Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Consul]

We can easily understand the existence of physical things, but we don't understand the existence of mental things. Physical things are observable, extended ones in space-time points. How can we understand existing things that are not observable, extended ones in space-time points??? So,

1. Conscious phenomena exist.
2. Whatever exists is physical.
Therefore, 3. Conscious phenomena are physical.
Q.E.D.

Antimaterialists will simply reject 2 as question-begging.

[Mosesquine]

We can easily understand the existence of physical things, but we don't understand the existence of mental things. Physical things are observable, extended ones in space-time points. How can we understand existing things that are not observable, extended ones in space-time points??? So,

1. Conscious phenomena exist.
2. Whatever exists is physical.
Therefore, 3. Conscious phenomena are physical.
Q.E.D.

Antimaterialists will simply reject 2 as question-begging.

...and no anti-materialist can reject premise 2 successfully.

[Consul]

...and no anti-materialist can reject premise 2 successfully.

Can you defend it successfully?

[Karpel Tunnel]

2. Whatever exists is physical.

What has been asserted here? what does the word physical mean? When did it start meaning that? Why are we certain it will not continue to expand in meaning to encompass things no previously considered even possibly real?

[ThomasHobbes]

Inductively all examples of consciousness derive from physical phenomena, and as yet there have been NO examples of consciousness (or anything else) that derive from the non-physical.

So whatever the thread is about, it has not established anything to support the rather excessive claim of its title.

[Mosesquine]

...and no anti-materialist can reject premise 2 successfully.

Can you defend it successfully?

A lot of physicists accept premise 2 above. It's a common sense. You can easily find physical objects around you. However, you can't find non-physical objects like souls, angels, gods, and the like.

[Mosesquine]

2. Whatever exists is physical.

What has been asserted here? what does the word physical mean? When did it start meaning that? Why are we certain it will not continue to expand in meaning to encompass things no previously considered even possibly real?

Physicalism is roughly defined as the view that everything can be explained by physical terms. Tables are explained by physical terms, for example, like sizes, heights, colors, shapes, and so on. Even imaginary beings like unicorns, and Pegasus are explained by physical terms (e.g. horse-shape, animal-shape, such and such color, and so forth).

[JamesOfSeattle]

What if Consciousness is an abstraction, a pattern?

Does the number 42 exist? There are certain physical systems, such as 42 pennies on a table, in which the pattern we call the number 42 is discernible. Does that mean the number 42 exists?

What if Consciousness is a pattern which can be discerned in some physical systems and not others? Does that make it physical (or reducible to physical)?

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[Karpel Tunnel]

What has been asserted here? what does the word physical mean? When did it start meaning that? Why are we certain it will not continue to expand in meaning to encompass things no previously considered even possibly real?

Physicalism is roughly defined as the view that everything can be explained by physical terms. Tables are explained by physical terms, for example, like sizes, heights, colors, shapes, and so on. Even imaginary beings like unicorns, and Pegasus are explained by physical terms (e.g. horse-shape, animal-shape, such and such color, and so forth).

Right, but there are physical things without sizes, colors, shapes, etc. There are massless particles. There are fields, particles in superposition, billions of neutrinos passing through us right now. The set of qualities that makes something physical has expanded. Anything that science decides is real, is considered physical. Which means, for example, that your statement that everything is physical is not falsifiable. Which is why I asked the various questions I asked. They were meant to probe at the problem with the word physical.

[chewybrian]

A lot of physicists accept premise 2 above. It's a common sense. You can easily find physical objects around you. However, you can't find non-physical objects like souls, angels, gods, and the like.

You don't have to believe in souls or angels to believe you have a consciousness, or even a free will, as most people do. You can't fairly declare your position common sense while comparing theirs to fairy tales. It is, in fact common sense to believe one has a free will if this is the nature of every moment of waking experience as far back as memory allows.

Thoughts lead to murders or pyramids or Super Bowl titles or space ships and all kinds of other events and things beyond the scope of their existence. The thought has no noticeable weight or force to exert, so these results don't fit the rules of cause and effect. This area of thought, will, etc. is arguably outside the realm of laws which apply to material things, so we could fairly assume thoughts or consciousness are subject to different laws than rocks or Corvette Stingrays.

It's beyond our current scope to prove the answer in either direction, so it seems unfair at this point for either 'side' to dismiss the other. When you've worked out an experiment to prove your position to a satisfactory standard, then you could come to us with that level of certainty. In the meantime, it seems right to postpone judgment.

[Tamminen]

There are those who say that everything we meet in the world can be described in physical language. But how about the meeting itself? We meet the meeting itself in others, because they meet the world in the same way as we meet the world. And we meet the meeting also in us as we reflect on ourselves. In fact the basic relation we have to the world is our meeting others through and by the physical world. The physical world has an instrumental role in this relation. This meeting cannot be described in physical language although it has correlations with physical events. And this can be said a priori if the basic structure of reality is such as I have described.

[Gertie]

Physicalism is roughly defined as the view that everything can be explained by physical terms. Tables are explained by physical terms, for example, like sizes, heights, colors, shapes, and so on. Even imaginary beings like unicorns, and Pegasus are explained by physical terms (e.g. horse-shape, animal-shape, such and such color, and so forth).

Right, but there are physical things without sizes, colors, shapes, etc. There are massless particles. There are fields, particles in superposition, billions of neutrinos passing through us right now. The set of qualities that makes something physical has expanded. Anything that science decides is real, is considered physical. Which means, for example, that your statement that everything is physical is not falsifiable. Which is why I asked the various questions I asked. They were meant to probe at the problem with the word physical.

Unfortunately I'm woefully ignorant about particle physics, and how it might blur lines. But the way I see it, the naming of categories and deciding what goes in them and what to put into a different box isn't that important, just a handy type of shorthand. If we want to label the Big Box with all the other boxes inside it 'Physical', as you say we need to explain 'Physical' and ask if the term then really carries any useful information.

There's also a risk that the act of categorising certain ways sends our thinking down the wrong track. For example, if we decide to call experiential states 'physical', then it might sway us in the direction of inferring that they must be reducible to material stuff. And this temptation is strengthened, I think, because we have a reliable scientific toolkit for understanding material stuff, but not for experiential states. Which might be akin to trying to fit a shapeless peg into a comfortably familiar round hole.


Anyway, to my mind there is a significant ontological difference between material stuff and the experiencing of said stuff, analogous in language to the difference between a noun (object) and verb (action). And they warrant different categories which reflect this. If we later discover that experiencing is reducible to material stuff in motion, then that will be an explanation relevant to the categories but I don't see how it would change their significant differences. But if we discover that material stuff and experiencing are the very same thing, then we'll need to re-think our categorisations. And probably our ideas about the fundamental nature of the universe.

[Gertie]

What if Consciousness is an abstraction, a pattern?

Does the number 42 exist? There are certain physical systems, such as 42 pennies on a table, in which the pattern we call the number 42 is discernible. Does that mean the number 42 exists?

What if Consciousness is a pattern which can be discerned in some physical systems and not others? Does that make it physical (or reducible to physical)?

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I don't see how that works, because experience is real, not an 'abstraction'.

It might be that certain patterns of physical interactions result in, or are, experience. But I don't see how calling real experience an abstract pattern makes sense?

[Karpel Tunnel]

If we want to label the Big Box with all the other boxes inside it 'Physical', as you say we need to explain 'Physical' and ask if the term then really carries any useful information.

right,we need a definition and then given the use of the term over time, why we should consider it falsifiable or restricted in any way. I think within science it should be changed to verifiable or has effects.

There's also a risk that the act of categorising certain ways sends our thinking down the wrong track. For example, if we decide to call experiential states 'physical', then it might sway us in the direction of inferring that they must be reducible to material stuff. And this temptation is strengthened, I think, because we have a reliable scientific toolkit for understanding material stuff, but not for experiential states. Which might be akin to trying to fit a shapeless peg into a comfortably familiar round hole.

I see no reason to call something physical when we don't know what it is. Even if, if, it is utterly dependent on matter, but we don't know what it is, we are getting ahead of ourselves to say it is matter.

Anyway, to my mind there is a significant ontological difference between material stuff and the experiencing of said stuff, analogous in language to the difference between a noun (object) and verb (action). And they warrant different categories which reflect this. If we later discover that experiencing is reducible to material stuff in motion, then that will be an explanation relevant to the categories but I don't see how it would change their significant differences. But if we discover that material stuff and experiencing are the very same thing, then we'll need to re-think our categorisations. And probably our ideas about the fundamental nature of the universe.

It seems to me it is not simply matter in motion. We have all sorts of ways to analyze that. Unless stones get conscious when they are thrown.

[JamesOfSeattle]

I don't see how that works, because experience is real, not an 'abstraction'.

Consciousness is an abstraction in the same sense motion or digestion is an abstraction. It’s a way (a pattern) of describing what we see matter doing.

It might be that certain patterns of physical interactions result in, or are, experience.

This is exactly right. So the question is, what qualifies a particular process so that we call it an experience-type process and not a digestion-type process or a thrown-into-the-air-type process.

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