Undermining Physicalism

[Merkabah]

 

17 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

If you actually act on the belief that distinctions don't exist you would stop speaking  or writing , to do so would be meaningless 

That's exactly why we CANNOT live and function while embodying the TRUTH.............! You'd be dead.

[commie]

13 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

Is there a difference between an object and a thought ? 

 what is the mind? 

Sure, there's a difference. Otherwise we'd call them the same thing, right? A chair is an object for instance. You can think about a chair, about chairs in general or about what makes a chair a chair but a chair is not a thought as such.

I already told you what the mind was, didn't I? Perhaps you meant to ask about minds. In the physicalist framework, a mind is a dissipative structure in the thermodynamical sense which has the peculiar property that it constructs an internal model of the world it keeps updating as it interacts with it.

Edited July 29, 2020 by commie

[Nak Khid]

Quote

commie 

 objects are mental

.

Quote

Nak Khid

Is there a difference between an object and a thought ? 

.

Quote

commie 

Sure, there's a difference. Otherwise we'd call them the same thing, right? A chair is an object for instance. You can think about a chair, about chairs in general or about what makes a chair a chair but a chair is not a thought as such.

If a chair is mental why is it not a thought ?   

[Nak Khid]

Interestingly Physicalism is nondual 

 

• Dualism - there is a body and soul 
  the essence of the body is the soul 
   
• Physicalism - there is only a body (nondual))
   
• Idealism -there is only mind  (nondual)
   

   Panpsychism
  In philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.
  It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe." It holds that mentality is present in all natural bodies that have unified and persisting organization, which most proponents define in a way that excludes objects such as rocks, trees, and human artifacts.

  Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales,Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, William James, Alfred North Whitehead,and Galen Strawson.  During the nineteenth century, panpsychism was the default theory in philosophy of mind, but it saw a decline in the mid-20th century with the rise of logical positivism. The recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness has revived interest in panpsychism

  
  
  So both the idea that consciousness is all that exists and that the physical (materialist) is the only thing that exist are nondualism
  The most detail on this is in the third video 

 

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_physicalism.html

Physicalism 

Physicalism (also known as Materialistic Monism ) is the philosophical position that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties, and that the only existing substance is physical. Therefore, it argues, the mind is a purely physical construct, and will eventually be explained entirely by physical theory, as it continues to evolve. With the huge strides in science in the 20th Century (especially in atomic theory, evolution, neuroscience and computer technology), Physicalism of various types (see below) has become the dominant doctrine in the Mind/Body argument (see the section on Philosophy of Mind).

The term "physicalism" was first coined by the Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath (1882 - 1945) in the early 20th Century. In some ways, the term "physicalism" is a preferable one to the closely related concept of Materialism because it has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more sophisticated notions of physicality than just matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles. Physicalism can also be considered a variety of Naturalism (the belief that nature is all that exists, and that all things supernatural therefore do not exist).

An important concept within Physicalism is that of supervenience, which is the idea that higher levels of existence are dependent on lower levels, such that there can only be a change in the higher level if there is also a change in the lower level (the higher level is said to supervene on the lower level).

Types of Physicalism

There are two main categories of Physicalism,
Reductive and Non-Reductive:

 

Reductive Physicalism,  asserts that all mental states and properties can be, or will eventually be, explained by scientific accounts of physiological processes and states, has been the most popular form during the 20th Century.
There are four main types:

Behaviourism, which holds that mental states are just descriptions of observable behavior and that such behaviors can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind.

Type Identity Theory (also known as Type Physicalism), which holds that various kinds of mental states are identical to certain kinds, or types, of physical states of the brain.

Token Identity Theory, which holds that particular instances of mental states are identical to particular instances of physical states of the brain.

Functionalism, which holds that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role (the causal relations of mental states to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs), and can be characterized in terms of non-mental functional properties. It further asserts that mental states are multiply realizable, meaning that they can be sufficiently explained without taking into account the underlying physical medium (e.g. the brain, neurons, etc.) so that they can be realized in multiple ways, including, theoretically at least, within non-biological systems such as computers.

________________________________________________________

Non-Reductive Physicalism, which argues that, although the brain is all there is to the mind, the predicates and vocabulary used in mental descriptions and explanations cannot be reduced to the language and lower-level explanations of physical science. Thus, mental states supervene (depend) on physical states, and there can be no change in the mental without some change in the physical, but they are not reducible to them.
There are three main types:

Anomalous Monism, which states that mental events are identical with physical events, but that the mental is anomalous i.e. these mental events are perfectly real, and identical with (some) physical matter, but not regulated by strict physical laws. Therefore, all mental things are physical, but not all physical things are necessarily mental. This doctrine was first proposed by Donald Davidson in the 1970s.

Emergentism, which involves a layered view of nature, with the layers arranged in terms of increasing complexity, each corresponding to its own special science.

Eliminativism (or Eliminative Materialism), which holds that people's common-sense understanding of the mind ("folk psychology") is hopelessly flawed, and will eventually be replaced (eliminated) by an alternative, usually taken to be neuroscience.

 

 

[commie]

7 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

If a chair is mental why is it not a thought ?   

Because we have different words for different types of mental phenomena. I have already illustrated the distinction. If you called all mental phenomena thoughts, you would be likely to be misunderstood. You would also lose some of the nuance that the English language affords us. But there is no law against it of course...

[Member]

4 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

Interestingly Physicalism is nondual

• Dualism - there is a body and soul 
  the essence of the body is the soul 
   
• Physicalism - there is only a body (nondual))
   
• Idealism -there is only mind  (nondual)

Mind, body, life force/energy are ONE and the same thing as they work as a whole. Furthermore, the Universe, the mind ruling time and future are ONE. There's no difference between your body/mind and the world around you. Dualism is when you say that the Universe or reality is a place where you are living, or the body is just a vessel where the soul lives temporary and will separate at the moment of your death. Physicalism is NOT nondual because it holds the idea that we're living in a temporary Universe and at the moment of our death, the mind will separate from the physical reality or will shut down which is nonsense.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Member

[Gesundheit]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

There is no difference between bouncing and not-bouncing.

The difference is that bouncing is not not-bouncing. And not-bouncing is not bouncing. It's so simple.

If there was actually no difference between the two there wouldn't have been two different ways of expressing the two phenomenons.

For something to be a certain way, it has to not be any other way. Otherwise it can't be.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Gesundheit

[Gesundheit]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Can you see that YOU are the only one imposing that criterion?

All criteria for difference or similarity are relative and arbitrary!

No. The physical world is absolute.

All ideas of relativity and arbitrariness are relative and arbitrary. They are imaginary. The physical world is not imaginary. It exists and is directly experienced.

If anything, there is a hierarchy. The physical world comes first. And then after that comes philosophy and all that.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Gesundheit

[Leo Gura]

@Gesundheit Quiet! You are not awake.

[Gesundheit]

@Leo Gura Check it:

On 21/08/2019 at 10:10 AM, Leo Gura said:

Just be careful not to confuse the thought of a chair for a chair.

[Display_Name]

33 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

@Leo Gura Check it:

That quote still works. The chair without thought, in this case, being nothing.

[Gesundheit]

14 minutes ago, Display_Name said:

That quote still works. The chair without thought, in this case, being nothing.

'Nothing' is a thought. The chair is not a thought. It is actual.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Gesundheit

[Display_Name]

4 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

'Nothing' is a thought.

Your thought about it? Sure.

7 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

The chair is not a thought. It is actual.

Semantics. Describe the chair to me, there will be nothing but concepts.

[Gesundheit]

@Display_Name

??‍♂️

 

[Gesundheit]

13 hours ago, Merkabah said:

That's exactly why we CANNOT live and function while embodying the TRUTH.............! You'd be dead.

You think it is the truth, but it's merely concepts.

[Nak Khid]

Quote

commie

 objects are mental

.

Quote

commie

Is there a difference between an object and a thought ? 

.

Quote

commie

Sure, there's a difference. Otherwise we'd call them the same thing, right? A chair is an object for instance. You can think about a chair, about chairs in general or about what makes a chair a chair but a chair is not a thought as such.

Most people do not think a chair is mental.  They think a chair is physical and thoughts  are mental.  This is why most people say there's a differce between a thought and an object. 

People who say that might be wrong or right

but you say  objects are mental

So then if I ask you "Is there a difference between an object and a thought ? "
and you say "Sure, there's a difference. Otherwise we'd call them the same thing, right? "

and acts like that is an obvious explanation. It's only obvious to what most people believe that objects are physical not mental. 

So you have not explained why you think a chair is not a thought only that people have different words 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nak Khid]

On 7/30/2020 at 4:41 AM, Member said:

 Physicalism is NOT nondual because it holds the idea that we're living in a temporary Universe and at the moment of our death, the mind will separate from the physical reality or will shut down which is nonsense.

No that is incorrect.   Physicalism is nondual. 
 It holds that everything is physical. There is no separate mind to separate 

please go back and study,   Physicalism is a form of monsim 
monism is synonymous with nondualism

Dualism holds that the soul and the body are two distinct things 

things "shutting down" or ending is not a trait of nondualism 

In fact in Zen Buddhism the idea that  everything is impermanent is one of their most fundamental teachings
and nonduality is most often associated with Zen Buddhism  

This is not to say Buddhism is Physicalism

but it is to say Buddhism is Physicalism are both nondual  in different ways 

In the Western tradition the other form of nondualism is that instead of all being physical
all is mental,  that is called monism and  Idealism

"Idealism" in philosophy has a specific meaning that is more detailed than just the common use of the word 

Physicalism is nondual.    It is just nondual in a way you don't like 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jacobsrw]

On 30/07/2020 at 5:56 AM, TDW1995 said:

Recently, I have realized that I consider sight as the most primary of all the five senses. Without sight, I feel like I wouldn't be able to name "things" within reality. For example, when I close my eyes I can feel my "body", but does what I call the "body" exist while my eyes are closed? If not, then I rely on sight to attach names to "objects" within reality. And, when I think of the "body", an image comes to mind, not a feeling, hearing, smelling, or tasting sensation.

Consider that sight is the most deceptive modality in your human experience, as it is the most saturating to the mind. The mind is easily persuaded by what it perceives since it interprets through image and links it to concept. Begin inquiring into distinction and start to see they are completely arbitrary. All perceptions singular and only become divided once they are associated to a given concept.

A good practice to break down the dogma of physicality is to observe an object un-movingly for an extended period of time while minimising your blinking. I call this “concentration stillness”. In which, you observe to a point you get lost in the perception and can no longer catergoise it. Your perception becomes fluid and un-stratified. The mind becomes suspended since it requires constant change in order to function and while you stare your static perception it begins to appear very different to you. Very rarely do we observe something for an extended period of time. I invite you to experiment with this.

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[Carl-Richard]

On 30.7.2020 at 11:52 AM, Gesundheit said:

All ideas of relativity and arbitrariness are relative and arbitrary.

That is a redundant statement. It's like saying all squares are squares. You don't understand the "absoluteness" of relativity

Edited August 2, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Gesundheit]

@Carl-Richard