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Are Rand and Peikoff right about materialism?

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Red said: 

I get it from having studied philosophy. In any case, you have nothing to complain about. Since you're a naive materialist who believes that consciousness is composed of entities, and that therefore, PRODUCTS of consciousness, such as ideas, premises, conclusions, arguments, theories, systems, etc., must also be composed of entities — and, in fact, these entities ARE the ideas — then it follows that my philosophical ideas are simply my arrangements of entities, just as your ideas are your arrangements of entities. Too bad for the poor naive materialist, but there's no way to judge which arrangements of entities are better, more true, less true, false, etc., without referring to an objective non-material notion of "judge." It has to be 1) objective, and 2) non-material. Because if it were material, the "judgment" would simply be another arrangement of physical entities in someone else's physical brain. And why should that arrangement have any more objectivity and higher truth-status than my arrangement of entities in my physical brain, or your physical arrangement of entities in your physical brain?

Too bad. Without the idea of the "non-material", there is no such thing as "objective truth", i.e., true for me, you, and everyone else.

 

Another reassertion. Listen Red, if you think that reasserting that its "non-material, or consciousness and volition is an illusion" is an argument, its not. I have not seen anything here or in the "Iron Man 3" post that constitues a justification of the concept "non-material".

 

Saying "The non material is here. How did it get here? No one knows", is not going to do it because I dont know what you mean by "non-material". If Ive missed it please point out exactly where you justify the concept of non material. I have no idea how to conceptualize it. What observations lead you to it?

 

This is the closest thing so far:

And in any case, what did you perceive FIRST that later allowed you to abstract the idea, "x^2 + y^2 = 1". For that matter, what did you perceive that later led to the idea, "1". (If you're going to say, "Well, Mr. Ugg, the caveman, perceived one stone and then abstracted the idea of "number...which must exist in some degree but may exist in any degree", then you'd be question-begging and concept-stealing, for in that case, Mr. Ugg, already possessed the idea of "1" and "number" and simply found a useful correspondence between his percept and his pre-existing idea. The question, however, was where did he get the idea of "1" from simply via perception?" It's utter gibberish-mysticism to suggest, as Rand appears to do, that the IDEA of "1", or "1-ness" is part of the percept itself, and that some abstracting power of the mind conveniently sifts it out for use. Dumb. Where would such "1-ness" be? Is it physically in the stone itself? No. Is "1-ness" in the light rays hitting the stone and reflecting off of it into Mr. Ugg's eyes? No. Is "1-ness" located physically in the retina? No. In the optic nerve? No. In the visual cortex? No. That's it for the material part of the process. After the visual cortex, the electro-chemical impulse gets dumped into the non-material part of the human called "the mind". How? No one knows. Does the non-material part of the mind "recognize" some non-material "1-ness" in the stone that accompanies it from light-rays, to retina, to optic nerve, to cortex? I doubt it.

 

This is why Plato thought the idea of "1-ness" was already there, in the non-material mind, and the abstracting process in this case was really just matching what was already there to what was freshly perceived in an act of "recognition." I don't accept his theory, either, because I reject the notion of innate ideas, including mathematical ones

 

Im formulating my response to it and will post it in a bit.

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Red said: 

 

Another reassertion. Listen Red, if you think that reasserting that its "non-material, or consciousness and volition is an illusion" is an argument, its not. I have not seen anything here or in the "Iron Man 3" post that constitues a justification of the concept "non-material".

 

Saying "The non material is here. How did it get here? No one knows", is not going to do it because I dont know what you mean by "non-material". If Ive missed it please point out exactly where you justify the concept of non material. I have no idea how to conceptualize it. What observations lead you to it?

 

This is the closest thing so far:

 

Im formulating my response to it and will post it in a bit.

 

>>>....justification...

 

Sorry, what is the non-material concept "justification" in terms of physical entities? Do the material entities in your physical brain assume a certain shape or arrangement that specifies a certain state called "justification"? And since physical entities ALL obey the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, do you have any theory to explain how new states of mind-entities get ordered out of non-orderly states (such as when you're asleep, or unconscious, or simply staring out the window thinking about nothing)? 

 

Never thought about that, eh? 

 

Naive materialism leads to pure solipsism: your entity-arrangements, my entity-arrangements, Harrison's entity-arrangements, Peikoff's entity-arrangements, etc. Why should any one of these entity-arrangements be superior in terms of objectivity or truth status? By what standard? There can be no standard, because according to your lights, that standard must itself be an idea...and that idea, according to you, is simply yet another arrangement of entities.

 

But if you're happy being a solipsist, I certainly don't want to ruin your fun.

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@ plasmatic:

 

>>>Listen Red, if you think that reasserting that its "non-material, or consciousness and volition is an illusion" is an argument, its not.

 

Listen, plaz, if you think that reasserting that consciousness and its products — thoughts, ideas, theories, systems, language, concepts, etc. — are very, very tiny material entities inside of a material brain is an argument, it's not...especially given the obvious fact that material particles don't "assert" or "reassert". They simply "act" under the influence of some other force.

 

The very concept of "assert" or "reassert" or "justification" or "argument" only makes sense within the non-material mental realm. Bowling balls don't "assert" or "reassert" or "justify" or "conclude" or "argue", even if they are very, very, very small, and inside someone's physical brain.

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Red said: 

 

Another reassertion. Listen Red, if you think that reasserting that its "non-material, or consciousness and volition is an illusion" is an argument, its not. I have not seen anything here or in the "Iron Man 3" post that constitues a justification of the concept "non-material".

 

Saying "The non material is here. How did it get here? No one knows", is not going to do it because I dont know what you mean by "non-material". If Ive missed it please point out exactly where you justify the concept of non material. I have no idea how to conceptualize it. What observations lead you to it?

 

This is the closest thing so far:

 

Im formulating my response to it and will post it in a bit.

 

>>>Im formulating my response to it and will post it in a bit.

 

In other words, "blank out."

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Red said:
 

In other words, "blank out."

 

No, in other words, I have to get to my research cd so I can copy and paste this:

 

Prof. D:
I can think of some cases that seem to present a difficulty for the statement: "All conceptual differentiations are made in terms of commensurable characteristics." What would you say about the case of distinguishing mental entities from physical entities? You have the concept of "mental entity" vs. the concept of "physical entity," and there you are distinguishing objects which presumably possess no commensurable characteristic.
AR:
But you don't form those concepts directly. You form the concept "mental entity" only after you have formed the following concepts: the concept "man," the concept "consciousness," then you identify certain mental states or events in your own mind, such as thoughts, let's say, which you call "mental entities." Then you infer that other human beings also possess the ability to have mental entities in their minds. Therefore you have gone through a long conceptual chain, making differentiations as you went along. You didn't start by looking at reality from scratch so to speak, and as a first-level concept form the concept "mental entity" as distinguished from "physical entity." That would not be possible. They would be incommensurable.
Now remember, I said here that you cannot form a concept, a specific concept, by differentiating objects through an incommensurable characteristic. But, [once formed], you can relate such objects in a wider sense. And the commensurable characteristic between physical objects and consciousness is the content of consciousness, as I discuss in Chapter 4. <ioe2_146> There is a commensurable link [between concepts of consciousness and existential concepts], but that link will be found after you have established the fact of consciousness. Then you consider, "What do I have inside my mind?" and you see that it is exclusively made up of content derived from the outside world, from existence. (It may be indirectly derived, such as you may have thoughts about other thoughts, or you may think about your memories. But ultimately the content of your consciousness, since it begins tabula rasa, consists entirely of your awareness of the outside world.) And there you have the commensurable attribute, or one of the commensurable attributes, which is essential in forming concepts of consciousness

 

 

Dont forget she later repudiated using "mental entity"

 

What about the above do you reject and why? 

 

 

Red said:

 

And in any case, what did you perceive FIRST that later allowed you to abstract the idea, "x^2 + y^2 = 1". For that matter, what did you perceive that later led to the idea, "1". (If you're going to say, "Well, Mr. Ugg, the caveman, perceived one stone and then abstracted the idea of "number...which must exist in some degree but may exist in any degree", then you'd be question-begging and concept-stealing, for in that case, Mr. Ugg, already possessed the idea of "1" and "number" and simply found a useful correspondence between his percept and his pre-existing idea

 

Why do you think Ugg possesed the concept 1 already and how do you think this is not an instance of innate knowledge?

 

Red said:

 

Where would such "1-ness" be? Is it physically in the stone itself? No. Is "1-ness" in the light rays hitting the stone and reflecting off of it into Mr. Ugg's eyes? No. Is "1-ness" located physically in the retina? No. In the optic nerve? No. In the visual cortex? No. That's it for the material part of the process. After the visual cortex, the electro-chemical impulse gets dumped into the non-material part of the human called "the mind". How? No one knows. Does the non-material part of the mind "recognize" some non-material "1-ness" in the stone that accompanies it from light-rays, to retina, to optic nerve, to cortex? I doubt it.

 I have already expressed that it is a relationship between subject and object. Identity and identification.

 

Red said:

Listen, plaz, if you think that reasserting that consciousness and its products — thoughts, ideas, theories, systems, language, concepts, etc. — are very, very tiny material entities inside of a material brain is an argument, it's not...especially given the obvious fact that material particles don't "assert" or "reassert". They simply "act" under the influence of some other force.

 

The very concept of "assert" or "reassert" or "justification" or "argument" only makes sense within the non-material mental realm. Bowling balls don't "assert" or "reassert" or "justify" or "conclude" or "argue", even if they are very, very, very small, and inside someone's physical brain.


We arent getting anywhere. Maybe I'm "dumb" but if you think so you must just enjoy castigating idiots. If thats not the case, then help me understand your position. I have a theory of concept formation and you know it. I have no Idea, based on what youve said, why you think the above is true. How do I form the concept non-material?  You in fact are pressuposing the concept "non- material" before you justify it.

 

And my position is that consciousness is a relationship amongst objects. I started a thread a long time ago called, The locality of Abstractions on this. Music is a relationship amongst objects. It is neither in the object itself alone or in the hearer alone.

 

How does one conclude that the mental is not a relationship amongst material objects?

Edited by Plasmatic
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Oh, and,

 

 Red said above:

 

I'm confident that Objectivism doesn't hold "strong" views on materialism, just as I'm confident that, nevertheless, many self-styled Objectivists do.

 

 

When he said previously:

 

 

Objectivism is simply a mid-20th century restatement of 19th-century Victorian naive materialism. It has much in common with the naive materialist views of someone like H.G. Wells.

 

 

What difference are you pointing at here?

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Both say that Objectivism isn't metaphysical materialism. Peikoff says that materialism is a good theory of physics, but not a good theory of metaphysics. Can someone explain why Objectivism can't be a philosophy of materialism? I understand that the reason is because they are drawing a distinction concerning consciousness, and are saying that the conscious mind is something more than the physical brain. But is this really against materialism? Insights please.

Materialists are essentially reductionists. They don't believe that anything exists expect atoms, subatomic particles and their interactions. For them mind and reason are physical phenomena and free will is an illusion since all physical processes are determined. The mind as independent phenomenon doesn't exist for them. they are obsessed with neurophysiological studies in order to understand free will and concept formation.

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Plaz's brain particles self-configures themselves into the following arrangement:

 

 


We arent getting anywhere. Maybe I'm "dumb" but if you think so you must just enjoy castigating idiots. If thats not the case, then help me understand your position. I have a theory of concept formation and you know it. I have no Idea, based on what youve said, why you think the above is true. How do I form the concept non-material?  You in fact are pressuposing the concept "non- material" before you justify it.

 

And my position is that consciousness is a relationship amongst objects. I started a thread a long time ago called, The locality of Abstractions on this. Music is a relationship amongst objects. It is neither in the object itself alone or in the hearer alone.

 

How does one conclude that the mental is not a relationship amongst material objects?

 

 

>>>We arent getting anywhere.

 

Correct. That's the inevitable upshot of your materialist position: extreme solipsism. "Your material particle arrangements" vs. "My material particle arrangements" vs. "Anyone else's material particle arrangements." Obviously, there's no way to get beyond material particle arrangements to say which one is THE TRUE material particle arrangement, because configurations of material particles can't be "true" or "false" or "good" or "evil", etc., they simply ARE.

 

>>>Maybe I'm "dumb"

 

Don't worry. By your own lights, "dumb" simply corresponds to some sort of material particle arrangement, and there's no way to claim that such an arrangement is worse than anyone else's material particle arrangement.

 

>>>help me understand your position

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "help", "understand", and "position" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "help", or "understand", or "position"?

 

>>> I have a theory of concept formation ...

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "theory", "concept", and "formation" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities.  Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "theory", or "concept", or "formation"?

 

>>> I have no Idea, based on what youve said, why you think the above is true

 

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "idea", "based", and "true" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities.  Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "idea", or "based", or "true"?

 

>>>How do I form the concept non-material?  You in fact are pressuposing the concept "non- material" before you justify it.

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "form", "non-material", and "presuppose" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities.  Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "form", or "non-material", or "presuppose"?

 

>>>And my position is that consciousness is a relationship amongst objects.

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "consciousness", "relationship", and "amongst" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities.  Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "consciousness", or "relationship", or "amongst"?

 

>>>It is neither in the object itself alone or in the hearer alone.

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "is", "neither", and "the" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities.  Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "is", or "neither", or "the"?

 

>>>How does one conclude that the mental is not a relationship amongst material objects?

 

Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "How", "conclude", and "mental" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities.  Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "How", or "conclude", or "mental"?

 

Ultimately, the answer is that the category of the non-material/mental is axiomatic, ostensively defined by direct experience of introspection by each individual, and by obvious inference with respect to observing other people. We easily infer the existence of minds and intentionality in other people because we have direct introspective experience of "mind" and "intentionality" in ourselves. Later, of course, after having dumbed ourselves down with philosophy courses, we can loudly deny that the non-material exists, but in order to make ourselves understood to other people (as well as ourselves in our private musings) we must still use language as if it actually referred to, and derived from, the non-material realm. Groups of particles might move around and change position, but ultimately they simply "ARE". Groups of particles don't "conclude" or "theorize" or "hold epistemological theories". Groups of particles do not correspond to words at all: no material group of particles is representative of "the" or "and" or "to" or "notwithstanding". 

 

One final, very important question:

 

How old are you?

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>>>You form the concept "mental entity" only after you have formed the following concepts: the concept "man," the concept "consciousness," then you identify certain mental states or events in your own mind, such as thoughts, let's say, which you call "mental entities." Then you infer that other human beings also possess the ability to have mental entities in their minds. Therefore you have gone through a long conceptual chain, making differentiations as you went along. You didn't start by looking at reality from scratch so to speak, and as a first-level concept form the concept "mental entity" as distinguished from "physical entity." That would not be possible. They would be incommensurable.

 

Any evidence for this?

 

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I'd love to read that. Why don't you provide a link to that demonstration, that is, if you can manage to do it without further displaying your 10 year old petulance.

I think this is what he was referring to.  http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24986

I hadn't read this thread yet, but what I was trying to describe was Non-eliminative physicalism.  Just because we know how all the different neurons fire together to form any given thought (as I think we will, someday) doesn't mean that the thought didn't occur in someone's mind.

 

If Red Wanderer takes his own metaphysics seriously then the world he experiences must be a nightmare.

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>>>nor have I ever had a reason to suppose there are bodyless minds.

 

No doubt you've never experienced it and that's reason enough to discount it as the classic Objectivist accusation of "arbitrary assertion."

I don't care what sort of assertion it is; a bodyless mind would be a ghost and yes, Mars, Objectivists in general tend to reject that idea.  Cry me a river.

 

The fact that you're implying that you HAVE seen ghosts shouldn't surprise anyone else, here.  What you're asserting, if not outright arbitrary, is that magick is real and minds can float around without physical extensions; as a matter of fact that MANY things can exist without ever being accessible to anyone's sensory experience under any possible circumstances.

This is the metaphysical world of a bad trip; the world which chained men within their own terror throughout the Dark Ages.

 

Such claims aren't worth the time spent to refute them.

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I don't care what sort of assertion it is; a bodyless mind would be a ghost and yes, Mars, Objectivists in general tend to reject that idea.  Cry me a river.

 

The fact that you're implying that you HAVE seen ghosts shouldn't surprise anyone else, here.  What you're asserting, if not outright arbitrary, is that magick is real and minds can float around without physical extensions; as a matter of fact that MANY things can exist without ever being accessible to anyone's sensory experience under any possible circumstances.

This is the metaphysical world of a bad trip; the world which chained men within their own terror throughout the Dark Ages.

 

Such claims aren't worth the time spent to refute them.

 

>>>I don't care what sort of assertion it is; a bodyless mind would be a ghost

 

 

So because you ideologically disapprove of the conclusion, (X cannot, according to my doctrine, exist) you decide, in advance of any studying of the issue, to dismiss the premises (Major Premise and Minor Premise, must not be conceded to exist).

 

That's why Objectivism — at least as actually practiced among today's self-styled Objectivists — is more of a religious cult rather than a system of philosophical investigation of the universe: it already specifies in advance of any investigation what the "right" answers have to be. That's scarcely a way to expand one's knowledge, which often relies on paradigm-shifting insights.

 

And, in fact, most Objectivists I've been in contact with since my own Objectivist days aren't interested in expanding their knowledge; they're interested in reifying and re-confirming their belief system. That's typical of cults and religions. I believe this was first stated openly in Rand's lifetime during Branden's hegemony by Dr. Albert Ellis.

 

As far as bodyless minds are concerned, many have claimed to have experienced such phenomena personally, including people who were previously complete philosophical materialists, such as Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon, who just published "Proof of Heaven." Another who claimed there was theoretical justification for bodyless minds was Dr. John Eccles, a Nobel laureate in medicine who himself had made major discoveries in neuroscience. Read "The Mind and Its Brain", a series of dialogues between John Eccles and Karl Popper on the mind/body issue.

 

And finally: I have no opinion one way or the other on "ghosts." But I certainly see no logical absurdity in the idea that they could exist, irrespective of whether or not I find the statements convincing by people who claim to have experience with them. It's highly weird of you to suggest that that those who only believe in matter and energy have lives that are full of nothing but good dreams and benevolence, while those who entertain the notion that the material and the non-material co-exist as complementarities , and as irreducible primaries in the universe, have lives that are "nightmares."

 

Truly, you're one weird dude.

 

I do see the great convenience, of course, in habitually turning to one book (Atlas Shrugged) for knowledge and guidance in all issues, rather than turning to many, many, many books, in many subjects by many authors, for doing so. It saves a lot of time and energy.

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Red, are you by any chance christopher from OL? In one thread he replies to the questions, "What are "thoughts" if they're immaterial?" and "Or, more precisely, what is the immaterial composed of?" with this response: "The question is not whether thoughts have a material component, the question is whether the material component can meaningfully identify the thought. How does one measure and describe the content of "interior" reality in a meaningful way using "exterior" empiric methodology?"

 

My main question about this view is, how much do you need to reduce "thought" for it to become "meaningful"? You asked earlier, "what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifics "form", or "non-material'"? I bet that even if that question could be answered, it still wouldn't satisfy your search for "meaning."

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Red, are you by any chance christopher from OL? In one thread he replies to the questions, "What are "thoughts" if they're immaterial?" and "Or, more precisely, what is the immaterial composed of?" with this response: "The question is not whether thoughts have a material component, the question is whether the material component can meaningfully identify the thought. How does one measure and describe the content of "interior" reality in a meaningful way using "exterior" empiric methodology?"

 

My main question about this view is, how much do you need to reduce "thought" for it to become "meaningful"? You asked earlier, "what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifics "form", or "non-material'"? I bet that even if that question could be answered, it still wouldn't satisfy your search for "meaning."

 

Greetings, amiga!

 

Sorry to disappoint, but no, I am not Herr Christopher from OL. I've only anonymously read some posts on that site since the owner, MSK, appears to be an alcoholic and a substance-abuser. Why should I waste my time posting there?

 

However, your quote from this Christopher guy is very apt, and I agree with it. In this regard, I recommend an excellent 3-part article in the old "Objectivist" magazine by Robert Efron, M.D., a neurologist (and brother to the journalist Edith Efron, an early Rand acolyte). It's titled "Biology without Consciousness: Its Consequences", and does a very good job of describing and critiquing various reductionist theories of mind, such as the traditional "psycho-neural identity theories", which claim that every thought is identical to some surmised physical change in brain tissue.

 

>>>how much do you need to reduce "thought" for it to become "meaningful"?

 

But you see, that's just it: thought becomes less meaningful the more you try to reduce it to a material substrate (e.g., electrical discharges, hormonal changes, etc.)

 

>>>I bet that even if that question could be answered, it still wouldn't satisfy your search for "meaning."

 

That's right! In other words, even if some researcher found a very exact correlation between a thought, such as "I like HoneyCrisp apples!" and an electrical discharge of X-volts always at one specific spot in the brain, it still doesn't show that the the interior thought "I like HoneyCrisp apples" is identical with that discharge. It's simply a correlation, and a correlation always implies at least two things, and not an identity.

 

I don't think meaning can be reduced to material entities (even if there are correlations between them), because then the interior experience of "meaning" disappears, or is defined away. I think we have to think about this analogically: "meaning" is to "mind" as "particles" are to "matter." "Meaning" is itself a fundamental particle (for lack of a better word) of thought within a non-material realm called Mind, which is separate from, but complementary to, matter. Rand used to say that consciousness is an irreducible primary. I agree. But I take it literally: it's irreducible metaphysically. It wasn't created by matter, or particles, in complex arrangements, and therefore, can never be reduced back to those particles by way of explanation.

 

Karl Popper was very critical of linguists for a similar reason. In most technical linguistics, the fundamental "unit of sound-meaning" is called the "morpheme." In the view of linguistics, these morphemes appeared first among human beings, and then got combined and recombined to form words, and then sentences — complete thoughts in the form of an assertion. Popper claimed (rightly, I believe) that this was backward. The morphemes only have meaning that was imputed to them from previously existing complete sentences, or thoughts. The thought-meaning came first; the precipitating-out of smaller units, such as morphemes, came later — later, both in actual social and linguistic history of mankind, and logically, in terms of analysis.

 

I believe the great question in philosophy today is the following:

 

Science tells us, with quite convincing arguments and evidence, that the only things that actually have fully objective existence, and do not depend on any sort of interaction with consciousness (both perception and intellect) are "particles", i.e., what Peikoff called in a lecture "Puffs of Meta-Energy" but which scientists today might call "Higgs Bosons" or "Strings" or some other odd name. These things can only be described very abstractly by means of mathematics. So the question is this:

 

Since these Puffs of Meta-Energy are themselves quality-less — they aren't white, they aren't red, they aren't heavy, they aren't light, they aren't smooth, they aren't rough, they aren't hot, they aren't cold, etc., by what means do they interact with the same sort of Puffs of Meta-Energy that ultimately compose human eyes, retinas, optic nerves, and visual cortices, to form the entire quality-filled world that we perceive with our eyes? For example, fluffy clouds, furry doggies, rough granite, smooth marble, cold ice-cream, hot coffee, etc.? How do quality-less Puffs of Meta-Energy become quality-endowed experiences that we recognize as the so-called "world we perceive"?

 

No one knows. Obviously, the Puffs of Meta-Energy entering our eyes from a red beach ball do not impart the quality of "redness" to the Puffs of Meta-Energy composing our retinas; and those Puffs of Meta-Energy do not add "redness" to the Puffs of Meta-Energy composing our optic nerves or our visual cortices. It's simply a very complex chain of cause-and-effect involving nothing but different aggregates of Puffs of Meta-Energy. So clearly, the qualities of "redness" and "roundness" and "smoothness" don't appear until those Puffs enter the non-material area called "Mind", which is the ONLY part of the universe that has qualities, and in which it makes sense to speak of qualitative things like "redness, whiteness, lightness, darkness, hotness, coldness," etc.

 

So the main question is: how does the abstract, quality-less physical world of ultimate Puffs of Meta-Energy become the concrete, quality-filled world we all experience as soon as we open our eyes in the morning?

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Greetings, amiga!

 

Sorry to disappoint, but no, I am not Herr Christopher from OL. I've only anonymously read some posts on that site since the owner, MSK, appears to be an alcoholic and a substance-abuser. Why should I waste my time posting there?

 

However, your quote from this Christopher guy is very apt, and I agree with it. In this regard, I recommend an excellent 3-part article in the old "Objectivist" magazine by Robert Efron, M.D., a neurologist (and brother to the journalist Edith Efron, an early Rand acolyte). It's titled "Biology without Consciousness: Its Consequences", and does a very good job of describing and critiquing various reductionist theories of mind, such as the traditional "psycho-neural identity theories", which claim that every thought is identical to some surmised physical change in brain tissue.

 

>>>how much do you need to reduce "thought" for it to become "meaningful"?

 

But you see, that's just it: thought becomes less meaningful the more you try to reduce it to a material substrate (e.g., electrical discharges, hormonal changes, etc.)

 

>>>I bet that even if that question could be answered, it still wouldn't satisfy your search for "meaning."

 

That's right! In other words, even if some researcher found a very exact correlation between a thought, such as "I like HoneyCrisp apples!" and an electrical discharge of X-volts always at one specific spot in the brain, it still doesn't show that the the interior thought "I like HoneyCrisp apples" is identical with that discharge. It's simply a correlation, and a correlation always implies at least two things, and not an identity.

 

I don't think meaning can be reduced to material entities (even if there are correlations between them), because then the interior experience of "meaning" disappears, or is defined away. I think we have to think about this analogically: "meaning" is to "mind" as "particles" are to "matter." "Meaning" is itself a fundamental particle (for lack of a better word) of thought within a non-material realm called Mind, which is separate from, but complementary to, matter. Rand used to say that consciousness is an irreducible primary. I agree. But I take it literally: it's irreducible metaphysically. It wasn't created by matter, or particles, in complex arrangements, and therefore, can never be reduced back to those particles by way of explanation.

 

Karl Popper was very critical of linguists for a similar reason. In most technical linguistics, the fundamental "unit of sound-meaning" is called the "morpheme." In the view of linguistics, these morphemes appeared first among human beings, and then got combined and recombined to form words, and then sentences — complete thoughts in the form of an assertion. Popper claimed (rightly, I believe) that this was backward. The morphemes only have meaning that was imputed to them from previously existing complete sentences, or thoughts. The thought-meaning came first; the precipitating-out of smaller units, such as morphemes, came later — later, both in actual social and linguistic history of mankind, and logically, in terms of analysis.

 

I believe the great question in philosophy today is the following:

 

Science tells us, with quite convincing arguments and evidence, that the only things that actually have fully objective existence, and do not depend on any sort of interaction with consciousness (both perception and intellect) are "particles", i.e., what Peikoff called in a lecture "Puffs of Meta-Energy" but which scientists today might call "Higgs Bosons" or "Strings" or some other odd name. These things can only be described very abstractly by means of mathematics. So the question is this:

 

Since these Puffs of Meta-Energy are themselves quality-less — they aren't white, they aren't red, they aren't heavy, they aren't light, they aren't smooth, they aren't rough, they aren't hot, they aren't cold, etc., by what means do they interact with the same sort of Puffs of Meta-Energy that ultimately compose human eyes, retinas, optic nerves, and visual cortices, to form the entire quality-filled world that we perceive with our eyes? For example, fluffy clouds, furry doggies, rough granite, smooth marble, cold ice-cream, hot coffee, etc.? How do quality-less Puffs of Meta-Energy become quality-endowed experiences that we recognize as the so-called "world we perceive"?

 

No one knows. Obviously, the Puffs of Meta-Energy entering our eyes from a red beach ball do not impart the quality of "redness" to the Puffs of Meta-Energy composing our retinas; and those Puffs of Meta-Energy do not add "redness" to the Puffs of Meta-Energy composing our optic nerves or our visual cortices. It's simply a very complex chain of cause-and-effect involving nothing but different aggregates of Puffs of Meta-Energy. So clearly, the qualities of "redness" and "roundness" and "smoothness" don't appear until those Puffs enter the non-material area called "Mind", which is the ONLY part of the universe that has qualities, and in which it makes sense to speak of qualitative things like "redness, whiteness, lightness, darkness, hotness, coldness," etc.

 

So the main question is: how does the abstract, quality-less physical world of ultimate Puffs of Meta-Energy become the concrete, quality-filled world we all experience as soon as we open our eyes in the morning?

 Shouldn't the main question be: how does the concrete quality-less world of ultimate pme become the abstract quality-filled world we all experience?

 

Or do I have it backwards and centuries misplaced?

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Lest anyone be misled, when Peikoff used the rhetorical device of "puffs of meta energy", he explicitly states that he chose that combination of words because they represent something deliberately undefined. He elsewhere, in the 1976 lectures, explicates that as far as he is concerned the concept "energy" has not been defined in any meaningful way by physicists.

What's more, I can tell you that the concept "energy" when it was formed originally directly involved conceptualizing entities as causal primaries; and it wasn't until the Energeticist movement destroyed the concept that we have such foolishness in Physics. Energy is not a substance.

The real question to be answered is, how do you get people who embrace the concept "nonmaterial" to realize there is no way to form that concept using a valid epistemology.

Edit: Or put more broadly, what epistemological rules should guide one when forming concepts of fundamental constituents/unperceivables? How does one talk meaningfully about such existents using concepts from perception and imputing them to the nonperceivable without denying the concept itself?

Edited by Plasmatic
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Karl Popper said:

"One should never get involved in verbal questions or questions of meaning,and never get interested in words. If challenged by the question of whether a word one uses really means this or perhaps that ,then one should say"I dont know and im not interested in meanings". "one should never quarrel about words , and never get involved in questions of terminology.one should always keep away from discussing concepts"

And we wonder why.....

Red where did Popper discuss the chicken and egg issue you mention above?

Edited by Plasmatic
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Red said:

" Since these Puffs of Meta-Energy are themselves quality-less — they aren't white, they aren't red, they aren't heavy, they aren't light, they aren't smooth, they aren't rough, they aren't hot, they aren't cold, etc."...........

" That's right! In other words, even if some researcher found a very exact correlation between a thought, such as "I like HoneyCrisp apples!" and an electrical discharge of X-volts always at one specific spot in the brain, it still doesn't show that the the interior thought "I like HoneyCrisp apples" is identical with that discharge. It's simply a correlation, and a correlation always implies at least two things, and not an identity."

" So the main question is: how does the abstract, quality-less physical world of ultimate Puffs of Meta-Energy become the concrete, quality-filled world we all experience as soon as we open our eyes in the morning?"

In other words, "how does indentity come from non-identity"?

Edited by Plasmatic
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. . . I've only anonymously read some posts on that site since the owner, MSK, appears to be an alcoholic and a substance-abuser. Why should I waste my time posting there?

, , ,

 

RW,

 

No. Michael Stuart Kelly does not at all appear to be any such thing. You are writing about and to real persons with the real names and personal identities they have shared, and with real families who love them.

 

Stephen

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>>>I don't care what sort of assertion it is; a bodyless mind would be a ghost

 

 

So because you ideologically disapprove of the conclusion, (X cannot, according to my doctrine, exist) you decide, in advance of any studying of the issue, to dismiss the premises (Major Premise and Minor Premise, must not be conceded to exist).

Yep.  And I'd do the same thing if you told me that the moon is made of cheese.  What's your point?

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"But you see, that's just it: thought becomes less meaningful the more you try to reduce it to a material substrate (e.g., electrical discharges, hormonal changes, etc.)"

 

....

"I don't think meaning can be reduced to material entities (even if there are correlations between them), because then the interior experience of "meaning" disappears, or is defined away."

 

Critics of evolution often use this argument. 'Evolution makes life less beautiful, less meaningful..' 'You can't break down the origins of the entire animal kingdom to a single common ancestor!!!' 'Humans are made in God's image.. we aren't related to other animals!' 'Life is too complex to be explained!!' etc etc.

 

Meaning does not disappear just because something that was once mysterious or unknown is finally understood. I think life becomes more meaningful once you realize we have the capability to discover how our minds, bodies, and the world actually works.  Right now we don't understand all the intricacies of the mind- but that doesn't mean we will someday.

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Meaning does not disappear just because something that was once mysterious or unknown is finally understood. I think life becomes more meaningful once you realize we have the capability to discover how our minds, bodies, and the world actually works.  Right now we don't understand all the intricacies of the mind- but that doesn't mean we will someday.

I find it interesting to note that studying the mind requires acknowledging that personal experience is a real thing. I think sometimes it's just lost in translation that the mind isn't a thing, but a process (hence Boydstun's use of feature rather than attribute). The stomach digests. The brain "minds". I mean, it's not like digestion is an "illusion" because there is no tangible thing called digestion "out there". You won't find a mind as an individual thing, yet just like digestion, it is measurable in terms of brain activity. Studying the mind is a study of processes, not merely the mechanics of the brain. Studying the circulatory system is a study of processes, not merely mechanics of the heart.

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I find it interesting to note that studying the mind requires acknowledging that personal experience is a real thing. I think sometimes it's just lost in translation that the mind isn't a thing, but a process (hence Boydstun's use of feature rather than attribute). The stomach digests. The brain "minds". I mean, it's not like digestion is an "illusion" because there is no tangible thing called digestion "out there". You won't find a mind as an individual thing, yet just like digestion, it is measurable in terms of brain activity. Studying the mind is a study of processes, not merely the mechanics of the brain. Studying the circulatory system is a study of processes, not merely mechanics of the heart.

 

This example of digestion is soo Victorian, you have got to be naive. Once you name a process or a part of a process it becomes a thing unto itself. As soon as something has a name it becomes the 'meaning' of that name. You then have to show that the thing with a name exists as an entity(out there). Since you can not, logically then it does not exist, until you can point to it, literally. Otherwise you are just constantly backtracking and yammering about , how you can't just consider the 'thing' while dropping the context of it actually being a part of process and any examination of that thing has to always include the idea that the thing under consideration is really always just a part of process yada yada..ect. So naive.

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This example of digestion is soo Victorian, you have got to be naive. Once you name a process or a part of a process it becomes a thing unto itself. As soon as something has a name it becomes the 'meaning' of that name. You then have to show that the thing with a name exists as an entity(out there). Since you can not, logically then it does not exist, until you can point to it, literally. Otherwise you are just constantly backtracking and yammering about , how you can't just consider the 'thing' while dropping the context of it actually being a part of process and any examination of that thing has to always include the idea that the thing under consideration is really always just a part of process yada yada..ect. So naive.

 

Naïve meaning eliminative physicalist (there is no mind)?  If so then I disagree (if not then please correct me, as that's the basic premise of this reply).

 

Let's say, hypothetically, that someday we discover the exact pattern of firing synapses which forms the thought "A is A."  So, if you think that A is A, that simply means that thus-and-such neuron was primed just so to initiate the "A=A" circuit.  Does this mean it wasn't your thought, in the first place?

In this thread  http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24331 Secondhander (way down towards the bottom), in my opinion, nailed the issue quite perfectly:

"It seems to me that the main mistake made is to tacitly presuppose that a man is something different than his attributes. Yes, you can look at my brain and "predict" what choice I am going to make. But my brain IS me, or part of what is me. So all you're really saying is that you are looking at what I am choosing to do and then saying it's not really me choosing it, just my brain, and therefore I don't really have free will, as though my brain isn't me."

 

All I think (again, I make great assumptions here) Eiuol is saying is that the brain is part of someone, just as much as their liver or kidneys, and it would make only perfect sense that the mind is a product of its processes.

 

But, again, I'm not sure if that's what you were asserting.

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