Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Sculptor1]

Consul: "There is absolutely nothing contradictory about the idea of a world without world-experience."
That would mean that any world we can imagine is real, doesn't matter if we experience it or not, because experience does not count.

???
That doesn't follow from what I say. By "a world without world-experience" I simply mean a world devoid of experiencing/perceiving beings.

There is a good reason why we sometimes say 'world' instead of planet or earth. With some meaning of the word we all live in our own world, and without experience there is no world, just a planet with no sense to it. A world is what we make sense of from our life.
Without sensatory creatures the earth will keep on turning but without experience there is no world.

[Atla]

So you don't know why experiental states go with matter. Materialism explains everything just fine, except this one. So why can't you just accept that there is one big anomaly that the materialist worldview can't explain, therefore it must be incomplete, to put it mildly?

Natural/physical evolution is a continuous process, and materialists cannot believe that consciousness is a hyperphysical "anomaly" in nature that is scientifically inexplicable (in physicalistic terms) in principle. Abiogenesis (the evolutionary transition from nonlife to life) wasn't a supernatural miracle, and materialists are convinced that apsychogenesis (the evolutionary transition from nonconscious life to conscious life) wasn't one either.

"How could a nonphysical property or entity suddenly arise in the course of animal evolution? A change in a gene is a change in a complex molecule which causes a change in the biochemistry of the cell. This may lead to changes in the shape or organization of the developing embryo. But what sort of chemical process could lead to the springing into existence of something nonphysical? No enzyme can catalyze the production of a spook!"

(Smart, J. J. C. "Materialism." Journal of Philosophy 60/22 (1963): 651-662. p. 660)

There's a new natural science: the neuroscience of consciousness. It is still in its infancy, and nobody knows whether it will succeed in (reductively) explaining (phenomenal) consciousness/(subjective) experience; but the antimaterialists' prediction that it will never be successful is unsubstantiated and unjustified. "X hasn't been explained yet" isn't synonymous with "X is unexplainable in principle"! As Doris Day sings: "The future's not ours to see."

The prediction that this approach will never be successful is perfectly justified. Because matter is defined as not-phenomenal-consciousness. So it's a fact that no enzyme can catalyze the production of a spook.

Where we draw the line between life and non-life is an entirely different issue, as both life and non-life are made of the matter. No mistery there.

[Atla]

Oh now I get. You think that only materialism is compatible with describing the world as a material structure. And therefore those who aren't materialists in the philosophical sense, necessarily disagree with science or any "physical" stuff.

Maybe you shouldn't participate on a philosophy forum then?

Non sequitur.
There is a difference between the contents of a book and the paper upon which that content appears, yet there is no story without the book.
Think it through.

No idea what you mean. Did you know that 100% of all scientific findings can be perfectly described without the idea of matter?

[Consul]

If materialism says that the world without conscious beings is possible, it cannot be logically consistent.

If you think one can infer a contradiction from the materialistic assumption that nature is existentially independent of conscious beings, I'd like to see the formal proof!

...subjects are conscious, experiencing objects

This is exactly what makes materialism absurd.

No, not at all!

I'm saying subjects are a species of objects, so I reject the following alternative view; but note that materialism/physicalism is compatible with the bundle view of egos/persons/subjects as long as all mental occurrences are (reductively identifiable with) physical ones.

Some say egos/persons/subjects aren't "hardware" in the form of substances or objects (bodies or [substantial] souls) but "software" in the form of occurrences (events/processes/states). According to them, an ego/person/subject is "a system of floating ideas without any substance to support them" (George Berkeley), "a bundle or collection of different perceptions" (David Hume), "a series of mental states connected by continuity of character and memory" (Anthony Quinton), "a unified series of mental events and states, rather than a physical object" (Scott Campbell).

"We are composed of mental states or events: particular beliefs, desires, sensations, emotions, and so on. In particular, each of us is composed of his own mental states or events. Our parts may include both occurrent states or events—things actively going on within the mind, such as your current philosophical cogitations—and nonoccurrent states and dispositions lying dormant, such as your memories of last summer and your taste in furniture. Or our parts may be particular mental qualities or 'tropes'. But none of our parts are material things. We are not made of matter. Though our bodies may be made of matter, the parts of our bodies are not parts of us. Call this the bundle view."

(Olson, Eric T. What are We? A Study in Personal Ontology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. p. 129)

[RJG]

The perception-of-X is not the same as X. The experiencing-of-something is not the same as the something itself, ...wouldn't you agree???

Experiences (of-objects) are 'experiences'.
And objects are 'objects'.
Experiences are NOT objects.
'Experiences' and 'objects' are TWO different things.
Conflating them as the SAME thing is the error…

Here you are saying they are making an error. I think it makes more sense to say they have a different metaphysics than you do. They state theirs, you state yours.

Since "experiencing" DOES NOT mean "object" in anybody's dictionary(!), then wouldn't it be an "ERROR" (and not a "metaphysical difference") to conflate these two words as having the same meaning, when they are obviously different??? ...even Tamminen's metaphysics (idealistic viewpoint) distinguishes the difference between these two words. --- So why not call an "error" an "error"?

There are many kinds of idealism. Let us say that the world consists of two material objects A and B. Then there is the subject. I can see at least these versions of idealism here:

1. The subject perceives A, and reality consists of the subject's perception of A.
2. The subject perceives A, and reality consists of A + the subject's perception of A.
3. The subject perceives A, and reality consists of A and B + the subject's perception of A.

In each of these cases, if there is no subject, there is no reality either.

This does not logically follow. If you start with 3 things; an object "A", and an object "B", and the "subject", and then take away the "subject", then aren't objects "A" and "B" still there? --- What makes the reality of A and B disappear when the subject disappears??

What can we say about such a reality? or the things in it? The ding an sich.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but if it is what I think it is, then I'm in agreement with Tamminen on this one, ...but to put it here in my own simplistic words:

Without 'something' to be conscious of, then there is 'nothing' to be conscious of. And if there is nothing to be conscious of, then there is no consciousness.

--- Simple Translation: without 'objects', there can be no 'subjects' --- and please note that this does NOT mean the inverse - "without subjects, there can be no objects"!


***********
So getting back to the Topic Question "Materialism is Absurd", is false. Materialism is 'not' absurd, it is very rational. For without materialism, there would be no consciousness. So "thank you" materialism, for my consciousness (and Tamminen's "subjectiveness"). ...and when I cease to exist, materialism will still be here to produce others consciousness/subjectiveness.

[Consul]

The world is 'everything there is', 'everything that is the case', 'the totality of facts'. Now these facts are facts for me, and when I am dead, they are facts for someone else. And if there is no one for whom the facts are facts, they are facts in the world of facts that has no relationship with anyone.

So-called "subjective truths" or "truths for me" are simply my beliefs (convictions, opinions, judgments); and if you use "truth" and "fact" synonymously, we also have "subjective facts" or "facts for me"—but these are again nothing but my beliefs. And the world as "the totality of facts" is not reducible to the totality of my beliefs.

Note that Wittgenstein's concept of a fact (in his Tractatus) isn't subjectivistic or idealistic:

"What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.
A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things)."

So, a fact in this sense of the term is not a truth (true proposition), a known truth, or a believed proposition, but a(n actual or obtaining) state of affairs.

"A state of affairs I define as a particular's having a certain property, or two or more particulars standing in a certain relation."

(Armstrong, D. M. Nominalism & Realism. Vol. 1 of Universals & Scientific Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. p. 80)

Facts or states of affairs thus defined can obtain independently of minds or subjects!

[Consul]

There's a new natural science: the neuroscience of consciousness. It is still in its infancy, and nobody knows whether it will succeed in (reductively) explaining (phenomenal) consciousness/(subjective) experience; but the antimaterialists' prediction that it will never be successful is unsubstantiated and unjustified. "X hasn't been explained yet" isn't synonymous with "X is unexplainable in principle"! As Doris Day sings: "The future's not ours to see."

The prediction that this approach will never be successful is perfectly justified.

No, it's a perfectly unjustified expression of metaphysical a priori dogmatism!

Because matter is defined as not-phenomenal-consciousness. So it's a fact that no enzyme can catalyze the production of a spook.

If the mental/experiential were defined as the nonmaterial/nonphysical (and, correspondingly, the material/physical as the nonmental/nonexperiential), then antimaterialist dualism would emerge victorious by definition; but there is no cheap victory for it!

"We have a tendency to read 'nonphysical' when we see the word 'mental', and think 'nonmental' when we see the word 'physical'. This has the effect of making the idea of physical reduction of the mental a simple verbal contradiction, abetting the misguided idea that physical reduction of something we cherish as a mental item, like thought or feeling, would turn it into something other than what it is. But this would be the case only if by 'physical' we meant 'nonmental'. We should not prejudge the issue of mind-body reduction by building irreducibility into the meanings of our words. When we consider the question whether the mental can be physically reduced, it is not necessary—even if this could be done—to begin with general definitions of 'mental' and 'physical'; rather, the substantive question that we are asking, or should be asking, is whether or not things like belief, desire, emotion, and sensation are reducible to physical properties and processes. We can understand this question and intelligently debate it, without subsuming these items under some general conception of what it is for something to be mental. If 'mental' is understood to imply 'nonphysical', it would then be an open question whether or not belief, desire, sensation, perception, and the rest are mental in that sense. And this question would replace the original question of their physical reducibility. We cannot evade or trivialize this question by a simple verbal ploy."

(Kim, Jaegwon. "The Mind-Body Problem at Century's Turn." In The Future of Philosophy, edited by Brian Leiter, 129-152. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 138)

[Atla]

The prediction that this approach will never be successful is perfectly justified.

No, it's a perfectly unjustified expression of metaphysical a priori dogmatism!

Because matter is defined as not-phenomenal-consciousness. So it's a fact that no enzyme can catalyze the production of a spook.

If the mental/experiential were defined as the nonmaterial/nonphysical (and, correspondingly, the material/physical as the nonmental/nonexperiential), then antimaterialist dualism would emerge victorious by definition; but there is no cheap victory for it!

"We have a tendency to read 'nonphysical' when we see the word 'mental', and think 'nonmental' when we see the word 'physical'. This has the effect of making the idea of physical reduction of the mental a simple verbal contradiction, abetting the misguided idea that physical reduction of something we cherish as a mental item, like thought or feeling, would turn it into something other than what it is. But this would be the case only if by 'physical' we meant 'nonmental'. We should not prejudge the issue of mind-body reduction by building irreducibility into the meanings of our words. When we consider the question whether the mental can be physically reduced, it is not necessary—even if this could be done—to begin with general definitions of 'mental' and 'physical'; rather, the substantive question that we are asking, or should be asking, is whether or not things like belief, desire, emotion, and sensation are reducible to physical properties and processes. We can understand this question and intelligently debate it, without subsuming these items under some general conception of what it is for something to be mental. If 'mental' is understood to imply 'nonphysical', it would then be an open question whether or not belief, desire, sensation, perception, and the rest are mental in that sense. And this question would replace the original question of their physical reducibility. We cannot evade or trivialize this question by a simple verbal ploy."

(Kim, Jaegwon. "The Mind-Body Problem at Century's Turn." In The Future of Philosophy, edited by Brian Leiter, 129-152. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 138)

It's a perfectly justified prediction. Your quote talks about mental content and not phenomenal consciousness itself, so it's off topic.

Phenomenal consciousness, mental content, the subjective world were given to idealism. Matter, the objective world were given to materialism. Since then we pretty much realized that mental content / subjective world can be equated with matter / objective world. Phenomenal consciousness itself was still left out though from the unification.

So even today, matter is still inherently defined as not-phenomenal consciousness.

(I don't know what "antimaterialist dualism" is, but it is all dualism that is unjustified.)

[Sculptor1]

Non sequitur.
There is a difference between the contents of a book and the paper upon which that content appears, yet there is no story without the book.
Think it through.

No idea what you mean. Did you know that 100% of all scientific findings can be perfectly described without the idea of matter?

1 non sequitur
noun
a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
"his weird mixed metaphors and non sequiturs"

2. Please describe the theory of gravity without reference to matter.

[Tamminen]

This does not logically follow. If you start with 3 things; an object "A", and an object "B", and the "subject", and then take away the "subject", then aren't objects "A" and "B" still there? --- What makes the reality of A and B disappear when the subject disappears??

Here I described various kinds of idealism that can be adopted from the situation. My version is #3, and I have given my reasons for it in other posts.

If you think one can infer a contradiction from the materialistic assumption that nature is existentially independent of conscious beings, I'd like to see the formal proof!

I am sorry but I cannot give you a formal proof, because the dialectic or reductio ad absurdum needed here is based on the ontological presumption, proposed by e.g. Wittgenstein, that the scope of logic coincides with the scope of its usage, i.e. is transcendental, but not transcendent. So saying that the world without subjects is possible becomes nonsense because it destroys the transcendental condition of its own meaningfulness. I know this is somewhat circular reasoning, but let us say it makes a spiral rather than a circle. What I try to do is to make you and others to understand why it must be so. And note that I am not saying that the world would disappear if all subjects were removed, I am saying that the world necessarily contains subjects if the world is defined as a spatiotemporal totality of objects or states of affairs or facts. Subjects are the essence of the world.

So many words to say this, but if you see it through intuition, it becomes clear without words.

[Atla]

1 non sequitur
noun
a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
"his weird mixed metaphors and non sequiturs"

2. Please describe the theory of gravity without reference to matter.

1. You don't say. I know what a non sequitur is and I know that "There is a difference between the contents of a book and the paper upon which that content appears, yet there is no story without the book." I don't know how that relates to what I wrote.

2. All things with mass or energy gravitate* toward one another. Which doesn't mean that there are separate things in the universe, or that the universe is made of matter. Mass and energy are in the end metaphors too, we don't know what they "are", we just describe how they work.
(*or maybe they are "pushed" toward one another)

[Consul]

Did you know that 100% of all scientific findings can be perfectly described without the idea of matter?

It depends on what exactly is meant by "matter":

1. the sum total of atoms
2. the sum total of massy subatomic particles
3. the sum total of elementary particles
?

Moreover, there's also the concept of matter as "prime matter" (aka "quintessence" or "the aether"), i.e. as a space-filling basic stuff functioning as a substantial substratum of all physical properties and processes.

If Spinoza's one-substance worldview is interpreted materialistically, one can say that there is only one spatiotemporally extended Matter or Urstoff (ur-stuff), with all elementary particles and all material systems composed of them being nothing but (compresent complexes of) attributes or properties of that Urstoff.

[Sculptor1]

1 non sequitur
noun
a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
"his weird mixed metaphors and non sequiturs"

2. Please describe the theory of gravity without reference to matter.

1. You don't say. I know what a non sequitur is and I know that "There is a difference between the contents of a book and the paper upon which that content appears, yet there is no story without the book." I don't know how that relates to what I wrote.

2. All things with mass

FAIL

or energy gravitate* toward one another. Which doesn't mean that there are separate things in the universe, or that the universe is made of matter. Mass and energy are in the end metaphors too, we don't know what they "are", we just describe how they work.
(*or maybe they are "pushed" toward one another)

[Sculptor1]

Did you know that 100% of all scientific findings can be perfectly described without the idea of matter?

It depends on what exactly is meant by "matter":

1. the sum total of atoms
2. the sum total of massy subatomic particles
3. the sum total of elementary particles
?

Moreover, there's also the concept of matter as "prime matter" (aka "quintessence" or "the aether"), i.e. as a space-filling basic stuff functioning as a substantial substratum of all physical properties and processes.

If Spinoza's one-substance worldview is interpreted materialistically, one can say that there is only one spatiotemporally extended Matter or Urstoff (ur-stuff), with all elementary particles and all material systems composed of them being nothing but (compresent complexes of) attributes or properties of that Urstoff.

Materialism is interested in energy and how it is concerned with matter.

It is very east to offer a view or definition of materialism which would look absurd.
However, I would have thought that this Forum was beyond childish strawmen.

[Atla]

1. You don't say. I know what a non sequitur is and I know that "There is a difference between the contents of a book and the paper upon which that content appears, yet there is no story without the book." I don't know how that relates to what I wrote.

2. All things with mass

FAIL

or energy gravitate* toward one another. Which doesn't mean that there are separate things in the universe, or that the universe is made of matter. Mass and energy are in the end metaphors too, we don't know what they "are", we just describe how they work.
(*or maybe they are "pushed" toward one another)

Great!
Then show me the experiment where they demonstrated that what the word "mass" describes, is made of matter.