Can we solve the mind-body problem?

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Can we solve the mind-body problem?

No, the "hard problem" of consciousness will never be solved
19
22%
Yes, a future revision of science/physics will allow us to solve it
37
43%
Other-please specify
31
36%
 
Total votes: 87

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Bohm2
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Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Bohm2 »

The so-called "hard" problem of consciousness (e.g. mind-body problem) ranks in the top few unanswered scientific questions. Please vote and discuss why you hold your position. Here are some arguments that summarize what I believe to be the major points. First there's Chomsky:
The mind-body problem can be posed sensibly only insofar as we have a definite conception of body. If we have no such definite and fixed conception, we cannot ask whether some phenomena fall beyond its range...

There is no longer any definite conception of body. Rather, the material world is whatever we discover it to be, with whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the purposes of explanatory theory. Any intelligible theory that offers genuine explanations and that can be assimilated to the core notions of physics becomes part of the theory of the material world, part of our account of body. If we have such a theory in some domain, we seek to assimilate it to the core notions of physics, perhaps modifying these notions as we carry out this enterprise...

The mind-body problem can therefore not even be formulated. The problem cannot be solved, because there is no clear way to state it. Unless someone proposes a definite concept of body, we cannot ask whether some phenomena exceed its bounds.There seems to be no coherent doctrine of materialism and metaphysical naturalism, no issue of eliminativism, no mind-body problem....

[The terms] 'body' and 'the physical world' refer to whatever there is, all of which we try to understand as best we can and to integrate into a coherent theoretical system that we call the natural sciences...If it were shown that the properties of the world fall into two disconnected domains, then we would, I suppose, say that that is the nature of the physical world, nothing more, just as if the world of matter and anti-matter were to prove unrelated.
There are some philosophers (e.g. Nagel), however, who question this view, as they argue that even with future revision of science/physics the mind-body problem or so-called "hard problem" of consciousness will remain intractible:
I have heard at least one respected physicist avert that "physics is finished," meaning that even microphysics is already empirically adequate and its physical ontology, its ontology of substances, is reasonably well understood; the remaining projects of microphysics – positing superstrings, constructing a unified field theory and the like–are only matters of interpreting and mathematizing the physical ontology. If that is so, then there is no reason to think that physics will expand its ontology in so fundamental a way as to afford a reduction of the mental that was not already available....Even, if our idea of the physical ever expands to include mental phenomena, it will have to assign them an objective character-whether or not this is done by analyzing them in terms of other phenomena already regarded as physical.
So, Nagel is arguing that physics is finished for all intensive purposes; thus, the mind-body problem is different from all other so called previous "problems" seen in science, because unlike the others, subjectivity/qualia cannot be reduced/unified to any future “material” entity regardless of future revisions of our "material"/“physical” theories. Nagel believes this because he argues that regardless of future revisions of the physical, it can never expand to include mental phenomena because, in principle, the "physical" would have to assign them an objective or mathematical and/or computational character but any any such character cannot possibly shed any light on subjectivity/qualia/the phenomenal or "feel" of our experience/thoughts. My own position is that it can never be solved. Here is why I believe this:

1. Science only reveals the causal / relational properties of physical objects, and that "we know next to nothing about the intrinsic nature of the world. We know only its causal/relational nature." (Russell)

2. While physics can tell us only about the dispositional or relational properties of matter, dispositions ultimately require categorical properties as bases, and relations ultimately require intrinsic properties as relata so there must also be categorical or intrinsic properties about which physics is silent. Yet these are properties of physical objects and thus are physical properties in one central sense. Instantiations of such properties would therefore constitute physical facts of which we are ignorant, as per the ignorance hypothesis. (Stoljar)

3. Matter must have an intrinsic nature to ground its dispositional properties. We know nothing of this nature, and in fact the only intrinsic nature with which we are familiar is consciousness itself. It is arguable that we cannot conceive of any other intrinsic nature because our knowledge of the physical is entirely based upon its dispositions to produce certain conscious experiences under certain conditions. Of course, we can assert that matter has a non-experiential intrinsic nature which is utterly mysterious to us, but this would seem to make the problem of emergence yet more difficult. An emergentism which made the generation of consciousness intelligible would be one that showed how experience emerged from what we know about matter, that is, from its dispositional properties. But it seems impossible to see how the dispositions to move in certain directions under certain conditions could give rise to or constitute consciousness, save by the kind of brute and miraculous radical emergence discussed above. If granting some kind of experiential intrinsic aspect to the fundamental physical entities of the world eliminates this problem, it might be worth the cost in initial uncomfortable implausibility. (Seager/Strawson)

All this sounds plausible (except the last hi-lited part); the part that leads these authors to favour a type of panpsychism. Why do I think this last part of Seager's/Strawson'a argument is flawed? Jussi Jylkkä summarizes it nicely:
But now it seems that Strawson is confusing here the possibility of the emergence of mind from scientifically described properties like mass, charge, or spin, with the possibility of the emergence of mind from the intrinsic properties that correspond to these scientific properties. It is indeed the case that mind cannot emerge from scientifically described extrinsic properties like mass, charge, and spin, but do we know that mind could not emerge from the intrinsic properties that underlie these scientifically observable properties? It might be argued that since we know absolutely nothing about the intrinsic nature of mass, charge, and spin, we simply cannot tell whether they could be something non-mental and still constitute mentality when organised properly. It might well be that mentality is like liquidity: the intrinsic nature of mass, charge and spin might not be mental itself, just like individual H2O-molecules are not liquid themselves, but could nevertheless constitute mentality when organised properly, just like H2O-molecules can constitute liquidity when organised properly (this would be a variation of neutral monism). In short, the problem is that we just do not know enough about the intrinsic nature of the fundamental level of reality that we could say almost anything about it...Thus, even if the intrinsic nature of electrons and other fundamental particles is in fact mental, this does not mean that it should be anything like human mentality—rather, we can only say that the ontological category their intrinsic nature belongs to is the same as the one our phenomenal realm belongs to. This category in the most general sense is perhaps best titled ‘ideal’.
I personally cannot see how we will ever be able to break this impasse even with future revisions of physics/science. I do think that Colin McGinn has come the closest to suggesting something that would be required but I don't think that will ever be achievable because non-locality/non-spatiality doesn't seem enough:
How do conscious events cause physical changes in the body? Not by proximate contact, apparently, on pain of over-spatialising consciousness, and presumably not by action-at-a-distance either. Recent philosophy has become accustomed to the idea of mental causation, but this is actually much more mysterious than is generally appreciated, once the non-spatial character of consciousness is acknowledged. To put it differently, we understand mental causation only if we deny the intuition of non-spatiality. The standard analogy with physical unobservables simply dodges these hard questions, lulling us into a false sense of intelligibility....

Conscious phenomena are not located and extended in the usual way; but then again they are surely not somehow 'outside' of space, adjacent perhaps to the abstract realm. Rather, they bear an opaque and anomalous relation to space, as space is currently conceived. They seem neither quite 'in' it nor quite 'out' of it. Presumably, however, this is merely an epistemological fact, not an ontological one. It is just that we lack the theory with which to make sense of the relation in question. In themselves consciousness and space must be related in some intelligible naturalistic fashion, though they may have to be conceived very differently from the way they now are for this to become apparent. My conjecture is that it is in this nexus that the solution to the space problem lies. Consciousness is the next big anomaly to call for a revision in how we conceive space-just as other revisions were called for by earlier anomalies. And the revision is likely to be large-scale, despite the confinement of consciousness to certain small pockets of the natural world. This is because space is such a fundamental feature of things that anything that produces disturbances in our conception of it must cut pretty deeply into our world-view....That is the region in which our ignorance is focused: not in the details of neurophysiological activity but, more fundamentally, in how space is structured or constituted. That which we refer to when we use the word 'space' has a nature that is quite different from how we standardly conceive it to be; so different, indeed, that it is capable of 'containing' the non-spatial (as we now conceive it) phenomenon of consciousness.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by H M »

Key to the problem of experience, in the context of physicalist doctrine, is that the latter does indirectly claim what matter is normally like in itself or independent of consciousness: That when perception and knowledge affairs cease after death, everything disappears (Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death). There's certainly no Universal Observer or panpsychic background which a particular person's psychological continuity dissolves back into, that continues sporting manifestations of an environment and thoughts about it or scientific, descriptive understandings of the world. Those are deviant variations that turn it into some kind of objective idealism.

So -- as even some village idiots might well grasp better than those of us who reify "physical" in a truly serious or literal way -- material phenomena are actually a feature of extrospection or external-oriented experience. Inferences, concepts / propositional knowledge concerning them are part of the intellectual activity affiliated with consciousness, though just as much exhibited in the private and public divisions of experience as symbols, words, etc. The combination of both these concrete and abstract phenomena ("physicalism", to differentiate from outdated materialism) is itself just another construct of intellection, whether treated as a mere methodological approach or an outright metaphysical stance.

The brain or anything else that perception and reflective thought present as their origin, or as a representation of themselves, is also content of experience. But this circularity does not forbid satisfactory progress being made in neural sciences, etc. Consciousness (or the "mind", etc) brings phenomena (representations for received influences) into causal relation and spatiotemporal co-existence with each other; that is, the generating of explanations falls out of its very nature. It is only when the content of such experience (which includes the inventions of personal thought and social collaboration as much the concrete manifestations of perception) is used to explain experience itself (the field or "ground" wherein they are originally made available before being abstracted) that no explanation seems fully satisfactory (i.e., the circularity of explaining phenomena with phenomena can no longer be casually ignored for the hurried sake of proceeding forth, anyway).
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by A_Seagull »

What IS the mind-body 'problem'?

If it cannot be clearly stated, perhaps there is no problem.

IMO: Mind exists, body exists; no problem.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Bohm2 »

A_Seagull wrote:IMO: Mind exists, body exists; no problem.
You find nothing wrong with dualism (which you appear to be arguing for), particularly given the indefinite nature of 'body/matter' (e.g. physics/science has not been completed).
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Discards »

All science really needs to do is put up enough research into perception. The mind is really very little else apart from perceptions. The paradox of perception is that what we see us not what we get. For example a sound that I hear imposes on me an idea of distance. But I only hear what I hear because a physical object sends out waves through the air. Obviously what reaches my ear is in no uncertain terms a different thing, apart from this notion of external reality.

If science can adequately cover all the senses and dispose of our idea that our sense perception is of external reality, we can come to an understanding that the mind is a projection created from within the body. Even if the fuel for this illusionary image comes from outside the body, the illusion of external reality itself comes from within. Thus, the body is equipped to create subtle perceptions. Understanding what physical processie lead to these various percepti will help to dispense with the dualism of mind.

Like a movie projector, the physical body regurgitates outside forces through the structures of the sense faculties onto a screen. The question is: what is the screen? What is the difference between the screen and the image?

The reflective substrate must be external physical objects. The image is projected onto those objects. That isn't to say that anything real comes if this relation. The mind is an illusion produced by the body as a mere intransigent reflection onto external physics, with no spatial meaning.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Granth »

A_Seagull wrote:What IS the mind-body 'problem'?

If it cannot be clearly stated, perhaps there is no problem.

IMO: Mind exists, body exists; no problem.
Are these things, mind and body, separately existing things, in your mind?
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by A_Seagull »

Granth wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Are these things, mind and body, separately existing things, in your mind?
The mind and brain are essentially the same thing... just viewed from different perspectives.

The mind is the view from the inside, the brain from the outside.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Granth »

A_Seagull wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


The mind and brain are essentially the same thing... just viewed from different perspectives.

The mind is the view from the inside, the brain from the outside.
Yeah but I was asking about mind and body not mind and brain, as to the thread question.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by A_Seagull »

Granth wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Yeah but I was asking about mind and body not mind and brain, as to the thread question.

Well, the brain is a part of the body. It is a part of the physical world.

The arrangment of the neurons (or whatever) in a brain is also a part of the physical world. But the meaning associated with the particular arrangement of the neurons is a part of mind. It is like the coding of a particular picture used by a computer ( a jpg file for example). The particular string of binary code that encodes the picture is meaningless if it is not known how to interpret the code. And the particular coding used by a brain is specific to that particular brain. Hence the perspective of the neurons when viewed from within the brain is different from that viewed from without.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Discards »

Oh yeah. A certain professor Goswami claims to have unified the mind body problem together with scientific physicalist rationalization and pseudo scientific conscious Krishna types. He is a quantum physicist. His standpoint is called idealist monism. His rationale goes like this.

The current worldview has it that everything is made of matter, and everything can be reduced to the elementary particles of matter, the basic constituents — building blocks — of matter. And cause arises from the interactions of these basic building blocks or elementary particles; elementary particles make atoms, atoms make molecules, molecules make cells, and cells make brain. But all the way, the ultimate cause is always the interactions between the elementary particles. This is the belief — all cause moves from the elementary particles. This is what we call "upward causation." So in this view, what human beings — you and I think of as our free will does not really exist. It is only an epiphenomenon or secondary phenomenon, secondary to the causal power of matter. And any causal power that we seem to be able to exert on matter is just an illusion. This is the current paradigm. Now, the opposite view is that everything starts with consciousness. That is, consciousness is the ground of all being. In this view, consciousness imposes "downward causation." In other words, our free will is real. When we act in the world we really are acting with causal power. This view does not deny that matter also has causal potency — it does not deny that there is causal power from elementary particles upward, so there is upward causation — but in addition it insists that there is also downward causation. It shows up in our creativity and acts of free will, or when we make moral decisions. In those occasions we are actually witnessing downward causation by consciousness.


... And later in the same interview - this:

AG: We all hope so. Now this is called the "quantum measurement paradox." It is a paradox because who are we to do this conversion? Because after all, in the materialist paradigm we don't have any causal efficacy. We are nothing but the brain, which is made up of atoms and elementary particles. So how can a brain which is made up of atoms and elementary particles convert a possibility wave that it itself is? It itself is made up of the possibility waves of atoms and elementary particles, so it cannot convert its own possibility wave into actuality. This is called a paradox. Now in the new view, consciousness is the ground of being. So who converts possibility into actuality? Consciousness does, because consciousness does not obey quantum physics. Consciousness is not made of material. Consciousness is transcendent. Do you see the paradigm-changing view right here—how consciousness can be said to create the material world? The material world of quantum physics is just possibility. It is consciousness, through the conversion of possibility into actuality, that creates what we see manifest. In other words, consciousness creates the manifest world.

You can read the entire interview at enlightennext.org/magazine/j11/goswami. ... asp?page=2
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Granth »

A_Seagull wrote: (Nested quote removed.)



Well, the brain is a part of the body. It is a part of the physical world.

The arrangment of the neurons (or whatever) in a brain is also a part of the physical world. But the meaning associated with the particular arrangement of the neurons is a part of mind. It is like the coding of a particular picture used by a computer ( a jpg file for example). The particular string of binary code that encodes the picture is meaningless if it is not known how to interpret the code. And the particular coding used by a brain is specific to that particular brain. Hence the perspective of the neurons when viewed from within the brain is different from that viewed from without.

Ok, so is the "mind-body problem" not actually a problem because the mind is not separate to the body/brain you speak of, or is it not a problem because the mind IS separate to this body/brain?

Personally, like yourself, I can't see a problem either and I also can't see how the body (with brain) can be seen as separate from mind.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Syamsu »

Bohm2 wrote:The so-called "hard" problem of consciousness (e.g. mind-body problem) ranks in the top few unanswered scientific questions. Please vote and discuss why you hold your position. Here are some arguments that summarize what I believe to be the major points. First there's Chomsky: (Nested quote removed.)

There are some philosophers (e.g. Nagel), however, who question this view, as they argue that even with future revision of science/physics the mind-body problem or so-called "hard problem" of consciousness will remain intractible: (Nested quote removed.)

So, Nagel is arguing that physics is finished for all intensive purposes; thus, the mind-body problem is different from all other so called previous "problems" seen in science, because unlike the others, subjectivity/qualia cannot be reduced/unified to any future “material” entity regardless of future revisions of our "material"/“physical” theories. Nagel believes this because he argues that regardless of future revisions of the physical, it can never expand to include mental phenomena because, in principle, the "physical" would have to assign them an objective or mathematical and/or computational character but any any such character cannot possibly shed any light on subjectivity/qualia/the phenomenal or "feel" of our experience/thoughts. My own position is that it can never be solved. Here is why I believe this:

1. Science only reveals the causal / relational properties of physical objects, and that "we know next to nothing about the intrinsic nature of the world. We know only its causal/relational nature." (Russell)

2. While physics can tell us only about the dispositional or relational properties of matter, dispositions ultimately require categorical properties as bases, and relations ultimately require intrinsic properties as relata so there must also be categorical or intrinsic properties about which physics is silent. Yet these are properties of physical objects and thus are physical properties in one central sense. Instantiations of such properties would therefore constitute physical facts of which we are ignorant, as per the ignorance hypothesis. (Stoljar)

3. Matter must have an intrinsic nature to ground its dispositional properties. We know nothing of this nature, and in fact the only intrinsic nature with which we are familiar is consciousness itself. It is arguable that we cannot conceive of any other intrinsic nature because our knowledge of the physical is entirely based upon its dispositions to produce certain conscious experiences under certain conditions. Of course, we can assert that matter has a non-experiential intrinsic nature which is utterly mysterious to us, but this would seem to make the problem of emergence yet more difficult. An emergentism which made the generation of consciousness intelligible would be one that showed how experience emerged from what we know about matter, that is, from its dispositional properties. But it seems impossible to see how the dispositions to move in certain directions under certain conditions could give rise to or constitute consciousness, save by the kind of brute and miraculous radical emergence discussed above. If granting some kind of experiential intrinsic aspect to the fundamental physical entities of the world eliminates this problem, it might be worth the cost in initial uncomfortable implausibility. (Seager/Strawson)

All this sounds plausible (except the last hi-lited part); the part that leads these authors to favour a type of panpsychism. Why do I think this last part of Seager's/Strawson'a argument is flawed? Jussi Jylkkä summarizes it nicely: (Nested quote removed.)

I personally cannot see how we will ever be able to break this impasse even with future revisions of physics/science. I do think that Colin McGinn has come the closest to suggesting something that would be required but I don't think that will ever be achievable because non-locality/non-spatiality doesn't seem enough: (Nested quote removed.)
Consider on the one hand the enormous amount of text above here, and on the other hand the ease with which we talk in terms of choosing in daily life.

If we didn't understand, and had not solved the problem already, then we couldn't talk in terms of choosing.

We all have solved the problem already, we all understand what logic we must use. And that logic is of a spiritual domain, and a material domain, connected to each other with decisions.

Pseudoscience, such as darwinism, problemizes the correct understanding we already have.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Hughsmith23 »

Discards wrote:All science really needs to do is put up enough research into perception. The mind is really very little else apart from perceptions. The paradox of perception is that what we see us not what we get. For example a sound that I hear imposes on me an idea of distance. But I only hear what I hear because a physical object sends out waves through the air. Obviously what reaches my ear is in no uncertain terms a different thing, apart from this notion of external reality.

If science can adequately cover all the senses and dispose of our idea that our sense perception is of external reality, we can come to an understanding that the mind is a projection created from within the body. Even if the fuel for this illusionary image comes from outside the body, the illusion of external reality itself comes from within. Thus, the body is equipped to create subtle perceptions. Understanding what physical processie lead to these various percepti will help to dispense with the dualism of mind.

Like a movie projector, the physical body regurgitates outside forces through the structures of the sense faculties onto a screen. The question is: what is the screen? What is the difference between the screen and the image?

The reflective substrate must be external physical objects. The image is projected onto those objects. That isn't to say that anything real comes if this relation. The mind is an illusion produced by the body as a mere intransigent reflection onto external physics, with no spatial meaning.
It clearly doesn't come from within; this would only be true if there was another possible fuel (I think you use this metaphor to suggest contingency?) but if it wasn't the external world, what would it be? By using "illusion" you presuppose that there could be something else; you talk about "external reality". What is that? If we forget about that, which would, given that its meaningless, we can forget about describing our experience as "Illusory", whatever that means.

Well: the message of the screen is that it is like the image.

"The mind is an illusion produced by the body..." Why not just invert this and say the body is an illusion produced by the mind, particularly as our access to the body is perceptive? I am not saying we should do that, but you are returning to a dualism with this body-produces-mind-mind-is-illusion model.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Discards »

Hughsmith23 wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


It clearly doesn't come from within; this would only be true if there was another possible fuel (I think you use this metaphor to suggest contingency?) but if it wasn't the external world, what would it be? By using "illusion" you presuppose that there could be something else; you talk about "external reality". What is that? If we forget about that, which would, given that its meaningless, we can forget about describing our experience as "Illusory", whatever that means.

Well: the message of the screen is that it is like the image.

"The mind is an illusion produced by the body..." Why not just invert this and say the body is an illusion produced by the mind, particularly as our access to the body is perceptive? I am not saying we should do that, but you are returning to a dualism with this body-produces-mind-mind-is-illusion model.
The impression of external reality is the illusion. I do not say that the existence of external reality is a production of the mind. I have no idea what produces external reality. But I know this much.

External reality supplies the body with waves of energy that have many distinctions. frequency for example.

The physical organs of the body come into contact with these waves. From this contact an impression of contingent existence is formed in the mind. We believe that the environment presented to us by our senses is external to our body. As true as that may be, the impression of distant objects, ie. what seems to be distant, for example, is actually the result of the nature of the wave sent over that distance.

The source of the impression is distant from us. We share a distance with external objects. But the reason we sense distance is that a source of "sense-media" emanates from the distant object and travels through distance. When it reaches our ear or our eye it has not supplied the eye with actual distance. It has supplied the eye or the ear with the effects and changes that occur in a wave that travels over distance. Ie. losses in energy. The impression made on the eye or the ear is characteristic of all the changes that happened to the sense media (the wave) in its journey from its origin (x1) to my ear or my eye (x2).

The conditioning factor for the impression (the light wave, or the sound wave, etc. ) travels through distance. The impression is just an impression. Yes, there are external objects. But how can you say that your sense of distance is anything else besides a reaction in the brain when the requisite condition that creates the impression is seperated from its external object?

I blame my self if this is not convincing to you. If you don't get my meaning, think about a thunder storm.

Perhaps a crash of thunder follows a bolt of lightning in the sky. A wave of sound is produced by the event. It travels through space and some time later what is left of the wave reaches my ear. If the source is close, the energy of the wave dissipates less and I hear "closeness". If it is far, the energy of the wave dissipates more and when it reaches my ear I get an impression of "more distant". As you should see the impression of distance is not actual distance - it is a connection between external reality, the changes of shape and energy that go on in propagating waves (ie. deterioration) + my senses.

"I" am the only thing in this world that acknowledges "distance". The cloud experiences itself. The energy wave experiences change. As a wave it has no understanding of distance. A wave merely propogates. A wave changes in size and shape. I am the relation between external events and wave forms. Thus, perception adds qualities to the world that do not exist there without me. Size, color, shape, even texture and malleability are all productions resulting from a wave that has deteriorated in some way between x1 - the origin of the wave and x2 - the connection of wave and physical sense. These impressions are not actual features of external reality.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Logic_ill »

Discards wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


The impression of external reality is the illusion. I do not say that the existence of external reality is a production of the mind. I have no idea what produces external reality. But I know this much.

External reality supplies the body with waves of energy that have many distinctions. frequency for example.

The physical organs of the body come into contact with these waves. From this contact an impression of contingent existence is formed in the mind. We believe that the environment presented to us by our senses is external to our body. As true as that may be, the impression of distant objects, ie. what seems to be distant, for example, is actually the result of the nature of the wave sent over that distance.

The source of the impression is distant from us. We share a distance with external objects. But the reason we sense distance is that a source of "sense-media" emanates from the distant object and travels through distance. When it reaches our ear or our eye it has not supplied the eye with actual distance. It has supplied the eye or the ear with the effects and changes that occur in a wave that travels over distance. Ie. losses in energy. The impression made on the eye or the ear is characteristic of all the changes that happened to the sense media (the wave) in its journey from its origin (x1) to my ear or my eye (x2).

The conditioning factor for the impression (the light wave, or the sound wave, etc. ) travels through distance. The impression is just an impression. Yes, there are external objects. But how can you say that your sense of distance is anything else besides a reaction in the brain when the requisite condition that creates the impression is seperated from its external object?

I blame my self if this is not convincing to you. If you don't get my meaning, think about a thunder storm.

Perhaps a crash of thunder follows a bolt of lightning in the sky. A wave of sound is produced by the event. It travels through space and some time later what is left of the wave reaches my ear. If the source is close, the energy of the wave dissipates less and I hear "closeness". If it is far, the energy of the wave dissipates more and when it reaches my ear I get an impression of "more distant". As you should see the impression of distance is not actual distance - it is a connection between external reality, the changes of shape and energy that go on in propagating waves (ie. deterioration) + my senses.

"I" am the only thing in this world that acknowledges "distance". The cloud experiences itself. The energy wave experiences change. As a wave it has no understanding of distance. A wave merely propogates. A wave changes in size and shape. I am the relation between external events and wave forms. Thus, perception adds qualities to the world that do not exist there without me. Size, color, shape, even texture and malleability are all productions resulting from a wave that has deteriorated in some way between x1 - the origin of the wave and x2 - the connection of wave and physical sense. These impressions are not actual features of external reality.

I might agree with most of what you say, except for the properties you assign to the external phenomenon. Despite the fact that you yourself have realized that the properties assigned are subject to human persepective. In my opinion, however, this is a give in, and should not matter too much in attempting to understand reality. I think trying to understand reality, even though it may/might be limited by our humanity, is very important and can be very useful for us humans. When I mentioned "give in" previously, I meant that any knowledge we might accumulate for now, and as far as we know, is none other than human. It is not alien, or bird, or dinosaur, or any other knowledge you might think of, until we are able to gather knowledge or a being(s) smarter or more knowledgable than us could share their information with us, and it may still be filtered none other than by a human brain, as far we know up to now...

There may be people who know better though... And still, our/human value judgments about who or what is more knowledgeable may be flawed...
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Predictably Irrational

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