No,because I don’t justify libertarianism according to evolution. I justify libertarianism according to my own moral feelings. Impelled by my own moral feelings, I try to spread the teachings of Austrian economics, because I believe that once people deeply understand it, it explodes for them the myth of the necessity of the state (at least the necessity of anything more than a night watchman state), and thereby clears the way for them to justify libertarianism according to THEIR own moral feelings. Think about: how many people are there who come to deeply understand Austrian economics who don’t at least become minarchists?
I don’t justify libertarianism according to the origin of the moral feelings that lead those who are disabused of the myth of state to it. I only explain the near-universality of those feelings according to their origin. Also, to be completely clear, I do NOT justify those moral feelings according to their near-universality either. For me as a moral agent, moral feelings are an irreducible given, even though for me as a student of the human psyche, they are not. They are not justified by other things, other things are justified by them.
That sounds interesting. How can the experience of qualia be manipulated in a way that would say anything meaningful? If you don’t want to explain you can provide a link or just tell me what to search for on google.
As I understand the zombie argument, it says that we can conceive a being which is physically identical to ourselves, yet it does not experience qualia. But that must mean that qualia are over and above our physical and functional properties. The zombie would still screech when it steps on a nail, but it would not actually feel pain as we do. I cannot give a good defense of materialism when people make this objection, especially when people can rely on very good arguments made by Kripke to defend it.
I also forgot about Mary’s Room. Do you think Mary would learn anything new when she experiences the color red for the first time? I think I have pretty good reasons for believing that she would not, but it is still an objection that I am not too comfortable with.
Those are the two strongest objections against materialism in my opinion.
WOW. The positivists have discovered that there is some sort of correlation between the brain, consciousness, emotions, thoughts, et cetera ?? That’s an AMAZING discovery. I hope that the guy who discovered the brain got the nobel prize of positivism of something…
This is a place for CIVIL discussion. I will no longer brook your flaming. I will no longer let you elbow your way into conversations among people who disagree but who are nonetheless trying to teach and learn from each other, only to obstruct their efforts.
One day ban. Next time it will be three.
If you are unwilling to participate in civil discussion, then don’t come back after your ban expires.
Much of the empirical studies I get from Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel”. For example,
A.D. Lawrence “Selective Disruption of the Recognition of Facial Expressions of Anger”, NeuroReport 2002
In this study, patients which damage to particular areas of the ventral striatum of the basal ganglia (part of the neural system which is involved in the “mirror neurons” mentioned previously) show impairment in identifying aggression signals emitted by others. If these areas are blocked pharmacologically, subjects can recognize other emotions but can no longer recognize anger.
There are many more examples. I really recommend picking it up.
The zombie argument is simply begging the question. It asserts that a being which is physically identical to ourselves and does not experience qualia is conceivable. This says more about the misconceptions held regarding consciousness than it does about anything else. The zombie would screech and holler, behave in a way similar to goal driven behavior, etc. Yet, if consciousness is a process and self-identity an internal model, then a zombie with the exact physical make-up would experience just as we do.
Hence why the zombie problem adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. A materialist cannot conceive of a being that is physically identical to us but doesn’t experience a phenomenal self and ‘qualia’, so the problem is based on a faulty premise. A dualist can, but you must already accept the existence of a spirit/soul/homunculus before the zombie concept even makes sense.
I’m with Dennett on this, where “Mary would not, in fact, learn something new if she stepped out of her black and white room to see the colour red.Dennett asserts that if she already truly knew “everything about colour”, that knowledge would necessarily include a deep understanding of why and how human neurology causes us to sense the “qualia” of color. Mary would therefore already know exactly what to expect of seeing red, before ever leaving the room. Dennett argues that, although we cannot conceive of such a deep knowledge, if the unrealistic premise of the thought experiment is that Mary knows all there is to know about colour, we cannot assume that we cannot fathom or even describe such knowledge — or that such knowledge doesn’t exist. As a consequence, Dennett concludes that this is not a sound argument for the existence of qualia.”
"Dennett finds that many people find it difficult to see this, so he uses the case of RoboMary to further illustrate what it would be like for Mary to possess such a vast knowledge of the physical workings of the human brain and colour vision. RoboMary is an intelligent robot who, instead of the ordinary colour camera-eyes, has a software lock such that she is only able to perceive black and white and shades in-between.
RoboMary can examine the computer brain of similar non-colour-locked robots when they look at a red tomato, and see exactly how they react and what kinds of impulses occur. RoboMary can also construct a simulation of her own brain, unlock the simulation’s colour-lock and, with reference to the other robots, simulate exactly how this simulation of herself reacts to seeing a red tomato. RoboMary naturally has control over all of her internal states except for the colour-lock. With the knowledge of her simulation’s internal states upon seeing a red tomato, RoboMary can put her own internal states directly into the states they would be in upon seeing a red tomato. In this way, without ever seeing a red tomato through her cameras, she will know exactly what it is like to see a red tomato.
Dennett uses this example to show us that Mary’s all-encompassing physical knowledge makes her own internal states as transparent as those of a robot or computer, and it is almost straightforward for her to figure out exactly how it feels to see red."
Sorry for the blocks of quotes, but much of what I could say has been said better by other people.
I actually ordered that book not too long ago. I have it at my house but I need to finish up a few other books before I can start reading it. But anyways, I am familiar with those types of experiments, but I still am not too sure about them. As I am sure you know, the brain is not completely disconnected. It is still one brain. Under normal conditions, people with split brains behave pretty normally. It is only with these “experiments” where people have such strange behavior. Many researchers say that what is really being examined is awkwardness, failure of co-ordination, or cognitive malfunctioning. Stuff very similar to what occurs when a person suffers from many different types of brain damages. Just like MPD, the evidence is not conclusive. Until the issue is solved once and for all, I don’t think it can be an argument for materialism.
That makes sense I guess. I always assumed that a zombie was conceivable in the context of materialism, but maybe I was wrong.
How would you respond to this objection…
Science can only explain to us objective, third-person phenomena. However, only from the subjective first person point of view can experiences be understood. Take a bat for example. We can never know what it is like to be a bat, even if we know everything there is to know about bats. This is because in order to understand what it is like to be a bat, one would would need to become a bat. There is no other way for us to know what it is like to be a bat. This means that physical facts cannot give us all the knowledge of conscious experience. Neuroscience will never be able to reveal to us what it is like to experience something (such as seeing the color red), since such knowledge cannot be known by relying on third-person data. There is just a conceptual difference that cannot be breached between subjective experience and objective third-person data. So this means that Mary would learn something new. She would learn what it is like to see red because the only way to learn what it is like to see red is through subjective experience.
And I’m certain that you are way off base. Natural law (lex naturalis) is a specific theory, a doctrine. Your contention that it means intellect doesn’t prove the validity of the theory nor is it relevant to proving the validity of the theory. What you are talking about is either wrong or irrelevant to myself (and the OP). nd my use of the aether was neither a strawman nor tangent (that should have been obvious enough by its presentation) it was merely a device to point out how out of touch you are.
Perhaps there was a misunderstanding, but the example I posted wasn’t related to split brain phenomena. Any healthy patient can be the subject of such experiments. There are numerous examples in the book, with massive implications towards our understanding of consciousness. If empathy is a result of the process of various neural networks working together at a sub-conscious level, then it should be possible to turn on/off or otherwise affect the agent’s experience of that phenomena. This is what studies such as the one above achieve. Now theoretically there are neural correlates for such various sensations as pleasure, confidence (there are numerous interesting studies regarding pharmacologically induced confidence in subjects, with extremely positive results) and pain.
When it comes to split brain phenomena, I am not expert, but it is lucky to be the subject of much study. Under normal conditions, people with split brain syndrome may seem to behave normally because only in scientific studies are anomalies specifically searched for. Cognitive deficiencies are not necessarily noticeable, unless you are testing for them. The evidence that I am aware of comes down overwhelmingly on the side of materialism.
Do you have any links that may cast doubt on my understanding of split brain disorder? I am certainly willing to be proven too hasty.
This is what Dennett’s first paragraph I quoted is getting at.
“We can never know what it is like to be a bat, even if we know everything there is to know about bats”
This statement is, within the materialist paradigm, false. It may be that we will never know all there is to know about bats, but if such an impossibility happened to occur, and a non-bat was able to know everything there is to know about them, including the neural correlates of subjective bat experience and their related ‘qualias’, then that individual with god-like knowledge would ‘know’ the bats experience without necessarily experiencing it himself.
I think the whole thought-experiment is faulty for this reason. For the experiment to be conceptually solid, Mary must have all knowledge about color. This includes the neural correlates that causes the qualia of color. It also includes the qualia that those correlates reference.
For example, if I tell you that a particular sequence of neural firings produces the qualia or sensation of ‘cadmium red’, does that mean you know all there is to know about cadmium red? You know the neural correlate, you know the cause and reason for cadmium red, but if you don’t know the sensation itself that it references then you only know one side of the equation.
The problem is with the basic assumptions of the thought experiment. Mary cannot know all there is to know about color, a fundamental premise of the experiment, without knowing the sensations that the correlates reference.
“Dennett asserts that if she already truly knew “everything about colour”, that knowledge would necessarily include a deep understanding of why and how human neurology causes us to sense the “qualia” of color. Mary would therefore already know exactly what to expect of seeing red, before ever leaving the room. Dennett argues that, although we cannot conceive of such a deep knowledge, if the unrealistic premise of the thought experiment is that Mary knows all there is to know about colour, we cannot assume that we cannot fathom or even describe such knowledge — or that such knowledge doesn’t exist. As a consequence, Dennett concludes that this is not a sound argument for the existence of qualia.”
I do not have any links about split brain syndrome. I only heard about the controversy via one of my professors. He had posted examples showing how the topic is inconclusive. I will ask him where he got he information.
As for the bat argument, it just seems very difficult to imagine how one could understand what it is like to be a bat without actually becoming a bat. But what you said makes sense. So I will get back so you on that. I am guessing all of this is addressed in that book you recommended me.
You keep bringing up theory. I haven’t. That’s a tangent. Natural in natural law tradition does mean intellect(ual). Robin Smith in Aristotle’s book Prior Analytics comments on how Aristotle’s deductions are called natural deductions as it is of the intellect. It is the whole basis of what science contends, which is it is an intellectual venture. The nature of anything is a process that involves metaphysically not only the thing but the intellect grasping the thing. That metaphysic event of the thing AND intellect is called natural in the natural law of human nature tradition. The knowledge of what this thing is, is where theory enters the picture. Natural in this tradition, not by my own accord but by the tradition itself mentioned by various teachers of this field, includes intellect and the nature of what is - together in the same definition. So when natural is mentioned in the natural law tradition the definition of natural, having various definitions, but one is most certainity: intellect(ual).
I am not talking about a theory. I am talking about intellect.
It’s not wrong and therefore it is irrelevant - I agree - for your whole argument has been tangentially meaningless with some strawmen thrown in. You needed to not even have responded initially.
No, it was/is a tangent.
another strawman.
Now that it has been pointed out by you the irrelevance of you initially responding.
It is nothing but theory(s)! Thats the point. Thats the discussion. Have any been proven? Talk about intellect all you like, it doesn’t verify anything as being true or correct or real. Goodness! Not understanding natural law (lex naturalis) is fine, but continuing inane irrelevant nonsense and throwing out more ideas you clearly don’t understand (strawman, tangent) is just plain pitiful.
Intellect is theory? Biological questioning or the science (episteme) questioning of intellect is irrelevant to what I said initially.
From the source I linked earlier:
""Thus Hobbes altered the meaning of the words “nature” and “natural,”…becom(ing)
the opposite of civitas, “reason” and “order”."
I was talking about what natural means according to the natural law tradition. So of course I was talking about intellect all I want. I am staying on point to my initial comment.
me: your questioning intellect’s presence being true or real is irrelevant to my initial comment you responded to.
Natural law (lex naturalis) is theory, the very theory in question. Saying its discovered through intellect doesn’t answer the question of whether it actually has been discovered.
Again, I’m not questioning the presence of intellect at all. As I’ve been saying, your initial comment was irrelevant, as it didn’t prove/discover/verify anything, it was just an irrelevant comment.
More proof that you don’t understand what “tangent” means.
