Interaction ("mind body") problem

KCfromNC · Oct 14, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
How does that differ from an argument from ignorance?

An argument from ignorance is "we don't understand X, therefore Y is proven". This is "there's no reason to believe X is real, therefore we don't believe X is real".

Yes, where is it guaranteed that we must see it?

There are no guarantees in life.

No we have good reason to think that if houses were made of chocolate we could easily find out.

To apply your standards to testing to this :

I do not know of one, but if non-chocolate quarks (for all we know) act just like chocolate ones, it seems odd to me to say that the belief that they are not chocolate is more rational. If we have no observational test, then why favor one opinion (they're not chocolate) rather than the other (they are)?

KCfromNC · Oct 14, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
How is that?

So you're thinking that a quark would do as well as a normal adult in this sort of testing : The Mental Status Exam. That's a rather unique view of reality.

Oh sure, you'll say that test is invalid. But how do you know?

quatona · Oct 14, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Well don't entertain the idea then, its up to you. But "all ideas I do not entertain are false" is not necessarily true, you should know that for sure. Being aloof is not a proof.

That´s why I never said, say or will say "all ideas I do not entertain are false". Please try to read my comments more carefully.

How do you expect me to behave?

Talk to your chairs. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Show respect. Cuddle them. Don´t sit on them because they might feel denigrated by it. The sort of behaviour we have towards conscious entities. That´s at least what I would do if I felt they might be conscious. After all, treating them like they were conscious although they aren´t won´t hurt, but treating them like unconscious objects although they are conscious beings is likely to hurt them.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

KCfromNC said:
What reason a priori do you have to believe the test is inappropriate? Sure, you can say that since it doesn't give the result you wished it did it isn't any good but that's just begging the question.

No you beg the question that all consciousness must be detectable by neurological tests, and then you use them to "prove" yourself right.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

KCfromNC said:
Nope, it's not an assumption. Based on the lack of evidence for the idea and lots of evidence against it, there's good reason to conclude that your idea has no merit. That may change if we learn new things in the future, but until that changes there's literally no reason to worry about it.

Absence of evidence is only evidence of absence if we would expect evidence to be there. But as I said I don't think (if a quark were conscious) we would actually expect it to pass a neurological examination.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

KCfromNC said:
Sorry, I need more than "philosophers discuss this stuff" to think that there's any reason to believe it's true. It's strange you would reply to "just talking about it doesn't give a reason to even consider it" with yet more people just talking on and on about it.

But you have raised the bar. You initially implied claimed that there might be a non-neural consciousness (i.e.a quark consicousness) were illogical, and therefore I assume nonsensical. Remember this:

KCfromNC said:
GrowingSmaller said:

Is that comment meant to be related to this thread. Where am I "defining something into existence"?

Click to expand...

By suggesting that the act of putting words together to describe something (office furniture having a mind) implies that there's some sort of logic or reason behind it that must be disproved.

All I did was to point out that they are in fact regarded as coherent viewpoints by the likes of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and co.

Especially when your reference gives us this gem : "Perhaps the initially most obvious problem with panpsychism is simply the apparent lack of evidence that the fundamental entities of the physical world possess any mentalistic characteristics."

That is a problem if you want to claim it is actuallny true. It is not a problem if you either claim it is possibly true, or that more simply the theory is logically coherent (both of which you apparently deny).

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

Mmmmm chocolate!

KCfromNC said:
An argument from ignorance is "we don't understand X, therefore Y is proven". This is "there's no reason to believe X is real, therefore we don't believe X is real".

I have no problem with "therefore we don't believe it's real" but I do have a problem with "therefore we know it's not real" which is a different claim.

To apply your standards to testing to this :

I do not know of one, but if non-chocolate quarks (for all we know) act just like chocolate ones, it seems odd to me to say that the belief that they are not chocolate is more rational.

But quarks cannot be made of chocolate because chocolate is more complex that a quark, having a larger scale chemical make up.
That is known a priori though definition of what chocolate is from a chemical perspective. But we do not know a priori or by definition that brains or only the likes of brains can have experience. So your analogy fails.

If we have no observational test, then why favor one opinion (they're not chocolate) rather than the other (they are)?

As I said we can define all chocolate chemically, as merely a mixture of lipids, carbohydrates and protiens etc. But we cannot define consciousness as merely brain states, although we can apparently observe that some consciousness is merely brain states.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

KCfromNC said:
So you're thinking that a quark would do as well as a normal adult in this sort of testing : The Mental Status Exam. That's a rather unique view of reality.

I think youre projecting, as you seem to have a opinion closer to that (believeing neurological tests are appropriate to quarks). You may be right, but I do not know you are right.

Oh sure, you'll say that test is invalid. But how do you know?

I claim to be agnostic as to whether quarks have experience.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

quatona said:
Talk to your chairs. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Show respect. Cuddle them. Don´t sit on them because they might feel denigrated by it. The sort of behaviour we have towards conscious entities. That´s at least what I would do if I felt they might be conscious. After all, treating them like they were conscious although they aren´t won´t hurt, but treating them like unconscious objects although they are conscious beings is likely to hurt them.

I think your anthropomorphising, but ot all experience has to be anthropomorphic.

quatona · Oct 15, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
I think your anthropomorphising, but ot all experience has to be anthropomorphic.

I wouldn´t call it "anthropomorphising" - I am aware that other conscious entities experience differently than we do.
I guess I am just insisting that using words in an identifiable meaning is a prerequisite for a meaningful communication.
Unless you can give me an - at least rough - idea what it might mean for a chair to be "conscious" I don´t even see an idea/concept behind this claim. It´s empty words. (And like so often, I am tempted to take the position described by Pauli as: "This is not right. It isn´t even wrong.")

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

quatona said:
I wouldn´t call it "anthropomorphising" - I am aware that other conscious entities experience differently than we do.
I guess I am just insisting that using words in an identifiable meaning is a prerequisite for a meaningful communication.
Unless you can give me an - at least rough - idea what it might mean for a chair to be "conscious" I don´t even see an idea/concept behind this claim. It´s empty words. (And like so often, I am tempted to take the position described by Pauli as: "This is not right. It isn´t even wrong.")

Lets change from chairs to quarks as that is closer to my belief, and a chair would have experience because chair parts (quarks etc) would have experience.

Why do you not understand what it would mean for a quark to in some way experience or have a mental life? It would mean that a quark has experiences or some form of mental life. Nothing more, nothing less... what's the problem? Do you not understand the English language? QUARK EXPERIENCE get it? Is there something wrong with the grammar that I seem to have missed? Maybe I should buy a microscope.

quatona · Oct 15, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Lets change from chairs to quarks as that is closer to my belief, and a chair would have experience because chair parts (quarks etc) would have experience.

Why do you not understand what it would mean for a quark to in some way experience or have a mental life? It would mean that a quark has experiences or some form of mental life.

Well, when I try to give those words meaning you are telling me I am anthropomorphizing. So implicitly you are telling me that - when it comes to quarks, chairs or whatever - "conscious", "mental" and "experience" may have some obscure meanings that are very different from the ones I am applying to these words. I want to hear what those words mean when you use them in this context.

Nothing more, nothing less... what's the problem? Do you not understand the English language? QUARK EXPERIENCE get it?

No. What does "experience" mean when you ascribe it to quarks?

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

quatona said:
No. What does "experience" mean when you ascribe it to quarks?

Experience: phenomenal awareness, consciousness of (a) qualae or qualia.

examples: "the experience of sond", "a dream experience", "when he went to sleep, his experiences ceased for a while."

I do not think we have good reason to believe quarks have complex experiences, like whole arrays of scenery in a visual field akin to ours (of lips etc), and we probably have good reason to doubt that; but that might be for example a "pixel like" or "microscopic" experience of a colour - who knows? I honestly think that being a quark could be like this:

Or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxQwkdu9WbE

It's a possibility I remain open about. IMO if those reasons for ruling it out are adequate justification for knowledge that quarks have no awareness then it counts as a flimsy kind of knowledge low down on the sliding scale which goes from from pure luck to high level mastery in acquiring true beliefs. "Highly inferential" springs to mind. If there were such an thing as an 'epistemic volume-ometer' measuring the relation between the justificatory process and the resultant true belief I think the reading would be low.

quatona · Oct 15, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
I do not mean I affirmatively believe this to be true (i.e. positive, it is actually the case that quarks experience), only that the reasons presented for ruling it out are not that convincing to me so it's a possibility I remain open about.

Great, I on the other hand remain open about ruling it in. Once you have found good reason to do that please let me know.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

Edit.

quatona · Oct 15, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Well please share.

Share what?

GrowingSmaller · Oct 15, 2011

Oops misunderstanding of what you said. I remain open, I neither rule out or rule it in. A quark could be either, conscious or not, I don't know.

quatona · Oct 15, 2011

Since your "agnosticism" (or "being open") makes no practical difference I think it´s a purely academic issue.

GrowingSmaller · Oct 16, 2011

quatona said:
Since your "agnosticism" (or "being open") makes no practical difference I think it´s a purely academic issue.

Thats right.

KCfromNC · Oct 17, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
No you beg the question that all consciousness must be detectable by neurological tests, and then you use them to "prove" yourself right.

That's not an answer to my question.

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