To answer your question, immaterial doesn't interact with material. The assumption itself that god exists has no physical effect or presence in reality.
The words you are writing are--trivially--physical.
If beliefs and morals don't interact with the physical--in anyway--are you saying that they have no effect on what you're writing? What good are they if you're unable to verbalize them or write them down?
Your beliefs aren't getting your fingertips to move to express them? Then what is?
Someone believes in morals, so morals must be physically real.
So, someone believes in a flying spaghetti monster god, so a flying spaghetti monster god must be physically real. Wait, why don't I see one anywhere? That's strange, I thought all my beliefs physically existed...:confused:
OR, even if in some way a thought is a purely physical phenomena, the the concept of an idea itself still does not take place in physical reality.
My beliefs are not what has a physical effect, it's the emotions and hands and electrical impulses that do. If I was conscious but did not have a physical body, I would not be able to verbalize or type anything. Of course if I didn't have a physical body, assuming the only way to have thoughts its through physical phenomena and not a non-physical pattern such as a correlation, I wouldn't have a brain to hold the memories of what I desired when I had a body anyway. I use to think everything was physical like you and not even think free-will existed and that it was possible the universe could be deterministic, and then I looked at the fact that inherently, not everything can be described by the physical laws of the universe, and even the universe itself could bend to the will of these outside realms that somehow exist. I would have to accept that no matter what, the scientific process could not lead to a model for literally everything and that inherently not everything can be explained or predicted or modeled or physically observable which many scientists like Einstein had a really hard time giving up, and some never did. But on the other hand, you never run out to questions to ask, there's always something to do in science.
So you agree what I imagine forces itself to physically exist? So if I imagine a purple unicorn, a purple unicorn now physically exists because I imagined it? Or maybe what you imagine is not a part of physical reality. You are also not providing proof or really even evidence that dualism doesn't exist. Or, let's say 1+1=2. Does 1+1=2 exist? Wait, 1+1=2 is a correlation, it being true is irregardless of the existence of time and space, so how could 1+1=2 still be true without physical reality, no time, no space? It simply exists outside of physical reality. I don't assume everyone is a dualist, I simply see things that are evidence that dualism exists and therefore assume that if someone is not creating a purely hypothetical situation, that they would accept that dualism is not disproved unless they can prove otherwise or possess an amount of evidence to be granted a high likelihood that dualism doesn't exist under the premises of what is defined as being evident and thus not use "dualism doesn't exist" as a basis for a scientific argument. The concept is no different than assuming that someone else accepts that gravity exists, unless they are stating a purely hypothetical situation (and thus not scientific) of gravity not existing, or saying "well I have all this evidence that says gravity is just a figment of our imagination".
It is not predetermined what one defines as right or wrong, just somewhat how their body reacts and perceive things a certain way that causes an emotional response which effects their mental state and that is what is being studied, because often times humans imagine morals based off of their experiences, so if they perceive experiences a certain way, there is a chance they will discover a certain idea which still doesn't guarantee they will define anything as "good" or "bad". But, as I said more than once, there is no component of physics stopping someone from perceiving something such as pain or death as a "good" thing or acting in a manner contradictory to their own morals and then changing morals. This proves there is no universal "good" or "bad", just as there is no universal time, it is not 4:00pm in the universe, and thus there is no basis to assume that genes will predetermine the morals that someone will have, a clone of someone may by chance develop any number of the infinite possible morals. What if it was genetics that someone wanted to die? Would you then at least accept that physically, science hasn't defined that the morals you presented are in fact not universal and are purely a relative construct? (hint: manic depression). Even in this scenario, the given person never stated that dying was good, it is simply that they happen to be experiencing a state of extreme sadness caused by a chemical imbalance. Similarly, someone can happen to be experiencing a state of happiness after a certain action was performed, and so then consciously associate that action with happiness when initially it was just an automatic response. They could then come up with the notion that "if I do this, it will make me happy", and still not define anything as good or bad. A person may just as easily say "huh, it looks like this helps me survive" without defining any part of their survival or item as being good or bad. As I said, separate morals from the actions that are already naturally inherent first.
tl;dr version:
Materialism can't be correct because when you imagine something it doesn't spontaneously come into being. Thus, thoughts are separate from reality. Thus, something outside of reality must exist.
The Meme is real.
That is to say, there is an electrochemical configuration in your brain that is associated with the idea of the FMS; that's 'real.' Going back to your ocean-TV example, there might not be a real ocean in your TV, but there is a real image of an ocean in your TV. Electrons and colors are physically real, and can be physically tested.
When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Science tells us the brain works much the same way.
If someone drives a plane into a building or gives to charity because of their beliefs, how can you claim there is no physical outcome of them?
What's the difference between the emotions and electrical impulses? In my physicalist interpretation of reality, they are exactly the same. But, in your dualism how does one influence the other? How do you bridge the Mind-Body gap?
So, someone believes in a flying spaghetti monster god, so a flying spaghetti monster god must be physically real. Wait, why don't I see one anywhere? That's strange, I thought all my beliefs physically existed...:confused:
The Meme is real.
That is to say, there is an electrochemical configuration in your brain that is associated with the idea of the FMS that's 'real.' Going back to your ocean-TV example, there might not be a real ocean in your TV, but there is a real image of an ocean in your TV. Electrons and colors are physically real, and can be physically tested.
When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Science tells us the brain works much the same way.
But the image itself is not saved, a pattern is saved configured from matter. An electrical processes might occur when someone thinks of a moral, but as you said, only the electronic impulses associated with that are real, and as I said, there's no "real" ocean in the TV, just a pattern that physically resembles what we assume to be one, just as there are no "real" morals, just a pattern that we decide associate with them. We "imagine" morals just as we "imagine" the image of something that you agree doesn't physically exist.
If someone drives a plane into a building or gives to charity because of their beliefs, how can you claim there is no physical outcome of them?
Because it was their emotions that implored their hands and body that did the action, not the belief. A belief cannot apply torque to something such as a steering wheel.
What's the difference between the emotions and electrical impulses? In my physicalist interpretation of reality, they are exactly the same, but in your dualism how does one influence the other?
An emotion is often associated with a chemical that interacts with the brain in such a way to change the chemistry within the blood to lead to feeling something, while an electrical impulse is just an electrical signal traveling between neurons or nerves. An emotional reaction can use electrical impulses, but not the other way around. How does they influence someone? As I stated, by changing the pattern. You translate the vertices of a triangle, you have a different pattern for a triangle.
I thought I explained that already. It can be resolved by assuming that the mind is the pattern that results from the physical arrangement of matter, and not the matter and electricity itself. As I also said, this is why quantum teleportation devices would not kill people even though all the matter and photons in their body are destroyed, because the pattern is preserved, and also why some cyberneticists think you can put someone's mind in a computer.
To answer your question, immaterial doesn't interact with material. The assumption itself that god exists has no physical effect or presence in reality.
The words you are writing are--trivially--physical.
If beliefs and morals don't interact with the physical--in anyway--are you saying that they have no effect on what you're writing? What good are they if you're unable to verbalize them or write them down?
Your beliefs aren't getting your fingertips to move to express them? Then what is?
Someone believes in morals, so morals must be physically real.
So, someone believes in a flying spaghetti monster god, so a flying spaghetti monster god must be physically real. Wait, why don't I see one anywhere? That's strange, I thought all my beliefs physically existed...:confused:
OR, even if in some way a thought is a purely physical phenomena, the the concept of an idea itself still does not take place in physical reality.
My beliefs are not what has a physical effect, it's the emotions and hands and electrical impulses that do. If I was conscious but did not have a physical body, I would not be able to verbalize or type anything. Of course if I didn't have a physical body, assuming the only way to have thoughts its through physical phenomena and not a non-physical pattern such as a correlation, I wouldn't have a brain to hold the memories of what I desired when I had a body anyway. I use to think everything was physical like you and not even think free-will existed and that it was possible the universe could be deterministic, and then I looked at the fact that inherently, not everything can be described by the physical laws of the universe, and even the universe itself could bend to the will of these outside realms that somehow exist. I would have to accept that no matter what, the scientific process could not lead to a model for literally everything and that inherently not everything can be explained or predicted or modeled or physically observable which many scientists like Einstein had a really hard time giving up, and some never did. But on the other hand, you never run out to questions to ask, there's always something to do in science.
So you agree what I imagine forces itself to physically exist? So if I imagine a purple unicorn, a purple unicorn now physically exists because I imagined it? Or maybe what you imagine is not a part of physical reality. You are also not providing proof or really even evidence that dualism doesn't exist. Or, let's say 1+1=2. Does 1+1=2 exist? Wait, 1+1=2 is a correlation, it being true is irregardless of the existence of time and space, so how could 1+1=2 still be true without physical reality, no time, no space? It simply exists outside of physical reality. I don't assume everyone is a dualist, I simply see things that are evidence that dualism exists and therefore assume that if someone is not creating a purely hypothetical situation, that they would accept that dualism is not disproved unless they can prove otherwise or possess an amount of evidence to be granted a high likelihood that dualism doesn't exist under the premises of what is defined as being evident and thus not use "dualism doesn't exist" as a basis for a scientific argument. The concept is no different than assuming that someone else accepts that gravity exists, unless they are stating a purely hypothetical situation (and thus not scientific) of gravity not existing, or saying "well I have all this evidence that says gravity is just a figment of our imagination".
It is not predetermined what one defines as right or wrong, just somewhat how their body reacts and perceive things a certain way that causes an emotional response which effects their mental state and that is what is being studied, because often times humans imagine morals based off of their experiences, so if they perceive experiences a certain way, there is a chance they will discover a certain idea which still doesn't guarantee they will define anything as "good" or "bad". But, as I said more than once, there is no component of physics stopping someone from perceiving something such as pain or death as a "good" thing or acting in a manner contradictory to their own morals and then changing morals. This proves there is no universal "good" or "bad", just as there is no universal time, it is not 4:00pm in the universe, and thus there is no basis to assume that genes will predetermine the morals that someone will have, a clone of someone may by chance develop any number of the infinite possible morals. What if it was genetics that someone wanted to die? Would you then at least accept that physically, science hasn't defined that the morals you presented are in fact not universal and are purely a relative construct? (hint: manic depression). Even in this scenario, the given person never stated that dying was good, it is simply that they happen to be experiencing a state of extreme sadness caused by a chemical imbalance. Similarly, someone can happen to be experiencing a state of happiness after a certain action was performed, and so then consciously associate that action with happiness when initially it was just an automatic response. They could then come up with the notion that "if I do this, it will make me happy", and still not define anything as good or bad. A person may just as easily say "huh, it looks like this helps me survive" without defining any part of their survival or item as being good or bad. As I said, separate morals from the actions that are already naturally inherent first.
tl;dr version:
Materialism can't be correct because when you imagine something it doesn't spontaneously come into being. Thus, thoughts are separate from reality. Thus, something outside of reality must exist.
The Meme is real.
That is to say, there is an electrochemical configuration in your brain that is associated with the idea of the FMS; that's 'real.' Going back to your ocean-TV example, there might not be a real ocean in your TV, but there is a real image of an ocean in your TV. Electrons and colors are physically real, and can be physically tested.
When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Science tells us the brain works much the same way.
If someone drives a plane into a building or gives to charity because of their beliefs, how can you claim there is no physical outcome of them?
What's the difference between the emotions and electrical impulses? In my physicalist interpretation of reality, they are exactly the same. But, in your dualism how does one influence the other? How do you bridge the Mind-Body gap?
So, someone believes in a flying spaghetti monster god, so a flying spaghetti monster god must be physically real. Wait, why don't I see one anywhere? That's strange, I thought all my beliefs physically existed...:confused:
The Meme is real.
That is to say, there is an electrochemical configuration in your brain that is associated with the idea of the FMS that's 'real.' Going back to your ocean-TV example, there might not be a real ocean in your TV, but there is a real image of an ocean in your TV. Electrons and colors are physically real, and can be physically tested.
When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Science tells us the brain works much the same way.
But the image itself is not saved, a pattern is saved configured from matter. An electrical processes might occur when someone thinks of a moral, but as you said, only the electronic impulses associated with that are real, and as I said, there's no "real" ocean in the TV, just a pattern that physically resembles what we assume to be one, just as there are no "real" morals, just a pattern that we decide associate with them. We "imagine" morals just as we "imagine" the image of something that you agree doesn't physically exist.
If someone drives a plane into a building or gives to charity because of their beliefs, how can you claim there is no physical outcome of them?
Because it was their emotions that implored their hands and body that did the action, not the belief. A belief cannot apply torque to something such as a steering wheel.
What's the difference between the emotions and electrical impulses? In my physicalist interpretation of reality, they are exactly the same, but in your dualism how does one influence the other?
An emotion is often associated with a chemical that interacts with the brain in such a way to change the chemistry within the blood to lead to feeling something, while an electrical impulse is just an electrical signal traveling between neurons or nerves. An emotional reaction can use electrical impulses, but not the other way around. How does they influence someone? As I stated, by changing the pattern. You translate the vertices of a triangle, you have a different pattern for a triangle.
I thought I explained that already. It can be resolved by assuming that the mind is the pattern that results from the physical arrangement of matter, and not the matter and electricity itself. As I also said, this is why quantum teleportation devices would not kill people even though all the matter and photons in their body are destroyed, because the pattern is preserved, and also why some cyberneticists think you can put someone's mind in a computer.
To be fair the immaterial does have an effect on objective reality. We usually call it the humanities.
To be fair the immaterial does have an effect on objective reality. We usually call it the humanities.
However, ideas are located in the brain, a physical object. When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Neuroscience tells us the brain works much the same way. Science tells us your ideas aren't something non-physical floating around in some collective conscience. They are electrochemical signals in your brain that can be mapped just like any other electrochemical signal. Neuroscience is based on this principle.
There is nothing "non-physical" about the humanities. They are the study of ideas, which are just as physical as anything else. They don't FOCUS on the physical nature of those ideas, true. That's what neuroscience does, which comes at the problem from a different end.
To be fair the immaterial does have an effect on objective reality. We usually call it the humanities.
However, ideas are located in the brain, a physical object. When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Neuroscience tells us the brain works much the same way. Science tells us your ideas aren't something non-physical floating around in some collective conscience. They are electrochemical signals in your brain that can be mapped just like any other electrochemical signal. Neuroscience is based on this principle.
There is nothing "non-physical" about the humanities. They are the study of ideas, which are just as physical as anything else. They don't FOCUS on the physical nature of those ideas, true. That's what neuroscience does, which comes at the problem from a different end.
Point to 1+1=2, because other philosophy has been trying to do that for ages for longer than the United States has even been a country and no one's succeeded. Show me a real physical fractal and not nature trying to approximate one (hint: it's impossible because matter and energy is quintized). Show me the physical entity that IS good and evil, i.e. something that science has proven always upholds the physical properties of being evil from every inertial frame of reference (since physics is assumed to be the same from any inertial frame, which morality isn't, anyone can have any moral view or view any action as either good or evil at any time). Show my a picture of "concept".
Point to 1+1=2,because other philosophers have been trying to do that for ages.
Right here: "1+1=2"
It's some physical symbols on paper/screen that illicit curtain chemical responses in your brain.
Physics and other science uses those symbols to REPRESENT other physical things, like "1 liter of water added to 1 liter of water results in 2 liters of water" or "1+1=2." Much in the same way these words I am writing REPRESENT something different than pixels. However, they are composed of pixels, and are assigned different meanings by the brain reading them.
Which is why my dog looks at this screen and doesn't get it.
But, there isn't something non-physical going on. Just some lights on a screen getting picked up by an eye which is sending pulses to a mass of gray matter.
Except you didn't realize the fundamental flaw that what you showed me is not in fact 1+1=2, it is first, electrical signals interpreted by your brain, before that photons, and before that electrical energy flowing through what we like to call a computer. If I cut out that piece of glass/plastic in my computer screen, I'm not going to magically be able to add or it multiply it via mathematical properties. Instead, you failed to realize a fundamental concept that you are only being shown what your brain is designed to show. The symbols you type are not in of themselves able to magically add together, that is merely an action that your brain infers. To a tree or a human unfamiliar with math, those symbols would have no meaning, they would according to their knowledge in no way uphold any characteristics of mathematical properties which is how we know symbols =/= numbers themselves. If those symbols represent "other" physical things, then you have failed to prove physicalism because you still haven't physically shown me what those symbols are representing.
To be fair the immaterial does have an effect on objective reality. We usually call it the humanities.
However, ideas are located in the brain, a physical object. When you save an image to your computer, there is a physical configuration on your hard-drive that is--essentially--that image. Neuroscience tells us the brain works much the same way. Science tells us your ideas aren't something non-physical floating around in some collective conscience. They are electrochemical signals in your brain that can be mapped just like any other electrochemical signal. Neuroscience is based on this principle.
There is nothing "non-physical" about the humanities. They are the study of ideas, which are just as physical as anything else. They don't FOCUS on the physical nature of those ideas, true. That's what neuroscience does, which comes at the problem from a different end.
I would argue that there is plenty non-physical about the humanities.
Concepts such as freedom, honor, privacy, individual rights, all dictate the movement of a great amount of physical mass (namely human bodies)
Many of these concepts are not fully fleshed out. They do not exist in totality in the minds of the individuals, but rather can be ideals that are strived towards in a particular instance or application.
There are times when we want "the spirit of the law" to apply to certain future conduct even as we are unable to fully anticipate exactly what situation that future will bring.
Take for example, the field of bioethics which is still in a state of active development. (it's contours are not yet in physical existence anywhere including the brains of individuals)
But when the time comes, it may well be that the spirit of some value we want to uphold in bioethics may then be fleshed out conceptually and be a determinative factor in how we decide something is right, and hence how we manipulate that physical body (in this case probably someone's body)
Except you didn't realize the fundamental flaw that what you showed me is not in fact 1+1=2,
Then, I propose what you're looking for simply doesn't exist. As in, there is no thing in reality your symbology correlates to. It only exists as pixels on a screen and an idea in your brain.
However, this isn't some failing on existance's part that needs correcting by adding some unobserved, immaterial object. This is a failing on your part in having your brain tell you something that doesn't exist should exist.
(also, trivially "1+1=2" DOES equal "1+1=2" So I don't know where you're getting your objection from...)
Concepts such as freedom, honor, privacy, individual rights, all dictate the movement of a great amount of physical mass (namely human bodies)
Many of these concepts are not fully fleshed out. They do not exist in totality in the minds of the individuals, but rather can be ideals that are strived towards in a particular instance or application.
So, you are arguing that without brains freedom, honor, privacy, individual rights, etc. would still exist?
You're going to have to explain to me how it's possible for individual rights to exist without individuals, because that doesn't make sense to me. Can you give an example?
If there were no brains, how would freedom exist?
Then, I propose what you're looking for simply doesn't exist.
Not physically, which is exactly what I was saying. And in addition, if those things only exist in your thoughts, what does that say about your thoughts? How can you think of something that doesn't exist if thoughts are purely physical? If it doesn't exist at all, there should be no way to think of it. And, if you cannot use your own interpretation of your brain as any basis of what physically exists, i.e. you chose that thoughts and conceptions are only representations of what the thought is about and what is being perceived, then you cannot trust that anything else physically exists, you have no reason to assume that the electrical impulses are in any way reflective of actual reality and so have no basis for physicalism.
However, this isn't some failing on existance's part that needs correcting by adding some unobserved, immaterial object. This is a failing on your part in having your brain tell you something that doesn't exist should exist.
There's nothing saying those things physically exist, only the symbols you decided to interpret as suggesting they exist.
Building off of the concept of tom, let's say this: Everyone is granted the right for gay marriage. Now, time stops. Do people still have that right? By definition of that right, yes they do, it doesn't say anything about time and so we have just easily shown that the state of possessing a right is in of itself not time-dependent, it is not dependent on any position of the temporal axis, only the point in time that the right was created, but the possession of the right itself doesn't have the variable "time" in it.
Or let's imagine this: I put three sticks together and form what I declare as a representation of a right triangle. Now, I take now of those sticks away and by my own definition of a triangle, I cannot possibly have a right triangle in front of me. Does that have any effect whatsoever on the equations a^2+b^2=c^2 or sin(a)/A=sin(b)/B=sin(c)/C which mathematically define that triangle?
In just the same way, the properties that define existence for any general thing are not limited to possessing or being dependent on variables of time and space. Even within science itself we can see this property with frame independent gravitational fields, electron orbital changes and entanglement.
So, you are arguing that without brains freedom, honor, privacy, individual rights, etc. would still exist?
You're going to have to explain to me how it's possible for individual rights to exist without individuals, because that doesn't make sense to me. Can you give an example?
If there were no brains, how would freedom exist?
I don't have to go that far. All i have to prove for purposes here is that freedom, honor, and privacy exist beyond the mere electrical signals in our brain.
And I'm saying that they exist beyond the mere electrical signals, (ie, the mere physical) because the humanities continue to develop as fields.
Imagine you are a scientist capable of analyzing the brain of every single person in 1787 when the constitution was written. Search their brains for whether the constitution allows for gay marriage and you wont find anything.
A stronger example, search the brains of everyone in 1787 to see what the constitution says about whether the 4th amendment prohibition on search and seizure allows for phone calls to be tapped. Since telephones didn't exist at the time you wouldn't find anything.
Yet the principles of the constitution were at stake in dictating the motion of physical matter (in this case police tapping phones).
I'm not saying that these principles exist without human brains. But what I am saying is that whatever physically resides in our human brains is not the full ambit of some of these principles.
Therefore the immaterial in the humanities does indeed affect objective reality even beyond all consideration of the physical at the time.
In a mathematical analogy, these principles represent some kind of asymptotic direction which guides the movement of a large amount of physical matter, as these principles are written into our laws and ethics, even as the principles themselves have no physical form.
Nearly all scientists are post-positivists these days (we use math and everything!) and I'd argue that the positivist strawman invented by philosophers was not something anyone ever believed. They're not dualists, though, because dualism tends to mean assuming the existence of the mystical rather than merely including the ability to refer to abstract things.
I don't have to go that far. All i have to prove for purposes here is that freedom, honor, and privacy exist beyond the mere electrical signals in our brain.
And I'm saying that they exist beyond the mere electrical signals, (ie, the mere physical) because the humanities continue to develop as fields.
Imagine you are a scientist capable of analyzing the brain of every single person in 1787 when the constitution was written. Search their brains for whether the constitution allows for gay marriage and you wont find anything.
A stronger example, search the brains of everyone in 1787 to see what the constitution says about whether the 4th amendment prohibition on search and seizure allows for phone calls to be tapped. Since telephones didn't exist at the time you wouldn't find anything.
Yet the principles of the constitution were at stake in dictating the motion of physical matter (in this case police tapping phones).
I don't understand how these examples illustrate your point. The effect you're pointing two doesn't kick in until the ideas are registered in peoples' brains. Shouldn't you be giving an example of the ideas having an effect when they aren't in peoples' brains?
The question of whether thoughts actually exist metaphysically independent from thinkers to think them has, as far as I know, never been answered in a convincing way. The position that ideas have existence independent of thinkers is Platonism, the opposite is Anti-Platonism. Certainly in my own field of mathematics, the philosophers who aren't doing interesting work seem to be willing to spill endless rivers of ink on the question of which of these things is true.
And as far as I'm concerned, it's the biggest waste of time ever conceived. Because, at least to the best of my knowledge, no one, not even the greatest defenders of the respective positions, has ever pointed out or even attempted to point out an effective, relevant difference between them!
And I don't mean this in some tawdry physical sense, as though we should be able to measure the difference with a ruler or a thermometer. No, even in the sense of the purest thought, no difference is to be found. Does the Platonist produce shorter, more elegant proofs? No, it doesn't seem to be the case. Does the Anti-Platonist have a better handle on the biggest problems of the day? Not as far as anyone can tell. Does either side make mistakes that are attributable to having adopted that particular side? No.
All of the meta-level blathering that they engage in makes no difference whatsoever at the object level. In fact, a lot of the arguments about this are almost "psychedelic" -- the correspondent reports on how he feels when attempting to discover new mathematics, as if that were a reliable reason to conclude... well, anything! (And lest one accuse me of being unduly dismissive of feelings -- first, that's impossible, and second, note that both sides of the argument can do this equally well! No indicator of truth that endorses both answers can rightly be called reliable by a partisan of one particular side.)
When actual work is being done, most of the time the Platonist and Anti-Platonist are speaking in the same language, about the same stuff, in a way that is comprehensible to the other. And whenever they aren't speaking in the same language, they also aren't making concrete or provable claims. Both agree on the concrete claim that Fermat's Last Theorem is true -- as for whether it represents the form of an actual existence, who gives a damn? In fact, who could give a damn? The answer to this question has no effect on the truth of the proposition in question or the further search for mathematical truth.
And as it is in mathematics, so I believe it to be the case in more general philosophy, there being no relevant differences between the modes of thought being applied.
And I'm saying that they exist beyond the mere electrical signals, (ie, the mere physical) because the humanities continue to develop as fields.
I'm not sure I see the relation between the development of a field and the non-physical aspect of its subject matter. How are the two things, development and the non-physical, related?
Chemistry continues to develop, for example, does that mean chemicals are somehow non-physical?
Not physically, which is exactly what I was saying.
But, in order to object to physicalism, you have to say more. You have to say it both isn't physical AND exists. I am saying it doesn't exist outside of the signals in your brain and its physical configuration, you are saying it does.
And in addition, if those things only exist in your thoughts, what does that say about your thoughts? How can you think of something that doesn't exist if thoughts are purely physical?
The same way I can use photoshop on this computer.
I'm not making something non-physical come into existence, I am moving pixels around.
When I imagine something that doesn't exist, I am not creating some mind-construct of the object in the collective unconsciousness, I am moving chemicals around in my brain.
If it doesn't exist at all, there should be no way to think of it.
Poppycock.
Sjnwidbi wqdjkbiuwb wbdibdwijbdqw.
Did I just make 3 totally new things? I just smashed some keys on my keyboard. Those 3 "things" exist as pixels, but nothing else. They don't relate to anything in reality other than those pixels they're made of. The word "chair" relates to 4 legged objects in people sit on that physically exist. The word "wqdjkbiuwb" doesn't relate to anything because it's a random collection of letters.
Building off of the concept of tom, let's say this: Everyone is granted the right for gay marriage. Now, time stops. Do people still have that right? By definition of that right, yes they do, it doesn't say anything about time and so we have just easily shown that the state of possessing a right is in of itself not time-dependent, it is not dependent on any position of the temporal axis, only the point in time that the right was created, but the possession of the right itself doesn't have the variable "time" in it.
I don't see the relevance of these statements.
How can people get married without time anyway?
Or let's imagine this: I put three sticks together and form what I declare as a representation of a right triangle. Now, I take now of those sticks away and by my own definition of a triangle, I cannot possibly have a right triangle in front of me. Does that have any effect whatsoever on the equations a^2+b^2=c^2 or sin(a)/A=sin(b)/B=sin(c)/C which mathematically define that triangle?
You've still not shown any of that exists in reality passed the symbology. You're not shown these ideas exist passed chemicals in the brain or words on paper.
As much as I loath to do it, I'm just going to invoke Occam's razor. If we accept the physical exists, then everything you've talked about I can explain as a physical phenomenon. Since you've not given evidence that anything immaterial exists, we have no need to accept that it does because everything can be explained WITHOUT your extra assumption about the immaterial.
You've also yet to explain how the immaterial would interact with the material, since--by definition--it can't. I couldn't move my arm in response to a thought because moving my arm would be physical and the thought would be non-physical.
If ideas are immaterial, then by the definition of "immaterial" they can't affect--in anyway--the material.
And neither have you. All I've demonstrated is that according to our observations, we can find some things that have specific properties and limitations but that aren't dependent on time and space itself.
I'm not making something non-physical come into existence, I am moving pixels around.
When I imagine something that doesn't exist, I am not creating some mind-construct of the object in the collective unconsciousness, I am moving chemicals around in my brain.
So now you're saying I can mix chemicals together and create an imagination all by itself independent of a body? If an imagination is physical, that is.
Sjnwidbi wqdjkbiuwb wbdibdwijbdqw.
Did I just make 3 totally new things?
You showed three combinations of letters that were unknown to everyone here. The potential for those letters to be arranged that way did however already exist.
They don't relate to anything in reality other than those pixels they're made of. The word "chair" relates to 4 legged objects in people sit on that physically exist. The word "wqdjkbiuwb" doesn't relate to anything because it's a random collection of letters.
But to someone who doesn't speak English, the word "chair" is just a random collection of symbols so all you have shown is that a representation of something is not possess the physics of what it represents, because physics is the same to all inertial frames.
I don't see the relevance of these statements.
How can people get married without time anyway?
You stated you couldn't comprehend or imagine "outside" of time. I'm trying to show you what that means is, what outside of time is. It means not dependent on the temporal axis, it means there is a way it can establish itself regardless of whatever rate time is passing and that the passage of time will not effect the inherent properties that define it. The act of getting married and moving is not what I pointed out. What I pointed out was the state of being in which people had the right to get married, which people possess even if time were to stop. If you want to generalize, just acknowledge that the variable "time" does not exist in the definition of a constitutional right.
You've still not shown any of that exists in reality passed the symbology. You're not shown these ideas exist passed chemicals in the brain or words on paper.
Why should chemicals in a brain show that something exists in reality in the first place?
As much as I loath to do it, I'm just going to invoke Occam's razor. If we accept the physical exists, then everything you've talked about I can explain as a physical phenomenon. Since you've not given evidence that anything immaterial exists, we have no need to accept that it does because everything can be explained WITHOUT your extra assumption about the immaterial.
Which I can use just as easily because I'm not saying physical objects don't exist, I'm saying MORE than physical objects exists, which makes things simpler by having more categories to identify things rather than finding convoluted ways to work everything into terms of photons turned into electrical impulses without even being able to prove that physical reality is either anything more than that or that any unknown entity that exists can be classified as purely physically scientifically testable. What you're doing is actually way way harder, like trying to define all polar equations as Cartesian functions rather than just accepting that both are valid coordinate systems can be used in different ways. What you define as reality simply is nothing special, just as time itself is just another regular dimension among others.
You've also yet to explain how the immaterial would interact with the material, since--by definition--it can't. I couldn't move my arm in response to a thought because moving my arm would be physical and the thought would be non-physical.
It doesn't "interact", it merely is a pattern that matter can logically follow out of any number of possible patterns. For instance when we observe an electron jump orbitals after absorbing a photon, there can logically be no "cause" for it to jump orbitals because it jumped orbitals at instantaneously, technically infinitely faster than light. There logically cannot be a causation without violating our known physics. Instead, it is much much simpler to say that the electron followed a logical pattern: at the instantaneous moment that it had that amount of energy to do so, there was no possible way it could exist except in a specific orbital that was further away, and so we find that there was no "cause", but that the electron's position merely correlated to a new distance from the nucleus.
If ideas are immaterial, then by the definition of "immaterial" they can't affect--in anyway--the material.
And if your saying that your brain can tell you something exists without it existing, then you have no basis to trust that reality or anything else physically exists.
So now you're saying I can mix chemicals together and create an imagination all by itself independent of a body? If an imagination is physical, that is.
You can move physical things around to get other physical things. I am saying you can't move physical things around to get non-physical things.
You showed three combinations of letters that were unknown to everyone here. The potential for those letters to be arranged that way did however already exist.
Right, just because they are meaningless doesn't mean I can't write them. Thus, I can think of meaningless things that don't exist. My being able to think about them doesn't make them suddenly exist, nor am I prevented from thinking about them just because they don't exist.
But to someone who doesn't speak English, the word "chair" is just a random collection of symbols so all you have shown is that a representation of something is not possess the physics of what it represents, because physics is the same to all inertial frames.
Right, cuz it's the brain not the word that makes the connection to the physical thing, like I said before.
I'm really getting the impression you don't read my posts. It makes it hard for me to communicate with you.
You stated you couldn't comprehend or imagine "outside" of time. This is what outside of time is, it means not dependent on the temporal axis, it means there is a way it can establish itself regardless of whatever rate time is passing and that the passage of time will not effect the inherent properties that define it. The act of getting married and moving is not what I pointed out. What I pointed out was the state of being in which people had the right to get married, which people possess even if time were to stop.
None of these statements explain how a person can get married without time. This part of your argument seems to hing on the idea that people have the right to marry outside of time. So, explain to me how they'd exercise this right, or otherwise demonstrate they have this right.
Which I can use just as easily because I'm not saying physical objects don't exist, I'm saying MORE than physical objects exists, which makes things simpler by having more categories to identify things rather than finding convoluted ways to work everything into terms of photons turned into electrical impulses.
If you think adding extra assumptions makes things easier, then you have absolutely no idea what Occam's razor is or what it explains.
And if you brain can tell you something exists without it existing, then you have no basis to trust that reality physically exists.
Then you're still not a "dualist" because you're only assuming one kind of reality exists, the immaterial. To be a dualist you have to assume both the immaterial and the material exists. But, while we're here: "An objection, raised by David Deutsch, among others, is that since the solipsist has no control over the "universe" she is creating for herself, there must be some part of her mind, of which she is not conscious, that is doing the creating. If the solipsist makes her unconscious mind the object of scientific study (e.g., by conducting experiments), she will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe offered by realism; therefore, the distinction between realism and solipsism collapses. What realism calls "the universe", solipsism calls "one's unconscious mind." But these are just different names for the same thing. Both are massively complex processes other than the solipsist's conscious mind, and the cause of all the solipsist's experiences—possibly merely a labeling distinction. Application of Occam's Razor might then suggest that postulating the existence of 'reality' may be a better solution than a massive unconscious mind, since a reality would fit all the data we have seen without needing to propose any complicating and unfounded predictions about a super-subconscious."[1]
Everything but your thoughts exists outside your thoughts.
So your thoughts don't exist then which conflicts with your point on neurology, or you are accepting there's more than one way to exist which defies your physicalist stance. If something is in my thoughts, it doesn't exist, so how is it that my thoughts exists if my thoughts are inside my thoughts?
You can move physical things around to get other physical things. I am saying you can't move physical things around to get non-physical things.
Technically a triangle doesn't physically exist, it's a mathematical abstraction just as a line doesn't physically exist. So you're saying triangle in no way can exist in any way shape or form at all? So you'd accept science uses models based off of a system that doesn't exist?
Right, just because they are meaningless doesn't mean I can't write them. Thus, I can think of meaningless things that don't exist. My being able to think about them doesn't make them suddenly exist, nor am I prevented from thinking about them just because they don't exist.
So what doesn't exist can exist as a thought since you assume thoughts are physical, and thoughts physically exist, therefore what doesn't exist does exist?
Right, cuz it's the brain not the word that makes the connection to the physical thing, like I said before.
Then you accept that the brain makes connections of things that aren't physical, and therefore cannot trust that what you define as existent actually exists.
None of these statements explain how a person can get married without time.
And I don't expect them to because I'm not talking about the act of being wedded. I get the impression you're not reading my posts, it makes it hard to communicate with you.
If you think adding extra assumptions makes things easier, then you have absolutely no idea what Occam's razor is or what it explains.
If you think making even more assumptions to compensate for making everything fit into your parameters of physical existence, I could say the same of you.
Then it has a physical effect and--therefore--is physical.
But, the equation is not what has any effect, it is matter following a pattern that can be approximated by an equation that is what we observe as physical. No physical phenomena effects the correlation of the statement a^2+b^2=c^2, so according to you, since you say material and immaterial not interacting = non-existence of the immaterial, math doesn't in any way exist.
Then you're still not a "dualist" because you're only assuming one kind of reality exists, the immaterial. To be a dualist you have to assume both the immaterial and the material exists.
Which I already stated as my case. I get the impression you're not reading my posts which makes it hard to communicate with you.
"An objection, raised by David Deutsch, among others, is that since the solipsist has no control over the "universe" she is creating for herself, there must be some part of her mind, of which she is not conscious, that is doing the creating. If the solipsist makes her unconscious mind the object of scientific study (e.g., by conducting experiments), she will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe offered by realism; therefore, the distinction between realism and solipsism collapses. What realism calls "the universe", solipsism calls "one's unconscious mind." But these are just different names for the same thing. Both are massively complex processes other than the solipsist's conscious mind, and the cause of all the solipsist's experiences—possibly merely a labeling distinction. Application of Occam's Razor might then suggest that postulating the existence of 'reality' may be a better solution than a massive unconscious mind, since a reality would fit all the data we have seen without needing to propose any complicating and unfounded predictions about a super-subconscious."[1]
I'm fine with a reality existing, what I'm not fine with is that you're trying to boil things down into terms of a more limited scope of existence that cannot account for the properties that define those things. There are entities and processes that exist in a way that is outside of what you call physical as I suggested with the electron orbital transition. Physically, what I described in that scenario can't happen (according to all of the physics we know of), so how did it happen? The only options are we assume some model we don't know of and don't have evidence of, or we say it follows the pattern of mathematics since that's what seems to approximate our observations best and thus we begin to see processes of material and material merging. it is scientifically correct to say at the instantaneous moment of absorption, the electron has a position that is further away from the nucleus, even though if the electron physically traveled in the intervening space it would have had to have violated one of the founding principals of special relativity.
Not physically, which is exactly what I was saying. And in addition, if those things only exist in your thoughts, what does that say about your thoughts? How can you think of something that doesn't exist if thoughts are purely physical? If it doesn't exist at all, there should be no way to think of it. And, if you cannot use your own interpretation of your brain as any basis of what physically exists, i.e. you chose that thoughts and conceptions are only representations of what the thought is about and what is being perceived, then you cannot trust that anything else physically exists, you have no reason to assume that the electrical impulses are in any way reflective of actual reality and so have no basis for physicalism.
My God, it's like you took Phil 101 years ago and are determined to apply everything you misremember in the most gratingly wrong way possible.
For starters, why on earth should there be no way to think about things that don't exist? This claim vaguely resembles some arguments advanced by early empiricists. But those arguments still allowed for the mind to think about some things that don't exist; and even if they didn't, they have long since been refuted. But since you have offered no argument whatsoever for your claim, we don't even need to go so far as to refute it. Quid gratis asseritur, gratis negatur: what's freely asserted is freely denied.
Now, to the issue of Cartesian skepticism. You write of the possibility that we we cannot completely trust our senses as if it were a conclusion that arguments should strive to avoid. But it cannot be avoided; it is simply the truth, the inescapable black hole of epistemology, something philosophers have known and generally accepted since Descartes (if not earlier). And even if it could be avoided, it would not follow that it should be avoided. It is fallacious to reject an argument because you dislike the conclusion. Sometimes the truth is something you dislike.
And the thing is, Cartesian skepticism is not as bad a consequence as you make it out to be. We do not have to throw up our hands and say, "All attempts at gaining knowledge are futile; we can do nothing." We can, and do, say, "Okay, maybe we can't always trust our senses, but let's assume that we usually can and see how far that gets us." And this is called "science". All scientists know that any observation they make is fallible. Even beyond the issue of Cartesian skepticism, there's the inherent uncertainty in inducing general conclusions from specific observations and also that little problem Hume pointed out. This is why the scientific method places such an emphasis on experimental results being reproducible. In any case, so far our observations strongly corroborate the hypothesis that an objective reality operating under predictable rules exists, and our senses represent it to us fairly accurately. Can we be 100% certain of this? No. But it is also wildly inaccurate to say that we have "no basis" for believing it.
But I digress. Because it is possible for us to think about things that do not exist, the fact that we can think about "1 + 1 = 2" does not imply that "1 + 1 = 2" exists. And this is how your argument breaks down. Even if Taylor's physicalist argument also broke down for the reasons you claim it does (and it doesn't), his failure would not mitigate yours. To advance your position you need to demonstrate that physicalism is false, not just that Taylor hasn't proven it. There are lots of things that are true but unproven, and even some that are true but unprovable.
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
For starters, why on earth should there be no way to think about things that don't exist? This claim vaguely resembles some arguments advanced by early empiricists. But those arguments still allowed for the mind to think about some things that don't exist; and even if they didn't, they have long since been refuted. But since you have offered no argument whatsoever for your claim, we don't even need to go so far as to refute it. Quid gratis asseritur, gratis negatur: what's freely asserted is freely denied.
He stated that:
thoughts are completely physical
and that the immaterial cannot in any way interact with immaterial and therefore immaterial doesn't exist.
So, according to him, thoughts cannot in any way interact with the immaterial without not-existing which means there is no way to have a thought of something that is non-existent and create something that is non-existent from your physical thoughts. But as you clearly believe, there does in fact seem to be a way we can imagine things that don't exist, so his argument shouldn't be valid according to you or himself.
Now, to the issue of Cartesian skepticism. You write of the possibility that we we cannot completely trust our senses as if it were a conclusion that arguments should strive to avoid. But it cannot be avoided; it is simply the truth, the inescapable black hole of epistemology, something philosophers have known and generally accepted since Descartes (if not earlier). And even if it could be avoided, it would not follow that it should be avoided. It is fallacious to reject an argument because you dislike the conclusion. Sometimes the truth is something you dislike.
I don't think you're really interpreting my arguments very carefully. I'm purposely asking specific questions that I think point out flaws in his reasoning, I don't necessary think the proposed circumstances of those questions are correct.
And the thing is, Cartesian skepticism is not as bad a consequence as you make it out to be. We do not have to throw up our hands and say, "All attempts at gaining knowledge are futile; we can do nothing." We can, and do, say, "Okay, maybe we can't always trust our senses, but let's assume that we usually can and see how far that gets us." And this is called "science". All scientists know that any observation they make is fallible. Even beyond the issue of Cartesian skepticism, there's the inherent uncertainty in inducing general conclusions from specific observations and also that little problem Hume pointed out. This is why the scientific method places such an emphasis on experimental results being reproducible. In any case, so far our observations strongly corroborate the hypothesis that an objective reality operating under predictable rules exists, and our senses represent it to us fairly accurately. Can we be 100% certain of this? No. But it is also wildly inaccurate to say that we have "no basis" for believing it.
Again, it is not my own view that "we don't know, therefore nothing", it is simply a conflict I find that arises from his reasoning.
But I digress. Because it is possible for us to think about things that do not exist, the fact that we can think about "1 + 1 = 2" does not imply that "1 + 1 = 2" exists.
But then you go contradicting your stance here because we can think of anything and therefore anything may not exist. 1+1=2 can exist, just not in the way that he defines as physical.
And this is how your argument breaks down. Even if Taylor's physicalist argument also broke down for the reasons you claim it does (and it doesn't), his failure would not mitigate yours. To advance your position you need to demonstrate that physicalism is false, not just that Taylor hasn't proven it. There are lots of things that are true but unproven, and even some that are true but unprovable.
I don't consider my own self to be a dualist, but I acknowledge that from his view that that is the stance I take and am only arguing to show him that what it means to exist is more complicated and broad than what he gives it credit for, that things can exist without interacting with time or space. For instance, there could be a 5th dimension (out of the 6 dimensions used for the basic standard model) of which an object only travels along and interacts with no other dimensions. That does not mean it doesn't exist, it shows that there is a different way to exist that is different than only occupying the dimensions of space and time. There are plenty of things that are "unprovable" in mathematics such as the last digit of any irrational number because by definition there is a never ending amount of digits, so you can't ever prove what the last one is. In reality, based on our current models, you cannot prove hard determinism because there are properties of matter that are inherently random and without cause, and there are also phenomena that are modeled better by the existence of a correlation rather than any form of physical causation such as electron orbital transitions and entanglement because the causation would violate relativity.
Is acceleration (not the accelerating ball but acceleration itself) a physical thing? If it is where does it exist?
Well, yeah acceleration in the context of physical reality is a physical thing, that's why we can measure it and scientifically physically test it's physical effects so easily and we choose to model it with mathematics. It is the process by which an object changes spacial coordinates at a rate that is increasing/decreasing in direct proportion to the it's change in temporal coordinates. Now, you can technically measure numbers, but does that mean I'm going to see a magical number 2 floating around in space? Some philosophers thought no, some yes, I say yes in a different type of existence, but never in what is commonly referred to as physical existence, we will never physically see the core essence of the value of two. We can say we have "two apples", but those are apples that we arbitrarily assigned to represent the value of two, and those apples physically do not uphold all of the properties of the value of two itself that we define the value of two to have.
But then you go contradicting your stance here because we can think of anything and therefore anything may not exist. 1+1=2 can exist, just not in the way that he defines as physical.
When you say that "1+1=2 exists," what exactly is the nonphysical thing that you're claiming exists?
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Is acceleration (not the accelerating ball but acceleration itself) a physical thing? If it is where does it exist?
Well, yeah acceleration in the context of physical reality is a physical thing, that's why we can measure it so easily. It is the process by which an object changes spacial coordinates at a rate that is increasing/decreasing in direct proportion to the it's change in temporal coordinates.
We do not measure acceleration we repeatedly measure position.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is meant by physical. I cannot extract acceleration from the ball. It has no independent existence, it's a description of the relationship between objects and even then only as a matter of perspective.
Is acceleration (not the accelerating ball but acceleration itself) a physical thing? If it is where does it exist?
Well, yeah acceleration in the context of physical reality is a physical thing, that's why we can measure it so easily. It is the process by which an object changes spacial coordinates at a rate that is increasing/decreasing in direct proportion to the it's change in temporal coordinates.
We do not measure acceleration we repeatedly measure position.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is meant by physical. I cannot extract acceleration from the ball. It has no independent existence, it's a description of the relationship between objects, and can disappear depending one what I'm doing.
Well what seems to be defined as physical is "it exists in time and space". What if something existed but not in time and space; not in terms of moving along the temporal and spacial axis, but in any number of ways, sometimes not moving at all on any axis? According to our experiments, it seems like we measured the existence of correlation, and a correlation does not necessarily need time and space to be true.
When you say that "1+1=2 exists," what exactly is the nonphysical thing that you're claiming exists?
I am claiming that the correlation between adding those two values to obtain the third value is what exists independent of time and space.
But are you asserting the existence of an actual thing, or merely saying that a particular statement is true? "1+1=2" is just a true statement of number theory. What good does it do you to attempt to introduce some ephemeral thing that represents the truth of that statement and endow that thing with metaphysical existence? What more are you saying, what additional inquiries do you open up, what do you add to the quest for truth by adding this seemingly unnecessary metaphysics? Why not simply say that the statement is true and leave it at that?
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It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
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tl;dr version:
Materialism can't be correct because when you imagine something it doesn't spontaneously come into being. Thus, thoughts are separate from reality. Thus, something outside of reality must exist.
Conclusion: Dualism is correct, not Physicalism.
I--of course--disagree with everything said.
To be fair the immaterial does have an effect on objective reality. We usually call it the humanities.
There is nothing "non-physical" about the humanities. They are the study of ideas, which are just as physical as anything else. They don't FOCUS on the physical nature of those ideas, true. That's what neuroscience does, which comes at the problem from a different end.
Point to 1+1=2, because other philosophy has been trying to do that for ages for longer than the United States has even been a country and no one's succeeded. Show me a real physical fractal and not nature trying to approximate one (hint: it's impossible because matter and energy is quintized). Show me the physical entity that IS good and evil, i.e. something that science has proven always upholds the physical properties of being evil from every inertial frame of reference (since physics is assumed to be the same from any inertial frame, which morality isn't, anyone can have any moral view or view any action as either good or evil at any time). Show my a picture of "concept".
Right here: "1+1=2"
It's some physical symbols on paper/screen that illicit curtain chemical responses in your brain.
Physics and other science uses those symbols to REPRESENT other physical things, like "1 liter of water added to 1 liter of water results in 2 liters of water" or "1+1=2." Much in the same way these words I am writing REPRESENT something different than pixels. However, they are composed of pixels, and are assigned different meanings by the brain reading them.
Which is why my dog looks at this screen and doesn't get it.
But, there isn't something non-physical going on. Just some lights on a screen getting picked up by an eye which is sending pulses to a mass of gray matter.
Except you didn't realize the fundamental flaw that what you showed me is not in fact 1+1=2, it is first, electrical signals interpreted by your brain, before that photons, and before that electrical energy flowing through what we like to call a computer. If I cut out that piece of glass/plastic in my computer screen, I'm not going to magically be able to add or it multiply it via mathematical properties. Instead, you failed to realize a fundamental concept that you are only being shown what your brain is designed to show. The symbols you type are not in of themselves able to magically add together, that is merely an action that your brain infers. To a tree or a human unfamiliar with math, those symbols would have no meaning, they would according to their knowledge in no way uphold any characteristics of mathematical properties which is how we know symbols =/= numbers themselves. If those symbols represent "other" physical things, then you have failed to prove physicalism because you still haven't physically shown me what those symbols are representing.
I would argue that there is plenty non-physical about the humanities.
Concepts such as freedom, honor, privacy, individual rights, all dictate the movement of a great amount of physical mass (namely human bodies)
Many of these concepts are not fully fleshed out. They do not exist in totality in the minds of the individuals, but rather can be ideals that are strived towards in a particular instance or application.
There are times when we want "the spirit of the law" to apply to certain future conduct even as we are unable to fully anticipate exactly what situation that future will bring.
Take for example, the field of bioethics which is still in a state of active development. (it's contours are not yet in physical existence anywhere including the brains of individuals)
But when the time comes, it may well be that the spirit of some value we want to uphold in bioethics may then be fleshed out conceptually and be a determinative factor in how we decide something is right, and hence how we manipulate that physical body (in this case probably someone's body)
However, this isn't some failing on existance's part that needs correcting by adding some unobserved, immaterial object. This is a failing on your part in having your brain tell you something that doesn't exist should exist.
(also, trivially "1+1=2" DOES equal "1+1=2" So I don't know where you're getting your objection from...)
So, you are arguing that without brains freedom, honor, privacy, individual rights, etc. would still exist?
You're going to have to explain to me how it's possible for individual rights to exist without individuals, because that doesn't make sense to me. Can you give an example?
If there were no brains, how would freedom exist?
Not physically, which is exactly what I was saying. And in addition, if those things only exist in your thoughts, what does that say about your thoughts? How can you think of something that doesn't exist if thoughts are purely physical? If it doesn't exist at all, there should be no way to think of it. And, if you cannot use your own interpretation of your brain as any basis of what physically exists, i.e. you chose that thoughts and conceptions are only representations of what the thought is about and what is being perceived, then you cannot trust that anything else physically exists, you have no reason to assume that the electrical impulses are in any way reflective of actual reality and so have no basis for physicalism.
There's nothing saying those things physically exist, only the symbols you decided to interpret as suggesting they exist.
Building off of the concept of tom, let's say this: Everyone is granted the right for gay marriage. Now, time stops. Do people still have that right? By definition of that right, yes they do, it doesn't say anything about time and so we have just easily shown that the state of possessing a right is in of itself not time-dependent, it is not dependent on any position of the temporal axis, only the point in time that the right was created, but the possession of the right itself doesn't have the variable "time" in it.
Or let's imagine this: I put three sticks together and form what I declare as a representation of a right triangle. Now, I take now of those sticks away and by my own definition of a triangle, I cannot possibly have a right triangle in front of me. Does that have any effect whatsoever on the equations a^2+b^2=c^2 or sin(a)/A=sin(b)/B=sin(c)/C which mathematically define that triangle?
In just the same way, the properties that define existence for any general thing are not limited to possessing or being dependent on variables of time and space. Even within science itself we can see this property with frame independent gravitational fields, electron orbital changes and entanglement.
I don't have to go that far. All i have to prove for purposes here is that freedom, honor, and privacy exist beyond the mere electrical signals in our brain.
And I'm saying that they exist beyond the mere electrical signals, (ie, the mere physical) because the humanities continue to develop as fields.
Imagine you are a scientist capable of analyzing the brain of every single person in 1787 when the constitution was written. Search their brains for whether the constitution allows for gay marriage and you wont find anything.
A stronger example, search the brains of everyone in 1787 to see what the constitution says about whether the 4th amendment prohibition on search and seizure allows for phone calls to be tapped. Since telephones didn't exist at the time you wouldn't find anything.
Yet the principles of the constitution were at stake in dictating the motion of physical matter (in this case police tapping phones).
I'm not saying that these principles exist without human brains. But what I am saying is that whatever physically resides in our human brains is not the full ambit of some of these principles.
Therefore the immaterial in the humanities does indeed affect objective reality even beyond all consideration of the physical at the time.
In a mathematical analogy, these principles represent some kind of asymptotic direction which guides the movement of a large amount of physical matter, as these principles are written into our laws and ethics, even as the principles themselves have no physical form.
I don't understand how these examples illustrate your point. The effect you're pointing two doesn't kick in until the ideas are registered in peoples' brains. Shouldn't you be giving an example of the ideas having an effect when they aren't in peoples' brains?
And as far as I'm concerned, it's the biggest waste of time ever conceived. Because, at least to the best of my knowledge, no one, not even the greatest defenders of the respective positions, has ever pointed out or even attempted to point out an effective, relevant difference between them!
And I don't mean this in some tawdry physical sense, as though we should be able to measure the difference with a ruler or a thermometer. No, even in the sense of the purest thought, no difference is to be found. Does the Platonist produce shorter, more elegant proofs? No, it doesn't seem to be the case. Does the Anti-Platonist have a better handle on the biggest problems of the day? Not as far as anyone can tell. Does either side make mistakes that are attributable to having adopted that particular side? No.
All of the meta-level blathering that they engage in makes no difference whatsoever at the object level. In fact, a lot of the arguments about this are almost "psychedelic" -- the correspondent reports on how he feels when attempting to discover new mathematics, as if that were a reliable reason to conclude... well, anything! (And lest one accuse me of being unduly dismissive of feelings -- first, that's impossible, and second, note that both sides of the argument can do this equally well! No indicator of truth that endorses both answers can rightly be called reliable by a partisan of one particular side.)
When actual work is being done, most of the time the Platonist and Anti-Platonist are speaking in the same language, about the same stuff, in a way that is comprehensible to the other. And whenever they aren't speaking in the same language, they also aren't making concrete or provable claims. Both agree on the concrete claim that Fermat's Last Theorem is true -- as for whether it represents the form of an actual existence, who gives a damn? In fact, who could give a damn? The answer to this question has no effect on the truth of the proposition in question or the further search for mathematical truth.
And as it is in mathematics, so I believe it to be the case in more general philosophy, there being no relevant differences between the modes of thought being applied.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I'm not sure I see the relation between the development of a field and the non-physical aspect of its subject matter. How are the two things, development and the non-physical, related?
Chemistry continues to develop, for example, does that mean chemicals are somehow non-physical?
But, in order to object to physicalism, you have to say more. You have to say it both isn't physical AND exists. I am saying it doesn't exist outside of the signals in your brain and its physical configuration, you are saying it does.
But, you've not demonstrated that.
The same way I can use photoshop on this computer.
I'm not making something non-physical come into existence, I am moving pixels around.
When I imagine something that doesn't exist, I am not creating some mind-construct of the object in the collective unconsciousness, I am moving chemicals around in my brain.
Poppycock.
Sjnwidbi wqdjkbiuwb wbdibdwijbdqw.
Did I just make 3 totally new things? I just smashed some keys on my keyboard. Those 3 "things" exist as pixels, but nothing else. They don't relate to anything in reality other than those pixels they're made of. The word "chair" relates to 4 legged objects in people sit on that physically exist. The word "wqdjkbiuwb" doesn't relate to anything because it's a random collection of letters.
I don't see the relevance of these statements.
How can people get married without time anyway?
You've still not shown any of that exists in reality passed the symbology. You're not shown these ideas exist passed chemicals in the brain or words on paper.
As much as I loath to do it, I'm just going to invoke Occam's razor. If we accept the physical exists, then everything you've talked about I can explain as a physical phenomenon. Since you've not given evidence that anything immaterial exists, we have no need to accept that it does because everything can be explained WITHOUT your extra assumption about the immaterial.
You've also yet to explain how the immaterial would interact with the material, since--by definition--it can't. I couldn't move my arm in response to a thought because moving my arm would be physical and the thought would be non-physical.
If ideas are immaterial, then by the definition of "immaterial" they can't affect--in anyway--the material.
If you can physically measure them as developing how would that show they aren't physical?
So if nothing "exists" outside of your thoughts, then how do you have a basis for a physical reality?
And neither have you. All I've demonstrated is that according to our observations, we can find some things that have specific properties and limitations but that aren't dependent on time and space itself.
So now you're saying I can mix chemicals together and create an imagination all by itself independent of a body? If an imagination is physical, that is.
You showed three combinations of letters that were unknown to everyone here. The potential for those letters to be arranged that way did however already exist.
But to someone who doesn't speak English, the word "chair" is just a random collection of symbols so all you have shown is that a representation of something is not possess the physics of what it represents, because physics is the same to all inertial frames.
You stated you couldn't comprehend or imagine "outside" of time. I'm trying to show you what that means is, what outside of time is. It means not dependent on the temporal axis, it means there is a way it can establish itself regardless of whatever rate time is passing and that the passage of time will not effect the inherent properties that define it. The act of getting married and moving is not what I pointed out. What I pointed out was the state of being in which people had the right to get married, which people possess even if time were to stop. If you want to generalize, just acknowledge that the variable "time" does not exist in the definition of a constitutional right.
Why should chemicals in a brain show that something exists in reality in the first place?
Which I can use just as easily because I'm not saying physical objects don't exist, I'm saying MORE than physical objects exists, which makes things simpler by having more categories to identify things rather than finding convoluted ways to work everything into terms of photons turned into electrical impulses without even being able to prove that physical reality is either anything more than that or that any unknown entity that exists can be classified as purely physically scientifically testable. What you're doing is actually way way harder, like trying to define all polar equations as Cartesian functions rather than just accepting that both are valid coordinate systems can be used in different ways. What you define as reality simply is nothing special, just as time itself is just another regular dimension among others.
It doesn't "interact", it merely is a pattern that matter can logically follow out of any number of possible patterns. For instance when we observe an electron jump orbitals after absorbing a photon, there can logically be no "cause" for it to jump orbitals because it jumped orbitals at instantaneously, technically infinitely faster than light. There logically cannot be a causation without violating our known physics. Instead, it is much much simpler to say that the electron followed a logical pattern: at the instantaneous moment that it had that amount of energy to do so, there was no possible way it could exist except in a specific orbital that was further away, and so we find that there was no "cause", but that the electron's position merely correlated to a new distance from the nucleus.
And if your saying that your brain can tell you something exists without it existing, then you have no basis to trust that reality or anything else physically exists.
You can move physical things around to get other physical things. I am saying you can't move physical things around to get non-physical things.
Right, just because they are meaningless doesn't mean I can't write them. Thus, I can think of meaningless things that don't exist. My being able to think about them doesn't make them suddenly exist, nor am I prevented from thinking about them just because they don't exist.
Right, cuz it's the brain not the word that makes the connection to the physical thing, like I said before.
I'm really getting the impression you don't read my posts. It makes it hard for me to communicate with you.
None of these statements explain how a person can get married without time. This part of your argument seems to hing on the idea that people have the right to marry outside of time. So, explain to me how they'd exercise this right, or otherwise demonstrate they have this right.
If you think adding extra assumptions makes things easier, then you have absolutely no idea what Occam's razor is or what it explains.
Then it has a physical effect and--therefore--is physical.
Much in the same way Spacetime is a physical phenomenon.
Then you're still not a "dualist" because you're only assuming one kind of reality exists, the immaterial. To be a dualist you have to assume both the immaterial and the material exists. But, while we're here:
"An objection, raised by David Deutsch, among others, is that since the solipsist has no control over the "universe" she is creating for herself, there must be some part of her mind, of which she is not conscious, that is doing the creating. If the solipsist makes her unconscious mind the object of scientific study (e.g., by conducting experiments), she will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe offered by realism; therefore, the distinction between realism and solipsism collapses. What realism calls "the universe", solipsism calls "one's unconscious mind." But these are just different names for the same thing. Both are massively complex processes other than the solipsist's conscious mind, and the cause of all the solipsist's experiences—possibly merely a labeling distinction. Application of Occam's Razor might then suggest that postulating the existence of 'reality' may be a better solution than a massive unconscious mind, since a reality would fit all the data we have seen without needing to propose any complicating and unfounded predictions about a super-subconscious."[1]
So your thoughts don't exist then which conflicts with your point on neurology, or you are accepting there's more than one way to exist which defies your physicalist stance. If something is in my thoughts, it doesn't exist, so how is it that my thoughts exists if my thoughts are inside my thoughts?
Technically a triangle doesn't physically exist, it's a mathematical abstraction just as a line doesn't physically exist. So you're saying triangle in no way can exist in any way shape or form at all? So you'd accept science uses models based off of a system that doesn't exist?
So what doesn't exist can exist as a thought since you assume thoughts are physical, and thoughts physically exist, therefore what doesn't exist does exist?
Then you accept that the brain makes connections of things that aren't physical, and therefore cannot trust that what you define as existent actually exists.
And I don't expect them to because I'm not talking about the act of being wedded. I get the impression you're not reading my posts, it makes it hard to communicate with you.
The ability to exercise it is not what was pointed out, it was the state of possessing it, the state, not the moment.
If you think making even more assumptions to compensate for making everything fit into your parameters of physical existence, I could say the same of you.
But, the equation is not what has any effect, it is matter following a pattern that can be approximated by an equation that is what we observe as physical. No physical phenomena effects the correlation of the statement a^2+b^2=c^2, so according to you, since you say material and immaterial not interacting = non-existence of the immaterial, math doesn't in any way exist.
Which I already stated as my case. I get the impression you're not reading my posts which makes it hard to communicate with you.
I'm fine with a reality existing, what I'm not fine with is that you're trying to boil things down into terms of a more limited scope of existence that cannot account for the properties that define those things. There are entities and processes that exist in a way that is outside of what you call physical as I suggested with the electron orbital transition. Physically, what I described in that scenario can't happen (according to all of the physics we know of), so how did it happen? The only options are we assume some model we don't know of and don't have evidence of, or we say it follows the pattern of mathematics since that's what seems to approximate our observations best and thus we begin to see processes of material and material merging. it is scientifically correct to say at the instantaneous moment of absorption, the electron has a position that is further away from the nucleus, even though if the electron physically traveled in the intervening space it would have had to have violated one of the founding principals of special relativity.
For starters, why on earth should there be no way to think about things that don't exist? This claim vaguely resembles some arguments advanced by early empiricists. But those arguments still allowed for the mind to think about some things that don't exist; and even if they didn't, they have long since been refuted. But since you have offered no argument whatsoever for your claim, we don't even need to go so far as to refute it. Quid gratis asseritur, gratis negatur: what's freely asserted is freely denied.
Now, to the issue of Cartesian skepticism. You write of the possibility that we we cannot completely trust our senses as if it were a conclusion that arguments should strive to avoid. But it cannot be avoided; it is simply the truth, the inescapable black hole of epistemology, something philosophers have known and generally accepted since Descartes (if not earlier). And even if it could be avoided, it would not follow that it should be avoided. It is fallacious to reject an argument because you dislike the conclusion. Sometimes the truth is something you dislike.
And the thing is, Cartesian skepticism is not as bad a consequence as you make it out to be. We do not have to throw up our hands and say, "All attempts at gaining knowledge are futile; we can do nothing." We can, and do, say, "Okay, maybe we can't always trust our senses, but let's assume that we usually can and see how far that gets us." And this is called "science". All scientists know that any observation they make is fallible. Even beyond the issue of Cartesian skepticism, there's the inherent uncertainty in inducing general conclusions from specific observations and also that little problem Hume pointed out. This is why the scientific method places such an emphasis on experimental results being reproducible. In any case, so far our observations strongly corroborate the hypothesis that an objective reality operating under predictable rules exists, and our senses represent it to us fairly accurately. Can we be 100% certain of this? No. But it is also wildly inaccurate to say that we have "no basis" for believing it.
But I digress. Because it is possible for us to think about things that do not exist, the fact that we can think about "1 + 1 = 2" does not imply that "1 + 1 = 2" exists. And this is how your argument breaks down. Even if Taylor's physicalist argument also broke down for the reasons you claim it does (and it doesn't), his failure would not mitigate yours. To advance your position you need to demonstrate that physicalism is false, not just that Taylor hasn't proven it. There are lots of things that are true but unproven, and even some that are true but unprovable.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
He stated that:
thoughts are completely physical
and that the immaterial cannot in any way interact with immaterial and therefore immaterial doesn't exist.
So, according to him, thoughts cannot in any way interact with the immaterial without not-existing which means there is no way to have a thought of something that is non-existent and create something that is non-existent from your physical thoughts. But as you clearly believe, there does in fact seem to be a way we can imagine things that don't exist, so his argument shouldn't be valid according to you or himself.
I don't think you're really interpreting my arguments very carefully. I'm purposely asking specific questions that I think point out flaws in his reasoning, I don't necessary think the proposed circumstances of those questions are correct.
Again, it is not my own view that "we don't know, therefore nothing", it is simply a conflict I find that arises from his reasoning.
But then you go contradicting your stance here because we can think of anything and therefore anything may not exist. 1+1=2 can exist, just not in the way that he defines as physical.
I don't consider my own self to be a dualist, but I acknowledge that from his view that that is the stance I take and am only arguing to show him that what it means to exist is more complicated and broad than what he gives it credit for, that things can exist without interacting with time or space. For instance, there could be a 5th dimension (out of the 6 dimensions used for the basic standard model) of which an object only travels along and interacts with no other dimensions. That does not mean it doesn't exist, it shows that there is a different way to exist that is different than only occupying the dimensions of space and time. There are plenty of things that are "unprovable" in mathematics such as the last digit of any irrational number because by definition there is a never ending amount of digits, so you can't ever prove what the last one is. In reality, based on our current models, you cannot prove hard determinism because there are properties of matter that are inherently random and without cause, and there are also phenomena that are modeled better by the existence of a correlation rather than any form of physical causation such as electron orbital transitions and entanglement because the causation would violate relativity.
A pitcher throws a ball which undergoes continuous acceleration as a result.
Is acceleration (not the accelerating ball but acceleration itself) a physical thing? If it is where does it exist?
Well, yeah acceleration in the context of physical reality is a physical thing, that's why we can measure it and scientifically physically test it's physical effects so easily and we choose to model it with mathematics. It is the process by which an object changes spacial coordinates at a rate that is increasing/decreasing in direct proportion to the it's change in temporal coordinates. Now, you can technically measure numbers, but does that mean I'm going to see a magical number 2 floating around in space? Some philosophers thought no, some yes, I say yes in a different type of existence, but never in what is commonly referred to as physical existence, we will never physically see the core essence of the value of two. We can say we have "two apples", but those are apples that we arbitrarily assigned to represent the value of two, and those apples physically do not uphold all of the properties of the value of two itself that we define the value of two to have.
When you say that "1+1=2 exists," what exactly is the nonphysical thing that you're claiming exists?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
We do not measure acceleration we repeatedly measure position.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is meant by physical. I cannot extract acceleration from the ball. It has no independent existence, it's a description of the relationship between objects and even then only as a matter of perspective.
I am claiming that the correlation between adding those two values to obtain the third value is what exists independent of time and space.
Well what seems to be defined as physical is "it exists in time and space". What if something existed but not in time and space; not in terms of moving along the temporal and spacial axis, but in any number of ways, sometimes not moving at all on any axis? According to our experiments, it seems like we measured the existence of correlation, and a correlation does not necessarily need time and space to be true.
But are you asserting the existence of an actual thing, or merely saying that a particular statement is true? "1+1=2" is just a true statement of number theory. What good does it do you to attempt to introduce some ephemeral thing that represents the truth of that statement and endow that thing with metaphysical existence? What more are you saying, what additional inquiries do you open up, what do you add to the quest for truth by adding this seemingly unnecessary metaphysics? Why not simply say that the statement is true and leave it at that?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.