If the mind is immaterial: — Relativist

.. it's not.

If the mind is immaterial:
— Relativist

.. it's not. — A Seagull

Physicalism is often dismissed based on the inability to answer some hard questions. I wanted to show there are also challenging questions for immaterialism.

I actually don't think "the mind" is a thing; rather, its an abstraction of all the processes that we categorize as mental.

If the mind is immaterial:
— Relativist

.. it's not. — A SeagullPhysicalism is often dismissed based on the inability to answer some hard questions. I wanted to show there are also challenging questions for immaterialism.

I actually don't think "the mind" is a thing; rather, its an abstraction of all the processes that we categorize as mental. — Relativist

What are these 'hard questions'?

There may well be mysteries surrounding consciousness, but they will not be answered by posing that consciousness is immaterial or can be disembodied from the brain.

What are these 'hard questions'? — A Seagull

The hard problrm of consciousness.

These are really good questions, Relativist. Let me think about them and I’ll get back to you later.

Fair?

how can a brain (with all the various properties of material objects), be caused to do something by something that lacks all material properties (no mass, no energy, no charge, and no location in space)? — Relativist

Presumably, I could write something here which might cause you anxiety, which would produce an adrenal response, among other things. Auto-suggestion, the placebo effect, and many other aspects of 'mind-body' medicine, all suggest that mind influences the body in ways which are hard to account for in physical terms.

• How does the brain deliver sights and sounds to the mind? For example, does every neuron connect to the mind, or only certain ones, or combinations? — Relativist

Asking how 'the brain' does such things is what has been described as 'the mereological fallacy' i.e. attributing to parts that which are the proper activities of wholes.

Furthermore, this question touches on an outstanding question in neurobiology, which is the 'neural binding problem'. This refers to the fact that neuroscience can find no area of the brain which corresponds with our unified sense of subjective experience:

There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience

From Jerome S. Feldman, The Neural Binding Problem.

There are many other such conundrums suggested by your post, which I would sidestep or subvert by pointing out that the mind is never itself an object of perception (unlike the body and brain, which clearly are). The mind is not something which we can stand outside of, and therefore objectify. That's why eliminative materialists believe it must be eliminated.

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There are many other such conundrums suggested by your post, which I would sidestep or subvert by pointing out that the mind is never itself an object of perception (unlike the body and brain, which clearly are). The mind is not something which we can stand outside of, and therefore objectify. That's why eliminative materialists believe it must be eliminated. — Wayfarer

Philosohers conceptually "objectify the mind", and my questions are directed at those who believe the mind is an immaterial object.

quote="Wayfarer;390265"]many other aspects of 'mind-body' medicine, all suggest that mind influences the body in ways which are hard to account for in physical terms[/quote]
I'm aware of that, but the difficulty of answering those questions doesn't imply dualism is true. My questions demonstrate there are at least as many questions that dualists can't answer. Should we therefore take both those possibilities off the table?

The problem of the relationship between body (objective) and mind (subjective) does not authorize a strict dualism. The mind is not independent of the body. There is no evidence of such a thing. In my opinion it is a problem related to emergence. Different levels of matter cannot be explained by the "lower" ones. That pseudo problem exists even between the macrophysical and microphysical (quantum mechanics) world. And no one says that chrysanthemums are independent of atoms.

Mind dependence of body is well attested. There is no need to abandon materialism.

The mind is not independent of the body. — David Mo

I don't understand how anyone can deny that, other than through blind faith.

In my opinion it is a problem related to emergence. Different levels of matter cannot be explained by the "lower" ones.

Assuming you're referring to ontological emergence, not just epistemological, how can you justify believing this? Every conceivable case of ontological emergence is explainable as a function of previously unknown properties of the underlying substance.

The problem of the relationship between body (objective) and mind (subjective) does not authorize a strict dualism. The mind is not independent of the body. There is no evidence of such a thing. In my opinion it is a problem related to emergence. Different levels of matter cannot be explained by the "lower" ones. That pseudo problem exists even between the macrophysical and microphysical (quantum mechanics) world. And no one says that chrysanthemums are independent of atoms.

Mind dependence of body is well attested. There is no need to abandon materialism. — David Mo

The problem is certainly obvious between the macrophysical and microphysical (quantum mechanics) world, but this could simply be ascribed to our ignorance. We could just be missing a crucial piece of the puzzle (the role minds play?).

The "levels" are actually mental viewpoints/snapshots from different size scopes. The "levels" would just be a digital representation of an analog variation in size scopes of reality. The different vantage points within the Milky Way galaxy and outside of it lend us to think about reality as different "levels" where there are none - just different vantage points of the same thing.

If you've got three ducks, it's nice to get them in a row.

And then you've still got three ducks but now you've got a row as well. Assume the ducks are material.

Is the row material or immaterial?

Such is the apparatus for confounding philosophers. Solve this one first, before tackling mind, brain, self, and world.

What are these 'hard questions'? — A SeagullThe hard problrm of consciousness. — Relativist

Those 'problems' are no harder for physicalism than they are for immaterialism. In any case I prefer to think of them as mysteries rather than problems.

The assumption of an immaterial mind is an escape hatch from difficult questions. What are qualia? They're the stuff of minds. No further analysis is possible or necessary. The position is unfalsifiable. What can't be denied is that an immaterial mind must still somehow interact with the physical body. Even if the immaterial can do magical things , the interface with the physical is still problematic - that was the thrust of my questions.

my questions are directed at those who believe the mind is an immaterial object. — Relativist

It was Cartesian dualism that posited 'mind' as 'res cogitans', meaning 'thinking substance'. I think that's where the concept of mind as an 'immaterial object' comes from. and that the way it was framed by Descartes has introduced a false dichotomy.

One of the consequences is that scientific philosophies obviously tended to frame their questions in terms of matter, because it is objectively measurable and apparently intelligible.

Idealists and religious philosophers tended to gravitate towards the reality of mind.

Forgive the rather lengthy quote, but I think it helps clarify many of the issues.

The term "Idealism" came into vogue roughly during the time of Kant (though it was used earlier by others, such as Leibniz) to label one of two trends that had emerged in reaction to Cartesian philosophy. Descartes had argued that there were two basic yet separate substances in the universe: Extension (the material world of things in space) and Thought (the world of mind and ideas). Subsequently opposing camps took one or the other substance as their metaphysical foundation, treating it as the primary substance while reducing the remaining substance to derivative status.

Materialists argued that only matter was ultimately real, so that thought and consciousness derived from physical entities (chemistry, brain states, etc.). Idealists countered that the mind and its ideas were ultimately real, and that the physical world derived from mind (e.g., the mind of God, Berkeley's esse est percipi, or from ideal prototypes, etc.). Materialists gravitated toward mechanical, physical explanations for why and how things existed, while Idealists tended to look for purposes - moral as well as rational - to explain existence. Idealism meant "idea-ism," frequently in the sense Plato's notion of "ideas" (eidos) was understood at the time, namely ideal types that transcended the physical, sensory world and provided the form (eidos) that gave matter meaning and purpose. As materialism, buttressed by advances in materialistic science, gained wider acceptance, those inclined toward spiritual and theological aims turned increasingly toward idealism as a countermeasure. Before long there were many types of materialism and idealism.

Idealism, in its broadest sense, came to encompass everything that was not materialism, which included so many different types of positions that the term lost any hope of univocality. Most forms of theistic and theological thought were, by this definition, types of idealism, even if they accepted matter as real, since they also asserted something as more real than matter, either as the creator of matter (in monotheism) or as the reality behind matter (in pantheism). Extreme empiricists who only accepted their own experience and sensations as real were also idealists. Thus the term "idealism" united monotheists, pantheists and atheists. At one extreme were various forms of metaphysical idealism which posited a mind (or minds) as the only ultimate reality. The physical world was either an unreal illusion or not as real as the mind that created it. To avoid solipsism (which is a subjectivized version of metaphysical idealism) metaphysical idealists posited an overarching mind that envisions and creates the universe.

A more limited type of idealism is epistemological idealism, which argues that since knowledge of the world only exists in the mental realm, we cannot know actual physical objects as they truly are, but only as they appear in our mental representations of them. Epistemological idealists could be ontological materialists, accepting that matter exists substantially; they could even accept that mental states derived at least in part from material processes. What they denied was that matter could be known in itself directly, without the mediation of mental representations. Though unknowable in itself, matter's existence and properties could be known through inference based on certain consistencies in the way material things are represented in perception.

Transcendental idealism contends that not only matter but also the self remains transcendental in an act of cognition. Kant and Husserl, who were both transcendental idealists, defined "transcendental" as "that which constitutes experience but is not itself given in experience." A mundane example would be the eye, which is the condition for seeing even though the eye does not see itself. By applying vision and drawing inferences from it, one can come to know the role eyes play in seeing, even though one never sees one's own eyes. Similarly,things in themselves and the transcendental self could be known if the proper methods were applied for uncovering the conditions that constitute experience, even though such conditions do not themselves appear in experience [the paradigmatic example being Kant's Critiques.] — Dan Lusthaus

What I'd like to say about that, is that both mind and matter are idealisations or abstractions. There is neither mind as a 'substance' (in the philosophical sense), nor matter per se because all matter has particular attributes and characteristics which define its type.

So whilst I agree that there is no 'immaterial object', I'm also inclined to believe that there are no 'purely material' objects either. My view is closer to Kant & Schopenhauer, who point out that whatever we know about matter has first of all been absorbed through the senses and then recognised by the mind, and that we don't know anything about 'matter' outside that perceptual process.

Whereas, what the questions in the OP seek to do, is to ask what kind of 'thing' or object an 'immaterial mind' can be, presumably to argue that, as it can't be meaningfully defined, then it must be 'taken off the table'. In my view, those questions cannot be answered, but that doesn't mean that mind is not real, nor that it's a product of matter or something that can be explained in materialist terms. However, if the question is posed in those terms, then that is the conclusion it seems to point inevitably towards.

If you've got three ducks, it's nice to get them in a row.

And then you've still got three ducks but now you've got a row as well. Assume the ducks are material.

Is the row material or immaterial?

Such is the apparatus for confounding philosophers. Solve this one first, before tackling mind, brain, self, and world. — unenlightened

:up:

If you've got three ducks, it's nice to get them in a row.

And then you've still got three ducks but now you've got a row as well. Assume the ducks are material. — unenlightened

By my reckoning, an actual row of 3 actual ducks is a material state of affairs (a thing). It is more than its parts (duck, duck, duck) because it includes the spatial relations among the ducks.

We can abstractly consider rows; many states of affairs have the properties of "row". We can even abstractly consider rows of ducks - hypothetically, any actual collection of 3 ducks could be arranged in a row.

Abstractions are mental objects formed by considering states of affairs with some common properties, and mentally subtracting the properties thatv distinguish them.

what the questions in the OP seek to do, is to ask what kind of 'thing' or object an 'immaterial mind' can be, presumably to argue that, as it can't be meaningfully defined, then it must be 'taken off the table'.

In my view, those questions cannot be answered, but that doesn't mean that mind is not real, nor that it's a product of matter or something that can be explained in materialist terms. However, if the question is posed in those terms, then that is the conclusion it seems to point inevitably towards. — Wayfarer

I'm not convinced mind is a thing, an existent. There are mental activities, and the phenomenon of consciousness. What we lack is a pardigm for analyzing the phenomena.

The problem is certainly obvious between the macrophysical and microphysical (quantum mechanics) world, but this could simply be ascribed to our ignorance. — Harry Hindu

Ignorance may be due to epistemological limitations or ontological differences. When the ignorance is deep -as in the case of the mind-brain relation- it is not possible to know if the problem is epistemological or ontological. It is the classic problem of determinism and freedom. The only thing we can see is that there is a difference that is expressed in different languages. The future will tell about the rest. Or it won't.

it includes the spatial relations among the ducks. — Relativist

Yes indeed, a row of ducks is more than the ducks, but you haven't come out and said that the more is material, because it sounds odd to say that. In fact it sounds stupid. The trouble is, it sounds just as stupid to start talking about immaterial rows.

This is physicalim for dummies:
1. There is stuff.
2. Stuff is arranged.
3. Arrangements are not more stuff.
4. The ranges of arrangement include space and time, which are also not stuff.

So I think a physicalist can perfectly well say something like that a mind is the arrangement of a brain in space and time. I'm not saying that all problems are thereby dissolved, but the rigidity of material/immaterial is at least weakened enough to allow other ways of talking and thinking. So, for instance it is no mystery that the arrangement of stuff affects stuff (and vice versa), whereas how an immaterial mind affects a material brain (and vice versa), is entirely inexplicable.

Now if you are into quantum mechanics and fundamental physics, you may decide that stuff is just arrangements of probability, or something, but happily, we don't have to go there to explain things on the human scale, and to do so is just to obscure what ought to be clear.

This is physicalim for dummies:
1. There is stuff.
2. Stuff is arranged.
3. Arrangements are not more stuff.
4. The ranges of arrangement include space and time, which are also not stuff. — unenlightened

You're making a mereological error. Do you exist? Are you a thing? After all, you're just a collection of particles arranged a certain way (actually, a loose collection since particles come and go). A complex object is something in addition to its component parts.

You interact with the world as a functional entity. That you exist, and function as you do, is due to the properties and relations of the components that comprise you (i.e. there's no magic involved).

Do you exist? — Relativist

Does a row exist?

My thesis is that this is a foolish question Of course I exist and rows exist and arrangements exist. But these arrangements are arranged stuff not more stuff or immaterial stuff. I exist, I am an arrangement, or a complex relationship analogous to a whirlpool. Is a whirlpool material? does a whirlpool exist? Nobody needs to ask. But folks want to get bogged down in complex physics and psychology as if that is easier to understand. Get your ducks in a row first.

You're making a mereological error. — Relativist

Which line?

Does a row exist? — unenlightened

Yes, but not as abstract objects. States of affairs (i.e. complex objects) exist that have the properties we associate with rows.

Which line? — unenlightened

The ones that use the term "stuff", because it's vague and ambiguous. I disagree with this:

a row of ducks is more than the ducks, but you haven't come out and said that the more is material, because it sounds odd to say that. — unenlightened

Assume that materialism is true (for the sake of discussion). This implies that every THING that exists is material. A row of ducks is a thing, and therefore it is a material object. It is a type of object distinct from a stack of ducks, or a row of goats. If things that exist are "stuff" than a row of ducks is stuff, and it's not identical to its constituent ducks; the internal relations between them is as much a part of the duck-row as the ducks themselves.

a row of ducks is stuff, and it's not identical to its constituent ducks; the internal relations between them is as much a part of the duck-row as the ducks themselves. — Relativist

Internal relations = arrangement of ducks.

Ducks + row-arrangement = row of ducks.

Internal relations are not the same kind of thing as ducks. Rows are not the same kind of thing as ducks.

The reason I use vague terms is to bypass the physics and associated or conflicting philosophy, of what is a constituent and what is a relation of constituents, because they are intertwined to the point of radical uncertainty. It is precisely to escape mereology. Relations, internal and external to some scheme of identification as duck or row-of-ducks.

If things that exist are "stuff" than a row of ducks is stuff, and it's not identical to its constituent ducks; the internal relations between them is as much a part of the duck-row as the ducks themselves. — Relativist

But each duck exists, and the relation between them exists. We agree about this. But the relation is not another material the way a duck is material - clay or flesh and feather. The whirlpool has an identity; it is composed of water, but it is more than water. The 'more' is not more water, it is relation and process. So already in the simplicity of everyday objects, we have a dual aspect of what used to be called "form and substance", and I am calling "stuff and arrangements" and you are calling "constituents and internal relations."

And in the case of the topic, here, I think we actually agree that there is no magic immaterial mind, but that mind is the relations and processes of a brain. Get the ducks in a row, and the mind and brain line up in parallel.

But each duck exists, and the relation between them exists. We agree about this. But the relation is not another material the way a duck is material - clay or flesh and feather. — unenlightened

I consider materialism to be possibly true, or at least that it's the case to beat. A materialist can't countenance "forms" existing on their own, because they are not material. However, it's perfectly reasonable to note that everything that exists (every particular) has relations and properties. There are no propertyless particulars, and no properties (including relational properties) that exist uninstantiated in a particular. So the relations among the ducks are just as essential to a row of ducks as are the ducks.

And in the case of the topic, here, I think we actually agree that there is no magic immaterial mind, but that mind is the relations and processes of a brain. Get the ducks in a row, and the mind and brain line up in parallel — unenlightened

It is a bit off topic, but it helps to have a common language. We have mental processes, but I think "mind" is just an abstraction. Treating it as a thing may be part of the paradigm problem with understanding mental activities.

I think "mind" is just an abstraction. Treating it as a thing may be part of the paradigm problem with understanding mental activities. — Relativist

Do you not see that this policing the language doesn't get you anywhere? "Row" is just an abstraction until you get your ducks lined up straight, and then you have realised it. Just an abstraction is what is just in your mind, and I can assure you that my mind is not in your mind but a real thing that writes posts.

Do you not see that this policing the language doesn't get you anywhere? "Row" is just an abstraction until you get your ducks lined up straight, and then you have realised it. Just an abstraction is what is just in your mind, and I can assure you that my mind is not in your mind but a real thing that writes posts — unenlightened

I'm not policing, I'm giving you my perspective, just as you're giving me yours. I just happen to think abstract objects should not be considered existents in their own right. Ontologically speaking, they're excess baggage.

As I see it when we contemplate a row abstractly, we are engaging in a mental process - thinking about the properties that make something a row. The fact we can do that doesn't (IMO) imply that the abstraction "row" exists independently of the things that are arranged in rows. This seems a simpler ontology. You are certainly free to disagree.

I just happen to think abstract objects should not be considered existents in their own right. Ontologically speaking, they're excess baggage. — Relativist

I happen to agree. They are however existent in the world. 'Row' does not exist 'in its own right', wherever that might be. but I can get my ducks in a row. and then a row of ducks exists.

I've stayed out, and I find the arguments by unenlightened to be on point.
Nevertheless, the discussion seems to have turned to how materialism explains itself, and the original purpose of the OP seems to have been lost.

I think most of the relevant replies came from Wayfarer, but much of that was dropped. The Lusthaus quote was interesting but does not seem to address the question at hand. OK, it seems that it is a mistake to model the relationship as 'mind as an object'. We instead work with ideas and purpose, and the physical world is derivative from it. But then suppose it was my idea to take my purpose of needing an vehicle to animate my need for getting around and experiencing the world. Given that purpose, why would I imagine a vehicle with zero controls, that goes where it wants, when it wants. That's pretty useless for my purposes. I'd give it pedals and a steering wheel so that I could exert my will upon it. A physical being seems to have no pedals and such. It doesn't seem to be the product of the sort of purposeful ideas posited by this non-primary-material model.

What I'd like to say about that, is that both mind and matter are idealisations or abstractions. There is neither mind as a 'substance' (in the philosophical sense), nor matter per se because all matter has particular attributes and characteristics which define its type.

So whilst I agree that there is no 'immaterial object', I'm also inclined to believe that there are no 'purely material' objects either. — Wayfarer

I actually agree with this. On that point:

And then you've still got three ducks but now you've got a row as well. Assume the ducks are material. — unenlightened

If the row isn't 'new stuff', then neither are the ducks, being themselves just more arrangement of stuff that was already there. At what point is there actually stuff? It seems the scientists have never found it, and hence the unstable foundation of what is typically exemplified as 'materialism'.

Anyway, I was hoping to see more discussion on this original intent of this thread.

If the row isn't 'new stuff', then neither are the ducks, being themselves just more arrangement of stuff that was already there. At what point is there actually stuff? It seems the scientists have never found it, and hence the unstable foundation of what is typically exemplified as 'materialism'.

Anyway, I was hoping to see more discussion on this original intent of this thread. — noAxioms

The "stuff" is relationships, or information.

Several of the questions presuppose the idea that minds can exist separated from the body. I ask, "What is the point of a mind separated from a body?" and "Why would I have a (faulty) copy of myself?"

The mind is working memory containing information about the relationship between body and environment. It is how the body tracks the state of the body/environment relationship, relative to a conceptual body/environment relationship (homeostasis). Humans (and dolphins) have the neocortex, which is associated with conscious thought and self-awareness, and may be where the mind resides. Or maybe the mind isn't a result of the activity of just part of the brain, but all of the brain in sync when the evolutionary add-on, the neocortex, evolves. If it is the former, then there could be multiple "minds" in one brain - each being the processing of one particular module in the brain added by natural selection, and could be the cause of our conflicting mental states and urges. If the latter, then there would only be one mind per brain where internal conflict would be the result of having conflicting goals in one mind.