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Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 11:09 am
by Mosesquine
Consul wrote: July 17th, 2018, 10:10 am
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:58 amNon-reductive physicalism is not dualism. Dualism (i.e. mind-body dualism) is divided into, largely, substance dualism and property dualism.
Nonreductive physicalism isn't substance-dualistic but property-dualistic. Whether it is also occurrence-dualistic (in the sense that mental states/events/processes are different from physical ones) depends on the ontological conception of occurrences used. For example, according to Jaegwon Kim, events are states of affairs composed of objects and properties, such that two events E1 and E2 are identical iff O1 = O2 & P1 = P2. That is, Kimian events aren't identical unless the properties they contain are identical, which means that property dualism entails occurrence dualism.
But Davidsonian events are different from Kimian events, because they (elementary events at least) are unstructured "blobs" and not complex entities like states of affairs or facts. So two Davidsonian events can be identical even if the properties involved are different from one another.
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:58 amIn Davidson's version of anomalous monism, all events are physical (monism), but not all events are mental events (anomalism).
Note again that Davidson was a nominalist/antirealist about properties! His token physicalism is a combination of event monism and concept/predicate dualism: Mental events are physical events not because they have physical properties, but because they are physically describable (by means of physical concepts/predicates).

Non-reductive physicalism is not property dualism. Property dualism is the view that all properties are either mental or physical. On the contrary, non-reductive physicalism is the view saying that all entities are physical but there are two kinds of physical, namely, mental ones (events with subjects, attitude verbs, and subclause contents) and physical ones.
Jaegwon Kim is a different philosopher in the point of physicalism than Donald Davidson. Kim was a reductive physicalist at first. However, he turned into a kind of non-reductivist based on weak supervenience. Finally, he accepted a kind of dualism about qualia, recently.
Furthermore, Kim's view of events is very different from Davidson's. His famous formula of conditions for events would be:

<x, F, t>

where 'x' is an agent, 'F' a property, and 't' a time.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 11:42 am
by Consul
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 11:09 amNon-reductive physicalism is not property dualism. Property dualism is the view that all properties are either mental or physical. On the contrary, non-reductive physicalism is the view saying that all entities are physical but there are two kinds of physical, namely, mental ones (events with subjects, attitude verbs, and subclause contents) and physical ones.
"Whereas predicate dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of predicates in our language, property dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of property out in the world."

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

Nonreductive physicalism is property-dualistic, since it does claim that mental properties and physical properties are (irreducibly) different kinds of property.

However, property dualism isn't necessarily incompatible with physicalism (generally defined as the view that all entities/realities are physical), because the statement "Mental properties are different (in kind) from physical properties" can be interpreted physicalistically as "Psychophysical properties are different (in kind) from non-psychophysical properties", with mental properties being defined as psychophysical properties and thus as a kind of physical properties (sui generis). So we can have a physicalistic property dualism.

According to non-physicalistic property dualism, mental properties aren't a kind of physical properties (and they aren't emergent from and supervenient upon physical properties either).
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 11:09 amJaegwon Kim is a different philosopher in the point of physicalism than Donald Davidson. Kim was a reductive physicalist at first. However, he turned into a kind of non-reductivist based on weak supervenience. Finally, he accepted a kind of dualism about qualia, recently.
Furthermore, Kim's view of events is very different from Davidson's. His famous formula of conditions for events would be:

<x, F, t>

where 'x' is an agent, 'F' a property, and 't' a time.
Yes. (x can be any kind of thing, object, or substance.)
As I said, Kimian events are states of affairs or facts, whereas Davidsonian events are not. Davidsonian events aren't factlike but objectlike, being "eventive objects".
Yes, Kim now rejects reductive physicalism about qualia.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 12:12 pm
by Mosesquine
Consul wrote: July 17th, 2018, 11:42 am
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 11:09 amNon-reductive physicalism is not property dualism. Property dualism is the view that all properties are either mental or physical. On the contrary, non-reductive physicalism is the view saying that all entities are physical but there are two kinds of physical, namely, mental ones (events with subjects, attitude verbs, and subclause contents) and physical ones.
"Whereas predicate dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of predicates in our language, property dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of property out in the world."

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

Nonreductive physicalism is property-dualistic, since it does claim that mental properties and physical properties are (irreducibly) different kinds of property.

However, property dualism isn't necessarily incompatible with physicalism (generally defined as the view that all entities/realities are physical), because the statement "Mental properties are different (in kind) from physical properties" can be interpreted physicalistically as "Psychophysical properties are different (in kind) from non-psychophysical properties", with mental properties being defined as psychophysical properties and thus as a kind of physical properties (sui generis). So we can have a physicalistic property dualism.

According to non-physicalistic property dualism, mental properties aren't a kind of physical properties (and they aren't emergent from and supervenient upon physical properties either).
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 11:09 amJaegwon Kim is a different philosopher in the point of physicalism than Donald Davidson. Kim was a reductive physicalist at first. However, he turned into a kind of non-reductivist based on weak supervenience. Finally, he accepted a kind of dualism about qualia, recently.
Furthermore, Kim's view of events is very different from Davidson's. His famous formula of conditions for events would be:

<x, F, t>

where 'x' is an agent, 'F' a property, and 't' a time.
Yes. (x can be any kind of thing, object, or substance.)
As I said, Kimian events are states of affairs or facts, whereas Davidsonian events are not. Davidsonian events aren't factlike but objectlike, being "eventive objects".
Yes, Kim now rejects reductive physicalism about qualia.


The predicate dualism/property dualism distinction does not imply its relation to non-reductive physicalism. It's because predicate/property dualisms are kinds of dualism anyway, but non-reductive physicalism is a kind of monism anyway that can't be dualism anyway. It's like all Americans are human, but not all Americans are martial arts fans, analogously. The American human/American martial arts fan distiction would be funny, so the mental/physical dualistic distinction would not be accepted by non-reductive physicalists.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 12:47 pm
by Consul
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 12:12 pmThe predicate dualism/property dualism distinction does not imply its relation to non-reductive physicalism. It's because predicate/property dualisms are kinds of dualism anyway, but non-reductive physicalism is a kind of monism anyway that can't be dualism anyway. It's like all Americans are human, but not all Americans are martial arts fans, analogously. The American human/American martial arts fan distiction would be funny, so the mental/physical dualistic distinction would not be accepted by non-reductive physicalists.
If nonreductive physicalism weren't property-dualistic, it would be no different from reductive physicalism.

"All nonreductive physicalists must commit to the priority of physics in some sense. Usually this gets cashed out as the claim that all existing objects have physical properties. However, many nonreductive physicalists also insist that their favored relations have ontological consequences weaker than identity between mental and physical properties or events (or revision or elimination of the mental). This suggests an entity or substance monism but a property or event dualism. The puzzle is whether this combination constitutes physicalism. Prima facie, it does not.

To insure that I am not misconstruing nonreductive physicalism, consider a triplet of recent characterizations. John Post writes, "Part of what nonreductive physicalism envisages, then, is a monism of entities (the mathematical-physical) combined with a dualism of their properties (the nonphysical and the physical).... Thereby we are ... prevented from saying that everything is nothing but a physical entity—meaning that all of its properties are or are reducible to physical properties—even though nothing but physical entities exist" (1987, 197). Jaegwon Kim provides a similar exposition: "The leading idea ... has been the thought that we can assuage our physicalist qualms by embracing 'ontological physicalism,' the claim that all that exists in spacetime is physical, but, at the same time, accept property dualism,' a dualism about psychological and physical attributes, insisting that psychological concepts or properties form an irreducible, autonomous domain" (1989b, 32). Finally, Ronald McClamrock, expressly concerned with phenomenological properties, writes, "Even if it turns out that there is no objective characterization of subjective facts or properties as such, and that any such properties are importantly perspective-bound, this shouldn't be viewed at all as being anti-materialist. Non-reductive identity materialism explicitly claims that not all properties are physical properties—that's what distinguishes it from the more reductive accounts" (1992, 186). These quotes noted, one may be excused for wondering whether recent philosophy of mind has lost a once-honored distinction, that between physicalism and property dualism.

Traditionally, their rejection of nonphysical soul stuff in which mental properties inhere distinguishes property from substance dualists. Mental properties are properties of the brain (and presumably of any physical system complex and organized enough to produce or support them). But property dualism remains dualism, since it denies that even a matured physical science could exhaustively explain the essence of the mental. Paul Churchland nicely articulates these distinctions: "The basic idea [of property] dualism is that while there is no substance to be dealt with here beyond the physical brain, the brain has a special set of properties possessed by no other kind of physical object. It is these special properties that are nonphysical: hence the term property dualism…. These are the properties that are characteristic of conscious intelligence. They are held to be nonphysical in the sense that they cannot ever be reduced to or explained solely in terms of the concepts of the familiar physical sciences. They will require a wholly new and autonomous science—the 'science of mental phenomena'—if they are ever to be adequately understood" (1987, 10). Thus contemporary nonreductive physicalism is identical to property dualism, traditionally conceived. Much current "nonreductive physicalism" is not physicalism at all. It is instead a less extreme form of dualism, a dualism not of substances but of their properties."


(Bickle, John. Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. pp. 6-8)

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 12:58 pm
by Wayne92587
What was Billy's mind set when he threw the rock????

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pm
by Mosesquine
Consul wrote: July 17th, 2018, 12:47 pm
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 12:12 pmThe predicate dualism/property dualism distinction does not imply its relation to non-reductive physicalism. It's because predicate/property dualisms are kinds of dualism anyway, but non-reductive physicalism is a kind of monism anyway that can't be dualism anyway. It's like all Americans are human, but not all Americans are martial arts fans, analogously. The American human/American martial arts fan distiction would be funny, so the mental/physical dualistic distinction would not be accepted by non-reductive physicalists.
If nonreductive physicalism weren't property-dualistic, it would be no different from reductive physicalism.

"All nonreductive physicalists must commit to the priority of physics in some sense. Usually this gets cashed out as the claim that all existing objects have physical properties. However, many nonreductive physicalists also insist that their favored relations have ontological consequences weaker than identity between mental and physical properties or events (or revision or elimination of the mental). This suggests an entity or substance monism but a property or event dualism. The puzzle is whether this combination constitutes physicalism. Prima facie, it does not.

To insure that I am not misconstruing nonreductive physicalism, consider a triplet of recent characterizations. John Post writes, "Part of what nonreductive physicalism envisages, then, is a monism of entities (the mathematical-physical) combined with a dualism of their properties (the nonphysical and the physical).... Thereby we are ... prevented from saying that everything is nothing but a physical entity—meaning that all of its properties are or are reducible to physical properties—even though nothing but physical entities exist" (1987, 197). Jaegwon Kim provides a similar exposition: "The leading idea ... has been the thought that we can assuage our physicalist qualms by embracing 'ontological physicalism,' the claim that all that exists in spacetime is physical, but, at the same time, accept property dualism,' a dualism about psychological and physical attributes, insisting that psychological concepts or properties form an irreducible, autonomous domain" (1989b, 32). Finally, Ronald McClamrock, expressly concerned with phenomenological properties, writes, "Even if it turns out that there is no objective characterization of subjective facts or properties as such, and that any such properties are importantly perspective-bound, this shouldn't be viewed at all as being anti-materialist. Non-reductive identity materialism explicitly claims that not all properties are physical properties—that's what distinguishes it from the more reductive accounts" (1992, 186). These quotes noted, one may be excused for wondering whether recent philosophy of mind has lost a once-honored distinction, that between physicalism and property dualism.

Traditionally, their rejection of nonphysical soul stuff in which mental properties inhere distinguishes property from substance dualists. Mental properties are properties of the brain (and presumably of any physical system complex and organized enough to produce or support them). But property dualism remains dualism, since it denies that even a matured physical science could exhaustively explain the essence of the mental. Paul Churchland nicely articulates these distinctions: "The basic idea [of property] dualism is that while there is no substance to be dealt with here beyond the physical brain, the brain has a special set of properties possessed by no other kind of physical object. It is these special properties that are nonphysical: hence the term property dualism…. These are the properties that are characteristic of conscious intelligence. They are held to be nonphysical in the sense that they cannot ever be reduced to or explained solely in terms of the concepts of the familiar physical sciences. They will require a wholly new and autonomous science—the 'science of mental phenomena'—if they are ever to be adequately understood" (1987, 10). Thus contemporary nonreductive physicalism is identical to property dualism, traditionally conceived. Much current "nonreductive physicalism" is not physicalism at all. It is instead a less extreme form of dualism, a dualism not of substances but of their properties."


(Bickle, John. Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. pp. 6-8)

Propery dualists say that mental properties are completely distinct properties from physical properties. It's like human beings are different from furniture, in the way of analogy. Non-reductivists's thought is more like the set of mental events is a subset of physical events. Consul's head is a subpart of Consul's body, let's say. In this case, dualism of Consul's head and Consul's entire body is absurd.
Let's build a theory of Consul's body, as an analogy of mind-body problems. The following ones are candidates:

(1) Nomological monism: Every part of Consul's body is nomologically reduced to Consul's entire part of body.

(2) Substance dualism of Consul's head-Consul's body: The head of Consul and the rest of Consul's entire part of body are distinct types one another.

(3) Property dualism of Consul's head-Consul's body: There are distinct Consul's-head-properties, and distinct Consul's-body-other-than-Consul's-head-properties.

(4) Anomalous monism: The head of Consul, and the rest of Consul's entire body both belong to Consul's body. However, the head of Consul is not necessarily reduced to the rest of Consul's entire body.

In addition, your quote from John Bickle is not persuasive. I don't agree with him in that non-reductive physicalism is understood as less extreme dualism. Bickle's point is certainly wrong. I have shown that non-reductive physicalism is not dualism so far sufficiently.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 1:31 pm
by Mosesquine
Wayne92587 wrote: July 17th, 2018, 12:58 pm What was Billy's mind set when he threw the rock????
It seems that you are confusing mental causation with the mind-body problems.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 3:50 pm
by Consul
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pmPropery dualists say that mental properties are completely distinct properties from physical properties. It's like human beings are different from furniture, in the way of analogy. Non-reductivists's thought is more like the set of mental events is a subset of physical events. Consul's head is a subpart of Consul's body, let's say. In this case, dualism of Consul's head and Consul's entire body is absurd.
Let's build a theory of Consul's body, as an analogy of mind-body problems. The following ones are candidates:

(1) Nomological monism: Every part of Consul's body is nomologically reduced to Consul's entire part of body.

(2) Substance dualism of Consul's head-Consul's body: The head of Consul and the rest of Consul's entire part of body are distinct types one another.

(3) Property dualism of Consul's head-Consul's body: There are distinct Consul's-head-properties, and distinct Consul's-body-other-than-Consul's-head-properties.

(4) Anomalous monism: The head of Consul, and the rest of Consul's entire body both belong to Consul's body. However, the head of Consul is not necessarily reduced to the rest of Consul's entire body.

In addition, your quote from John Bickle is not persuasive. I don't agree with him in that non-reductive physicalism is understood as less extreme dualism. Bickle's point is certainly wrong. I have shown that non-reductive physicalism is not dualism so far sufficiently.
No, you haven't, simply because it is a fact that (ontologically) nonreductive physicalism is property-dualistic at least.

There are three categories of entities about which you can respectively be either a dualist or a monist:

1. Things (in the narrow ontological sense of the term, in which "thing" isn't synonymous with "being" or "entity"): objects, substances
2. occurrences/occurrents: events/processes, states/facts
3. attributes: properties/qualities, relations


All forms of physicalism (eliminative, reductive, nonreductive) are substance-monistic in the sense that they deny the existence of immaterial/mental/spiritual substances (souls/spirits/ghosts).

As opposed to reductive physicalism, nonreductive physicalism is attribute-dualistic in the sense that it affirms the existence of physically irreducible mental properties; and whether it is also occurrence-dualistic depends on the ontological conception of occurrences—particularly events—that is used. If events are a kind of states of affairs (facts), such that their identity is (partly) determined by the (kind of) properties they contain, then attribute-dualism entails occurrence-dualism. That is, then mental properties are different from physical properties and mental events/states are different from physical events/states.

For the identity conditions of Davidsonian events, see: http://www.iep.utm.edu/events/#H2

With Davidson being a nominalist about properties, his position isn't property-dualistic, since property dualism presupposes property realism. Of course, if there are neither mental properties nor physical properties, they are neither different from nor identical with one another. So Davidson is merely a concept/predicate dualist rather than a property dualist. According to him, mental events are physical events not because they have physical properties, but because they fall under physical concepts (as well as under psychological concepts).

So when Davidson and e.g. Kim are both called nonreductive physicalists, one needs to be aware that their positions are nonetheless relevantly different, because they are nonreductionistic about different sorts of entities: concepts/predicates vs. properties/qualities.

I reject nominalism/antirealism about properties, and I also reject Davidson's ontology of events, because (agreeing with Kim and others) I think that events aren't objectlike but factlike. However, I disagree with Kim insofar as I think that it is not the case that all havings of properties by things (at times) deserve be called events. There's a distinction between static properties, the having of which doesn't entail motion, action, or change (e.g. sitting, being circular), and dynamic properties, the having of which does (e.g. walking, fighting, playing tennis). And I think Kim's conception needs to be qualified as follows: Events are havings of dynamic properties by things (or standings of two or more things in dynamic relations).

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 4:10 pm
by Consul
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pmPropery dualists say that mental properties are completely distinct properties from physical properties. It's like human beings are different from furniture, in the way of analogy. Non-reductivists's thought is more like the set of mental events is a subset of physical events.
Yes, according to them, the mental events are that subset of the set of physical events which possess or contain both physical and (physically irreducible) mental properties. And this is event monism plus property dualism!
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pmConsul's head is a subpart of Consul's body, let's say. In this case, dualism of Consul's head and Consul's entire body is absurd.
My head and my entire body overlap (mereologically). So they are partially identical, but they aren't totally identical in the sense of being one numerically identical thing. For despite their overlap, my head and my entire body are still two numerically different things. For numerical difference doesn't entail distinctness or disjointness in the sense of mereological non-overlap:

"[T]he real opposite of identity is distinctness; not distinctness in the sense of non-identity, but rather distinctness in the sense of non-overlap (what is called 'disjointness' in the jargon of those who reserve 'distinct' to mean 'non-identical')."

(Lewis, David. "Many, but Almost One." 1993. Reprinted in: Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 164-182. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 17)

"'Wholly distinct' means more than 'nonidentical'; an object's proper parts are neither identical with it nor wholly distinct from it."

(Lewis, David. "Extrinsic Properties." In Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 111-115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 112)
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pm(1) Nomological monism: Every part of Consul's body is nomologically reduced to Consul's entire part of body.
In my understanding, nomological reductions concern laws rather than things. For example, psychological laws may be said to be nomologically reducible to physical laws.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 5:19 pm
by Wayne92587
Mosesquine are you going to answer my Question?

What was Billy's mind set when he threw the rock and broke the window.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 5:34 pm
by Wayne92587
Mosesquine:
Nomological monism says that the mental and the physical are identical by laws. According to this view,
-

This is true except for fact that one of the metal's is an Illusion of Reality , is only imagined to be to be a
physical event, is not readily apparent, is not measurable as to location and momentum; meaning that the the existence or non-existence of the mental as a physical Reality, is uncertain.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 5:46 pm
by Wayne92587
A Conscious, thought, mental, must be physical in order for man to entertain a thought.

An Illusion, metaphor, code, sacred, secret, knowledge, forbidden Knowledge fits this requirement Perfectly.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 17th, 2018, 6:10 pm
by Wayne92587
Absolutely Bad Knowledge, Knowledge having a Dual Quality, the Knowledge of Good and Evil fits Perfectly.

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 18th, 2018, 12:37 am
by Mosesquine
Wayne92587 wrote: July 17th, 2018, 5:19 pm Mosesquine are you going to answer my Question?

What was Billy's mind set when he threw the rock and broke the window.
There are many possibilities. Maybe Billy's mind was set by a factor x, or y, or z, ...

Re: Whatever Consciousness is, it's Not Physical (or reducible to physical).

Posted: July 18th, 2018, 12:41 am
by Mosesquine
Consul wrote: July 17th, 2018, 4:10 pm
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pmPropery dualists say that mental properties are completely distinct properties from physical properties. It's like human beings are different from furniture, in the way of analogy. Non-reductivists's thought is more like the set of mental events is a subset of physical events.
Yes, according to them, the mental events are that subset of the set of physical events which possess or contain both physical and (physically irreducible) mental properties. And this is event monism plus property dualism!
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pmConsul's head is a subpart of Consul's body, let's say. In this case, dualism of Consul's head and Consul's entire body is absurd.
My head and my entire body overlap (mereologically). So they are partially identical, but they aren't totally identical in the sense of being one numerically identical thing. For despite their overlap, my head and my entire body are still two numerically different things. For numerical difference doesn't entail distinctness or disjointness in the sense of mereological non-overlap:

"[T]he real opposite of identity is distinctness; not distinctness in the sense of non-identity, but rather distinctness in the sense of non-overlap (what is called 'disjointness' in the jargon of those who reserve 'distinct' to mean 'non-identical')."

(Lewis, David. "Many, but Almost One." 1993. Reprinted in: Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 164-182. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 17)

"'Wholly distinct' means more than 'nonidentical'; an object's proper parts are neither identical with it nor wholly distinct from it."

(Lewis, David. "Extrinsic Properties." In Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 111-115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 112)
Mosesquine wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:28 pm(1) Nomological monism: Every part of Consul's body is nomologically reduced to Consul's entire part of body.
In my understanding, nomological reductions concern laws rather than things. For example, psychological laws may be said to be nomologically reducible to physical laws.

You repeatedly mentioned Davidson's property nominalism, though not much important about this topic. Some omitted fact in your saying is that Davidson's property nominalism is heavily influenced by Quine's ontology.