3 ms·

How would you distinguish between "dualism" and "the supernatural"?

goatlover 10y ago
Just say that the mind is part of the natural world, which means the world isn't simply material. It's both mental and material. Chalmers position is property dualism where certain informationally rich systems have conscious properties in addition to physical ones. Anyway, materialism is a monism, like Thales saying the world is made of water. There's nothing that necessitates the world be a monism. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Panpsychism is another dualistic view of the natural world than requires no supernatural component. Everything has a mental as well as material aspect.
- ilugaslifg 10y ago
  So you distinguish between dualism and the supernatural by expanding your definition of "natural" to include a distinct realm of non-material "nature" with no definable rules. And, of all the phenomena that might be identifiable as emerging from the fabric of reality, the one that distinguishes you (and other systems you recognize as sufficiently like you) from everything else just happens to be the one you've decided must objectively be set apart. I'll ask again: in this framework, what remains "supernatural", and why can you reject it?
  - goatlover 10y ago
    Who says the mental has no rules? Anyway, the question of what fundamentally exists is an ontological question. Materialism is one possible answer. All that fundamentally exists is material objects, and everything else, including mind, society, abstract concepts, etc emerge from that material substrate. Idealism would be the opposite answer. Everything is mental, and material objects are just ideas presented to the mind. Everything is mathematical would be another possibility. Or information, perhaps qubits (it from quantum bits). But maybe aspects of mind and matter are both fundamental to what exists. Or maybe it's some third neutral substance that's neither. But whatever the case, none of that need involve the supernatural. It can, if one is disposed to think that way. One can say that God created the material world (granted, that leaves God as the something else, but at least the world gets to be entirely material).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - ilugaslifg 10y ago
      I'm just going to come out and say it. There is no good reason to believe that any ontology you can come up with to help you describe and attempt to comprehend reality, on the time and energy scales you live on, has any basis in the fundamental nature of reality. The only distinction between atoms and phlogistons, physiology and the theory of humors, is their explanatory and predictive power, but none of those is any more "real" than the others beyond how they help us symbolize the world in a way we can reason about. There is no good reason to believe that consciousness is any different, other than unexamined chauvinism, or, at best, wishful thinking. Reality doesn't give a fuck what circles you draw around some fuzzy densities in an energy field, and what labels you write on them. Cars and sandwiches, atoms and quarks, where you end and the air around you begins, these distinctions that only matter to "you". This is the tyranny of the dichotomous mind. The amount of unjustifiable, and, on the scale of the universe, unearned arrogance that it takes to assert that you or anything about you is set apart from the rest of material reality, is staggering, and just not something that I'm capable of sharing, having seriously considered the alternative. Honestly, I'm just not sure we can have this conversation unless you can assure me that you have fully considered this to the point of having to pull yourself out of a serious existential crisis at some point in your life. Any platitudes that come down to "there must be something that objectively privileges the nature of our existence above that of a rock or an endless field of eternal cold emptiness" are just totally baseless, and fail every test that might distinguish it from "god has a plan for me", "love is a physical force that directly manipulates time and space", or "it's turtles all the way down".
      - goatlover 10y ago
        Doesn't materialism fall into "any ontology" that you're ranting against? That's fine, skeptics about the nature of external reality have been around since the ancient Greeks. But then to circle back around and privilege materialism as being somehow distinct from all the other ontologies humans have argued for? Are you skeptic or are you dogmatic materialist? Pick your side. Just so you know, equating every other ontology as the equivalent of "God having a plan for my life" is piss poor philosophy, and just ignorant.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    I don't think consciousness is a distinguishing characteristic. We are all just highly complex chemical chain reactions occurring in the context of a changing environment. Our chain reactions are sufficiently complex that they're capable of communicating information to other chain reactions, and we happen to communicate about our experience as a chain reaction. You can't infer from the absence of communication that other chemical systems don't have experience. I do agree that self-awareness and intelligence exist along a spectrum, along which we are apparently the farthest point.
    - ilugaslifg 10y ago
      Unless I'm missing something, you've just described "materialism", which is exactly what I am arguing for. I'm not saying that we are the only "conscious" systems, or that "consciousness" is something set apart from the rest of reality. I'm saying the exact opposite of that. Your point (at least, as I'm reading it) is exactly what I was getting at with "and other systems you recognize as sufficiently like you", which I did not intend to be chemical-biology-centric. What I am arguing against is "dualism", and its many hidden forms and names (including the one goatlover is espousing). Which is the idea that "consciousness" is some fundamental property of nature, set apart from (really: privileged above) the rest, that exists on some plane beyond material reality. Which, I argue, there is no good reason, besides pure unexamined chauvinism, or wishful thinking at best, to believe This is what you are also saying, no?
      - CuriouslyC 10y ago
        I think it is logical to conclude that we are not "blessed" matter, and there really isn't a good basis for excluding non-biological matter from the property of having an internal experience. I wouldn't call myself a materialist though, because I don't know that mental states are caused by physical states. It is just as possible that the arrow of causality goes the other way - evidence only demonstrates correlation. Additionally, while I'm skeptical of the possibility of matter without consciousness, I'm willing to consider the possibility that consciousness can exist in a state that doesn't correspond to what we currently consider "matter" If I had to label myself I would say I'm a monist, in that I don't think mind and matter are separable or independent. I lean towards idealism in the sense that I suspect the set of possible states of consciousness is a superset of the set of states of matter that are possible according to the current "laws" of physics. Don't read too much into those labels though, that's only a first order approximation of my view.

Just say that the mind is part of the natural world, which means the world isn't simply material. It's both mental and material. Chalmers position is property dualism where certain informationally rich systems have conscious properties in addition to physical ones. Anyway, materialism is a monism, like Thales saying the world is made of water. There's nothing that necessitates the world be a monism. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Panpsychism is another dualistic view of the natural world than requires no supernatural component. Everything has a mental as well as material aspect.

ilugaslifg 10y ago
So you distinguish between dualism and the supernatural by expanding your definition of "natural" to include a distinct realm of non-material "nature" with no definable rules. And, of all the phenomena that might be identifiable as emerging from the fabric of reality, the one that distinguishes you (and other systems you recognize as sufficiently like you) from everything else just happens to be the one you've decided must objectively be set apart. I'll ask again: in this framework, what remains "supernatural", and why can you reject it?
- goatlover 10y ago
  Who says the mental has no rules? Anyway, the question of what fundamentally exists is an ontological question. Materialism is one possible answer. All that fundamentally exists is material objects, and everything else, including mind, society, abstract concepts, etc emerge from that material substrate. Idealism would be the opposite answer. Everything is mental, and material objects are just ideas presented to the mind. Everything is mathematical would be another possibility. Or information, perhaps qubits (it from quantum bits). But maybe aspects of mind and matter are both fundamental to what exists. Or maybe it's some third neutral substance that's neither. But whatever the case, none of that need involve the supernatural. It can, if one is disposed to think that way. One can say that God created the material world (granted, that leaves God as the something else, but at least the world gets to be entirely material).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ilugaslifg 10y ago
    I'm just going to come out and say it. There is no good reason to believe that any ontology you can come up with to help you describe and attempt to comprehend reality, on the time and energy scales you live on, has any basis in the fundamental nature of reality. The only distinction between atoms and phlogistons, physiology and the theory of humors, is their explanatory and predictive power, but none of those is any more "real" than the others beyond how they help us symbolize the world in a way we can reason about. There is no good reason to believe that consciousness is any different, other than unexamined chauvinism, or, at best, wishful thinking. Reality doesn't give a fuck what circles you draw around some fuzzy densities in an energy field, and what labels you write on them. Cars and sandwiches, atoms and quarks, where you end and the air around you begins, these distinctions that only matter to "you". This is the tyranny of the dichotomous mind. The amount of unjustifiable, and, on the scale of the universe, unearned arrogance that it takes to assert that you or anything about you is set apart from the rest of material reality, is staggering, and just not something that I'm capable of sharing, having seriously considered the alternative. Honestly, I'm just not sure we can have this conversation unless you can assure me that you have fully considered this to the point of having to pull yourself out of a serious existential crisis at some point in your life. Any platitudes that come down to "there must be something that objectively privileges the nature of our existence above that of a rock or an endless field of eternal cold emptiness" are just totally baseless, and fail every test that might distinguish it from "god has a plan for me", "love is a physical force that directly manipulates time and space", or "it's turtles all the way down".
    - goatlover 10y ago
      Doesn't materialism fall into "any ontology" that you're ranting against? That's fine, skeptics about the nature of external reality have been around since the ancient Greeks. But then to circle back around and privilege materialism as being somehow distinct from all the other ontologies humans have argued for? Are you skeptic or are you dogmatic materialist? Pick your side. Just so you know, equating every other ontology as the equivalent of "God having a plan for my life" is piss poor philosophy, and just ignorant.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  I don't think consciousness is a distinguishing characteristic. We are all just highly complex chemical chain reactions occurring in the context of a changing environment. Our chain reactions are sufficiently complex that they're capable of communicating information to other chain reactions, and we happen to communicate about our experience as a chain reaction. You can't infer from the absence of communication that other chemical systems don't have experience. I do agree that self-awareness and intelligence exist along a spectrum, along which we are apparently the farthest point.
  - ilugaslifg 10y ago
    Unless I'm missing something, you've just described "materialism", which is exactly what I am arguing for. I'm not saying that we are the only "conscious" systems, or that "consciousness" is something set apart from the rest of reality. I'm saying the exact opposite of that. Your point (at least, as I'm reading it) is exactly what I was getting at with "and other systems you recognize as sufficiently like you", which I did not intend to be chemical-biology-centric. What I am arguing against is "dualism", and its many hidden forms and names (including the one goatlover is espousing). Which is the idea that "consciousness" is some fundamental property of nature, set apart from (really: privileged above) the rest, that exists on some plane beyond material reality. Which, I argue, there is no good reason, besides pure unexamined chauvinism, or wishful thinking at best, to believe This is what you are also saying, no?
    - CuriouslyC 10y ago
      I think it is logical to conclude that we are not "blessed" matter, and there really isn't a good basis for excluding non-biological matter from the property of having an internal experience. I wouldn't call myself a materialist though, because I don't know that mental states are caused by physical states. It is just as possible that the arrow of causality goes the other way - evidence only demonstrates correlation. Additionally, while I'm skeptical of the possibility of matter without consciousness, I'm willing to consider the possibility that consciousness can exist in a state that doesn't correspond to what we currently consider "matter" If I had to label myself I would say I'm a monist, in that I don't think mind and matter are separable or independent. I lean towards idealism in the sense that I suspect the set of possible states of consciousness is a superset of the set of states of matter that are possible according to the current "laws" of physics. Don't read too much into those labels though, that's only a first order approximation of my view.