A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: October 8th, 2018, 3:57 am
Mosesquine wrote: October 3rd, 2018, 10:36 am Dualism fails because of its beyondness of experimental perspectives. It also fails to be supported by being defeated by materialisms.
Then consciousness cannot be an epiphenomenon. It must be causal.

Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon, of course.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 8th, 2018, 3:34 pm
Karpel Tunnel wrote: October 8th, 2018, 3:57 am Then consciousness cannot be an epiphenomenon. It must be causal.

Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon, of course.

Can you give an example of such a thing, and say why consciousness is NOT an example?
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Hereandnow
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Hereandnow »

Mosesquine
Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon, of course.
It is not that it is not an epiphenomenon, it is rather calling it one cannot be confirmed or denied, is nonsense, for it is consciousness that produces the proposition "consciousness is an epiphenomenon" and cannot step outside itself to affirm anything about what it is.
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Hereandnow
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Hereandnow »

In case the point is not clear, it is like an eye looking at itself and making a determination as to what an eye is, while all it can possibly "see" is the product of its own visual mechanics, the cones and rods that receive light,the optic nerve turning light into bioelectric currents, and so on. Trouble is, everything is like this: we live in idea, not in some metaphysical scientist's world of things.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 8th, 2018, 5:19 pm
Mosesquine wrote: October 8th, 2018, 3:34 pm


Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon, of course.

Can you give an example of such a thing, and say why consciousness is NOT an example?

You requested an example. I can give an example of regimentation of sentences. Here's an example:

~(∃x)(x is consciousness & ~(∃y)(y is consciousness & x ≠ y) & x is an epiphenomenon)

To be is to be the value of a variable. We can exclude 'the thing such that is both consciousness and an epiphenomenon' from our ontology.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 9th, 2018, 12:03 pm
ThomasHobbes wrote: October 8th, 2018, 5:19 pm


Can you give an example of such a thing, and say why consciousness is NOT an example?

You requested an example. I can give an example of regimentation of sentences. Here's an example:

~(∃x)(x is consciousness & ~(∃y)(y is consciousness & x ≠ y) & x is an epiphenomenon)

To be is to be the value of a variable. We can exclude 'the thing such that is both consciousness and an epiphenomenon' from our ontology.
Please answer the question!
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 11th, 2018, 4:09 am
Mosesquine wrote: October 9th, 2018, 12:03 pm


You requested an example. I can give an example of regimentation of sentences. Here's an example:

~(∃x)(x is consciousness & ~(∃y)(y is consciousness & x ≠ y) & x is an epiphenomenon)

To be is to be the value of a variable. We can exclude 'the thing such that is both consciousness and an epiphenomenon' from our ontology.
Please answer the question!


I answered the question. Reality is constructed by our conceptual scheme. I gave an example of consciousness without epiphenomenon. Any statement can be held true come what may. I show an example of statement that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. So, that's enough.
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Consul
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

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Mosesquine wrote: October 8th, 2018, 3:34 pmConsciousness is not an epiphenomenon, of course.
How do you know?

"It is supposed to be just obvious that the hurtfulness of pain is partly responsible for the subject seeking to avoid pain, saying ‘It hurts’ and so on. But, to reverse Hume, anything can fail to cause anything. No matter how often B follows A, and no matter how initially obvious the causality of the connection seems, the hypothesis that A causes B can be overturned by an over-arching theory which shows the two as distinct effects of a common underlying causal process."

(Jackson, Frank. "Epiphenomenal Qualia." Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982): 127-36. p. 133)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

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Hereandnow wrote: October 8th, 2018, 10:16 pmIt is not that it is not an epiphenomenon, it is rather calling it one cannot be confirmed or denied, is nonsense, for it is consciousness that produces the proposition "consciousness is an epiphenomenon" and cannot step outside itself to affirm anything about what it is.
According to epiphenomenalism, the thought that consciousness is an epiphenomenon is produced by neural processes but doesn't itself produce or cause anything.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Consul wrote: October 11th, 2018, 9:30 pm
Hereandnow wrote: October 8th, 2018, 10:16 pmIt is not that it is not an epiphenomenon, it is rather calling it one cannot be confirmed or denied, is nonsense, for it is consciousness that produces the proposition "consciousness is an epiphenomenon" and cannot step outside itself to affirm anything about what it is.
According to epiphenomenalism, the thought that consciousness is an epiphenomenon is produced by neural processes but doesn't itself produce or cause anything.
Though, then, it's odd we are talking about it. We keep talking about this thing that is not causal. Which seems to, nevertheless, have it in a chain of causes and effects.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Oh, I see now you invoked Hume, but then that means that anything, everything, could be an epiphenomenon. Nothing distinct about conscousness.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

Consul wrote: October 11th, 2018, 9:26 pm
Mosesquine wrote: October 8th, 2018, 3:34 pmConsciousness is not an epiphenomenon, of course.
How do you know?

"It is supposed to be just obvious that the hurtfulness of pain is partly responsible for the subject seeking to avoid pain, saying ‘It hurts’ and so on. But, to reverse Hume, anything can fail to cause anything. No matter how often B follows A, and no matter how initially obvious the causality of the connection seems, the hypothesis that A causes B can be overturned by an over-arching theory which shows the two as distinct effects of a common underlying causal process."

(Jackson, Frank. "Epiphenomenal Qualia." Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982): 127-36. p. 133)


Although Frank Jackson whom you quoted above is a famous philosopher on epiphenomenalism issues of the areas, he is not an absolute criterion about it. So, your merely quoting him is not a good objection to my position. I can do the following regimentation:

~(∃x)(x is-Frank-Jackson & ~(∃y)(y is-Frank-Jackson & x ≠ y) & (∃z)(z is epiphenomenalism & ~(∃y)(y is epiphenomenalism & z ≠ y) & x is right about z))

It can be an answer to your question above.
Syamsu
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Syamsu »

Cartesian type mind body dualism is really sort of a strawman. Real dualism is of spirit and matter. Spirit is defined as agency of a choice, the existence of it a matter of opinion., and material is defined as chosen, the existence of it a fact. The dualism is neccesary to distinguish opinion, like opinion on what is beautiful, from statements of fact. Without dualism it is impossible to distinguish fact f om opinion, and you get arbitrary irrationality that beauty is fact, and the shape of the earth is an opinion.

So how does the agency of a choice, the spirit, perceive a red tomato?

Basically the light brings the information to the brain. There the information is noticed by the decisionmaking center in the brain.

As the only thing the spirit can do is choose things, the act of noticing must therefore operate by choice. This might be done by adding an extra bit to the information of the red tomato, a bit which is decided by the spirit. So then the spirit chooses on the picture of the tomato in the brain, and chooses the bit of importance to set to 1, so then the tomato is noticed. And if the spirit would choose to set the bit of importance to 0, then tomato would also be noticed.

So the spirit is choosing between the picture of the tomata + 0, and the picture of the tomato + 1, and either way it will choose, it will have noticed the tomato is there.

I don't really believe that is how it functions, but it is just to show it is possible to make theory about it.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

Syamsu wrote: October 11th, 2018, 11:41 pm Cartesian type mind body dualism is really sort of a strawman. Real dualism is of spirit and matter. Spirit is defined as agency of a choice, the existence of it a matter of opinion., and material is defined as chosen, the existence of it a fact. The dualism is neccesary to distinguish opinion, like opinion on what is beautiful, from statements of fact. Without dualism it is impossible to distinguish fact f om opinion, and you get arbitrary irrationality that beauty is fact, and the shape of the earth is an opinion.

So how does the agency of a choice, the spirit, perceive a red tomato?

Basically the light brings the information to the brain. There the information is noticed by the decisionmaking center in the brain.

As the only thing the spirit can do is choose things, the act of noticing must therefore operate by choice. This might be done by adding an extra bit to the information of the red tomato, a bit which is decided by the spirit. So then the spirit chooses on the picture of the tomato in the brain, and chooses the bit of importance to set to 1, so then the tomato is noticed. And if the spirit would choose to set the bit of importance to 0, then tomato would also be noticed.

So the spirit is choosing between the picture of the tomata + 0, and the picture of the tomato + 1, and either way it will choose, it will have noticed the tomato is there.

I don't really believe that is how it functions, but it is just to show it is possible to make theory about it.

Both choicers and choiced are material beings. Materialism is better than real dualism of spirit and matter.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 11th, 2018, 9:10 pm
ThomasHobbes wrote: October 11th, 2018, 4:09 am

Please answer the question!


I answered the question. Reality is constructed by our conceptual scheme. I gave an example of consciousness without epiphenomenon. Any statement can be held true come what may. I show an example of statement that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. So, that's enough.
On the contrary. Continually denying that it is an epiphenomenon is not the same as showing it to be something else.
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