So your argument also proves that we cannot know that other human bodies have a mind. — Ludwig V

There is that argument, but mine, given the context, is concerned with higher intellects in juxtaposition to lesser, and it is to the lesser the lack of knowledge pertains.

The argument leads to self-contradictions when higher is pitted against higher, for even if it is the case knowledge of minds in similar enough creatures is technically impossible, it becomes absurd to suppose humans do not all have the same kind of mind, or that any one of them may not have a mind of any kind at all.

I do not see how that gets you out of the pickle you're in. — creativesoul

I’m guessing anyone thinking deeply enough about stuff he doesn’t know, gets himself into a pickle of some sort or another, sooner or later.

Assuming for the moment I’m actually in one, any recommendations as to how to get out of it?

I can't see why an infinite regress would be involved. You haven't actually explained your reasons for those three claims. — Janus

Then obviously I have not understood what you are trying to say. I still don't know what you mean by "modelling". I'm used to people claiming that my brain causes my behaviour, but this is presumably something different. I think it would help me if you could explain what you mean by modelling.

Can a qualitative difference between humans and other animals be found in what humans "do" differently rather than how humans "are" different? For example, humans make tools that make tools. Whereas a sea otter may use a rock to crack open shellfish for food, humans create tools (machinery) to manufacture lobster and crab crackers. This seems to be a behavior that animals lack. — Thales

I have heard of that as a criterion. But then I also heard that a counter-example had been found. Perhaps someone will come up with details.
This kind of argument is very difficult to press home. There was a suggestion at one time that only humans use tools. But that one got refuted. Then the suggestion was that only human make tools, but that one got refuted. Moving on to make tools that make tools looks a bit desperate to me. Given that animals not only use tools, but make tools as well, one wonders how significant making tools to make tools really is.

Moving on to make tools that make tools looks a bit desperate to me. — Ludwig V

"Desperate" is my middle name! :cool:

Trying and trying to figure out what you mean, but I'm not getting it. But I feel this sentence is key. Can you explain the relationship between moving your feet and walking? (Of course, we're not talking about sitting in a chair and shuffling your feet around. Or lying on the ground doing leg-lifts. Or pumping your legs on a swing to gain height. Or any number of things other than moving them in the way that produces walking.) — Patterner

Right, just as when you say "neutral activity is wanting to have milk" you don't mean just any random neural activity, but specifically whatever activity is responsible for/constitutes the experience of wanting to have milk.

Similarly, moving your feet in a certain way is responsible for/constitutes walking. I am not sure why you are having a difficulty with this parallel.

"Desperate" is my middle name! — Thales

That makes two of us, then. Let me try to be a bit more constructive.

Can a qualitative difference between humans and other animals be found in what humans "do" differently rather than how humans "are" different? — Thales

..... by reflecting on the question.

I don't rule out the possibility that there may be something that humans do that is absolutely unique in the animal world. After all, homo sapiens is undoubtedly unique in the animal world. So there is a collection of criteria that define it. But the same can be said of any other species.

Suppose that, in the end, there wasn't a qualitative difference between homo sapiens but a number of differences in degree, on a spectrum. (I think that's likely to be the truth of it). Why would that matter?

It's uncontroversial that the brain responds to stimuli and orchestrates all bodily processes and actions. That's what I mean. I've already said that I'm referring to that as modeling but am not suggesting it is any more than a physical process. Take it as a metaphor.

i No, I'm not attributing agency in any other sense than action. In the kind of sense that the chemist speaks of chemical agents.

According to the definitions I quoted earlier, epiphenomenalism says mental states do not have any effect on physical events. Walking is a physical event, not a mental event. And walking certainly has an effect on physical events. So I don't know how you are thinking walking is epiphenomenal.

Also, walking is moving our feet. For simplicity, it's the word we use instead of spelling out the whole process. I don't say;
While upright, which is possible thanks to visual cues and the delicate workings of my inner ear, I moved my feet, alternating them, always placing the rear one in front of the other, until I found myself at the store.

instead, I just said I walked to the store.

It's uncontroversial that the brain responds to stimuli and orchestrates all bodily processes and actions. That's what I mean. I've already said that I'm referring to that as modeling but am not suggesting it is any more than a physical process. Take it as a metaphor. — Janus

I'm afraid I missed the place where you said that. "Orchestrates" is a very good way of putting it. A metaphor is just about right for the state of our knowledge - a place-holder for a more detailed account. What I was trying to argue was a misunderstanding. Thank you.

According to the definitions I quoted earlier, epiphenomenalism says mental states do not have any effect on physical events. Walking is a physical event, not a mental event. And walking certainly has an effect on physical events. So I don't know how you are thinking walking is epiphenomenal. — Patterner

I already addressed this. The causal exclusion argument that motivates epiphenomenalism applies equally to physical events in a similar supervenient relationship.

No, I'm not attributing agency in any other sense than action. In the kind of sense that the chemist speaks of chemical agents. — Janus

So how does it cause a decision to act? Do chemicals also ‘decide to act’? You’ve said many times that the material universe is devoid of intention.

Cheers Ludwig such details are easily missed. I do it all the time.

So how does it cause a decision to act? Do chemicals also ‘decide to act’? You’ve said many times that the material universe is devoid of intention. — Wayfarer

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. Do you really believe that when you decide to act or simply act that there have been no prior neural processes (that you have obviously not been aware of) which give rise to that decision or action?

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act — Janus

Not for materialists, anyway. You’re actually arguing for materialist determinism when you say that, whether you’re aware of it or not. But then, I guess if your brain is configured to do that, you’ll have no choice, will you?

However you want to label it is not relevant to the point.

So, you don't believe that when you act there have been prior neural processes which give rise to that action? Determinism doesn't entail that one cannot learn and/ or change one's mind, or that rational argument has no effect on what is believed. If you think that then you are working with a simplistic notion of determinism.

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. Do you really believe that when you decide to act or simply act that there have been no prior neural processes (that you have obviously not been aware of) which give rise to that decision or action? — Janus

They might be unconscious, but that doesn’t mean they’re reducible to, or explainable in terms of, electrochemical processes. That is precisely materialist philosophy of mind.

Obviously stimuli can affect your endocrines, adrenaline, and the like. But that is a matter of biological physiology, not electrochemical reactions as such. Electrochemical reactions are a lower level factor that response to higher-level influences, which in the case of humans can include responses to words, which is the basis of rational causation.

As I brought up the mereological fallacy, I'll provide an account from a review of Bennett and Hacker, PHilosophical Foundations of Neuroscience:

In Chapter 3 of Part I - “The Mereological Fallacy in Neuroscience” - Bennett and Hacker set out a critical framework that is the pivot of the book. They argue that for some neuroscientists, the brain does all manner of things: it believes (Crick); interprets (Edelman); knows (Blakemore); poses questions to itself (Young); makes decisions (Damasio); contains symbols (Gregory) and represents information (Marr). Implicit in these assertions is a philosophical mistake, insofar as it unreasonably inflates the conception of the 'brain' by assigning to it powers and activities that are normally reserved for sentient beings. It is the degree to which these assertions depart from the norms of linguistic practice that sends up a red flag. The reason for objection is this: it is one thing to suggest on empirical grounds correlations between a subjective, complex whole (say, the activity of deciding and some particular physical part of that capacity, say, neural firings) but there is considerable objection to concluding that the part just is the whole. These claims are not false; rather, they are devoid of sense.

Wittgenstein remarked that it is only of a human being that it makes sense to say “it has sensations; it sees, is blind; hears, is deaf; is conscious or unconscious.” (Philosophical Investigations, § 281). The question whether brains think “is a philosophical question, not a scientific one” (p. 71). To attribute such capacities to brains is to commit what Bennett and Hacker identify as “the mereological fallacy”, that is, the fallacy of attributing to parts of an animal attributes that are properties of the whole being. Moreover, merely replacing the mind by the brain leaves intact the misguided Cartesian conception of the relationship between the mind and behavior, merely replacing the ethereal by grey glutinous matter. The structure of the Cartesian explanatory system remains intact, and this leads to Bennett and Hacker's conclusion that contemporary cognitive neuroscientists are not nearly anti-Cartesian enough.

@Ludwig V might find that of interest.

They might be unconscious, but that doesn’t mean they’re reducible to, or explainable in terms of, electrochemical processes. That is precisely materialist philosophy of mind. — Wayfarer

I haven't said that our actions and decisions are exhaustively explainable in terms of neural processes. We make sense of our actions in terms of reasons not in terms of causes, and I've explicitly acknowledged that in this thread I believe.

Obviously stimuli can affect your endocrines, adrenaline, and the like. But that is a matter of biological physiology, not electrochemical reactions as such. Electrochemical reactions are a lower level factor that response to higher-level influences, which in the case of humans can include responses to words. — Wayfarer

Stimulation via the senses is achieved via electrochemical processes as I understand it. And again, I don't think that is controversial. So the whole process of perception, judgement, decision and action is all of a piece. It doesn't follow that we can dispense with our ordinary way of understanding perception, judgement, decision and action in terms of affection and reason, or in other words it doesn't follow that scientific descriptions of what is going on could outright replace those ordinary kinds of explanations. They are just two different explanatory paradigms which cannot be combined into a unified master paradigm as far as I can see, I admit it might turn out that I'm wrong about that of course. At present no such master paradigm seems to be on the horizon.

.

Stimulation via the senses is achieved via electrochemical processes as I understand it. — Janus

Which are immediately interpreted by the mind. There are electro-chemical constituents to be sure, but then the question of intentionality and judgement comes to mind. Remember this whole discussion started with the sense in which decisions and ideas are 'caused by' neurophysiogical processes. The whole process of perception and action is 'of a piece' but you don't say that can be explained solely in terms of physical processes unless you're a philosophical materialist - which you say you're not, but then you keep falling back to a materialist account.

They are just two different explanatory paradigms which cannot be combined into a unified master paradigm as far as I can see, I admit it might turn out that I'm wrong about that of course. At present no such master paradigm seems to be on the horizon. — Janus

But the 'two competing explanatory paradigms', mental and material, just is the Cartesian division - mind and matter, self and other. It was phenomenology, and some of the ideas that arise from that, which seeks to transcend that division. The two books I'm currently reading, Deacon's Incomplete Nature, and Evan Thompson's Mind in Life, are mainly about that. So too many of John Vervaeke's lectures in Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

The whole process of perception and action is 'of a piece' but you don't say that can be explained solely in terms of physical processes unless you're a philosophical materialist - which you say you're not, but then you keep falling back to a materialist account. — Wayfarer

You continue to misunderstand. I'm not claiming that intentionality and personal experience can be comprehended or encapsulated in any purely physical account.

But the 'two competing explanatory paradigms', mental and material, just is the Cartesian division - mind and matter, self and other. — Wayfarer

Again you misunderstand. The Cartesian claim is that of two distinct substances. Spinoza corrected that with the realization that thinking in terms of cogitans and thinking in terms of extensa are two different modes of understanding and he said they are the two we humans can comprehend out of the infinite attributes of the one substance.

So they are not "competing" explanatory paradigms, and I didn't say they were. I said they are two different and incommensurable explanatory paradigms. I think you see them as competing because you presume that one must be correct and the other incorrect. So you are reflecting your own prejudices, not mine.

The way to "transcend that division" is to see that they are just two ways of understanding and that no polemic is necessary or even coherent between them.

I'm not claiming that intentionality and personal experience can be comprehended or encapsulated in any purely physical account. — Janus

So electrochemical reactions do or don’t cause us to act?

Of course they do, but we also act for reasons. As I keep trying to get you to see they are just different kinds of explanation. You might get it if you ditch your either/or thinking.

According to the definitions I quoted earlier, epiphenomenalism says mental states do not have any effect on physical events. Walking is a physical event, not a mental event. And walking certainly has an effect on physical events. So I don't know how you are thinking walking is epiphenomenal.
— Patterner

I already addressed this. The causal exclusion argument that motivates epiphenomenalism applies equally to physical events in a similar supervenient relationship. — SophistiCat

That's fine. But that wasn't the most important part. Walking certainly has an effect on physical events. How can it be epiphenomenal?

↪Wayfarer Of course they do, but we also act for reasons. As I keep trying to get you to see they are just different kinds of explanation. You might get it if you ditch your either/or thinking. — Janus

What if the either/or thinking is correct? There are either/or situations. A square circle is either/or. It's not both. It's booty a paradox. It's just wrong. Why would I think this situation is not another?

What if the either/or thinking is correct? There are either/or situations. A square circle is either/or. It's not both. — Patterner

A square circle is not either/ or and nor is it a paradox, It is just an incoherent conjoining of words.

Of course they do, but we also act for reasons. As I keep trying to get you to see they are just different kinds of explanation. You might get it if you ditch your either/or thinking. — Janus

The point was that the ‘kettle’ example is a clear-cut illustration of the distinction between efficient (water temp) and teleological (intentional) causation. Using ‘neural activity’ to illustrate the distinction muddies the water by introducing another set of questions, concerning the relationship between neurophysiology and free will which you acknowledge is not at all clear cut.

You apparently just don't get it. I don't expect you to agree with me, but your objections, which amount to changing the subject, show no understanding of what I've been saying. The principle of diminishing returns dictates that we might as well leave it there.

…which amount to changing the subject… — Janus

There’s been a clear thread of argument throughout this entire exchange.

That was a very helpful dialogue. The most interesting feature was that it turns out that you agree on a great deal. So I'm going to try and identify more accurately where your disagreement is. You will probably both disagree with me, but I hope we will get clearer about the problem - which is certainly a hard one.

It's not controversial that electrochemical processes cause us to decide to act. — Janus

I'm afraid it is very controversial. The disagreement centres on "cause". There's a definition which circulates in philosophical discussion and this definition itself is, in my view, suspect. After all, it was developed more than 300 years ago and things have moved on since then. Allied to a popular metaphysical view - that the only "true" or fundamental reality is physical/material reality, it is inescapably reductionist. Part of the problem is that the scientific revolutionaries in the 17th century took an entirely rational decision that their physics would not and could not take account of anything that could not be represented as a measurable quantity that could be treated mathematically. There's nothing wrong with that decision, except the illusion that anything that could not be represented in physics was not real.

Do you really believe that when you decide to act or simply act that there have been no prior neural processes (that you have obviously not been aware of) which give rise to that decision or action? — Janus

You've moved away from the troublesome concept of cause to something vaguer, which masks, to some extent, where the disagreement is.
You refer to "when I decide to act or simply act". That seems to posit the possibility of acting without deciding to act, which seems absurd, and certainly won't help the neurophysiologists, who are looking for causes of action. So we need to choose between saying that when I "simply act", there is no decision or the decision is the action and the action is the decision.
All this is hugely complicated by the concept of "intention". We don't I think decide to intend to act, yet intending to act seems to presuppose that I have decided to act. Then the question arises about "simply acting". Does this mean acting without intending to - i.e. unintentionally? I don't think so.
So now we have a rather complex preparatory stage to action - decision, intention, action, and a category of actions that seem to be actions, yet have no visible preparatory stage.
Then we need to think about planning, preparing, trying - where do all these fit in?
Coming back to what I will call - as vaguely as possible - the neurophysiological correlates of action. The neurophysiologists are positing all sorts of mental events - at least that is the language they use - which precede action. They don't seem to allow the possibility of "simply acting" - and if they did, it would mess up their search for physical processes that precede action. In fact, they are in a conceptual space that is closely parallel to the conceptual space of traditional dualism, who posited all sorts of "mental events" that preceded action and seemed to distinguish acting from a simply causal event with an empty gesture at substances. The dualists explained "simply acting" by positing that they took place very rapidly or unconsciously, which I think most people now recognize as hand-waving. Neurophysiologists are doing the same thing. The difference is that they are waving their hands at physical correlates.
It's a mess.

But the 'two competing explanatory paradigms', mental and material, just is the Cartesian division - mind and matter, self and other. — Wayfarer

Well, there is the difference that the distinction is no longer between two substances. But it is not wrong to say that the appeal to explanatory paradigms is a reinscription of Cartesian dualist and repeats the central dualist problem - how to explain the (causal) interface between mind and matter. But the nature of the question is different. That may be progress.

The way to "transcend that division" is to see that they are just two ways of understanding and that no polemic is necessary or even coherent between them. — Janus

Yes. That worked for a while in the late 20th century. But the scientists couldn't leave it alone. So here we are. What puzzles me, though, is why you seem unable to resist positing an interface between them. (Nor can I). Anyway, it is very helpful to know that you are seeing the problem in a Spinozan framework.

The point was that the ‘kettle’ example is a clear-cut illustration of the distinction between efficient (water temp) and teleological (intentional) causation. Using ‘neural activity’ to illustrate the distinction muddies the water by introducing another set of questions, concerning the relationship between neurophysiology and free will which you acknowledge is not at all clear cut. — Wayfarer

It sounds as if you are seeing the issue in an Aristotelian context. Am I wrong?

I was hoping to keep free will out of it at least for the time being. However, my strategy here is to see free will as equating with the proper functioning of my body, including its brain. Then I am able to do what I want to do and able to want what I want to want. But I'm a long way from being able to construct a compelling argument for that.

Ludwig V might find that of interest. — Wayfarer

Yes. I haven't read that book. But I have a lot of time for Hacker and Bennett. The first paragraph is a good presentation of what I want to say.

Moreover, merely replacing the mind by the brain leaves intact the misguided Cartesian conception of the relationship between the mind and behavior, merely replacing the ethereal by grey glutinous matter. The structure of the Cartesian explanatory system remains intact, and this leads to Bennett and Hacker's conclusion that contemporary cognitive neuroscientists are not nearly anti-Cartesian enough. — Wayfarer

That seems to me to be importantly correct, in this context.

A square circle is not either/ or and nor is it a paradox, It is just an incoherent conjoining of words. — Janus

If my analogy isn't good, can you answer the question anyway? Many people think these two things are mutually exclusive. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think they are. You say they are not, and we should ditch the either/or thinking. I don't see how it is possible that they are not in an either/or relationship, and cannot simply change my thinking on three matter. If you are right, and ditching either/or thinking is a valuable thing, I'd like to know how to get there. Can you explain how these two things are not in an either/or relationship?

You will probably both disagree with me, — Ludwig V

:rofl: