Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
So I haven't yet seen a reason to say "yes" to the title of this topic.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
Right. So what part of any of that would you say is nonphysical?Consul wrote: ↑June 28th, 2020, 3:49 pm No, what I would say is that nonexistent things are represented as having properties that they don't really have, because they are really nothing in themselves, being nothing but mere Gedankendinge ("thought-things"), intentional objects of thought or imagination.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
If, here, you mean "real" as the antonym of "abstract" then you're saying that everything that exists is extra-mental. I disagree.Consul wrote:…everything that exists, is real.
When you quoted David Lewis, later in that post, did you do so because you agree with what he said or just because you thought his views were worth airing?
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
If I'm understanding you I think what you are pointing to here is that all knowledge is inferred, except directly known experiential states. Thus we build models of an exterior world 'out there' (and call it say Physicalism) based on the content of those experiential states.Steve3007 wrote: ↑June 27th, 2020, 11:34 am Physicalism is the idea that everything supervenes on the physical. But what do we mean by "the physical"?
One way to define the physical is in terms of the patterns in diverse sensations. We can propose that there exists an extra-mental world which causes our sensations. We can then say that the fact that single entities in that world give rise to diverse sensations is what causes those diverse sensations to be related to each other via those patterns. We can then say that those entities, in that world, are "the physical".
But that is an instrumental definition. It defines "the physical", and therefore Physicalism, in terms of its utility for describing and predicting patterns in sensations. Is there another way?
It also means that Physicalism is not necessarily tied to Materialism. Materialism is the idea that everything supervenes on matter. But there is no coherent reason to decide that those entities should only be given the label "matter". Other labels are available. Under this instrumental definition, the label(s) used would depend entirely on what is most useful for describing and predicting the patterns in those sensations.
I don't think this is controversial, and is a caveat which can be applied to all such models and 'isms' which postulate the existence of anything but experiential states themselves.
The 'other way' is to take a leap of faith and assume the content of your experience refers to something real independant of your conscious experience of it, and try to understand what that real stuff 'out there' is. Materialism for example does that.
You can make a case for stuff existing independantly of a conscious being (you) experiencing it, but you can never have that directly known certainty that anything exists beyond your own experiential states. It's a radical scepticism which is irrefutable imo, but kinda pointless too, because we have to take the leap of faith to get anywhere. Even experientially - my dinner won't come to me on its own however much I imagine it.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
Right. Panpsychism too.Supervenience may be sufficient for nonreductive physicalism, but it's not sufficient for reductive physicalism. For example, the mental states of immaterial souls might supervene on the physical states of bodies; but if so, they would still be nonphysical, physically irreducible states of nonphysical, physically irreducible things, in which case reductive physicalism is false.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
The distinction that you appear to make between Physicalism and Materialism in the above passage (bold added for emphasis) is not a distinction that I would make.Gertie wrote:If I'm understanding you I think what you are pointing to here is that all knowledge is inferred, except directly known experiential states. Thus we build models of an exterior world 'out there' (and call it say Physicalism) based on the content of those experiential states.
I don't think this is controversial, and is a caveat which can be applied to all such models and 'isms' which postulate the existence of anything but experiential states themselves.
The 'other way' is to take a leap of faith and assume the content of your experience refers to something real independant of your conscious experience of it, and try to understand what that real stuff 'out there' is. Materialism for example does that.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
This appears to be a counterpoint to your earlier part, which begins with "If I'm understanding you...". My point in the OP was not to posit that the exterior world only exists as mental models; it was not about Idealism. Therefore, I might have to say no, I don't think you are understanding me.Gertie wrote:The 'other way' is to take a leap of faith and assume the content of your experience refers to something real independant of your conscious experience of it
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
I wasn't suggesting that your claim was the exterior world only exists as mental models, rather that the instrumentalist aspect of physicalism you're pointing lies in the act of creating models based on the content of our experience, because the mental experience itself is all you can be certain exists. That's the underlying premise implied. Is that wrong?Steve3007 wrote: ↑June 29th, 2020, 5:59 amThis appears to be a counterpoint to your earlier part, which begins with "If I'm understanding you...". My point in the OP was not to posit that the exterior world only exists as mental models; it was not about Idealism. Therefore, I might have to say no, I don't think you are understanding me.Gertie wrote:The 'other way' is to take a leap of faith and assume the content of your experience refers to something real independant of your conscious experience of it
If that's a correct reading, we can tackle the underlying problem by taking the leap of faith to by-pass the fact that all knowledge is based in mental experience, and just assume that the content of our mental experience is referencing something real 'out there'. Like material stuff and forces. You could call that a cheat hack, but if you want to talk about things like materialist monism for example, it's one you're forced to make I think.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
Okay, yes, that is broadly correct. The only slight caveat I would add is that I don't see a need to emphasize that "mental experience itself is all you can be certain exists". That is true, but I wouldn't want it to be seen as implying some kind of need for certainty. Some people do seem to have that need, with the result that they often retreat to some form of Idealism, with the vain hope of performing a Cartesian-style exercise of re-building an edifice of certain knowledge. (Exemplar here: RJG).Gertie wrote:I wasn't suggesting that your claim was the exterior world only exists as mental models, rather that the instrumentalist aspect of physicalism you're pointing lies in the act of creating models based on the content of our experience, because the mental experience itself is all you can be certain exists. That's the underlying premise implied. Is that wrong?
My point is a simple (and perhaps obvious) one: that we can't define "matter" or "the physical" in any way other than by referencing patterns in our observations. Of course, if anybody wants to propose a definition of those terms that doesn't need those references, and which doesn't reduce Physicalism and Materialism to empty tautologies, I'd be happy to hear it.
I wouldn't refer to it either as a leap of faith or a cheat hack. The theory that there exists a real world is based on the evidence of the patterns in diverse sensations. Not being certain doesn't, in my view, make it a leap of faith. I wouldn't divide the world into certainties and leaps of faith with nothing in between.If that's a correct reading, we can tackle the underlying problem by taking the leap of faith to by-pass the fact that all knowledge is based in mental experience, and just assume that the content of our mental experience is referencing something real 'out there'. Like material stuff and forces. You could call that a cheat hack, but if you want to talk about things like materialist monism for example, it's one you're forced to make I think.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
Indeed we can't. ... Which is just emphasising the bit you don't really "see a need to emphasize", isn't it?Steve3007 wrote: ↑June 29th, 2020, 8:07 amOkay, yes, that is broadly correct. The only slight caveat I would add is that I don't see a need to emphasize that "mental experience itself is all you can be certain exists". That is true, but I wouldn't want it to be seen as implying some kind of need for certainty. Some people do seem to have that need, with the result that they often retreat to some form of Idealism, with the vain hope of performing a Cartesian-style exercise of re-building an edifice of certain knowledge. (Exemplar here: RJG).Gertie wrote:I wasn't suggesting that your claim was the exterior world only exists as mental models, rather that the instrumentalist aspect of physicalism you're pointing lies in the act of creating models based on the content of our experience, because the mental experience itself is all you can be certain exists. That's the underlying premise implied. Is that wrong?
My point is a simple (and perhaps obvious) one: that we can't define "matter" or "the physical" in any way other than by referencing patterns in our observations.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
A problem with this that's never acknowledged is that we can be no more certain of mental experience being mental experience when it comes to most things. It's common to act like it's a default that all phenomena are at least mental experience (to a person, at least), but that's not clearly the case at all. A large portion of "the phenomenal stream" is simply objects (a) with no attendant ''this is a mental experience'' phenomena attached, and (b) even if the phenomenal stream always had "this is a mental experience" phenomena attached, those "this is a mental experience" phenomena are different than the object phenomena in the phenomenal stream.
What am I saying here?
I'm an avid hiker, so I like to use trees as an example. When you're hiking, there are a lot of trees in the phenomenal stream (well, at least if you're hiking someplace like the Eastern U.S.). Trees appear all over the place, obviously. For most of those, there's no attendant "this is a mental experience of a tree" present. There's just a phenomenal tree. (I'm using "phenomenal" in the sense of simply "appearing.") To get from that to "this is a mental experience of a tree" we have to do something theoretical, and that theoretical move is something we can't at all be certain of.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
I see your point but, no, I don't think it is emphasizing that. I'm saying we can't define "matter" without reference to patterns in our observations. That's not the same as saying that we can't be sure that matter exists or that "mental experience itself is all you can be certain exists". My main theme in the topic is meaningful definitions of Physicalism.Pattern-chaser wrote:Indeed we can't. ... Which is just emphasising the bit you don't really "see a need to emphasize", isn't it?
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
However, we can't get to conclusions like that if we don't accept that we're bodies with brains, situated in a world that doesn't consist only of our minds, etc. so "we can only be certain of our minds" declarations, arrived at in the above way, couldn't be more dubious, because we can't get to the conclusion without assuming the standard realist picture of things.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?
Okay, let's try this one:
x is a physical entity =def x is part of the subject matter of physics (the basic science of matter-energy-space-time [MEST]), or x is causally-compositionally (mechanico-mereologically) realized by (complexes of) entities belonging to the subject matter of physics.
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