What Kind of Metaphysician Are You?

Deleted member 16771 said:
I should say that it is possible to have a 'causality of freedom', or an 'indeterminist causality'. In essence, though, its essential properties are probabilistic because choices are always constrained by the conditions of possibility that inhere within the material world.
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wat
 
Wyote said:
wat
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1) Determinist causality: if a car drives into a wall at 100mph, the car is going to get fucked up every single time.

2) Indeterminist causality: If John punches Sam, there is an 80% chance that Sam will punch him back, a 15% chance that Sam will try to tackle John to the ground, and a 5% chance that Sam will flee, because Sam has free will.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
1) Determinist causality: if a car drives into a wall at 100mph, the car is going to get fucked up every single time.

2) Indeterminist causality: If John punches Sam, there is an 80% chance that Sam will punch him back, a 15% chance that Sam will try to tackle John to the ground, and a 5% chance that Sam will flee, because Sam has free will.
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Thank you, but turning this into a math problem doesn't help a ton lmaooo (I joke)
Really, I am just having trouble piecing together the implications when the original wording was a bit of a brain fart for me.
 
Wyote said:
Thank you, but turning this into a math problem doesn't help a ton lmaooo (I joke)
Really, I am just having trouble piecing together the implications when the original wording was a bit of a brain fart for me.
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What I'm saying is that indeterminism does not preclude causality, as it is sometimes claimed. It is very possible for a single cause to have multiple potential outcomes, but where only one of which actualises.

Take the double slit experiment: each photon passing through the slits has a chance/probability of being registered in multiple locations, but it will only actually register in one.

In other words, indeterminate events still follow causal rules, but the range of possible outcomes is necessarily limited. Indeterminism dies not negate causality, though it does fuck with minds.
 
Headstorm said:
Physicalism, reductionism, emergentism, aren't they all different flavours of the same in opposition to dualism?
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No, I don't think that's the case. I don't think reductionist and non-reductionist physicalism boil down simply to "different flavors", and they are not opposed to dualism only.

I could even contemplate a dualist reductionist claiming that reality is composed of matter and spirit. I don't think reductionism = monism (physicalist or otherwise) necessarily.
 
Ren said:
No, I don't think that's the case. I don't think reductionist and non-reductionist physicalism boil down simply to "different flavors", and they are not opposed to dualism only.

I could even contemplate a dualist reductionist claiming that reality is composed of matter and spirit. I don't think reductionism = monism (physicalist or otherwise) necessarily.
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Ok, I knew I was going to be slapped here :smirk:.
 
the universe is indifferent, but we've evolved to do well in it, on average. there is no free will - our genes and our past determine our every action. i enjoy the illusion of free will. life has whatever meaning you give it. i choose to find meaning in making myself and others happy.
 
Ren said:
Hi everyone! In this new thread, I want to ask you the following question: what do you think is the nature of reality, and what do you think it reduces to? Are you more of a monist, commiting to the idea that reality is just one thing, like a substance or something else; a dualist, who thinks reality reduces to two things, like mind and matter; or a pluralist, who things reality divides perhaps into an absolute multiplicity of substances?

Are you a materalist? An idealist? A neutral monist? An open monist ( :hearteyes: )? A physicalist? A pantheist? A panentheist? A panpsychist? A dualist of the terrestrial and spiritual? I want to know everything, so let's discuss!

Thanks for your contributions, friends ♥ And yes I expect @charlatan to be very active in this thread.
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What reasons do we have to believe in Monism or Pluralism? There really can be no conversation without "reasons" to criticize.

Suppose you are a pluralist, does this mean you believe that "emergent properties" do not exist? That only the substances in your pluralist list really exist? If so, then there are a few problems with this.

First, if emergent properties do not exist, then why do our best explanations of reality require that they do? Are biologists wrong when they say that natural selection really does exist? The "process" called natural selection doesn't really exist since it can be reduced to the interaction of atomic particles? Are physicists wrong when they say that gravity really does exist? The motion called gravity can be reduced to an interaction between space-time and Mass. And so does not really exist? What about psychologist when they hypothesize "human minds".

Second, reductionism has a bad wrap in science because it always delimits what true scientific explanations can look like. However we cannot predict what we will know in a year. We cannot even predict what future breakthroughs will be about before long. So why should anyone be confident that they know what future science explanations will look like.

Logical positivism delimits science by forbidding one from conjecturing entities that cannot be observed directly with your senses. So no silly ideas like space-time, or laws of physics, or even human minds. Pluralism forbids delimits science by forbidding any any explanation that cannot be reduced to the elements in our pluralist list. Which is problematic.
 
As per Wikipedia's definition is close to what I struggle to put in words, thank you hallmark...

In philosophy, spiritualism is the notion, shared by a wide variety of systems of thought, that there is an immaterial reality that cannot be perceived by the senses.[1] This includes philosophies that postulate a personal God, the immortality of the soul, or the immortality of the intellect or will, as well as any systems of thought that assume a universal mind or cosmic forces lying beyond the reach of purely materialisticinterpretations.[1] Generally, any philosophical position, be it dualism, monism, atheism, theism, pantheism, idealism or any other, is compatible with spiritualism as long as it allows for a reality beyond matter.[1][2] Theism is an example of a dualist spiritualist philosophy, while pantheism is an example of monist spiritualism.[2]
;)
 
wolly.green said:
What reasons do we have to believe in Monism or Pluralism? There really can be no conversation without "reasons" to criticize.

Suppose you are a pluralist, does this mean you believe that "emergent properties" do not exist? That only the substances in your pluralist list really exist? If so, then there are a few problems with this.

First, if emergent properties do not exist, then why do our best explanations of reality require that they do? Are biologists wrong when they say that natural selection really does exist? The "process" called natural selection doesn't really exist since it can be reduced to the interaction of atomic particles? Are physicists wrong when they say that gravity really does exist? The motion called gravity can be reduced to an interaction between space-time and Mass. And so does not really exist? What about psychologist when they hypothesize "human minds".

Second, reductionism has a bad wrap in science because it always delimits what true scientific explanations can look like. However we cannot predict what we will know in a year. We cannot even predict what future breakthroughs will be about before long. So why should anyone be confident that they know what future science explanations will look like.

Logical positivism delimits science by forbidding one from conjecturing entities that cannot be observed directly with your senses. So no silly ideas like space-time, or laws of physics, or even human minds. Pluralism forbids delimits science by forbidding any any explanation that cannot be reduced to the elements in our pluralist list. Which is problematic.
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I learned a cool word a few weeks ago: hypostatise/hypostatise, 'to treat or represent (something abstract) as concrete reality'. I think it captures the general weirdness of the realm of thought/mind.

The noosphere/World 3/whatever exists, and yet it doesn't.
 
Ren said:
I would tend to believe that it is not possible to reduce consciousness to physical matter.
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Wyote said:
Which elements/ideas dissuade you the most? If you can briefly elaborate :)
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Alright, sorry it took me a while to get back to you on that! When I'm with family, I tend to get behind stuff. ^^

Perhaps I could mention two elements/ideas that dissuade me the most from the idea that consciousness can be reduced to physical matter. The first is what I'd call the "aboutness of consciousness", the other is the philosophical zombie argument.

A couple years ago I read The Soul of the World by Roger Scruton, and I found that he made a compelling case for the irreducibility of consciousness to the physical because of its "aboutness", that is, its peculiar quality which goes beyond what we would typically take as its content. Imagine that you're thinking about a sequoia tree. In a sense, the sequoia tree is "in your consciousness". Presumably, a physicalist account would say: x neurons are fired in the brain at that moment, producing the thought of the sequoia tree. But notice how, when you're picturing a sequoia tree in your mind, you're not actually just picturing a generic sequoia tree. It has a certain shape, a certain color; it's in a certain place. In other words, your very thought about the sequoia tree has a peculiar quality, an "aboutness" that cannot be rendered, for instance, in symbolic logic (i.e. in maths), but which is the very heart of great literature, and perhaps art in general. That's the jist of the argument. If everything was physical, then in at least in theory, everything would have to be translatable into mathematical equations in some sense. But the aboutness of our thoughts seems to preclude such translation.

As regards the philosophial zombie argument, let me just quote from Wikipedia as I believe it conveys the core of the idea pretty well:

"A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that from the outside is indistinguishable from a normal human being but lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. For example, if a philosophical zombie was poked with a sharp object it would not feel any pain sensation, yet could behave exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch", recoil from the stimulus, and say that it is feeling pain).

The notion of a philosophical zombie is used mainly in thought experiments intended to support arguments (often called "zombie arguments") against forms of physicalism such as materialism, behaviorism and functionalism. Physicalism is the idea that all aspects of human nature can be explained by physical means: specifically, all aspects of human nature and perception can be explained from a neurobiological standpoint. Some philosophers, such as David Chalmers, argue that since a zombie is defined as physiologically indistinguishable from human beings, even its logical possibility would be a sound refutation of physicalism, as it would establish that the existence of conscious experience is a further fact."

I would tend to agree with Chalmers that the mere logical possibility of a zombie = consciousness as further fact = physicalism refuted. It's a pretty compelling thought experiment.
 
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Ren said:
But notice how, when you're picturing a sequoia tree in your mind, you're not actually just picturing a generic sequoia tree. It has a certain shape, a certain color; it's in a certain place.
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To me it looks you would be recalling the sequoia from memory. But I suppose that is not what you mean?
 
charlatan said:
I doubt mental properties are physical properties, even if they may be determined by them (think of, for instance, the squareness of a square mat -- I doubt squareness is physical, if it exists it's probably mathematical, and thus more abstract/general than physical, but still, I think the mathematical properties of all concrete things seem to be determined by their physics).
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So, in the case of a square mat, you would say that the mat's squareness is entailed by the physics of the mat? Hmmm. Simple question: can a mat that is probably not perfectly square physically entail mathematical squareness?

In general, I'd be curious if you could elaborate on why you commit to the view of physical properties likely determine, say, abstract properties like mathematical ones.
 
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