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Can we just all admit there has basically been no real progress made to the mind-body problem. They all rest on metaphysical axioms of which no one has any proo

Can we just all admit there has basically been no real progress made to the mind-body problem. They all rest on metaphysical axioms of which no one has any proof of. Physicalism is about as plausible as solipsism. Exhibit a > Nagel begins by assuming that "conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon" present in many animals (particularly mammals), even though it is "difficult to say [...] what provides evidence of it".

vehemenz 1y ago
> Physicalism is about as plausible as solipsism And while you're at it, as plausible as any metaphysical theory, insofar as you're still doing metaphysics.
- GoblinSlayer 1y ago
  They have different probabilities as they require different fine tuning. Sorted by fine tuning: physicalism < simulation < idealism < dualism < solipsism.
adityaathalye 1y ago
If anything, it's getting weirder... real progress looks, well, batshit insane. For example: Against Mind-Blindness: recognizing and communicating with diverse intelligences - by Michael Levin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD5TOsPZIQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD5TOsPZIQY
jibal 1y ago
> Physicalism is about as plausible as solipsism. Physicalism is an ontological assertion that is almost certainly true, and is adhered to by nearly all scientists and most philosophers of mind. Solipsism is an ontological assertion that could only possibly be true for one person, and is generally dismissed. They are at opposite ends of the plausibility scale.
- geye1234 1y ago
  One big problem with physicalism is that many alleged arguments in its favor are nothing of the sort. Any argument for physicalism that refers to neurological observation is invalid. Physicalism claims that all mental events can be reduced to physical events. But you cannot look at physical events to prove this. No matter the detail in which you describe a physical event, you can't use this to prove, or even argue in favor of, the thesis that all mental events can be reduced to the physical. It's like describing the inside of a house in very great detail, and then using this to argue that there's nothing outside the house. The method is explicitly limiting its scope to the inside of the house, so can say nothing about what's outside, for or against. Same with physicalism: most arguments in its favor limit their method to looking at the physical, so in practice say nothing about whether this is all there is.
  - jibal 1y ago
    You're making a number of unsupported assertions. There's a massive amount of literature in support of physicalism. And it's a far cry from "there's no proof of x" to "x is invalid". No metaphysical stance can be proved. > Same with physicalism: most arguments in its favor limit their method to looking at the physical, so in practice say nothing about whether this is all there is. This is simply wrong ... there are very strong arguments that, when we're looking at mental events, we are looking at the physical. To say that arguments for physicalism are limited to looking at the physical is a circular argument that presupposes that physicalism is wrong. The arguments for physicalism absolutely are not based at looking at a limited set of things, they are logical arguments that there's no way to escape being physical ... certainly Descartes' dualism is long dead due to the interaction problem -- mental states must be physical in order to be acted upon or act upon the physical. The alternatives are ad hoc nonsense like Chalmers' "bridging laws" that posit that there's a mental world that is kept in tight sync with the physical world by these "bridging laws" that have no description or explanation or reason to believe exist.
    - geye1234 1y ago
      > And it's a far cry from "there's no proof of x" to "x is invalid". Oh this is undoubtedly true, and my argument was limited to the statement that the most common argument for physicalism is invalid. I was not launching an attack on physicalism itself. > No metaphysical stance can be proved. That's an interesting metaphysical stance, but again, I'm not trying to prove any metaphysics, just pointing out the main weakness that I see in the physicalist argument. I'm pointing out that any pro-physicalist argument that is a variant of "neuroscience says X" is invalid for the reason I gave: by limiting your scope to S, you can say nothing about anything outside S. This is true regardless of whether there is actually anything outside S, so there is no assumption in my argument that physicalism is wrong. One argument against physicalism is that if thought or knowledge can be reduced to particles bouncing around, then there is no thought or knowledge. My knowledge that 2+2=4 is about something other than, or different from, the particles in my brain. Knowledge is about the content of the mind, which is different from the associated physical state of the brain. If content is neurons, then content as something my mind considers doesn't exist. If my thought "2+2=4" just is a bunch of particles in my brain doing stuff, then my belief that my thought is true is not even wrong, as the saying goes: just absurd. I'm no Cartesian dualist though -- the interaction problem is just one problem with his dualism. I think Aristotle and Aquinas basically got the picture of reality right, and their metaphysics can shed yuuuuge amounts of light on the mind-body problem but obviously that's a grossly unfashionable worldview these days :-)
geye1234 1y ago
Much of the mind-body problem comes from Descartes, who assumed that physical reality was nothing more than a bunch of particles bouncing around. Given that the mind cannot be reduced to this (whatever my experiences are, they are different from particles bouncing around), then the mind must be something utterly unlike everything else in reality. Thus Descartes posits that the mind is one thing and the body another (substance dualism). If one drops the assumption that physical reality is nothing more than a bunch of particles, the mind stops being so utterly weird and unique, and the mind-body problem is more tractable. Pre-17th century, philosophers weren't so troubled by it.
- the_af 1y ago
  > Given that the mind cannot be reduced to this (whatever my experiences are, they are different from particles bouncing around) Why cannot it?
  - geye1234 1y ago
    Several reasons. One is that my experience of looking at a tree is one thing, but the neurological firing that takes place in my brain when I look at a tree is another. They are not the same. If you can reduce your experience of looking at a tree to neurons firing, then you are not really looking at a tree, and absurdity results. Another is that the propositions "the thought 2+2=4 is correct" and "the thought 2+2=5 is wrong" can only be true with regard to the content of a thought. If thought can be reduced to neurons firing, then describing a thought as correct or wrong is absurd. Since this is not the case, it must be impossible to reduce thought to neurons firing. (Btw, the first paragraph of my previous comment is not my position. I am giving a three-sentence summary of Descartes' contribution to the mind-body problem.)
    - the_af 1y ago
      I don't follow the reasoning at all. Why is human experience not the neurological firing? Why can't a thought be reduced to neurons firing, what about that would make it absurd? I promise I'm not being dense or rhetorical, I truly don't understand that line of thought. It seems to me like begging the question, almost like saying "experience cannot be this, because it'd be absurd, because it cannot be this."
glenstein 1y ago
>Can we just all admit there has basically been no real progress made to the mind-body problem. I think we've made extraordinary progress on things like brain to machine interfaces, and demonstrating that something much like human thought can be approximated according to computational principles. I do think some sort of theoretical bedrock is necessary to explain to "something there's like to be" quality, but I think it would be obtuse to brush aside the rather extraordinary infiltrations into the black box of consciousness that we've made thus far, even if it's all been knowing more about it from the outside. There's a real problem that remains unpenetrated but as has been noted elsewhere in this thread, it is a nebulous concept, and perhaps one of the most difficult and important research questions, and I think nothing other than ordinary humility is necessary to explain the limit an extent to which we understand it thus far.

vehemenz 1y ago

> Physicalism is about as plausible as solipsism And while you're at it, as plausible as any metaphysical theory, insofar as you're still doing metaphysics.

GoblinSlayer 1y ago
They have different probabilities as they require different fine tuning. Sorted by fine tuning: physicalism < simulation < idealism < dualism < solipsism.

adityaathalye 1y ago

If anything, it's getting weirder... real progress looks, well, batshit insane. For example: Against Mind-Blindness: recognizing and communicating with diverse intelligences - by Michael Levin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD5TOsPZIQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD5TOsPZIQY

jibal 1y ago

> Physicalism is about as plausible as solipsism. Physicalism is an ontological assertion that is almost certainly true, and is adhered to by nearly all scientists and most philosophers of mind. Solipsism is an ontological assertion that could only possibly be true for one person, and is generally dismissed. They are at opposite ends of the plausibility scale.

geye1234 1y ago
One big problem with physicalism is that many alleged arguments in its favor are nothing of the sort. Any argument for physicalism that refers to neurological observation is invalid. Physicalism claims that all mental events can be reduced to physical events. But you cannot look at physical events to prove this. No matter the detail in which you describe a physical event, you can't use this to prove, or even argue in favor of, the thesis that all mental events can be reduced to the physical. It's like describing the inside of a house in very great detail, and then using this to argue that there's nothing outside the house. The method is explicitly limiting its scope to the inside of the house, so can say nothing about what's outside, for or against. Same with physicalism: most arguments in its favor limit their method to looking at the physical, so in practice say nothing about whether this is all there is.
- jibal 1y ago
  You're making a number of unsupported assertions. There's a massive amount of literature in support of physicalism. And it's a far cry from "there's no proof of x" to "x is invalid". No metaphysical stance can be proved. > Same with physicalism: most arguments in its favor limit their method to looking at the physical, so in practice say nothing about whether this is all there is. This is simply wrong ... there are very strong arguments that, when we're looking at mental events, we are looking at the physical. To say that arguments for physicalism are limited to looking at the physical is a circular argument that presupposes that physicalism is wrong. The arguments for physicalism absolutely are not based at looking at a limited set of things, they are logical arguments that there's no way to escape being physical ... certainly Descartes' dualism is long dead due to the interaction problem -- mental states must be physical in order to be acted upon or act upon the physical. The alternatives are ad hoc nonsense like Chalmers' "bridging laws" that posit that there's a mental world that is kept in tight sync with the physical world by these "bridging laws" that have no description or explanation or reason to believe exist.
  - geye1234 1y ago
    > And it's a far cry from "there's no proof of x" to "x is invalid". Oh this is undoubtedly true, and my argument was limited to the statement that the most common argument for physicalism is invalid. I was not launching an attack on physicalism itself. > No metaphysical stance can be proved. That's an interesting metaphysical stance, but again, I'm not trying to prove any metaphysics, just pointing out the main weakness that I see in the physicalist argument. I'm pointing out that any pro-physicalist argument that is a variant of "neuroscience says X" is invalid for the reason I gave: by limiting your scope to S, you can say nothing about anything outside S. This is true regardless of whether there is actually anything outside S, so there is no assumption in my argument that physicalism is wrong. One argument against physicalism is that if thought or knowledge can be reduced to particles bouncing around, then there is no thought or knowledge. My knowledge that 2+2=4 is about something other than, or different from, the particles in my brain. Knowledge is about the content of the mind, which is different from the associated physical state of the brain. If content is neurons, then content as something my mind considers doesn't exist. If my thought "2+2=4" just is a bunch of particles in my brain doing stuff, then my belief that my thought is true is not even wrong, as the saying goes: just absurd. I'm no Cartesian dualist though -- the interaction problem is just one problem with his dualism. I think Aristotle and Aquinas basically got the picture of reality right, and their metaphysics can shed yuuuuge amounts of light on the mind-body problem but obviously that's a grossly unfashionable worldview these days :-)

geye1234 1y ago

Much of the mind-body problem comes from Descartes, who assumed that physical reality was nothing more than a bunch of particles bouncing around. Given that the mind cannot be reduced to this (whatever my experiences are, they are different from particles bouncing around), then the mind must be something utterly unlike everything else in reality. Thus Descartes posits that the mind is one thing and the body another (substance dualism). If one drops the assumption that physical reality is nothing more than a bunch of particles, the mind stops being so utterly weird and unique, and the mind-body problem is more tractable. Pre-17th century, philosophers weren't so troubled by it.

the_af 1y ago
> Given that the mind cannot be reduced to this (whatever my experiences are, they are different from particles bouncing around) Why cannot it?
- geye1234 1y ago
  Several reasons. One is that my experience of looking at a tree is one thing, but the neurological firing that takes place in my brain when I look at a tree is another. They are not the same. If you can reduce your experience of looking at a tree to neurons firing, then you are not really looking at a tree, and absurdity results. Another is that the propositions "the thought 2+2=4 is correct" and "the thought 2+2=5 is wrong" can only be true with regard to the content of a thought. If thought can be reduced to neurons firing, then describing a thought as correct or wrong is absurd. Since this is not the case, it must be impossible to reduce thought to neurons firing. (Btw, the first paragraph of my previous comment is not my position. I am giving a three-sentence summary of Descartes' contribution to the mind-body problem.)
  - the_af 1y ago
    I don't follow the reasoning at all. Why is human experience not the neurological firing? Why can't a thought be reduced to neurons firing, what about that would make it absurd? I promise I'm not being dense or rhetorical, I truly don't understand that line of thought. It seems to me like begging the question, almost like saying "experience cannot be this, because it'd be absurd, because it cannot be this."

glenstein 1y ago

>Can we just all admit there has basically been no real progress made to the mind-body problem. I think we've made extraordinary progress on things like brain to machine interfaces, and demonstrating that something much like human thought can be approximated according to computational principles. I do think some sort of theoretical bedrock is necessary to explain to "something there's like to be" quality, but I think it would be obtuse to brush aside the rather extraordinary infiltrations into the black box of consciousness that we've made thus far, even if it's all been knowing more about it from the outside. There's a real problem that remains unpenetrated but as has been noted elsewhere in this thread, it is a nebulous concept, and perhaps one of the most difficult and important research questions, and I think nothing other than ordinary humility is necessary to explain the limit an extent to which we understand it thus far.