It’s not simply a matter of “I say Tomato, you say Tomahhto”…”I say the mind is just a correlation of brain activity, you say the mind is brain activity”…and I can scream louder so I win!! No. It’s about how Materialism is the claim that science explains all of reality, and how the job of science is to give “Intelligible” explanations about physical reality, therefore It’s about whether or not a discipline does it’s job or not. And if a scientific explanation is not intelligible it’s revealing the fact that science isn’t the right tool for the job.
Materialism isn't '
the claim that science explains all of reality', that's scientism.
Science doesn't guarantee that it can explain phenomena or that its explanations are intelligible, it just aims to provide the best models currently available of the phenomena. For example, the model for quantum mechanics is notoriously unintelligible, with numerous competing formulations for understanding what it means; i.e. we don't have an intelligible explanation for how it behaves. Nevertheless, we have a mathematical model that correlates with our observations and that we can use to predict future observations.
The history of science suggests that incomplete models and unintelligible explanations are often revised, refined, or replaced over time, giving more complete models and more intelligible explanations. For example, the Mendelian inheritance model which worked so precisely for some traits yet unintelligibly failed for many others was subsumed by classical genetics and then the more complete molecular genetic model that provided an intelligible explanation.
Now, WHICH science explanations are intelligible? Which explanations intuitively make sense, and connect dots throughout each step of the process? THAT the brain and our mental experiences correlate with each other is completely obvious, THAT PART of it makes total sense.
In science, the question is not which explanations intuitively make sense; that's something try to put out of your mind. For example, the two major discoveries in physics in the last 100 years, Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics are completely unintuitive. The question is how does the world actually behave, and how can you best model and explain it?
So the explanation of predictable and consistent timing of correlation is intelligible even to a 5th grader, it’s easy for observers to ‘Get’ that they operate in unison. The explanation of how the physical process plays out is also intelligible (even if you weren’t concerned with what the person was thinking). However, the part of the explanation that then says “Brain matter pulsating and firing off 13,412 various electrical charges is the same exact thing as my experience of feeling nausea followed by the feeling that I’m paying too much for my car insurance” is an unintelligible explanation, it doesn’t connect dots…however it is intelligible that these two things predictably correlate. 15,000 experiments proving them to correlate is just 15,000 pieces of evidence that they correlate, it’s not proof of identity theory.
Of course it's not proof of identity theory - there are no proofs in science. The identity of brain activity with subjective experience is a hypothesis.
The correlation of brain matter to minds implying a correlation of physical to non-physical is revealed by the fact that scientific explanatory power always falls off a cliff when it approaches explanations of WHAT mental experiences are.
You're assuming that minds are non-physical. The model that mental experiences are certain types of brain activity doesn't make that assumption.
So this has nothing to do with liking the metaphysics or not it has to do with a discipline doing its job or not. Science is about asking the question “Why?”, philosophy is about asking the question “Why?” twice. Which also means that ultimately science is about the “Hows” in the universe, and about giving intelligible “How?” answers. It’s not about not liking the metaphysics it’s about not liking a “How?” answer that is not intelligible, as opposed to a “How?” answer that is intelligible such as the quarks model…
I didn't introduce the metaphysical speculations, I just gave my opinion of them. As already stated, science makes observations, formulates hypotheses to model or explain them, then tests the hypotheses. The hypotheses that are not consistent with the observations or fail the tests are discarded or modified.
The hypothesis here is that subjective experience is a certain kind of information processing that brains are capable of (i.e. brain activity). some predictions of this hypothesis are: that subjective experience depends on certain kinds of brain activity and will cease when that kind of brain activity ceases; that modifying specific brain activity will modify specific subjective experience; that specific changes in subjective experience will be mirrored by specific changes in brain activity; that understanding specific brain activity at the neuronal level can establish the possible range of certain subjective experience and potentially enable the exploration of the full range of that subjective experience (this was tested with the work done on the Hurvich–Jameson opponent-process network in the visual cortex and using it to extend the range of colour qualia beyond the normal human colour spindle).
All have been tested and verified many times. It doesn't mean the hypothesis is correct, but it hasn't been falsified when it could have been.
This is irrelevant to the problem of explanatory power for mental phenomena. A model that postulates a physical cause that’s causing a purely physical effect has nothing to do with leaving behind a purely physical explanation in an attempt to provide a co-explanation of both physical and experiential phenomena.
I'm not sure what you're objecting to here - I'm not '
leaving behind a purely physical explanation in an attempt to provide a co-explanation of both physical and experiential phenomena', I'm suggesting that experiential phenomena
are physical.
The fact that the postulated cause (quarks) is too small to be seen doesn’t matter. For some reason you’re giving an example that I have no issue with. Science is the tool of choice for a model of quarks.
What is your objection to the analogy?
Test away!! I agree that they correlate! A correlation would certainly entail an “As If ness” to ALL of the experiments performed. But how minds “Behave” is totally different than how brain matter behaves. This test is like saying that we keep detecting heat over the campfire so we know that fire and smoke are the same thing.
No, that's just not a coherent analogy.
I've presented a hypothesis that identifies subjective experience with certain kinds of brain activity. I've described a number of ways it has been tested. Unless you have a testable alternative hypothesis that explains the observations better, I don't see what the problem is. You don't have to like the explanatory gap that remains - no-one likes the explanatory gap in quantum mechanics, but it gives us a model that works.
Joe’s legs are a snapshot description of Joe’s legs. Joe running involves an action description of his legs going through a sequence of events from A through Z. Joe’s brain is a snapshot description of his brain. Joe’s brain activity is an action description of his brain matter going through a sequence of events from A through Z. The mind was just snuck into this comparison like a 12 year old sneaking into an R rated movie.
I'm saying that the evidence suggests that
for Joe his brain activity is his mind. That's the best model we have, and it works pretty well. It doesn't give us an explanation for the 'hard problem', but it is testable, simple, consistent with existing knowledge, and has explanatory scope and predictive power in terms of the content of subjective experience.
You may be comfortable with the idea that Joe may not have a mind at all, despite his brain activity and his protests that he certainly does, and that he finds the very idea hurtful, but, for reasons already given, I think it's an incoherent idea.
However, given that you reject the identity hypothesis, can you give a testable alternative that fits the evidence and explains more?
