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Numbers are not physical, but you see three objects all over the place. A number is a category. The number "three" exists as a property that I can use to group

Numbers are not physical, but you see three objects all over the place. A number is a category. The number "three" exists as a property that I can use to group physical objects (or even other categories). So I can group together three pencils or three cars. The only physical properties that cars and pencils have in common is that their both physical...maybe they're the same color...but I have grouped three pencils and I have grouped three cars, so now they share a property of "three", but "three" is not an intrinsic physical property of pencils, nor cars. It's a potential metaphysical property, but only becomes manifested once an observer groups three pencils. My argument is that a "mind" cannot be a purely physical process in the same way that a video game is a purely physical process. The computer instructions are stored in my hard drive and encoded, and it's a physical process for my computer to retrieve those instructions and follow them, but the game itself is something the user interacts with by watching what's happening on the screen an interacting with it. The computer program of course has a physical component, but lives mostly in the layers of abstraction from 1s and 0s up to "flashy lights on screen", but none of those things mean anything if a mind isn't watching the screen, paying attention, and interacting with it. Here's a question that boils down what I'm trying to say: If you have a pet bird that sits next to you as you play Fallout New Vegas, and taps the keyboard occasionally, is your bird playing Fallout? Is playing Fallout a purely physical process?

mannykannot 2y ago
> Here's a question that boils down what I'm trying to say: If you have a pet bird that sits next to you as you play Fallout New Vegas, and taps the keyboard occasionally, is your bird playing Fallout? Is playing Fallout a purely physical process? With regard to your question about the bird, what do you suppose a 'yes' answer would imply, and ditto for a 'no'? It is unclear to me that this question would have any relevance to the one you follow it with, yet you present it as if an answer to the first question would settle the second.
- prometheus76 2y ago
  On further reflection, and a re-read after a night of sleep, I agree with you that my example at the end was not a clear indication of what I'm pointing at. I was trying to reveal that "reality" is more than just physical processes, and "mind", especially, maps onto physical processes, but only relationally. A bird watching Fallout and pressing keys on your keyboard with its beak is not participating in the story of Fallout the way you are. You are watching a story and tracking a narrative and making decisions about which keys to press. But this is a bit of an obscure analogy. Let me try a different one. You just sat down in your favorite chair after a long day of work, and you ask your young son to please bring you a cold drink from the refrigerator. He cheerfully runs to the refrigerator, grabs a beverage, and runs back to you, handing it to you. The process of you vibrating your vocal cords which make a physical vibration of air that goes into his ear and vibrates his eardrum that then sends impulses to his brain and, later, his body that end up with you holding a cold beverage in your hand...those are all physical processes. But the relationships between sounds and "words", between words and sentences, between sentences and movement...none of that is physical. The relationship with your son obviously has a physical component, but the meaning behind your genetic connection to your son is largely metaphysical. Another analogy: if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? I am firmly in the camp of "no". Does the tree create vibrating air waves when it falls and hits the ground? Of course. But a "sound" is an abstraction that forms in the mind of someone who is there watching (and more importantly, hearing!) the tree hit the ground. That "sound" is a metaphysical concept that we map onto the physical world, and the ability to make these distinctions, to categorize our incoming sensory input, is what enables us to perceive anything at all. Without that structuring, categorizing, and filtering of incoming data, the world would be overwhelming and we would be paralyzed. Am I a solipsist who only believes that what is in my mind is "real" and that the physical world around me is an illusion? No. The first and best lesson I ever had that the physical world is real is getting punched in the face. That will knock solipsism right off the list of being a possible worldview. I believe reality is an interplay of concepts and physical, "potential" or "raw" matter. One more analogy: cooking. When I want to make bread, for example, I have a recipe, which is a concept. It is an abstract concept of how to transform raw materials into a new thing: bread. So you gather raw ingredients, and you combine them following a particular order. You let the yeast feed on the sugars and make nice little CO2 bubbles in your dough, causing it to rise. You then put it in the oven and after some heat and time, you remove what used to be flour, water, and yeast, and you put it on the counter to cool. It has been transformed and you call it "bread". The classic materialist move is to now just say "yeah but it's just flour, water, and yeast." Which is physically true. However, those ingredients have specific interactions that happen when combined, and further interactions that happen when exposed to high heat for a certain duration of time, and when we remove it from the oven, we don't say "come get some flour, water, and yeast that have been transformed through chemical processes, heat, and time!" No. It has a new name now. It has switched categories. It has changed ontological levels and changed from three ingredients into a new identity: bread. Now I'm hungry for some toast.

mannykannot 2y ago

> Here's a question that boils down what I'm trying to say: If you have a pet bird that sits next to you as you play Fallout New Vegas, and taps the keyboard occasionally, is your bird playing Fallout? Is playing Fallout a purely physical process? With regard to your question about the bird, what do you suppose a 'yes' answer would imply, and ditto for a 'no'? It is unclear to me that this question would have any relevance to the one you follow it with, yet you present it as if an answer to the first question would settle the second.

prometheus76 2y ago
On further reflection, and a re-read after a night of sleep, I agree with you that my example at the end was not a clear indication of what I'm pointing at. I was trying to reveal that "reality" is more than just physical processes, and "mind", especially, maps onto physical processes, but only relationally. A bird watching Fallout and pressing keys on your keyboard with its beak is not participating in the story of Fallout the way you are. You are watching a story and tracking a narrative and making decisions about which keys to press. But this is a bit of an obscure analogy. Let me try a different one. You just sat down in your favorite chair after a long day of work, and you ask your young son to please bring you a cold drink from the refrigerator. He cheerfully runs to the refrigerator, grabs a beverage, and runs back to you, handing it to you. The process of you vibrating your vocal cords which make a physical vibration of air that goes into his ear and vibrates his eardrum that then sends impulses to his brain and, later, his body that end up with you holding a cold beverage in your hand...those are all physical processes. But the relationships between sounds and "words", between words and sentences, between sentences and movement...none of that is physical. The relationship with your son obviously has a physical component, but the meaning behind your genetic connection to your son is largely metaphysical. Another analogy: if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? I am firmly in the camp of "no". Does the tree create vibrating air waves when it falls and hits the ground? Of course. But a "sound" is an abstraction that forms in the mind of someone who is there watching (and more importantly, hearing!) the tree hit the ground. That "sound" is a metaphysical concept that we map onto the physical world, and the ability to make these distinctions, to categorize our incoming sensory input, is what enables us to perceive anything at all. Without that structuring, categorizing, and filtering of incoming data, the world would be overwhelming and we would be paralyzed. Am I a solipsist who only believes that what is in my mind is "real" and that the physical world around me is an illusion? No. The first and best lesson I ever had that the physical world is real is getting punched in the face. That will knock solipsism right off the list of being a possible worldview. I believe reality is an interplay of concepts and physical, "potential" or "raw" matter. One more analogy: cooking. When I want to make bread, for example, I have a recipe, which is a concept. It is an abstract concept of how to transform raw materials into a new thing: bread. So you gather raw ingredients, and you combine them following a particular order. You let the yeast feed on the sugars and make nice little CO2 bubbles in your dough, causing it to rise. You then put it in the oven and after some heat and time, you remove what used to be flour, water, and yeast, and you put it on the counter to cool. It has been transformed and you call it "bread". The classic materialist move is to now just say "yeah but it's just flour, water, and yeast." Which is physically true. However, those ingredients have specific interactions that happen when combined, and further interactions that happen when exposed to high heat for a certain duration of time, and when we remove it from the oven, we don't say "come get some flour, water, and yeast that have been transformed through chemical processes, heat, and time!" No. It has a new name now. It has switched categories. It has changed ontological levels and changed from three ingredients into a new identity: bread. Now I'm hungry for some toast.