Definitions

Materialism:

is the claim that only material entities and processes exist. In its modern form (300-400 years), materialism hitched a free ride on science. It is a metaphysical claim that has historically been closely related to science, although the success of science does not prove it is true. Science can survive without materialism. However, modern forms of materialism owe a great deal to science, because science has provided many of the concepts associated with it. Materialism is the belief that reality is, at the fundamental or most basic level, a cosmos that came into existence about 14bn years ago and has been expanding ever since. That cosmos consists of matter, which is arranged into galaxies, which are composed of stars, some of which have planets orbiting them, and at least one of which has a living ecosystem on its surface. All living things, including humans, are just material entities, and no more. In other words, according to materialism, humans consists of flesh and bones, and the processes occuring within that flesh, and nothing else. Alternatives to materialism include various forms of dualism, idealism and neutral monism.

Physicalism:

is usually taken to be the claim that reality is made of whatever physicists say it is made of. This is claim is effectively useless, since modern physics means quantum physics and there is such a wide range of opinion about what QM implies about what reality is made of that we cannot draw any meaningful conclusions about what "physicalism" actually means.

Naturalism:

is a claim about causality, not ontology. It is about what sorts of causality exists, and it usually means something like "the only sort of causality is definable using mathematical laws which operate on the material world in a consistent, predictable manner."

Supernaturalism:

(which can be taken as synonymous with "paranormalism") is the belief that some additional sort of causality exists, either on its own or dependent on some sort of supernatural entities. This would include free will, the will of God, karma, synchronicity, mind-reading, ESP, out of body experiences, etc...

Consciousness/Qualia:

I am using these terms interchangably. There is no point whatsover in having an argument about what words mean. This just wastes time and is used as a tactic to avoid accepting unwanted conclusions. In this argument these two words refer to subjective experiences or what it is like to be a human/animal.

Brains and brain activity:

Brains are the primary organ of animal nervous systems. They are made of matter, and their properties include complexity, wetness, greyness, softness, etc... Brain activity or brain function is just whatever is happening in a brain, and its properties include complexity, electrical charge, biochemical reactions etc...

Premise (1): The law of identity is always true.

The law of identity states that it two things are identical then all of their properties are identical. For example, Crystal Palace Football Club and the team that plays at Selhurst Park in South London are identical, because if you list the properties of both things then you'll end up with two identical lists. It follows that if when you list the properties of two things you end up with two lists which are different then the two things are not identical - they are different things which may or may not be related in some way.

Premise (2): Consciousness/qualia exist.

This cannot be proved with logic or science. Since we are talking about what we directly experience, I cannot prove to anybody else that my own consciousness/qualia exists, and neither can I know for sure that anybody else's consciousness/qualia exist. So I am just relying on people to accept this premise because they are aware of the existence of their own consciousness/qualia. The properties of consciousness/qualia are the properties of direct subjective experience - everything from the redness of red objects you look at to the unpleasantness of feelings like fear or pain. Wetness, greyness and softness are not, in general, properties of consciousness/qualia (although they are if we happen to be conscious of something wet, grey or soft).

Conclusion (3) (from (1) and (2)): Qualia/consciousness is not (identical to) brain activity. If the law of identity is true, and qualia/consciousness have a very different set of properties to brain activity then it follows, logically, that qualia/consciousness cannot "be" brain activity. They are presumably closely related to each other, because we know there is a causal connection between the latter and the former (as demonstrated by consuming drugs or physically damaging brains and observing changes in qualia/consciousness), but whatever this relationship is, it's not "is".

Conclusion (4) (from (3) and the definition of materialism): materialism is false. Materialism entails the claim that humans consists of flesh and bones, and the processes occuring within that flesh, and nothing else. Since the processes occuring within brains are not identical to consciousness/qualia, then the very existence of consciousness/qualia logically falsifies materialism. Consciousness/qualia are something closely related to brain activity, but "closely related" is not the same thing as "is identical to" and therefore something else exists, and whatever that something else is, its existence is not logically compatible with materialism.

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Common objections:

O1) But I don't see why consciousness is anything more than brain activity. You're just assuming it's something else.

INVALID. I am not assuming this. It is logically inevitable given then definitions of brain activity and consciousness/qualia, plus the law of identity. If you wish to dispute it then you have to dispute one of those definitions/premises, not just wave your arms and claim that you "can't see" the logic.

O2) Consciousness is just what the brain does.

INVALID. Conclusion (3) is being ignored. Go back and read it again.

O3) But we know brains are required for consciousness/qualia, why are you assuming they are separate?

INVALID. What does "separate" mean? Is the image on a movie screen "separate" from the pictures on the reel of film that sits in the projector? The film is required - if it didn't exist then the screen would be blank - and in that sense they "cannot be separated". It does not follow that one is identical to the other, or that no explanation is required of how one is related to the other.

O4) I can't accept the conclusion because it clashes with loads of other things I believe.

INVALID. If it clashes with other things you believe, but you can't find anything wrong with the premises or the reasoning then its the other things you believe that have to go.

O5) But surely you don't believe qualia/consciousness were just hanging around waiting for brains to evolve?!

IRRELEVANT. Makes no difference to the logic or the conclusion. Perhaps something was indeed "hanging around" before brains evolved, but it wasn't necessarily consciousness/qualia. However, this is just speculation and whether or not something else was hanging around, or what exactly it was, makes no difference to the argument I have supplied, which is a falsification of materialism.

O6) Hiss! Boo! You're a woo-woo. You haven't proved anything!! How many times do we have to tell you you're wrong? Now fuck off and stop posting this crap. [seething anger]

INVALID. No attempt to refute the argument.

O7) OK...it looks like there may be a problem with materialism, but unless you can offer a better alternative I have no option to go on believing materialism is true.

IRRELEVANT. If materialism is false (as demonstrated by this argument) then it's false. Even if all other ontological positions we can think of also have very serious problems (which they do not, for the record), it doesn't mean materialism is any less false.

O8) You haven't proved supernaturalism is true.

IRRELEVANT. I'm not trying to prove supernaturalism is true. I'm demonstrating materialism is false.

O9) But everything else we know to exist is material, why should consciousness be any different?

IRRELEVANT. Based on faulty inductive reasoning, which can never over-ride the deductive reasoning offered here. It doesn't matter if everything else we know to exist is made of material, if this argument is valid we now know of something which isn't.

O10) This is just word games. It's just philosophy. Where's the scientific proof?

IRRELEVANT. Why should one require scientific proof of a logical argument? If something is logically inconsistent (e.g. believing materialism is true and consciousness exists) then it is wrong, regardless of any absence of scientific proof.

O11) I don't believe consciousness/qualia exist in their own right.

IRRELEVANT. Variation of O3 and false for the same reasons. Whether they exist "in their own right" is not relevant to the falsification of materialism, although it does have a bearing on what alternative ontology might be accepted instead.

O12) I don't believe consciousness/qualia exist at all.

ACCEPTED. If you don't believe consciousness/qualia exist then there is nothing I or anybody else can do to convince you otherwise, and the argument above fails because one of the premises has been rejected.

O13) I don't accept the law of identity.

ACCEPTED. Although you're going to have a tough time convincing anybody else you're a rationalist. If the law of identity goes, so does all ability to think logically. Without this law, you or I can "be" a pork sandwich.

O14) I just can't accept the conclusion. You're just assuming this "something else" (i.e. consciousness/qualia) is not physical!

INVALID. I'm not "assuming" anything of the sort. If materialism is true then all that is going on in your brain in brain activity. There is no consciousness inside your brain (not as a thing, nor as a process), because the law of identity rules out consciousness being brain activity, so unless you think consciousness is some material process that is happening somewhere other than a brain then the conclusion is logically inevitable. The fact that you can't accept it is irrelevant. You must either learn to accept it, or admit you can't cope with rational thought demonstrating that something you believe is wrong.

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What does this conclusion mean, if accepted?

It means that the ontological position widely held by most scientists/skeptics/atheists througout the 18th, 19th and much of the 20th centuries turns out to be wrong. It means that we can't expect materialistic science to provide an explanation of "what consciousness is" and that we can only expect an incomplete/partial explanation of "where consciousness comes from." It does not mean that supernaturalism/paranormalism are true, but it does mean they re-enter the equation as real possibilities, as opposed to seeming completely impossible if materialism were true. It means we need to go back to the drawing board, with a radically open mind, and start again regarding what we believe about the ultimate nature of reality. Specifically, we must be very open minded about "what consciousness is" and "where it comes from". What we must NOT do is arbitrarily rule things out because they "sound a bit woo" or because they happen to clash with the materialistic view of reality which has now been rejected.

I reject premise 2.

Next!

UndercoverElephant wrote:Definitions

...

Physicalism:

is usually taken to be the claim that reality is made of whatever physicists say it is made of. This is claim is effectively useless, since modern physics means quantum physics and there is such a wide range of opinion about what QM implies about what reality is made of that we cannot draw any meaningful conclusions about what "physicalism" actually means.
...

Physicalism makes a bold claim. It says we don't know what the bottom turtle is but it most likely is not something I made up in my mind.

I see no problem with not knowing and making a good guess about what is a ludicrous belief.

UndercoverElephant wrote:Definitions...
Consciousness/Qualia:

I am using these terms interchangably. There is no point whatsover in having an argument about what words mean. This just wastes time and is used as a tactic to avoid accepting unwanted conclusions. In this argument these two words refer to subjective experiences or what it is like to be a human/animal.
...
Premise (2): Consciousness/qualia exist.

This cannot be proved with logic or science. Since we are talking about what we directly experience, I cannot prove to anybody else that my own consciousness/qualia exists, and neither can I know for sure that anybody else's consciousness/qualia exist. So I am just relying on people to accept this premise because they are aware of the existence of their own consciousness/qualia. The properties of consciousness/qualia are the properties of direct subjective experience - everything from the redness of red objects you look at to the unpleasantness of feelings like fear or pain. Wetness, greyness and softness are not, in general, properties of consciousness/qualia (although they are if we happen to be conscious of something wet, grey or soft).
...

Reject. If I am aware of my own consciousness/qualia then what is that thing called that is being aware of it?

I do not have qualia. Prove me wrong.

Animavore wrote:I reject premise 2.

Fine. Then you're an eliminative materialist. You deny that consciousness/qualia exist, and therefore, for you, the Hard Problem is not a problem.

You may have some serious problems convincing other materialists/skeptics to accept this position. It's point blank rejected by, for example, Richard Dawkins. You'd also better avoid using the words "qualia" or "consciousness" as if you believe they are any more real than God, ghosts or Father Christmas.

Just to make this crystal clear: the thread title could be "Non-eliminative materialism refuted." Eliminativism can't be refuted, IMHO.

scott1328 wrote:I do not have qualia. Prove me wrong.

From the opening post:

Objection 12) I don't believe consciousness/qualia exist at all.

ACCEPTED. If you don't believe consciousness/qualia exist then there is nothing I or anybody else can do to convince you otherwise, and the argument above fails because one of the premises has been rejected.

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Animavore wrote:I reject premise 2.

Fine. Then you're an eliminative materialist. You deny that consciousness/qualia exist, and therefore, for you, the Hard Problem is not a problem.

No. I'm not any position on consciousness (which I've told you so may times you have to be trolling me at this stage). I reject it because 1) you've formulated it in a self-serving way, and 2) as an empiricist I obviously have problems with you trying to tell me something you can't prove exists.

Animavore wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Animavore wrote:I reject premise 2.

Fine. Then you're an eliminative materialist. You deny that consciousness/qualia exist, and therefore, for you, the Hard Problem is not a problem.

No. I'm not any position on consciousness (which I've told you so may times you have to be trolling me at this stage). I reject it because 1) you've formulated it in a self-serving way, and 2) as an empiricist I obviously have problems with you trying to tell me something you can't prove exists.

This.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Definitions...
Consciousness/Qualia:

I am using these terms interchangably. There is no point whatsover in having an argument about what words mean. This just wastes time and is used as a tactic to avoid accepting unwanted conclusions. In this argument these two words refer to subjective experiences or what it is like to be a human/animal.
...
Premise (2): Consciousness/qualia exist.

This cannot be proved with logic or science. Since we are talking about what we directly experience, I cannot prove to anybody else that my own consciousness/qualia exists, and neither can I know for sure that anybody else's consciousness/qualia exist. So I am just relying on people to accept this premise because they are aware of the existence of their own consciousness/qualia. The properties of consciousness/qualia are the properties of direct subjective experience - everything from the redness of red objects you look at to the unpleasantness of feelings like fear or pain. Wetness, greyness and softness are not, in general, properties of consciousness/qualia (although they are if we happen to be conscious of something wet, grey or soft).
...

Reject. If I am aware of my own consciousness/qualia then what is that thing called that is being aware of it?

Why is that grounds for rejecting the premise? You haven't actually supplied a justification for rejecting the premise or definition above. You have simply asked a question: "What does I mean in the above definition?"

The answer is that this is irrelevant. Interesting, but irrelevant to the logic of the argument. Maybe we should not be using the word "I" here. Maybe there is no "I", just the qualia/consciousness. Or maybe there is an "I" and we don't know what it is (yet). Either way, what, exactly are you rejecting, and why?

SpeedOfSound wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Definitions...
Consciousness/Qualia:

I am using these terms interchangably. There is no point whatsover in having an argument about what words mean. This just wastes time and is used as a tactic to avoid accepting unwanted conclusions. In this argument these two words refer to subjective experiences or what it is like to be a human/animal.
...
Premise (2): Consciousness/qualia exist.

This cannot be proved with logic or science. Since we are talking about what we directly experience, I cannot prove to anybody else that my own consciousness/qualia exists, and neither can I know for sure that anybody else's consciousness/qualia exist. So I am just relying on people to accept this premise because they are aware of the existence of their own consciousness/qualia. The properties of consciousness/qualia are the properties of direct subjective experience - everything from the redness of red objects you look at to the unpleasantness of feelings like fear or pain. Wetness, greyness and softness are not, in general, properties of consciousness/qualia (although they are if we happen to be conscious of something wet, grey or soft).
...

Reject. If I am aware of my own consciousness/qualia then what is that thing called that is being aware of it?

It's infinite regression of course! Recursionism! The brain's operating system runs on Lisp!

Animavore wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Animavore wrote:I reject premise 2.

Fine. Then you're an eliminative materialist. You deny that consciousness/qualia exist, and therefore, for you, the Hard Problem is not a problem.

No. I'm not any position on consciousness

Yes you are. You've just claimed you don't accept that consciousness/qualia exist. That position is known as eliminative materialism.

(which I've told you so may times you have to be trolling me at this stage). I reject it because 1) you've formulated it in a self-serving way,

Sorry, but that's not a valid rejection of a logical argument. If you want to reject an argument then you have to reject either the premises or the reasoning. You have indeed done this - you rejected one of the premises. And I have even accepted that it was indeed a valid rejection of the conclusion. I then told you what the name of the position you're taking is and for some reason known only to yourself you have decided to reject this label, but given no reasonable justification for why. "You've formulated it in a self-serving way" is just a silly thing to say. It doesn't mean anything. Anybody could say this about any argument, without saying anything at all about the argument. Unless you mean "the argument is designed to falsify materialism, which is what you want to do." Well, um, yep!

and 2) as an empiricist I obviously have problems with you trying to tell me something you can't prove exists.

Erm...but I just accepted your rejection of the existence of qualia/consciousness on the grounds I can't prove it exists!

UndercoverElephant wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Definitions...
Consciousness/Qualia:

I am using these terms interchangably. There is no point whatsover in having an argument about what words mean. This just wastes time and is used as a tactic to avoid accepting unwanted conclusions. In this argument these two words refer to subjective experiences or what it is like to be a human/animal.
...
Premise (2): Consciousness/qualia exist.

This cannot be proved with logic or science. Since we are talking about what we directly experience, I cannot prove to anybody else that my own consciousness/qualia exists, and neither can I know for sure that anybody else's consciousness/qualia exist. So I am just relying on people to accept this premise because they are aware of the existence of their own consciousness/qualia. The properties of consciousness/qualia are the properties of direct subjective experience - everything from the redness of red objects you look at to the unpleasantness of feelings like fear or pain. Wetness, greyness and softness are not, in general, properties of consciousness/qualia (although they are if we happen to be conscious of something wet, grey or soft).
...

Reject. If I am aware of my own consciousness/qualia then what is that thing called that is being aware of it?

Why is that grounds for rejecting the premise? You haven't actually supplied a justification for rejecting the premise or definition above. You have simply asked a question: "What does I mean in the above definition?"

The answer is that this is irrelevant. Interesting, but irrelevant to the logic of the argument. Maybe we should not be using the word "I" here. Maybe there is no "I", just the qualia/consciousness. Or maybe there is an "I" and we don't know what it is (yet). Either way, what, exactly are you rejecting, and why?

I don't accept that the redness of red is ever something that comes up in actual perceptual experience. I know you do because you sort of have to. If I introspect and find redness time passes while I do that. During this time my mind is now doing something entirely different to what it was doing a moment ago when red first assailed it. Your formulation of consciousness and qualia is conceptual and not the same as the thing you are trying to intercept.

Try as hard as you can and all you will get is the further experience of concentrating on a splotch of color and spinning further streams of cognitive experience.

So. You have a carefully crafted conceptual frame and this frame seems to support your furthering toward your conclusions. I don't do that. I don't have singular qualia of redness or blueness or any such thing. I do accept that 'I experience' but that comes with much conceptual baggage too and it is not anything that I can use toward a conclusion.

kennyc wrote:

Animavore wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Animavore wrote:I reject premise 2.

Fine. Then you're an eliminative materialist. You deny that consciousness/qualia exist, and therefore, for you, the Hard Problem is not a problem.

No. I'm not any position on consciousness (which I've told you so may times you have to be trolling me at this stage). I reject it because 1) you've formulated it in a self-serving way, and 2) as an empiricist I obviously have problems with you trying to tell me something you can't prove exists.

This.

Sorry, but that's not a valid rejection of a logical argument. If you want to reject an argument then you have to reject either the premises or the reasoning. You have indeed done this - you rejected one of the premises. And I have even accepted that it was indeed a valid rejection of the conclusion. I then told you what the name of the position you're taking is and for some reason known only to yourself you have decided to reject this label, but given no reasonable justification for why. "You've formulated it in a self-serving way" is just a silly thing to say. It doesn't mean anything. Anybody could say this about any argument, without saying anything at all about the argument. Unless you mean "the argument is designed to falsify materialism, which is what you want to do." Well, um, yep!

That.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Definitions

...

Physicalism:

is usually taken to be the claim that reality is made of whatever physicists say it is made of. This is claim is effectively useless, since modern physics means quantum physics and there is such a wide range of opinion about what QM implies about what reality is made of that we cannot draw any meaningful conclusions about what "physicalism" actually means.
...

Physicalism makes a bold claim. It says we don't know what the bottom turtle is but it most likely is not something I made up in my mind.

I see no problem with not knowing and making a good guess about what is a ludicrous belief.

Unless you can get a consensus from physicists about which interpretation of QM is "correct", then "physicalism" is a claim that can't be nailed down as anything at all.

UndercoverElephant wrote:
Yes you are. You've just claimed you don't accept that consciousness/qualia exist. That position is known as eliminative materialism.

I'm rejecting your self-serving definition. Not that consciousness exists.

UndercoverElephant wrote:
Sorry, but that's not a valid rejection of a logical argument. If you want to reject an argument then you have to reject either the premises or the reasoning. You have indeed done this - you rejected one of the premises. And I have even accepted that it was indeed a valid rejection of the conclusion. I then told you what the name of the position you're taking is and for some reason known only to yourself you have decided to reject this label, but given no reasonable justification for why. "You've formulated it in a self-serving way" is just a silly thing to say. It doesn't mean anything. Anybody could say this about any argument, without saying anything at all about the argument. Unless you mean "the argument is designed to falsify materialism, which is what you want to do." Well, um, yep!

Obviously it is a valid objection. I don't know exactly what consciousness is and you have not given a detailed enough explanation of what it is than I can accept. It is a definition of consciousness which is only pertinent to you argument. Not to what it actually is.

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Erm...but I just accepted your rejection of the existence of qualia/consciousness on the grounds I can't prove it exists!

That's your problem.

scott1328 wrote:I do not have qualia. Prove me wrong.

This probably means that you do not know what a quale is. You'd have to be some kind of zombie not to have qualia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkwaːle]) is a term used in philosophy to refer to individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term derives from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind." Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the perceived redness of an evening sky.

Essentially UE you have a concept, qualia, and you reify it in that same manner we would for some object in the world. The object in the world is on shaky ground itself but your mind stuff is up to it's ass in thing-in-itself quicksand.