against Physicalism

Discuss arguments for existence of God and faith in general. Any aspect of any orientation toward religion/spirituality, as long as it is based upon a positive open to other people attitude.

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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Metacrock » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:32 am

met wrote:
Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:15 pm
.
I know I'm a rube, but God, to me, isn't a set of equations or a mundane truth about where in transcendence our experiences take place. That's basically a form of non-theistic Buddhism. I think arguments of this sort shouldn't be labeled as being about God. It's about metaphysics. I always feel disappointed when it turns out that God is something that could be described in a college textbook. I'd be fine with a theory of God where He is physical, or a theory of an unphysical God where you don't flatten Him out into something mundane.

I agree with metaphysics commit,
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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Metacrock » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:39 am

I propose that your living brain, undergoing the changes and processes that it does, must produce your experiences. Suppose we remove the unphysical "stuff" that you think is (also) necessary. If this p-zombie brain lacks the property of conscious experience, then the p-zombie fingers would never type "I'm experiencing these qualia", which is a physical difference. This means your p-zombie brain, defined as physically identical to your ordinary brain, is functioning in a physically different way from your ordinary brain. Unless physics is somehow not consistent inside human brains, this is a contradiction and the premise must be false, i.e. there is no unphysical stuff and p-zombies are impossible.
that still doesn't mean that the mid is not the repository of meaning, The light from a light bulb is still the point of the bulb but it needs the physical filament,
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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Jim B. » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:00 pm

QuantumTroll wrote:
Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:27 am

Are your experiences something other than your brain, though? This is basically the p-zombie question, unless I misunderstood you.
It's not clear what you mean when you say that my experiences are my brain or brain events. In what sense? My cat 'is' sub-atomic goings on but that seems to be so in a trivial sense that's not all that informative. My thoughts and epxeriences have content; they're about redness, Barcelona, the smell of coffee or math.

How do you understand the term 'physical'? We took this up on Joe's blog but without much resolution. Maybe the term has more to do with a form of understanding and analysis than it does with a part or domain of reality, or all of reality for that matter. In other words, maybe it's an epistemic category that we've mistaken for an ontological category.
I propose that your living brain, undergoing the changes and processes that it does, must produce your experiences. Suppose we remove the unphysical "stuff" that you think is (also) necessary. If this p-zombie brain lacks the property of conscious experience, then the p-zombie fingers would never type "I'm experiencing these qualia", which is a physical difference. This means your p-zombie brain, defined as physically identical to your ordinary brain, is functioning in a physically different way from your ordinary brain. Unless physics is somehow not consistent inside human brains, this is a contradiction and the premise must be false, i.e. there is no unphysical stuff and p-zombies are impossible.
Unless the non-physical stuff is not inside my brain, ie if there's no "ghost in the machine." I agree that p-zombies are a problem, namely epiphenomenalism, although I think they're logically conceivable. The big controversy is if that conceivability is enough to get you to metaphysical possibility. I don't know enough about the logical underpinnings of that argument ( Two-Dimensional Semantics) to say.

There does seem to be a necessary link between physical stuff (assuming we have a grasp on what physical means) and experience. The problem is that using the physical concepts now in use, it appears to be a contingent rather than a necessary relation. I think there'd have to be a conceptual revolution about what the term 'physical' entails. I think the burden is on physicalists first to say what 'physical' means and then to propose a way in which an identity could even conceivably be established.
I believe that the intrinsic and the extrinsic are just two sides of the same coin, and you can't have the extrinsic without the intrinsic. That does imply that a bird flock has its own mind, as real as and possibly as complex as an insect's or ant-hive's. There is no p-zombie bird flock.
Yes, I agree that they're two sides of the same coin. But notice that we don't think that "heads" ( experience) is nothing but "tails"(physical facts). We think that 'heads' and 'tails' are parts of a larger whole (the coin) that comprises them both.

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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Metacrock » Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:10 am

How do you understand the term 'physical'? We took this up on Joe's blog but without much resolution. Maybe the term has more to do with a form of understanding and analysis than it does with a part or domain of reality, or all of reality for that matter. In other words, maybe it's an epistemic category that we've mistaken for an ontological category.
I have a friend who is a philosopher and teaches at Biola. He uses space to define physical, Physical things have extension in three dimensional space. :mrgreen:
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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Jim B. » Fri Mar 30, 2018 1:37 pm

But then space and time wouldn't be physical? Nor photons, and other sub-atomic stuff?

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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Jim B. » Fri Mar 30, 2018 4:56 pm

Good points, met.

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Re: against Physicalism

Post by QuantumTroll » Fri Apr 06, 2018 3:34 am

Metacrock wrote:
Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:10 am
How do you understand the term 'physical'? We took this up on Joe's blog but without much resolution. Maybe the term has more to do with a form of understanding and analysis than it does with a part or domain of reality, or all of reality for that matter. In other words, maybe it's an epistemic category that we've mistaken for an ontological category.
I have a friend who is a philosopher and teaches at Biola. He uses space to define physical, Physical things have extension in three dimensional space. :mrgreen:
That's an interesting concept...

Physically, an electron has no minimum size. It's really a point particle of size zero. It's the quantum state of the electron that other electrons "collide" with, not its physical volume. An electron has a position, a momentum, and a spin direction. Two electrons can overlap indefinitely if they have opposing spin but the same position and momentum. So in this sense, an electron has no extension in three dimensional space.

The universe is fundamentally pretty weird in how it works, I think it's a mistake to rely overmuch on the classical, macroscopic concepts we're used to in our everyday experience — they tell us more about how we function than any fundamental truths about the universe itself.

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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Metacrock » Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:41 am

QuantumTroll wrote:
Fri Apr 06, 2018 3:34 am
Metacrock wrote:
Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:10 am
How do you understand the term 'physical'? We took this up on Joe's blog but without much resolution. Maybe the term has more to do with a form of understanding and analysis than it does with a part or domain of reality, or all of reality for that matter. In other words, maybe it's an epistemic category that we've mistaken for an ontological category.
I have a friend who is a philosopher and teaches at Biola. He uses space to define physical, Physical things have extension in three dimensional space. :mrgreen:
That's an interesting concept...

Physically, an electron has no minimum size. It's really a point particle of size zero. It's the quantum state of the electron that other electrons "collide" with, not its physical volume. An electron has a position, a momentum, and a spin direction. Two electrons can overlap indefinitely if they have opposing spin but the same position and momentum. So in this sense, an electron has no extension in three dimensional space.

The universe is fundamentally pretty weird in how it works, I think it's a mistake to rely overmuch on the classical, macroscopic concepts we're used to in our everyday experience — they tell us more about how we function than any fundamental truths about the universe itself.
I claim no expertise but I've read a lot about it,It seems to me their just Tagalog about equators they have no idea of the reality.
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Re: against Physicalism

Post by Metacrock » Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:43 am

I don'twant ot lose touch this time, this board was down fora long time and almost got lost so we switched to my blog that;s where most of the action is now, metapchock;s blog
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Re: against Physicalism

Post by foresthome » Fri Apr 20, 2018 2:47 pm

What counts as "information"? The naive everyday sense of the word always relates to agents, human or non-human, but not,
say, atoms (if atom A hits atom B, it is not informing B of its position). So arguments that relate information to physicalism
must be more subtle... This doesn't mean that information DOESN'T supervene on physical arrangements of atoms, forces,
energy, etc. only that you use "information" in that sense as part of a purely physical explanation. (sorry I would refer back to
a specific message but I have to figure out to see the board while I'm responding: maybe it is as simple as just opening the reply
window in a new tab? sorry).

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