I have done at least a mildly tolerable job in doing).
Perhaps if you could illustrate why physicalism avoids ontology by contrasting such statements it would ease my mind. It doesn’t seem epistemologically motivated at all, and I have seen no presentation of it that concerns itself with such matters. The Stanford entry right off jumps into ontological concerns. What I have read from physicalists also seems heavy on ontological assumptions, and then spend a great deal of time explaining things in terms of those assumptions. Contrast this with Kant’s development of his “transcendental idealism” and it seems that the two really are different in more ways than just what they say. Now, later, I believe Kant still wanted to say ontological things and so brought about the synthetic a priori to enable him to do so “justifiably”, but that is not supposed to impact the development itself (and it only demonstrates the importance he gave to epistemology). As a personal matter, I like to suggest that, in order to progress to useful levels of discussion, ontological questions must be answered, but not that those answers are epistemically motivated (as I believe the synthetic a priori are meant to accomplish). So yes, I will give ontological answers, but at all points I want to be clear that these constitute unjustified belief completely, and that my commitment to them is not quite firm.
[aside]The more this discussion goes on, the more I hope you do go get Hume’s Treatise from the bookstore or library. I would love to see how you react to the first book (about understanding). I don’t know whether it would change your mind at all, the point here isn’t to be right, but I think you would genuinely be challenged and interested. If you find any pleasure in these debates, I cannot recommend it more. Given some time and effort, it is an eye-opener.[/aside]
OK, how about death? If you hold one is still aware during the 13 billion years before conception and/or the time after death, that would be a significant clue regarding your overall philosophical position. Do you?
The set of theists? Yes. I do not claim that there are not major differences within that set. I’m trying to ascertain what set, any set, you personally identify with. If you state that you identify with no “-ism”, I’d suggest that makes you, by default and definition, a nihilist.
Oh for crying out loud, you asked for some help in narrowing it down and now you rubbish that help as narrowing it too much. I stated that I consider gravity, magnetism and weather to be physical and simply asked if you agreed.I feel like I’m conversing with Buridan’s donkey - if I drew you some kind of philosophy flow-chart would you cast it right back at me for ‘containing assumptions’? Go back to #75, where I attempt to pinpoint where erl and I differ - it might be helpful in locating your philosophical position. Let me know if you ever work out what it is.
erl: I have only read Hume as encapsulated in general philosophic texts, rather than the real deal, so I’ll follow your advice when I can.
As for ontology, I was under the impression that physical entities were irrelevant to ontology since they are known epistemically. We say that a physical entity is so for all I know rather than it is possible for a physical entity to be so: it is the transcendental element of the entity to which ontology applies - the intuitive, metaphysical claims. Physicalism denies the possibility that a metaphysical thing, even one having Necessary Existence, exists. If one denies the metaphysical, then whither ontology?
As much as a boon those are for the aspiring philosophy hobbyist, such as I think we are FWIW, they have a habit of doing the thinking for you. When nothing else is available or you don’t have the time, of course, what can one say, but if one is interested in a certain position it does help to try to get to the source.
Then there is no difference between my view and physicalism. We just adopt what I’ve said already: “There are physical things” is a remark about the grammar of ‘physical things’ and says nothing about what lies behind phenomena. You took exception to that previously, but if that is what you believe, then that is comforting. I don’t get that impression from you, and I have never gotten that impression from physicalist writers, but… ok.
Yes, like, say, “everything is or supervenes on the physical.” Just to toss one out there. If you define “physical” as “that which we can experience” then you’ve just presented a kind of empiricism. That’s fine. In fact I consider myself an empiricist, as my perhaps snide remark about the philosophical a priori might have indicated. Nevertheless, I do think you should re-examine your perspective. Asserting mind-independence is not something that is disovered epistemically by means of empiricism, as I hope I have illustrated several times to your satisfaction. Mind-independence is quite an ontological “property”. Like I said, “trivial semantic point” or the point around which the whole argument rests?
I see nothing about physicalism that denies the metaphysical. Logical positivism denies the metaphysical, to be sure, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find positivists suggesting that there is only mind-independence. Indeed, such realms transcend our thought, and the classical question once posed to platonists comes around again: so then how do we know? Of course that question must be answered logically prior to us asserting any other kind of knowledge derived from it. “We don’t know yet how we know what we know” is not an epistemology.
What? The metaphysical and the physical are mutually exclusive by definition: Meta- means beyond. Things which we currently call metaphysical, like truth, awareness, language or concepts, are themselves held to be as physical as gravity or the weather under physicalism (or, under “fundamentalist” physicalism, eliminated altogether) , but nothing but the physical exists. A claim about existence is thus, ultimately, a physical thing itself: a linguistic construction by the brain analogous to a configuration of computational logic switches.
As for the ontological aspect, two seem to say almost the same things so often that I wonder whether whatever differences we have simply arise due to your having a “top-down” and my having a “bottom up” approach to our subjective predicament: that is why I was interested in hearing your preferred explanation for the origin of mind. Could you indulge me even if you think it irrelevant here, just to satisfy my curiosity?
Erratum: , we two seem to say almost the same things
Right, but do they exist?
Sure it is…just any results from applying a tentative worldview must be seen as themselves tentative. The only rational outlook, IMO.
What continues to amaze me is that you find this perfectly unmetaphysical. Specifically, the assertion that everything is physical. There is no question that empirical investigations are not metaphysical in nature. There is also little question that physics is an empirical science. I do not recall any particular law of physics which states that everything is physical, nor am I aware of any way that theory could be falsified, should anyone propose it, specifically because as soon as it is observable, you declare it “physical”. This is a great rug-sweeping, but you’ll have to excuse my incredulity that you’ve successfully dodged metaphysics.
our approaches differ, but I do not feel that that is the extent of our differences. This thread is about the justifications of epistemology, not statements about the nature existence. That would be “justification of ontology”. You are perfectly free to be a physicalist. You are also free to suggest that the empirical science ‘physics’ can eventually yield all knowledge. (You might even get me to agree with you, so long as we properly qualify the activity ‘physics’.) What you will not get me to agree on is that “everything supervenes on the physical”, and if you feel that you’ve managed to show it definitionally, then you will continue to raise my eyebrows and you will continue to get me to reply that you’ve directly answered an ontological question without epistemic justification. The justification for my assertion “reality is mind-correlative” is that everything we know requires a knower. We do not get to know what we can’t know, or don’t know. This is also a definitional matter. I feel comfortable asserting it. You apparently find it trivial, but agree. Yet I remain perplexed, then, that you turn around and begin answering metaphysical questions all over again, completely ignoring the epistemic considerations just enumerated.
How do you get to leave the limits of human knowledge in order to make the statement that “everything is or supervenes on the physical”? If you feel I have not properly shown a limit of human knowledge, feel free to extend it in some way. We agree on the point I find absolutely crucial, and yet we run in totally different directions afterwards.
Mental phenomena are explained as a complex reaction of chemical and electrical forces in the brain yielding a determinative effect on biological entities; though it is not possible at this time to know exactly how any arbitrary biological entity will respond given any arbitrary chemical stimulus in its brain, the existence of such a description is not empirically forbidden, and some behaviors can be reasonably predicted given various actions on the brain (stimulus, permanent damage, and others). The existence of brains is best explained by a selective environmental mechanism or set of mechanisms which favored the formation of such a central behavior control mechanism, though other mechanisms do remain in place outside of the brain, probably because of the brain’s reaction time when compared to the speed of chemical and electrical actions themselves.
Does that surprise you?
“A student comes to a Zen Master and asks, ‘What happens to us after death?’ And the Zen Master says, ‘I don’t know.’ The student is aghast. ‘You don’t know!? You’re a Zen Master!’ ‘Yes,’ the Zen Master says, ‘but not a dead one.’”
I have no idea what happens to awareness after death. In fact, I’ve seen nothing in these posts that would indicate that either of us even knows what awareness is, other than the fact that we are. You’ve stated your physicalist “opinion” on the nature/origin of awareness, but the only things you’ve presented in support of that position is the refuted claim that one can reliably discern awareness from lack of responsiveness, and a set of links to authorities that blatantly contradict one another. How am I to view your opinion on awareness as anything other than a WAG, or come to prefer your WAG to any other WAG?
*** “I do not claim that there are not major differences within that set.”*** That is exactly why I do not personally identify with sets. What kind of a “set” has “major differences” in it’s members?
Depends on how you define “major”, but the Universal Set might qualify.
How can the assertion that everything is physical be non-physical? That is utterly contradictory, an A=-A.
I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but I cannot “show” it at all[. It is an opinion, a position, a belief, which I wondered whether you agreed with. Physics certainly doesn’t state anywhere that there aren’t, or can’t be, things to which it is irrelevant. We’ve already agreed many times that falsification is not itself falsifiable, and so a general philosophical position certainly isn’t.
I cannot propose my opinion, my guess, my chosen option unless it constitutes “knowledge”? May I not ask others what their preferences are without being accused of making unjustified assumptions? I cannot even suggest that our minds are to some extent “illusions” fooling the unique string of memories called “ourselves”, nor tell my friends what I suppose about a hypothetical computer? I am not asking you to agree with me, friend, but whether you do.
In the same way that I leave the limits set by solipsism: in order to propose an explanation for the thing having “knowledge” (whatever that is, if it really exists at all in place of guesswork).
Not at all, friend, I was just checking. But I’m afraid I really, honestly cannot tell why you balk at me calling that a “description given in terms of physical entities”, nor more generally why I must beware in any future thread of you calling me on statements such as “science, in contrast to maths, logic, religion or aesthetics, studies physical entities”. I think I’ll just have to leave a pointer to this thread in order to avoid unnecessarily long-winded distinctions between the scope of science and that of other epistemologies, if that’s OK.
other-wise, all throughout this thread I made it perfectly clear what the limitations of physicalism are given that we cannot know certain answers, and that ultimately it is an opinion, a guess as “wild-assed” as any philosophical position. I want nothing more to do with your intellectual cowardice. Again, I leave you the last word - do try not to sound like an ass.
You are perfectly able to, yes. You entered the thread with this post and mentioned how reasonable it was to assume that the universe is physical. You then took the time to state your reasons for that, which I have taken exception to, that they were reasonable themselves, or that they somehow reflected on the reasonableness of the assertion in the context of this thread.
That is where we are in this thread.
If it was only your belief-o-meter that posted, we would not be in this discussion.
[ul][li]I am not balking at the use of the words ‘physical’ or ‘entities’. I am balking at physicalism in a thread about epistemology. I have left you several openings to explain why we must make ontological assertions in order to outline knowledge, should my outline on the nature and limits not have been sufficient, which I am perfectly happy in accepting if someone could outline why. I am not expecting a five page treatise on the physical. I am looking for some kind of motivation to allow such ontological considerations into epistemology by answering the question: what purpose does it serve with respect to the study and limits of human knowledge? I have also outlined my own description of what ‘physical’ means, and I have outlined where I believe the limits are, and what characterizes knowledge.[/li][li]You’ve already told us these are physical things in the post I linked to above. :p[/li][*]There will be no need to counter your assertions in other threads if you do not assert things I disagree with. This is GD, not Disneyland. If I see something I disagree with, and I think I can say something about it, I will; I would expect no less from anyone else, should they think I was wrong. Note that I did not jump on the OP for suggesting he was a materialist, even though I disagree with it. He stated his opinion, his belief, his guess, and that’s fine.[/ul]
Ah, yes, I see the problem, and I apologise.
The OP confused “materialism” as being an epistemology, which it clearly isn’t. I answered that there is no a priori justified epistemology, and proceeded to offer to help him understand materialism/physicalism and its limitations. I should have pointed out the conflation there and then.
So, Meatros, physicalism is not an epistemology, you hear? Science is an epistemology, a branch of which is physics. Physicalism is a philosophical position.
Hope that clears a little of the fog I allowed to seep in here, erl.