No. I explained the negative by way of analogy too, as in the issue of 'heat' and 'cold'.
You keep saying I've not done this, then oddly enough you immediately argue against that analogy you claim I've not made... you do so here...
Actually you're arguing against youself here. If you believe that certain behaviours are the result of certain chemicals, or even the patter of chemical firing then logically the absence of those chemicals or of that pattern would also cause other behaviours.
Not quite. The absence of "certain chemicals" or "patterns of chemicals firing" would only mean that there would be
different patterns.
If you want to stay within your "heat/cold" analogy: there is only one type of "cold"... the absence of all heat. Absolute zero. All other states, even those that make you shiver are not "cold"... only a different level of "heat".
But if "heat" makes you act in a certain way, and "another heat" makes you act in a different way... "cold" makes you act in only one way: not at all!
In the same way, different "chemicals" and different "patterns" can make you act in different ways. But the absence of all chemicals, all patterns can only make you act in one way: not at all. You are dead in that case.
You decide to pick up this argument against yourself in another moment when you talk about how goodness can be removed by removing a part of the brain.
I used "goodness" in a non-literal way here... as in "the ability to act in a way we describe as 'good'". I wouldn´t have thought you to be so literalminded as to not get that.
Another way of looking at this, by referring to my analogy which apparently you keep missing, an absence of heat - and I shiver.
Hate is the absence of love.
No, the absence of love (as well as the absence of hate) would be indifference.
God's love doesn't act like motion
Neither is he hot or cold... why do you assume I will work with your analogies when you are not willing to get into mine?
I've asked you to explain this 'baseline' thing of yours and you simply plough on using the term.
I did explain it... "...this behaviour is the "baseline". The "state of rest", the state that exists when no forces/causes act on our object."
That should have been clear from my Newton analogy (which you deigned to dismiss): the baseline is the state that exists when nothing is influencing it. When there is an absence of influences, there is logically nothing influencing it. So if there is an absence of heat/love/force, the object is not influenced by them and remains in its basic state... the "baseline".
I've done that. Ask me again.
No, you didn´t. You have given an external cause for behaviour X, but claimed the absence of this external cause as origin of behaviour Y. If there is NO cause, there would be NO behaviour. So it might be an internal cause... but you have never explained that cause.
So you believe in something 'a concept' that exists outside of your chemical world? Where does this concept exist then?
Concepts don´t exist as independent entities. They are only abstractions of physical structures.
Where's the goodness exist? What makes it 'good'? Saying that a part of the brain affects goodness doesn't explain at all what goodness is
Your lack of addressing this too is akin to me saying "This painting is beautiful" and you pointing out that if I were blind I wouldn't be able to see it, which in no way affects what 'beauty' is, nor beauty in relation to this painting specifically.
We started this line with the question of "desire to harm / not harm". So we are talking about physical stuff, in this case "actions". (A concept of a space-time physical existence). Concepts like "beauty" and "goodness" are patterns into which the brain sorts its reactions to such physical stuff. "Goodness" here being the pattern for "preferred behaviour".
No. I addressed your objection.
I'm going to have to go over this in baby-steps.
I was talking about a human being being nothing more than a bag of chemicals.
Instead of dealing with that you changed the refernce to human being, being a bag of chemicals acting in a certain way.
On the contrary: I did deal with it by exactly pointing this out. You just missed the point.
You were talking about a human being being nothing more than a bag of chemicals (as you see our positions, which you disagree with). And I agreed with you: you are right, a human is not only a bag of chemical... it is something more. It is a bag of chemicals ACTING IN A CERTAIN WAY. This is "something more". It is a different "something more" than you have in mind, but it is something more.
This didn't address the point I had made. In the interest of discussion I adapted your definition, and then asked you about the same points in relation to a 'bag of chemicals - acting a certain way'. And you've still not dealt with the point I made.
The point you made: "No. There's no real 'you' about it. "You" is a person. Person doesn't exist in chemical form, else you could go down to the shops grab a bunch of chemicals mix them up in the right percentages and call it a person."
"Going down to the shops, grabbing a bunch of chemicals and mixing them up in the right percentage" does not make a person. Not because a person is not a "bag of chemicals" (+something more), but a person is a bag of chemicals acting in a certain way... the certain way being no little dependent on the method of how it became that exact bag of chemicals... which is not "mixing chemicals", but "grown from egg and sperm".
Does that now, baby step by baby step, address your point?
I gave you an example of repeatable and testable results that are still in error.
Yes, so what? I never claimed that repeatable and testable means true. I clearly made the distinction between the two.
That doesn't address at all the problem I suggested because the very reliabitliy leads one to believe in 'truth' according to you, and it's in error in the case I exampled.
Ah, I see. Sorry, omission on my part. I never said that reliability would lead on the believe in "truth". You might have concluded that from the Haldane quote.
"Truth" is not necessary. Consistency is. If a position is consistent - and that means there is nothing internal or external contradicting it - it is irrelevant if it is true or false. You will simply never know the difference.
Then you are arguing against yourself.
You first said that relaibility/consitency is directly linked to a concept of truth.
Now you're saying it's not because the existence of errors is recognised. Then 'truth' isn't 'true' and isnt' shown to be by reliability/consistency.
I am quite sure that I never said anything abour reliability being directly linked to a concept of truth. If fact I said quite the opposite: that you cannot establish "truth" by that means. So you must be misunderstanding me completely.
Let´s go back to the Haldane quote: He uses the potential wrongness of an idea to discard it ("I have no reason...") But he can offer no alternative.
Any idea he presents as to how his mental processes work can be potentially wrong. So he would need to discard them all... and have to conclude that he has no mental processes at all.
But his reasoning is faulty: he has a reason "to suppose my beliefs are true": the motions of atoms in his brain could be the correct way of determining his mental processes. The motions of atoms in the air are quite good at transporting light to our eyes (please, just don´t call me out for being not precise and physically rather wrong here... I am just trying to stay within the vocabulary of the Haldane quote). Would you agree with him that you have no reason to believe that you just read a text, because it is all atoms moving?
Which still doesn't show 'truth', and an assumption by you that I am lacking in something, and arguing against yourself about how the lack of something doesn't affect things.
Furthermore you've not addressed what 'meaning' is at all.
"Lack" is different from "total absence". It is not the "lack" that affects the things, but that what is still there when the "lacking" part is absent.
Put two people in a room, one who speaks only Russian, one who speaks only French and they would doubtless still communicate with each other, and rect to each other
And you don´t see the consistency? The mechanisms of both brains and sensual organs work in such a similar way that these two people can react. But if you remove these physical components... the brain, the sensors or the means to transport signals... the communication stops. If the "you" was independent from the physical world... why couldn´t this Russian and French communicate and react, if one was sitting in Moscow and the other in Paris?
I've no idea what your point is, nor how it addresses what I asked you about what is 'meaning'.
Still doesn't address 'meaning'
"meaning" is a pattern in the brain. It is a way the brain is organized.
That simply again suggests that chemicals is all we are (even if you want to add your tag 'in a certain pattern). All you've done then is given a repat of your premise without having shown it to be true.
Well, if we are something more that chemicals in a certain pattern, than this "more" is completely undetectable
without all the chemicals around and thus irrelevant.
It might be "true"... but as I have said before, "true" is not necessary.
