Interesting. Do you think we can demonstrate that feelings are not the product of physical events?

No, mainly on account of the kinds of things they post.

Do you think we can demonstrate that feelings are not the product of physical events? — Tom Storm

What is 'physical event'? There's not much use saying that it's neural or neurological, because there's no reason to believe that neuroscience ought to be necessarily physicalist. Some well-known neuroscientists, including Wilder Penfield and John Eccles, have published books against it. One of the canonical books on the subject,The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Hacker and Bennett, comes out strongly against materialist philosophy of mind (and Bennett was a neuroscientist, Hacker being a philosopher). Besides, in what sense is the brain a physical organ? It's an object of study for neuroscience, but the brain in situ is embedded in an organism, in an environment, in a culture. What does it mean to say that it's physical? That it falls at the same rate as other objects if you drop it? Other than that, it simply means commitment to materialism as a philosophy or metaphysic.

'Physical events', then, ought to be considered as those events that can be described in terms of physics and arguably chemistry. That's what materialists are committed to defending. But

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. — David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness

It's not even clear what Janus is arguing about. For instance:

Sure we enjoy drinking the beer or whatever, sometimes more sometimes less consciously. Drinking the beer may initiate feelings in the body that we can be more or less aware of. I don't see any reason to think machines have such experiences. The redundant feature is that these feelings are reified as a kind of entity we call qualia, which are over and above the drinking of the beer or whatever. — Janus

Here, it is acknowledged that machines don't have 'such' experiences, although really a machine doesn't have any experiences, and nowadays we have machines that are smart enough to tell you that (as I've already demonstrated).

But then:

I'm not saying that our feelings and creative imagination have no value but that there seems no substantive reason to believe they are not real, physical, neuronal, endocrinal and bodily processes. — Janus

So, here, 'real' is said to be physical, neuronal, endicronal. We can take it that all of those are metabolic processes. But again, that is no answer to Chalmer's challenge - he would not deny that feelings have physical correlates or give rise to metabolic processes, as I've already acknowledged. But that as they occur within or to subjects as qualities of experience, then no objective description of metabolic processes can capture their first-person nature. And that is indeed a 'substantive' reason.

(his?) — Patterner

:up:

I'll add that the reason that this argument can even be entertained, is because being - the being that you are, and I am - is never an object of consciousness. You can never find it in the natural world, nor in the discoveries of the natural sciences, because it is that which discovers, it is the subject of experience, not an object of analysis. It can be debated only because we ourselves are beings. But if asked to prove or show what being is, then we cannot, for those very reasons.

I have the feeling, from what small amounts of Heidegger I've read, that this is something he would concur with, as he wrote extensively on the 'forgetting of being', and I think this is what he was talking about.

No, mainly on account of the kinds of things they post. — Wayfarer

I think it is mighty presumptuous of you to think that people have "forgotten themselves" just because they think the physicalist account is the most plausible. Seems to me that attitude refects nothing other than your own prejudices.

Aren't you saying the equivalent of, "I don't think comets make any difference, as long as they don't crash into us and negatively impact significant issues"? — Patterner

No, I'm not saying anything like your 'comet' analogy.
What we believe will be determinitive of what we do, broadly speaking. I just don't conceive of our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and desires as being non-physical or immaterial (in either sense). In fact it is on account of their physicality that they can be causally efficacious. Otherwise we would be looking at dualism which comes with the interaction problem.

Seems to me that attitude refects nothing other than your own prejudices. — Janus

Never! :yikes:

↪Patterner Interesting. Do you think we can demonstrate that feelings are not the product of physical events? — Tom Storm

I believe it is self-evident, similar to the way it is self-evident that cheese is not the product of a spinning wheel. As absurd as that example is, I believe the consciousness example is even moreso. At least spinning wheels and cheese are both physical things.

A better analogy might be flight as the product of a spinning wheel. Again, both are physical. But flight is a process, as is consciousness. But, as I've quoted before, Brian Greene states the problem nicely in Until the End of Time:

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings? — Greene

While consciousness is the subjective experience of physical things and events, there is no hint of the physical about it. Let's say very intellectually and technologically advanced beings from another galaxy, who are made of very a different mixture of elements than we are made of, found one of us, and could study us completely at any level, even down to watching every individual particle in us. What is there about the many physical structures and processes that would would suggest to them that we are conscious? Why would they think we are more than robots? Consciousness is surely the subjective experience of physical things. But the physical things don't hint at the subjective experience. Something is happening in addition to the physical things.

I don't think it's a matter of demonstrating that it's not a product of physical events. I think it's a matter of demonstrating it is. Everyone I've read who believes physicalism is the answer says we just need to wait until the physicalist answer is figured out. But that's not evidence that physicalism holds the answer. Neither is physicalism's amazing successes in many physical pursuits. Neither is the fact that we've only found physical things with our physical sciences.

In fact it is on account of their physicality that they can be causally efficacious. Otherwise we would be looking at dualism which comes with the interaction problem. — Janus

A good absorber is a good radiator. And the physical properties of matter that allow iron to become magnetized also make iron subject to magnetism. If there is a non-physical property of matter, right there with the physical properties like mass and charge, that explains the emergence of consciousness, something physical properties don't seem remotely suited for, then it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to think that that property could also make matter subject to consciousness.

Everyone I've read who believes physicalism is the answer says we just need to wait until the physicalist answer is figured out. But that's not evidence that physicalism holds the answer. — Patterner

Yep, I get it. I'm not sure we have coherent explanation of the material or the immaterial, whatever that could be. I believe both are held up by a scaffolding of biases. I don't have enough expertise to commit any particular account of subjective experince and recognize that the experts don't really know yet either. Can I do a Chomsky and be a Mysterian? I find it enjoyably ironic that it might be the case that we lack cognitive ability to determine why we have cognitive abilities.

Don't you see something wrong with this?

How then does a whirl of particles inside a head - which is all that a brain is— — Greene

All of Greene's books, of which I've read The Fabric of the Universe, consist of paper and ink. Is that all they are? How does the meaning they convey arise from the combination of ink and paper?

The 'all it is', is physicalist reductionism (i.e. 'it's nothing but....') Even worse, Greene, a physicist, knows that it's not even strictly correct to describe atoms as 'particles'. They are particles in some contexts, and waves in others. In others again, they're described as the excitations of fields, and the nature of fields is far from obvious.

, they're described as the excitations of fields, and the nature of fields is far from obvious. — Wayfarer

Indeed that’s the current model. Will we ever finish arriving at tentative theories? Theories that to some extent peg out a version of reality and allow us to make predictions, until the next one comes along?

Consciousness is surely the subjective experience of physical things. But the physical things don't hint at the subjective experience. Something is happening in addition to the physical things. — Patterner

This frame probably has special appeal to those who are idealists or religiously inclined.

Neither is the fact that we've only found physical things with our physical sciences. — Patterner

Well, some might go as far as to call that a clue. But for me the idea that everything is waves when understood from a particular perspective seems a fun notion. When will waves end up being something even more elusive?

What is a Philosophy Forum for, it not for sharing subjective Ideas & Feelings encapsulated in artificial words? — Gnomon

It sounds like what you're looking for is a poetry circle. The point of a philosophy forum is solving philosophical problems through cooperative effort and communication. This can only happen given a basis of shared understanding, which in turn means your "subjective ideas" only matter insofar as you can justify them to other people.

I find it enjoyably ironic that it might be the case that we lack cognitive ability to determine why we have cognitive abilities. — Tom Storm

Indeed! :grin: One of my favorite sci-fi books is Neverness, by David Zindell. In it is a quote attributed to Lyall Watson (I don't know where it is in Watson's writings. Anyway:

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson

Consciousness is surely the subjective experience of physical things. But the physical things don't hint at the subjective experience. Something is happening in addition to the physical things.
— Patterner

This frame probably has special appeal to those who are idealists or religiously inclined. — Tom Storm

I imagine so. But also to people like me.

↪Patterner Don't you see something wrong with this? — Wayfarer

There is obviously something wrong.

All of Greene's books, of which I've read The Fabric of the Universe, consist of paper and ink. Is that all they are? How does the meaning they convey arise from the combination of ink and paper? — Wayfarer

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises.

What alternative explanation would you propose? Or even better, how could you falsify my explanation?

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises. — wonderer1

I bolded and bolded/underlined the category errors. On one end you have a physical process, on the other hand another thing going on, more associated with mental process (meaning). The explanatory gap between the two, is generally the (hard) question at hand.

The observer being assumed is the slippery homuncular fallacy.

I could say something to you right now which would raise your blood pressue and affect your adrenal glands. And in so doing, nothing physical would have passed between us. — Wayfarer
That's just not true. If you are talking about what you write on the computer, then I would be looking at shapes (letters, words and sentences) on a screen which means the light from the screen enters my eyes and stimulates rods and cones, causing nerve impulses which travel to the brain and cause neuronal activity which in turn may or may not raise my blood pressure and affect my adrenal glands. — Janus

What said is true, but what you interpreted is not what he meant. The "shapes" on a computer screen are indeed physical, but it's their meta-physical*1 meaning (forms) that might affect you : first intellectually, and then emotionally, after the threat to your belief system registers in the brain, and causes a series of physical responses to combat the metaphysical threat. Wayfarer is not going to attack you physically, by sending bullets over the internet. Instead, he could affect you metaphysically, by causing you to believe that you have been psychically injured (offended).

Of course, Wayfarer is much too genteel to resort to such underhanded tactics. Ironically, non-physical verbal attacks on odious beliefs are often used by the Physicalist trolls on this forum to counter-attack those who have offended their mentally-constructed non-ideal worldview. :smile:

*1. By "meta-physical" I don't mean the study of reality, but merely "non-physical" in the sense of "mental" Ideality*2. Ideas instead of Objects. Forms instead of Shapes.

*2. Ideality :
In Plato’s theory of Forms*3, he argues that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate or perfect reality. Those Forms are not physical things, but merely definitions or recipes of possible things. What we call Reality consists of a few actualized potentials drawn from a realm of infinite possibilities.
# Materialists deny the existence of such immaterial ideals, but recent developments in Quantum theory have forced them to accept the concept of “virtual” particles in a mathematical “field”, that are not real, but only potential, until their unreal state is collapsed into reality by a measurement or observation. To measure is to extract meaning into a mind. [Measure, from L. Mensura, to know; from mens-, mind]
# Some modern idealists find that scenario to be intriguingly similar to Plato’s notion that ideal Forms can be realized, i.e. meaning extracted, by knowing minds. For the purposes of this blog, “Ideality” refers to an infinite pool of potential (equivalent to a quantum field), of which physical Reality is a small part.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Note --- Quantum Fields are accepted by scientists as accurate depictions of reality (reified), even though they are immaterial mathematical constructs, and cannot be detected by human senses or instruments, but only known by philosophical inference. They seem to be a scientific version of Plato's Forms, or what I call Ideality.

*3. Theory of Forms :
a theory widely credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. The theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms
Note --- Materialism is a belief system that rejects this theory of an immaterial Potential Source (or Field), from which our sensory perceptions of physical Shapes are constructed into the conception that we call Reality. Plato inferred that the intellectual Meaning (definition) of those Shapes is ultimately more important than their physical instantiation. This idealized notion may apply only to sentient creatures capable of inferring abstract meanings from concrete objects. For philosophers, the Potential Source of Forms is also merely an imaginary Idea, not a sensable thing. It's the meaning that matters, not the substance.

Indeed. if anyone's blood pressure goes up because of what they read on the Internet, it has nothing to do with anything physical. It is only about the meaning.

too genteel to resort to such underhanded tactics. Ironically, non-physical verbal attacks on odious beliefs are often used by the Physicalist trolls on this forum to counter-attack those who have offended their mentally-constructed non-ideal worldview. :smile: — Gnomon

Heh. I hadn't thought of that. :up:

it has nothing to do with anything physical. It is only about the meaning. — Patterner

Some people --- writers, artists, designers --- will get more riled-up if someone steals their Intellectual Property*1 than some tangible physical property. Again, it's the meaning that matters to them. But lawyers have to be very creative to convince a jury, using materialistic language, that something of value has indeed been stolen. How do you think the (hypothetical ; intangible) creator of a Mind Created World would feel about h/er creatures denying the value of h/er most important creation : the human intellect? :joke:


*1. Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. It's a reflection of someone's creativity and can be found in many things, including: computer games, films, cars, and miracle drugs. ___Google AI overview

Intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel1_e.htm

I find it enjoyably ironic that it might be the case that we lack cognitive ability to determine why we have cognitive abilities. — Tom Storm
Indeed! :grin: One of my favorite sci-fi books is Neverness, by David Zindell. In it is a quote attributed to Lyall Watson (I don't know where it is in Watson's writings. Anyway:
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson — Patterner

Wayfarer is not going to attack you physically, by sending bullets over the internet. Instead, he could affect you metaphysically, by causing you to believe that you have been psychically injured (offended). — Gnomon

Correct. To physically affect someone would be to give them a drug or injure them, as you say. But if you say something that annoys them - I do this a lot! - then the causation is on the level of meaning. 'Why did he say that?' 'How could he think that?' These are active on the level of meaning, but which may have physical consequences. It's an example of top-down causation. (I often think about the placebo effect in this context, another example of top-down causation, as according to physicalism, it really ought not to happen.)

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises. — wonderer1

'Arises' from what, exactly? What is the nature of the causal relationship? If meaning arises purely from physical causation, as described by physical and chemical laws, how to account for the gap between these deterministic processes and the open-ended, adaptive nature of life? Even rudimentary organisms exhibit an agency and intentionality absent in inorganic matter—the ability to heal, reproduce, evolve, and maintain homeostasis. From the moment life begins, biological systems exhibit a kind of semiotic agency that transcends the deterministic causal nexus of physics and chemistry. Life doesn't defy physical laws, but requires principles that can't be reduced to that level of explanation. Recognition of this is one of the drivers behind the emergence of biosemiotics, and of the connection between information and biology, none of which is strictly physicalist, although it falls within the ambit of an evolving naturalism. That's the sense in which biology is evolving beyond physicalism, as physics did with the advent of quantum mechanics. And all the same questions apply to the relatonship of neurobiology and semantics.

refs: From Physical Causes to Organisms of Meaning, Steve Talbott

What is Information?, Marcello Barbieri

suppose we found that specific patterns of brain activity in Yo-Yo Ma’s brain reliably correlate with his playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. This finding wouldn’t be surprising, given his years of training and expertise. Although that information would presumably be useful for understanding the effects of musical training and expert performance on the brain, it would tell us very little about music, let alone Bach. On the contrary, you need to understand music, the cello, and Bach to understand the significance of the neural patterns. — Why I am Not a Buddhist, Evan Thompson

What ↪Wayfarer said is true, but what you interpreted is not what he meant. The "shapes" on a computer screen are indeed physical, but it's their meta-physical*1 meaning (forms) that might affect you : — Gnomon

I am affected physically by what is said (sound) or what I read (light) and this causes changes in the body and the brain, and those changes are my interpretation of the meaning of what I have heard or seen.

You might not agree with this picture of what is happening, but nothing is missing, except of course complete understanding, which shouldn't be a surprise since we don't completely understand anything.

If it is not the meaning of the words that affects you in a certain way, could random words affect you in that same way?

If it is not the meaning of the words that affects you in a certain way, could random words affect you in that same way? — Patterner

It seems reasonable to think that when we learn a language we learn not only words but the logic (grammar) which determines how words may be grouped together in sentences. If, having learnt a language we have established neural networks that embody that learning then the words, or better sentences and passages, activate these networks and result in the apprehension of their meaning—an interpretation.

Now of course I'm not absolutely certain that is how that works but it seems most consistent with the findings of neuroscience. What else do we have to go on? Do you think our vague intuitions that meaning cannot be physical are reliable sources of understanding and knowledge?

Let's say the semantic and the neurological are not separate at all. We don't understand how they go together, so our first pre-critical thought is that meaning cannot be an attribute of physical (neuronal) processes. Perhaps we just don't understand the physical well enough. What's the alternative? Posit the existence of another realm?

Perhaps we just don't understand the physical well enough. What's the alternative? Posit the existence of another realm? — Janus

A pretty poor post, I have to say. Just because something can be attributed to neurobiology, doesn't necessarily mean it can be understood solely through a physicalist lens. As you kind of admit, the problem is that to question the physicalist account is to open the door to - well, what, exactly? That's why I mention Thomas Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion. Fear of religion drives a lot of this conversation, whether that's acknowledged or not. As if the door has to be slammed shut on anything that's not 'scientific' or 'neurobiological' or else.... :yikes:

Take the time to read that Steve Talbott essay. It's philosophically solid and doesn't appeal to anything supernatural. But, as I also said, even biosemiotics, which I learned about from Apokrisis, is not physicalist in the reductionist sense (although some of what Apokrisis writes is also driven by that fear). But as soon as you start considering intentionality, sign recognition, and semiotics, then none of that is really physicalist in my view.

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises.
— wonderer1

'Arises' from what, exactly? What is the nature of the causal relationship? — Wayfarer

Arises from interactions within the brain which contains the neural networks trained to process written language, in response to the outputs of those neural networks signaling recognition of linguistic elements in the writing.

[Note 'arises' is the word you chose, and I ran with. Not a word I injected into the discussion.]

The nature of the causal relationship is physical.

If meaning arises purely from physical causation, as described by physical and chemical laws, how to account for the gap between these deterministic processes and the open-ended, adaptive nature of life? Even rudimentary organisms exhibit an agency and intentionality absent in inorganic matter—the ability to heal, reproduce, evolve, and maintain homeostasis. From the moment life begins, biological systems exhibit a kind of semiotic agency that transcends the deterministic causal nexus of physics and chemistry. Life doesn't defy physical laws, but requires principles that can't be reduced to that level of explanation. Recognition of this is one of the drivers behind the emergence of biosemiotics, and of the connection between information and biology, none of which is strictly physicalist, although it falls within the ambit of an evolving naturalism. That's the sense in which biology is evolving beyond physicalism, as physics did with the advent of quantum mechanics. And all the same questions apply to the relatonship of neurobiology and semantics.

refs: From Physical Causes to Organisms of Meaning, Steve Talbott

What is Information?, Marcello Barbieri — Wayfarer

That's an impressive load of red herrings you have there, but how about sticking to this
original question?

All of Greene's books, of which I've read The Fabric of the Universe, consist of paper and ink. Is that all they are? How does the meaning they convey arise from the combination of ink and paper? — Wayfarer

Or did you not actually want people to give serious consideration to the matter?

What ↪Wayfarer said is true, but what you interpreted is not what he meant. The "shapes" on a computer screen are indeed physical, but it's their meta-physical meaning (forms) that might affect you : — Gnomon
I am affected physically by what is said (sound) or what I read (light) and this causes changes in the body and the brain, and those changes are my interpretation of the meaning of what I have heard or seen.
You might not agree with this picture of what is happening, but nothing is missing, except of course complete understanding, which shouldn't be a surprise since we don't completely understand anything. — Janus

I agree. What may be missing from the picture you see is the Interpretation or Understanding of its meaning. Your dog may see the same symbols on the computer screen, but they won't have the same "affect"*1 that they do on you. The effect is physical, but the affect is metaphysical (mental). Your dog may be emotionally affected by images of other dogs on the screen, but words in the English language will have no affect, because they are abstractions of intellectual ideas, not concrete objects.

Your use of the word "affect" may reveal the "missing" element that distinguishes mental ideas or feelings from physical effects. For example, the letters on your computer screen have a physical effect (Percepts ; changes in Rhodopsin chemical) on the rods & cones in your eyes. But only the meaning of those abstract symbols --- how it relates to you personally --- can affect your mood or feelings or Concepts*2. The science of Semiology is focused on the meanings of signs --- how they are interpreted --- not just their physical shapes. The word "rose" refers to a flower ; but unless that textual symbol elicits a mental image in the mind, its meaning will be missing. :smile:


*1. Affect :
a. to put on a false appearance of (something) : to pretend to feel, have, or do (something) : feign affect indifference affect surprise.
b. Affect can be used as a noun in one particular situation: when referring to a display of emotion.

*2. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Arises from interactions within the brain which contains the neural networks trained to process written language, in response to the outputs of those neural networks signaling recognition of linguistic elements in the writing. — wonderer1

Meaning in a brain emerges from systematic Holistic interactions, not linear Reductive operations. A more Holistic term for "arise" would be "emerge"*1. Your description sounds mechanical, but it doesn't answer Chalmers' Hard Question : how does a mechanical process convert physical inputs into mental outputs? In philosophy, to equate mental with physical is a category error. :smile:


*1. Emergent properties are qualities of a system that are not present in its parts, and are a result of holism. Holism is the idea that the properties of a system are greater than the sum of its parts, and that the system as a whole determines how its parts behave.
___ Google AI overview
Note --- Ideas, feelings, concepts are not properties of Matter, but of Mind. By what means do they arise? What are the mechanical steps between Matter and Mind? Mind is a meta-physical function of Brain, not a physical organ or neuron.

In philosophy, to equate mental with physical is a category error. — Gnomon

Brandolini's law:

Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states:

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

Philpapers Survey