In the ‘decisions’ thread walto made this comment:
‘Hard problem’? Hah! Piece of cake. Everything is instantiated! Well, you know what sorts of things can be instantiated? Look it up.
When I suggested that I’d not be doing that Mung noted:
Translation: don’t bother me with facts.
Which implies to me that there is a verified list of what can and cannot be instantiated in matter (chemicals and the like). I.E. Facts.
This is contrary to what I had originally assumed, hence my reluctance to bother looking it up. So I’ve changed my mind. I am interested in ‘looking it up’. I’m always willing to learn. So the floor is yours Mung, walto.
As this list would no doubt be of interest to many here I thought I’d make it an OP rather then getting lost in the ‘decisions’ thread.
Mung, Walto, where can I read about these facts regarding what can and cannot be instantiated in matter? Why do I have to go look it up? Can’t you just provide the list itself?
Hi, OMagain. I just meant that what are generally thought to be instantiated in matter are abstracta. So, it seemed odd to me to be hearing from putative materialist/nominalist types that this or that is instantiated in brains–as if THAT wouldn’t have to be explained too.
Some of this is relevant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms
walto,
I may be misunderstanding what you are trying to say I think. I guess I’m in the pragmatically-based realism camp generally. As far as I’m concerned if it’s can’t be located in time/space/matter/energy then it does not exist except as a shared concept in physical human brains. That does not deny the existence of abstract entities, but places their location in a shared conceptual reality that is distinct from actual reality, embodied in the interconnections in our brains. We can represent something that does not actually exist in reality in thought. I don’t dispute that. But you and Mung seem to be implying the opposite. I guess you think there’s a platonic circle out there, somewhere?
I’ll be interested in what Mung therefore has to say regarding these ‘facts’ I’m not interested in, now you have clarified somewhat.
Well, perhaps that can be the topic of this thread instead. What is ‘this or that’ in your comment?
And what are your thoughts on all that?
Do you think that consciousness is in principle something that will never be explained or understood then? That such explanations are permanently out of reach?
I have always considered processes to be both real, and not specifically instantiated in chemistry or physics. Science is, among other things, the search for relationships between and among sets of observations. Relationships are the essence of scientific theory, but it would be hard to instantiate them in chemistry. I’d be surprised to learn that processes and relationships are not capable of explanation, or permanently out of reach.
OMagain, You want me to solve the problem of universals?! As i’ve mentioned, I don’t even understand how my can opener works!
Will we ever understand consciousness? Beats me–but I’m pretty sure *I* won’t. TBH, I don’t understand a significant fraction of what you’ve posted on this thread to date. My saying that philosophy is hard shouldn’t suggest to you that I think it’s easy for me.
That’s the passage that makes the least sense to me. Do concepts exist in brains or do they exist ‘in a locatiion…distinct from actual reality’? Why do you think I believe we can’t represent things that aren’t real? Why do you say my views are the same as mung’s on these subjects? Why do you say I’m a platonist?
I honestly have very little idea where you’re coming from.
OMagain:
Mung’s position on this is, um, non-standard:
keiths:
Mung:
keiths:
Mung:
keiths:
Mung:
keiths:
Fwiw, I don’t agree with mung on this matter, and I think he should read up on ‘intentional inexistence.’
Btw, keiths–you’re wanted on the purpose of theistic evolution thread.
Is my ‘half compatibalism’ doomed–or can you save it?
I would think matter is what we are talking about when we say instantiated.
I have never thought highly of reifying abstractions.
Well I suppose you can’t instantiate 4-D (four spatial dimensions) objects in matter. Not here and now, anyway.
Glen Davidson
Only with strings attached.
To strongly affirm a point that Walto is making here: it’s just about of the semantics of the word “instantiation” that any talk about what is instantiated in a spatio-temporal causal nexus requires that there be some identifiable non-instantiated property, universal, etc., prior to being instantiated, which is then instantiated. Words like “instantiation” have a philosophical pedigree and shouldn’t be tossed around lightly.
In other words, if you’re talking about “instantiation”, then you really do have to be talking about abstract objects — because abstracta are what get instantiated in concreta.
On the other hand, if one holds to a more radical nominalism that does away with all abstracta — if you think that nothing exists that isn’t located within a spatio-temporal framework (or whatever structure succeeds space-time as what is described by our best fundamental physics) — then doing away with abstracta means doing away with all talk about “instantiation” as well.
My point here isn’t to defend (or attack) nominalism or realism about universals (though I do have some pretty firm commitments about what concepts are) or about the hard problem of consciousness (and I have no idea what consciousness is). Just to say that philosophical terms have histories that need to be acknowledged if we’re to use them in effective communication.
Well, the former, if you are asking.
I’m not sure I said that.
I may have conflated your views with his in the process of writing the OP primarily as a question to Mung. For that I certainly apologise.
Fine. I’m not disagreeing.
It also seems that we are unable to communicate in a particularly productive manner. So perhaps it’s best I leave it there. Thanks for your input so far.
That seems like a fact to me! Which is what prompted the creation of the OP, so excellent stuff. No 4-D printers on the horizon just yet…
Angel Farts.
That’s an excellent point.
My programming background is at fault I suspect. We create actual ‘things’ from templates all the time.
+1
I suppose all I’m saying is the ‘hard problem’ is ultimately solvable without recourse to wizards behind the curtain. It’s merely my opinion. So to call on such at this point to support a philosophical point is premature. If we can build a molecular scale copy of a human being and it does not want breakfast when it wakes up due to the lack of an animating force then I’ll eat my hat.
But keiths did say it.
Yes, some good comments so far. These are just the sorts of things philosophers have been debating for centuries.
Which “things” are real and what “things” are not real?
The problem of universals.
To say that something is instantiated is to say it is an “instance of” something. It is a particular. But what, exactly, is it a particular of. And how can you have a particular of something that does not really exist?
My only question is, which philosopher should we begin with?
To answer the question asked in the title of the OP, you cannot instantiate the abstract in matter, no matter what some artists may have thought. As soon as you try to instantiate the abstract in matter you’ve lost the abstract because now you have something concrete, not something abstract.
So where does the abstract live?
“X is instantiated in matter” is unclear to me. I’m inclined to say that we represent abstract entities, rather than instantiate them. I think that agrees with keiths.
Plato thought that forms or shapes existed independent of the mind. But, from a mathematicians perspective, forms or shapes are dependent on our conventions. That’s roughly the implication of the saying that a topologist cannot tell the difference between a coffee cup and a donut.
I see the “hard problem” as a false problem. It doesn’t need to be solved. Trying to solve it is like trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Probably Aristotle, though he’s tidying up Plato. I’m better on Plato than on Aristotle, myself.
After Aristotle, probably some medieval commenters on him. Aquinas, obviously. Others: Ibn-Rushd, Ibn-Sina, Maimonides.
Kant, if you want a view that the universals “come from us”, whatever that means.
Pretty much no philosopher is going to say that you can have particulars without universals, though a few have (“bare particulars”). Most will say that you can have unactualized universals — that is, universals that are nowhere instantiated. Unicorns, for example. The medieval theologians worried a lot about that kind of stuff. Me, not so much.
But yeah, to repeat what was said above: “instantiate” is itself a metaphysical concept, so there’s a tacit acceptance of the reality of abstracta if the relation between abstract and concreta is one of instantiation.
Like others here, I’m pretty much happy to say that abstracta are just concepts. I’m less happy with the idea that concepts are brain-states, though I like the idea that brain-states causally implement concepts. I’m more happy with the idea that concepts are socio-linguistic norms, or in the case of non-human animals, concepts are regularities of habit.
I don’t know. There does seem to be something to the idea that phenomenal awareness, “qualia,” can’t be explained in functionalist terms.
I’d add Abelard, Occam, and Duns Scotus here.
I cannot see any reason why we should expect a functionalist explanation.
It is nothing whatsoever like trying to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
For looking for the answer to how we think and are aware to be like looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, it would mean that we don’t actually think, we aren’t aware, and its just a funny little saying that people have made up for coloring books.
If that’s what you think consciousness equates to, gee, I guess I can see why your deep searches into philosophy haven’t gotten you very far so far Neil.
This seems sort of similar to your reflections on teleology in evolution.
Omagain,
You made the comment that “+1” exists as a physical reality inside our brains, therefore it is something. If our brains stop existing, “+1” would also stop existing.
So then by this thinking, if our brains stopped existing, does the entire universe also stop existing, or does it exist outside of our brains?
The “hard problem” isn’t about how we think or are aware. That’s closer to the “easy problem”. Check the Wikipedia page Hard problem of consciousness.
Neil Rickert,
He first needs to conquer the moderate problem of reading and understanding a complete article. Baby steps.
Neil Rickert,
You mean you think this topic of discussion is about David Chalmers opinion of consciousness??
Uh, ok. People have actually been thinking about this long before Chalmers, but if its his idea about what consciousness is that you wish to discuss, good on ya, have at it. A discussion about what Chalmers thinks about consciousness is unnecessary for me. I am still not sure how you think that makes it like a fictitious pot of gold.
Chalmers coined the term “the hard problem” for what he considered the problem that needs answering.
Neil Rickert,
And long before Chalmers people called it the difficult problem, the most important problem, the perplexing problem, the puzzling problem of consciousness, …
Chalmers came up with the word “hard”. Wow. So what.
Now what does it have to do with a fictitious pot of gold? Pretty much nothing. The “Hard” Problem of Finding a Pot of Gold.
phoodoo,
You are still misunderstanding.
Chalmers defined “the hard problem” very explicitly as explaining qualia. So no, “the hard problem” is identical to the question of consciousness.
My own view is that “qualia” is just a bogus concept. We experience the world, but there really aren’t such things as quales of experience (or qualia). That’s why it is much like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I’m with Neil here. The “hard problem” is as real as a unicorn. Michael Graziano does a good job of explaining “consciousness” by talking of “awareness”. See his book Consciousness and the Social Brain.
Except what Neil is trying to argue, oddly, is that this IS NOT what Chalmers refers to when he refers to the problems of understanding consciousness.
Which is totally irrelevant to the discussion here. I don’t think anyone cares about Chalmers definition.
I read Neil as saying Chalmers creates his “hard” problem by invoking the idea of “qualia”. Again, I agree with Neil that “qualia” are a flawed idea and can be dispensed with.
An old paper by Chalmers on “qualia”.
phoodoo,
And frankly Chalmers concept of the problem is nothing new or extraordinary, despite all the hype. All he is asking is why do we “feel” aware of ourselves. Well, for most of man’s history, that question is what they have always wanted to know. They aren’t asking this because they want to know why you pull your hand instinctively away from heat- as Chalmers suggests is the easy part of thinking to one day unravel.
Acting as if this idea of the “Hard Problem” of consciousness is something new is silly frankly. Philosophers have always been trying to figure out the same thing. Its not new at all, just because Chalmers uses different words to describe it.
This is precisely why we shouldn’t trust scientists to give their opinion about matters of thought.
Look in your microscopes, write down the numbers, then shut up. Scientists ability to interpret information they uncover is often non-existent.
And it is also why KN’s criticism that FMM doesn’t know enough about neuroscience to understand consciousness is absurd.
Nothing that has been uncovered in neuroscience to date tells us anything about consciousness. Except perhaps the fact that people with no brain function, can still recall experiences.
phoo,
I don’t think that came out the way you intended.
Alan Fox,
Do you think Omagains topic on this thread is about what Chalmers calls unconsciousness?
keiths,
It came out exactly as I meant it. Unfortunately you have not studied much Near Death Experience research, so you are ignorant on the topic.