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[amorphos_ii]

How long can a mind last?

Reason for death

Why would a God create a world in which we die? Also why would evolution make our genes grow old when it can make them last indefinitely [like with some lobsters]. Nothing survives ultimately, and so the premise for evolutionary survival is purely in ignorance of that.

As we get older our relatives and friends die, this affects us massively. Perhaps it becomes too much over time and by amount, and if God could create either reincarnation or another world, then that would be some manner of solution. A refresh if you will.
Of course with reincarnation there would still ultimately be death e.g. when the world can no longer support life, or the sun goes red giant. We could inhabit other planets perhaps, but the universe itself will end or get cold and the atoms to spread to form things. Ergo, ultimately reincarnation is not a resolution to death.

If then, the God, universal spirit or what have you, desired us to not end terminally, another realm of existence is the only option – ultimately. There may be reincarnation too because the world could be a training tool, where we get to learn how to live. Given that the God created an eternal world, he could have placed us straight into that. However, we would be ignorant and foolish like children, unless he made us with in-built wisdom. If so then would we be ‘us’ when we have not developed our own personalities. Secondly I doubt if it is even the same – to have in built ‘wisdom’ and knowledge which we have not experienced and absorbed.

I hate to think how all of our deaths would affect God, but it is the lack of a 'happy ending' for us in our experience on earth, which makes our lives intolerable.
-

[Pattern-chaser]

Why would a God create a world in which we die?

Perhaps because, if we were immortal, reproduction would be impossible (due to over-crowding, if nothing ever died)? Life would be static. No change; no development; no meaningful events; nothing except eternal tedium.

[Sy Borg]

I think the trick is to accept that there are no happy endings, and our starts are pretty gruelling too. We start and end life addled and gasping for breath. All we can do is aim for happy middles.

In the many trillions of years ahead for the universe, some life form will probably manage to master digitisation of consciousness. That would make interstellar travel and colonisation feasible, and immense time spans in which consciousness can develop (or stagnate, if there's insufficient stimulus). This temporal, "no happy endings" reality of ours may be a immature form of what could potentially emerge.

Let's face it, if the best that entire cosmos with its countless galaxies, stars and planets can come up with are humans in the 21st century, then reality is basically a mindless absurdity. I doubt that it is, though, so I suppose you could call that "secular faith".

[ernestm]

How long can a mind last?

Reason for death

Why would a God create a world in which we die? Also why would evolution make our genes grow old when it can make them last indefinitely [like with some lobsters]. Nothing survives ultimately, and so the premise for evolutionary survival is purely in ignorance of that.

As we get older our relatives and friends die, this affects us massively. Perhaps it becomes too much over time and by amount, and if God could create either reincarnation or another world, then that would be some manner of solution. A refresh if you will.
Of course with reincarnation there would still ultimately be death e.g. when the world can no longer support life, or the sun goes red giant. We could inhabit other planets perhaps, but the universe itself will end or get cold and the atoms to spread to form things. Ergo, ultimately reincarnation is not a resolution to death.

If then, the God, universal spirit or what have you, desired us to not end terminally, another realm of existence is the only option – ultimately. There may be reincarnation too because the world could be a training tool, where we get to learn how to live. Given that the God created an eternal world, he could have placed us straight into that. However, we would be ignorant and foolish like children, unless he made us with in-built wisdom. If so then would we be ‘us’ when we have not developed our own personalities. Secondly I doubt if it is even the same – to have in built ‘wisdom’ and knowledge which we have not experienced and absorbed.

I hate to think how all of our deaths would affect God, but it is the lack of a 'happy ending' for us in our experience on earth, which makes our lives intolerable.
-

There is no necessity that those believing that afterlife exists acknowledge the existence of a God. there is much confluence of divergent topics in rampant confusions on the God debate.

Some branches of Buddhism uphold the existence of nirvana as a permanent conscious state. Tibetan buddhism says there is an intermediate afterlife before reincarnation.

In sicence, the existence of an afterlife may be implied from its premise of object permanence, but it is agnostic as to whether the mind exists in an independent domain or not, that is, it makes no difference to scientific investigation, because the existence of a domain of mind is not empirically testable. Attempts to make the domain of mind part of science are called 'scientism.

[ernestm]

Having stated the necessary truth in my last post on the topic of the existence of an afterlife, I will answer your question and provide the issue of real debate in philosophy.

To answer your question, there is no reason to expect that philosophy could understand the motives of a conscious Divine Creator. The consciousness of such a creator would be beyond our comprehension, and I will again provide the link to Nagel's essay on the topic for the fifth time this week:

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iat ... el_bat.pdf

Philosophically, one could choose to debate Nagel's conclusions, or one could attempt to understand what domain of mind could exist to support an afterlife. Thus in philosophy, the current topic of debate on the existence of afterlife itself is subsumed into the mind body debate, on which I just wrote something that synthesizes the possible alternatives. Some parts are still being refined, but it's getting close to final.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL POSITIONS IN THE MIND/BODY DEBATE



-------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
1 - Physicalism of materialism?
2 - Anomalism
3 - Physicalism
4 - Free will vs. determinism
5 - Idealism and dualism
6 - Defining the position subcategories
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(1) PHYSICALISM OR MATERIALISM?
-------------------------------------------
In current philosophy, the only topic of more frequent debate than the mind/body distinction is the existence or nature of God, to which the mind/body distinction plays a role too, as all conceptions of God are non-physicalist. The topic has been confused by two terms that are mostly equivalent: physicalism and materialism. One won't find much help on Wikipedia on the distinction, but at least as far as the mind/body distinction goes, academia has thankfully converged on an appropriate answer, summarized as follows.
***
In naive philosophy, materialism frequently refers to positions that advocate there is only a domain of matter and none of the mind. However, many materialists (notably Marx and Engels) are really only interested in the practical application of materialism, assuming only matter exists, and are rather disinterested in the debate about whether there is a separate domain of mind or not. That is, theories of dialectical materialism, including its resulting fields of economics and socialism, are definitely materialist, but almost totally agnostic on the mind/body distinction itself. That said, Engels was a physicalist, although he only wrote a few paragraphs about it, so he tends not to appear much in the complex debate on the mind/body distinction.
-------------------------------------------
(2) ANOMALISM
-------------------------------------------
Therefore, from a perspective on improving communication, I reserve the term 'materialism' for positions that advocate that the substance of reality MAY only be physical, and derive conclusions from that. For the purpose of this article, it is a reasonable induction to assume the entire subject of science is materialist, although that topic could only really be addressed in full after defining the alternate possible positions in the mind-body distinction.
***
Therefore in the categories of mind/body positions, I add ANOMOLISM, which in this context means the substance of reality is 'undefined,' which contains DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM and SCIENCE as subcategories of AGNOSTIC MATERIALISM, to which is also added ANOMALOUS MONISM. However, in terms of categorization, anamolous monism is actually a product of PROPERTY DUALISM, explained later.
***
RADICAL SKEPTICISM ~ Also in the category of anomalism are:
* LOGICAL POSITIVISM - This states language is the only thing that can be known to exist. Logical positivists will politely ignore that I call this an 'anomalous' position because, due to their beliefs, they have nothing to say on it.
* ANARCHIC SOLIPSISM - For completeness, I include solipsists who have concluded, from the doubts cast by Descartes' demon, that nothing exists except themselves. While one would naturally believe such individuals are rare, quite a number exist, all of whom I've met so far are also anarchists, and if you think there are other solipsists who are not anarchists, then I would be glad to hear from you, that would be new to me.
***
Having repeated the physicalist/materialist distinction in the mind/body debate many times, I now know I need to say I am not alone in pointing this out. Chomsky is famous for stating the distinction that I was taught as being too obvious to write down while sitting philosophy at Oxford, in his now famous book, "New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind" (May 2000):

[https://www.amazon.com/new-horizons-stu ... 0521658225]
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(3) PHYSICALISM
-----------------------------------------
I know I have to start by saying this distinction does NOT refer to the debate on the existence of a priori truth. That is an entirely separate issue, although one sees many physicalists attacking Kant's theory of a priori knowledge, stating that knowledge assumes the existence of a domain of mind, and therefore is wrong. Whatever one thinks of that, a priori truth definitely exists, demonstrated in the fields of formal propositional logic and mathematics. The issue of how we 'know' a priori truth is separate.
~
A PRIORI PHYSICALISM refers to something else, which is that only physical substance exists, and that is the only necessary statement, and sufficient statement by itself to explain existence. A priori physicalism holds that one does not need to assume the existence of conscious cognition to explain anything, because one can simply predict all behavior if one has a sufficiently complex model. That's not how a priori physicalists describe it, if they are following the literature, they will talk about 'reading off' events, or about 'Laplace's demon.' Most people who don't study philosophy assume this is the only physicalist position, a perspective modern philosophy describes as 'naive,' and it differentiates the naive position from the debated position in philosophy by calling the naive position 'realism.'
~
The alternative, A POSTERIORI physicalism, has a more basic explanatory power of phenomena such as recognition of optical illusions, abstractions such as shapes, and the 'illusion of free will.' That is, it defines a physiological distinction between perception and apperception. If one follows the argument to its logical end, one gets buried in long explanations in neuropsychology on how an 'executive process' enables the 'awareness' of perceptions as approximations of abstractions, without there needing to exist any consciousness as an 'agent' of the apperception.
~
Once the existence of some 'neural point or network state' is accepted as equivalent to 'awareness' of abstractions, the apparent 'experience' of optical illusion and 'knowledge' of abstraction is easily explicable, although it still has more work to do to counter Kripke's criticisms, addressed in the next section. Again, that is not how the academic literature describes the position, but this description is much simpler, and as far as I can tell equates to the same position. All other physicalist positions are subsets of a posteriori physicalism, although some of the debate actually results in a possible fallback to a priori physicalism, making a position called 'reductionism.'
~
The most recent full statement of the debate is "The Physicalist's Tight Squeeze: A Posteriori Physicalism vs. A Priori Physicalism" by Howell (2015), published by Riley and available online for free:
~
[ompass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phc3.12291]
~
While there are other position distinctions in physicalism, the most significant mind/body debate to date responds to those two definitions separately by necessity, so the next section will proceed to the alternate dualist positions.
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(4) FREE WILL VS DETERMINISM
--------------------------------------
Having got to the difference between realism, a priori physicalism, a posteriori physicalism, and materialism, the 'free will vs. determinism' argument is a little unavoidable. But to me, it's a little pointless. Those choosing any of the above positions, even if they cannot explain all behavior, can simply say apparent free will applies to random actions. Similarly, those who 'believe in' free will, rather than considering whether free will exists, will say such apparently random actions are not random.
~
In fact, it's even simpler than that. Even if a machine COULD perfectly predict all behavior, that merely means choices to free will can be accurately modeled. As a rational person, I would be rather upset to learn my choices could NOT be modeled. But in debate, physicalists will prefer a reductionist argument, applying Occam's razor to remove the necessity of free will. Those who believe there is some purpose to existence can simply reply that Occam's razor is inapplicable, because it can only remove unnecessary phenomena at the same semantic level.
~
So it's really a matter of choice what you choose to believe. Do you want to believe you are a mere machine or have some greater purpose in existence?
~
Strangely, people entering this debate have always already decided on the answer they want. , whatever they have chosen to believe. They insist there is freedom of choice or freedom is only apparent, but the one thing can't do is change their mind about whether free will exists. Isn't that strange? It's strange to me. I know what seems the better choice to me at the moment, and sometimes, I change my mind. At least I know I have the freedom to do that.
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(5) IDEALISM AND DUALISM
-----------------------------------------
In the field of epistemology underlying propositional logic, Kripke is a main critic of the physicalist position due to his position of semantics as 'dispositional.' That means in short that when someone says they are in pain, they are not saying their brains are firing neurons a particular way, but are REFERRING to the experience of pain. It's one of the most sophisticated positions in modern philosophy, with different debates ongoing between it and both a priori physicalists and a posteriori physicalists separately. Kripke's analysis is based on identity theory, but before plumbing into its details, it's helpful to know why identity theory is relevant to the debate.
**
Kripke's analysis of identity theory finds three, and only three ways to identify how symbols are represented. Kripke's basis in formal logic for his own semantics model, as well as his proof that all alternative semantics models are subsets of, or equivalent to, Kripke's own model is widely accepted, which is as yet, no one has found any way to fault it. He concludes that identity theory only allows for three alternatives. Semantic identification is only possible either with:
[A1] substances which have mental properties, or 'Platonism.' This refers in the mind/debody debate to 'Platonic Ideal Forms,' that is, there exists a domain of mind wherein exists a perfect form for each concept. After the mind/doby debate started, many problems were found with theories of ideal forms. For example, there can be no agreement on what the ideal forms are, especially for imaginary objects and many concepts in general. Platonic idealism is now considered naive.
[A2] the mental properties themselves. This is one view of transcendental idealism, from Berkely, supplemented by Kant. Also this category includes Vedic and Buddhist idealism. While these forms of idealism are absolutely fascinating, they have been found unfruitful in terms of development. When there are differences of opinion, they remain unresolved, and mordern philosophy now mostly regards these forms of idealism 'archaic.'
[A3] instances, or tokens, of those mental properties. Phenomenology and existentialism explore this position. While these are also fascinating topics, the number of property instances are infinite, again leading to irresolvable debate philosophically, but still creating new ideological positions of merit.
**
There are three, and only three, corresponding dualist positions to the above alternatives for semantic identity:
[B1} substance dualism - mind and body not only differ in meaning but refer to different kinds of entities. Epiphenomenalism falls in this category as an interesting academic subject, but it has not been fruitful.
[B2] property dualism - the world is made only of one substance, with distinct physical and mental properties.
[B3] token dualism - each property instance is either a physical or a mental entity. Subjectivism falls in this category, and while it is a useful perspective ethically, it has not been fruitful metaphysically.
**
Then follows one of the most debated arguments in modern philosophy, rather concisely summarized in "Kripke on the Distinctness of Mind and Body" (Speaks, 2005). The method is to position a priori and a posteriori physicalism as an alternative to each of the six above positions and examine if the results are meaningful.
~
(https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/mc ... d-body.pdf)
~
Anomalous monism, from Davidson, and biological naturalism, from Searle, are specific positions within property dualism, defined in [B2] above:
~
[B2a] Davidson holds that it is unknowable whether the substance of reality is physical or mental, but nonetheless, its physical and mental properties are knowable. Because the substance is unknowable, Davidson holds the anomalous distinction of being both a dualist (with respect to properties) and anomalous (with respect to the substance of reality), so he will reappear in section 4.
~
[B2b] Searle holds that the substance of reality is physical, but nonetheless, it possesses distinct physical and mental properties. To Searle, mental properties are 'produced' by life, and don't exist without it. Thus Searle calls it 'biological naturalism.' The opposing a posteriori physicalist position is frequently just called 'naturalism,' because most people holding the latter view don't know that property dualism has been defined as an alternative.
~
Finally, there is the new concept of 'qualia' which appends properties that link the domains of mind and matter. The nature of qualia is now considered the most significant and fruitful investigation.
~
However, before getting to that, it's helpful to take a step back and explain how Kripke reached the above positions.
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(6) MIND/BODY CATEGORIES
-----------------------------------------
I divide up positions on the mind/body distinction based on Kripke's semantic system Those interested in the debate rarely know about Kripke’s semantic system, so this subsection describes how Kripke’s semantic system works.
~
Kripke starts with the same radical skepticism expressed by Descartes and Wittgenstein, then works through the entire field of propositional logic in an attempt to resolve the ‘identity’ problem. In both natural language and propositional logic, there are subjects and objects that are assumed to exist in some way, in order for one to perform a meaningful truth evaluation. Kripke considers exactly what the subject of a statement is, and is reputed to have started with the problem of Theseus’ ship. According to legend, Theseus slowly replaced each timber in his ship until none of the original timber was left. How, then, do we still think of it as the same ship?
~
Kripke suggests that states and events are represented by symbols that have no intrinsic meaning of their own, but are referred to by ‘properties.’ When a property refers to a symbol, it defines a relation to other symbols. It transpires this generates a very powerful semantic system. In particular, it allows symbols to have more than one meaning IN GENERAL, and not just with respect to the mind/body distinction.
~
In order to describe its benefits, I’m going to describe the operation of his system using quite a bit of shorthand, because its quite complicated to write it formally. For example, one could loosely say, “the substance of reality can have physical and mental properties.” A physicalist will immediately object that mental properties don’t exist. But to spell out Kripke’s semantic model, a full statement would be “the symbol for the substance of reality has properties which relate it to the symbols for physical properties and the symbols for mental properties.” When the semantics for a statement are formally written out in Kripke’s system, the statement becomes very long, so usually philosophers just use a shorthand in natural language.
Symbols can have more than one meaning because the disposition of a context defines which properties are applicable in any one statement. To understand that, one can build a symbol up from nothing, or analyze an existing symbol.
~
• {a} One can start with a symbol that has no properties at all, like an alphabet letter in a language one does not know. Let's imagine the symbol is the greek letter pi, for example. Then we could discover that is equivalent to 'p" in English, it also exists in Russian, it's pronounced pi, it also represents a mathematical quantity. Those all become properties. Depending on the disposition of the context, it could receive meaning from any one of the properties referring to it. Then one can identify the symbol 'pie' (skipping a stage to build up the word), and the Greek letter 'pi' and the word 'pie' are both referred to by an identical pronunciation, hence, this concept of properties can even form a ''property cluster' so that the utterance "I like pi' is meaningful as a pun.
• {b} One can also go the other way, and start with a complex symbols, fo example, a person named 'John.' 'John' is actually a symbol referred to by many properties, and depending on one's disposition to John, one could be interested in the collection of properties referring to what he is wearing, or what he is doing. Also, there can be another person with exactly the same symbol referring to him, so both are called John. One of the properties could refer to the first John's last name, Smith,' and another property could refer to the other John's last name, 'Jones.' The symbol ''John'; can be disposed to either Mr. Smith, or Mr. Jones, or in fact both or neither.
• (c} The semantic system allows not only for puns, but meaningful mistakes--one could get one property wrong but the rest of the properties in the collection are available to correct the error. For example, a person wanting to call Mr Jones could call him Mr Smith by mistake. But the disposition of the reference could be to the correct person in a statement like for example, 'Mr. Smith over there by the window, his first name is John." The cluster theory still allows meaningful communication, so that Mr. Smith could interject, "no that's the other John, I'm John Jones.'
~
That is a very basic description of Kripke's semantic system. The deductions for the mind/body distinction follow naturally from it. At this point, I should mention that Kripke's own work on the mind/body distinction was only intended to disprove physicalism, so he had no need to explore the categories of idealism or anomalous monism further. Those are my own additions, and I expect they will go through some refinement.
~
KRIPKENSTEIN =-: After defining this semantic system, Kripke provides a long and elaborate proof in formal logic that all semantic systems, or at least all known semantic systems, are subsets or equivalent to Kripke’s system. As part of this, Kripke discusses Witgenstein, and here it’s commonly accepted he made some mistakes. So people sometimes say Kripke’s semantics have been proven wrong. However, it’s also been found that a correct interpretation of Wittgenstein has no bearing on Kripke’s semantics. That debate went on a long time, so philosophers refer to Kripke’s own interpretation of Wittgenstein as ‘Kripkenstein,’ to separate it from Kripke’s own thought on semantics, which is still admired as one of the most amazing accomplishments ever in formal logic, semantics, and epistemology. I will be returning to Wittgenstein’s radical skepticism, and his conclusion that only language can be known to exist, in section 4.
~
At this point, I should mention that Kripke's own work on the mind/body distinction was only intended to disprove physicalism, so he had no need to explore the categories of idealism or anomalous monism further. Those are my own additions, and I expect they will go through some refinement.

[ernestm]

I received a little feedback from Facebook, so here is version 3, with an abstract, some reorganization, and some rewrite on solipsism and materialism.

MIND/BODY BELIEFS: A NEW CATEGORIZATION (version 3)
ABSTRACT ~ This post provides a complete schema for all positions now held on whether the substance of reality is matter, mind, both, or unknowable. The only topic of more frequent debate is the existence or nature of God, to which the mind/body distinction plays a role too, as all conceptions of God are non-physicalist. Therefore this topic is considered of primary importance in popular philosophy. In academic philosophy, the debate has also advanced considerably over the last 500 years. In the last century, 'modern philosophy' (as defined by Russell and Whitehead) enabled an entirely new approach to the issue via semantics, rather than the traditional approach of Hume's mind/body distinction, derived from Descartes' radical skepticism.
~
This schema advances the categorization from a simpler subset of positions produced by Kripke's semantic system. In this categorization, 'naive' positions hold that the substance of reality is knowable by intuition alone. Rational positions dismiss naive positions as demonstrably wrong. However, the purpose of this presentation is not to say which position on the mind/body distinction is a justified true belief beyond doubt. Rather, this exposition integrates all held positions into one rational schema.
~
CONTENTS
1 - Materialism vs. Physicalism
2 - Anomalism
3 - Physicalism
4 - Free will vs. determinism
5 - Idealism and dualism
6 - Defining the position subcategories
--------------------------------------------
(1) MATERIALISM VERSUS PHYSICALISM
--------------------------------------------
Understanding of the mind/body debate has been confused by two terms that are mostly equivalent: physicalism and materialism. One won't find much help on Wikipedia on the distinction, but at least as far as the mind/body distinction goes, academia has thankfully converged on an appropriate answer, summarized as follows.
***
In naive philosophy, materialism frequently refers to positions that advocate there is only a domain of matter and none of the mind. However, many materialists (notably Marx and Engels) are really only interested in the practical application of materialism, assuming only matter exists, and are rather disinterested in the debate about whether there is a separate domain of mind or not. That is, theories of dialectical materialism, including its resulting fields of economics and socialism, are definitely materialist, but almost totally agnostic on the mind/body distinction itself. That said, Engels was a physicalist, although he only wrote a few paragraphs about it, so he tends not to appear much in the complex debate on the mind/body distinction.
~
Therefore, from a perspective on improving communication, I reserve the term 'materialism' for positions that advocate that the substance of reality MAY only be physical, and derive conclusions from that.
~
The entire subject of science is materialist, because by its nature only the products of any domain of mind are testable by experiment, and not the existence of the domain itself. Naive thought often holds that science 'disproves' the existence of the domain of mind. That position does reappear as an argument called 'reductionism' in the rather advanced position of supervenience-based physicalism.
~
Having repeated the physicalist/materialist distinction in the mind/body debate many times, I now know I need to say I am not alone in pointing this out. Chomsky is famous for stating the distinction that I was taught as being too obvious to write down while sitting philosophy at Oxford, in his now famous book, "New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind" (May 2000):
~
[https://www.amazon.com/new-horizons-stu ... 0521658225]
-------------------------------------------
(2) ANOMALISM
-------------------------------------------
In an integrated schema of positions on the mind/body distinction, discussion naturally starts with ANOMALISM, which in this context means the substance of reality is 'undefined' or 'unknowable.' Anomalism contains two main positions:
***
[a] RADICAL SKEPTICISM ~ Historically, the mind/body distinction debate was started in the West by Descartes, who considered how much a 'malignant demon' could deceive our perceptions and cognitions. First, Descartes observed that doubt was far more important than previously conceived, establishing skepticism as a viable branch of inquiry. Then Descartes observed no matter how hard the demon tries to deceive us, the demon can make us doubt that we doubt, resulting in the famous maxim 'cogito, ergo sum,' properly translated for this argument from Descartes' mediations 3 as 'I doubt, therefore I am. Then Descartes reconstitutes knowledge empirically based on the existence of doubt. Some question assumptions in Descartes' reconstruction, leading to two current positions in radical skepticism:
* ANARCHIC SOLIPSISM - This refers to those who believe Descartes' argument only establishes personal existence and nothing else. While one would naturally believe such individuals are rare, quite a number exist, all of whom I've met so far are also anarchists, and if you think there are other solipsists who are not anarchists, then I would be glad to hear from you, that would be new to me.
* LOGICAL POSITIVISM - This famous position from Wittgenstein states language is the only thing that can be known to exist, and debates about the mind/body distinction are meaningless. It remains a very radical view, but its conclusions, including that emotions are illusions created by confusions, have been popularized by Star Trek's 'Vulcan' species. So at least that much of logical positivism is now rather well understood, if not its basis on formal logic and semantics.
~
AGNOSTIC MATERIALISM contains dialectical materialism, with its consequential fields of science, economics, socialism, etc. as subcategories. Also in this category is anomalous monism, which is actually a product of PROPERTY DUALISM in the more complex historical debate on the mind/body distinction, explained later.
***
-----------------------------------------
(3) PHYSICALISM
-----------------------------------------
I know I have to start by saying this distinction does NOT refer to the debate on the existence of a priori truth. That is an entirely separate issue, although one sees many physicalists attacking Kant's theory of a priori knowledge, stating that knowledge assumes the existence of a domain of mind, and therefore is wrong. Whatever one thinks of that, a priori truth definitely exists, demonstrated in the fields of formal propositional logic and mathematics. The issue of how we 'know' a priori truth is separate.
~
A PRIORI PHYSICALISM refers to something else, which is that only physical substance exists, and that is the only necessary statement, and sufficient statement by itself to explain existence. A priori physicalism holds that one does not need to assume the existence of conscious cognition to explain anything, because one can simply predict all behavior if one has a sufficiently complex model. That's not how a priori physicalists describe it, if they are following the literature, they will talk about 'reading off' events, or about 'Laplace's demon.' Most people who don't study philosophy assume this is the only physicalist position, a perspective modern philosophy describes as 'naive,' and it differentiates the naive position from the debated position in philosophy by calling the naive position 'realism.'
~
The alternative, A POSTERIORI physicalism, has a more basic explanatory power of phenomena such as recognition of optical illusions, abstractions such as shapes, and the 'illusion of free will.' That is, it defines a physiological distinction between perception and apperception. If one follows the argument to its logical end, one gets buried in long explanations in neuropsychology on how an 'executive process' enables the 'awareness' of perceptions as approximations of abstractions, without there needing to exist any consciousness as an 'agent' of the apperception.
~
Once the existence of some 'neural point or network state' is accepted as equivalent to 'awareness' of abstractions, the apparent 'experience' of optical illusion and 'knowledge' of abstraction is easily explicable, although it still has more work to do to counter Kripke's criticisms, addressed in the next section. Again, that is not how the academic literature describes the position, but this description is much simpler, and as far as I can tell equates to the same position. All other physicalist positions are subsets of a posteriori physicalism, although some of the debate actually results in a possible fallback to a priori physicalism, making a position called 'reductionism.'
~
The most recent full statement of the debate is "The Physicalist's Tight Squeeze: A Posteriori Physicalism vs. A Priori Physicalism" by Howell (2015), published by Riley and available online for free:
~
[ompass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phc3.12291]
~
While there are other position distinctions in physicalism, the most significant mind/body debate to date responds to those two definitions separately by necessity, so the next section will proceed to the alternate dualist positions.
--------------------------------------
(4) FREE WILL VS DETERMINISM
--------------------------------------
Having got to the difference between realism, a priori physicalism, a posteriori physicalism, and materialism, the 'free will vs. determinism' argument is a little unavoidable. But to me, it's a little pointless. Those choosing any of the above positions, even if they cannot explain all behavior, can simply say apparent free will applies to random actions. Similarly, those who 'believe in' free will, rather than considering whether free will exists, will say such apparently random actions are not random.
~
In fact, it's even simpler than that. Even if a machine COULD perfectly predict all behavior, that merely means choices to free will can be accurately modeled. As a rational person, I would be rather upset to learn my choices could NOT be modeled. But in debate, physicalists will prefer a reductionist argument, applying Occam's razor to remove the necessity of free will. Those who believe there is some purpose to existence can simply reply that Occam's razor is inapplicable, because it can only remove unnecessary phenomena at the same semantic level.
~
So it's really a matter of choice what you choose to believe. Do you want to believe you are a mere machine or have some greater purpose in existence?
~
Strangely, people entering this debate have always already decided on the answer they want. , whatever they have chosen to believe. They insist there is freedom of choice or freedom is only apparent, but the one thing can't do is change their mind about whether free will exists. Isn't that strange? It's strange to me. I know what seems the better choice to me at the moment, and sometimes, I change my mind. At least I know I have the freedom to do that.
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(5) IDEALISM AND DUALISM
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In the field of epistemology underlying propositional logic, Kripke is a main critic of the physicalist position due to his position of semantics as 'dispositional.' That means in short that when someone says they are in pain, they are not saying their brains are firing neurons a particular way, but are REFERRING to the experience of pain. It's one of the most sophisticated positions in modern philosophy, with different debates ongoing between it and both a priori physicalists and a posteriori physicalists separately. Kripke's analysis is based on identity theory, but before plumbing into its details, it's helpful to know why identity theory is relevant to the debate.
**
Kripke's analysis of identity theory finds three, and only three ways to identify how symbols are represented. Kripke's basis in formal logic for his own semantics model, as well as his proof that all alternative semantics models are subsets of, or equivalent to, Kripke's own model is widely accepted, which is as yet, no one has found any way to fault it. He concludes that identity theory only allows for three alternatives. Semantic identification is only possible either with:
[A1] substances that have mental properties, or 'Platonism.' This refers in the mind/body debate to 'Platonic Ideal Forms,' that is, there exists a domain of mind wherein exists a perfect form for each concept. After the mind/body debate started, many problems were found with theories of ideal forms. For example, there can be no agreement on what the ideal forms are, especially for imaginary objects and many concepts in general. Platonic idealism is now considered naive.
[A2] the mental properties themselves. This is one view of transcendental idealism, from Berkely, supplemented by Kant. Also this category includes Vedic and Buddhist idealism. While these forms of idealism are absolutely fascinating, they have been found unfruitful in terms of development. When there are differences of opinion, they remain unresolved, and modern philosophy now mostly regards these forms of idealism 'archaic.'
[A3] instances, or tokens, of those mental properties. Phenomenology and existentialism explore this position. While these are also fascinating topics, the number of property instances is infinite, again leading to irresolvable debate philosophically, but still creating new ideological positions of merit.
**
There are three, and only three, corresponding dualist positions to the above alternatives for semantic identity:
[B1} substance dualism - mind and body not only differ in meaning but refer to different kinds of entities. Epiphenomenalism falls in this category as an interesting academic subject, but it has not been fruitful.
[B2] property dualism - the world is made only of one substance, with distinct physical and mental properties.
[B3] token dualism - each property instance is either a physical or a mental entity. Subjectivism falls in this category, and while it is a useful perspective ethically, it has not been fruitful metaphysically.
**
Then follows one of the most debated arguments in modern philosophy, rather concisely summarized in "Kripke on the Distinctness of Mind and Body" (Speaks, 2005). The method is to position a priori and a posteriori physicalism as an alternative to each of the six above positions and examine if the results are meaningful.
~
(https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/mc ... d-body.pdf)
~
Anomalous monism, from Davidson, and biological naturalism, from Searle, are specific positions within property dualism, defined in [B2] above:
~
[B2a] Davidson holds that it is unknowable whether the substance of reality is physical or mental, but nonetheless, its physical and mental properties are knowable. Because the substance is unknowable, Davidson holds the anomalous distinction of being both a dualist (with respect to properties) and anomalous (with respect to the substance of reality), so he will reappear in section 4.
~
[B2b] Searle holds that the substance of reality is physical, but nonetheless, it possesses distinct physical and mental properties. To Searle, mental properties are 'produced' by life, and don't exist without it. Thus Searle calls it 'biological naturalism.' The opposing a posteriori physicalist position is frequently just called 'naturalism,' because most people holding the latter view don't know that property dualism has been defined as an alternative.
~
Finally, there is the new concept of 'qualia' which appends properties that link the domains of mind and matter. The nature of qualia is now considered the most significant and fruitful investigation.
~
However, before getting to that, it's helpful to take a step back and explain how Kripke reached the above positions.
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(6) MIND/BODY CATEGORIES
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I divide up positions on the mind/body distinction based on Kripke's semantic system Those interested in the debate rarely know about Kripke’s semantic system, so this subsection describes how Kripke’s semantic system works.
~
Kripke starts with the same radical skepticism expressed by Descartes and Wittgenstein, then works through the entire field of propositional logic in an attempt to resolve the ‘identity’ problem. In both natural language and propositional logic, there are subjects and objects that are assumed to exist in some way, in order for one to perform a meaningful truth evaluation. Kripke considers exactly what the subject of a statement is, and is reputed to have started with the problem of Theseus’ ship. According to legend, Theseus slowly replaced each timber in his ship until none of the original timber was left. How, then, do we still think of it as the same ship?
~
Kripke suggests that states and events are represented by symbols that have no intrinsic meaning of their own, but are referred to by ‘properties.’ When a property refers to a symbol, it defines a relation to other symbols. It transpires this generates a very powerful semantic system. In particular, it allows symbols to have more than one meaning IN GENERAL, and not just with respect to the mind/body distinction.
~
In order to describe its benefits, I’m going to describe the operation of his system using quite a bit of shorthand, because its quite complicated to write it formally. For example, one could loosely say, “the substance of reality can have physical and mental properties.” A physicalist will immediately object that mental properties don’t exist. But to spell out Kripke’s semantic model, a full statement would be “the symbol for the substance of reality has properties which relate it to the symbols for physical properties and the symbols for mental properties.” When the semantics for a statement are formally written out in Kripke’s system, the statement becomes very long, so usually philosophers just use a shorthand in natural language.
Symbols can have more than one meaning because the disposition of a context defines which properties are applicable in any one statement. To understand that, one can build a symbol up from nothing, or analyze an existing symbol.
~
• {a} One can start with a symbol that has no properties at all, like an alphabet letter in a language one does not know. Let's imagine the symbol is the greek letter pi, for example. Then we could discover that is equivalent to 'p" in English, it also exists in Russian, it's pronounced pi, it also represents a mathematical quantity. Those all become properties. Depending on the disposition of the context, it could receive meaning from any one of the properties referring to it. Then one can identify the symbol 'pie' (skipping a stage to build up the word), and the Greek letter 'pi' and the word 'pie' are both referred to by an identical pronunciation, hence, this concept of properties can even form a ''property cluster' so that the utterance "I like pi' is meaningful as a pun.
• {b} One can also go the other way, and start with a complex symbol, for example, a person named 'John.' 'John' is actually a symbol referred to by many properties, and depending on one's disposition to John, one could be interested in the collection of properties referring to what he is wearing, or what he is doing. Also, there can be another person with exactly the same symbol referring to him, so both are called John. One of the properties could refer to the first John's last name, Smith,' and another property could refer to the other John's last name, 'Jones.' The symbol ''John'; can be disposed to either Mr. Smith, or Mr. Jones, or in fact both or neither.
• (c} The semantic system allows not only for puns, but meaningful mistakes--one could get one property wrong but the rest of the properties in the collection are available to correct the error. For example, a person wanting to call Mr Jones could call him Mr Smith by mistake. But the disposition of the reference could be to the correct person in a statement like for example, 'Mr. Smith over there by the window, his first name is John." The cluster theory still allows meaningful communication, so that Mr. Smith could interject, "no that's the other John, I'm John Jones.'
~
That is a very basic description of Kripke's semantic system. The deductions for the mind/body distinction follow naturally from it. At this point, I should mention that Kripke's own work on the mind/body distinction was only intended to disprove physicalism, so he had no need to explore the categories of idealism or anomalous monism further. Those are my own additions, and I expect they will go through some refinement.
~
KRIPKENSTEIN =-: After defining this semantic system, Kripke provides a long and elaborate proof in formal logic that all semantic systems, or at least all known semantic systems, are subsets or equivalent to Kripke’s system. As part of this, Kripke discusses Wittgenstein, and here it’s commonly accepted he made some mistakes. So people sometimes say Kripke’s semantics have been proven wrong. However, it’s also been found that a correct interpretation of Wittgenstein has no bearing on Kripke’s semantics. That debate went on a long time, so philosophers refer to Kripke’s own interpretation of Wittgenstein as ‘Kripkenstein,’ to separate it from Kripke’s own thought on semantics, which is still admired as one of the most amazing accomplishments ever in formal logic, semantics, and epistemology. I will be returning to Wittgenstein’s radical skepticism, and his conclusion that only language can be known to exist, in section 4.
~
At this point, I should mention that Kripke's own work on the mind/body distinction was only intended to disprove physicalism, so he had no need to explore the categories of idealism or anomalous monism further. Those are my own additions, and I expect they will go through some refinement.

[Sy Borg]

How can we be more awake in death than we are in deep sleep?

[amorphos_ii]

I do think that if humans survive long enough, they will live longer. As far as I know there is already a way to prolong life indefinitely [in development], although I think genes have limits. This brings up the question as to what a long life would be like, people would still die, disabled people would suffer for longer etc etc. if you lived for a thousand years you may experience the same amount of deaths in the family per century as now? You would get further generations still being alive, like great great great… grandparents. All of whom would eventually die.

Ergo, my concern is upon what effect this would have on us! Hundreds or thousands of years watching people suffer and die, and each time it would have a terrible effect on us.

As for God’s consciousness being out of reach, well he’s human isn’t he as we are made in his image, and he has a mind – one which possibly has existed for 13.5 billion years or even an eternity. Though an eternal mind in my view, would be timeless and very different, so nirvana seams more plausible [or the ‘divine infinite’ [Caugant] in Druidism].

As to mind/body duality, I wouldn’t put it in so hard a distinction. If, as I believe [Druidism], all things come from a kind of amorphous oneness, or a universal origin et al, then the two things belong to the same origin – ultimately. So I would think that rather than it being either/or, its more a relationship whereby the consciousness interjects. It is like driving a car, at first you have to think about everything you do – which is a pain, then once learned many aspects of driving become semi automated. Thus once learned, a race driver can really get hold of the car and throw it around the track. This is a good thing, it is good that the body can take over doing things for us, whilst we can still interrupt that anytime.

To the last post; we can be more awake in death than asleep because sleep relates to the brain, the consciousness and their need to rest. We are getting info and feelings from the brain all the time, so perhaps if the after life consciousness is the primary state, then it may need to get some release/peace. I think the brain works all the time, no?

[amorphos_ii]

i meant that if we survive into the future, then we will live longer - then.

[amorphos_ii]

ps. can we not have super long quotes as like the above walls of text, maybe even take things one stage/question at a time. you may notice i don't do quotes so much, i just answer directly.

[Pattern-chaser]

ps. can we not have super long quotes as like the above walls of text, maybe even take things one stage/question at a time. you may notice i don't do quotes so much, i just answer directly.

A quote makes it obvious who you are replying to. But I take your point: I just can't be bothered reading such amazingly long posts. The more words there are, the less meaning they carry ... or so it sometimes seems.

[Pattern-chaser]

As for God’s consciousness being out of reach, well he’s human isn’t he as we are made in his image...

I think this is a bit of a leap (of faith)? God is human? Not in my view, She isn't. Humans are rather too limited to contain a deity, I suspect. But of course, I don't really have a clue. Maybe She is as you say? I wouldn't know, being a typically-fallible human.

Interesting to see that you follow a Druidic path... 🐿

[amorphos_ii]

i totally agree, that in most cases if you can't say something in a aparagraph, we are probably saying too many things - or at least more than one thing. occam's razor of philosophy required perhaps.

the druidic path as i see it, ultimately doesnt have gods and goddesses [see my other threads explaing it].

[Sy Borg]

If God is a human, then he or she is a simian, a great ape in spirit form. Or maybe great apes are the ultimate form of nature. Either way, great apes would say that, wouldn't they?

Cosmologist, Martin Rees, noted that if there are entities evolved from humans in a billion years' time, they will be as different from us as we are from bacteria.

[amorphos_ii]

well i think the opposite, i saw an interesting documentary concerning the physiology of the human hand. it paired them against ape and monkey hands, noting the key differences which make the human hand far more dextrous. its why we can build intricate things and possibly encourages the developement of our brains makinf us inventive. it is difficult to see how anything not as highly advanced and dextrous can be thought of as higher? indeed, can anything be more advance in form? maybe our brain will develop further, i think we are more culturally advanced than even a century ago. thus seeing as its a nature nurture thing, then maybe over thousands of years we will advance more. though i think there must be an apex to all that?