Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Gertie]

TS

Perhaps you can make an argument to explain how physical brains with a set of physical properties identified by a CAT scan for example, are identical to experiential mental states which don't possess those physical properties, but possess different experiential properties...?

Since the mental states are identical to the physical brain states, the mental states DO possess those physical properties, of course (and vice versa). The difference, rather, is one of spatiotemporal perspective. We're talking about a third-person observation versus a first-person observation. In other words, the difference of observing something "other" (and from a particular spatiotemporal location) versus being the thing in question.

You are talking about a way of describing the distinction. What is the explanation?

[Terrapin Station]

but it'll be by immitating certain functional features of a known experiencing system (brains),

How are brains a "known experiencing system" on your view if mentality (at least a la experience, then) isn't physical/isn't identical to brain states?

[Terrapin Station]

TS

Since the mental states are identical to the physical brain states, the mental states DO possess those physical properties, of course (and vice versa). The difference, rather, is one of spatiotemporal perspective. We're talking about a third-person observation versus a first-person observation. In other words, the difference of observing something "other" (and from a particular spatiotemporal location) versus being the thing in question.

You are talking about a way of describing the distinction. What is the explanation?

The explanation was given above (and I've given it countless times here): properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points. There's a difference (in properties) from the spatiotemporal reference point of being a brain (or being a set of mental brain states more specifically) versus observing a brain from another spatiotemporal reference point that isn't identical to the brain in question.

[Gertie]

but it'll be by immitating certain functional features of a known experiencing system (brains),

How are brains a "known experiencing system" on your view if mentality (at least a la experience, then) isn't physical/isn't identical to brain states?

I don't know how brains experience, just like you don't.

[GE Morton]

Really? The "state of the art" in AI technology refers to the extent of knowledge in that field. Knowledge is physical? And what do the laws of physics tell us about the contemporary music scene?

Of course. Do you think there would be any knowledge without brains, books, and other media?

You're ignoring the obvious in order to defend a naive ontology.

Again . . . really? Please explain just how the mental state of, say, thinking about where to go for dinner "cashes out" physically --- what tests or examinations of brain tissue or activity will reveal that.

Well try to decide where to go without your brain. And you will have your question answered.

You're confounding two issues. I haven't denied that mental phenomena (knowledge, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc.) are dependent upon physical systems, are products of physical systems. I fully acknowledge that, which is obvious. But they are not predictable from the observable structure and activities of those systems, or from the physical laws governing their behavior, and certainly not identical with those physical processes.

A point of clarity: while we cannot predict the "mental phenomena" a physical system of the right type will produce, we can, I think, predict that it will produce some (if it is of the right type).

[GE Morton]

The explanation was given above (and I've given it countless times here): properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points.

Well, that "explanation" explains nothing, and cannot, proceeding as it does from a false premise: "properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points."

You apparently don't know what a property of a thing is.

[Gertie]

TS





You are talking about a way of describing the distinction. What is the explanation?

The explanation was given above (and I've given it countless times here): properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points. There's a difference (in properties) from the spatiotemporal reference point of being a brain (or being a set of mental brain states more specifically) versus observing a brain from another spatiotemporal reference point that isn't identical to the brain in question.

It's pointless just repeating a change of perspective somehow means a change of perspective happens, when you're asked to explain how that could account for phenomenal experience.

We have explanations for how a subject's perspective changing will change the ways a subject experiences an object (I turn my head and the world shifts, I look back a minute later and I notice changes). This can be explained, but not in ways which explain the Subject-Object distinction.

So how does a change of perspective explain the Subject-Object distinction.

[GE Morton]

There isn't a shape "from no reference point."

Er, yes, there is. E.g., the shape of the Earth is (roughly) spherical. The shape of the Egyptian pyramids is pyramidal. They have those shapes from all reference points, and they do not depend upon any reference point. The shape of a physical object is a property of that object. It is not a relation between the thing and an observer, or between the thing and some external reference point.

[Sculptor1]

Of course. Do you think there would be any knowledge without brains, books, and other media?


Well try to decide where to go without your brain. And you will have your question answered.

You're confounding two issues. I haven't denied that mental phenomena (knowledge, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc.) are dependent upon physical systems, are products of physical systems. I fully acknowledge that, which is obvious. But they are not predictable from the observable structure and activities of those systems, or from the physical laws governing their behavior, and certainly not identical with those physical processes.

A point of clarity: while we cannot predict the "mental phenomena" a physical system of the right type will produce, we can, I think, predict that it will produce some (if it is of the right type).

I think you mean conflating, not confounding.
Confounding is what you seem to be attempting with your disingenuous answer.
Since I was responding to a critique of "There is no distinction. The state of the art is cashed out in physicality, exactly like mental states."
I think it utterly disingenuous of you now to claim that you " haven't denied that mental phenomena (knowledge, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc.) are dependent upon physical systems, are products of physical systems. "
Why attack a statement you now claim you agree with?
Unless you are trying to persist in the mystification of mentality by introducing some incorporeal element to it. Which would be more honest at least.

[GE Morton]

Instead we live with a series of representations which approximate the world in ways effective enough to be physically logical.
Is this what you mean?

Actually, we can't say that our conceptions/representations of the world "approximate" it, either. We would only be justified in so claiming if we could compare those conceptions with the "noumena," which we can't do. All we can say is that those conceptions are good enough to enable us to function in that world.

Or are you drawing too many distinctions. If you say that the quale is a state which in turn represents surely you are just adding another unnecessary layer here? Surely the quale is the experience of the sensory input.

Yes; the quale is the unique, distinctive experience I have when (say) perceiving a red rose. It represents, to the conscious mind, the output of a specific brain process (of which we're oblivious when we're admiring the rose). Qualia are pretty hard to do away with; they make up the lion's share of our waking experience.

[GE Morton]

You're confounding two issues. I haven't denied that mental phenomena (knowledge, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc.) are dependent upon physical systems, are products of physical systems. I fully acknowledge that, which is obvious. But they are not predictable from the observable structure and activities of those systems, or from the physical laws governing their behavior, and certainly not identical with those physical processes.

A point of clarity: while we cannot predict the "mental phenomena" a physical system of the right type will produce, we can, I think, predict that it will produce some (if it is of the right type).

I think you mean conflating, not confounding.
Confounding is what you seem to be attempting with your disingenuous answer.
Since I was responding to a critique of "There is no distinction. The state of the art is cashed out in physicality, exactly like mental states."
I think it utterly disingenuous of you now to claim that you " haven't denied that mental phenomena (knowledge, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc.) are dependent upon physical systems, are products of physical systems. "
Why attack a statement you now claim you agree with?

Methinks you lost the thread of the discussion. Let me refresh:

YOU: No, these are all physical.

ME: Really? The "state of the art" in AI technology refers to the extent of knowledge in that field. Knowledge is physical? And what do the laws of physics tell us about the contemporary music scene?

YOU: Of course. Do you think there would be any knowledge without brains, books, and other media?

You had claimed that knowledge, contemporary music scenes, etc., were "physical." I challenged that. Then you responded with a reply that implies that they depend upon physical systems, with which I agree. But that is a different claim.

Being produced by, or dependent upon, a physical system not necessarily make the products physical. Your reply, "Of course. Do you think there would be any knowledge without brains, books, and other media?" confounds those two questions.

[Terrapin Station]

How are brains a "known experiencing system" on your view if mentality (at least a la experience, then) isn't physical/isn't identical to brain states?

I don't know how brains experience, just like you don't.

In other words, I'm asking why you'd say that brains are a "known experiencing system" if mentality isn't physical/isn't identical to brain states on your view.

[Terrapin Station]

The explanation was given above (and I've given it countless times here): properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points.

Well, that "explanation" explains nothing, and cannot, proceeding as it does from a false premise: "properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points."

You apparently don't know what a property of a thing is.

What happened to all the stuff I asked you that you simply ignored. Start with this:

There isn't a shape "from no reference point." I wrote this already. If you're going to disagree with it, you need to explain how there's a shape from no reference point.

The explanation of how there's a shape from no reference point is?

[Terrapin Station]

The explanation was given above (and I've given it countless times here): properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points. There's a difference (in properties) from the spatiotemporal reference point of being a brain (or being a set of mental brain states more specifically) versus observing a brain from another spatiotemporal reference point that isn't identical to the brain in question.

It's pointless just repeating a change of perspective somehow means a change of perspective happens, when you're asked to explain how that could account for phenomenal experience.

I wrote the answer in what you're quoting: "properties of any x are different from different spatiotemporal reference points."

[Terrapin Station]

There isn't a shape "from no reference point."

Er, yes, there is. E.g., the shape of the Earth is (roughly) spherical. The shape of the Egyptian pyramids is pyramidal. They have those shapes from all reference points, and they do not depend upon any reference point. The shape of a physical object is a property of that object. It is not a relation between the thing and an observer, or between the thing and some external reference point.

That's an answer that reads like, "Let's try anything we can think of."

First off, "have those shapes from all reference points" isn't a shape from no reference point, is it?

"The Earth is spherical"--how does that property obtain, exactly? Here's a common definition of "sphere": "a round solid figure, or its surface, with every point on its surface equidistant from its center."

"From its center" is a spatiotemporal reference point. But you're saying it has a shape from no reference point, right? So you couldn't use "from its center." So how does the property of "spherical" obtain from no reference point?