ColonelZen wrote:
Actually its the common, and in my opinion intentional on his part, of creating a cartoon caricature of one's opponent and then claiming victory because the cartoon is lacking.

-- TWZ

SpeedOfSound wrote:Plebs has a very confused idea about physicalism, reduction, and emergence.

He first erects the straw man of the physicalist who is making metaphysical claims. Then he puts on the straw man's shoes and makes claims about reduction as if it were a metaphysical position. This is a common trick among all of the nonnies. The neutral monist, the CosmoCon, all of them. They then argue forever in category jumping circles because they have tricked you into playing in a playground that only exists in their minds. A small playground as it turns out.

Reduction is about epistemology. It's about how we use science to explain things and how we make explanatory mappings from one theory to another. There is no metaphysical claim there except in the minds of people like pl0bs.

So.

pl0bs error#1 - Reduction is about metaphysics.

(I reserve the right to think that over and change it)

pl0bs wrote:

ColonelZen wrote:Name of the god or archangel who brought you this revelation? A citable respected work on science or even philosophy? Combination of meds that makes you think so? Name of the guy in the bar who said so?

The genius pl0bs.

This about sums up everything that has been said in this topic:

The purest form of emergentism was propounded by the famed atomist Democritus (c. 460-370 B.C.E.). His principle of emergence was based upon the possibility of multi-shaped atoms “interlocking” to form an infinity of more complex shapes. But Democritus, in a way echoing Anaxagoras, had to admit that the qualities of experience (what we nowadays called “qualia”) could not be accounted for in this way and chose, ultimately unsatisfactorily, to relegate them to non-existence: “sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, in truth only atoms and the void”. Although Democritus provides a remarkable anticipation of the modern doctrine of eliminativist materialism, we sorely miss his account of how conventions themselves—the consciously agreed upon means of common reference—emerge from the dancing atoms. Thus the core difficulty of the problem of consciousness remains unresolved.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/

Prediction of the future and not static description of the past is what it's all about. It is *why* (from heuristic description of evolution) we have consciousness in the first place. Real physicalists and materialists understand that there is ontological distinctiveness in properties from various levels.

Real physicists understand that the distinctiveness is all just variations of basic physical ingredients.

SpeedOfSound wrote:I'm starting to really like him. He's the lab rat for the thing I'm currently reading and writing about.

ColonelZen wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:I'm starting to really like him. He's the lab rat for the thing I'm currently reading and writing about.

LOL.

When it comes time to dissect the specimens, let me know if you need to borrow a metal-cutting saw or hammer-drill. I don't think the standard lab tools will be strong enough to get through the cranium.

-- TWZ

pl0bs wrote:

byofrcs wrote:Given that the clingy-ness of water is due to its chemical polarity and that polarity is key to a number of physical properties across a wide range of molecules then you once again present a nonsense view of mass in motion.

It appears that according to you non-water has a bit different wetness. I don't think in the end that you actually make any sense.

Clingy-ness? Was the quark gluon plasma after the big bang clingy?

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:Real emergence is about quantitative differences.

Nonsense! Why do you insist the only parameter is quantity? What really counts is pattern(shape, geometry), and patterns require certain minimum quantities. A molecule is not simply a number of atoms, its emergent (reducible) properties arise from its shape, which is what patterns the fundamental propertied of the parts into something new. A molecule of a particular shape may absorb photos of a particular wavelength. Another may form a hook shape that makes it very "sticky". Another may act as a catlist by moving other molecules. These properties are not simply quantitative, they are qualitative and the qualities are the properties are the "configurations" are the shapes.

Teuton wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:Real emergence is about quantitative differences.

Nonsense! Why do you insist the only parameter is quantity? What really counts is pattern(shape, geometry), and patterns require certain minimum quantities. A molecule is not simply a number of atoms, its emergent (reducible) properties arise from its shape, which is what patterns the fundamental propertied of the parts into something new. A molecule of a particular shape may absorb photos of a particular wavelength. Another may form a hook shape that makes it very "sticky". Another may act as a catlist by moving other molecules. These properties are not simply quantitative, they are qualitative and the qualities are the properties are the "configurations" are the shapes.

Real emergence is about the appearance of collective properties as an effect of the mutual manifestation of powers, i.e. dispositional properties, of certain numbers of certain kinds of particles which are spatially interrelated, i.e. geometrically arranged, in certain ways. What Pl0bs completely ignores is the crucial dynamic aspect of emergence, i.e. the "power interplay" occurring among the elements of physical systems, which generates and sustains new properties had by the system as a whole but not by single elements.

"For the emergentist, the seeds of every emergent property and the behaviour it manifests are found within the world's fundamental elements, in the form of latent dispositions awaiting only the right context for manifestation."

(O'Connor, Timothy, and John Ross Churchill. "Nonreductive Physicalism or Emergent Dualism? The Argument from Mental Causation." In The Waning of Materialism, edited by Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, 261-280. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 278)

Teuton wrote:"For the emergentist, the seeds of every emergent property and the behaviour it manifests are found within the world's fundamental elements, in the form of latent dispositions awaiting only the right context for manifestation."

(O'Connor, Timothy, and John Ross Churchill. "Nonreductive Physicalism or Emergent Dualism? The Argument from Mental Causation." In The Waning of Materialism, edited by Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, 261-280. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 278)

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:"For the emergentist, the seeds of every emergent property and the behaviour it manifests are found within the world's fundamental elements, in the form of latent dispositions awaiting only the right context for manifestation."

(O'Connor, Timothy, and John Ross Churchill. "Nonreductive Physicalism or Emergent Dualism? The Argument from Mental Causation." In The Waning of Materialism, edited by Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, 261-280. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 278)

I'm intrigued that this quote seems to be from an argument against materialism, in the context of "mental causation". How so?

"For the emergentist, the seeds of every emergent property and the behaviour it manifests are found within the world's fundamental elements, in the form of latent dispositions awaiting only the right context for manifestation."

GrahamH wrote:Progress? Here in "Why does pl0bs think its possible that C is in all matter"? This is not the place for "progress".

Darwinsbulldog wrote:I have done this above and in other posts. Eye-spots, nerve ganglia, neither of which are 'true" eyes or true brains. A plant can detect sunlight without eyes. This is an emergent process.

I cannot absolutely disprove that consci9usness is not present in rocks. But I do not have to, it is you, in the absence of demonstrating that rocks have a seat of consciousness [such as a brain] it is you that has to provide the burden of proof.

An insect has small ganglia, even a small brain, and therefore we can argue some level of awareness and consciousness. With a rock you cannot.

pl0bs wrote:

Darwinsbulldog wrote:I have done this above and in other posts. Eye-spots, nerve ganglia, neither of which are 'true" eyes or true brains. A plant can detect sunlight without eyes. This is an emergent process.

I cannot absolutely disprove that consci9usness is not present in rocks. But I do not have to, it is you, in the absence of demonstrating that rocks have a seat of consciousness [such as a brain] it is you that has to provide the burden of proof.

An insect has small ganglia, even a small brain, and therefore we can argue some level of awareness and consciousness. With a rock you cannot.

You talk about "true" eyes. "True" is a subjective classification. It has no physical basis. You cannot point to an eye that has no simpler evolutionary ancestor, unless you reject evolution.

Previously ive explained why evolution is incompatible with materialism.

Btw you asked me for evidence of consciousness in atoms. Just to make sure this question even makes sense, can you give me evidence of consciousness in humans? Last i checked, consciousness is invisible to any measuring device. Which, btw also renders moot, even irrational, the argument methodological naturalism is a good reason to believe in materialism.