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

[anonymous66]

You don't think that to say that water is composed of H2O molecules is to say that there is no water, do you?

This analogy doesn't work. Water IS H2O molecules. That's quite different from the reality of our first hand subjective experiences. You're saying that our first hand subjective experiences are in reality just the physical processes of our brain. I'm saying, if that is the case, then our first hand subjective experience could only be illusions.

[anonymous66]

You don't think that to say that water is composed of H2O molecules is to say that there is no water, do you?

This analogy doesn't work. Water IS H2O molecules. That's quite different from the reality of our first hand subjective experiences. You're saying that our first hand subjective experiences are in reality just the physical processes of our brain. I'm saying, if that is the case, then our first hand subjective experience could only be illusions.

I'm saying that it's the case that we both believe that substance monism is the case, and I'm saying that there are either 2 things, the physical processes of our brain AND our first hand subjective experiences (if you agree with me here, then I will have considered it to be the case that I have converted you to panpsychism), OR there is only one thing- the physical processes of our brain.

[Consul]

This analogy doesn't work. Water IS H2O molecules. That's quite different from the reality of our first hand subjective experiences. You're saying that our first hand subjective experiences are in reality just the physical processes of our brain. I'm saying, if that is the case, then our first hand subjective experience could only be illusions.

This doesn't follow! Phenomenal properties aren't unrealized by being identified with (complex/structural) physical properties.

[anonymous66]

This analogy doesn't work. Water IS H2O molecules. That's quite different from the reality of our first hand subjective experiences. You're saying that our first hand subjective experiences are in reality just the physical processes of our brain. I'm saying, if that is the case, then our first hand subjective experience could only be illusions.

This doesn't follow! Phenomenal properties aren't unrealized by being identified with (complex/structural) physical properties.

How are you defining Phenomenal properties?

[Consul]

I'm saying that it's the case that we both believe that substance monism is the case, and I'm saying that there are either 2 things, the physical processes of our brain AND our first hand subjective experiences (if you agree with me here, then I will have considered it to be the case that I have converted you to panpsychism), OR there is only one thing- the physical processes of our brain.

According to reductive physicalism, there are certain physical or neurological processes which are our subjective experiences; and there are other kinds of physical or neurological processes which are nonconscious processes. What's the difference between conscious neurological processes and nonconscious ones? The former have a distinctive and specific attributive or qualitative content (= experiential qualia) that fundamentally consists of a qualia-constituting arrangement or complex of physical attributes (properties/qualities & relations).

[Consul]

How are you defining Phenomenal properties?

They are the introspectible qualitative contents of subjective appearances/experiences.

[anonymous66]

Phenomenal properties aren't unrealized by being identified with (complex/structural) physical properties.

I actually agree with you here, because you are admitting the reality of phenomenal properties- instead of insisting there could only be physical properties.

[Karpel Tunnel]

You don't think that to say that water is composed of H2O molecules is to say that there is no water, do you?

This analogy doesn't work. Water IS H2O molecules. That's quite different from the reality of our first hand subjective experiences. You're saying that our first hand subjective experiences are in reality just the physical processes of our brain. I'm saying, if that is the case, then our first hand subjective experience could only be illusions.

Which would be a troublesome position for any kind of empricist, since all knowledge would then be based on illusions.

[ThomasHobbes]

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"?

We talk as if there are two different things because we have a language legacy that has evolved for a million years. Most people have not stopped to consider the deeper questions and so the language continues.
We commonly say that the sun rises in the morning - but IT DOES NOT!

But as well as saying that "I feel" happy", we also say "I am happy" with equal meaning.

[anonymous66]

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"?

We talk as if there are two different things because we have a language legacy that has evolved for a million years. Most people have not stopped to consider the deeper questions and so the language continues.
We commonly say that the sun rises in the morning - but IT DOES NOT!

You're describing eliminative materialism. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted.

[Consul]

Like I said, Nagel is an atheist who believes that panpsychism is the case (because panpsychism is the only way to get a mind that isn't an illusion), and he rejects substance dualism. (He is a substance monist, like me and Galen Strawson).

In Mind & Cosmos (pp. 86-7) Nagel writes: "I explored the possibility of a reductive account of consciousness, based on some form of universal monism or panpsychism." As far as I can tell, he doesn't (explicitly) say that it is true.

Nagel argues that the nature of our world is such that it follows that physicalism is false. Here it gets confusing, because Nagel assumes that physicalism and panpsychism are mutually exclusive- he disagrees with Strawson on that point.
Anyway, Nagel also points out that in the past, both theists and physicalists believed that there were only the 2 options.
Nagel is suggesting a third option: Panpsychism. Again, you have to remember that Nagel believes that physicalism and panpsychism are mutually exclusive.
I guess you could say that if Galen Strawson is correct, then it could be the case that the 3rd option is a physicalism that is consistent with panpsychism.

Whether it is depends on what physicalism is and what panpsychism is.

Strawson's concept of physicality has been criticized for being so underspecified that it is vacuous. If "physical" is just a natural-kind term, with "physical world" meaning nothing more than "concrete/spatiotemporal world", then the real essence of the physical might turn out to be mental, in which case even idealism could count as a version of physicalism. But this is absurd!

As long as all mental properties are physical ones, the view that all physical objects have mental properties is logically compatible with physicalism.
However, the prefix "pan-" is often not taken literally, with panpsychism being defined more narrowly as the view that all or at least some kinds of basic/fundamental physical objects have mental/experiential properties. If those physical objects are mereological atoms, i.e. lack proper parts, then their mental/experiential properties are neither reducible to nor emergent from structural physical properties of them, since the having of structural properties presupposes mereological complexity, i.e. the having of proper parts which have properties of their own, and between which relations obtain.
Therefore, panpsychism thus defined is ontologically incompatible with physicalism, because the mental/properties (of basic, mereologically atomic physical objects) postulated by the former are hyperphysical in the sense of being neither reducible to nor emergent from structural physical properties.

By the way, Nagel writes that…

"Materialism requires reductionism; therefore the failure of reductionism requires an alternative to materialism."

(Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 15)

There are quite a few philosophers who deny that "materialism requires reductionism", because they think that it requires reductionism or emergentism. They argue that "the failure of reductionism" doesn't require "an alternative to materialism" but an alternative to reductive materialism; and with emergentive materialism being a genuine version of materialism, there is a materialistic alternative to reductive materialism.

Anyway, "Physicalistic neuroscience has not yet succeeded in reductively explaining subjective experience" is not synonymous with "Physicalistic neuroscience has failed in reductively explaining subjective experience". Nobody can predict the progress and future success of (neuro)science!

And of course, Nagel goes on to argue for an Aristotlean teleology.

Yes, but what he offers is nothing more than hand-waving. He doesn't even offer a sketch of a teleological theory of natural evolution that deserves to be taken seriously by the scientists.

By the way, there is no logical inconsistency between physicalism and the postulation of teleological factors in nature. However, there's a distinction between physioteleological factors and psychoteleological ones (describable in terms of intentional mental states, especially of personal agents such as God); and physicalism is arguably incompatible with the view that cosmic and biological evolution has always been influenced by psychoteleological factors. (Colin Allen calls this view "teleomentalism": "Teleomentalists regard the teleology of psychological intentions, goals, and purposes as the primary model for understanding teleology in biology." – Teleological Notions in Biology)

"As various sorts of mentalism can be thoroughly mechanistic, so conversely a materialism is compatible with any amount of vital spontaneity, from the palest tychism, through diverse shades of organicism, to the rosiest teleology."

(Williams, Donald Cary. "Naturalism and the Nature of Things." In Principles of Empirical Realism: Philosophical Essays, 212-238. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1966. p. 223)

[anonymous66]

Nagel argues that the nature of our world is such that it follows that physicalism is false. Here it gets confusing, because Nagel assumes that physicalism and panpsychism are mutually exclusive- he disagrees with Strawson on that point.
Anyway, Nagel also points out that in the past, both theists and physicalists believed that there were only the 2 options.
Nagel is suggesting a third option: Panpsychism. Again, you have to remember that Nagel believes that physicalism and panpsychism are mutually exclusive.
I guess you could say that if Galen Strawson is correct, then it could be the case that the 3rd option is a physicalism that is consistent with panpsychism.

Whether it is depends on what physicalism is and what panpsychism is.

Strawson's concept of physicality has been criticized for being so underspecified that it is vacuous. If "physical" is just a natural-kind term, with "physical world" meaning nothing more than "concrete/spatiotemporal world", then the real essence of the physical might turn out to be mental, in which case even idealism could count as a version of physicalism. But this is absurd!

As long as all mental properties are physical ones, the view that all physical objects have mental properties is logically compatible with physicalism.

You'll have to elaborate here. Are you saying that you believe there are both mental properties and physical properties?

[Consul]

…Therefore, panpsychism thus defined is ontologically incompatible with physicalism, because the mental/properties (of basic, mereologically atomic physical objects) postulated by the former are hyperphysical in the sense of being neither reducible to nor emergent from structural physical properties.

That is, (both reductive and nonreductive/emergentive) physicalism is incompatible with what Paul Churchland calls elemental-property dualism (basic-/fundamental-property dualism):

"A property dualist…could let go of the thesis of evolutionary emergence, and claim that mental properties are fundamental properties of reality, properties that have been here since the universe's inception, properties on a par with such properties as length, mass, charge, time, and other fundamental properties. There is even an historical precedent for a position of this kind. In the early 1900s, it was still believed that electromagnetic phenomena (such as electric charge, magnetic attraction, and electromagnetic waves) were just an unusually subtle manifestation of purely mechanical phenomena. Most scientists thought that an explanatory reduction of electromagnetics to mechanics was more or less in the bag. They thought that radio waves, for example, would turn out to be just traveling oscillation or waves in a very subtle jellylike aether that filled space everywhere. But the aether turned out not to exist! And so electromagnetic properties turned out to be fundamental properties in their own right, and we were forced to add electric charge to the existing list of fundamental properties (mass, length, and temporal duration.)

Perhaps mental properties enjoy a status like that of electromagnetic properties: irreducible, but not emergent. Such a view may be called elemental-property dualism, and it has the advantage of clarity over the immediately previous view [emergentist property dualism]. Unfortunately, the parallel with electromagnetic properties, which are displayed at all levels of reality from the subatomic level on up, and from the earliest stages of the cosmos to the present, mental properties are displayed only in large physical systems that have evolved a superlatively complex internal organization, a process that has taken over ten billion years. The factual and historical case for the evolutionary emergence of mental properties through the progressive organization of matter is extremely strong. They do not appear to be basic or elemental at all."

(Churchland, Paul M. Matter and Consciousness. 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. pp. 20-1)

[Consul]

You'll have to elaborate here. Are you saying that you believe there are both mental properties and physical properties?

Of course, from the point of view of physicalism, this distinction is one within the physical world. That is, it isn't a distinction between physical properties and nonphysical ones, but between non-psychophysical properties and psychophysical ones. If all mental properties are physical properties, then some physical properties are mental properties, with these being the psychophysical (or "phenophysical") ones.

[Consul]

However, the prefix "pan-" is often not taken literally, with panpsychism being defined more narrowly as the view that all or at least some kinds of basic/fundamental physical objects have mental/experiential properties. If those physical objects are mereological atoms, i.e. lack proper parts, then their mental/experiential properties are neither reducible to nor emergent from structural physical properties of them, since the having of structural properties presupposes mereological complexity, i.e. the having of proper parts which have properties of their own, and between which relations obtain.

Note that physical atoms aren't mereological atoms, since they are composed of smaller physical objects (electrons, neutrons, protons). Even subatomic objects such as as protons aren't mereological atoms, since they are composed of smaller objects too (quarks). And it is unknown whether quarks are composite objects.

Physicalism is logically compatible with the view that all or at least some kinds of mereologically non-atomic microphysical objects—be they single molecules, atoms, or subatomic particles—have structurally reducible or emergent mental properties. However, this is by no means to say that this physicalism-compatible view is plausible. I think it's absurd.