Physicalism can I think be easily refuted on the basis of this one analogy:
You have a mirror and objects facing it. The object in the mirror is identical to the object facing the mirror. If it weren't then if you moved the object facing away from the mirror the mirror-image would not move. Motion is the common denominator linking the two things: both the seen and the object so seen. This would be the case even if the mirror were tinged black, and we could not see how the object looked like in truth, and it was our belief it took on proportions which were other than how it existed in-itself. There are just some necessary conditions which apply and I think we can all agree on this minus some extreme skeptics.
Now, assuming this premise, that the thought is identical to the thing so thought about, there are some logical implications here which can't be dispensed with.
First, if on the physicalist side it's assumed that a thought is A (an electrical impulse or what have you) that is to stand for B (a state of affairs in the real world), then what makes A identical to B? What distinguishing characteristics make it so that if B has this quality, same quality must follow in A? In the mirror analogy this is clear enough - A moves along with B, thus we can safely assume on the basis of similarity that A refers to B because A is an identical placeholder for B. They are one and the same. Where on the physicalist side do you have the same necessary and sufficient conditions to establish this identity? Is it various patterns of synapses firing in a certain way? If so, how is it that we may correlate this pattern of firing with objective fact? The answer is we can't. We are stuck with only a given pattern we assume a priori has anything to do with our belief in an external reality.
If we don't have certain knowledge that what we think about has anything to do with concrete fact, than all claims about the external world are groundless, but this is not what the physicalist wants to accomplish, I hope. For of course there is an objective world and we do have access to it. That is a metaphysical assumption we all make. So what gives? How can we have knowledge about the external world? My answer: you would need a mental realm to mirror, and not just assume without justification, an outer realm.
Secondly, the way the physicalist attempts to account for identity can only be counter to his belief system. For since thoughts are just as physical as their referents, on his scheme, it follows that the only way a thought can be
conceptualized by the mind is in terms of its necessary and sufficient conditions, mirroring external fact. Since connections in the brain could not be adequate to furnish this analytical support, being of themselves only a type of patterning, bereft of the "meta" mirroring-condition which my analogy presents as a requirement for correlating our response to the outside world, he would in effect have to say that if a thought is "physical" the only meaningful exposition for this statement, is that a thought is of the same mode as the thing thought of which it is about. So, thinking of an elephant immediately conjures a literal elephant in my mind. Otherwise, there is no cross-over, seeing how a mental realm has been dispensed with.
So, physicalists, either you give up on knowledge about the external world or you accept the real possibility that when you think of an elephant, that elephant actually materializes in your own mind.
You have a mirror and objects facing it. The object in the mirror is identical to the object facing the mirror. If it weren't then if you moved the object facing away from the mirror the mirror-image would not move. Motion is the common denominator linking the two things: both the seen and the object so seen. This would be the case even if the mirror were tinged black, and we could not see how the object looked like in truth, and it was our belief it took on proportions which were other than how it existed in-itself. There are just some necessary conditions which apply and I think we can all agree on this minus some extreme skeptics.
Now, assuming this premise, that the thought is identical to the thing so thought about, there are some logical implications here which can't be dispensed with.
First, if on the physicalist side it's assumed that a thought is A (an electrical impulse or what have you) that is to stand for B (a state of affairs in the real world), then what makes A identical to B? What distinguishing characteristics make it so that if B has this quality, same quality must follow in A? In the mirror analogy this is clear enough - A moves along with B, thus we can safely assume on the basis of similarity that A refers to B because A is an identical placeholder for B. They are one and the same. Where on the physicalist side do you have the same necessary and sufficient conditions to establish this identity? Is it various patterns of synapses firing in a certain way? If so, how is it that we may correlate this pattern of firing with objective fact? The answer is we can't. We are stuck with only a given pattern we assume a priori has anything to do with our belief in an external reality.
If we don't have certain knowledge that what we think about has anything to do with concrete fact, than all claims about the external world are groundless, but this is not what the physicalist wants to accomplish, I hope. For of course there is an objective world and we do have access to it. That is a metaphysical assumption we all make. So what gives? How can we have knowledge about the external world? My answer: you would need a mental realm to mirror, and not just assume without justification, an outer realm.
Secondly, the way the physicalist attempts to account for identity can only be counter to his belief system. For since thoughts are just as physical as their referents, on his scheme, it follows that the only way a thought can be
conceptualized by the mind is in terms of its necessary and sufficient conditions, mirroring external fact. Since connections in the brain could not be adequate to furnish this analytical support, being of themselves only a type of patterning, bereft of the "meta" mirroring-condition which my analogy presents as a requirement for correlating our response to the outside world, he would in effect have to say that if a thought is "physical" the only meaningful exposition for this statement, is that a thought is of the same mode as the thing thought of which it is about. So, thinking of an elephant immediately conjures a literal elephant in my mind. Otherwise, there is no cross-over, seeing how a mental realm has been dispensed with.
So, physicalists, either you give up on knowledge about the external world or you accept the real possibility that when you think of an elephant, that elephant actually materializes in your own mind.