Comments
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izazsuz wrote
>Westerhoff argues that rather than holding that mind comes before matter in a foundational account of epistemology
This just seems weird and backwards. So what if if our conscious experience of the world is the first thing that we experience or know? That doesn't make it fundamental. It seems quite clear to me that the materialist understanding of the world has a much better model. The brain(physical) gives rise to conscious thought.
TheCultureCitizen t1_izj90wc wrote
> It seems quite clear to me that the materialist understanding of the world has a much better model.
That's just plain not true. Nobody, materialists or otherwise, has a coherent model to explain even a single quale. IIT is the most coherent proposal so far but even that fails to explain even the most rudimentary quale.
> This just seems weird and backwards. So what if if our conscious experience of the world is the first thing that we experience or know? That doesn't make it fundamental.
What's backwards to me is ignoring the significance of your own conscious experience existing in favor of a model of the physical world that we know for certain is incomplete.
Our base physical models are general relativity and quantum mechanics, and not only do we not know how to reconcile them neither of them leave any room for consciousness so you have to do a lot of handwaving about how consciousness is emergent in complex systems and whatnot.
You don't have the tiniest bit more coherent account of consciousness than an idealist.
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izk3qsd wrote
>That's just plain not true. Nobody, materialists or otherwise, has a coherent model to explain even a single quale. IIT is the most coherent proposal so far but even that fails to explain even the most rudimentary quale.
Yep they have. The problem is "quale" as you define it doesn't exist, hence can't be explain by materialists.
I think the illusionist's might have put it better than me.
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>What's backwards to me is ignoring the significance of your own conscious experience existing in favor of a model of the physical world that we know for certain is incomplete.
Well on one hand you have a model which explains everything we have ever studied, on the other hand you have a model which hasn't made a single useful prediction or insight ever.
Kind of makes sense to go for the model which hasn't explained everything than the model which has never made a single useful prediction.
TheCultureCitizen t1_izk49cp wrote
> Yep they have.
They literally haven't though. What are you talking about exactly?
Are you talking about people making correlations between MRI scans and self-reported conscious states? That's nowhere even close to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a coherent, precise mathematical model of what physical states give rise to what conscious states. No such thing exists.
> Well on one hand you have a model which explains everything we have ever studied, on the other hand you have a model which hasn't made a single useful prediction or insight ever.
It explains everything other than the "we" you mention. There is no mention of conscious experience in any of our physical models. The onus is on you to show how you get from those barren physical models to our rich experiences.
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izkg16u wrote
>They literally haven't though. What are you talking about exactly?
They have, let me reiterate. The explanation is simply "Qualia don't exist"
>It explains everything other than the "we" you mention. There is no mention of conscious experience in any of our physical models. The onus is on you to show how you get from those barren physical models to our rich experiences.
Depends on what the claim is. We would use occam's razor. On one had you have the most successful and predictive model/framework in human history.
If you want to claim some other model or idea that has never made a useful prediction ever, then the onus is on you.
Currently materialism hasn't explained the full details of how a thundercloud works, but no-one really thinks or expects there to be some non-materialist explanation.
So the default is materialism since it's been pretty successful for pretty much everything ever investigated. There is zero reason to think it can't explain conscious experience.
If you think there is some other model or theory which can explain it better then the "onus is on you to show how", or even make a single useful prediction.
TheCultureCitizen t1_izkgtcl wrote
> "Qualia don't exist"
Ok cool. Notice how you can't really claim "the sun does not exist trust me bro" and have people take your seriously, but somehow it's ok to say that about consciousness the way we experience it?
If we are all mistaken about our own consciousness existing or mistaken about what it really is then it's on you to show us the truth, otherwise you're just posturing.
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izki2qy wrote
>Ok cool. Notice how you can't really claim "the sun does not exist trust me bro" and have people take your seriously, but somehow it's ok to say that about consciousness the way we experience it?
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>If we are all mistaken about our own consciousness existing or mistaken about what it really is then it's on you to show us the truth, otherwise you're just posturing.
Consciousness is completely real in a materialist sense. What we experience is real and will be fully explained by biology and the like.
But this hard problem or whatever you are talking about is just an illusion which is logically incoherent and is impossible. The reason you struggle to understand how how it fits in with materialism is that you are talking about something inherently impossible under all real systems and models.
TheCultureCitizen t1_izlbz1x wrote
You're just begging the question though. You're assuming materialism is correct even though that's exactly what's being contested. Your whole argument hinges on the promise of "we'll figure it out eventually". You barely have even an outline of a coherent theory of consciousness yet you act as if it's essentially solved.
x3n0n89 t1_izmct41 wrote
>impossible
I agree with you. Even the deductive logic that is used to describe biological phenomena can't be described in biological terms to begin with. So why should consciousness?
Denying that Qualia exists would also mean, that there is no practical reasoning in checking if a programmed machine is doing something because of its programming or because it makes a conscious decision.
To me the claim that idealism is a fallacy in itself sounds like a reductionist view of the human experience and an outdated epistemological error that leads to a cartesian determinism of what it means and feels like to be a human and have a consciousness. Its reducing the whole question down to a primitive utilitarian sense of: If we can't do good predictions of it, therefore we categorically shouldn't bother.
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izn5mwy wrote
>You're just begging the question though. You're assuming materialism is correct even though that's exactly what's being contested.
Yes, I'm assuming materialism is correct. It's an educated guess.
But what I do know is that all the alternatives I've looked into lead to are incoherent and lead to absurdities. They all seem to lead to consciousness being an epiphenomena or that the brain is different and doesn't obey the laws of physics.
TheCultureCitizen t1_iznfkel wrote
> > > > > But what I do know is that all the alternatives I've looked into lead to are incoherent and lead to absurdities.
Materialism is incoherent and leads to absurdities and it's gonna remain that way until you find a coherent mathematical model of consciousness. Put up or shut up, your idea of consciousness is not the tiniest bit less handwavey than the idealist's. You have no clue what's actually going on, and hiding behind the successes of various physical sciences doesn't make your case stronger if you can't even model a single instance of what we call "quale". Even if it is all an illusion you have to show exactly how the illusion is constructed.
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izoeleq wrote
>Materialism is incoherent and leads to absurdities and it's gonna remain that way until you find a coherent mathematical model of consciousness.
Sorry when I said incoherent I mean inconsistent.
If it's possible to provide a coherent mathematical model of consciousness, then that model isn't incoherent/inconsistent.
I'm saying non-materialist models are normally inconsistent hence impossible.
>Even if it is all an illusion you have to show exactly how the illusion is constructed.
I'm saying that materialism is the only possible option since you can rule out all alternatives though reductio ad absurdum.
[deleted] t1_izpsfrt wrote
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TheCultureCitizen t1_izpsisr wrote
How do you rule out idealism?
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izpzft8 wrote
I guess it depends on what version.
In most versions you have the physical, whether it is created by the mind or whatever.
This physical including the brain acts solely due to the laws of physics. The brain which we can control and manipulate gives rise to changes in what people think, feel and experience.
Basically the mind reality can't actually change anything in the brain or anything physical beyond the laws of physics. This then leaves this mental layer as effectively an epiphenomena.
Anyway the main argument against idealism is just the absurdity of it's supporter, you have people bringing up how studies on LSD and past lives support idealism. Is it really worth arguing with people like Kastrup who referred to the effects of LSD in his dissertation to prove materialism wrong.
[deleted] t1_izq3286 wrote
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TheCultureCitizen t1_izq376t wrote
> Is it really worth arguing with people like Kastrup who referred to the effects of LSD in his dissertation to prove materialism wrong.
And why was his argument faulty in your opinion?
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_izrmr7n wrote
>And why was his argument faulty in your opinion?
He claims the materialist position is that conscious activity is directly correlated to the amount of neural activity. I don't think any actually says or believes that, so it's a strawman.
A great deal of brain activity is repressive/controlling. So it's no surprise that if LSD reduces the overall level of neural activity that the conscious experience of a person might be greater(whatever that means).
Also it's not just a reduction in neural activity it's a change in neural activity with there being an increase level of activity around signals moving between different regions of the brain.
TheCultureCitizen t1_izsrw5e wrote
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> He claims the materialist position is that conscious activity is directly correlated to the amount of neural activity. I don't think any actually says or believes that, so it's a strawman.
That's not true, proponents of IIT propose exactly that, or at least heavily hint at it, to them the richness of conscious experience is directly correlated with the amount of "integrated information", and it's not really an unresonable leap to assume more neural activity would lead to more integrated information, so no it's actually not true that physicalists don't believe this.
And again, if you don't believe it to be so you're supposed to show a concrete competing theory, not just gesture vaguely at a potential future theory. You don't really have much to stand on yet you keep pretending like you've basically figured it out.
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IAI_Admin OP t1_iz9nte1 wrote
In this short interview, philosopher Jan Westerhoff discusses what illusory experiences can teach us about the nature of reality. He considers philosophical efforts to explain the representational nature of both veridical and falsidical experiences with idealism, and discusses the ethical implications of an idealist metaphysics. Westerhoff argues that rather than holding that mind comes before matter in a foundational account of epistemology, coherentism offers and more satisfactory approach. He then discusses his own work on solipsism and considers its emergence in both ancient Indian philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy, and concludes that if correct solipsism must explain the apparent existence of other minds.