Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Use this forum to discuss the philosophy of science. Philosophy of science deals with the assumptions, foundations, and implications of science.
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Atla
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Atla »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 1:57 pm
Atla wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 1:28 pm
So you can't quote me calling those things "mentality".
Oy vey. I'm asking you for the evidence you're appealing to in saying that "The 'constant first person view' you can observe, and the qualia you can observe" occur elsewhere.
Again, show me scientific evidence that they are happening in animal brains first.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Terrapin Station »

Atla wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:11 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 1:57 pm

Oy vey. I'm asking you for the evidence you're appealing to in saying that "The 'constant first person view' you can observe, and the qualia you can observe" occur elsewhere.
Again, show me scientific evidence that they are happening in animal brains first.
I wasn't asking you for "scientific evidence," by the way, just whatever evidence you're using as a support for the claim.

At any rate, sure, so for example there's this:

https://synapse.org.au/fact-sheet/senso ... -problems/

This:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3888944/

And so on just as a couple arbitrarily-chosen examples. There are literally many thousands more available.
Atla
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Atla »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:30 pm
Atla wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:11 pm
Again, show me scientific evidence that they are happening in animal brains first.
I wasn't asking you for "scientific evidence," by the way, just whatever evidence you're using as a support for the claim.

At any rate, sure, so for example there's this:

https://synapse.org.au/fact-sheet/senso ... -problems/

This:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3888944/

And so on just as a couple arbitrarily-chosen examples. There are literally many thousands more available.
Obviously I meant show me how science measures qualia and the first-person-view.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Terrapin Station »

Atla wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:43 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:30 pm

I wasn't asking you for "scientific evidence," by the way, just whatever evidence you're using as a support for the claim.

At any rate, sure, so for example there's this:

https://synapse.org.au/fact-sheet/senso ... -problems/

This:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3888944/

And so on just as a couple arbitrarily-chosen examples. There are literally many thousands more available.
Obviously I meant show me how science measures qualia and the first-person-view.
I don't even understand what that's asking. What would "measuring" qualia and the first-person view amount to?
Atla
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Atla »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:57 pm
Atla wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:43 pm
Obviously I meant show me how science measures qualia and the first-person-view.
I don't even understand what that's asking. What would "measuring" qualia and the first-person view amount to?
Yep, that's about right.

Look, I've nothing to gain from such a conversation, I left the refuted school of Western "philosophy" behind long ago. I'm out
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Terrapin Station »

Atla wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 3:05 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 2:57 pm

I don't even understand what that's asking. What would "measuring" qualia and the first-person view amount to?
Yep, that's about right.

Look, I've nothing to gain from such a conversation, I left the refuted school of Western "philosophy" behind long ago. I'm out
Okay, but why ask a question if you're not even willing to clarify it?
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Consul
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Consul »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 1:52 pmDid you read the parenthetical in what you quoted from me?
Yes, but it's ambiguous between "not real" = "not existent" and "not real" = "existent but mental". (The second meaning is based on the contrast between real items and ideal ones.)

The predicate-tokens you see here are nonmental items, and what mental items are classes/sets?
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

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Consul wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 4:02 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 1:52 pmDid you read the parenthetical in what you quoted from me?
Yes, but it's ambiguous between "not real" = "not existent" and "not real" = "existent but mental". (The second meaning is based on the contrast between real items and ideal ones.)

The predicate-tokens you see here are nonmental items, and what mental items are classes/sets?
It shouldn't have been ambiguous to you. The parenthetical tells you that I'm using "real" in the sense of "objective" or "extramental."

The token, if we're taking the token to be purely a text string, say, is a nonmental item sure. Hence why earlier I specified the semantic aspect of predicates. The semantic aspect of predicates is a concept that we associate with the term in question. Likewise classes/sets are conceptual categories. They're concepts.
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

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Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 4:08 pmIt shouldn't have been ambiguous to you. The parenthetical tells you that I'm using "real" in the sense of "objective" or "extramental."
Okay.
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 4:08 pmThe token, if we're taking the token to be purely a text string, say, is a nonmental item sure. Hence why earlier I specified the semantic aspect of predicates. The semantic aspect of predicates is a concept that we associate with the term in question. Likewise classes/sets are conceptual categories. They're concepts.
There's a traditional distinction between semantic intension (meaning, sense) and semantic extension (reference). Concepts can be defined as meanings or senses of linguistic predicates; and concepts qua predicate-intensions don't have meanings/senses, because they are meanings/senses. But intensions (meanings/senses) are often ascribed to concepts qua mental representations themselves, in which case they have intensions without being intensions.

No matter whether intensions and extensions are attributed to predicates or concepts, classes or sets are extensions of predicates or concepts. For example, the extension of the predicate of "is a woman" or the concept <woman> is the class or set of things of which this predicate is true, or which fall under this concept, i.e. the class or set of women. If it exists at all, there's nothing mental about this class/set. Predicate- or concept-extensions aren't mental items. The class/set of women doesn't exist in anybody's mind/brain.
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Terrapin Station »

Consul wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 4:35 pm No matter whether intensions and extensions are attributed to predicates or concepts, classes or sets are extensions of predicates or concepts. For example, the extension of the predicate of "is a woman" or the concept <woman> is the class or set of things of which this predicate is true, or which fall under this concept, i.e. the class or set of women. If it exists at all, there's nothing mental about this class/set. Predicate- or concept-extensions aren't mental items. The class/set of women doesn't exist in anybody's mind/brain.
"Predicate- or concept-extensions aren't mental items." -- yes they are. Extensions only obtain via someone thinking about observables that they associate with a term (and almost always a concept). There's no way for Extensions to do this with respect to text or sound strings "on their own," mind-independently.
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

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Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 6:22 pm"Predicate- or concept-extensions aren't mental items." -- yes they are. Extensions only obtain via someone thinking about observables that they associate with a term (and almost always a concept). There's no way for Extensions to do this with respect to text or sound strings "on their own," mind-independently.
Classes/sets qua predicate- or concept-extensions may be mind-dependent; but if they are, it doesn't follow that they are mental (in themselves).
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

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Consul wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 7:45 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 6:22 pm"Predicate- or concept-extensions aren't mental items." -- yes they are. Extensions only obtain via someone thinking about observables that they associate with a term (and almost always a concept). There's no way for Extensions to do this with respect to text or sound strings "on their own," mind-independently.
Classes/sets qua predicate- or concept-extensions may be mind-dependent; but if they are, it doesn't follow that they are mental (in themselves).
You mean in the sense that a television set is mind-dependent but not mental? Classes/sets, predicates (including semantics) and extension is mental because extramentally, all we wind up with a marks on paper or screens or sounds (speech), but those, extramentally, have no way of referring, meaning, etc.
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Consul »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 8:23 pm
Consul wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 7:45 pm Classes/sets qua predicate- or concept-extensions may be mind-dependent; but if they are, it doesn't follow that they are mental (in themselves).
You mean in the sense that a television set is mind-dependent but not mental?
Like all artificial objects, television sets are genetically mind-dependent in the sense that they wouldn't exist if they hadn't been brought into existence by minded agents; but they aren't ontically mind-dependent in the sense that they would cease to exist if all minded agents ceased to exist. If all persons had died an hour ago, there would still be millions of television sets; but if no persons had ever lived, there wouldn't be any.
For example, economic or social institutions or organizations such as stock markets and hospitals are nonmental items which are both genetically and ontically mind-dependent.
Terrapin Station wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 8:23 pmClasses/sets, predicates (including semantics) and extension is mental because extramentally, all we wind up with a marks on paper or screens or sounds (speech), but those, extramentally, have no way of referring, meaning, etc.
If classes and sets qua extensions are different from mereological aggregates or sums, they are abstract and thus nonmental objects, no matter whether or not they depend on minds or languages, on concepts or predicates. And concepts qua intensions (and qua parts of propositions)—i.e. predicate-meanings—are abstract and thus nonmental objects too, no matter whether or not they depend on predicates, languages, and minds.

Don't we ask questions such as "What's the novel about?"? There's a difference between a meaningful written or spoken physical word, sentence, or text and a meaningless one, isn't there? Of course, the question is whether the meaning and reference of an extramental physical linguistic item—be it a word, a sentence, or a text—are intrinsic to it or not. Is its referentiality or intentionality derived from mental referentiality or intentionality?
John Searle's answer is yes:

QUOTE:
"Where the mind is concerned we also need a distinction between original or intrinsic intentionality on the one hand and derived intentionality on the other. For example I have in my head information about how to get to San Jose. I have a set of true beliefs about the way to San Jose. This information and these beliefs in me are examples of original or intrinsic intentionality. The map in front of me also contains information about how to get to San Jose, and it contains symbols and expressions that refer to or are about or represent cities, highways, and the like. But the sense in which the map contains intentionality in the form of information, reference, aboutness, and representations is derived from the original intentionality of the map makers and users. Intrinsically the map is just a sheet of cellulose fibers with ink stains on it. Any intentionality it has is imposed on it by the original intentionality of humans. So there are two distinctions to keep in mind, first between observer-independent and observer-dependent phenomena, and second between original and derived intentionality. They are systematically related: derived intentionality is always observer-dependent."

(Searle, John R. Mind: A Brief Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 7)

"It is absolutely essential to be clear about the distinction between the intrinsic or original intentionality that I have in my head when I am thinking about something and the derivative intentionality that the marks on paper have when I write my thoughts down. The words on paper really do mean and refer, and thus have intentionality, but their intentionality is derived from mine when I intentionally wrote them down. Also we need to distinguish these two, the original and the derived, from metaphorical ascriptions, or as-if cases of intentionality. If I am now thirsty that is a case of intrinsic or original intentionality. If I write down the sentence, “I am thirsty” that sentence has derived intentionality. If I say, “My car is thirsty for gasoline” that sentence makes a metaphorical or “as-if” ascription of thirst to the car. But the car does not literally have any intentionality, either original or derived. I cannot tell you how much confusion has been generated by the failure to see these elementary distinctions."

(Searle, John R. Mind: A Brief Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 29)
QUOTE-END
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

Post by Terrapin Station »

Consul wrote: January 22nd, 2020, 9:51 pm
If classes and sets qua extensions are different from mereological aggregates or sums, they are abstract and thus nonmental objects
There are no abstract nonmental objects period.

Abstraction is something we do mentally.
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Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy

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creation wrote: January 16th, 2020, 6:12 am
h_k_s wrote: January 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm

In Philosophy, the God-Concept is imbued with creating, since It exists because of the dilemma of need for a First Cause, at least according to the philosopher and cleric Aquinas.
Already been answered, and thus already been resolved.
h_k_s wrote: January 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm In the case of Aristotle, it is the need for a Prime Mover that justifies the need for a God-Concept.
Already been answered, and thus already been resolved.
h_k_s wrote: January 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm According to Descartes, it is because of the Greatest-Good concept, which is known today as the ontological argument. It goes like this: "If I am good there must be someone more good. And more so, on and on, until you arrive at the Most Good, which is God."
Already been answered, and thus already been resolved.
h_k_s wrote: January 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm There is also the Artistic Artificer,
I have not heard of this one before.
h_k_s wrote: January 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm and also the Changeless Changer, etc.
Already been answered, and thus already been resolved.
h_k_s wrote: January 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm There are several arguments and "proofs" of the God-Concept in Philosophy.
Are any of those arguments actually sound and valid arguments?

If any are, then they are actual proofs of the God-concept.

But because of what God, Itself, actually is, then God can be proven to exist.
"Validity" is always in the eyes and mind of the beholder. Like "beauty" in aesthetics, it is hard to get a grip on.
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