Eric Idle: No it isn’t.
As I said, I think we’re skipping an enormous number of steps here in this thread - I’ll go back to basics in an OP on Monday. Meanwhile, this thread might provide helpful background for future conversations.
Your post #60 you said “If I could sum up the field in one line, it would be, “Consciousness is no big deal, and the brain is doing it.”” I replied that that was oversimple sloganeering. You asked where Dennett warned against that, so I told you.
I wouldn’t disagree that it is only decades old as a science, but the comparison with chemistry and physics is, I suggest, less accurate than a comparison with, say, computer science and evolution. Experiments and explanatory models in CS or evolutionary biology don’t simply involve adding compounds or even observing paths in a particle accelerator: they require large samples of indirect data and a great deal of ingenuity to tease out testable consequences which might falsify crucial elements of the model. (Incidentally, not to harp on about one single guy in an enormous field, but Dennett does provide a whole Appenix B full of experiments which could bring his model crashing down completely - I understand that the ones which have been carried out are not so harmful.)
Again, I think we’re actually a lot further along than this, perhaps even to the level of different models of what killed the dinosaurs. But I’ll leave that until another time.
“My” physicalism is, as far as I know, not significantly different to physicalism as the term is generally understood.
Void being the same as or different to not void? Whatever, these semantic quibbles always put me in mind of learning Klingon: an entertaining diversion, perhaps, but of no real import. My cognitive output is that everything, including cognitive outputs, is ultimately an entity or process involving only atoms, wave/photons and fundamental forces in spacetime. If that position is “meaningless”, well, I would point to the activity in the modules of the brain which process “meaning” when I read that sentence and wonder whether it is really the correct word to use.
I’d suggest that the truth of the premise itself is only subject to empirical examination.
Agreed, those arbitrary criteria I talked about being how the brain works. One cannot be certain that one is not wrong, either in categorisation or empirical method. Philosophy and logic are themselves only languages: no matter how grammatically correct my sentence “the cat sat on the mat”, it still says precisely nothing about whether the real cat really did sit there. However, this is a different path entirely, so I’ll leave you the last word on this.
There are proposed scientific explanations, and explanations which aren’t scientific, some being theistic. To default to the theistic is God-of-the-Gapping.
But in post #25 you admitted that we can say “the CD is probably in my house”. Do we need to construct a CD spatial-location model to do so?
You then said
Throughout this thread, all I have tried to convince you of is that no matter what philosophical, logical or empirical tools you employ, your conlcusions might still be wrong. There might still be a monoGod, or ghosts, or unicorns.
In fact, your next quote I absolutely agree with:
And you know what I say to that. Personal feelings is all we are. Are they “gratuitous” or “uncalled for”? I’d suggest that, on the contrary, they are how the brain functions at all.
You didn’t show that it was impossible for us to find the giveaway in the simulation.
“Without evidence” != “false”. That is largely the point of this entire thread.
Well, Lib, sorry to drag you into this, but does A=B prove -B?
Since my other points don’t appear in your reply, friend Aeschines, I guess that you found them either slightly convincing or a waste of time even bothering with. I’ll leave you the last word here, so if you’ll indulge me I’ll give my personal summary of the thread:
[ul][li]You objected to the word “delusion”. I agreed that it was unnecessarily contentious, although directed you to a more complete essay in which it did not appear.[/li][li]You said you could prove things like the nonexistence of MonoGod, or unicorns, or the Matrix. I suggested that all you can do is offer premises whose logical combination conclude so, and that reasonable people might well not accept those premises.[/li][li]You said that ‘ascribing probabilities’ wasn’t good enough when it came to what might be called beliefs about fundamental Reality. I suggested that, actually, it’s as good as we get. Indeed, it’s how our brains work when we’re performing tasks as simple as looking for a CD or assessing the plausibility of sci-fi films, and the distinction you make in this regard is an extra step on top of this.[/li][li]You objected to the term “forever dead”. Given that the only life you appear to propose is this 80-odd year span, I’ll have to explore this objection in another thread sometime since I cannot say I really understand it.[/li][li]You said cognitive science hasn’t explained anything important. I’ll try and convince you otherwise in other threads.[/li][*]You said you sometimes deliberately misrepresent other people’s positions in a debate. I would strongly suggest you avoid doing so in future.[/ul]Cheerio.
