Perhaps the idea of a mentalistic explanation requires some explanation. A moment ago I went out to get the mail. I believed that getting the mail would be a good thing, I know where the mailbox is, and so I fulfilled my intention to go out to the mailbox and get the mail. My actions had a purpose which I fulfilled. My feet moved, due to signals sent from my brain, but the ultimate reason why the atoms in my brain did what they did is that because they were directed by something possessing a purpose. Or, perhaps the atoms themselves had an inherent purpose. Something desired by some entity brought it about that the atoms moved the way they did.
But these types of explanations are
typically excluded from basic physics. In fact, not only purpose, but
intentionality or about-ness, normativity, and first-person perspective are
also excluded. The four fundamental forces
postulated by physics, gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak
nuclear forces, are blind forces, which do not act for reasons. If gravity
operates on boulders falling in an avalanche, they will neither avoid my head
to spare my life nor strike me to punish my wickedness. No, the gravitational force has no mental life,
and genuinely physical particles have no mental life either. But what happens
at the mindless level of basic physics, according to materialism, determines what
goes on at all levels. It is true that physical events sometimes produce
results that an intentional agent would choose, indeed that is how natural selection
works. But in the final analysis, if materialism is true, it looks as if the
idea of intentions or purposes or desires or motives producing actions is bound
to be an illusion.
51 comments:
An analogous argument could be formulated about a fridge and how it keeps food cold. In the final analysis it's the molecular interactions described by the kinetic theory of gases and liquids that do the job. The idea that intermediate, internal parts of the fridge like motor, compressor, expansion valve, tubing, etc, in combination produce cooling is an illusion. But this is obviously wrong. These components do play a role. And likewise intentions, purposes, and so on.
OP,
"Perhaps the idea of a mentalistic explanation requires some explanation."
Indeed, yet no explanation has been provided in this post, or to any significant extent anyplace else I have yet encountered.
What is the "mental"? Nobody I have yet read provides even the most rudimentary description of it.
Where is the "mental"?
What is the "mental" made of?
What is the structure of the "mental"?
Have you ever seen it under a microscope?
Have you ever weighed it?
Have you ever observed this supposedly fundamental stuff of the cosmos out side the human brain?
What equations describe the actions of the "mental"?
How are memories stored in the "mental"?
How is logic processed in the "mental"?
How does the "mental" interact with the physical?
Surely the "mental" must be easily detected with material instruments, on the notion that the "mental" interacts with the physical so strongly, why then don't we detect the "mental"?
And most especially, how is the "mental" conscious?
How does invisible, undetectable, undescribed, stuff somehow manifest consciousness?
The "mental" solves nothing, since even the speculation of the "mental" brings us not one micrometer closer to explaining how consciousness is manifested.
No, Victor, you made a good observation at the outset, but then you completely failed to even begin to address the very point you made to begin with.
Yet everyone understands the idea of intentions or purposes or desires or motives producing actions.
What a conundrum for the materialists who don't possess any tools to study these things.
Further to my earlier comment, let me try to highlight where I think Victor's argument goes wrong. He says, But what happens at the mindless level of basic physics, according to materialism, determines what goes on at all levels. While this is true, it would seem to warrant a completely 'bottom-up' account. But this is not possible. In my fridge example, the cooling effect depends critically on the coolant fluid being constrained to a fixed finite volume by metal pipework. Looking at any microscopic section of the pipe-fluid interface we can find good molecular level explanations why the coolant cannot penetrate the metalwork. But we also need the closedness of the pipework system, and this is a macroscopic top-level fact. One might go as far as saying that this macroscopic state of affairs has a 'top-down' causal effect within the fridge system.
Victor seems to feel that mentalistic explanation rests on the existence of a fifth fundamental force which physics eschews. But that need not be the case. There can be objects at intermediate scales which have a top-down influence on what the molecules do.
"There can be objects at intermediate scales which have a top-down influence on what the molecules do."
You are just imagining such objects. What are such objects if not collections of particles and fields?
"Victor seems to feel that mentalistic explanation rests on the existence of a fifth fundamental force which physics eschews."
Victor didn't say that because Victor didn't say anything about what the supposed "mental" is.
Victor began with a reasonable observation "the idea of a mentalistic explanation requires some explanation"
Then he dropped the ball entirely, not providing any explanation at all. "Mentalists" never do. They just utter the vague and pointless term "the mental" and then proceed to not explain it at all.
There can be objects at intermediate scales which have a top-down influence on what the molecules do.
In the case of the refrigerator, it was the designer that arranged the final form of the objects to function that way. Or the "intentions or purposes or desires or motives producing actions"
SDP, you say You are just imagining such objects. I reply, Not at all. I gave an example of one. The 'mental' is not a vague and pointless term. It covers a large bunch of inter-related concepts we ordinarily use in explaining our behaviour. You used it yourself when you said, You are just imagining such objects.
BM, I think Victor is offering an implied anti-materialistic argument. He concludes, (1)...if materialism is true, [it looks as if] the idea of intentions or purposes or desires or motives producing actions is bound to be an illusion. If we then append the premise, (2) But the idea of intentions, etc, producing actions is not illusory, as all I think would agree, then we must conclude that materialism is false. I am doing my usual thing of trying to poke holes in anti-materialistic arguments. I think Victor's conclusion (1) is wrong because he wrongly thinks that mentalistic causation has to 'get in at the ground floor', as it were, just like the fundamental physical forces. He has made a number of posts taking this line.
"You used it yourself when you said, You are just imagining such objects."
No I didn't.
There is such thing as "the mental" in imagining. Imagining is a process of material. I can explain that material and I can explain the processes of that material that manifests as imagining.
I can tell you where that material is, what that material is made of, where that material is not, and what will end the imagining process.
"The mental" is just a vague and pointless utterance that cannot be explained at all.
Victor set out provide an explanation but provided no explanation at all.
"he wrongly thinks that mentalistic causation"
Victor, like all "mentalists" have not explained mentalistic causation at all.
I can explain materialistic causation in very great detail.
What are the equations of mentalistic causation?
What are the causal relationships between mentalistic entities?
What structures change arrangement, and how, and where, and in what way do these structures change during mentalistic causation?
Crickets.
Not a word. No explanation of any kind. Zero.
"mentalistic causation" is just a pointless and vacuous term with absolutely no associated explanations.
David,
If Victor is wrong to think mental causation must "get in at the ground floor" but still think that there is such a thing as mental causation, then how would you explain how mental intentions cause material actions?
Hi BM. I guess in the end I have to say that these mental entities are the appearances to us of certain salient physical aspects of the brain which can physically cause bodily actions through neural activity. The appearances take the form of soundless hearings of sentences, if that makes sense. I have no idea how appearances in general are possible, but it seems to me that consciousness is a matter of 'being appeared to'. Just as we find causation among the exterior objects that appear to us, so we can find causation in the interior objects that present appearances, and between the two.
David,
I guess in the end I have to say that these mental entities are the appearances to us of certain salient physical aspects of the brain which can physically cause bodily actions through neural activity.
Thanks for explaining your viewpoint.
The first thing I thought about it was that this was how I might go about explaining to myself what an alien or robot I had encountered and started a discussion with me was doing. But then again I thought what is this "us" that these "appearances" appear to? I believe there is actually a "me" (in the first person) that wills these activities rather than just having activities happen that then cause appearances to "who knows what". It's going to be a hard sell to try to convince me that I'm not responsible for the things I do but rather certain salient physical aspects. Good or bad.
Sure. I certainly agree that we are individually responsible for the things we do rather than parts of ourselves. Taking a leaf out of Hal's Wittgensteinian book, to suggest the latter is 'ungrammatical'. My elbow isn't responsible for knocking the glass off the table even when I knock the glass off the table with my elbow. But the language of responsibility isn't the language of physical causation.
What is the difference here between causation and explanation?
Mind dependence, for one thing. We usually think of causation as operating mind independently in the world. Explanation is an aspect of our intellectual grasp of the world.
But the language of responsibility isn't the language of physical causation.
But I thought you said that it was "you" that physically knocked the glass off the table. So you were responsible for that physical causation, no?
And BTW, I disagree that we "usually" think of causation as operating mind independently. We only think that when there is nothing with a mind involved. Legal systems would make no sense otherwise.
OP'
"the ultimate reason why the atoms in my brain did what they did is that because they were directed by something possessing a purpose."
Purpose is just the atoms in your brain.
I can program a robot with purpose.
A purpose is just a internal representation of a projected future state. Computations are then made based on the delta between the present stat and the projected future state. Then those actions are executed mechanistically.
Negative feedback loops are built into the mechanism to make adjustments along the way.
Purpose reduces to the atoms in your brain.
I can program a robot with purpose.
Purpose reduces to the atoms in your brain
Programs and purpose can't be reduced to atoms in motion. You know that so why not do yourself a favor and stop lying?
I can't help but LOL at the irony when an atheist rejects final causality and purpose when discussing Aristotle and the argument for God, because "physics" proves it's all nonsense, and then they turn around and tell us stories of final causality and purpose in atoms in motion called robots.
I was responsible for the glass flying off the table, Yes. Was I responsible for the causation? That sounds like God's department.
There is overlap, Yes. I can be said to be both the cause of an event and responsible for it. But we would not speak of responsibility in inanimate causation, and to speak of animals being responsible is deliberate anthropomorphism (though I believe there have been documented cases of animals being put on trial in medieval times). But we can also be responsible without cause. If I fail to maintain my car, a critical part fails through wear and tear, and an accident occurs, then I have responsibility for but I did not cause the accident. That was down to physics.
Yes, the Uncaused Cause would be the ultimate cause of everything, but it looks like we are in agreement that human mental intention can be a proximate cause of physical events. Either through commission or omission.
But as the OP points out, and as you too have indicated, the 4 forces attributed to nature by physics do not include mental intentions. Victor seems to think it would be inconsistent for a materialist then to accept mental intentions then as real causes producing motion of material objects. Is he correct?
David,
You said, "We usually think of causation as operating mind independently in the world. Explanation is an aspect of our intellectual grasp of the world." I am pretty sure I grasp well your intended meaning, but your remark is interesting because of the further thoughts it provokes. For instance, your phrase "causation ... operating mind independently" could be mis-taken as indicating/asserting that no mind (or consciousness) actually causes, but that would be to work epiphenomenalism (for one thing) and possibly a necessary and unlimited reductionism into the concept referred to as causation or cause rather than bothering to establish the entailment of that reductionism as well as epiphenomenalism. Of course, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to eliminate mind-dependence from discussion simply because of the nature of expression - especially when language is the mode of expression. Even so, we do have at our disposal what I will call semantic reduction as a means by which we can seek to express in this case the concept of cause in a manner which reduces as much as possible mind-dependent expression.
We can note that a cause is not something which has any actuality outside of the workings of a mind inasmuch as a cause is not actual as a mind-independent thing in the way that an electron (presumably) is. Whatever else we might say about any mind-independent occurrence which we designate as cause, it is apparent that cause indicates a to-some-broad-extent context of non-stasis. In that case, when Hermann Weyl says, "The objective world is, it does not happen", and when Einstein says, "For those of us who are convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future has no other meaning than that of an illusion", they are describing a static context, a context without non-stasis; hence, they are putting forth a context in which there is no causation (or it is a context in which causes are illusions). This is to say that a block space-time universe context is an actuality without causes and causation; that universe context is also an explanation without causation. Does that mean explanation is at some times in some ways superior to non-explanatory causation?
To be continued ...
Continuing ...
The next steps in the reduction would to assert a non-illusory causation in disregard or denial of the Weyl and Einstein expressed perspectives and then attempt to put forth a more mind-independent manner of expressing causation. We can imagine a universe prior to the appearance of any minds/consciousness, and we assume for the sake of argument that there is not God with mind or any sort of consciousness. In this imagining, there are physical things in a context of non-stasis which is to say that one context gives way to another, one context follows after and from another context howsoever each context is described. The very idea that a subsequent context differs from the immediately previous context might well be taken as suggesting a starker contrast than is intended, because the different - the sequential - contexts would also be in a continuum despite the differences. We see a continuity despite differences because there is regularity in the way that sufficiently similar contexts are replaced (overwritten) by other contexts; it is also as if there is a momentum which persists through and beyond one context following from another.
Is there necessarily more to causation than regularity in how one context can follow from another? Well, that regularity certainly depends on there being some extent of similarity between one particular context transformation and some other context transformations (whether previous or subsequent). In addition, similarity-dependent regularity indicates limitations for what context can possibly follow from another. However, while limitations (and similarity) would seem necessary for regularity, the fact of limitation is not in itself sufficient for the assertion that one context necessarily entails the context which follows (with this point becoming relevant when minds/consciousness come to the contextual fore inasmuch as it is arguable that there is no mind/consciousness if that mind/consciousness is utterly pre-determined by the broader context). That is to say that limitations per se do not necessarily eliminate all possibilities. Does the notion of causation necessarily require utterly ubiquitous determinateness at the macro-level? It is not immediately apparent that utterly ubiquitous macro-determinateness is necessary for causation. Indeed, the scientific notion of controlling for variables seems more in line with - seems sufficiently provided for by - a necessary similarity-dependent regularity rather than a demand for utterly ubiquitous determinateness devoid of any and all macro-indeterminateness. One point here is that the notion of mind-independent causation hardly seems necessary, and explanation suits our purposes.
Victor says, ...but the ultimate reason why the atoms in my brain did what they did is that because they were directed by something possessing a purpose. The way this is put---'the atoms are directed'---does suggest that Victor thinks that this something has to be a fundamental force of some sort. My response was to point out that atoms can be 'directed' by complexes of other atoms interacting through the electromagnetic force. So, firstly, 'mental force', as it were, does not have to be physically fundamental. Secondly, I am suggesting that mental phenomena like intentions, beliefs, etc, have the status of appearances. Our access to them seems to be through language alone, and my sense that I have an intention to X is that I soundlessly hear the sentence 'I intend to X', or 'Lets X'. Why does this happen? Only because some physical structure of which the intention is the appearance is being expressed in just that sentence. I think our 'mental lives' are largely a hearing of inner voices. So 'behind' the mental entity, the intention, is some correlative physical entity that can have real effects in the body and hence the external world. Now, it won't have escaped your notice that I have merely swept the problem into the bin marked 'appearance'. What is the nature of 'appearance'? I have no idea. But then no philosophy of mind has any good ideas on this.
I don't think that "directing" physical forces necessarily means that what is doing the directing is itself a fundamental force in the same sense as the 4 fundamental forces. Antennas are designed to transmit and receive electromagnetic radiation in a particular manner but are not themselves a force. Rather they have a form that shapes and controls the energy.
Only because some physical structure of which the intention is the appearance is being expressed in just that sentence.
But mentally hearing "I intend to X" is not the same as doing X with the intention of doing X. To use Victor's example, he considered going to the mailbox but then he actually went. How does having a discussion with himself physically move his body to the mailbox?
OK. How about Victor's statement, But these types of [mentalistic] explanations are typically excluded from basic physics?
How does having a discussion with himself physically move his body to the mailbox? It doesn't. I claim his intention is an appearance of a physical something analogous to a plan, perhaps, that could get him to the mailbox. I say 'could' because the realisation of any intention can be indefinitely delayed. So a physical something else is going to be needed to set (the thing behind) the intention in motion. But this extra thing doesn't seem to produce an appearance of any sort. We just seem eventually to act and find ourselves moving. Compare with Libet's experiments. Also, ask yourself how you know you have an intention.
Hello Michael. I have long had my doubts about causation. Have you come across R.G.Collingwood's On the So-Called Idea of Causation (Proc Arist Soc, Vol 38, in JSTOR)? He says,
In the first sense of the word cause, that which is caused is the free and deliberate act of a conscious and responsible agent, and 'causing' him to do it means affording him a motive for doing it. For 'causing' we may substitute 'making', 'inducing', persuading', 'urging', 'forcing', 'compelling', according to differences in the kind of motive in question.
So RGC starts with a social phenomenon in the Manifest Image. He then argues that the word 'cause' has migrated into two distinct meanings within the Scientific Image. This I think is a nice inversion. But it seems we are now stuck with the term. It does have its uses in informal scientific discussions, where we think we understand its meaning. But the philosophical attempts to make it clear are a dreadful mess.
David,
I think Victor is correct that human intentions are excluded from the study of basic physics. I would presume that he means that the soul is proximately responsible for the intentional movement of animate objects.
So a physical something else is going to be needed to set (the thing behind) the intention in motion.
His legs I presume are the proximate physical cause. But his legs were there and not in motion before he had the intention to move them. So it is not one or the other, but both.
I know I have an intention because when I intend something and exert myself toward that intention, I accomplish my intention unless blocked from doing so. It seems self-evident to me. Otherwise I am suffering an illusion as Victor points out. If this is an illusion then there is no reason to believe everything is not an illusion including the conclusion that everything is an illusion. I don't think this is a fruitful or rational view to take.
David,
I am not familiar with the Collingwood article. Interestingly, I see that his very same 1938 article was reprinted in a 2014 issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology. Thanks for the reference. I agree that attempts at making clear the notion of cause are a mess, and I agree that despite this there is still usefulness in using the word - even if that use is to indicate a matter which can be revisited later if necessary.
"But these types of [mentalistic] explanations are typically excluded from basic physics?"
There are no mentalistic explanations because the "mental" is not itself explained at all.
The "mental" "explanation" is poof dunnit.
What is this "mental"?
Where is it?
What is its structure?
How does it store memories?
What is the structural change sequence when the "mental" thinks thoughts?
What is the mechanism at the molecular level that transpires when the "mental" somehow controls the brain?
How does the "mental" manifest consciousness?
I mean specifically, just as you ask how the brain manifests consciousness.
Hi BM, We are now running into exactly those problems caused (!) by the concept of 'cause'. If we think of cause as 'necessary pre-condition' it's hard to extract a unique ordered sequence of discrete causes from which we can identify proximate and ultimate instances. At best we get a tree of causes rooted on the event in question and stretching far back in time.
A question: How do we know that the thing we call an intention is correctly labelled 'intention'? It's not as if we could, when a child, put this thing on the table and ask, What's one of these, Mummy? Oh, that's an intention, dear. So another interesting question is, How do we learn how to use the mentalistic vocabulary? Can you and I be confident that we are using these terms in the same way?
If we come to judge a certain class of things illusory does the illusoriness necessarily leak out into everything else? We can 'contain' the illusoriness of sticks bent by light refraction, for example.
Hi David,
It seems human society understands what it means by one having an intention to do something. As I mentioned, our legal system is based on that understanding. It doesn't matter whether you or I personally choose to define that word in a different way than the judge and jury one is still guilty of first degree murder if one premeditates and carries out the killing of an innocent person. It seems only modernish philosophers confuse themselves so much that they cannot see the hand in front of their own faces.
We judge that the appearance of sticks being bent in water looks that way from certain angles because we have the ability to inspect it from other angles, pull the stick in and out of the water and so on. But we are still experiencing all of that "reality check" as a first person experience. That reality check involves intentionally conducting experiments such as intentionally moving ourselves and the stick. If our intentions are illusory then so is the data from our supposed experiments. In other words we can only detect that something is illusory by trusting that our first person experiences are not illusory.
bmiller:
It seems only modernish philosophers confuse themselves so much that they cannot see the hand in front of their own faces.
Agreed. How do we know we aren't living in the matrix? Probably because your 1st person experience makes it obvious that you aren't. To suggest that you are is to rely 100% on your imagination for knowledge and not your senses which your intellect then uses as the building blocks. Feser's most recent post (11/4/23) seems relevant. In that post he links to a previous post that I have put below.
"The standard Scholastic position, following Aristotle, was that (a) there is a sharp difference between the intellect on the one hand and the senses and imagination on the other, but that nevertheless (b) nothing gets into the intellect except through the senses. To have a concept like triangularity is not the same thing as having any sort of mental image (visual, auditory, or whatever), since concepts have a universality that images lack, possess a determinate or unambiguous content that images cannot have, and so forth. Still, the intellect forms concepts only by abstracting from images, and these have their origin in the senses.
Now, the early modern rationalists and empiricists essentially each embraced half of this position while rejecting the other half. In particular, the rationalists kept thesis (a) while chucking out thesis (b), and the empiricists kept (b) while throwing out (a).
Against the empiricists, the rationalists would object that you cannot arrive at truly universal concepts and general propositions from mere images, and that it is no surprise that empiricism led to ever more radical skepticism about the external world, causality, the self, etc., and shrank the realm of the knowable to the immediate contents of consciousness (if that).
Against the empiricists, the rationalists would object that you cannot arrive at truly universal concepts and general propositions from mere images, and that it is no surprise that empiricism led to ever more radical skepticism about the external world, causality, the self, etc., and shrank the realm of the knowable to the immediate contents of consciousness (if that)."
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-rationalistempiricist-false-choice.html
bmiller said:
"If our intentions are illusory then ..."
A serious error occurs when the ordinary experiences of life are waved away as illusions or hallucinations. When Einstein boasts that for "convinced physicists" such as himself "the distinction between past, present, and future has no other meaning than that of an illusion", Einstein makes a serious error (and I do not mean the error of using "convinced" where "immodest" will end up seeming the more appropriate word choice).
Physics in and of itself does not, can not, and never will be able to define life or distinguish non-life from life. This is most obviously the case with regards to reductive physics (and, hence, reductive physicalism and unconstrained reductionism), but this is also the case for non-reductive physicalism in and of itself. This inability or inherent incapacity to say what is life is no legitimate or reasonable basis to assert that (physics entails that) life is an illusion or that life does not exist or that the ordinary experiences of life are illusions or hallucinations. This physics-only approach, this sort of reductionism, is an eliminativism - the most basic sort of eliminativism. When some neuroscientists or neurophilosophers have with apparent glee proclaimed that beliefs do not exist, it is expected (charitably?) that initially their use of the term beliefs referred to a previously expressed hypothesis regarding the neurology of beliefs such that it was actually only that narrow characterization of beliefs which (with possible legitimacy) could be said to not exist - where exist is rightly replaced with some version of is not the case. Beliefs per se, the experience of having beliefs, the experience of believing is not eliminated by neuroscience; the experience of believing - of having beliefs - persists despite neuroscience.
Hermann Weyl's remark that "The objective world is, it does not happen" might at first seem as immodest as Einstein's claim, but Weyl also had an addendum: "Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling along the lifeline of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time." In effect, Weyl concurrently holds contraries. The concurrent holding of contraries - the expression of contraries together - is a common mode of mystical expression; it is a way to evoke an awe; it is certainly a more modest manner of expression than is Einstein's, and it does not rely on an assertion of illusions or hallucinations. But the concurrent holding of contraries is not necessarily mystical in nature. As William Blake noted, "Without Contraries is no progression." Rather than the all too quick resort to an invoking of "illusions" or "hallucinations", a more proper thought and expression would be in terms of a confession of not knowing or an admission that a limit to understanding has been reached; without anomalies there could be no science.
Oops, I quoted the same thing twice. Should be:
"Against the rationalists, the empiricists would fling the charge that it is an illusion to suppose that you can read off conclusions about mind-independent reality from concepts that have no foundation in the senses, and that it is no surprise that the rationalists ended up constructing metaphysical systems that were ever more bizarre and untethered from reality.
Against the empiricists, the rationalists would object that you cannot arrive at truly universal concepts and general propositions from mere images, and that it is no surprise that empiricism led to ever more radical skepticism about the external world, causality, the self, etc., and shrank the realm of the knowable to the immediate contents of consciousness (if that)."
Hello BM, Well, sure. But a court of law would need to find external evidence for premeditation. They couldn't just look into the defendant's mind. I am interested in the phenomenology and language around these mental terms. When we introspect what exactly is it that we find? If little Johnny knocks over the glass and ventures 'I intended to do that', Mummy might say, Did you think about it before? No, he replies. Then you didn't intend to do it. It was an accident. And Johnny learns a bit about how to use the word 'intend'. There must be a forethought, perhaps even a plan in mind. Does there have to be any more than this? Suppose I claim that I intend to go to Paris in the spring. Spring comes round and I haven't thought of Paris let alone made any plans. Did I really have an intention to go to Paris? If so, then an intention can be a bit like a book with a title but no chapters, paragraphs, or sentences. And surely an intention can remain unrealised indefinitely. What is this extra thing that puts the intention into action? What is that like? Is it another intention?
David,
Yes, I think an intention is a plan. Knocking over a glass is an act. The act was either accidental or intentional. It was intentional if the person desired to knock it over and exerted himself toward that end. I can easily put this in causal terms routinely used in A-T philosophy.
I don't understand what the extra thing is that you are looking for? What sort of philosophy finds this perplexing?
"Perhaps the idea of a mentalistic explanation requires some explanation... But in the final analysis, if materialism is true, it looks as if the idea of intentions or purposes or desires or motives producing actions is bound to be an illusion."
Still no explanation of the "mental".
Victor did not explain the "mental" and neither has anybody else on this thread.
Among primitive people every unexplained phenomena is attributed to some speculated immaterial. Can't explain how a volcano works, must be the spirt of the volcano. There is a spirit of the sun, a spirit of the wind, and of course a spirit of each person.
Some of us have intellects that have matured beyond that ancient practice of imagining spirits and ghosts and souls to "explain" complex and mysterious observations. But most people remain religious.
Some of us (you) are trolls that continually insist that religious beliefs are always based on god-of-the-gaps reasoning when it's been explained otherwise. Your inability to understand and comprehend the reasoning doesn't make it unreasonable. It just makes you look foolish.
Someone who can't even understand the difference between hallucination and not-hallucination is nowhere near intellectual enough to understand reasons for believing in God. Much as it pains me to ignore blatant stupidity, I've decided to ignore SP until I see some sign of reasoning capacity and maturity. I've seen neither in quite some time.
Reductionist reduces the brain right out of some people.
The extra thing is what we would probably call an 'act of the will'. At the top level of that which is to be explained we find something opaque, of itself, having no structure, irreducible. That I find perplexing. Like colour.
I agree that we call it an 'act of the will'. But I consider this as something categorically different from something that could have some sort of structure or is reducible to something else. Characteristics of substances are not themselves necessarily substances.
Do you find it perplexing that an object is said to have 'mass' also? It seems all we know about mass is that we can calculate this number by measuring and comparing something in motion. We never directly observe it.
The mass/act of will comparison works just as well for me as for you! I can say, Yes, I can directly observe (sense) mass through the muscular exertion that is needed to lift bodies or set them in motion. And some acts of the will pass, rather paradoxically, completely unattended. We all know the trope of becoming aware of proceeding with an intention without being conscious of willing its start.
Well, I'd say you feel pressure against yourself when you exert yourself to move something but technically it is not mass that is being sensed. I asked, because mass is involved in the physical act of motion also but is a characteristic of a substance rather than a substance. Accordingly it has no structure of itself, is irreducible and so on.
We all know the trope of becoming aware of proceeding with an intention without being conscious of willing its start.
For me it usually involves not enough coffee ;-)
StarDustyPsyche,
>Still no explanation of the "mental".
The "mental" just means anything private, subjective, about, or "propositional attitudes" etc. Here is a description of an event with a physical aspect and a mental aspect:
"Chad locked the door (physical event) because he has a fear of burglars (mental event)."
"Fear of burglars" is a propositional attitude: Chad's attitude (fear) towards a proposition (burglars are around).
Even materialist reductionists distinguish and describe "mental events" and "physical events," and then try to reduce the former to the latter.
SteveK
"Your inability to understand and comprehend the reasoning doesn't make it unreasonable."
I am indeed unable to make sense of the nonsensical. Guilty as charged.
There is no "reasoning" in the assertion of "the mental". The term "the mental" is just a name for an unknown. We could call it X, or Alpha, or whatever one feels like. There is no "reasoning" required to simple give a label to an unknown.
Just labeling our thought processes as "the mental" explains nothing. Maybe you don't like somebody pointing out that obvious fact. Well, the emperor has no clothes, and your ideas about "the mental" are just in your imagination. You just made it up. You did not reason your way to it. I guess you don't like having somebody point that out.
What is the mental? Where is it? What is it made of? How have you measured it? How have you observed it? What is its structure? How does it store memories? How does it process thoughts? How does it connect to the material of the brain? How does the structure of "the mental" manifest consciousness?
You did not reason your way to answering these questions. You can't answer these questions at all, nobody can, because "the mental" is just a vacuous term with no explanatory value whatever.
I can provide a very great deal of descriptions of how materials does these things. You can provide zero such answers about "the mental".
Yet, you are somehow miffed that I dismiss this fantasy of yours?
Martin,
>Still no explanation of the "mental".
"The "mental" just means anything private, subjective, about, or "propositional attitudes" etc. Here is a description of an event with a physical aspect and a mental aspect:"
That is a definition of a label, not an explanation of what "the mental" is or how it manifests as the phenomena attributed to it.
"Even materialist reductionists distinguish and describe "mental events" and "physical events,""
Only when speaking in the vernacular, as a sort of crude slang.
"then try to reduce the former to the latter."
Which means there is no such real thing as "the mental", only physical processes some people give the label "the mental".
"The mental" is like "running".
There is no soul of running. Running has no independent ontological realization in the cosmos. Running is not somehow an immaterial object.
Running is just an identifiable class of motions of material. That is all "the mental" is.
You can't explain the mental and you cannot use the mental to explain anything. There is no explanatory value in uttering "the mental".
When you utter "the mental" all you are doing is putting a label on certain sorts of observed phenomena. To imagine there is some sort of soul or immaterial is pure fantasy, just an idle speculation, not something that is reasoned to, and not something that can be described or observed in any meaningful way.
I have found that people tend to get rather put off when I tell them that are just imagining things and they have no reasoning to support their fantasies and they are providing no explanatory value by uttering a label for their fantasies. Oh well, be put off then.
Stardusty,
"The mental" is like "running".
Just FYI. Martin did not type this thing you quoted. Maybe your private mental dialog spilled out here?
A true hallucination!
StarDustyPsyche,
>Running is just an identifiable class of motions of material.
That's what some materialists say that mental events are, correct. Identity materialists say, to take a stock example, that the mental event "pain" is the firing of C fibers. Realization materialists say that the mental event "pain" is realized by the firing of C fibers (but could be realized by analogous structures in other organisms). Neither type of materialists denies that there is a mental event, just that the mental even is ultimately physical in nature. In contrast, eliminative materialists do deny that there is any mental event at all, not even physically.
>There is no soul of running...Running is not somehow an immaterial object.
I never said or implied that mental events are immaterial or entail a soul. Not once. This is your "everything looks like a nail to a hammer" syndrome, with your hatred of fundamentalist Christianity causing you to think that anyone that engages in any criticism whatsoever of your extremely confused and contradictory and constantly changing forms of materialism must thereby be advocating Bible-thumping Southern Baptist creationism.
>you cannot use the mental to explain anything.
Absolutely you can, and you yourself do it all the time.
"My father locked the door because he fears burglars."
"The farmer plowed his field because he believes it's going to rain."
"My wife made lunch because she anticipated I'd be hungry."
Each of these are mental events causing physical events. Now, you may very well think that those mental events are ultimately physical events, which is fine, but that doesn't mean "mental events" lack explanatory power or that they don't exist at all. If you insist on them not existing, then you are an eliminative materialist and you need to embrace that instead of disingenuously jumping back and forth between eliminativism and reductionism as the situation demands. Pick one and stand you're ground. And if you pick reductionism, then you can fully agree with me that "mental events" are real and explanatory, but are realized by physical processes.
bmiller,
"Just FYI. Martin did not type this thing you quoted"
As I have made clear, I am mental.
It goes without saying.
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