A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 13th, 2018, 7:25 pm
ThomasHobbes wrote: October 13th, 2018, 12:59 pm

Little things please little minds.
This says nothing about consciousness in any way.

Again, to be is to be the value of a variable. Every existing thing including consciousness is reduced to be the value of a variable. This says something about consciousness in any way. It's because every saying about is reduced to saying in quantified logic.
Empty.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 14th, 2018, 6:37 am
Mosesquine wrote: October 13th, 2018, 7:25 pm


Again, to be is to be the value of a variable. Every existing thing including consciousness is reduced to be the value of a variable. This says something about consciousness in any way. It's because every saying about is reduced to saying in quantified logic.
Empty.

Why empty??? I claim p by using formal apparatus, and you do p by using natural language. Your claim that quantified statements are empty is not justified.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 14th, 2018, 9:22 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: October 14th, 2018, 6:37 am

Empty.

Why empty??? I claim p by using formal apparatus, and you do p by using natural language. Your claim that quantified statements are empty is not justified.
'p' is just an empty concept in your mind and has nothing to do with consciousness.
Quantity is not relevant. "p" has no QUALITY.

You cannot fudge a qualitative argument with quantitative arguments.
"P" could be apples or frogs as much as consciousness. FFS
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 14th, 2018, 12:44 pm
Mosesquine wrote: October 14th, 2018, 9:22 am


Why empty??? I claim p by using formal apparatus, and you do p by using natural language. Your claim that quantified statements are empty is not justified.
'p' is just an empty concept in your mind and has nothing to do with consciousness.
Quantity is not relevant. "p" has no QUALITY.

You cannot fudge a qualitative argument with quantitative arguments.
"P" could be apples or frogs as much as consciousness. FFS

Everything that has something to do with consciousness contains 'Consciousness is so-and-so'. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. And it follows that I said that consciousness is so-and-so.
Everything that says that something is so-and-so is expressed with quantification in quantified logic. This follows that you are very ignorant of quantified logic as a language system.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 15th, 2018, 8:55 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: October 14th, 2018, 12:44 pm
'p' is just an empty concept in your mind and has nothing to do with consciousness.
Quantity is not relevant. "p" has no QUALITY.

You cannot fudge a qualitative argument with quantitative arguments.
"P" could be apples or frogs as much as consciousness. FFS

Everything that has something to do with consciousness contains 'Consciousness is so-and-so'. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. And it follows that I said that consciousness is so-and-so.
Everything that says that something is so-and-so is expressed with quantification in quantified logic. This follows that you are very ignorant of quantified logic as a language system.
I think you are talking b o l l o c k s.
Consciousness is a quality.
You must be deluded.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 15th, 2018, 4:05 pm
Mosesquine wrote: October 15th, 2018, 8:55 am


Everything that has something to do with consciousness contains 'Consciousness is so-and-so'. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. And it follows that I said that consciousness is so-and-so.
Everything that says that something is so-and-so is expressed with quantification in quantified logic. This follows that you are very ignorant of quantified logic as a language system.
I think you are talking b o l l o c k s.
Consciousness is a quality.
You must be deluded.

I did not say that consciousness is a quantity. I neither said that consciousness is a quality. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. I did neither say about the concept of quantity nor of quality, above. I genuinely said about quantification (expressed by 'there exists some x', and 'for every x' and the like). It's all about formal-technical method of expressing philosophical issues. So, you are an insane-crazy-stupid bonehead.
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Consul
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Consul »

Mosesquine wrote: October 15th, 2018, 8:54 pmI did not say that consciousness is a quantity. I neither said that consciousness is a quality. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. I did neither say about the concept of quantity nor of quality, above. I genuinely said about quantification (expressed by 'there exists some x', and 'for every x' and the like). It's all about formal-technical method of expressing philosophical issues. So, you are an insane-crazy-stupid bonehead.
You don't need a "formal-technical method" to express your opinion that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. Plain English is sufficient!
"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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Mosesquine wrote: October 13th, 2018, 7:25 pmAgain, to be is to be the value of a variable.
I disagree, because I don't feel ontologically committed to whatever I quantify over. For example, when I say that some (fictional) superheroes lack supernatural powers (e.g. Batman), I don't thereby commit myself to the existence of (fictional) superheroes. Or when I say that many things (objects of thought) don't exist (such as all fictional things), I certainly don't commit myself to the existence of nonexistent things (objects of thought). I reject the Quinian view that quantification is inherently existentially loaded. So the "existential quantifier" ("Ex") had better be called the "particular quantifier" ("Px") in order to indicate its ontological neutrality.
"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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Consul wrote: October 16th, 2018, 12:18 pmI reject the Quinian view that quantification is inherently existentially loaded. So the "existential quantifier" ("Ex") had better be called the "particular quantifier" ("Px") in order to indicate its ontological neutrality.
Colin McGinn calls the ontologically noncommitting quantifier the "partial quantifier" or the "intentional quantifier":

PxFx/IxFx = Something x (we think/talk about) is such that x is F.

Note that this is not to be read as: There is/exists something x (we think/talk about) which is F.

So there's an ontological commitment to the value(s) of the variable x if and only if the existence predicate "E!" is added:

Px(E!x & Fx)/Ix(E!x & Fx) = Something x (we think/talk about) is such that x exists and x is F.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Consul wrote: October 16th, 2018, 11:53 am
Mosesquine wrote: October 15th, 2018, 8:54 pmI did not say that consciousness is a quantity. I neither said that consciousness is a quality. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. I did neither say about the concept of quantity nor of quality, above. I genuinely said about quantification (expressed by 'there exists some x', and 'for every x' and the like). It's all about formal-technical method of expressing philosophical issues. So, you are an insane-crazy-stupid bonehead.
You don't need a "formal-technical method" to express your opinion that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. Plain English is sufficient!
Logic cannot say anything about empirical questions.

All logmonsters are flablickers
Consul is a logmonster
Therefore Consul is a flablicker

All perfectly logical, yet we know nothing about flablickers or logmonsters - In the example given by Consul no information is supplied about consciousness or meta-phenomena.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

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Consul wrote: October 16th, 2018, 11:53 am
Mosesquine wrote: October 15th, 2018, 8:54 pmI did not say that consciousness is a quantity. I neither said that consciousness is a quality. I said that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. I did neither say about the concept of quantity nor of quality, above. I genuinely said about quantification (expressed by 'there exists some x', and 'for every x' and the like). It's all about formal-technical method of expressing philosophical issues. So, you are an insane-crazy-stupid bonehead.
You don't need a "formal-technical method" to express your opinion that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. Plain English is sufficient!
Plain English is not sufficient. According to Bertrand Russell, the English sentence "the present King of France is not bald" is ambiguous, and it is interpreted as the following:
[the present king of France exists] & not[it is bald]
Not[the present king of France is bald]
It means that the scope of negation determines the meaning of such sentences.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 16th, 2018, 2:09 pm
Consul wrote: October 16th, 2018, 11:53 am

You don't need a "formal-technical method" to express your opinion that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. Plain English is sufficient!
Logic cannot say anything about empirical questions.

All logmonsters are flablickers
Consul is a logmonster
Therefore Consul is a flablicker

All perfectly logical, yet we know nothing about flablickers or logmonsters - In the example given by Consul no information is supplied about consciousness or meta-phenomena.


Logic can say something about empirical questions.

If Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently, then he ate food recently.
Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently.
Therefore, he ate food recently.

This reasoning explains the fact of Thomas Hobbes eating bread (empirical fact) implying his eating food (empirical fact, too). Logic also can say about empirical questions in inductive ways:

Most 80% of students go to school by riding a bus.
Charles is a student.
Therefore, probably, Charles would go to school by riding a bus.

These follow that consciousness can be explained by logic.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Mosesquine wrote: October 16th, 2018, 3:49 pm
Logic can say something about empirical questions.

If Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently, then he ate food recently.
Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently.
Therefore, he ate food recently.
Circular adding nothing. No new information.
This reasoning explains the fact of Thomas Hobbes eating bread (empirical fact) implying his eating food (empirical fact, too). Logic also can say about empirical questions in inductive ways:
The empirical content has not changed. Nothing new here.

Most 80% of students go to school by riding a bus.
Charles is a student.
Therefore, probably, Charles would go to school by riding a bus.

These follow that consciousness can be explained by logic.
Rubbish.
None of these statements say anything about the subjects. It's nothing more than definitional.
Surely your philosophy warned you about the limits of logic??
LOL
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Mosesquine wrote: October 16th, 2018, 3:49 pm Logic can say something about empirical questions.

If Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently, then he ate food recently.
Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently.
Therefore, he ate food recently.
One can draw conclusions using logic, here deduction, but we learn nothing about food or bread, since we had to know already that bread was a kind of food,that food is things we eat. It doesn't say anything about food or bread.

I have found some of your logical analyses odd and was glad to see TH challenge them. But then I thought that perhaps I was missing your intent.

Most 80% of students go to school by riding a bus.
Charles is a student.
Therefore, probably, Charles would go to school by riding a bus.

These follow that consciousness can be explained by logic.
Conscoiusness would be equivalent to one of those nouns. buses or students or perhaps a process like riding.

If we do not know what those mean at the beginning, we stil do not. But since we were able to determine the numbers, we probably did. The logic did not explain any of these things. We had to know them already.

Logic can look at the relation between sentences or absracted symbolic sequences.
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Mosesquine
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Re: A Pragmatist Argument against Substance Dualism

Post by Mosesquine »

ThomasHobbes wrote: October 16th, 2018, 5:22 pm
Mosesquine wrote: October 16th, 2018, 3:49 pm
Logic can say something about empirical questions.

If Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently, then he ate food recently.
Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently.
Therefore, he ate food recently.
Circular adding nothing. No new information.
This reasoning explains the fact of Thomas Hobbes eating bread (empirical fact) implying his eating food (empirical fact, too). Logic also can say about empirical questions in inductive ways:
The empirical content has not changed. Nothing new here.

Most 80% of students go to school by riding a bus.
Charles is a student.
Therefore, probably, Charles would go to school by riding a bus.

These follow that consciousness can be explained by logic.
Rubbish.
None of these statements say anything about the subjects. It's nothing more than definitional.
Surely your philosophy warned you about the limits of logic??
LOL


You believe that all logical reasonings have only formal features. However, compare the following ones:

(1) If Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently, then he ate a spy robot that came from Alpha Centauri recently.
(2) If Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently, then he ate food recently.

The conditional (1) above is one whose antecedent ("Thomas Hobbes ate a bread recently") is irrelevant to its consequent ("he ate a spy robot that came from Alpha Centauri recently") in terms of meaning. Since (1) above is not meaning-constituting, it is not informative.
However, the conditional (2) above is meaning-constituting (the antecedent of it implying the consequent in terms of meaning), and informative (shift from eating a bread to eating food, not from eating a bread to eating a spy robot).
You seem to say about the importance of informative-empirical ones. The power of clarity of analyzing natural language into formal logic is the common sense among philosophers and linguists these days.
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