Challenges to the coherence of physicalism: kzread.info/dash/bejne/q2R8zNiHeM7OqJc.html Underdetermination: kzread.info/dash/bejne/Y5N8z8avo5rKnbg.html Causation: kzread.info/dash/bejne/laytqsuAlM-vdrg.html

@Doctor.T.46

11 ай бұрын

I speak as a relatively well-informed physicalist. Can I repeat what I've said before scientists don't care what metaphysical school their scientific theories belong to... to them it's just science. I became a physicalist because of having qualifications in both science and philosophy. I know we've talked about this before but I just wanted to explain how I arrived at physicalism. Thank you Kane.

@gaiusbaltar7122

7 ай бұрын

@@Doctor.T.46 Physicalism is an...idea! Therefore, physicalism does not exist for a physicalist...

@Doctor.T.46

7 ай бұрын

@@gaiusbaltar7122 Sorry, but physicalism/ materialism does exist. I'd be happy to hear how you have reached your conclusion.

@Doctor.T.46

7 ай бұрын

@gaiusbaltar7122 The idea as you call it, is generated by brain tissue, therefore physicalism does exist...because ideas are simply the material brain in action.

@gaiusbaltar7122

7 ай бұрын

@@Doctor.T.46 *ideas are simply the material brain in action* Who told you that, and what does it exactly mean?

Thank you for making this concise introductory lecture on physicalism.

First of all, I thank you for the effort you put into these videos I love them as a non-philosopher. so can you do the next video on a topic called process philosophy? I have read them on the stanford philosophical encyclopedia but cannot get the idea of it

I love it every time Kane begins a video with his contagiously whimsical "What's up, dogs"

physicalism is reductive to absurdity. language, thought, abstract cocepts such as "freedom", etc, all are so ingrained in our lives we take them for granted. Not that we should take them for granted, but to demonstrate how pervasive non-physical things exist within our world. I feel it persists due to the natural sciences, which, although have shown great success, is not much more than a collection of collective experience (information) passed down (via language), that describe the mechanics of (only) the physical aspects of our world. It's also funny that mathematics, the least natural and physical field, is considered the most "pure".

22:10 Thinking takes more energy from the body than the physical act of sitting (while thinking). Ergo, thinking takes up energy. Thinking is not the process of brain neurons firing, and in fact think can cause physical changes in the brain which would not have occurred by brain neuron firing alone. Consciousness has efficacy. As Roger Penrose wrote in Emperor's New Mind, the neurons cannot add up to the required needs of consciousness. It's physically impossible that the brain is consciousness, it's just a memory storage for consciousness.

Sometimes I'll go onto KZread and it will be between 14:00 and 17:00 in the day and I'll scroll through the videos on my feed to look at the choices and find something for entertainment purposes or something more informative like philosophy content. Often I will see the odd video from this channel, Kane B, and I will look at the title and see if it is a topic that appeals to me. Typically it is philosophy content and so it overlaps with my casual layman interest in philosophy. For this reason I will often "check out" one of your videos and will do my best to understand the content, although I can't always sit through the video because I will sometimes be distracted or won't have a great attention span for it. This isn't because of anything particular to your content specifically but can happen generally. It doesn't matter if it happens though really because I am not required to understand and no one is overseeing what I'm doing as far as I know and hope. This means that I can pick it up and put it down as I wish, it doesn't really matter. One of the main reasons I watch your content on KZread after I scroll through other options that appear in the feed between 14:00 and 17:00 is that in the images that pop up for the video there is an image overlaid by the video title and so I don't have to read the title but can just look at that image and make the decision.

@Mai-Gninwod

5 ай бұрын

What a strange comment, love you!

I think I've developed an autistic passion for your videos. I owe you very much, thank you again for your great quality work.

@JoakimfromAnka

Жыл бұрын

His videos are quite nice. I wish he would do more discussions with people of different opinions.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much!

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

@@JoakimfromAnka The problem is that I'm just not very good at that kind of content.

@JoakimfromAnka

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB nonesense, you did a good discussion with Aarvoll about morality time ago.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

@@JoakimfromAnka I disagree

awesome video mate

“What’s up dawgs.” 0:00 - already off to a good start

Could the definition of physical be that it must be possible for one thing to interact in any way with something else that we agree is physical? Then many of the weird, advanced and complicated things like fields are physical. Whereas things like angels would be physical if they could interact with physical things, and if not, then they are not physical. Feedback would be much appreciated.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

I think the problem with this definition is that supernatural entities are usually conceived of as interacting with the natural world: gods perform miracles, poltergeists move objects, witches cast spells, etc. It seems a bit strange to say that all of these are physical entities, or would be physical entities were they to exist. Additionally, you're not likely to be able to point to anything that everybody agrees is physical: whatever you point to, idealists and neutral monists can reframe the entity in terms of their metaphysics.

@Tethloach1

Жыл бұрын

If a scientist doesn't approve than it never happened. If it is a single event that isn't on record science will deny it happened. Personal gods, dreams, feelings are brushed aside in favor of cold facts.

@spongbobsquarepants3922

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB I see. It is tricky to define these things.

@simonlawrenson6972

Жыл бұрын

One might say that something is physical if, when it exists, it has space-time coordinates.

@Bolaniullen

Жыл бұрын

@@simonlawrenson6972 but my mentality, my subjectivity is localised is it not? my qualia is not outside of my head and it is particular to me so it is in space-time in a certain place too

"Whats up! doggs?!??" I was somehow more confused than you slightly sounded. Maybe me almost laugh/ smile. So that's coo.

When you say that physicalism has reached consensus, does that imply that for example mathematical platonism and theory of abstract objects are almost entirely abandoned?

@KaneB

8 ай бұрын

No: it's common for physicalists to argue that platonism about mathematics and abstract objects is compatible with physicalism.

@tykjpelk

8 ай бұрын

@@KaneB Personally I'm a nominalist but out of ignorance, because I'm confused about what it even would mean for an abstract object to exist. I've read some articles on SEP but that really basic stuff doesn't seem to be covered, do you know of any material where it's explained?

11:11 When you mention that Idealism doesn’t rule out the success of any explanatory project and provide voodoo, faith healing (placebo), and coin tossing as equally possible explanations, are you assuming that logic and order don’t exist on Idealism? What best explains the existence of logic and order: mind, or matter? 🤔

@theautodidacticlayman

Жыл бұрын

26:24 In keeping with my previous comment, what if causality is the fulfillment of (logically possible) counterfactual propositions that go all the way down to a foundational mind? Just shooting from the hip here. 😅

@theautodidacticlayman

Жыл бұрын

31:01 Ask me about the relevance of an epistemic starting point before the application of Occam’s Razor. 😁 I think Physicalism loses parsimony depending on how we justify our starting point.

I have a methodological question, Kane: How do you know that the current consensus in philosophy is physicalism? Do you have some tool (or set of tools) that let you find that out? If so, could you summarize how you use them briefly? Thanks.

@sumdumbmick

Жыл бұрын

physicalists are certainly the most vocal and hostile to anyone who disagrees with them. whether they even form a plurality or not is almost beside the point, given that, since this behavior will win them the title of dominating this time period.

@whatsinaname691

Жыл бұрын

Philpapers survey 2020

@thanda99

Жыл бұрын

Ask any philosopher of mind

@accelerationquanta5816

9 ай бұрын

Most people are NPCs; they don't actually have an internal experience. I see no reason why so-called "philosophers" would be an exception to this. The obvious absurdity of physicalism is only apparent if you have an internal experience.

@TheAngryXenite

7 ай бұрын

​@accelerationquanta5816 Uh huh. I'm sure most people are actually just flesh automatons and you're one of the only real people. It can't be that you're just an arrogant asshole.

Honestly I have trouble distinguishing the kind of idealism (subjective idealism) you describe from solipsism. How does idealism explain two people perceiving the same object? Surely there must be some sense in which that object is mind-independent, for there must be something apart from the two people that causes them to have the same experience (the same impressions/appearances). What gives the world its enduring, independent “stability”? It seems for Berkeley the “mind-independent” world is just the perceptions in God’s mind. That way everything is still mental yet objects don’t depend for their existence on any particular human’s mind. So basically God saves him from solipsism worries. But without God how does subjective idealism not just amount to solipsism? I find Idealism utterly bizarre. Please someone correct me if I’ve misunderstood idealism (or Berkeley).

@liamcarter7597

Жыл бұрын

I’m not expert on the topic, but I think that one mind could manifest an impression on another mind. So for instance when one mind projects the perception of an apple to itself, it could also project the perception to another, nearby mind, sort of like a video call. You could also put it this way: nothing physical exists. When we claim physical things we are just imagining a thing and pretending it’s there. Minds around us will then be inclined to maintain the act as if the physical objects are real, and once described by one mind, the object synchronizes in the other person’s mind. So for instance one mind could say “here is a white coffee mug” and the other person imagines a white coffee mug and agrees that it is there, even if they are imagining two completely different cups. Then mind two gives a more detailed description, such as it is 8oz in volume, chipped near the top, and has a matte finish, and mind one then imagines that, and also pretends that they imagined it that way the entire time. And therefore, seemingly physical events that take place seemingly between two minds is actually two separate events manifested by sensory descriptions. But again, I don’t really know much about idealism or philosophy in general.

@Bolaniullen

Жыл бұрын

You might be right about Berkeley but subjective idealism is not the only kind. There are lot's of version of idealism that can explain why ''objects'' exist outside our own mind. You said that objects in some sense are mind-independent, but you don't know that. You only know that they seem to be independant of your mind, and that other people who are also independent from your mind ( let's exclude solipsism ) see the same objects that you do one explanation of this is: well then, these object are clearly outside of all mind, ie they are dead matter Another is: The object is mental in essence, but it is outside your mind and also outside of the mind of the other person who sees the same thing as you. So from your perspective the thing is objective, but so are my thoughts for instance. They are objective as far as you are concerned. My thoughts and feelings don't depend on your mind at all

I thought this was presented very well, 贊同

Does physicalism necessarily entail a reductive project? It seems to me that there are people who hold to the idea that reality is comprised of interactions of fundamental forces and components, but allow for emergent phenomena that cannot be predicted or explained by virtue of a reductive examination of the constituent parts.

@accelerationquanta5816

9 ай бұрын

"Emergent" is a meaningless word.

@JEQvideos

9 ай бұрын

@@accelerationquanta5816 It's pretty clear what it means, even more so in light of the comment.

@accelerationquanta5816

9 ай бұрын

@@JEQvideos " It's pretty clear what it means" Yeah. It means "I have no idea whatsoever how or why this phenomenon exists but I believe it's caused by X because uhhhh I have faith."

@JEQvideos

9 ай бұрын

@@accelerationquanta5816 LOL. Right, as opposed to "if we just break everything down to fundamental particles and forces we can predict and explain all phenomena because uhhhh I have faith." Whether or not you agree that there is such a thing as emergent phenomena (I honestly don't care) the concept is used in different fields of study and is pretty straightforward.

@accelerationquanta5816

8 ай бұрын

@@JEQvideos "if we just break everything down to fundamental particles and forces we can predict and explain all phenomena because uhhhh I have faith." That's literally true, though. If you know everything about the fundamental forces and the behavior of particles and waves and whatnot, you could predict and describe even the most complex of macroscopic phenomena perfectly.

10:30 While physicalism is associated with reductionism, that doesn't preclude the existence of other kinds of physical theories, that are non fully reductionist. There's always a conceivable possibility for physicalist strong Emergence, e.g. Physicalism is associated with reductionist approaches but that doesn't mean that the former implies the latter...

But what is a physical property precisely?

@CasualPhilosophy

Жыл бұрын

I think the video before this one covered that. I should watch it since I'm really not sure I understand what "physical" means :D

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

@@CasualPhilosophy The previous video does cover this, but hopefully not in a way that will leave you feeling like you have a good understanding of what "physical" means ;)

@Tethloach1

Жыл бұрын

Humans are stubborn, a question will be dodged, until social validation. It is true because everyone agrees it is true. It is true because the authority approved. People will pull things out of thin air and claim to be true on feelings. Each position has some degree of validity. A well thought out and honest answer is as good as any. Nothing or something? A free lunch occurred and now you are forever in debt. Have you always existed? Did the laws of nature change? What is non existence?

@Bolaniullen

Жыл бұрын

physical properties are describes in quantities, like: mass,charge,spin, momentum, geographic position in spacetime, weight etc. Basically equations and descriptions in this form Non physical properties are described by qualities or qualia. subjectivity, thoughts emotions etc

@kleenex3000

11 ай бұрын

We call "physical property" a "measurable property" do you agree? "Physical" and "measurable" suggest that the addressed property (such as mass) be real. But this is no the case, not in the slightest. Mass is, every scientist knows, (an) abstract ie imaginary ie does NOT exist ie does NOT cause. - The mass-SOURCE (thing, REFERENT) is real - the measurement (SYMBOL) {OF=rei-fying= FAKING} mass is real. The SYMBOL is caused by the REFERENT The SYMBOL is NOT caused by the mass (imaginary, REFERENCE) Whether you like or not, and this is my answer for you *Mass is the awareness (REFERENCE) from/about a measurement (SYMBOL)* FYI: I am a NOMINALIST. If the author addressed the assertions {OF} Physicalisms correctly, THEN these assertions are religious ie declaring the imaginary for real. anybody who reads my asssertions and intends to argue, they will lose by defauilt: Mass is not a particle let alone composed of particles. The extremely popular assertion "mass and energy can interconvert" is liken Eucharisty religious: All that IS interconverted, is "E" and "m" - it is symbols, ie measurements, calculations, also called quantities or values. "Let E be m times c squared" - RaMen and hummDooLeeLooYEAH!

Yeah but what is a physical property in the first place? /s

26:25 Causality is the law of identity in action.

27:00 I'm afraid that Physicists are using a different , much more accurate definition about "causality" and "causal structure", based on Relativity, than some philosophers do.

I haven't read anything in the field of metaphysics whatsoever for now. My "pre-reason" intuition is that whatever entities science predicts approximately exist independently of each other and interact through natural forces. Does anybody know if this has been given a name, so that I can look up criticisms of this view? I guess my question is, why is physicalism a monist theory when it postulates the existence of more or less 19 different quantum fields? Science itself does not draw any connection among them. In fact, interactions between them are explained through the postulation of new, independent, quantum fields. It doesn't seem like science says anything about what "physical" is, so physicalism is deviating from science by postulating a new "single" substance that underlies all "plural" entities explained by our current scientific models. Again, I'm sorry if this seems uninformed, because it is. Thank you very much if you take some of your time to write a response, I'd really appreciate it.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

What you're describing there sounds like scientific realism (I have a whole series on scientific realism if you search "Kane B scientific realism"). However, scientific realism is compatible with a variety of metaphysical views; not all scientific realists are physicalists. The question of monism is an interesting one. The basic idea is that all of these quantum fields are *physical*, so they are the same type of thing. But as you note, it's not clear that science itself tells us that these are the same type of thing. Moreover, there is a lot of debates about what exactly "physical" even means, so there is a worry that this term is just an empty tag. I discuss this in the previous video (see the first video linked in the pinned comment). I do think physicalism is saying something beyond merely reasserting the content of science. But that seems right: physicalism is, after all, a metaphysical position, and it is assessed primarily by philosophers, not scientists. The problem is that sometimes physicalists seem to talk as if their position just is science -- like, if you just accept what contemporary science says about the world, and nothing more, then you're a physicalist.

@real_pattern

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB have you heard about ontological contingentism, or interdependence? there's an awesome book on it by kriti sharma, titled interdependence - biology and beyond. she summarizes contingentism the following way: 1. ontology 2. epistemology 3. assumptions 4. mystery 1. phenomena are neither physical nor mental. 2. one may think we can explain phenomena, but we can actually only describe relationships between phenomena. 3. no concept can be assumed or affirmed. all positions regarding the intrinsic existence of things are indefensible. 4. as long as we try to explain the ultimate or intrinsic existence of things, mystery will appear real, and we will relate to it either as something to be conquered or something to be held sacrosanct. this is just a short summary from a table from the book, comparing it with dualism, physicalism and idealism, but the book's arguments, mostly from biology, are fascinating and argue very convincingly for ontological interdependence. also, i haven't seen an explanation so far that coherently shows why/how it's valid to claim anything about the "noumenal" - here, "physical", based on phenomenally conscious experiences - "nature's sole given" (kastrup's point). kriti writes; "For those who view phenomena from a contingentist perspective, the idea that what is smaller is also more basic simply does not arise. What is smaller is only smaller, and arises only from the cognitive relating of “a whole” and “parts. ... The organism, sensing apparatus, and external object do not interact with or react with one another (that is, they do not cause changes to each other by virtue of some intrinsically existent causal power). Neither do they remain the same objects that change (or are transformed) over time. Rather, they arise new in each instant. In the moment of seeing an apple, you haven’t just discovered or met the apple that has been there outside of you. Rather, in that moment, the apple arises as form, properties, continuity, vividness, and the like, for none of these exist intrinsically but arise contingent upon your activities. At the same moment, you are new, being not intrinsically the same thing before and after the seeing . The apple is assimilated into your body, not via digestion, but via sensing. Your physiology is changed upon seeing the apple. However, this change does not involve the transfer of any substance - neither energy nor information or anything else, no matter how subtle. Though we might usually say, “The organism senses the apple” or “The apple caused a response in the body,” we could also say, “When the apple is seen, the body is changed.” And, yet another alternative: “When - depending on a human body - form, properties, continuity and vividness, arise as an apple, the body is changed. ... Furthermore, if we don’t take the body to have some essence that somehow stays the same over time despite myriad changes in its form, instead of saying “The body is changed” we could equally say, “The body is new.” in the absence of the aforementioned concepts is that phenomena arise anew in each instant. Moreover, this “arising anew” occurs dependently - that is, phenomena bring each other newly into being in each instant.” and "We often believe that the regularities we experience must be grounded in some kind of substance beyond them-material, spiritual, or mental. However, it is entirely possible that the net is aloft, that it is not tethered to anything outside of it. In fact, as far as anyone can tell, the net is all there is, so there can be nothing outside of it that could serve as a tether. Contingentism in the sense of ontological interdependence is a more thoroughgoing ecological world-view, one that acknowledges the total interdependence of phenomena, and thus the absence of the inherent existence of either subject or object, either organism or environment. Contingentism is at its most useful, then, not so much as a set of claims or position statements but as a practice, a habit, and a method: the constant asking of the question, “What does this depend on?” this was a lot, so in understand if you don't wanna read it, sincerely, thy canis

@Bolaniullen

Жыл бұрын

scientific realism is the right word for it. But remember that science is ontologically neutral you can think of it like this: science asks questions of nature and observe 'behaviour' what nature does But metaphysics ask the question: what nature IS

I have no intention of defending metaphysical physicalism, but I have my doubts about many of the arguments against it presented here, and particularly your version of Russell's argument, running from about 28:00 to 30:55. The physical sciences make use of mathematics, not because some doctrine says it must, but because it has proven epistemically extremely useful to do so. It would still be a scientific claim to assert that the earth goes around the sun and that this is because there is an attractive force between them, but going beyond that by being quantitative and mathematical about it brings about a huge epistemic advance, in terms of what we know, how well-justified that knowledge is, and in the depth of our understanding. Furthermore, many other physical sciences are not nearly that quantitative: for example, Darwin's theory of evolution is one of the most important achievements of the physical sciences, yet he was able to make his case with few numbers and no mathematics. subsequent quantitative theoretical and empirical work refined and strengthened the theory, but it was a profound part of the physical sciences from the moment "Origin of Species" was published This is of particular relevance for the philosophy of mind, where, as you say, most of the debate over physicalism occurs. Most anti-physicalists seem to assume (or argue as if) it would take new fundamental physics for physicalism to prevail, but their thought experiments do not even rule out the mind eventually being explained as a biochemical phenomenon, as other biological phenomena such as metabolism and reproduction largely have been (to the point where vitalism is no longer a contentious issue in either the sciences or philosophy.) The argument presented on the slide from about 28:10 (and discussed from 28:54) seems problematic or possibly even invalid, and I feel these problems can be illustrated by using weather forecasting as an example. We understand, in considerable detail, atmospheric physics, from which we can make pretty good predictions of the near-future weather (and the more data we can collect and process, the better they become.) Here, therefore, we have many examples of type-A events (atmospheric conditions around the globe right now) predictably causing type-B events (the weather, here, tomorrow), and it is of no consequence whatsoever that it is unlikely either the specific atmospheric preconditions or the subsequent weather will ever recur in detail. The premises of your argument here, like those of Norton's ball-on-a-dome thought experiment, seem like throwbacks to classical physics, assuming that arbitrary precision of measurement is essential to physics. If this were the case, it should have reached an impasse with the discovery of quantum uncertainty (and been completely flummoxed by Bell's inequality), but instead this proved to be a gateway to considerably expanding its ability to explain the world (for one thing, it opened the door to explaining chemistry - including biochemistry - as emergent phenomena.) I said I was not going to defend metaphysical physicalism, and that is because any claim so sweeping can be questioned with quite modest levels of scepticism, without presenting a worked-out alternative hypothesis. It is almost as if metaphysics is the discipline of asking questions that admit no definitive answers, and that, by itself, could explain your initial observation (2:50) that we see more arguments against metaphysical claims than for them.

There is the linguistic problem, which is to say that we ask "why" which implies intent and explanation in terms of intent rather than "how" which implies the mechanical methods, which, in turn implies rules of action, but not causation (intent or first movement) of action. In short, physicalism relies on determinism which in turn relies on a "first mover" problem. Secondarily, the assumption is made that physical causes mental states to exist, and such what we perceive as non-physical is an illusion and all is reduction to physical. By why not the physical existing as a representation of the nonphysical? It fits better with science to believe that non-physical things like forces and wave functions cause physical things to pop in and out of existence as representations of these non-physical things. Secondarily, with philosophy of the mind, AI makes more sense in that it demonstrates that intelligence is not an inherent property of the matter it is built of, but that the actions and the subsequent effects/results are the the result of rules (code) that is written or translated (linguistics, which are physical representations via symbols) into a series of actions.. Which in and of itself, I feel should be considered artificial intelligence only because it was given first cause by humans and its origins were within a lab. Otherwise, it's not unreasonable to say AI is the same methodology by which intelligence arises within life, just forcibly and on a far far shorter time scale (which really may be why we suck at making truly human AI. We're trying to do in 5 years what took several thousands of not millions).

@oliviamaynard9372

Жыл бұрын

Forces are physical things

It is a pitty that for an in itself interesting philosophical debate about what constitutes the real world, you choose to argue against the position of physicalism instead of that of materialism, as the position of phsycialism has obviously some serious flaws. The position of physicalism that "all there is" is physical in nature of course rejects the notion of mental states as "existing things" which are not physical in nature. What can be acknowledged is that mental states and changes in mental states require changes in physical states. The materialist perception of reality is that the primary substance that constitues reality is matter and consciousness is secondary, both in the ontological sense (we can not have mental states outside of there being a material reality) and in the temporal sense (there first needs to be a physical universe in which under the right conditions living organisms could form, replicate and evolve) before conscious sentenient beings like us could evolve. Note also that in modern quantum theories the physical entitites that are primary constituents of physical reality are not particles (bosons and fermions) but quantum fields, as the particles themselves are excitated states of such quantum fields. For the materialist position, the question of what fundamental physical entities exist, has no direct answer, as that is left to the physical sciences, and moreover we do not directly experience matter as such; we only encounter specific arrangements of matter, like the chemical elements or the subatomic particles and radiation. Matter just comprises the substance that exists independent and outside of consciousness, is in state of flux/change always, and exists in space and time as its mode of existence.

@dimitrispapadimitriou5622

4 ай бұрын

No, physicalism does not "exclude mental states" at all, as you seem to believe... It just says that mental states and personal perceptions are products of the functions of the brain, of the nervous system. Everything is part of the same physical world under the same laws of physics. Physicalism doesn't deny the existence of abstract or higher level notions. It's a much wider philosophical stance than old 19th century materialism. Physicalism's success is self evident, as every progress in sciences and technology is on par with that... On the other hand, Idealism, solipsism and the like are based only on word salads, without an actual impact on the intellectual history of mankind. Only arguing armchair philosophers, that don't actually believe in practice even themselves what they're proposing.

Nicely done. I'm finding I am leaning more towards physicalism these days.

@ExistenceUniversity

Жыл бұрын

Try Objectivism instead

@christaylor6574

Жыл бұрын

@@ExistenceUniversity Thanks. I'm not sure what that is, but I'll look into it. Any recommendations for research?

@ExistenceUniversity

Жыл бұрын

@@christaylor6574 Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, Harry Binswanger. All can be found in books or on KZread in clips and other forms. My channel is also a source, but those three are the top sources.

@christaylor6574

Жыл бұрын

@@ExistenceUniversity Many thanks.

@albertmozart6086

Жыл бұрын

@@ExistenceUniversity Objectivism, lol. What a stupid set of ideas.

What’s up dawg?

Is it different from materialism?

@forbidden-cyrillic-handle

Жыл бұрын

They are the same.

@albertmozart6086

Жыл бұрын

Physicalism is a branch and an extension of materialism.

@forbidden-cyrillic-handle

Жыл бұрын

@@albertmozart6086 What it extends exactly?

What's up, dawgs!

I've yet to see the video but physicalism makes no sense to me, since we have no clue what physical is. It is a concept constructed from a different 'realm' of reality, which would be the mind, awareness, the spirit, consciousness... which in my mind cannot be proved to be more real than the reality from which it is deduced. Therefore, either physical and 'mental' are two different things, both essential to the universe, or they are the same thing, in which case I would call it 'awareness' instead of 'physical', since it is what I perceive of it. I'll update if the video changes my mind.

Physicalism leaves some questions unanswered. First, why is there anything at all? Physical objects have possible, non-actual properties. But how do you show that the merely possible existence of some physical object is physical? Can you see, hear, touch, taste a possibility? Second, if physical objects have always existed, is the existence of some objects a brute fact? A brute fact is something that can't get explained, even in principle. So if there's at least one brute fact, there's no way to discover that it is one. That's because the ability to do that presupposes an explanation, which by definition, a brute fact can't have. To know that you've found a brute fact, you must know what evidence shows that it is one.

If the question of metaphysics is what things exist, then I think physical things aren't the only things that exist. Does a dog exist? Sure it does, I think we can all agree on that, as long as we aren't idealists anyway. So a dog exists and it is a physical object, does an atom exist? Sure it does, and it is also physical. Do properties exist? So for example let's say gravitons don't exist, and as Einstein proposed (if I'm understanding correctly) gravity is just a property of mass warping spacetime around it, causing apples to fall from trees to the ground on the earth and causing the earth to orbit around the sun. Now then, since there is no physical particle that causes gravitational observations to occur, does that mean that gravity does not exist? I would be inclined to disagree, I'd argue that whether or not there are gravitons, or gravity is just a property of mass, I'd argue that gravity still exists, it is just a property instead of an object like a dog or an atom. It is still something that we can observe, describe and predict. If I can observe and describe something I'd argue it exists, regardless of if it's physical or not. So then what about math? Does math exist? I'd say that yes it clearly does, we use it every day. And since math can be used to describe physical phenomena that happened long before humans existed and discovered math. I'd argue that math existed in our universe even before we came into existence to describe it. For example I'm sure there are stuff like limits or infinite sums or whatever, or other mathematical concepts that have been used to describe cosmological phenomena, phenomena that used to happen before the earth even existed. Like for example if you can use the formula (4/3) times π times the radius to the third power to describe the volume of a planet that existed even before the earth did. And that planet had that volume physically speaking before humans discovered math to describe said volume, then I'd argue that that formula, the numbers and paramaters used in it existed at least in some sort of conceptual ethereal way even without any humans around to think about it, despite not being physical. Like, a sphere's "radius" isn't a physical thing, there is no "radius fermion" that creates all the sphere's radii in our universe, yet sphere's still have radii, and we know that they do, and it's not just some human invented descriptive parameter, because that paramater can be used in conjunction with other parameters to describe even more physical properties of a planet for example. So it exists independently of humans using it to understand the world around them. What about thoughts? Do thoughts exist? A physicalist might say that no, thoughts do not exist, because they are not physical, so really it's just electricity running through your brain cells in a particular way, which is all physical. Or they might say that your thoughts ARE the electricity running through your brain. I disagree with both of those notions. Firstly, your thoughts ARE NOT the electricity running through your brain, the electricity running through your brain are merely the physical CAUSES creating your thoughts, but the thoughts themselves are a different entity from the entities that caused them to exist. When I'm thinking about something, like the word "diamond" for example, I'm not experiencing the electricity running through my brain, I don't feel a shock or a jolt, what I feel is the word diamond inside my mind. And if I experience something, I'd argue that it exists in some form, whether it's physical or not. If it didn't exist then how would I experience it? If we are just going to dismiss things that exist when they are not physical then of course physicalists are correct, but why would we dismiss those things? Why say that "Your thoughts don't truly exist, the only thing that exists is electricity, your brain cells, and the electricity passing through the brain cells" and why not instead say "Electricity exists, your brain cells exist, and when electricity runs through your brain cells it causes thoughts to come into existence, but yes, thoughts are also entities that exist, they just aren't physical, and you can't touch them like you can with brain matter or electricity" Lastly, do fictional things exist? For example does the character Aragorn exist? I'd argue that yes he does, not in a physical way, but he does exist in a conceptual ethereal way. Now you might say "But wait a minute, Aragorn is a human invention of JRR Tolkien, maybe I can grant you that math and properties like speed, volume exists despite not being physical, because at least they describe the physical world. But obviously a fictional character created by a human doesn't exist" and I say well why not? Just because it's a human invention doesn't mean it doesn't exist, I think we can all agree that cars exist right? (actually some ontologists wouldn't agree lol, but just roll with me) and cars are human inventions, cars only exists because humans exist, if there were no humans you wouldn't see any cars flying around in space, okay theoretically speaking it would be possible for a group of atoms to accidentally arrange themselves in the form of a car, but come on, let's be real, we know that wouldn't happen, so cars are physical things that exist only because humans created them, well if humans can create physical things that exist, then why can't we say that mental things humans create also exist? So therefore I say that Aragorn does exist, at least as a concept. And I'm not saying anything like Plato did, like that there is another ethereal dimension where all the concepts live in their ideal form. But I do still think that concepts are real things that exist. They're not in their ideal form, all concepts exist, whether ideal or not. But they're not off in some ethereal plain. They're just... around, here, everywhere and nowhere. One more interesting question to me is have all concepts existed since the dawn of time? And we're simply discovering them? Or are some created only after we created them first? Like I'd argue that the concept of a sphere's "volume" existed even before humans did, because planets had volumes even before humans existed to observe that, but did the concept of a car exist before humans created or thought of a car for the first time? And if we do create some of the concepts then does that mean they get added to the list of existing concepts? Anyway, point is, I've just mentioned a lot of things that I would argue exist despite not being physical, therefore physicalism is incorrect in my philosophical opinion, if you're just going to dismiss things like the concept of a sphere's volume because it isn't made out of fermions or bosons and you can't touch a sphere's "volume" or observe it in any *physical* way. Well then of course you're going to believe that only physical things exist. But I see no reason to dismiss those things as real and existing.

@dany97061

Жыл бұрын

1. I wouldn't say math is discovered neither invented. Math "can be seen" everywhere but not bc it is there: I don't think the real world has to calculate in order to act. But also we don't invent math as there are formulas, problems, etc. which we discover *a posteriori*. I agree with Duval's point of view: we do not have perceptive access to mathematical objects, the access is semiotic (by the means of signs) and we "discover" new mathematical knowledge by means of intuition, as Kant had stated. 2. Obviously thoughts cannot be just electricity. If someone affirms that, then must also accept that Computer electroencephalograph Neurovisors think as a human do, since they measure our electrical signals. Also, when you say "I'm not experiencing the electricity running through my brain" that's for we don't have internal senses, but have you seen what happens when you introduce an external discharge on the brain? Well, it causes some things to move yet the person would not feel the discharge. So electricity is a factor. The example you give with "diamond" might be a petitio principii fallacy. Also, one doesn't really "feel" a concept or word as "diamond", we use it in thoughts. But I agree, thoughts are not simply physical events even if they are caused by them, just as a statue is not merely a piece of rock: take a picture of the statue and you'll see the same by the means of other source (paper, pixels...), so the statue is not merely the rock, it is the form also. Forms might be then an emergent property which is not reduced to its constituents but attached to them, just as I conceive thoughts. Forms might be explained by geometry, is geometry a physical approach as abstract as it is? How a geometric figure is in direct and dependent relation to a piece of matter?

@VaasMontenegro12

Жыл бұрын

@@dany97061 1. Can we say that anything was neither discovered nor invented? Surely everything works in the same way, in that, it either already existed and was found, or it did not exist and was created, no? Even if our access to math is only semiotic, it is still the case that either math already existed in some form and we started using signs to observe and use it, or it did not exist, and we created not only the signs, but also the math itself, am I wrong in thinking those are the only possible options? Probably lol. 2. Well a physicalist would probably argue that thoughts aren't just the electricity by itself, but it is the whole process of the electricity running through the brain that is the thoughts. But all of it is still physical. An electroencephalograph isn't organic and therefore wouldn't create thoughts according to a physicalist. What I was trying to do with the diamond example is separate the process by which thoughts come to be, and thoughts themselves as 2 different entities. To be a physicalist you MUST argue that the process by which thoughts are created (electricity running through the brain) and the thoughts themselves that the consciousness (you) is experiencing are the same entity. I obviously don't agree. Also when I said "feel" the word diamond, I meant that I can like make myself see it written out inside my head, or make myself hear it, despite not hearing it in the physical world. So the distinction I was trying to make is that the process that creates the thought, and the thought itself, are 2 different things that exist, one which is physical and one which is mental, and one creates the other, because if they were the same then what I'd be feeling is the jolt of the electricity along with maybe the feel of my own braincells, but instead what I feel is the mental image and experience in my consciousness, of the word diamond written out in my mind. So it's clearly a different thing from the electricity and the brain. And I don't think that's circular logic. 3. I'm not sure I understood exactly what you were trying to say/ask about geometry, but if you're asking if geometry is a physical thing or not. Hmm, then I'd argue, I *think* that it is also not physical, geometry is just yet another concept, and it's not dependant on matter, at least not fully. And I'll go in a kind of roundabout and weird way to explain my reasoning. So imagine you have an empty universe with no matter at all, now imagine a stone cube comes into existence in this empty universe, does geometry exist in this universe? Obviously. Ok now imagine the same thing, but instead of a cube you place a consciousness, but this consciousness does not need physical matter to exist like a brain, it just exists on its own, if this consciousness can think of a stone cube and imagine it, does geometry exist in this empty universe with no matter? I'd say yes, now imagine you remove the consciousness, so it is just a completely empty universe, does geometry still exist? I'd say yes again, it exists conceptually, even if there is no mind around to think about it, or a physical object to prove its existence, because that's how it exists regardless, and physical manifestations of geometric concepts are just that, manifestations. The geometry itself is a non-physical concept that exists regardless of whether or not matter exists. Same as math, and same as any other concept. That's what I think anyway. Lastly, while writing this comment I thought of another example of a thing that exists but is not physical, countries. A country is yet again, a concept, and concepts are not physical, yet they still exist. Countries are an amalgamation of a bunch of both physical and non-physical things, that combine to form a country, a country isn't just the soil it has, or the buildings on it, or just the people that live in it, or the government that runs it, or its culture, it is all of those things combined, so a country is not physical yet it exists, we can agree that the United States of America exists right? Well can you touch the United States? No, you can touch the land that it represents, but you cannot touch the United States, the country itself. Can you see the United States? No, you can see the physical things in it that partly comprise it, like a beautiful valley, but you cannot see the country itself, you cannot see the whole. Is the United States made only out of fermions and bosons? No, culture isn't made out of fermions and bosons. So yeah, that's another example. Also thanks for liking my comment despite airing your reasonable disagreements with it.

@dany97061

Жыл бұрын

​@@VaasMontenegro12 1. Really, they are weird objects. I agree on what you say, that the accesibility doesn't really say much about their essence and origin. From Kant's perspective, they are a product of a priori senses or pure intuitions. In some sense, it means a product of both reality and human abstraction of space-time. Weird enough to be hard to grasp and harder to check for validity. 2. You say "if they were the same then what I'd be feeling is the jolt of the electricity", and I disagree with that for the following reason: to feel the electricity you must have nerves inside the brain. If we assume that both mind and brain states are the same, I don't know what would it be like, maybe a robot? In the end, this is a difficult topic and as I said, I agree with thinking that the mind is separated from physical states. With respect to the example, somehow it seems to me that assuming a concept and an "internal/cognitive sense" for it to prove conciousness as separated is logical circularity, but I don't know how to escape from it, even thinking on my arguments. It is like a car trying to prove its own existence. 3. I meant geometry as a procedure against physics as procedure. Since physics rely a lot on measuring and geometry is way more abstract. I don't know if concepts and so would exist without the physical universe. I think of conciousness as separated yet dependant of brain states, and viceversa. So I think if you remove matter (or physical reality) there would be no conciousness, but it doesn't mean conciousness is physical. If we separate them completely, there appears the problem of how are they conected and hows the nature of such conection. 4. The example you give of the concept country is great. I'd say it is as well as the statue an example of properties emergind out of different domains.

@VaasMontenegro12

Жыл бұрын

@@dany97061 1. They are indeed very strange objects. 2. So say I did have nerves inside my brain, then when I think about the word "diamond" and hear it inside my head, would I not simultaneously feel both the jolt of the electricity running through the brain cells and nerves, but also hear the word inside my mind? Thus proving that they are separate feelings, experiences, and therefore entities. It just happens to be the case that electricity running through my brain cells also happens to create the experience of hearing the word inside my consciousness, but if I also had nerves in my brain then I'd also feel the jolt of the process that creates the thought as well. But I don't have nerves inside my brain because then I think that'd be pretty evolutionarily uncomfortable if I had to feel a shocking sensation every time I think about something, which happens well, constantly lol. 3. Personally I do think concepts and so would exist without the physical universe. And I had to think about my reasoning behind this belief just now, and I think I've found an adequate argument for it. Basically, if we agree that concepts are not physical (but we as humans only understand a lot of them due to context in terms of physical things, like for example the concept of adding 1+1 is abstract and not physical, but we only understand it because there are physical units that exist that we can add up in real life to observe that concept in physical action, despite that) I do not think that context is enough of a justification to say that something physical creates something abstract and not physical merely by existing and giving context. It doesn't make sense to me to say that because planets exist, and planets have volumes, that creates the abstract concept of volumes. I think it makes much more sense to say that volumes already existed conceptually, and physical objects just bring those concepts into physical reality. It's kind of a chicken and egg situation, did the concepts come first, and they were later just manifested by physical entities? Or do physical entities give rise to concepts? Personally the former makes more sense to me. And yes I am also of the belief that if a tree falls in a forest but no life is around to hear it, it still makes a sound, there was just no one around to hear it. 4. Agreed

@VaasMontenegro12

Жыл бұрын

@@dany97061 New comment: I think I might've found proof that concepts came before physical manifestations of themselves, however that is only if you believe that concepts exist independently of conscious beings thinking about them. If you do think they exist independently then think about this. If there was a 2D universe with people living in it, would they be able to think about the concept of a cube? Despite no cubes physically existing in their reality? Well we who live in a 3D universe have thought about the concept what a hypercube in a 4D universe would be like, despite no hypercubes existing in our universe, so if you think that concepts exist independently of us thinking about them. Then since we can think about concepts that don't exist physically in our universe, then concepts that do exist physically in our universe must predate the existence of their physical manifestations.

When I think about physicalism I mostly use it to dismiss supernatural claims. And I see the idealism/physicalism debate to be mostly a matter of perspective like in William James' squirrel example

@xornxenophon3652

Жыл бұрын

Schroedingers cat has a companion? And it is a squirrel? Wow!

@uninspired3583

Жыл бұрын

I always like to ask myself if it seems like someone is emotionally motivated for their view, or if they are willing to follow the evidence and derrive their conclusions only from that. Religion often provides emotional motivation to latch on to a particular view. Unfortunately this is more psychology than philosophy, it's just something to be aware of while talking with people.

@pandawandas

Жыл бұрын

@@uninspired3583Do you think there might be emotional motivations for physicalism?

@uninspired3583

Жыл бұрын

@@pandawandas of course there could be. It's a bias I have to be aware of, and I actively look for ways to challenge it (I'm not strictly a physicalist, but close enough that your challenge applies) It's also the case that something can be emotionally motivated and also correct. The overall point of the comment though is less about the emotional motivation itself as an epistenic risk, but more about the leaning on the emotion over demonstrable evidence. We should be willing to be corrected in the face of new evidence. If the primary source is emotional motivation, people tend to dismiss new evidence, or find ways to justify the previous view. Religion tends not to recieve correction well.

@__Henry__

Жыл бұрын

Emotion, nor even ego, needn't be involved in resisting view correction in the face of winning evidence. Habit seems to be enough, thought also being an action.

The knowledge argument works against physicalism imo

Parsimony mainly.

If you are going to do a video on non-physicalist ontologies next i recommend Bernardo Kastrup. His books are short and his writing is very to the point and much more palatable than much continental writings. ''Why materialism is baloney'' a good intro but the big one is ''the idea of the world'' He also has unique readings of Schopenhauer and even the golden boy of ''Pantheists'' Spinoza Decoding Schopenhauers metaphysics is a great read if you, like me and everyone else has had trouble grasping what that old crank was saying : ) Here is a 'Elevator Pitch' from the man himself kzread.info/dash/bejne/dYJ1mJWEls6no6g.html

Would you call yourself a physicalist, Kane?

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

No.

How is it possible to have a consensus that physicalism is true if we cant even agree how to define it.

Did you just start the video by saying "whats up dog"

I've just become a neutral monist "Everything's somethin'!"

9:08 That's very naive, I'm sorry... Science does not decide only on the basis of observation, but also on explanatory power, and economy of basic assumptions. Idealism and solipsism do not have any explanatory power, or any well posed assumptions.

Idealism: 🥰

AGREEMENT IS NON-PHYSICAL;THOUGH I AGREE THAT IT REQUIRES GOD TO DEFINE WHAT AN AGREEMENT THEOLOGICALLY IS; DON'T WE ALL PHILOSOPHICALLY AND MATHEMATICALLY AGREE? IS THIS A PHILOSOPHER'S PUZZLE KAITO DIAMOND AND ROOK BANJO CROSSFIELD?

Physical things have been reduced to quantum fields. And what are fields, exactly?

@uninspired3583

Жыл бұрын

We don't know. Do you think it's reasonable to make an assertion to provide an answer in lieu of a knowledge gap?

@pandawandas

Жыл бұрын

@@uninspired3583 So are you advocating for metaphysical agnosticism?

@Tethloach1

Жыл бұрын

Scale: The very small and the very large. Distance: Division of and expansion of space. Limits: Boundaries and Infinity. Information: Smallest unit and Totality. Reality: Human limits and Actual limits. Is a person blind or is there no light? Is a person dense or is that all that can exist? Weather there is more to know or humans are dense cannot be known. Einstine: "Two things are infinite, stupidity and the universe"

@tylerhulsey982

Жыл бұрын

Fields are presumably still physical things in that physicists study them. Physical things = the things physicists study.

@itstandstoreason

Жыл бұрын

@@tylerhulsey982 That’s not the definition of physical. And you’re kinda begging the question. If fields aren’t physical, and instead made of “objective mental stuff” we couldn’t tell the difference. At best, you should be agnostic.

I'm a solipsistic physicalist =P I can't rule out solipsism, but in my solipism everything seems to behave in a physicalist way and seeing as I seemingly cannot bend reality to my mind, the only coherent way to order my mind and my experience is as though physicalism is true.

@rv706

Жыл бұрын

I used to think that starting from experience is the right way to give a metaphysical foundation. This would lead to soplipsism, or at least the possibility of solipsism. I don't have problems with solipsism. But what if solipsism is just the "manifest image" in the sense of van Fraassen, and reality is better described by a "scientific image" that is non-solipsistic? That's why now I don't believe direct experience is necessarily the best way to understand reality, even ontologically. In science, 'immediate' first person experience rarely is conducive to a solid understanding of reality, so why should it be in metaphysics? P.s. and by the way I'm for metaphysical deflationism so metaphysics isn't really reflecting how the world "Really Is" (that would be a vacuous question), just how it's convenient to talk about it.

@hian

Жыл бұрын

@@rv706 I don't think experience is the best way to give a "metaphysical foundation" either. Rather my point is that I don't believe a metaphysical foundation is possible in the first place and that it isn't even particularly interesting to pursue it. Whether I am a butterfly dreaming I'm a man, or a man dreaming I'm a butterfly, my present experience is the only thing directly available to me and so the only thing that matters are the apparent rules that reflect the order of said experience. I have no judgement on whether or not my experience is real or true in some way that transcends solipsism, nor do I find considering this philosophically or scientifically interesting. I could just be a guy in a mental health ward somewhere suffering from a delusion of typing out this comment to you, but short of having the means to cease being delusional at a whim, the fact of the matter is that I am for all intents and purposes forced to roll with the punches of my delusion as it appears. Let's for argument's sake assume I am delusional and currently just hallucinating - well, the fact of the matter is that my hallucination behaves consistently with physicalism, so I roll with that punch by behaving as though physicalism is true. That's all there is to it.

@rv706

Жыл бұрын

@@hian: Your general attitude seems somewhere between pragmatism and perhaps deflationism; so perhaps not distant from mine. So let's stick to how it's best to talk about reality (avoiding questions of how it Really Is). Under this attitude, though, I still think "solispsistic phisicalism" is not something that is available to us yet; not if we want it to blend well with science. Why? Because we don't have scientific laws for the events that happen in the solipsistic realm of experience. I hold a candle; now I move it close to my eyes and the universe is suddenly awashed with light. Well, we have no clean equations to describe that directly: it always makes more sense to pass through the emergent non-solipsistic description (how light interacts with human eyes). Also, intensity of light is not the only thing is produced in the solipsistic universe; there are also non-sense-related emotions (to the extent that such emotions exist) that are difficult to describe by language; well, we don't have equations (or any detailed scientific theory) for them. But there _could_ be a solipsism-friendly theory of phisics; we just don't have it.

@accelerationquanta5816

9 ай бұрын

The very existence of a "mind" at all disproves physicalism.

@hian

9 ай бұрын

@@rv706 "We don't have laws for events that happen in the solipsistic realm of experience" This is literally incoherent in relation to my point. If I am currently trapped in solipsism, we do ostensibly have that because my solipsistic experience ostensibly behaves like a world that's scientifically measurable. This has no bearing one way or the other on solipsism as a position. Solipsism merely means that your subjective experience could be the totality of reality. If your subjective experience behaves in a way that is analogous to a physical universe, then science is just as functional as a yard-stick internally in your solipsistic reality as it would be in an actual physical universe. There's no distinction. Conversely, whether or not scientific inquiry/methods are sound philosophically(problem of induction) applies whether we're positing an external physical universe or a solipsistic one. Your response here simply fails to intersect with the argument by positing a red herring.

There is no consensus in philisophy for physicalism.

Idk how it makes sense for you skeptic types to make any metaphysical claims including physicalism

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

(1) I am not a skeptic. (2) I am not a physicalist. So I really have no idea what point you're making.

@nkoppa5332

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB I must’ve been mistaken then, are you a pragmatist?

@Tethloach1

Жыл бұрын

Dogmatism is not exclusive to Theist. Anyone can be dogmatic. A well thought out honest answer is a good one. Reductionism ignores complex systems. A can you build a computer that can sufficiently generate itself? How can the brain fully comprehend the brain? The world is far too complex to grasp completely, uncertainty exist. Nothing and something might not be that different. The object and the shadow. A miracle was granted, we exist don't we? We don't know, we attempt to know.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

@@nkoppa5332 No. I'm a kind of epistemic voluntarist (basically: beliefs have no justification, but there is nothing irrational about believing without justification).

@dazedmaestro1223

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB, beliefs have no justification and there is nothing irrational about believing without justification? Wth bro. Both claims are false.

We don’t have direct evidence that natural phenomena are reducible in themselves to physical causes. We have evidence that when you cut them up and put them in a microscope, grow protein crystals and bombard them with X-rays, collide protons together in particle accelerators, etc etc and observe them with intrusive instruments they display behavior that’s explainable through our best current theories of physics, molecular dynamics, etc. Even in the case of fmris the best systems have a resolution of ~ 3 millimeters and measure relative concentrations of blood flow that can be correlated (at a very rough level) with mental activity (if you tried to measure past a certain resolution I’m sure this would disrupt mental function). Physicalism seems implicitly to rely on the assumption that we can exist as outside observers and measure at least in principle mental states being directly grounded in states of fundamental particles which may not be the case.

One challenge to the simplicity argument is that physicalism, ie science makes a lot of predictions. So the other competing theories need to reproduce all the correct predictions on top of postulating whatever their respective stance is. There might be other equally simplistic theories, but they don't make all the necessary predictions physicalism does, and they don't seem to offer any predictions of their own that physicalism can't produce.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

>> "physicalism, ie science" I just don't see any reason to accept this. I don't think science in itself entails any particular metaphysical theory.

@RyanApplegatePhD

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB Well sure, I am being charitable - I think most scientists would say science makes all the predictions needed to optimally navigate/understand the world and then apply occam's razor. So it's basically physicalism is science or metaphysical viewpoints are moot.

@liamcarter7597

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB I think that it is pragmatic to be pragmatic. And based on that premise, I believe you ought to consider things in a pragmatic way. I don’t think it is very practical to say that physics describes something other than the physical. I think that even if idealism or solipsism is real, that it is not pragmatic to hold either belief. Within the imagined universe of idealism, the laws of physics still apply to everything we observe, causality still remains in tact. It seems that it only serves to cause worry, justify beliefs in the supernatural, and to cause you to be ridiculed by others. It would be different if idealism offered some sort of agency over the imagined reality. But scientific evidence suggests that people cannot freely manifest reality to their will, and therefore should play the game as it’s meant to be played, rather than just be skeptical about it the whole time.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

@@liamcarter7597 I think pragmatism sucks, but anyway it seems to me that the pragmatic attitude would be just to suspend judgment about these sorts of metaphysical theories. You don't need to be a physicalist to do science. If the goal is pragmatism, you can just get on with the practical stuff and not worry about the metaphysics. Compare: artists and fashion designers don't need to worry about whether colour is a primary quality or secondary quality.

@liamcarter7597

Жыл бұрын

@@KaneB you have to be a physicalist to not be delusional. Physicalism is the antithesis of delusion. Any belief that is not backed by science is one and the same with delusion. Even if the belief is congruent with the nature of the universe, if there isn’t evidence for it, it should not be believed (pragmatically speaking). The best way to stay grounded and to interact with the world in a pragmatic way is to believe in physicalism. You claim pragmatism sucks, yet you incorporate it into almost ALL of your decision making. For instance you only study philosophy because you believe or believed at one point that it was pragmatic to do so. Perhaps you thought it could result in practical application such as making KZread content from the knowledge or simply because you found it pragmatic to be educated on the topics. I’m going to assume that your behavior generally falls in line with what society deems as normal behavior. How come you don’t go around attempting to lift up cars or to walk through walls when you’re late for work. Whether you like it or not, you only act on what’s pragmatic. You don’t assume solipsism and then go on a murdering spree since you know it’s all in your imagination. If you accepted solipsism you would still have to play the game, maybe suicide would be practical. Any intellectual should recognize the value of pragmatism. It’s why you wouldn’t sit outside waiting for your package from the moment you order it until the moment it arrives. Even if you didn’t have any responsibilities that would encroach on that time. It’s why most cars manufactured today are compact cars. It’s why most non-compact cars on the road are pickup trucks. Most people are too stupid to be self aware, and yet they are still influenced by what is pragmatic. I would assume you hold a high level of self awareness. Do you say pragmatism sucks because you’re upset that your behaviors are bound to it? You post philosophy videos to your KZread channel rather than explaining philosophical concepts to homeless people. The only reason you do that is because your brain takes pragmatism into account. You expressing disdain for pragmatism despite following it is like people claiming that they believe in Christianity and the existence of god, yet they don’t behave any more in line with the Bible than atheists. It is pragmatic for you to entertain various philosophical positions because of your context, but for the average layman, it is not pragmatic at all to believe in anything other than physicalism. It’s like how educators decide that the general population ought to understand gravity to some extent, but they teach complete falsehoods about it. Why? Because it’s pragmatic. When I explain the universe to my mom it’s much more pragmatic for me to explain determinism to her and leave out randomness from quantum events. Because while the randomness does technically break ‘determinism,’ it doesn’t break the principle of it, and it just adds more confusion to somebody that doesn’t already have a baseline knowledge of physics. Middle schoolers don’t know that gravity is a fictitious force that arises from being in an inertial reference frame and that the feeling of the force is due to worldlines being curved and such. They are taught gravity wrongly, because it’s easier to understand intuitively. It’s why we teach algebra before calculus. It’s why we wear clothes rather than forcing ourselves to be cold until we evolve fur. It’s why you brush your teeth rather than killing the plaque with a laser every time. All of our evidence for everything takes place in what we perceive to be the physical. To hold a fixed belief based on anything other than what the physical dictates, is to hold a delusional belief. We only have evidence that free will does not exist, and therefore any belief in the contrary is a delusion. It isn’t pragmatic to be delusional.

Not just in Philosophy, Physicalism is the dominant perspective among lay people.

@APaleDot

Жыл бұрын

Most people in the world are religious, meaning they believe in a supernatural non-physical entity called God.

@albertmozart6086

Жыл бұрын

Given that most people believe in souls, I would say no.

@accelerationquanta5816

9 ай бұрын

Wrong. Most people are religious and reject degenerate dead-end beliefs like atheism and physicalism.

Physical things don't have a taste, smell, feeling etc. It seems obvious to me that physicalism and idealism are both right in some respects and wrong in others. The physical universe exists and is causally closed. But it is nothing more than data. Information being stored on some sort of substrate. The world that we live in is not the physical world. It's a simulacrum that the brain creates to give us an idea of what the physical world would be like if it was like something. It does this because doing this helps the cells in the body to behave coherently and survive.

@teknoed171

Жыл бұрын

Wait i don’t understand, if the brain create a simulation of what the physical world is, then if someone with a sledgehammer was to hit me from behind withouth me knowing, I shouldn’t be hit since my brain dint create the simulation of the sledgehammer. Or better yet if i where to drop a new born baby from the rooftop, nothing should happen to the baby since the brain is not making the simulation as of yet. Seem to me that our body live in the physical world and our consciousness is just there to interpret the the physical world we live in.

@neildutoit5177

Жыл бұрын

​@@teknoed171 When I say we don't live in the physical world, I mean that nothing we experience is the physical world. I don't mean that the physical world doesn't influence our experiences. The same way that when you look at your computer screen now, what you're seeing is not the voltages being stored in your RAM chip or being processed by your CPU, it's a representation / simulation of those voltages. And the representation you're seeing is a completely different thing to those voltages even though it is based on them. But that doesn't mean that if I stick a magnet onto your CPU it isn't going to affect what you see on the screen. It will. However, you will not see the magnet or any representation of the magnet on your screen. You will only see the effects of what the magnet did, as your screen goes black. Have you watched the Sopranos? The final scene illustrates wonderfully what it's like to be hit on the back of the head with a sledgehammer. You don't experience it. The event just isn't a part of the world as you experience it. The effects of the event do impact your experience. Namely, they end it. But the event itself is not something you experience. As far as you're concerned you're just walking around and then you aren't. You will be hit by a sledgehammer in the physical world. But that won't be "like" anything to you. Physical events don't see/taste/feel like anything. And, as you say, your brain will never have the opportunity to create a simulation of what it thinks the impact would be like if it did feel like something. It'll be gone too soon. So you just won't experience it. Even for impacts where you aren't killed, you will very often hear people say how "I was just driving my car and next thing I knew I woke up in hospital". That's what it's "like" to go through an event that prevents your brain from simulating your reality. It isn't like anything. Now of course for somebody else observing the event there's nothing wrong with their brain so they'll make a simulation of what they are seeing and it will "feel" quite scary to watch. If multiple people see the event they will experience something similar. Because they're all making a simulation based on the same physical data. But it will be a bit different for each of them. Because it isn't the physical data they're experiencing, it's their brain's simulation of it. This is why two people can see the same thing happening and report it completely differently sometimes. The baby situation is difficult to discuss because people naturally feel empathy towards babies. But the fact is that babies probably don't experience much at all until around 1-2 years of age. I don't think that a newborn baby falling from a roof is going to experience pain or fright or anything really. "Seem to me that our body live in the physical world and our consciousness is just there to interpret the the physical world we live in." What's the difference between "interpret" and "simulate"? Our mind is giving things colour. We know this because some people are colour blind. Our mind is creating the feeling of movement. We know this because we can easily create an illusion of movement on a static image with visual illusions. Our mind is interpreting the physical world but it does so by giving it colour, sound, taste, feeling. Even the idea of differentiating atoms into different "objects". In the physical world there are just atoms. It's our brain that figures out, hey, that group of 10 trillion atoms over there, they all seem to be moving in a co-ordinated way, so instead of trying to keep track of all of them, I can make my life easier and just imagine that they're all actually just one thing. And that's why we see objects instead of just a mush of atoms everywhere. Everything you experience is based on the physical world but at the same time is nothing like it. The physical world is just data. mass, charge, frequency etc. Data isn't like anything and we don't experience it and what we do experience is nothing like it. We experience a multimedia simulation created by the brain to help us survive.

@dmitriy9053

Жыл бұрын

We experience different models of physical world, including models of our own thinking and attention patterns. So, what we experience and even our consciousness are all models of some parts of reality. It is completely consistent with physicalism. Qualia are just labels our brain uses to mark specific complex data patterns in more simple way.

Physicalism is the only conceivable philosophical stance for doing science, especially physics. Physicalism has led to all these amazing progress in sciences the last centuries. Idealism is stagnation, a vicious circle, while solipsism ( its most extreme version) is a conceptual dead end, both in philosophy and also in physics and applied sciences.

@dreyri2736

29 күн бұрын

Newton was an idealist. Ditto Einstein. All in all. I don't think physicalism or idealism has any effect on scientific "progress"

@dimitrispapadimitriou5622

29 күн бұрын

@@dreyri2736 Einstein an ... Idealist?? Of course not. In Newton 's era there wasn't " Idealism" anywhere in sight... i think you're confusing Newton's religious / mystical beliefs with idealism. Anyway, most physicists are Physicalists. Idealism is popular among (some) philosophers...

@dreyri2736

29 күн бұрын

​@@dimitrispapadimitriou5622 You are allowed to be wrong, it's ok. But if you genuinely think idealism was not a thing in Newton's time then you should at least know that you are wrong and that Berkeley wrote theory of vision in 1709 and treatise in 1710 Berkeley has also never been refuted.

@dimitrispapadimitriou5622

29 күн бұрын

@@dreyri2736 Once again: Newton was not , of course, " Idealist". Nor Einstein ( of course! ) Idealism is not "refutable". It has nothing to do with science.

@dreyri2736

29 күн бұрын

@@dimitrispapadimitriou5622 in either case, idealism as we now know it was a thing in Newton's time. Not sure why you think idealism has nothing to do with science. Maybe you actually agree with me and think that whether people believe in idealism or physicalism, it doesn't actually end up changing much as we are ultimately trying to describe the same thing. Do you think physicalism is refutable?

REASON AND INSTRUCTION IS ABSOLUTELY SPIRITUAL. (TRANSCENDENTAL)

Epiphenomenalism has always seemed right to me. I know my consciousness is real, a la Descartes; the existence of the physical world out there is the best explanation for what's in my consciousness; I can see that my brain causes consciousness; and I can't find any way to make sense of the idea the idea that consciousness causes physical events (this would be overdeterminism, we can see that physical brain events cause behaviour). This seems to me to leave epiphenomenalism to be right. I don't find this hard to stomach at all, I thought most of us had ditched libertarian free will yonks ago as scientifically nonsensical - same conclusion, right? I'm still fascinated by how come we evolved to be conscious, if it doesn't have a causal role. But I find it totally plausible that the nature of the task of controlling a social meat machine is such that consciousness and the illusion of free will is an elegant solution

@orangereplyer

Жыл бұрын

Part of the problem is that, if we have a zombie duplicate of you in some other world (a perfect physical copy of you who happens not to have consciousness, because of how the laws in *that* world work), all of his utterances will depend on the exact same features of yourself which they currently depend on. That is, when Zombie-Jon says "It is clear that the color red is a private, epiphenomenal experience", the causal history of that utterance will be identical to the causal history of *your* utterance, if you were to utter that. The utterances fly free from the epiphenomena in a way that leaves it unclear how the utterances could relate to the epiphenomena.

@jonstewart464

Жыл бұрын

@@orangereplyer I'm not convinced it's OK to postulate zombie-Jon and assume that's coherent. If the laws of nature in this other world are similar enough to allow the atoms of zombie-Jon to hang together in a form that looks and sounds like Jon, then my bet is that zombie-Jon is going to have to just be conscious-Jon. It's easier said than done to imagine a world where the laws of nature are different but still coherent!

@dmitriy9053

Жыл бұрын

@@orangereplyer Consciousness is a necessary model of our thinking and attention for us to be able to predict the outcomes involving our own decisions. Therefore the Zombie version would be different in behavior.

@dmitriy9053

Жыл бұрын

However it has causal role. Consciousness is just an unpresize model of our own thinking and attention. You can read about Attention schema theory. Our brain creates models to comprehend the world and predict the outcomes. Like how you can predict the behavior of other human by analysing what would you do in his/her shoes you need to be able to predict your own behavior. At first it probably developed to analyze others by imagining yourself in their shoes, so self-analyzis used as proxy in social species, then it became useful to predict your own behavior for future planning and self-correction.

@jonstewart464

Жыл бұрын

@@dmitriy9053 I don't like attention schema theory much. Graziano is totally upfront that what it explains is how you'd process information (e.g. in a computer) to create behaviour identical to that which a conscious thing would exhibit. It's a recipe for how to make a zombie, it isn't a theory of consciousness - that would have to explain qualia.

Physicalism is an...idea! Therefore, physicalism does not exist for a physicalist...

Have you read Bernardo Kastrup btw...he gives some really good arguments against physicalism...

@abelex8672

Жыл бұрын

@le rayon vert me too

@itstandstoreason

Жыл бұрын

Same.

@IapitusMcHeimer

Жыл бұрын

He convinced me to be an idealist

@uninspired3583

Жыл бұрын

Ive watched many hours of his discussions, and talked with some of his fans. I don't understand the appeal. As far as I can tell, he seems to be making claims about things we can't have robust evidence for. I have a lot of respect for him personally, I don't think he should be dismissed off hand. Would someone here be willing to try explaining it in a way that might help me understand better?

@pandawandas

Жыл бұрын

@@uninspired3583 "As far as I can tell, he seems to be making claims about things we can't have robust evidence for." nope, his only argument is that idealism is the best explanation from parsimony & empiricism. He doesn't claim that it's the absolute truth or that we have robust evidence for it, he only makes the former claim.

It’s called materialism

@forbidden-cyrillic-handle

Жыл бұрын

That is associated with tools like a hammer or a sickle. And killing sparrows. So no doubt people want to change the name even if it is the exact same thing.

@willroth7521

3 ай бұрын

@@forbidden-cyrillic-handlehuh?

Is belief physical?

Sound universe. Beneath sub atomic particles is just a base layers of frequencies. Which amplitudes of which signals coalesce bring rise the the forms of constructs further up the ladder. That is the way i perceive the physical universe

so numbers and laws of logic don't exist? ok, i see.. that which is subject to study by the science of physics is physical. profound. what about the laws of physics? do they exist? this is possibly the least impressive philosophy i've seen since solipsism.

@KaneB

Жыл бұрын

Different physicalists take different views on this. For example, Quine held that we are committed to the existence of whatever is indispensable to our best physical theories; mathematical entities are indispensable to our best physical theories; so we are committed to the existence of mathematical entities. There are plenty of physicalists who hold that kind of view. But this does pose a prima facie challenge to the casual closure argument for physicalism.

@dmitriy9053

Жыл бұрын

Numbers are descriptions of things, similar to colour or form. Laws of physics are descriptions of consistent patterns in reality. Laws of logic are the rules in our language that we must use to get from a true premise to a true conclusion. So, they physically don't exist, they are all descriptions. The things they describe do exist or are the descriptions of other real things.

Imagine ONLY using LEGO BLOCKS ... to create a functional working (machine/tool/device) to (understand/detect/measure) a grain of sand or smaller... I think science has a long way to go until we answer questions; I guess that's why we do science! Yet we still use fire for energy. Gravity still sucks! Light is a mystery. Life is unique! Math is just patterns and time is ultimately the greatest force of all!

@mavrospanayiotis

Жыл бұрын

I think science is more pronte to obtain results, so what doesn't obtains the expected results is discarded until it can be used for a new goal. So we build scientifically our description of reality based on our goals, buy we don't have really control over them... or to say it better, people capable of financing science can push in their goals and vision of the world.

I'm beginning to think there's no problem with physicalism, but there are many problems with philosophy.

@davib.franco7857

5 ай бұрын

so stupid

Noted philosopher Bill Clinton gave the proper answer to all such views: It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

Physicalism is an incoherent idea, so it seems rather difficult to believe in it.

Physicalism destroys the possibly of knowledge. “The metaphysical view that all is physical” Beliefs, logic, math, meaning, information, none of which are identical to matter.

@MadebyJimbob

Жыл бұрын

@@kenandzafic3948 not true. If physicalism is true, knowledge isn’t possible. Physicalism would reduce propositions, thoughts, and conclusions to predetermined mechanistic outcomes of a law based system. Physicalism can’t account for mind. Knowledge is a metaphysical category. Mechanisms don’t produce knowledge. Mechanisms just do

@MadebyJimbob

Жыл бұрын

@@kenandzafic3948 they are incompatible, any conclusion one comes to couldn’t be known because it would be predetermined. You’re just not understanding the consequence. Again, jump on stream today and debate it. No, if determinism is true, then you couldn’t distinguish stochastic assessments. If determinism isn’t true, it doesn’t follow that everything is random, we still have law and regularity in nature. This doesnt mean we can exert will and influence outcomes

0:10 "Currently physicalism is the consensus amoung philosophers" This is why Academic Philosophy is dead. The majority of philosophers *think* physicalism is true. They use that very thing which gives man the concept "non-physical" (his mind/consciousness) to argue that all things, including their non-physical mind, is physical, thus contradicting themselves. Note the minority of philosophers consensus is reality isn't even real, so maybe time to retire academic philosophy.

@tleevz1

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely correct. Physicalism is an embarrassment and persists due to a desire to fit in with those controlling the field academically - in other words, intellectual cowardice.

@anteodedi8937

Жыл бұрын

Lmao, I am sure you are a better philosopher.

@anteodedi8937

Жыл бұрын

@@tleevz1 Lmao, says the comment section philosopher!

@tleevz1

Жыл бұрын

@@anteodedi8937 I am better, at least in one way, I haven't made such a fundamental error in the foundation of how we understand reality. And please explain why my conflation of those two applications of the term 'idealism' is in error or how it takes away from the point.

@tleevz1

Жыл бұрын

@@anteodedi8937 Truth is found in lots of places. Your imagination needs some air friend.

anything that's either convincingly argued or demonstrated to be systematic gets absorbed into physicalism. the reason it's successful is thus exactly the same reason science is successful. because it's just the name for everything that works, making it a tautology. you falsely brand science as some grand endeavor to discover how the world works. but that's complete nonsense. science is an industry of publishing philosophy. it's a religion with a dogma and a ceremonial cult just like any other. and the reason it grows more and more successful is because it violently absorbs into itself any claims, notions, ideas, whatever that are most popular at the time. you can easily see this in the way it took on certain aspects of traditional cultures around the world in the wake of colonialism. you can see it in the way that philosophy at large has been reduced to talking about bullshit that hasn't gone anywhere in thousands of years because as a consequence of being wrong it just fundamentally can't. you can see it in how Alan Turing's philosophical musings over automation became Computer Science. etc. you can also see it in the Piltdown Man hoax, with Piltdown being widely accepted for several generations simply because it fit expectations. and notably the chemical dating technique used to confirm Piltdown was a hoax was invented decades before Piltdown was first presented, and several of the first scientists to ever see Piltdown immediately spotted it as a hoax. but that was inconvenient to the desired narrative, so Piltdown was gathered up and held jealously, deliberately kept from being examined, and real human ancestors like Australopithecus were derided as just being chimpanzee skulls, because science did not want Africa to be the homeland of humanity. there's also the case of the snow leopard, which was well documented before it was hypothesized that the material the hyoid is composed of dictates whether a cat roars or purrs. the significance of this being that snow leopards violate the trend, illustrating that the hypothesis is nonsense. regardless, the hypothesis was maintained for about 80 years, at which point it was upgraded to scientific theory by the world's top expert in... wait for it... motherfucking snow leopards. and him being who he was, this theory was maintained for another 80 years before someone finally published a scientific paper in the early 2000s calling bullshit on this whole thing. these, and many more, clearly demonstrate that science and physicalism are not successful because they're the best way to do things. instead they show that science is built upon conspiracies, lies, misunderstandings, expectations and saving face. they are maintained via violent selfishness and solipsistic disregard for anyone who does not constantly pledge their allegiance to the cult. in short, most of what you said is simply nonsense.

@sumdumbmick

Жыл бұрын

note that the Wikipedia article about Flourine Absorption Dating mocks Piltdown, but fails to note when the dating technique was invented... that's because it was invented in the mid-1800s, and noting that would reveal the depth of the conspiracy involved in Piltdown's fame. ironically, the difficulty in finding any reference to the date of invention of Flourine Absorption Dating online also reveals the depth of the conspiracy, and that it's ongoing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorine_absorption_dating would a truly successful tradition need to rely on multi-generational maintenance of conspiracies like this just to save face and appear successful? I don't think so, but you're free to disagree.

@sumdumbmick

Жыл бұрын

it's also worth considering the fact that historic attempts to eradicate belief in various supernatural things were typically conducted by people with belief in various other supernatural things, and what they did was destroy sites, totems, icons, and in many cases, committed genocide. does this not reveal an expectation on the part of people who wouldn't qualify as physicalists that there is not only a deep connection between the physical and the supernatural, but that that connection is in fact so deep that the supernatural can be destroyed by proxy via the destruction of the physical ties? this is part of what I mean when I say that physicalism is just a tautology. it's not really anything. so espousing physicalism is really just admitting that you're a moron who doesn't understand anything.

@NoReprensentationWithoutTax

Ай бұрын

Doesnt science differ from religion or cult by the fact that its empirically tested hypothesis ? You gave fun examples but arent they exceptions ?