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

[ThomasHobbes]

If the mind is what the brain does, then mental states are real - as real as the journey a car takes. The journey is not the same as the car, but the car does not "interact" with the journey, the journey is the physical expression of the materiality of the car.

I do not see how you conclude, how you could possibly conclude that this leads to "an illusion". Unless you mean the word in a non pejorative way. I have no doubt that the world we construct to understand reality is additive and constructive, built upon underlying cognitive structures (literally), that narrativise our lives.

Witness analysis demonstrates that we are in a continual state of construction. If it is that, by which you use the word illusion then I agree.

Your example suggests that you believe that mental states cannot affect physical states. Is that correct? It's a one-way street- mental states are only physical states?

A mental state IS A physical state.

The dualism which divides the ideas is a culturally defined dichotomy which does not makes sense and a legacy of ancient and medieval notions of body and soul.

[anonymous66]

Your example suggests that you believe that mental states cannot affect physical states. Is that correct? It's a one-way street- mental states are only physical states?

A mental state IS A physical state.

The dualism which divides the ideas is a culturally defined dichotomy which does not makes sense and a legacy of ancient and medieval notions of body and soul.

I guess I don't get how you can say, "I'm not a dualist... but I think mental states are real."
And if mental states are physical states, then why talk as if there are 2 different things? Instead of saying, "I feel happy", why not say, "there is X physical process going in my brain"?

[anonymous66]

What method do you propose we use in order to determine what has a memory, and what does not?

I'm not proposing any method.

But if your goal is to find out what is "conscious" (instead of what has "memory"), then save yourself some time and go straight to looking for that which possesses 'recognition' of past experiences.

Detecting memory by itself won't tell you much, as you would still have to then detect for recognition. Some objects may have memory without recognition (such as billiard balls). But if you find recognition, then you will have also found memory (as recognition cannot be possible without memory). And once you find recognition, then you have found consciousness.

Some methods for detecting recognition have already been developed by those treating mentally impaired people (dementia, alzheimers, etc). This might give you a starting point to develop more specific methods.

I'm coming at the topic from a different angle. It seems to me that panpsychism answers a lot questions- most importantly, why do we have minds? If panpsychism, everything is conscious. And you're right, we would need to determine just what we mean by conscious. And you're right, memory does seem to be part of consciousness. I just don't see any reason to say, "I doubt some things could have memory."

[Consul]

I guess I don't get how you can say, "I'm not a dualist... but I think mental states are real."

There's a difference between reductive/equative materialism and eliminative materialism. To say, as the former does, that all mental phenomena are physical phenomena is certainly not to say that there are no mental phenomena.

And if mental states are physical states, then why talk as if there are 2 different things? Instead of saying, "I feel happy", why not say, "there is X physical process going in my brain"?

If physicalism is true, then for every (true) psychological description of a mental state of affairs there is a (possible) physical/neurological description of the same state of affairs. However, coreferentiality is not the same as synonymity; that is, sameness of reference is not the same as sameness of meaning. For there can be different, non-synonymous representations of one and the same state of affairs.

[anonymous66]

I guess I don't get how you can say, "I'm not a dualist... but I think mental states are real."

There's a difference between reductive/equative materialism and eliminative materialism. To say, as the former does, that all mental phenomena are physical phenomena is certainly not to say that there are no mental phenomena.

I understand that there is a difference. It's just that whenever I look into a physicalism that is supposed to be consistent with consciousness and mental states that are NOT illusions, it looks very much to me like eliminativism. People may claim to be physicalists and claim that they believe that mental states and consciousness are NOT illusions, it's just that whenever I examine their beliefs, it seems to me that they ARE in fact denying the reality of mental states and consciousness. Or perhaps it is the case that their beliefs look to me like they entail that consciousness and mental states ARE illusions.

This dialogue might help:
A:What of consciousness and mental states?
B:It's real
A:So you're a panpsychist?
B: No, only the physical exists
A: But the mind exists?
B: No, I'm not a dualist
A: Consciousness exists, but the mind doesn't?
B: Correct. Mental states are just physical states
A: But mental states exist?
B: Yes
A: I guess I don't so how mental states, mind and consciousness can both exist and not exist

Maybe it comes down to agreeing on a definition of mind. It seems to me that if the mind exists, then mental states and consciousness exists. If the mind doesn't exist (denying that the mind exists is the same thing as denying dualism, isn't it?), then mental states and consciousness don't exist (or they exist, and are some kind of illusion).

[Consul]

I understand that there is a difference. It's just that whenever I look into a physicalism that is supposed to be consistent with consciousness and mental states that are NOT illusions, it looks very much to me like eliminativism. People may claim to be physicalists and claim that they believe that mental states and consciousness are NOT illusions, it's just that whenever I examine their beliefs, it seems to me that they ARE in fact denying the reality of mental states and consciousness. Or perhaps it is the case that their beliefs look to me like they entail that consciousness and mental states ARE illusions.

There's a (perceptual) illusion when something real is different from the way it appears. What reductive materialists do claim is that our inner perception (introspective awareness) of our experiences is illusory insofar as the (real) qualia we enjoy seem non-material and non-complex without really being so. According to reductive materialism, as far as our inner awareness of experiential qualia is concerned, there is a phenomenological illusion of immateriality and simplicity (structurelessness): Introspectively simple- and immaterial-seeming qualia or secondary qualities are actually complex material qualities, or complexes of primary, material qualities.

Here's what David Armstrong (a champion of reductive materialism) says:

"[T]here is the startling contrast between the relative simplicity of the secondary qualities as perceived and the great complexity of the physical conditions with which, in the Materialist view, they are to be identified.
The Materialist, it seems, will have to claim that this simplicity is epistemological, not ontological, a matter of how much we know rather than how things actually are. Materialists about the mind have claimed that opponents have confused the situation of not being introspectively aware that mental processes have spatial characteristics with the situation of being aware that mental processes have not got spatial characteristics. These opponents, Materialists say, are entitled to say that we are not introspectively aware of the spatial properties of mental processes, but not that we are introspectively aware that they lack any. In the same way, Materialists about the secondary qualities must attempt to argue that the fact that we are not directly aware that the secondary qualities are very complex physical characteristics does not mean that we are aware that they are not complex in nature. Whether such a line of argument can be carried through remains to be seen.
Third, the secondary qualities give an overwhelming impression that they cannot be reduced to mere physical properties. When we perceive a sound, taste, smell or colour we seem to ourselves to grasp a quality which we directly apprehend to be irreducible. (Or, at any rate, I seem to myself to do so.) Anyone with a feeling for the quality of perceptual experience, it seems, must reject the cold reductions of Materialism.
Any Materialist view of the secondary qualities that is to be finally convincing must be able to explain the overwhelming impression of irreducibility that the secondary qualities give."

(Armstrong, D. M. "The Secondary Qualities." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 46/3 (1968): 225–241. pp. 240-1)

And here's Armstrong's Headless-Woman Illusion:

"Consider the Headless Woman Illusion. In this illusion, popular in Victorian times, a woman is presented on a stage completely hung with black. A cloth of the same black is placed over the woman's head. It looks for all the world (I am reliably told) as if the woman lacks a head. Unsophisticated persons might be deceived.
Here we pass from a lack of awareness of the woman's head to the false impression that the woman lacks a head. There is an 'operator shift' from lack of awareness to 'awareness' of a lack. This pattern of reasoning serves us well in most ordinary contexts. If you can't see anybody in the room, then it is likely that there is nobody in the room. The inference only goes wrong in special cases. The Headless Woman case is a deliberately contrived case where the inference does go wrong.
Furthermore, although the inference is utterly natural, it is quite unreliable in many scientific contexts. Most of us now would think that the fact that you cannot perceive molecules, atoms, and fundamental particles is not a good reason for thinking that these things do not exist. They do exist, we think, and are in fact the ultimate constituents that make up the things we perceive. This fact shows us what the Materialist should say in reply to Hume's argument. That our perceptions, sensations, and thoughts are material processes, and so have spatial properties, is a scientific hypothesis that we should not expect to verify by introspection. At the same time, Headless Woman reasoning—the passage from lack of awareness to 'awareness' of a lack—is an utterly natural style of reasoning. So we can actually expect the materialist hypothesis to be phenomenologically implausible, even if it is true."

(Armstrong, D. M. The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999. p. 29)

"When, using our introspective powers, we turn our attention to our own minds we find nothing that suggests that the mental processes we are monitoring are processes in the brain. Indeed, I think that many would have held, up to quite recently, that introspective evidence shows, perhaps conclusively, that the mind is not the brain. We can call this the Argument from Introspection. The brain may be the immediate cause that sustains the mind in its operations, upholders of this argument often concede, but it is not the mind itself.
I believe that there is a simple observation that explains why the anti-materialist position should seem attractive even while it may be false. Unfortunately, I had not noticed the point when I published my book A Materialist Theory of the Mind (1968), so I was not able to include it in the book. But I did publish a little article in Analysis in 1968: 'The Headless Woman Illusion and the Defence of Materialism'. This illusion is brought about by exhibiting a woman (or, of course, a man!) against a totally black background with the head of the woman swathed with the same black material. It is apparently very striking, and could lead unsophisticated persons to think that the woman lacks a head. It is clear what is going on here. The spectators cannot see the head, and as a result make a transition to a strong impression that there was no head to see. An illegitimate operator shift is at work, taking people from not seeing the head to seeming to see that the woman did not have a head. The shift of the 'not', the operator, occurs because it is, in the circumstances, the natural and normally effective way to reason. If you can’t see anybody in the room, you may conclude, very reasonably, there is nobody in the room. In general you will be right. In the same way, we emphatically do not perceive introspectively that the mind is material process in our heads, so we have the impression that it is not material. This seems to nullify the force of the Argument from Introspection, while still explaining the seductiveness of that reasoning."

(Armstrong, D. M. Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. pp. 106-7)

"Many opponents think that materialism is phenomenologically implausible. Simple introspection, they are inclined to think, reveals to us that the mind is definitely not something neurophysiological.
It seems though, that even if materialism is true, there is a natural illusion of the human mind that makes it seem introspectively implausible. It is dramatically illustrated by the Headless Woman illusion, which may still occasionally be seen at fairs and such like. (I have not been lucky enough to see it for myself, but have heard two seemingly reliable reports.) A person posed on a stage against a completely black background, but with a black cloth concealing the head, will give a very strong impression of lacking a head. The mind, it seems, moves naturally from the lack of perception of the head to the false perception of the lack of a head. What cannot be perceived seems not to be there. In much ordinary life this transition will take us from truth to truth. If you can't see anybody in the room, then it is very likely that there is nobody there. But in more theoretical contexts we may be led into error. A failure to be aware of the material nature of the mind, which seems to be a true deliverance of introspection, may be expected to generate the impression that the mind is not material even if the mind is material. I published this as a brief note in Analysis in 1968. The illusion may also help to explain, at least in part, the stubborn impression of irreducibility presented by the secondary qualities."

(Armstrong, D. M. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. Rev. ed. London: Routledge, 1993. p. xix)

This dialogue might help:
…Maybe it comes down to agreeing on a definition of mind. It seems to me that if the mind exists, then mental states and consciousness exists. If the mind doesn't exist (denying that the mind exists is the same thing as denying dualism, isn't it?), then mental states and consciousness don't exist (or they exist, and are some kind of illusion).

If minds are complexes of mental states or properties, then it is certainly inconsistent to deny the existence of minds and to affirm the existence of mental states or properties; but it's not if minds are defined as mental substances. All materialists deny the existence of mental substances (substantial souls/spirits).

[anonymous66]

If minds are complexes of mental states or properties, then it is certainly inconsistent to deny the existence of minds and to affirm the existence of mental states or properties; but it's not if minds are defined as mental substances. All materialists deny the existence of mental substances (substantial souls/spirits).

I do agree with physicalists/materialists that there is only one substance and it is physical. I am a dualist when it comes to properties only. I suspect there are both physical properties and mental properties- hence panpsychism, real minds and mental states and consciousness that are not illusions.

[anonymous66]

If minds are complexes of mental states or properties, then it is certainly inconsistent to deny the existence of minds and to affirm the existence of mental states or properties; but it's not if minds are defined as mental substances. All materialists deny the existence of mental substances (substantial souls/spirits).

I do agree with physicalists/materialists that there is only one substance and it is physical. I am a dualist when it comes to properties only. I suspect there are both physical properties and mental properties- hence panpsychism, real minds and mental states and consciousness that are not illusions.

Or I suppose another way to put it is that if accepting the existence of minds makes me a dualist, then I am a dualist in regards to properties only, but a monist in regards to substance.

[Consul]

"[T]here is the startling contrast between the relative simplicity of the secondary qualities as perceived and the great complexity of the physical conditions with which, in the Materialist view, they are to be identified.
…
Any Materialist view of the secondary qualities that is to be finally convincing must be able to explain the overwhelming impression of irreducibility that the secondary qualities give."

(Armstrong, D. M. "The Secondary Qualities." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 46/3 (1968): 225–241. pp. 240-1)

Reductive materialists have to deal with the so-called Grain Problem:

"Think of what consciousness feels like, what it feels like this minute. Does that feel like billions of tiny atoms wiggling in place?"

(Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Pocket Books, 1985. p. 252)

"The shallow structure of qualia. The fifth puzzle is the grain problem, as introduced by Wilfrid Sellars (1963a) and recently taken up again by William Lycan (1987) and Michael Lockwood (1993). The grain problem comes from noting that the physical character of brain processing involves structure not possessed by phenomenal qualities. For instance, the structure of an expanse of phenomenally experienced color does not divide into finer and finer substructures corresponding to the microphysical structure of the brain or brain events. Occurrent phenomenal colors, such as blue, are structurally homogenous despite their physical correlates having a highly variegated structure. For a physicalist, the problem posed is to understand how a relatively homogenous quality can be identical with, or constituted by, a richly structured physical entity."

(Rosenberg, Gregg. A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 122)

"If the immediate objects of introspective awareness just are states of, or events within, the brain, seen as they are in themselves, why do they appear to be so radically different from anything that a knowledge of the physiology of the brain would lead one to expect?"

(Lockwood, Michael. "The Grain Problem." In Objections to Physicalism, edited by Howard Robinson, 271-291. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. pp. 273-4)

"…the fact that the phenomenal objects of introspective awareness are far less finely structured than are any plausible physiological correlates. Consider, for example, a phenomenally flawless auditory experience, of a note, say, on a violin. Its physiological substrate, presumably, is a highly structured, not to say messy, concatenation of changes in electrical potential within billions of neurons in the auditory cortex, mediated by the migration of sodium and potassium ions across cell membranes, and of molecules of transmitter substances within the chemical soup at the synapses. How do all these microstructural discontinuities and inhomogeneities come to be glossed over, in such a way as to generate the elegant perfection of auditory phenomenology that we associate with the playing of a Yehudi Menuhin? How are we to make philosophical sense of such phenomenological coarse-graining?"

(Lockwood, Michael. "The Grain Problem." In Objections to Physicalism, edited by Howard Robinson, 271-291. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. p. 274)

"Qualia are problematic because they are:
…
* Homogeneous, i.e. 'grainless' or 'ultrasmooth' on the level of subjective experience. Simple phenomenal properties prima introspectione do not possess an inner structure. They are, therefore, experienced as indivisible, as phenomenal atoms. This problem is closely connected to the grain problem."

(Metzinger, Thomas. "The Problem of Consciousness." In Conscious Experience, edited by Thomas Metzinger, 3-40. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995. p. 28)

"[T]he so-called grain problem, which was originally introduced by Sellars (1965, 1971) and can be regarded as a version of the combination problem, resolves into three component problems: (i) The phenomenal objects of introspective awareness are far less finely structured than are any plausible physiological correlates, (ii) the structure we encounter at the phenomenal level does not match that of the underlying physiology as revealed by science, and (iii) the qualitative diversity of the phenomenal realm does not match the corresponding qualitative homogeneity of the physical ingredients out of which any corresponding brain state could realistically be composed."

(Alter, Torin, and Yujin Nagasawa. "Editors' Introduction." In Consciousness and the Physical World: Perspectives on Russellian Monism, edited by Torin Alter and Yujin Nagasawa, 1-14. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. p. 7)

"Then there is the so-called ‘grain problem’. What portion of the brain could be identical with the visual experience one has when one looks at a white sheet of paper? Whereas the relevant visual experience is a smooth region of phenomenal whiteness, the neural structures associated with this experience are far from homogeneous (just think what a tangle of neurones looks like). The same applies to the elementary particles neurones are composed of. Where in the brain do we find something with the same structure as a smooth expanse of pure phenomenal white?"

(Dainton, Barry. Stream of Consciousness: Unity and Continuity in Conscious Experience. London: Routledge, 2000. p. 7)

[Consul]

I do agree with physicalists/materialists that there is only one substance and it is physical. I am a dualist when it comes to properties only. I suspect there are both physical properties and mental properties- hence panpsychism, real minds and mental states and consciousness that are not illusions.

When we say that something is "just an illusion", we often mean to say that it doesn't exist, isn't real; but this is not what reductive/equative materialists mean to say! For according to them, the qualia of experience do exist, are real! So what is an illusion is only our inner perception of them: Experiential qualia do exist, are real, but they are different from the way they appear (introspectively). They seem to be simple immaterial qualities, but they are really complex/structural material qualities—which aren't innerly perceived as such, or are innerly misperceived as lacking material complexity or structure. That's the (perceptual) illusion according to reductive materialism, which doesn't concern the (undenied) existence of qualia but their appearance.

A standard antireductionistic objection is that the appearance-reality or seeming-being distinction is not consistently applicable to subjective experiences/appearances themselves, so there cannot be any introspective illusions: When a subjective experience/appearance seems simple, it is simple, and therefore the experiential/phenomenal quality it possesses or contains cannot be identical to a nonsimple physical quality.
The defenders of reductive materialism must reject this objection and insist on the possibility (and actuality) of a difference between appearance and reality with regard to experiential/phenomenal qualities.

[anonymous66]

I do agree with physicalists/materialists that there is only one substance and it is physical. I am a dualist when it comes to properties only. I suspect there are both physical properties and mental properties- hence panpsychism, real minds and mental states and consciousness that are not illusions.

When we say that something is "just an illusion", we often mean to say that it doesn't exist, isn't real; but this is not what reductive/equative materialists mean to say! For according to them, the qualia of experience do exist, are real! So what is an illusion is only our inner perception of them: Experiential qualia do exist, are real, but they are different from the way they appear (introspectively).

It seems to me that no matter what word a physicalist wants to use to describe consciousness, I see very little reason to trust the reasoning abilities of humans if they're right.

It's a little odd that physicalists describe consciousness in this way (a way that makes our reasoning ability suspect), but then they appeal to science and their ability to reason as if they do have reason to trust their reasoning ability.

If physicalism, then how is it that we can trust our ability to come up with accurate theories about our world?

[Consul]

It's a little odd that physicalists describe consciousness in this way (a way that makes our reasoning ability suspect), but then they appeal to science and their ability to reason as if they do have reason to trust their reasoning ability.
If physicalism, then how is it that we can trust our ability to come up with accurate theories about our world?

Counterquestion: Why should we expect a purely physical organism to lack good cognitive, epistemic, and logico-rational abilities?

[anonymous66]

It's a little odd that physicalists describe consciousness in this way (a way that makes our reasoning ability suspect), but then they appeal to science and their ability to reason as if they do have reason to trust their reasoning ability.
If physicalism, then how is it that we can trust our ability to come up with accurate theories about our world?

Counterquestion: Why should we expect a purely physical organism to lack good cognitive, epistemic, and logico-rational abilities?

I think it's obvious that we do have good cognitive, epistemic, and logico-rational abilities. And physicalism suggests we have very little reason to have that confidence. Therefore, I have doubts about physicalism.

[Consul]

I think it's obvious that we do have good cognitive, epistemic, and logico-rational abilities.

Note that "good" doesn't mean "perfect", "infallible", or "exceptionlessly reliable"!

And physicalism suggests we have very little reason to have that confidence. Therefore, I have doubts about physicalism.

Does physicalism suggest that? Well, it gives us reason to disbelieve in supernatural cognitive or epistemic powers, and to be skeptical about synthetic knowledge a priori (based on pure reason or rational intuition); but it gives us no reason to distrust scientific observation and our cognitive ability to create (approximately) accurate/correct representations (theories) of reality.

"[T]he ontologies of Naturalism and Materialism have a natural link with the epistemology of Empiricism."

(Armstrong, David M. "Naturalism, Materialism, and First Philosophy." In Contemporary Materialism: A Reader, edited by Paul K. Moser and J. D. Trout, 35-47. London: Routledge, 1995. p. 44)

[JamesOfSeattle]

"[T]here is the startling contrast between the relative simplicity of the secondary qualities as perceived and the great complexity of the physical conditions with which, in the Materialist view, they are to be identified.
…
Any Materialist view of the secondary qualities that is to be finally convincing must be able to explain the overwhelming impression of irreducibility that the secondary qualities give."

(Armstrong, D. M. "The Secondary Qualities." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 46/3 (1968): 225–241. pp. 240-1)

Reductive materialists have to deal with the so-called Grain Problem

If the relation between the actual physical input and the perceived input is that of sign to referenced object, the referenced object being a pattern or concept, there is no grain problem. If a thousand neurons firing in a particular pattern is interpreted as the number “three”, the perception of “three” is smooth and pure. The firing pattern of the neurons can change within a certain range. Anything within the range will be perceived as “three”. Anything outside the range will not be so perceived.

*