Philosophical Materialism, by Richard C. Vitzthum

[Interesting Ian]

So materialism has always inferred its theories from the best empirical evidence at hand and has as a result always had its metascientific hypotheses scientifically confirmed, because the basic assumption of valid science has also always been that nature is governed by coherent, discoverable physical laws. Indeed, the triumphs of science in the 20th century have been so stunning that today a majority of professional philosophers, at least in the English-speaking world, identify themselves as materialists of one kind or another


Unfortunately the stunning success of science has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with materialism. Science is more consonant with idealism.


Obviously, modern reductive and eliminative materialists are allies in believing, as pre-20th century materialists did, that science has always confirmed and will most probably always continue to confirm the basic hypotheses of materialist philosophy: that is, first, that all reality is essentially a material reality and that therefore, second, no supernatural or immaterial reality can exist;


Well, modern reductive and eliminative materialists can believe this, but defending their position will be somewhat more difficult I suspect. It's a completely unsubstantiated assertion. How can science confirm that there exists a wholly mysterious unknowable reality which moreover constitutes the totality of reality?? What complete and absolute nonsense. And why cannot a immaterial reality exist? What do they actually mean by material reality and immaterial reality??


The so-called mind-brain problem refers to the question of whether or not human consciousness is reducible in all respects to scientific laws. In the 1960s and 1970s those materialists who said it is, known as identity theorists (i.e. the mind is identical to the brain in all respects), were challenged by other materialists known as property dualists[7], functionalists[8], or supervenience[9] theorists. What all of these challengers had in common was a belief that in some way human consciousness was irreducible to or inexplicable in terms of natural processes[10]. They held, for example, that so-called qualia -- a person's experience of pain or of after-images of color, for example -- were unique to that person and incommunicable and unknowable to any one else. They argued further that such properties of consciousness as qualia could not be translated into the terms of physical science in any meaningful way and hence represented a reality not amenable to the laws of nature.



Functionalists consider that human consciousness is inexplicable in terms of natural processes?? :eek: First time I've heard of this. They simply define consciousness as functions.


To these objections, current eliminative and reductive materialists make the following reply. First of all, they argue that qualia, or the private feels of one's own experience, are no more incorrigible -- no more infallibly known by the individual -- than one's experience of the external world[12]. One's body and brain is just as likely to misrepresent internal as external experience. Pain can be anaesthetized and disappear, even though the same knife continues to cut your skin. One can hallucinate colors privately as well as publicly, and in fact the brain's moment-to-moment reconstruction of the external world is arguably just as private an experience as that of one's qualia, yet no one claims one's knowledge of the external world is infallible or incorrigible.


This is so completely wrong I scarcely know where to start! It's completely wrong headed from start to finish! The fact that our knowledge of the external world might be "wrong" is neither here nor there. He's clearly talking about some abstract external world which no-one ever directly experiences, but which we build up and infer from our collective experiences, and which people refer to as a material reality. But we have absolutely no reason to suppose this abstract external world actually exists. Anyway, none of this entails that our experience of that external world is not incorrigible. Indeed, I don't know what it could possibly mean to claim otherwise. How can my experience of the external world be in error??? My experience, is my experience, is my experience. It is literally incoherent to say that my experience is in error. You could only say it is in error by hypothesising this wholly unknowable abstract reality

And really none of this has anything to do with qualia anyway. There is no real abstract qualia which my personal qualia is supposed to represent, and therefore my particular raw experience at any particular time cannot be said to be in error. Indeed the author seems to fail to understand what is meant by qualia. Take my experience of redness. What could it conceivably mean to say that it is in error?? I have never read such unadulterated complete and utter nonsense in my life!! :eek: :eek:


Since how the brain actually works is today one of the least-understood and most hotly-debated subjects in science, I'd like to explain briefly the most promising of these theories and in the process finish my discussion of philosophical materialism.


It doesn't matter how the brain works. It cannot achieve the miraculous and explain consciousness.


How can something oblivious of the world become conscious of the world? Though theoretical neuroscience is still in its infancy, furiously boiling with new ideas, some likely answers are emerging from the steam. One promising theory is that networks of neurons in the brain consist of subsidiary groups of neurons or even individual neurons that serve as the axes of a multi-dimensional system of coordinates that can mathematically translate one kind of value to another kind of value. For example, someone sees an apple hanging from a tree. His brain locates the apple in an abstract visual space calculated in terms of how many degrees above a distant horizon the apple is, how close to him the focusing of his eyes tells him the apple is, and so on. But in order to pick the apple, his brain must translate its abstract visual calculation of the apple's location into an abstract motor-muscular space which will tell the muscles of his arm at which angle they will have to set themselves in order to approach the apple. What happens here, it is theorized, is that an array of neuronal networks transforms the values of his visual space into those of his motor space by means of a mathematical tensor, or formula, that translates the multi-dimensional coordinates, or vectors, of visual space into the vectors of motor space -- all the angles of sight are translated into angles of arm-bending. Although it does not seem so to the person reaching for the apple, his behavior is the result of a vast number of mathematical computations in his brain, which, because of its parallel computing capacity, it is able to carry out almost instantly.



I'm sorry, how is this supposed to lead to consciousness?? Why does the author believe it will lead to any more than a p-zombie?? :rolleyes:

The biggest complaint I have of this article is that the author is identifying materialism with scientific progress. It would be more plausible if I identified Berkeleyian subjective idealism with the progress of science.

[-DM-]

[Thank you for your feedback regarding Philosophical Materialism (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_vitzthum/materialism.html) by Richard C. Vitzthum (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_vitzthum/vitzthum-bio.html). E-mail notification has been sent to the author. Although there are no guarantees, you might want to check back from time to time for a further response following this post. -DM-]

[Richard Carrier]

First, please note that materialism is only one variety of naturalism. Not all naturalists are materialists. Second, note that you are responding to a single lecture in transcript. If you want the full case, evidence and argument, please read Richard C. Vitzthum's book: Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition (http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=541) (1995). There are also two other important books on the subject that came out at the same time: Paul K. Moser and J. D. Trout, Contemporary Materialism: A Reader (http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=542) (1995), and Jeffrey Poland, Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundation (http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=701) (1994).

But by far the best and most important defense to date is Andrew Melnyk, A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism (http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=905) (2003).

Unfortunately the stunning success of science has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with materialism. Science is more consonant with idealism.

Neither is true.

Science has this to do with materialism: nothing has so far ever been found to exist by science except physical things (namely space, time, and quanta of mass-energy). Certainly, there are things yet unexplained, but an argument from ignorance is fallacious. As far as what we definitely know, we only definitely know that physical things exist. And that despite over two hundred years of very extensive and competent searching. Therefore, probably, that is all there is.

Note that this is a probability argument, not an argument to absolute certainty. But the argument is strong nonetheless: for example, the forces were once thought to be mysterious, but are now known to be completely produced and explained by the exchange through space-time of certain subatomic particles; properties of the universe like the speed of light have ready explanations as the necessary result of the quantization of energy; the evidence for mind-brain physicalism is astonishing in scale and scope; etc.

As for science being "more consonant with idealism," that is, I believe, an opinion based on an incorrect analysis of the actual facts. See, as just one example, Richard Carrier, Fundamental Flaws in Mark Steiner's Challenge to Naturalism in The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/steiner.html) (2003). To which one should add that everything Steiner finds mysterious about the matrix mechanics of subatomic particles has a complete physicalist explanation in Superstring Theory, for example (the matrix representing movement within the multiple dimensions beyond the four that are fully extended), yet Steiner does not even consider this possibility, or its relevance to his argument. Also relevant to demonstrating that mistaken analyses of the facts leads incorrectly to idealism will be my critiques of Michael Rea's World without Design (which addresses the explanatory role of physicalism in modern science) and Victor Reppert's recent book on the Argument from Reason (which intersects the question of mind-brain physicalism in unique detail), each due to appear on the Secular Web in the near future.

[materialism is] a completely unsubstantiated assertion. How can science confirm that there exists a wholly mysterious unknowable reality which moreover constitutes the totality of reality?? What complete and absolute nonsense. And why cannot a[n] immaterial reality exist? What do they actually mean by material reality and immaterial reality??

He wrote "probably" there are only (fundamentally) physical facts. Only if this is true, he says, would it follow (as a matter of deductive logic) that no (fundamentally) non-physical facts can exist. Therefore, he is not saying that an immaterial reality cannot exist. He is saying that probably it cannot exist. Reading comprehension is a vital skill that unfortunately American schools do a lousy job of teaching these days.

Science could indeed confirm that, for example, Platonic objects exist, or an immaterial God exists, or that some observed fact is completely incapable of physicalist explanation. Such theories are at least theoretically capable of scientific confirmation. Steiner, Rea, and Reppert all present examples of the sort of evidence that, if we actually had it, would produce such a conclusion. Another example would be, for example, if Ganzfeld telepathy were scientifically confirmed and studied, and its operation were shown to be most easily explicable (and its function and limitations most successfully predicted) by appeal to a Platonic realm of Ideas universally accessible to all minds, than to any concept of mind-brain physicalism. Movies also provide classic examples of the kinds of evidence science could use to prove physicalism false, if that evidence really existed. Think of Star Wars, Ghost, Zardoz, Ghost Busters, and so on.

Regarding what is meant by material vs. immaterial (or physical vs. nonphysical), read the books I cited above. They provide definitions and analysis. One common example: a physical object is one that is solely defined (at its most fundamental level) by purely geometrical or purely quantitative properties (or, of course, both), and subject to the fixed (i.e. mindless) behaviors of physical interaction between them. Platonic Ideas have no fundamentally geometric or quantitative properties, and have other properties besides those (such as absence of location and the possession of causal powers not derived from any geometric or quantitative properties). An immaterial God may have quantitative or geometrical properties, but also many other properties not reducible to those. Indeed, so could (in theory) the human mind. And so on.

And finally, I must reiterate: a refutation of physicalism would not always be a refutation of naturalism, since there are varieties of nonphysicalist naturalism.

Functionalists consider that human consciousness is inexplicable in terms of natural processes?? First time I've heard of this. They simply define consciousness as functions.

You've never heard of the debate between functionalists and physicalists over the reducibility of mental function to brain mechanics? There are some functionalists who are also reductionists, but this has not always been the case, and Vitzthum is responding to certain people he surely has in mind, who claim to be functionalists, and not to all possible functionalists.

For example, I can technically claim to be a functionalist, since I agree with the functionalist thesis that the same exact mind can be reproduced using different physical substrates (e.g. a silicon brain could, at least in theory, exactly reproduce my mind, simply by copying the same functional relations and processes). Yet some functionalists would oppose including me in their camp, because they also hold passionately to the sort of theses Jaegwon Kim (being quoted by Keith Augustine) identifies in footnote 8 (which you do not seem to have read), which preclude, for example, my reductionist beliefs.

He's clearly talking about some abstract external world which no-one ever directly experiences, but which we build up and infer from our collective experiences, and which people refer to as a material reality. But we have absolutely no reason to suppose this abstract external world actually exists.

He is not talking about an "abstract" external world (I don't even know what that means), but a concrete external world, meaning one that exists, and exists in a certain state, regardless of what we perceive or think its state to be. There are certainly a lot of reasons to believe this, top among them is the fact that it explains a hell of a lot more about our experiences than any other theory, and explains it more thoroughly and intelligibly, and as a result produces far more successful predictions of future experience. Indeed, the success of science seen over the last two hundred years would be either impossible or inexplicable unless the basic underlying thesis of a concrete external reality were true. I discuss this in more detail in my forthcoming critique of Rea.

An extreme skeptic, of course, can always claim that all the evidence of a concrete external reality is a delusion rife with countless amazing coincidences, but such a skeptic would then have no explanation of why we experience anything we do, much less the particular things we do, and even less why so many amazing coincidences occur in our experience that just "happen" to make the most sense on the hypothesis of a concrete external reality. Appeals to various kinds of Cartesian Demons, for example, are hardly sensible, actually explaining little, and predicting less, while resting on no actual evidence of any kind. Indeed, they only create far more questions than they answer, and far more than physicalism itself creates.

Anyway, none of this entails that our experience of that external world is not incorrigible.

Vitzthum is arguing by concession, i.e. he is conceding a fundamental assumption among his opponents, which do not include Idealists (he is not, as far as I can see, addressing them), and showing how that assumption refutes their own argument against his position. It is not his task here, or his responsibility, to defend that assumption against other opponents whom he is not even responding to here.

Indeed, I don't know what it could possibly mean to claim otherwise. How can my experience of the external world be in error??? My experience, is my experience, is my experience. It is literally incoherent to say that my experience is in error. You could only say it is in error by hypothesi[z]ing this wholly unknowable abstract reality.

Are you perhaps confusing the difference between knowing you are having an experience and knowing that that experience corresponds to something that really is happening outside your mind and brain? I can't otherwise fathom how you could assert what you are here, for you are effectively denying the existence, indeed even the logical possibility, of veridical hallucination or even ordinary optical illusions! Surely that cannot be what you mean.

For example, we know for a fact that the color red does not exist in the external world. Only vibrating particles called photons exist. Our brains literally invent what we call "color" as a way to represent and track different frequencies of photon vibration. Thus, this is an example of how our experience of the external world is, literally speaking, "in error," though it is a necessary and useful error. In contrast, seeing a mirage of a lake that doesn't really exist on the horizon is an example of our experience of the external world being "in error" in a way that is neither necessary nor useful. One might add to this the error of perceiving the solar system as geocentric (as it certainly appears to be, without the aid of instruments).

And really none of this has anything to do with qualia anyway. There is no real abstract qualia which my personal qualia is supposed to represent, and therefore my particular raw experience at any particular time cannot be said to be in error. Indeed the author seems to fail to understand what is meant by qualia. Take my experience of redness. What could it conceivably mean to say that it is in error?? I have never read such unadulterated complete and utter nonsense in my life!!

Vitzthum is making a completely different argument than you think. Read his examples and discussion and you will grasp the context correctly: he is talking about qualia being in error with regard to what those qualia represent, e.g. whether a quale of pain in our foot corresponds to an actual electrical signal from the nerves of our foot, or not. His argument is that if this is so, and yet a pain in our foot is still a supposedly "private" event that cannot be shared, then it cannot be argued that a purely private experience is inaccessible to scientific study. Ergo, qualia are subject to scientific study.

In other words, he is arguing against those who claim that qualia cannot be scientifically studied or explained because they are inimitably private. I agree with him. Just because they are private does not mean they are inaccessible to study or to physicalist explanation.

Indeed, it is not even clear to me how it would ever be possible for a perceptual mechanism to exist and operate without it experiencing what we call "qualia." The moment any machine engages in any process of perception, it will by definition experience a perceptual distinction (between perceiving what is perceived and not perceiving it), and that experience can only ever be a quale. In other words, to experience a quale literally is to experience any perceptual distinction at all. They are physically identical, and therefore logically inseparable (see David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (1996) and Zombies on the Web (http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/zombies.html)). This is the sort of argument Viztzhum has in mind, and the sort of scientific study he has in mind is like those surveyed by Stephen Palmer in Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology (1999) which documents how we in fact know why we experience the particular color qualia we do, instead of others--and the successful and confirmed explanation turns out to be entirely physicalist (an example of my earlier point that science so far has done nothing but confirm the covering hypothesis of physicalism, often in astonishing ways).

It doesn't matter how the brain works. It cannot achieve the miraculous and explain consciousness.

How do you know? To know what the brain can or cannot do, or whether physicalism can or cannot explain the mind, would require knowing facts that no one, not even top scientists in cognitive science, yet know. In contrast, the prospects for both are actually very good, and have been getting steadily better year by year, with no sign of abatement.

And it certainly does matter how the brain works: we can only fix it, and use it effectively, if we understand how it works. And we do understand quite a lot about how it works--way more than you seem to realize. Just see Palmer (above) for one tiny example: the field of vision science.

I'm sorry, how is this supposed to lead to consciousness?? Why does the author believe it will lead to any more than a p-zombie??

See the Chalmers website (above), in particular his papers and books on the subject. The short answer: the very concept of a p-zombie is incoherent. But if you really want an answer, I suggest not reading a brief lecture and reading instead the literature Vitzthum has in mind. I recommend Joseph LeDoux, Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are (2002) for starters, but many other works are important. See my forthcoming critique of Reppert for more.

The biggest complaint I have of this article is that the author is identifying materialism with scientific progress. It would be more plausible if I identified Berkeleyian subjective idealism with the progress of science.

Can you name a single genuine scientific discovery or confirmed scientific theory that was derived from or actually based on Berkeleyian subjective idealism? Personally, I can't think of a single example--despite over two thousand years of science!

In contrast, we physicalists can name thousands. Let's just ramble off a few of the Big Ones: the entire Standard Model of Particle Physics; the Periodic Table; the Electroweak Theory; modern atomic theory, and the role of atomic structure in physical dynamics (e.g. why microwave ovens work) and the role of statistical atomic interaction in fully explaining the laws of thermodynamics; the biology and neurophyics of color perception; and on and on.

So which theory has most defined scientific progress over the past centuries?

The answer is clear. And it isn't yours.

[Edited at author's request only to fix broken URL. -DM-]

[Interesting Ian]

First, please note that materialism is only one variety of naturalism.


Ummmm . . yes . . .where have I suggested otherwise??



Not all naturalists are materialists.



Yes I know. Inevitably I find this is something that materialists fail to understand, not myself.



Second, note that you are responding to a single lecture in transcript. If you want the full case, evidence and argument, please read Richard C. Vitzthum's book: Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition (1995).



No thanks. Materialism is unintelligible and I can more profitably spend my time thinking about ontological theories of reality that might actually be intelligible.



There are also two other important books on the subject that came out at the same time: Paul K. Moser and J. D. Trout, Contemporary Materialism: A Reader (1995), and Jeffrey Poland, Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundation (1994).



Goody.



But by far the best and most important defense to date is Andrew Melnyk, A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism (2003).



Ian
Unfortunately the stunning success of science has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with materialism. Science is more consonant with idealism.

Richard
Neither is true.

Science has this to do with materialism: nothing has so far ever been found to exist by science except physical things (namely space, time, and quanta of mass-energy).



This doesn't make sense. Why are you defining them as physical and why are you talking about space and time rather than normal everyday objects? Or does "quanta of mass-energy" suppose to amount to everyday objects?? :rolleyes: Your assertion conveys nothing to me unless you specify what you mean by describing them as a physical thing, and what it would mean to discover non-physical things. And why conflate space/time with "quanta of mass-energy"? What about if immaterialism were true (ie nothing material exists). Clearly "space, time, and quanta of mass-energy" would still exist, so what extra is being said by describing them as physical?? In other words I strongly suspect you are simply defining scientific entities (in as much as space and time can be described as entities) to be physical by definition. Obviously this achieves absolutely nothing whatsoever.



Certainly, there are things yet unexplained, but an argument from ignorance is fallacious.



I'll be sure to bear it in mind should I ever feel tempted to employ an argument from ignorance.


As far as what we definitely know, we only definitely know that physical things exist. And that despite over two hundred years of very extensive and competent searching. Therefore, probably, that is all there is.


Again, I have to say it is very clear that you are defining the external world as being physical by definition. No doubt you define phenomenal consciousness as physical as well. Doing this entails materialism is correct by definition, but unfortunately achieves absolutely nothing. Do you understand the notion of the material is an ontological issue?? It doesn't appear that you do.

{skip what I consider to be irrelevancies based on the foregoing confusion}



As for science being "more consonant with idealism," that is, I believe, an opinion based on an incorrect analysis of the actual facts. See, as just one example, Richard Carrier, Fundamental Flaws in Mark Steiner's Challenge to Naturalism in The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem (2003).



If you think it is an incorrect analysis then explain yourself here. I have no interest in either purchasing books or even getting them out of the library. Materialism is, in principle, incapable of explaining consciousness. At this juncture it might be a good idea to explain my problem with materialism. The following is the argument I have made over on the James Randi board.

{quote}
Let me address the reason why I think materialism is unintelligible. What we need to do is take a look at materialism to see if it is internally consistent. Now the particular question I would like to address is why should we suppose that other peoples’ bodies are "inhabited" by conscious minds (or why phenomenal consciousness is associated with brains). Your argument no doubt will be that materialism stipulates this to be so; it is an axiomatic premise of materialism. But this makes your definition of materialism an arbitrary one. A metaphysic which glosses over awkward facts. Allow me to explain.

It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

But what is the physical? It seems to me that it should be everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments. In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernible from the third person perspective exists. This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

Now there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. It cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments! Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Thus I may have toothache to take an arbitrary example. But you cannot observe that toothache, all you can observe is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least aspects of the same thing. But an objective examination of this toothache will necessarily leave out the subjective irreducibly sensation of pain. The actually sensation of pain does not figure into the physical facts about the pain according to our prior definition of the physical. Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour. The pain per se cannot play a part because pain per se is not part of the objective publicly accessible realm. Only the neural correlates of the pain can play any fruitful role in our theories.

In short then either a materialist has to concede his metaphysic is internally inconsistent, or he must arbitrarily include phenomenological consciousness within his world picture. But if he opts for the latter then the whole prima facie plausibility of his world view crumbles away. No longer can he say that for something to exist it must be in principle be directly observable or play a fruitful role in some theory about the world, because this then necessarily precludes phenomenological consciousness. He
has to expand the notion of the physical to even include things that cannot be directly or even indirectly detected, even in principle!

This is what materialism entails and is just one of many reasons why we should reject this metaphysic.
{/quote}

It is not the task of science to explain the experiencer (the self or consciousness) which experiences, nor the ontological character of the experiences themselves, but rather the patterns exhibited by the sub-branch of experiences represented by our sensory experiences. This is achieved by building mental representational models patterning and ordering these experiences (or qualia).



To which one should add that everything Steiner finds mysterious about the matrix mechanics of subatomic particles has a complete physicalist explanation in Superstring Theory, for example (the matrix representing movement within the multiple dimensions beyond the four that are fully extended), yet Steiner does not even consider this possibility, or its relevance to his argument.


Ummm . . I think you're very confused about what my actual position is. In particular you should be quite clear that scientific explanations of phenomena have absolutely nothing to do with materialism/physicalism. But apart from that I have no quarrel on the above point.







The original article
Obviously, modern reductive and eliminative materialists are allies in believing, as pre-20th century materialists did, that science has always confirmed and will most probably always continue to confirm the basic hypotheses of materialist philosophy: that is, first, that all reality is essentially a material reality and that therefore, second, no supernatural or immaterial reality can exist;



Ian
[materialism is] a completely unsubstantiated assertion. How can science confirm that there exists a wholly mysterious unknowable reality which moreover constitutes the totality of reality?? What complete and absolute nonsense. And why cannot a[n] immaterial reality exist? What do they actually mean by material reality and immaterial reality??

Richard
He wrote "probably" there are only (fundamentally) physical facts. Only if this is true, he says, would it follow (as a matter of deductive logic) that no (fundamentally) non-physical facts can exist. Therefore, he is not saying that an immaterial reality cannot exist. He is saying that probably it cannot exist. Reading comprehension is a vital skill that unfortunately American schools do a lousy job of teaching these days.



a) I do not live, nor have I ever lived in the states. I live in England.

b) I do not see how your comment relates to what I said. There again, basically nothing you have said so far relates to what I said. The original author states that science confirms materialism. I do not care if he means entails or merely renders it probable. Both are clearly false. Even if we had good reason to suppose that science implies (scientific) realism, this has absolutely nothing per se to do with materialism. One could be a subjective idealist (similar to Berkeleyianism) and still be a scientific realist.


Another example would be, for example, if Ganzfeld telepathy were scientifically confirmed and studied,


The evidence is highly suggestive. I do not know what you mean by confirmed.



Regarding what is meant by material vs. immaterial (or physical vs. nonphysical), read the books I cited above.



No, materialism is absurd, and life is short. You'll need to expalin what you mean, and what the author of the article means, by these 2 things yourself. I have better things to do with my time than read books I have no interest in.



They provide definitions and analysis. One common example: a physical object is one that is solely defined (at its most fundamental level) by purely geometrical or purely quantitative properties (or, of course, both), and subject to the fixed (i.e. mindless) behaviors of physical interaction between them.


Sounds an ok definition on initial reading.



And finally, I must reiterate: a refutation of physicalism would not always be a refutation of naturalism, since there are varieties of nonphysicalist naturalism.



Indeed, as I just mentioned on the Randi forums in the last few days, one could be a naturalist and an idealist as far as I am able to understand these things.





Ian
He's clearly talking about some abstract external world which no-one ever directly experiences, but which we build up and infer from our collective experiences, and which people refer to as a material reality. But we have absolutely no reason to suppose this abstract external world actually exists.

Richard
He is not talking about an "abstract" external world (I don't even know what that means),



A reality existing independently from minds. Sure he's not talking about that?



but a concrete external world, meaning one that exists, and exists in a certain state, regardless of what we perceive or think its state to be.



Looks like he was LOL




There are certainly a lot of reasons to believe this, top among them is the fact that it explains a hell of a lot more about our experiences than any other theory, and explains it more thoroughly and intelligibly, and as a result produces far more successful predictions of future experience. Indeed, the success of science seen over the last two hundred years would be either impossible or inexplicable unless the basic underlying thesis of a concrete external reality were true. I discuss this in more detail in my forthcoming critique of Rea.



{shrugs} I disagree. A mind-independent reality is a superfluous hypothesis which explains absolutely nothing. And besides, arguably external objects could be external to our minds, and yet be mental. Or God could convey to us directly all our sense experiences. There are any number of other explanations without invoking a wholly mysterious material reality. But this is a long and complex subject, and your post is long enough as it is!



Ian
Indeed, I don't know what it could possibly mean to claim otherwise. How can my experience of the external world be in error??? My experience, is my experience, is my experience. It is literally incoherent to say that my experience is in error. You could only say it is in error by hypothesizing this wholly unknowable abstract reality.



Richard
Are you perhaps confusing the difference between knowing you are having an experience and knowing that that experience corresponds to something that really is happening outside your mind and brain? I can't otherwise fathom how you could assert what you are here, for you are effectively denying the existence, indeed even the logical possibility, of veridical hallucination or even ordinary optical illusions! Surely that cannot be what you mean.



We can only tell something is a hallucination or optical illusion by other sense experiences, not by some reference to some wholly mysterious material reality.



For example, we know for a fact that the color red does not exist in the external world. Only vibrating particles called photons exist.



Oh don't be so utterly preposterous! :rolleyes: Dear me!

{shakes head in bewilderment)

You materialists are absolutely crazy! :eek:



Our brains literally invent what we call "color" as a way to represent and track different frequencies of photon vibration.


You are a seriously weird guy! I guess not more weird than anyone who believes in both a material world and takes the scientific story a tad too seriously ;)




Ian
And really none of this has anything to do with qualia anyway. There is no real abstract qualia which my personal qualia is supposed to represent, and therefore my particular raw experience at any particular time cannot be said to be in error. Indeed the author seems to fail to understand what is meant by qualia. Take my experience of redness. What could it conceivably mean to say that it is in error?? I have never read such unadulterated complete and utter nonsense in my life!!


Vitzthum is making a completely different argument than you think.


I am addressing the points he makes. If he really meant to say something else, then that is scarcely my fault, now is it? ;)



Read his examples and discussion and you will grasp the context correctly:



I have read the article concerned. If he is not stating what he means then I cannot help that.



he is talking about qualia being in error with regard to what those qualia represent, e.g. whether a quale of pain in our foot corresponds to an actual electrical signal from the nerves of our foot, or not.



I do not think a pain in my foot represents an actual electrical signal. A pain is a pain is a pain, and doesn't represent anything apart from itself. Now don't be so silly.


His argument is that if this is so, and yet a pain in our foot is still a supposedly "private" event that cannot be shared, then it cannot be argued that a purely private experience is inaccessible to scientific study. Ergo, qualia are subject to scientific study.


If what is so? They might be a correlated electrical signal when I experience pain, but this shows absolutely nothing whatsoever. Qualia is what constitutes the real world. Science deals in a world of unreality.



In other words, he is arguing against those who claim that qualia cannot be scientifically studied or explained because they are inimitably private.



Well of course they can't be! What sort of fool would think otherwise?? :eek: And you are incorrect in supposing he has argued this. Nothing he has said on this subject could remotely be construed as an argument.


I agree with him. Just because they are private does not mean they are inaccessible to study or to physicalist explanation.



You're wrong. And simply stating that qualia are susceptible to a physicalist explanation ain't gonna make them so.



Indeed, it is not even clear to me how it would ever be possible for a perceptual mechanism to exist and operate without it experiencing what we call "qualia."



"Perceptual mechanism"?? Ummm . .obviously it would have to be conscious. Any machine would not have qualia. A machine is just a physical thing operating according to physical laws. No suggestion of any consciousness whatsoever.


. . . and the sort of scientific study he has in mind is like those surveyed by Stephen Palmer in Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology (1999) which documents how we in fact know why we experience the particular color qualia we do, instead of others--



Do you have anything of any remote sense to say?? :rolleyes: Why we experience the particular colours we do is simply a brute fact about the world.



and the successful and confirmed explanation turns out to be entirely physicalist



Nope, I'm afraid not. Physicalism/materialism explains absolutely nothing whatsoever. In you think otherwise, then provide arguments rather than refer to idiotic authorities.


(an example of my earlier point that science so far has done nothing but confirm the covering hypothesis of physicalism, often in astonishing ways).



It has done absolutely nothing as I have explained. Give any one example where it might be said that science remotely suggests physicalism might be correct. If you refuse to do so then you are simply wasting my time.





It doesn't matter how the brain works. It cannot achieve the miraculous and explain consciousness.

Richard
How do you know? To know what the brain can or cannot do, or whether physicalism can or cannot explain the mind, would require knowing facts that no one, not even top scientists in cognitive science, yet know.

It cannot scientifically explain consciousness because consciousness can only be experienced from the first person perspective. And consider the following scenario which I have written in the Randi forum.

"Imagine 2 people from the 17th century travelling to the 21st century and encountering a TV set showing some movie or other. After being suitably amazed, and after tinkering around with its internal components, you can imagine one of them claiming that not just the picture, but the storyline of the movie must be wholly generated by these internal components since tinkering with them affects the picture. He might claim there is overwhelming evidence that this must be so. The other person however will rightly point out that although he grants that the picture itself is generated by these internal components, it cannot be the case that the actual contents of the movie, the actual storyline with its depiction of various emotions etc can be generated by just these internal components. This is because there is nothing about the physical processes within the TV set which could conceivably lead to the generation of a storyline".




And it certainly does matter how the brain works: we can only fix it, and use it effectively, if we understand how it works.



{shrugs} So what? What does this prove? It sure don't prove materialism or epiphenomenalism. The brain is essentially a machine, and therefore in principle can be fixed. I do not deny this. It certainly doesn't mean the brain generates consciousness, or that brain processes are equivalent to consciousness, or whatever.


And we do understand quite a lot about how it works--way more than you seem to realize. Just see Palmer (above) for one tiny example: the field of vision science.


How would you know what I realise?? Doesn't make any different if we totally understand it. No miracle is going to happen whereby we conclude that it somehow mysteriously necessitates consciousness.





I'm sorry, how is this supposed to lead to consciousness?? Why does the author believe it will lead to any more than a p-zombie??


See the Chalmers website (above), in particular his papers and books on the subject. The short answer: the very concept of a p-zombie is incoherent.


Then let's see your reasoning which logically demonstrates this.

Ummm . . yeah . .I thought not. You can't. WOW, I am surprised! :rolleyes:



But if you really want an answer, I suggest not reading a brief lecture and reading instead the literature Vitzthum has in mind. I recommend Joseph LeDoux, Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are (2002) for starters, but many other works are important. See my forthcoming critique of Reppert for more.



As I say, I'm really not interested in reading about a clearly unintelligible metaphysic.





Ian
The biggest complaint I have of this article is that the author is identifying materialism with scientific progress. It would be more plausible if I identified Berkeleyian subjective idealism with the progress of science.


Richard
Can you name a single genuine scientific discovery or confirmed scientific theory that was derived from or actually based on Berkeleyian subjective idealism?


All scientific discoveries are completely compatible with subjective idealism. No scientific discovery remotely contradicts it. Moreover it sits more easily with QM where we do not have to address questions like what is really happening outside our perceptions.




Personally, I can't think of a single example--despite over two thousand years of science!



Me thinks you don't understand what subjective idealism entails! LOL Tell me about any discovery in physics incompatible with subjective idealism. Go on, I challenge you. You're not going to be able to do it matey.



In contrast, we physicalists can name thousands.



Well, scientific discoveries are largely compatible with materialism. Almost as much as idealism. So what? Doesn't help with its intelligibility now does it?? You seem to be obsessed with science and quite unable to understand that science has very little to do with the discussion between materialism and the competing alternatives.



Let's just ramble off a few of the Big Ones: the entire Standard Model of Particle Physics; the Periodic Table; the Electroweak Theory; modern atomic theory, and the role of atomic structure in physical dynamics (e.g. why microwave ovens work) and the role of statistical atomic interaction in fully explaining the laws of thermodynamics; the biology and neurophyics of color perception; and on and on.



Yup, and so is subjective idealism. So what?? It is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether materialism is correct or not.



So which theory has most defined scientific progress over the past centuries?

The answer is clear. And it isn't yours.



It certainly isn't yours matey, and mine is more consonant.

[Richard Carrier]

You declare that you have no desire to actually read any of the arguments and evidence I directed you to, then declare that I don't have any arguments or evidence. What an absurdly self-fulfilling world you have created for yourself!

All your arguments are either misinformed or mischaracterize physicalism, and all are answered in the sources I directed you to. If you say you have no desire to read them, then you can't have any desire to read anything I write either, so why should I bother? Indeed, why do you bother? If you have no desire to read anything we say, why do you expect us to read what you say? Quite frankly, I shall follow the Golden Rule. So consider yourself ignored. It is clearly how you want or deserve to be treated--being that it is how you treat us.

P.S. If you are willing to read anything, please let it be a dictionary. To wit:


You could only say it is in error by hypothesizing this wholly unknowable abstract reality.

He is not talking about an "abstract" external world (I don't even know what that means), but a concrete external world, meaning one that exists, and exists in a certain state, regardless of what we perceive or think its state to be.

A reality existing independently from minds. Sure he's not talking about that?

England's schools system apparently sucks, too.

ABSTRACT: 1. "thought that is apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances; 2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance"

Abstraction is only a product of a mind, so clearly an abstract world cannot be a reality existing independently from a mind. Physicalists don't believe in any other kind of abstract object beyond the Aristotelian notion of a repeated pattern of arrangement of parts that is recognized by a brain. Thus, it is a contradiction in terms to refer to the concrete world outside a mind as an abstract world. It's certainly unintelligible in the context of physicalism. In physicalism, only a concrete world exists, the exact opposite of an abstract world. Abstractions are derived by perception and from concrete instances. Read Aristotle for a complete discussion. But don't forget to read that dictionary first!

[Interesting Ian]

You declare that you have no desire to actually read any of the arguments and evidence I directed you to, then declare that I don't have any arguments or evidence. What an absurdly self-fulfilling world you have created for yourself!



I repeat. If you have arguments, then present them. I have no interest in chasing after sources that you reference. If you agree that you're unable to answer them, then ok.



All your arguments are either misinformed or mischaracterize physicalism, and all are answered in the sources I directed you to.



You sir are an idiot. I've had it up to here with your breathtaking stupidity. If there's anything wrong with my arguments then address them. Failure on your part to do so speaks volumes.



If you say you have no desire to read them, then you can't have any desire to read anything I write either, so why should I bother? Indeed, why do you bother? If you have no desire to read anything we say, why do you expect us to read what you say? Quite frankly, I shall follow the Golden Rule. So consider yourself ignored. It is clearly how you want or deserve to be treated--being that it is how you treat us.



Express your arguments in here, otherwise I'm not interested. Copy the relevant portions if you wish. Just don't expect me to chase after books and articles you reference. Your approach is symptomatic of a person who is unable to defend his position.



P.S. If you are willing to read anything, please let it be a dictionary. To wit:


England's schools system apparently sucks, too.



Yeah, so fucking bollocks??? Makes no odds to me matey.



ABSTRACT: 1. "thought that is apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances; 2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance"



Another idiot obsessed by dictionary definitions :rolleyes:


It's certainly unintelligible in the context of physicalism. In physicalism, only a concrete world exists, the exact opposite of an abstract world.

A reality forevermore removed from what we can possibly know of it. Hmmm . . yeah. :rolleyes:

Piss off idiot.

[Interesting Ian]

Well??

[-DM-]

Well??Have you read the Feedback FAQ (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/announcement.php?s=&forumid=10)?

Had you read the FAQ through, and had you understood what you read, you wouldn't likely ask the question. But perhaps you don't chase after" FAQs any more than you do suggested books and/or articles. I am not going to spoon feed it to you, but the answer is given in the FAQ as to why it is that there is a delay between submission and posting of feedback--or why it is that a feedback submission might not be posted at all (which will likely be the case with your next submission).

-DM-

[Edited to fix typo. -DM-]

[Interesting Ian]

Have you read the Feedback FAQ (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/announcement.php?s=&forumid=10)?

Had you read the FAQ through, and had you understood what you read, you wouldn't likely ask the question. But perhaps you don't chase after" FAQs any more than you do suggested books and/oror articles. I am not going to spoon feed it to you, but the answer is given in the FAQ as to why it is that there is a delay between submission and posting of feedback--or why it is that a feedback submission might not be posted at all (which will likely be the case with your next submission).

-DM-

Too damn fucking right I havn't read the daft as arseholes FAQ. I have better things to do with my life. Please answer my question. Why the fuck is my answer not been posted??? Do you intend to answer my question or not???

[Interesting Ian]

Have you read the Feedback FAQ (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/announcement.php?s=&forumid=10)?

Had you read the FAQ through, and had you understood what you read, you wouldn't likely ask the question.
-DM-

Yes I've just read it. No I do not understand why my post didn't initially appear. Please be more specific and quote the relevant portion.

[Interesting Ian]

Richard,

Just a clarification of my previous post. I would use appropriate language to convey my feelings about what I think of you, but apparently the idiots in charge of this forum won't allow it.

You declare that you have no desire to actually read any of the arguments and evidence I directed you to, then declare that I don't have any arguments or evidence. What an absurdly self-fulfilling world you have created for yourself!



If you have arguments then you are more than welcome to quote the appropriate parts out of the relevant sources that you mentioned. My experience on the Randi board teaches me that inevitably people who simply content themselves in making various references simply are unable to defend their position. Maybe you are an exception. In which case prove me wrong. Failure to do so will make me feel disposed to conclude that you are unable to defend your position. Not that you have a clue as to what my points were anyway. You clearly have no understanding of what is meant by my subjective idealism, and you have defined materialism in such a manner #that it becomes correct by definition. I'm not impressed. But there again, I never am with retard materialists.





It's certainly unintelligible in the context of physicalism. In physicalism, only a concrete world exists, the exact opposite of an abstract world.

Certainly materialism holds that only a concrete world exists. But such a concrete world is not to be equated with our sensory perceptions. Rather it is hypothesised to account for them. But the dictionary definition that you provided is misleading. It is clearly referring to a concrete reality as something we definitely know about.

I know what abstract means. You think I don't because you fail to understand what your own materialism entails.

In other words, like seemingly all other materialists, you are seriously intellectually deficient (not allowed to use my normal language :mad: )

[-DM-]

1) There is only one "idiot" who runs this particular forum, as you probably should have been able to discern for yourself.

2) The Feedback FAQ clearly states why it is that there is a delay between submission and posting of feedback. If you cannot figure it out by reading the FAQ, then that probably explains why it is that you have difficulty understanding some of Richard's response.

4) Your most recent "feedback" is the last of your comments on this particular subject that I intend to post. If you plan to submit feedback on other subjects in the future--and expect to have your feedback posted--then you will need to conform to the registration agreement that you agreed to when you became a registered user of the Internet Infidels Discussion Forum.

-DM-

[Interesting Ian]

1) There is only one "idiot" who runs this particular forum, as you probably should have been able to discern for yourself.

2) The Feedback FAQ clearly states why it is that there is a delay between submission and posting of feedback. If you cannot figure it out by reading the FAQ, then that probably explains why it is that you have difficulty understanding some of Richard's response.

4) Your most recent "feedback" is the last of your comments on this particular subject that I intend to post. If you plan to submit feedback on other subjects in the future--and expect to have your feedback posted--then you will need to conform to the registration agreement that you agreed to when you became a registered user of the Internet Infidels Discussion Forum.

-DM-

Ah! So it was simply delayed. I was getting the impression that you were refusing outright for my message to be posted. I actually read about the delay originally.

My error. Profound apologies. :o

[Richard Carrier]

A kind patron in email expressed confusion over something I said above, and I think I communicated myself poorly. I may also have misunderstood one of Ian's original points, and need to correct my response accordingly.

Some readers thought Ian meant by p-zombie a "philosophical zombie" whereas I took him to mean a "percep-zombie," a subdivision of the latter--since he was responding to issues of perception, not free will or computational behaviorism. But maybe I mistook Ian.

Taken in context, my remarks related only to functional perception. My paragraph begins (emphasis added): "it is not even clear to me how it would ever be possible for a perceptual mechanism to exist and operate without it experiencing what we call 'qualia'." -- and then my paragraph continues predicating every following statement on the assumption that a perceptual mechanism is granted to exist. And I meant this in the scientific sense, which I should have clarified. Sensation can exist without perception, since perception is the organization of sensation into a construct from which sensory data can be analyzed--thus perception generally requires more advanced brain patterns than are typically found in, say, a worm.

Somehow the URL for Chalmers' site became stripped from the Forum link I gave at the same time. The URL is: http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/zombies.html

There Chalmers calls what I thought Ian referred to as "p-zombies" functional zombies, and states: "Others (like me) deny that functional zombies could actually exist, so that AI is not threatened." See his paper (at site above) "Absent qualia, fading qualia, dancing qualia," where he presents "thought-experiments about functional isomorphs, arguing that in the actual world such isomorphs will be conscious."

He also says there: "Specifically, I defend a principle of organizational invariance, holding that experience is invariant across systems with the same fine-grained functional organization. More precisely, the principle states that given any system that has conscious experiences, then any system that has the same functional organization at a fine enough grain will have qualitatively identical conscious experiences." In specific, his conclusion is: "if one system with fine-grained functional organization F has a certain sort of conscious experiences, then any system with organization F has those experiences."

You will notice that is also the point I stated, hence why I referenced Chalmers. The sentence that references him reads: "to experience a quale literally is to experience any perceptual distinction at all. They are physically identical, and therefore logically inseparable." What was I saying are identical? "experiencing a quale" and "experiencing a perceptual distinction" (not to be confused with a mere sensual distinction). I did not say that a physical brain operation and a quale-percept were logically identical (I do believe they are physically identical, but that is a matter for science to resolve). However, I see now that Ian may have been arguing against that very point, so that my remarks don't address what he actually meant.

Chalmers draws his own conclusion here from two arguments, one of which follows from the sub-conclusion that "It is therefore extremely implausible that absent qualia and inverted qualia are possible." That, again, was the point I meant to make. However, Chalmers does believe certain kinds of zombies are coherent and thus at least logically possible, and my words appear to give the opposite impression, for which I apologize.

The zombies that Chalmers regards as logically possible are "zombies that are physically and behaviorally identical to a conscious human, but lack any conscious experience." That is not the same thing as I thought Ian was referring to, since the point of such zombies is that they reproduce human behavior, not human perception, and the paragraph Ian was referring to was supposed to be a functional explanation of perception, not behavior. However, I see now it did appeal to behavior as the explanation, so I may have misunderstood Ian's point--and Vitzhum's lecture does not adequately address Ian's concern (though reading the materials at the website of Chalmers will, as I suggested, alleviate the problem).

The remaining question of course is whether human behavior can be exactly replicated without perception, and without adding or changing any single piece of the physical human mechanism. The latter possibility, as I claimed, Chalmers does argue is logically impossible. See his paper (at same site) "Self-Ascription Without Qualia: A Case-Study," where Chalmers says that philosophical zombies in the broad sense are only logically possible because there is "no entailment relation from the non-functional implementational details to qualia," which means that when functional details are included, which is always entailed by when precise physical details are included (to a sufficiently "fine" scale as Chalmers says in his first paper), the logical possibility of such zombies is removed.

However, science has not achieved the functional fine-grained description of our relevant perceptual mechanisms that is required to resolve whether we are in fact zombies "plus" supernatural qualia, and I think Ian's point was that Vitzhum's lecture does not answer this question. Which, of course, it could not, since science has not gotten there yet to resolve it. Vizthum's argument was intended to explain why a physicalist account of qualia is logically coherent and, thought not yet scientifically proved, is the most probable explanation given where the evidence we do have so far points. Ian can certainly express simple skepticism and declare "not proven!" and thus hold out for the possibility that physicalism will fail. I don't begrudge him that. But only time will tell.

[Calvin Ostrum]

Some readers thought Ian meant by p-zombie a "philosophical zombie" whereas I took him to mean a "percep-zombie," a subdivision of the latter
Where is this phrase "percep-zombie" used? I have never heard it in the literature on physicalism before, and there is not a single match for it or
"percept zombie" or "perceptual zombie" anywhere in Google or Google Groups.
There Chalmers calls what I thought Ian referred to as "p-zombies" functional zombies, and states: "Others (like me) deny that functional zombies could actually exist, so that AI is not threatened."

In specific, his conclusion is: "if one system with fine-grained functional organization F has a certain sort of conscious experiences, then any system with organization F has those experiences." You will notice that is also the point I stated, hence why I referenced Chalmers.
I don't know what point you were making, but it seems quite incompatible with what Chalmers is saying. Chalmers believes that both functional and regular zombies are logically possible, and that therefore, physicalism is false.

In the references you give above, Chalmers is not talking about the logical impossibility of zombies, but rather the nomological impossibility of zombies. The mere nomological impossibility of zombies says nothing about the truth or falseness of physicalism.

Chalmers draws his own conclusion here from two arguments, one of which follows from the sub-conclusion that "It is therefore extremely implausible that absent qualia and inverted qualia are possible." That, again, was the point I meant to make.

Are you sure this is the point you meant to make? I think you are confusing two kinds of possibility here, nomological possibility and logical possibility. It seems that you think zombies (both full zombies and mere functional zombies) are logically impossible, whereas Chalmers thinks they are (both) logically possible.
However, Chalmers does believe certain kinds of zombies are coherent and thus at least logically possible, and my words appear to give the opposite impression, for which I apologize. The zombies that Chalmers regards as logically possible are "zombies that are physically and behaviorally identical to a conscious human, but lack any conscious experience." That is not the same thing as I thought Ian was referring to, since the point of such zombies is that they reproduce human behavior, not human perception, and the paragraph Ian was referring to was supposed to be a functional explanation of perception, not behavior.
If by "perception" you refer to the phenomenological component of what is popularly and vaguely called perception, then of course, by definition, a zombie that "reproduced" human perception would trivially not be possible, since it would have perception and therefore phenomenology, by definition. However, if by "perception" you refer to the (what Chalmers calls the) psychological, or functional, component of what is popularly and vaguely called perception, then perception for Chalmers is part of "human behavior", and when he talks about zombies, he is including this as part of the zombies physical and behavioral properties. For Chalmers, your zombie twin is physically, behaviorally, psychologically, and functionally identical to you. It merely lacks phenomenal experience.

It is important to distinguish mere terminology here from the actual stuff being referred to. I agree with Chalmers that it is "perhaps most natural" (CM, p18) to use "perception" purely as a psychological term, and from hereon do so (just as he uses "consciousness" (without qualification) essentially exclusively as a phenomenological term).
The remaining question of course is whether human behavior can be exactly replicated without perception, and without adding or changing any single piece of the physical human mechanism. The latter possibility, as I claimed, Chalmers does argue is logically impossible.
Chalmers would only argue this in the case where "perception" referred exclusively to the psychological component of perception, in which case it is trivially true, since for Chalmers this sort of perception is part of what he considers "behavior". However, a zombie could completely duplicate human behavior, including the perceptual aspect of it. A zombie can perceive things. The only thing that distinguishes a zombie from a non-zombie is that a zombie has no phenomenological experience.

And the key point is that Chalmers argues that duplicating all human behavior, then, without consciousness, is logically possible, and hence, that physicalism is false.
See his paper (at same site) "Self-Ascription Without Qualia: A Case-Study," where Chalmers says that philosophical zombies in the broad sense are only logically possible because there is "no entailment relation from the non-functional implementational details to qualia," which means that when functional details are included, which is always entailed by when precise physical details are included (to a sufficiently "fine" scale as Chalmers says in his first paper), the logical possibility of such zombies is removed.
No. For Chalmers, no matter how many functional and/or physical details you consider about a thing, none of them together logically entail anything about whether that thing has any qualia. So, zombies are logically possible, simpliciter, and that is why physicalism is false.

[Richard Carrier]

I know Chalmers is an epiphenomenalist. Again, I did not cite him as defending physicalism, only as presenting the case that functional zombies are impossible. And, as I already explained, I misunderstood Ian's point, including his terminology.

As for the only remaining issue:

Maybe I misunderstood Chalmers. What Chalmers actually argues in the two papers I cited certainly seems to me to lead to a conclusion of incoherence for functional zombies, even if that is not what he intended. Perhaps he only meant that they are impossible as an empirical fact or a consequence of physical law (that is what "nomologically impossible" means), though he presents no scientific evidence of that, which for me makes no sense of his papers' arguments.

The only way to make a claim of nomological necessity is to prove it empirically. For example, you can only claim it is nomologically impossible to boil water at 2 degrees F at 1 atmosphere of pressure by presenting empirical evidence establishing when and why water boils. Chalmers only ever presents conceptual evidence. When you make an argument based solely on conceptual evidence, your conclusion can only be conceptual (as a matter of logical necessity--when arguing "A, then B," B only inherits the actual force of A, no more, and no other). Thus, as I read them, either Chalmers' papers prove an f-zombie conceptually impossible, or they are fallacious and fail to produce any valid conclusion at all. That at least is why I took them as I did.

[Calvin Ostrum]

I misunderstood Ian's point, including his terminology.
Yes, you took "p-zombie" as equivalent to "percep-zombie", a term that, as far as I can tell, only you have ever used. You didn't answer my question as to where this term occurs in the literature of philosophy of mind. Also, perhaps you could clarify, assuming it is just your own term, (which you strangely assumed someone else was also using?) what you mean by it and why it is of any importance: do you mean perceptual in the psychological sense, or perceptual in the phenomenological sense? If you mean the former, how could you imagine that anyone would ever be interested in such things, since surely you agree that there is no sensible way there could be anything like a duplicate of you in any sense which is not also a "percep-zombie", since the psychological aspect of perception is deeply mixed in with all of your other properties, and attempting to remove it alone would cause everything to fall apart. And if you mean the latter, surely you see that "percep-zombies" are not any different from plain ordinary zombies, the kind that Chalmers has made famous (and the kind which he considers to be possible, resulting in the falseness of physicalism)? So what is the point of these "percep-zombies"?

What Chalmers actually argues in the two papers I cited certainly seems to me to lead to a conclusion of incoherence for functional zombies, even if that is not what he intended.
That is quite remarkable: could you give some idea what you think that argument actually is?

Perhaps he only meant that they are impossible as an empirical fact or a consequence of physical law (that is what "nomologically impossible" means), though he presents no scientific evidence of that, which for me makes no sense of his papers' arguments.
I don't see why you have to say "scientific" here. I hope that isn't a necessary qualification since I really don't know how the evidence for this could be scientific in any normal sense, yet it seems to be quite important, because it has strong implications for the other minds problem. Forgetting functional zombies and just considering plain old other humans walking around, how do I know ("scientifically" or otherwise) that they are not zombies? It's pretty important if they are, since I assume zombies have no moral claims on me. People fond of asking for "scientific" evidence often are considered with the "simplest theory" that accounts for our observations, and I suppose a theory that says the neural correlates of my own consciousness are the same as those for others could be argued to be the simplest theory going. But that could be debated, and simplicity is not a perfect criterion for truth either.

(I think my own "solution" here is that since I can see no strong evidence against the idea that others are conscious, and since I would strongly prefer it if they were (because it would be so incredibly creepy if I was surrounded by zombies), I therefore just go along with the pre-critical views that I seem to have come pre-equipped with).

The only way to make a claim of nomological necessity is to prove it empirically.
Surely I can make a claim without proving it? Or even without offering evidence? It seems that I only need to have some idea of what it is for that claim to be true. That may be connected to possible evidence, but the nature of the connection is not always so clear ahead of time. This is especially true of very deep, abstract, and central aspects of our basic conceptual scheme.

When you make an argument based solely on conceptual evidence, your conclusion can only be conceptual (as a matter of logical necessity--when arguing "A, then B," B only inherits the actual force of A, no more, and no other).
Well, I accept that there is some kind of distinction between the analytic and the synthetic (also the a priori and the empirical) but I am not really very clear on what it is and how these various classes of proposition interact. These are very difficult problems in philosophy which have not yet been solved. (Some of Chalmers's current work is in this area, but it is very technical and not pleasant reading)

(I suppose replies to this, if any, would be best placed in a new thread in the philosophy area...)

[Richard Carrier]

Yes, you took "p-zombie" as equivalent to "percep-zombie", a term that, as far as I can tell, only you have ever used. You didn't answer my question as to where this term occurs in the literature of philosophy of mind.

I have only heard it in conversation, and can't recall exactly who or where. Obviously it must have been someone's contrivance outside the literature. I can only report that I wasn't the culprit.



Also, perhaps you could clarify, assuming it is just your own term, (which you strangely assumed someone else was also using?) what you mean by it and why it is of any importance: do you mean perceptual in the psychological sense, or perceptual in the phenomenological sense?

I meant what Chalmers means by the difference between a functional zombie and other p-zombies. See below for more about what I mean by that.



If you mean the former, how could you imagine that anyone would ever be interested in such things, since surely you agree that there is no sensible way there could be anything like a duplicate of you in any sense which is not also a "percep-zombie", since the psychological aspect of perception is deeply mixed in with all of your other properties, and attempting to remove it alone would cause everything to fall apart. And if you mean the latter, surely you see that "percep-zombies" are not any different from plain ordinary zombies, the kind that Chalmers has made famous (and the kind which he considers to be possible, resulting in the falseness of physicalism)? So what is the point of these "percep-zombies"?

A percep-zombie would be, for example, an actual human being who not only has blindsight, but the equivalent condition for all other sensory content (including emotional and rational sensory content, like the feeling of presentness, and so on). I am quite certain such a person would never be able to behave like you or me. I personally don't even see how that would even be logically possible--and I thought (perhaps mistakenly) that Chalmers agreed (I think his paper on dancing qualia can be used to arrive at such a conclusion, even if that is not what he intended). For example, a blindsighted patient could not safely cross a busy street. I could. And yet qualia is the only difference between us. And it is precisely that difference that makes me able to safely cross a busy street. That was my original point here (that present human behavior does require the evolution of qualia sensation--which does not prove physicalism true, it only removes that one objection against it).

Having read Chalmers' second paper, where he only allows a p-zombie to be possible if we exclude functional considerations, I can see how a p-zombie would be logically possible, but would require a radically different physical construction than humans actually have. For example, the architecture needed to get a blindsighted patient safely across a busy street without actually "seeing" anything in the same sense that I do, would require a very different sort of computer than we actually have in our brains (as is demonstrated by studies of how brains err, which indicates how they function computationally--indeed, blindsighted patients prove the point already, since they are no different than us except they are missing the part of the brain responsible for certain qualia-generation, which means there is no part of the brain capable of performing the same functions without the relevant qualia-generation, so even if such a process logically exists, we know it physically does not exist in us).

A better example, though is when it comes to reporting qualia and mental states--first, a very different mechanism would have to be involved that would make it possible for a p-zombie's brain to understand what was being asked and compute a response, without actually having the data necessary to report. So a p-zombie would have a physically different brain than we do (it would thus be functionally different, Chalmers' point in "Dancing Qualia"). But more importantly, a p-zombie could only do this by lying. Lying is a different behavior than telling the truth. Therefore, a p-zombie can never, even in principle, duplicate actual human behavior. Unless it is telling what it believes to be the truth. But if a p-zombie believes it is seeing a red quale, how could that ever be any different than actually seeing a red quale? That is, how do you know you are not such a p-zombie, erroneously believing you are seeing qualia, when in fact you are not? I suspect that is actually what is going on--we are all p-zombies in that sense. But that is not a theory a physicalist need adopt.



Forgetting functional zombies and just considering plain old other humans walking around, how do I know ("scientifically" or otherwise) that they are not zombies?

How do you know you are not one yourself?

Even if you think it is logically impossible that you are a p-zombie, I can then propose a test for finding p-zombies: we can identify when someone is lying, because to do so they must use a region of their brain that is not needed to report the truth. Thus, with an active MRI or PET scan we can distinguish all liars from truth-tellers (at least on questions that do not require use of the lying region to tell the truth--some questions involving reason, for example, use that center even when answering true, but we will exclude those kinds of questions).

One such question (since it only involves a simple report) would be "Are you seeing the quale red, with all its brightness and color and everything that indicates a quale is present rather than not." A p-zombie must be able to understand the question in order to behave like a non-zombie when answering it, so we can assume this for the example--otherwise, we can easily spot a p-zombie by seeing how confounded it gets by our question. But to answer the same as a non-zombie, a p-zombie must lie--so it must use the lying region of its brain. And we will detect that. After all, if the p-zombie never answers the same as a non-zombie, then we can spot p-zombies by that fact alone. So they can only fool us by lying. But we will catch them when they lie, with our brain scanning technology.

The only way a p-zombie could escape detection by this means is if its brain was wired differently, such that it could lie without using what we think is the lying center of the brain. But if a p-zombie were built that way, that entails that its brain is wired differently than ours, and such a physical difference would be detectable (once we have the brain scan resolution to map synaptic connections, for example).

Indeed, it is worse than that. For a p-zombie to fool us, it must also be able to lie in such a way that we can detect the lie in the above brain scan--otherwise, we could spot p-zombies as soon as we find people that can never lie, even when asked to. In fact, we can use the liars paradox to catch them: ask them to tell us they are lying--if they can never admit to lying, we've got them; but if they admit to lying, they must have lied, at least then or now, and yet if the lying center of the brain does not flash, we've got them again. So a p-zombie must be very strangely built: it must not only be built to make its brain look like it is lying when it is lying, it must also be built to make its brain look like it is not lying when it is lying on certain specific occasions--like when a p-zombie is asked a question that would expose it as a p-zombie.

Now how on earth could any brain be designed that way? Evolution could never produce it (there would be no selectable advantage to such an incredible increase in complexity). The zombie must actually be able to know when it is being asked such a highly-abstract question, and then be able to reorganize its brain activity so as to avoid using the lying center of its brain (and do so infallibly!). That entails a very complex addition to the current human brain. Even if we imagine such a thing (I'll grant it is logically possible, albeit physically improbable), it follows necessarily that its brain will be physically different than ours in theoretically detectable ways. For example, it will have brain centers devoted to making the decision as to whether it was being asked a p-zombie-exposing question or not. We do not have such centers. Thus, brain scans will show p-zombies using brain centers that no one else does. And with adequate resolution, we will one day be able to identify the synaptic networks in its brain that code all the pattern-matching algorithms for identifying such questions from other questions--and we will be able to confirm that you and I do not have any such networks. Thus, p-zombies will eventually be caught. Ultimately, there is no theoretical way they can escape detection, given adequate technology.

Even conceptually, such a zombie also must be engaging in different behavior than us--since it is lying when we tell the truth, and making decisions about what sort of questions it is being asked and adjusting its use of brain resources in accord with that decision, all in a way normal humans would never do. This is why I believe that a p-zombie is logically impossible, unless you limit p-zombie to "apparent behavior" only and not all actual behavior (which is what I believe Chalmers does, as for example in his second paper, but I could be wrong).



It's pretty important if they are, since I assume zombies have no moral claims on me. People fond of asking for "scientific" evidence often are considered with the "simplest theory" that accounts for our observations, and I suppose a theory that says the neural correlates of my own consciousness are the same as those for others could be argued to be the simplest theory going. But that could be debated, and simplicity is not a perfect criterion for truth either.

I agree.

Indeed, I don't think mind-brain physicalism is "simple" in any sense except Occam's: it explains more phenomena with fewer ad hoc assumptions. The only theory that comes close to it is naturalist epiphenomenalism, which only has the added failing of a complete lack of any mechanism for epiphenomena to exist at all, much less be one way rather than another, so it is more ad hoc than physicalism--even if only slightly. I would be comfortable with it if someone could actually explain it in those respects. This of course is why some then retreat into supernaturalist epiphenomenalism, but that involves adding even more ad hoc hypotheses, and so is more "complex" in Occam's sense, even if it is "simpler" in the sense of involving fewer structures, etc. It also doesn't work much better as an explanation--for example, if in fact they are purely epiphenomenal, what purpose do qualia serve even for a deity? And why did the deity have or choose those qualia instead of others? And what are qualia, ontologically speaking? Saying God made qualia or God has qualia, for example, doesn't answer that question. And so on.



(I think my own "solution" here is that since I can see no strong evidence against the idea that others are conscious, and since I would strongly prefer it if they were (because it would be so incredibly creepy if I was surrounded by zombies), I therefore just go along with the pre-critical views that I seem to have come pre-equipped with).

I agree with this kind of reasoning, too, although it is unclear what would be creepy about a true p-zombie: if all it's behavior was truly the same as ours (internally and externally), in what sense would it not be a person? After all, we don't hunt down blindsighted people with torches and pitchforks, do we?

I also find p-zombies physically improbable (for the reasons explained above) and essentially unintelligible. The latter point holds only for what I meant by "percep-zombies," not zombies who only appear externally to be the same--the latter is logically possible, but would have to be functionally different from us, and thus physically different, and those differences would always be detectable, at least in theory--detected behaviorally (as with the brain scan lying test) and physically (as with the synaptic connection mapping test). Otherwise, to have a p-zombie who behaves exactly like us, even internally (it has beliefs, and tells what it believes to be the truth when it claims to see qualia) is, as far as I can see, logically impossible.

[Calvin Ostrum]

All I wanted to do originally was to correct Richard's confusions on this subject, but he doesn't seem to be interested in that himself. He seems simply to want to argue for what he considers to be the righteous positions (physicalism and "metaphysical naturalism") at whatever cost. I will make a few more comments trying to clarify the issues, but after that I'll just let him go back to fighting the good fight.

I have only heard it in conversation, and can't recall exactly who or where. Obviously it must have been someone's contrivance outside the literature. I can only report that I wasn't the culprit.
What I was looking for was some kind of explanation of how, when Ian referred to a concept that is very well known in the literature on this issue, you assumed he was instead using a totally obscure term that apparently has never been used, and on the basis of this tried to dismiss his views by a reference to authority, when all along this authority actually used the term as Ian was using it, and furthermore, essentially agreed with Ian and not with you, and furthermore still, never used any concept such as the concept you intended to refer to with this term.

This is particularly strange given that you said to Ian, after making this reference to authority, that "All your arguments are either misinformed or mischaracterize physicalism, and all are answered in the sources I directed you to." You also expressed your dismay that he did not want to read these sources, but you yourself either haven't read them, or at best, have misread them rather egregiously, and certainly have "mischaracterized" them.

A percep-zombie would be, for example, an actual human being who not only has blindsight, but the equivalent condition for all other sensory content (including emotional and rational sensory content, like the feeling of presentness, and so on). I am quite certain such a person would never be able to behave like you or me. I personally don't even see how that would even be logically possible--and I thought (perhaps mistakenly) that Chalmers agreed (I think his paper on dancing qualia can be used to arrive at such a conclusion, even if that is not what he intended). For example, a blindsighted patient could not safely cross a busy street. I could. And yet qualia is the only difference between us. And it is precisely that difference that makes me able to safely cross a busy street.
Qualia would not be the only difference between you. Clearly you would differ functionally as well, and thus physically. You apparently simply do not understand what a zombie is, what qualia are, or the distinction between psychological and phenomenological properties. You could deny that zombies are logically possible, you could deny that qualia facts are not analytically entailed by non-qualia facts, you could deny that there even is a distinction between psychological and phenomenological properties, or even reject the ultimate coherence of some of these considerations, but first you have to have an understanding of what you are arguing against, not a misunderstanding or lack of understanding.

That was my original point here (that present human behavior does require the evolution of qualia sensation
No, it does not. All that is required is the presence of the appropriate functional structure (also, whether it arose by evolution is irrelevant). Moreover, while evolution perhaps can account for the arising of the appropriate functional structure, it cannot account (according to Chalmers, and I agree) for the existence of qualia. You can read Chalmers on this also, he has an explicit section on it in his book, p120, "Evolutionary Explanation".

Having read Chalmers' second paper, where he only allows a p-zombie to be possible if we exclude functional considerations, I can see how a p-zombie would be logically possible, but would require a radically different physical construction than humans actually have.
No, this is just not true. Chalmers most certainly does not "exclude functional considerations" when talking about zombies. Since a zombie is an exact physical duplicate of a person, it also shares all the same functional characteristics of that person (see page 95 of his book). I have no clue what you are referring to by "Chalmers' second paper", since he has written many papers and an entire book on this subject, but you are misreading what he says there (or, far less likely, he mis-spoke).


So a p-zombie would have a physically different brain than we do (it would thus be functionally different, Chalmers' point in "Dancing Qualia").
And this is wrong in yet an additional way. It does not follow that something which has a physically different brain is "thus" functionally different...

[Richard Carrier]

All I wanted to do originally was to correct Richard's confusions on this subject, but he doesn't seem to be interested in that himself.

I don't see why you conclude that. I have accepted your corrections and corrected myself. Isn't that sufficient? Indeed, I still thank you for correcting me.



What I was looking for was some kind of explanation of how, when Ian referred to a concept that is very well known in the literature on this issue, you assumed he was instead using a totally obscure term that apparently has never been used, and on the basis of this tried to dismiss his views by a reference to authority, when all along this authority actually used the term as Ian was using it, and furthermore, essentially agreed with Ian and not with you, and furthermore still, never used any concept such as the concept you intended to refer to with this term.

I don't see why any of this matters. I've already explained my mistake: I was relying on a term I had heard in conversation, based on what I mistook Ian's point and context to be. From my personal experience in conversing with philosophers I had come to believe there were several connotations of p-zombie. It turns out this is true, but that they are distinguished with terms other than I thought.

And contrary to your claim here, in neither of the essays of Chalmers that I cited does the term "p-zombie" appear, nor does it even appear on his web page, except as the heading to a broken link. Though I was familiar with the general term, I simply had the mistaken belief that the term alone could connote specific different kinds of zombie depending on context.

And finally, I don't believe Chalmers' essay on dancing qualia supports Ian's actual point, but supports mine instead, though after your observations I am not sure what Chalmers himself would say. I have explained all this in detail and see no need to repeat myself.



This is particularly strange given that you said to Ian, after making this reference to authority, that "All your arguments are either misinformed or mischaracterize physicalism, and all are answered in the sources I directed you to." You also expressed your dismay that he did not want to read these sources, but you yourself either haven't read them, or at best, have misread them rather egregiously, and certainly have "mischaracterized" them.

I have certainly read the essays I referenced. Whether I understood them is a different matter. But at least, unlike Ian, I actually read things.



Qualia would not be the only difference between you. Clearly you would differ functionally as well, and thus physically. You apparently simply do not understand what a zombie is, what qualia are, or the distinction between psychological and phenomenological properties.

I beg to differ, but that's your opinion.



All that is required is the presence of the appropriate functional structure (also, whether it arose by evolution is irrelevant).

Then why can't blindsighted people safely cross a busy street?

As I corrected myself already, I agree that the physical structure that would make this possible might itself be logically possible, but I deny that there is any reason to believe any such structure actually exists, much less in the human brain. Whether evolution would find it easier to hit upon our solution to the problem, or to the zombie solution, is an open question--and a question only science can answer, not philosophy. The fact of the matter is, evolution (or the Designer of Our Brain, as the case may be) did not choose the zombie physical system. For whatever reason. He chose a qualia-producing physical system. Whether it is epiphenomenal or physicalistic cannot be decided on purely philosophical analysis.



Moreover, while evolution perhaps can account for the arising of the appropriate functional structure, it cannot account (according to Chalmers, and I agree) for the existence of qualia. You can read Chalmers on this also, he has an explicit section on it in his book, p120, "Evolutionary Explanation".

I think you are missing my point. The issue is not whether evolution could have developed a different physical mechanism than it did. The question is whether the particular physical mechanism it did develop is advantageous and therefore selectable. The facts show that, for whatever reason, evolution selected a brain system that generates qualia as its strategy. It did not select a zombie system. That is why blindsighted people cannot cross busy streets. So we can say on scientific grounds that no actual humans are zombies--because they do not possess the physical systems in their brain that would be necessary for them to be zombies and still engage in all the behaviors they actually do.

Whether Chalmers would agree with me now is unclear. His papers online suggested to me he would, but his book suggests he wouldn't.



Chalmers most certainly does not "exclude functional considerations" when talking about zombies. Since a zombie is an exact physical duplicate of a person, it also shares all the same functional characteristics of that person (see page 95 of his book). I have no clue what you are referring to by "Chalmers' second paper", since he has written many papers and an entire book on this subject, but you are misreading what he says there (or, far less likely, he mis-spoke).

How can you not have a clue, when I stated its title and identified its location? I will repeat what I said the first time: his second paper is "Self-Ascription Without Qualia: A Case-Study" and it is on that same website.

However, looking at his book now, I see I must have misunderstood his point. In the paper he does not discuss qualia, except of self-ascription, so his discussion there is not as pertinent as I thought. He asserts there that a certain function (a behavior like reporting X when asked Y) or implementation of said function does not logically entail qualia, with which I agree. But it does not follow, nor does he assert there, that a functionally isomorphic zombie would identical with him even in private behavior (hence my lying test proposal) or physical construction. So he does not argue that zombies would be in principle undetectable.

However, his book suggests he might argue against me on the issue of private behavior. To be fair, he is often noncomittal (he allows that this isomorphic zombie may be empirically impossible even if logically possible, and he acknowledges there are others who regard it as functionally and therefore logically impossible). But he would apparently say it is logically possible for a zombie to replicate us even in private behavior--to which I respond (as explained above) that if that is so, then there is no way to show that we are not already such a zombie.



And this is wrong in yet an additional way. It does not follow that something which has a physically different brain is "thus" functionally different...

That is true--I did not intend to say that all physical differences entail functional differences. I meant that such a zombie would be physically different in such a way that entails a particular functional difference--as I clearly explained above, identifying that functional difference and why this would entail a physical difference that would be detectable. I am now not sure Chalmers would agree with me as to the necessity of this functional difference--that is, whether he would find my proposed experiments viable. But if not, I cannot yet ascertain what his actual response to them would be. But that's of course, by now, far off the original point of this thread.

[Calvin Ostrum]

Qualia would not be the only difference between you. Clearly you would differ functionally as well, and thus physically. You apparently simply do not understand what a zombie is, what qualia are, or the distinction between psychological and phenomenological properties.
I beg to differ, but that's your opinion.

Geez. That you (still!) have to ask a question like the below is just one thing showing that is not just my opinion.


All that is required is the presence of the appropriate functional structure (also, whether it arose by evolution is irrelevant).
Then why can't blindsighted people safely cross a busy street?