What does "entailed by physics" mean exactly? You're not saying something about the science of physics per se, are you? And otherwise, what does it mean to say that it needs to be entailed by the physical world? — Terrapin Station

This is a philosophy forum, so no I'm not talking about the science of physics, I'm referring to what the metaphysical doctrine physicalism requires.

?? Check your dictionary maybe. — Terrapin Station

That everything we know is derived from sense-experience? That's still a matter of knowledge, not ontology. An empiricist might limit their ontology to what can be sensed, but that's still too different kinds of inquiry.

Also, one can be an empiricist and a skeptic about the nature of the external world. They fit quite well together.

The first problem with this is that physicalism doesn't require a belief in (strong) determinism. One can be a physicalist and believe that some events are acausal or ontologically probabilistic. — Terrapin Station

Sure, but they need to be entailed by physics, even if there's a probability attached to it. QM doesn't posit entirely new things coming into existence, only that known existing properties have a probability wave when you measure for them.

So ontology doesn't deal with empirical things in your view? Time isn't empirical for example? "Everything is water" isn't an empirical claim? — Terrapin Station

Empiricism is a matter of how we know, not what exists. So no, time isn't empirical, except in that we know about time by experiencing it. "Everything is water" is most certainly not an empirical claim, although empirical investigation can help or hurt such claims.

The bulk of metaphysics is ontology, no? — Terrapin Station

Ontology and empiricism are two different concerns.

Anyway, I meant to edit my post to add:

As such, it needs to show how everything is exclusively physical or made up of the physical.

Consider Thales: everything is water. So the challenge for water metaphysicians is to show how something like fire is made up of water.

You can substitute consciousness for fire, and physics for water. Colin McGinn titled his book on consciousness, "The Mysterious Flame", so it's apropos.

What does it mean to "logically account" for something empirical? Sounds fancy, but I think it doesn't actually mean anything. — Terrapin Station

Physicalism isn't empirical. It's a metaphysical doctrine.

We're not simply asking whether "p-zombies are possible" isn't contradictory to itself, are we? That wouldn't tell us much. — Terrapin Station

We're asking whether physicalism logically entails all Xs. If it doesn't, then some Xs aren't physical.

Hence why I'm asking what we're saying it's logically possible with respect to. — Terrapin Station

If we're trying to determine whether physicalism is true, we can ask whether it's logically possible for there to be a duplicate physical world lacking some X from our world.

Of course, if you already know that physicalism is true, then you don't need to ask such questions. But then, how do you know that physicalism is the case?

Could you give an outline of Chalmers's position? — Arkady

Physicalism is true iff everything is logically necessitated by physicis, such that a God-like being from the Big Bang could predict what sorts of things would emerge. As such, there can be no physically identical world which differs in any way from our world.

Strong emergentism would rule out God being able to predict consciousness, societies, evolution, etc in advance. Contrast this with the game of life, where the initial state plus the rules absolutely determine all patterns that emerge as the game unfolds.

Reductive physicalism would at least require that there are bridge laws reducing (or translating) domain A to domain B to C all the way down to fundamental physics. So even though we couldn't go from the mind to QM or GR, we could find laws bridging from neuroscience to biology, and from biology to chemistry, where it's obvious that chemistry has a very fundamental relationship to physics.

Nonreductive physicalism wouldn't permit such bridge laws. There would be no way for us to reduce sociology to evolutionary biology, or what not. We couldn't bridge from high level domains all the way down to physics.

That's my understanding. And it leads right into Chalmer's discussion of p-zombies.

then it wouldn't be logically possible relative to a set of statements that includes "physicalism is true." — Terrapin Station

Sure, but "physicalism is true" is what's in question, so that would be assuming the conclusion.

I was thinking about this the other day and recently found the answer. The only completely true form of nothing in our perception of the universe is space because there are zero particles of matter in the vacuum we call space. — Fardishki

Space is something, though. It's tied in with time. Gravity warps it. And virtual particles come in and out of existence at very small scales. Also, even if a patch of space has no particles in it, it still has fields.

But most space is going to have a stray particle here or there, if not more.

Physical descriptions may be incomplete at this point, but there is substantially more physical description of what is than we find offered by dualism with regards to the non-physical.
So it is interesting to me that you feel physicalism has a hard time defining the physical. — m-theory

I'm asking in what sense strong emergentism and non-reductive physicalism are not forms of dualism, as laid out in the OP.

I ask because obviously if our background domain includes "physicalism is true" for example, then p-zombies aren't logically possible in that domain. — Terrapin Station

Is this by definition?

Nothing is all over the place -you can't just wave it away. In short: if your ontology can't cope with 'nothing', then that's a problem with your ontology. — csalisbury

Ontologically speaking, nothing has no place. But linguistically speaking, it's a very useful concept that's hard to do without. And this may be the case when we talk about ontological matters.

But supposing this means that nothing is somehow something? That's just word play. It is a cognitive distortion.

The universe (reality, the world, existence, whatever you call it) doesn't have this problem.

(1) If P-zombies exist, then there is a thing that is human and non-conscious. — quine

I would take issue with this one. A physically identical being lacking consciousness is not human. It's a p-zombie.

But then we're arguing semantics and not whether p-zombies are possible.

provided said states are understood to supervene on the physical. — Arkady

Yeah, but what exactly does it mean to supervene? According to Chalmers, physicalism require logical supervenience, which rules out strong emergentism and nonreductive forms of physicalism.

And the elimination of metaphysics from language. — Question

Good luck with that.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. — Question

Why would that be? Do you depend on language to perceive? To feel? To dream? Are all of life's intricacies and issues captured in language? What is the limit of a dog's world, since it has no language?

Does your very existence derive itself from language?

This focus on language as the key to philosophy is an analytic obsession.

It doesn't actually liberate one from language - only silence can do that. — unenlightened

Practice Zen Buddhism, but even Zen Buddhists communicate with words, so ...

Why do we want to be liberated from language? We're human beings, and language is part of being human.

Freedom is slavery.

So is the recommendation that we change our language games in order to become more moral? Isn't that what politically correct speech attempts to do?

hat's where the real conspirators are to be found; those sowing doubt and fear about Government, who will profit from de-regulation and public distrust of the law and the media. They paint themselves as the 'us' in 'us vs them', but they're the real villians. You know, the kinds that gamed the system before The Big Short. I bet nobody even knows their names. — Wayfarer

You're right. Conservatives are real big on that. The goal is to defund Government so that business can take over. Because business interests are superior to government. That profit motive working for the common good.

a.. but the notion that Trump won because of post-truth doesn't square with my experience with the people who voted for him. None of them were interested in superficial info coming from either campaign. They were looking deeper and their distrust of establishment bullshit was just a lot stronger than their distrust of Trump's. IOW, they knew Trump was fishy. They just couldn't stomach the alternative. — Mongrel

But why couldn't the stomach the alternative? What was so very bad about Clinton, or Obama before her? I don't see anything so terrible that Trump becomes the appealing alternative. Not that I'm a big fan of Hillary, and she can be criticized, but let's be clear about what has gone on the last 20 years.

Fox News, right wing radio, and the Republican party in general has sought to demonize Hillary, even more so than her husband and Obama. She was the one person the right could not allow in the White House. Hillary is evil incarnate to conservatives, basically. And having the Democrats get the first woman after having the first minority in office would have been devastating.

Pretending that all the propaganda from Fox News and right wing radio didn't have anything to do with Trump winning is naive. Now this isn't to say that Trump was their ideal conservative. He's not, not at all. But he's much better ally in power than another Clinton, who would be the enemy.

All you have to do is listen for five minutes once a year to those stations. Same shit about liberal conspiracies, Obama wrecking America, etc. Blatant propaganda, and lot of people eat that stuff up. I have relatives and family friends who certainly do. You would think Fox News was the bible.

So you can imagine something that is at once identical and yet completely different? — Wayfarer

If you've ever watched a show or read a story with magic in it, you can. A magical spell would conceivably cause ordinary food not to nourish.

This isn't to argue for magic at all, it's simply to show that it's conceivable. You can say magic doesn't exist, therefore it's an impossibility, unless of course someone can come up with another scenario. In fact, I think you can:

Ordinary food can fail to nourish by ordinary eaters if something else interferes with digestion, such as poison or illness. Doesn't have to be magic to be conceivable. But the point is conceivability. We are able to conceive of such things.

Humans are 'beings'. To fulfil the definition of 'being' is to have an 'inner life'. The whole discussion is simply an abundant illustration of the intellectual bankruptcy of what passes for 'philosophy' in the American academy. — Wayfarer

No, it's not, because materialism has a mind/body problem until the day arrives that all of the mind can be understood in material terms.

The p-zombie and all related arguments exist because of that. You might disagree that a particular argument makes the case against materialism successfully, but it's hardly "bankrupt".

I thought Landru's campaign against realism was supposed to save us from a world or right wing memes? Wasn't realism responsible for slavery, oppression and Hitler?

You think I jest, but man some of those old forum discussions were doozies.

But realize it's not what academia is, — Carbon

What do see as the role of education? To get a job? Does poor Mary really need philosophy class to become a nurse?

I'm expressing my general cynicism of education, not a criticism of your career, btw.

poor Mary Ellen over there just had question about a single class in her overall career. — Carbon

Ironic that it broke out into a philosophical discussion? She did ask on a philosophy forum. That's the risk. Might actually provoke a discussion.

honestly couldn't care less if she wakes up after taking her class and feels philosophically "enlightened". I'd rather she just pass her class and maybe walk away thinking the educational experience was fun. — Carbon

With all due respect, that comment saddens me. Maybe you're being pragmatic and all, and it fits with real academic experience, but couldn't one hope for more? Like poor Mary becomes intrigued by the sorts of questions philosophy raises? Maybe she even chooses to read a philosophical text during her nursing breaks?

But this is precisely what is at issue. In other words, that begs the question. It is precisely the difference between a corpse and a human being: the corpse is indeed 'purely physical', but then, it's a corpse. It's not going to tell you what a nice day it's having. — Wayfarer

The reason it doesn't beg the question is because we have neuroscience, biology, chemistry and what not to understand the behavior living systems without referencing consciousness.

It also makes sense because we're not sure when and if machines cross over into being conscious. If they tell us they're having a nice day, do we take them at their word? Maybe not if it's a phone app, but what if it's an android?

What if the program is an extremely detailed digital version of us, living that simulated life?

So, put another way, how could a device simulate an inner life, in the absence of an actual inner life? What would it take to produce the appearance of a conscious being, in a being that is not actually conscious? What system would do that? — Wayfarer

A meat suit, since it's a philosophical zombie. I tend to think the argument is incoherent, because it poses problems for meaning. But in it's defense:

If physicalism is the case, then all behavior is the result of physical processes. There's no need for an inner life.

But do realize that for students, like Mary Ellen, who take classes (that people like me have to teach) - it makes it really difficult to get into the class if this is their take away. She was looking for info on classes - give her info on classes. — Carbon

Jesus man, so taking a philosophy class has nothing to do with the reason humans engage in philosophical query.

No wonder I'm so cynical about schooling. But hey, a lot of courses are like that. Physics is just about learning some equations. Math is just about solving some. History is about recalling some dates. Literature is about reading some books.

Sounds utterly boring to and devoid of meaning to me. But I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing the approach to taking classes.

It also existed because of the long-time reliance on slavery which enabled production at virtually no material cost. — Agustino

Isn't that what the migrant workers are for? Get paid slave wages way below minimum requirements and no benefits? You have to ask yourself why no Republican administration has done anything other than saber rattling about illegal immigration.

The North in the US was doing quite well industrially without slave labor leading up to the Civil War. The South was more agrarian, and being the virtuous souls that they were, decided to have other human beings do the work for them.

China is already a larger economy than the US. In 20 years, if the current rates continue, China will be TWICE as big as the US. — Agustino

What do you expect? They have 5 times as many people, and we found it in our economic interest to trade with them. Expect India to follow suit, and Africa after that (granted, it's a continent not a nation). That's globalism for you, and that's countries realizing they need to catch up and modernize.

America's global hegemony. — Agustino

That existed due to the outcome of WW2, and it led to a cold war with thousands of nukes hanging over our heads. But the rest of the world was going to catch up.

I mean they thought they could go on and on in their stupidity, hedonism, total ignorance of virtue and pragmatism, — Agustino

What makes you think Trump is any better? What makes you think that by being President he will make America more virtuous and pragmatic?

Pencil and paper is not computationally universal. — tom

When coupled with a hand to calculate the symbols, why isn't it?

Rampant liberalism/progressivism, hedonism, stupid decisions and leadership have utterly destroyed America's greatness. — Agustino

What greatness was destroyed?

Trump is America's last hope - really and truthfully now. — Agustino

Last hope for what?

And all this is because he's the only one who has the pragmatism that it takes to save America. — Agustino

Save America from what? Cheap Chinese goods? Evil climate scientists? Below minimum wage migrant labor?

As I said, America's interest diverge at this juncture from the interests of its people. — Agustino

How so? Is a New York billionaire going to save the interests of the people?

The America we lost when Trump won was a liberal fantasy which would have been wiped off the face of the Earth in a few decades by the infantilism of the Clintons and their cronies. Trump saved America, as much as America can be saved at this juncture. Trump is right - after Bush and Obama America isn't great anymore. — Agustino

Do you really believe this? That's straight up propaganda. It's not remotely accurate. It's just right wing talking points.

It's not the brain, it's the software running on the brain that has the experience. — tom

So pencil and paper implementing that software would also have the same experience.

That I'm afraid is impossible. The same evidence AND the same rational ability should take everyone to the same conlusion. That however, is beside the point I'm making. — TheMadFool

But it doesn't. What you really mean is that if everyone with the same evidence and rational ability started off with the same premises, then they would reach the same conclusion. But even that isn't the case, because there's often debate over whether a step in an argument is committing a fallacy or not.

S/he is in a nursing program bro. No one beyond the newbie undergrads in philosophy gives a shit about the mystical connection with wisdom you think is required for REAL philosophy or whatever the hell you're supposedly doing. — Carbon

Quite a few people on this forum care about philosophy beyond it being useful for learning how to construct arguments. Take a logic class if that's the case. Or an ethics class, if that's the overriding concern for a Nurse.

As for philosophy in general, everyone at one point or another asks deep questions about existence, how to live, what's the right thing to do, how we know what we say we know, etc. It's a human endeavor to think about such things.

It's like asking what value art or music is, and being told that a sculpting class can help your dexterity when handling patients, or something. Even if it does, that's not the reason for art or music, nor should it be the motivation for taking an art appreciation class, or learning how to play violin.

I am afraid I still don't understand the reason behind the puzzlement. — SophistiCat

Why would any physical system or process be accompanied with experience? Why is my active brain/body having experiences?

You can replace physical above with functional, computational, mathematical, or objective, depending on one's ontological commitments or preferred explanations.