Wossname wrote: ↑September 20th, 2020, 7:02 am
If we have physical and non-physical events we seem to have two sorts of events and that is dualism as I understand it. And the problem has always been to marry these two things back together once you have separated them.
Well, if the mere existence of non-physical phenomena implies dualism, then we are all, unavoidably, dualists. The world is rife with such phenomena. I think "dualism" is generally taken to mean that there are two "basic substances" from which all things are composed and to which they can be reduced.
We have to give up the idea that mental phenomena are, or require, some sort of alternative substance and just understand them as effects generated by certain physical systems. Indeed, it wouldn't hurt to give up the concept of "substances," as conceived in ontological theories, entirely. There is no need to try to reduce all existents to some sort of "basic stuff;" all such attempts lead to puzzles, dead-ends, or absurdities. ("Substance" has perfectly good uses in common speech).
The cognitive model you suggest seems to avoid the problem of how they interact by suggesting that they are somehow both the same thing and a different thing, and I am struggling to understand you.
Oh, I'm sure I never said they were the same thing, and hope I didn't suggest it. They are as different as any two things could be.
I am in a muddle with the view that there is this second thing, mentality, separate from the physical yet able to interact with it, something new and different (since it is not physical but caused by physical processes, and if I have you, can also cause them), but still it should not be considered new and different?
Mental phenomena are (obviously) different from physical phenomena, such as brain processes, since they are easily distinguishable from them. But they are not
separate from them; they are effects of those processes, and would not exist but for those processes (which is the rationale for considering them physical processes in that broader sense). And yes, they can cause physical effects as well as be caused by them --- a neural signal can generate the quale denoting the presence of ammonia in the air; an intention or desire to type this response can cause my fingers to move. That quale is what informs me of the presence of ammonia, not any knowledge of brain processes. Is some brain process involved in generating that quale? Of course, as there is with the formation of that desire to type. But I'm not aware of those processes when I start typing; I'm only aware of the desire to do so.
I don't think there is anything controversial about any of the above. The controversies begin when we begin thinking that mental phenomena must either be reducible to physical processes, or constitute some alternative, non-physical "substance." But they are
effects of a physical process, not any sort of "substance." They are neither identical with the mechanisms or processes that produce them, or reducible to them.
The effects of a process are rarely identical with the mechanism or process that produced it. An example I've mentioned before --- the EM field surrounding an operating electric motor is not identical with the motor --- but it
is reducible to the operation of that motor. The mind/brain identity theory is a desperation ploy, a straw to grasp to escape the irreducibility problem. What we should be investigating instead are the reasons
why mental phenomena are not reducible to physical phenomena, even though they are clearly effects of those phenomena.
I think of the perception of qualia as a physical event. We can identify physical events and brain processing associated with seeing red say. You seem to be suggesting that the perception of qualia is not a physical event and not a non-physical event either?
Yes. Because there is a narrow sense of "physical," and a broader sense. Mental phenomena are not physical in the narrow sense, but can be considered physical in the broader sense (whatever is produced by a physical system is itself "physical").
And you say I would understand this if I just re-examined my ontological assumptions? Identity theory, the notion that physical things can be mental things is hard enough. It is the Hard Problem that Gertie rightly to points to and a mystery. And it is what I think your ontological reframing is seeking to crack. But I am not clear how you have cracked it.
We will never crack it, if cracking it implies Mary will be able to predict the sensation she will experience when first seeing something red. What we can predict is that she will have one. We can't tell her just what the sensation will "look like" to her, and she can't deduce that from what she knows of physics. We can't characterize it because it will be private to her, just as ours are private to us. There is no way to compare notes. There is no way for science to predict or explain the details of phenomena not open to public inspection and analysis.
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. No. You said: