I cannot be wrong about not being a zombie.
— RogueAI
"I cannot be wrong", that sounds extremely dogmatic.
Do you think you're a zombie?
— RogueAI
Sure, why not? At least it is worth considering. — goremand
Physicalism/materialism is in massive trouble if it can't find a way to get out of p-zombie open-mindedness. — RogueAI
Indeed, and yet a necessary condition for denying the existence of my mind is the existence of my mind. — RogueAI
Thales saying, that "everything is water" is wrong. He didn't say that. What he said was, that the origin of the world is water. To say everything is water doesn't make sense, and misinterpreting Thales.the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, — SEP
The word "Physicalism" itself is a concept, which is not physical, but an idea. Therefore saying "everything is physical" is a self-contradiction. If everything was physical, then the proposition itself must be physical. No proposition is physical. It follows the claim is a non-sense.Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. — SEP
What's the starting point for an idealist? — Relativist
The point is to understand that the origin of everything so far known is physical, and shouldn't imply more than that.
— Philosophim
Feel free to point out an issue with my proposal. — Philosophim
What's the starting point for an idealist? Don't you have to adopt a position that is contrary to our innate noetic structure?
Inference to a best explanation is nothing if not a metaphysical process, right?
— Mww
It's an epistemological process. — Relativist
If Physicalism is all about saying "Everything is physical", then it is just a non-sense. If they sayOr maybe we lose grounds for other minds existing entirely? — Count Timothy von Icarus
hat it is exceedingly vague. As pointed out by me above, and by the SEP article, at issue the question of what constitutes the physical. — Wayfarer
This is 'Hempel's dilemma': if physicalism is defined by reference to contemporary physics, then it is false — after all, who thinks that contemporary physics is complete? — Wayfarer
In effect, and this is the way you use it, 'physical' amounts to a general deference to science as an arbiter of reality — Wayfarer
To you, this is obvious, as you frequently say, never mind that a great deal of philosophy comprises questioning what is generally thought to be obvious. — Wayfarer
It is not a-priori evident that non-conscious things with complex behaviors should be evident or obvious at all. — Manuel
I mean, if we are talking about conceivability, it's also conceivable that the mind of supreme being exist, absent anything else, that is, no matter, no physics - no "material substrate". — Manuel
Very interesting post!. If we can't be sure that what is in our "maps" is also in the "territory," then it seems that our physicalism might reveal itself to actually be subjective idealism. All knowledge turns out to be about how the mind represents the world, not the world itself. It is impossible to know anything about the noumena, the world in itself. But then why posit the noumena in the first place? It seems to be a position based solely on intuition and dogma. But our intuition continually turns out to be bad, the world isn't flat, etc. Plus, the noumena's existing or not makes no real difference for us. — Count Timothy von Icarus
An ontology is a model of the noumena, is it not? So we aren't at all getting rid of it. Physicalism explains why all human minds work the same: they have the same physical construction, the product of the same evolutionary history- shaped by successful interaction with the world as it is.Yet if we get rid of the noumena then we don't have a way to explain why all minds should work the same way, and if they don't work the same way and we can't know the intervening noumena, then we are basically all locked in our own seperate worlds. Or maybe we lose grounds for other minds existing entirely?
Could you give a little more detail on why a reductionist would have the burden of proof? — Mark Nyquist
Which he denies exist. Saw an extended interview with him the other day. His views on consciousness are frankly embarrassing to me. It's as Galen Strawson says you need to be trained to believe in this eliminitavist lunacy. — Manuel
The weirdly prophetic perspective that has resulted from being willing to seriously consider physicalism.
— wonderer1
What is it? What is that perspective like? — frank
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