Soft Sell on The Hard Problem
Our skeptical friend, "I am Skeptic," put up a thing n the hard problem. I think in response to comments I made on his blog last week r so. I'll be responding to the whole piece today.
IMS
Joe:
The Hard Problem (THP/HP) has nothing to do with SN. Both David Chalmers and John "Searl are atheists and both major critics of Dennett and the reductionist view. Secondly there is no such thing as 'supernatural view of mind."First the HP doesn't claim anything. It has a point vto it it's not a claim. Secondly, that,s not it. It doesn't say there's a unbridgeable gap between physical and mental substance although I guess probably someone advancing the HP does say that, The real point is that consciousness is of a different quality from brain function. All the study of brain function will never tell us about consciousness, To drive home that point the hard problem illustrates aspects of consciousness that can't apart from exponential means.
IMS:
Joe:
(1) The "scientific" content of a statement is concerned with the correctness of it's methodological procedures not by the adherence to some ideological doctrine such as atheism or scientism. Even though it is true that the HP is more an illustration of a philosophical issue it's hardly opposed to science. Moreover it is scientific in the sense that it points up the methodological and philosophical flaws in a large portion of scientific work.
(2) It is a not argument from ignorance yours. Rather argument against ignorance. AFI is not about your opponent's ignorance, Pointing out the limitation of scientism a d reductionism for understanding min d is not AFI.
(3) The HP is not the entire case by itself but it clearly illustrates a barrier to reduction of mind to brain not just a gap in knowledge. In my article "Mind is not reducible to brain" I spell out six scientific reasons why it can't be done. Not just we don't know how to yet but reasons why it can't be possible.See also the great book by Edward Kelley Irreducible Mind [2]
IMS:
Joe:
that merely proves the validity of the HP. you are reacting in knee jerk fashion with the atheist fear of the subjective Anything subjective must be wrong or invalid. The impenetrable nature of the subjective is exactly why the HP disproves Dennett and his ilk. you can't demonstrate the reduction of mind to brain chemistry with this subjective dimension that can't be shared or mutually understood,. If it was the case that mind is reducible there should be total transparency when we get to a demonstrable level. That we can't give a fundamental description of redness is the point. That means experiencing consciousness is not just a matter of chemicals but also has dimension that can't be reduced to just the physical components It also prevents us from understanding consciousness.
IMS:
Joe
We can explain the existence of them now without science. They exist. What we see here is the atheist reductionism trying jettison from reality anything it can't control through scientnsism, This is what we call "losing the phenomena" (we in the philosophy of science biz). They are going to reduce it out of existence. When they get to a point they can't handle well that is not important because if it was they could handle it, This is one of the tricks of tricks of reduction: redefine, reliable, lose the phenomena, proclaim it minutia. That is a function absorbing the anomaly as Kuhn says.
IMS:
Joe:
Chalmer's is an atheist. He sees mind as supervened upon brain, he does not believe in any SN ideas. His from of dualism is property dualism which is not SN.Your first statement implied that anyone supporting the hard problem believes in SN that's Bull Shit. Of course I am imbued with SN, and I'll take on all comers. That doesn't mean they all are. The point of philosophical zombies is not to show there's an immaterial part of the mind but to show that there's an explanatory gap between consciousness and brain function, We don't5vknow why we are conscious. From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Joe:
I think IMS has his subject/object dichotomy screwed up. He thinks that Zombies wouldn't;t work because they can't do qualia and qualia is what gives us our feel for living, he puts it: " because our behavior is intimately related to the qualitative feel of things." His example is taste., That's the subjective dimension that he hard problem is about, Why would zombies have to know the sweet taste of sugar to act like we act? That's the subjective side of things and it's unimportant remember?
IMS:
IMS
Joe:
Here he displays a real lack of understanding about the nature of the HP. No one tries to say that sensations are not physical. But the sensation of them registers upon the mind and thus is not physical in that sense, But that's not even the point, the sensation itself is obviously physical. Notice in his piece overall he had not answered the HP, he's merely tried to reduce it., He also loses the phenomena by discording experiences into the realm of the subjective where they don't matter., Then to use them against the reduces them to a totally physical dimension. The mind is kept sealed off from what's going on so he doesn't have to deal with the immaterial., He has failed to come to terms with the HP.
For a long, very well researched ,brilliant disposition on the overall topic of consciousness, see my article "Mind is Not Reducible to Brain." One of the great works of our time. (if we limit the field to my blog): Mind is not Reducible to Brain Part 1
Part 2
Sources
[1] I am Skeptic, "The Hard Problem of Consciousness," The Keptic Zoe,Saturday, (May 7, 2016 ),blog URL:
http://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness.html accessed 5/8/16
[2] Edward F. Kelley and Emily Williams Kelley, et al, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Boulder, New York, Toronto: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Inc, 2007/2010, 37.
[3] Kirk, Robert, "Zombies", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =.
from the article:
Our skeptical friend, "I am Skeptic," put up a thing n the hard problem. I think in response to comments I made on his blog last week r so. I'll be responding to the whole piece today.
IMS
Philosophers who favor a supernatural or dualistic view of mind have contrived an argument that they think poses a major obstacle to physicalism. It is the so-called hard problem of consciousness, that claims there is an unbridgable gap between physical substance and mental substance. It is basically the claim that the stuff of conscious experience - the qualia, or qualitative component of consciousness - the texture of our perceptions - cannot be explained in terms of physical substances and phenomena. [1]
Joe:
The Hard Problem (THP/HP) has nothing to do with SN. Both David Chalmers and John "Searl are atheists and both major critics of Dennett and the reductionist view. Secondly there is no such thing as 'supernatural view of mind."First the HP doesn't claim anything. It has a point vto it it's not a claim. Secondly, that,s not it. It doesn't say there's a unbridgeable gap between physical and mental substance although I guess probably someone advancing the HP does say that, The real point is that consciousness is of a different quality from brain function. All the study of brain function will never tell us about consciousness, To drive home that point the hard problem illustrates aspects of consciousness that can't apart from exponential means.
IMS:
But this is an unscientific argument. It amounts to an argument from ignorance. It is saying that because we don't yet know how to fully explain consciousness in terms of physical matter and its properties, then there must be something immaterial about it. This fallacy gives courage to those (especially theists) who choose to ignore the track record of naturalistic science, and instead posit the existence of things like the immaterial soul as the answer to the problem.
Joe:
(1) The "scientific" content of a statement is concerned with the correctness of it's methodological procedures not by the adherence to some ideological doctrine such as atheism or scientism. Even though it is true that the HP is more an illustration of a philosophical issue it's hardly opposed to science. Moreover it is scientific in the sense that it points up the methodological and philosophical flaws in a large portion of scientific work.
(2) It is a not argument from ignorance yours. Rather argument against ignorance. AFI is not about your opponent's ignorance, Pointing out the limitation of scientism a d reductionism for understanding min d is not AFI.
(3) The HP is not the entire case by itself but it clearly illustrates a barrier to reduction of mind to brain not just a gap in knowledge. In my article "Mind is not reducible to brain" I spell out six scientific reasons why it can't be done. Not just we don't know how to yet but reasons why it can't be possible.See also the great book by Edward Kelley Irreducible Mind [2]
IMS:
I say this argument is contrived because it hinges largely on a matter of perspective. Our experience of the world by means of sensations is first-person, or subjective. It is necessarily true that we have our own experience of sensations, but we don't share those experiences with another person. The subjective perceptions of qualia occur within our own mind, not someone else's, because they are uniquely our own experiences. Even if we wired another person's sense organs to our brain, we would still have our own subjective experience of his sensations. There's no way we could say that one person's subjective experience of qualia is the same as the other person's. If I see redness, is it the same as the redness another person sees, or could it be that he sees something that I would call blue? We can't describe redness in an objective manner. The best we can do is to compare it to other things that are similar. But we can't give a fundamental description of redness that would be comprehensible to another person, such that he understands it independent of any reference to something in his own experience.
Joe:
that merely proves the validity of the HP. you are reacting in knee jerk fashion with the atheist fear of the subjective Anything subjective must be wrong or invalid. The impenetrable nature of the subjective is exactly why the HP disproves Dennett and his ilk. you can't demonstrate the reduction of mind to brain chemistry with this subjective dimension that can't be shared or mutually understood,. If it was the case that mind is reducible there should be total transparency when we get to a demonstrable level. That we can't give a fundamental description of redness is the point. That means experiencing consciousness is not just a matter of chemicals but also has dimension that can't be reduced to just the physical components It also prevents us from understanding consciousness.
IMS:
This is the basis of Thomas Nagel's argument. His discussion of what it's like to be a bat focuses on subjective experience, and our inability to make an objective description of it. There are facts about the bat's experience that are unknown to the rest of us, he says. And without an objective description, the phenomenon of conscious experience eludes science, he claims. But that is simply the reality of subjective experience. There's no reason to suppose, based on the inability to objectively describe what is inherently subjective, that science could never explain the existence of these experiences as physical phenomena.
Joe
We can explain the existence of them now without science. They exist. What we see here is the atheist reductionism trying jettison from reality anything it can't control through scientnsism, This is what we call "losing the phenomena" (we in the philosophy of science biz). They are going to reduce it out of existence. When they get to a point they can't handle well that is not important because if it was they could handle it, This is one of the tricks of tricks of reduction: redefine, reliable, lose the phenomena, proclaim it minutia. That is a function absorbing the anomaly as Kuhn says.
IMS:
David Chalmers makes an argument for the immaterial aspect of mind based on the conceivability philosophical zombies. A zombie is said to be physically identical to a human, but without the conscious experience of qualia. The zombie can see and hear, and respond to conversation in a way that is indistinguishable from an ordinary person, but without the qualitative feeling of sensations that humans experience as the substance normal consciousness. According to Chalmers, there is no physical difference, but the zombie lacks something else that is supposed to be the immaterial substance of mind.
Joe:
Chalmer's is an atheist. He sees mind as supervened upon brain, he does not believe in any SN ideas. His from of dualism is property dualism which is not SN.Your first statement implied that anyone supporting the hard problem believes in SN that's Bull Shit. Of course I am imbued with SN, and I'll take on all comers. That doesn't mean they all are. The point of philosophical zombies is not to show there's an immaterial part of the mind but to show that there's an explanatory gap between consciousness and brain function, We don't5vknow why we are conscious. From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
A metaphor of Saul Kripke’s helps to show how the zombie idea threatens physicalism (Kripke 1972/80, 153f.). Imagine God creating the world and deciding to bring into existence the whole of the physical universe. Having created this purely physical universe, did he have to do any more work to provide for consciousness? Answering yes to this question implies there is more to consciousness than the purely physical facts alone can supply. If nothing else, it implies that consciousness depends on nonphysical properties, ones that would not exist in a purely physical world; it would be a zombie world. Physicalists, on the other hand, are committed to answering no. They have to say that by fixing the purely physical facts, God did everything that was needed to fix the mental facts about the organisms thereby created, including their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences. And if fixing the physical facts is alone enough to fix the mental facts, then a zombie world seems impossible.[for those who don't know about Phil Zombies check out this FN][3]IMS:
Chalmers maintains that the experience of qualia is non-functional, and plays no role in physical causation. So the zombie can have sensations and react to them without ever having conscious awareness of their quality. But the zombie that can't experience qualia couldn't possibly behave the way conscious people do, because our behavior is intimately related to the qualitative feel of things. We are attracted to the pleasant taste of sugar, and repulsed by the rotten smell of garbage. We recoil from the unpleasant feeling of pain. If a zombie didn't experience these things, he wouldn't behave the way we do. Imagine a zombie holding his hand in a fire and saying "I can feel the sensation of pain, but there's nothing unpleasant about it."
Joe:
I think IMS has his subject/object dichotomy screwed up. He thinks that Zombies wouldn't;t work because they can't do qualia and qualia is what gives us our feel for living, he puts it: " because our behavior is intimately related to the qualitative feel of things." His example is taste., That's the subjective dimension that he hard problem is about, Why would zombies have to know the sweet taste of sugar to act like we act? That's the subjective side of things and it's unimportant remember?
IMS:
Chalmers' thought experiment postulates something that sounds logically possible, but is actually incoherent. A zombie couldn't possibly behave in a way that is indistinguishable from a conscious person. First, the zombie must be able to sense things the way we do, or he wouldn't know anything about his surroundings. He wouldn't be able to converse, or to see what is in front of him. Second, the zombie must be able to distinguish the difference between different colors, sounds, smells, etc. If you place a red block and a blue block in front of him, and ask him to pick up the red one, he will correctly discern which one is red. But that ability do discern one color from another can only exist if there is something qualitatively different between them. That's precisely what we call qualia.If that's so then how do you explain Trump supporters? His argument is really over doing it. For example there are people who can't see colors, or can't see the same color the rest of us see. They usually are not picked out of a crowd. Not unless someone says raise your hand if you see this red thing and guys doesn't raise it,. I don't know if Other people taste Sweetness the way I do.
IMS
The bottom line is that we have every reason to think that the experience of sensations, that we call qualia, is very much a physical phenomenon, and that it plays a vital role in our ability to survive. The simple fact that we can't make an objective description of subjective experience is no reason to conclude that mind must be immaterial. The "hard problem of consciousness" only provides a weak excuse for dualists to hang on to their belief in the existence of something else for which there is no real evidence.
Joe:
Here he displays a real lack of understanding about the nature of the HP. No one tries to say that sensations are not physical. But the sensation of them registers upon the mind and thus is not physical in that sense, But that's not even the point, the sensation itself is obviously physical. Notice in his piece overall he had not answered the HP, he's merely tried to reduce it., He also loses the phenomena by discording experiences into the realm of the subjective where they don't matter., Then to use them against the reduces them to a totally physical dimension. The mind is kept sealed off from what's going on so he doesn't have to deal with the immaterial., He has failed to come to terms with the HP.
For a long, very well researched ,brilliant disposition on the overall topic of consciousness, see my article "Mind is Not Reducible to Brain." One of the great works of our time. (if we limit the field to my blog): Mind is not Reducible to Brain Part 1
Part 2
Sources
[1] I am Skeptic, "The Hard Problem of Consciousness," The Keptic Zoe,Saturday, (May 7, 2016 ),blog URL:
http://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness.html accessed 5/8/16
[2] Edward F. Kelley and Emily Williams Kelley, et al, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Boulder, New York, Toronto: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Inc, 2007/2010, 37.
[3] Kirk, Robert, "Zombies", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
from the article:
Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness.
Few people, if any, think zombies actually exist. But many hold they are at least conceivable, and some that they are possible. It seems that if zombies really are possible, then physicalism is false and some kind of dualism is true. For many philosophers that is the chief importance of the zombie idea. But it is also valuable for the sharp focus it gives to philosophical theorizing about consciousness (for example Howell 2013; Kriegel 2011; Stoljar 2006; Tye 2008). Use of the zombie idea against physicalism also raises more general questions about the relations between imaginability, conceivability, and possibility. Finally, zombies raise epistemological difficulties: they reinstate the ‘other minds’ problem.
