How do Naturalists/Materialists account for the immateriality of morals, laws of logic or information?

[Hans Blaster]

Not sure there is a lesson to learn. It is well know that the scientific method assumes reality is fundamentally material.

Emergent properties. It is incumbent that you understand them or there is little we can discuss about how brain meat can think.

Its the idea that asserts the brain is a filter for consciousness beyond brain. Just like a radio is a filter for radio waves. So the brain acts like the radio box or TV where the physical structure (box, transistors and wiring) receives consciousness beyond the physical apparatus or facilitator rather than produce consciousness.

If the brain is a filter, then we need to know the physical mechanism for the consciousness substance (non-material, or otherwise) to interact with the brain.

 

[Bradskii]

Then why do you use such feeble evidence such as Feynman musings and the correlates of consciousness which does do explain the hard problem of consciousness (how those correlates can give rise to something that it feels like. Neurons or any mindless matter doesn't feel like anything.

Unless we're something else than material substance, then all you are saying is that you don't understand how that material substance can cause what we consider to be personal experiences. That is indeed the 'hard question. But being puzzled by it doesn't mean that there is another answer as to what causes it.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Seems incompatible given that they have no physical properties

The laws of logic - by which I assume you mean classical, Aristotelean logic, because that's usually what people mean when they ask this question - are human inventions. That is a basic, banal fact of history.

They are not magic spells that bind reality together. "A=A" does not cause a thing to be itself. That term - "A=A" - could disappear tomorrow, and reality would continue to operate exactly as it does today.

None of this necessitates belief in anything "supernatural".

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Neurons or any mindless matter doesn't feel like anything.

This is a fallacy of composition.

Fallacy of Composition

Inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. This is the opposite of the fallacy of division.

www.logicallyfallacious.com

 

[variant]

If logic doesn't exist how did you posit these conclusions?

Edit: I just want you to stop and think about the conclusion you've come to. You have just provided the information that information doesn't actually exist, through the use of logic which you claims only exist within your mind (still as something immaterial btw). The same dilemma still exists.

To a materialist relationships between material objects are still material. Descriptions and information and what you call a mind are abstractions or relationships that exist because of the interaction of material in this set of ideas.

The evidence for such is that "minds" don't seem to exist without the material that runs them.

 

[keith99]

Of course a dogs sense of time is the same as ours; why would you think different?

Because when one returns from a half hour trip to the store the dogs would act like we had been gone for days1

 

[variant]

I always wondered if a dog's sense of time is different than ours (since they mature and age differently than us), what then is the true measure of time if it is subjective not only to humans? We are bound by our own constructs. We cannot fathom a world without it. Mental constructs is the skeleton of human society.

Dogs are known to have a faster frame rate for their perspective, and thus, experience reality as a slowed down version of what we see.

Faster processing costs more energy, so higher metabolism is required for faster visual/time processing.

The speed of ones perception has an associated physical energy cost (lending some credence to materialist concepts of brain/mind connections).

 

[stevevw]

This is a fallacy of composition.

Fallacy of Composition

Inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. This is the opposite of the fallacy of division.

www.logicallyfallacious.com

But its not just true for some parts but all parts of the whole. So it follows that the whole must be the same. All parts are basically mindless matter in the materialist conception of reality. .

 

[stevevw]

Unless we're something else than material substance, then all you are saying is that you don't understand how that material substance can cause what we consider to be personal experiences. That is indeed the 'hard question. But being puzzled by it doesn't mean that there is another answer as to what causes it.

The hard problem isn't hard because there is some missing knowledge. Its hard because its categorically different to quantitative material conceptions. Conscious states or mental events lack the spatio-temporal properties of material objects. Conscious states are not divisible into parts or components as are material objects. Conscious states possess an aboutness or intentionality directed toward other things while material objects are not “about” anything.

 

[stevil]

Seems incompatible given that they have no physical properties

Interesting philosophical question. I hope this thread doesn't dissolve into the absurd.

Humans have reached a level of consciousness that allows us to think in abstract/conceptual terms.
There is certainly a difference between physical and conceptual. Physical things are things that can be objectively measured, they typically have the physical attributes of size, mass, location and age and are typically made of stuff. e.g. a particular rock has a size, a mass/weight, is at a particular location at a particular point in time and is made of something (a specific type of atom, or compound), as was formed x years ago.
There are some physical things that may not seem to have all of these attributes, e.g. nutrinos don't have mass. For an individual atom we cannot know how old it is.

In our human endeavours to understand the universe we have developed conceptual tools to help us understand things.
Numbers for example are very useful. They are not physical. You can not have 1 in a specific location. 1 does not have a size or mass and is not made of anything, 1 does not have an age.
We also developed the concept of shapes. A Circle does not reside in a specific location, it does not have a size or mass, is not made of anything and has no age.

In this way we could conclude that many of our conceptual things are omnipresent, eternal, timeless, all powerful (they cannot be destroyed), unchanging. This is just a way of saying that they don't exist as physical existent things. They are merely concepts, which is an imagined idea brought about by the consciousness of those that are capable of understanding the idea.

This doesn't mean that those concepts are merely arbitrary.
Numbers is a useful concept we would expect any intelligent conscious being to discover. How many fingers do I have, how many people are there, how many apples are there, are there enough apples to feed all the people?
Shapes are also a useful concept we would expect any intelligent conscious being to discover. A circle being a shape were all points are the same distance from a central place.

If we consider the realms of "morality". What is it that we are actually talking about here. What is morality? It is a concept of course, not a physical thing. "Morality" is actually a very poorly defined concept. The idea that some actions (or thoughts) are good, some are bad and some are neutral. What does that even mean? What does "good" mean? The idea of "good" is also a poorly defined concept. Typically it means favourable or desirable rather than unfavourable or something to be avoided. But also this gets complicated because something can be considered good from one point of view but bad from another point of view. E.g. person A snatches an ice cream from person B. This action is good from person A's perspective but bad from person B's perspective. But the idea of morality is not just "is this good for me" but is often used in the context of "is this good for society?". Many people would agree that it is bad to snatch possessions from others without their consent. But how do they collectively come to this conclusion? Perhaps by realising that most of these people aren't the biggest and toughest person in society. The big brute might think it is desirable and good that people can just snatch things, while the smaller and vulnerable people might want the society to consider this to be an undesirable and bad thing. So you are going to have most people consider it bad but one or two people consider it to be good.
We would expect any intelligent conscious being that has a social nature and lives in a society to discover the idea that some actions in society are considered good and some are considered bad. It would be natural for them to conclude that snatching possessions is bad for the society (if they understand the concept of ownership, and the value of property).

 

[stevevw]

Emergent properties. It is incumbent that you understand them or there is little we can discuss about how brain meat can think.

And what is it about emergence that explains how subjective conscious experience like the smell of roses or the joy of music comes from the brain. There's no smell or joy in any neurons. Correlations don't explain consciousness they just equate it with consciousness. Like any correlation it only links an outcome with behavior. But that may not be the cause or only cause but rather some activity associated with something else.

We don't explain the nature of radio waves with the correlation effects they have on the activities of wires and transistors. These correlations don't explain radio waves. They just associate them with radio waves. Correlation is weak support as support for consciousness if not no support at all.

If the brain is a filter, then we need to know the physical mechanism for the consciousness substance (non-material, or otherwise) to interact with the brain.

That's right just like we need to know the physical mechanisms of a radio or TV set that receives and transmits the signal. If consciousness is something beyond brain and in the universe then like radio waves it needs a physical apparatus to receive it.

 

[Hans Blaster]

nutrinos don't have mass.

Actually neutrinos do have mass, otherwise the would not osscilate between flavors. (Technically one of the three flavors might be massless, but the other two cannot.)

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

But its not just true for some parts but all parts of the whole. So it follows that the whole must be the same. All parts are basically mindless matter in the materialist conception of reality. .

That doesn't change anything. You are still committing a fallacy of composition. Or a fallacy of division, depending how you word it.

You are saying "This blue ball cannot be made of atoms, because atoms aren't blue."

 

[stevil]

Actually neutrinos do have mass, otherwise the would not osscilate between flavors. (Technically one of the three flavors might be massless, but the other two cannot.)

Oh, OK. thanks for the correction. Maybe I should have said that photons don't have mass?????

 

[Bradskii]

The hard problem isn't hard because there is some missing knowledge. Its hard because its categorically different to quantitative material conceptions. Conscious states or mental events lack the spatio-temporal properties of material objects. Conscious states are not divisible into parts or components as are material objects. Conscious states possess an aboutness or intentionality directed toward other things while material objects are not “about” anything.

It's hard because we can't conceptualise it. Therein in the missing knowledge. Our lack of understanding. All the parts are there, we just don't comprhend how we get this from that.

Else...there's something more than the brain. And nobody has offered the slightest evidence for that.

 

[stevevw]

(Ken)
You find joy in music through the natural process of hearing.

Hearing is just the mechanism of the ear drum, noise waves vibrating the ear drum. A robot can hear and process information like Sirri voice recognition without any experience of the sounds heard. These are all mechanical processes like brain processes. Technically we could build a zombie that acts like a human and hears but not be able to experience the joy of music. So there is something else going on with subjective experiences that cannot be reduced to the mechanisms for hearing. A qualitative aspect that is beyond the ear and brain.

(Ken)
Morality is often through the natural process of empathy for those you care about.

WE don't know if empathy is due to a naturalistic cause. Research shows that we are born with the basic idea of empathy so its not something that we are taught by parents or culture. Concepts like empathy, justice, kindness, love cannot be reduced to genes so if we are born with morals like empathy its not because of any natural physical cause.

 

[Bradskii]

WE don't know if empathy is due to a naturalistic cause. Research shows that we are born with the basic idea of empathy so its not something that we are taught by parents or culture. Concepts like empathy, justice, kindness, love cannot be reduced to genes so if we are born with morals like empathy its not because of any natural physical cause.

Let's say that there is an ability a few people had that allowed them to understand what other people were feeling. Just a characteristic that a random assortment of genes threw up. Would it be useful? Well, yeah. Just like running faster or better eyesight is more useful. So it's selected for. And the genes that fortuitively gave someone an inkling of what someone else might be thinking was passed on. It becomes fixed in the population.

'Some people are more empathetic than others, and the new study revealed that a significant part of how empathetic we are is down to genetics.' How much of our empathy is down to genes?

There's your physical cause.

 

[stevevw]

It's hard because we can't conceptualise it. Therein in the missing knowledge. Our lack of understanding. All the parts are there, we just don't comprhend how we get this from that.

The reason we can't conceptualize it is because its a different category altogether. Even if we knew everything there is to know about how the brain correlates to consciousness this still won't explain consciousness itself. Its just more correlations. It would be like a painter does a self portrait and then declares he is actually the portrait. He then if forced to explain his inner artistic flare in terms of the pixels on the canvas. They just don't equate. Its something beyond space and time.

Else...there's something more than the brain. And nobody has offered the slightest evidence for that.

Yes they have. I have linked several ideas that are receiving increasing support which are based on QM interpretations. Like consciousness Mind and Information being fundamental to reality. Form these ideas like, Panphsyicism, QBism, the Anthropic Participatory Principle, IIT, and may other derivatives like Simulation theory, Holographic Principle, a Mental universe, the Boltzmann brain. Making consciousness and Minds fundamental seems to have more unifying explanatory power for what we are finding across a number of scientific fields.

 

[Hans Blaster]

And what is it about emergence that explains how subjective conscious experience like the smell of roses or the joy of music comes from the brain. There's no smell or joy in any neurons. Correlations don't explain consciousness they just equate it with consciousness. Like any correlation it only links an outcome with behavior. But that may not be the cause or only cause but rather some activity associated with something else.

To be clear, I was noting that you can't dismiss neurons as the basis for consciousness because they don't individually have consciousness. Consciousness sure *looks* like an emergent property of highly interconnected neural tissues.

We don't explain the nature of radio waves with the correlation effects they have on the activities of wires and transistors. These correlations don't explain radio waves. They just associate them with radio waves. Correlation is weak support as support for consciousness if not no support at all.

The interactions between radiowaves and wires is how we come to understand them, to know the nature of radio waves. If something can't be detected (directly or indirectly) it is quite difficult to understand what they are. If radio waves didn't interact with wires we probably wouldn't be certain they exist. (Knowing about other forms of EM radiation, we might speculate that kHz and MHz EM waves exist and that certain astrophysical processes would create radio waves, but we would be at a loss to detect them.)

That's right just like we need to know the physical mechanisms of a radio or TV set that receives and transmits the signal. If consciousness is something beyond brain and in the universe then like radio waves it needs a physical apparatus to receive it.

And here's where the rubber meets the road...

HOW does the brain receive "consciousness"? WHAT are the the interaction mechanisms? Etc.

 

[Bradskii]

The reason we can't conceptualize it is because its a different category altogether. Even if we knew everything there is to know about how the brain correlates to consciousness this still won't explain consciousness itself. Its just more correlations. It would be like a painter does a self portrait and then declares he is actually the portrait. He then if forced to explain his inner artistic flare in terms of the pixels on the canvas. They just don't equate. Its something beyond space and time.

Yes they have. I have linked several ideas that are receiving increasing support which are based on QM interpretations. Like consciousness Mind and Information being fundamental to reality. Form these ideas like, Panphsyicism, QBism, the Anthropic Participatory Principle, IIT, and may other derivatives like Simulation theory, Holographic Principle, a Mental universe, the Boltzmann brain. Making consciousness and Minds fundamental seems to have more unifying explanatory power for what we are finding across a number of scientific fields.

Just let me know when there is some evidence we can examine. I'll be all for it.