Why does the soul need the brain?

Why does the soul need the brain seems like a logical question especially in the context of the belief held by the leading ID proponent of the Discovery Institute Michael Egnor. He has written extensively on the theme of the immaterial soul that, in his view, is an independent entity, separate of the human body. What Dr. Egnor consistently fails to acknowledge is the obvious connection or interdependence between a functioning brain and self-awareness or consciousness. I wrote about it here.

If certain parts of human brain are damaged or disabled, just like in case of general anesthesia, the human brain loses the sense of consciousness or self-awareness either permanently or temporarily. The immaterial soul fails to make up for the damaged or disabled brain…

Dr. Egnor’s personal experiences (and he has many) as a neurosurgeon convinced him that many people, including many of his patients, with the great majority of their brains missing have developed and function normally. Egnor is convinced that an immaterial soul makes up for the loss of brain mass that is responsible for normal brain function in people with normal brain size or no damage to any of the brain parts.

It appears Dr. Egnor believes that unlike a computer software that can’t function without the computer hardware, human brain has an ability to make up for the loss of the hardware with the computer software – the immaterial soul.

Is Dr. Egnor’s view consistent with the readily available facts?
I personally see Dr. Egnor building and supporting a strawman by his selective choice of facts…Hey! That’s my opinion and that’s why we have this blog full of experts to disagree with me or Dr. Egnor…(I kinda like the guy though).

Let’s see…First off, not all cases of patients with missing parts of their brains experience the supposed miraculous saving powers of the immaterial soul. It appears that the amount of the missing part of the brain mass doesn’t seem to matter… What seems to matter more is which part (s) of the brain is missing and not how much of the brain mass is actually missing. Some parts of the brain seem essential for consciousness and self-awareness and others do not.

However, the main point of this OP is:

<strong> Why does the soul need the brain? Or why would human body need a brain at all, if the immaterial soul has an ability to compensate for the brain losses?

If the software (the soul) can operate without the hardware (the brain) why do we even need the brain in the first place?</strong>

It seems like a faulty or at least a wasteful design to me…

1,372 thoughts on “Why does the soul need the brain?

  1. Does keiths just not get it?

    All that exists is physical and real. Everything produced by the physical world is physical and real. There is no place in his reductive physicalist ontology for things that are not physical and not real.

    So why does he keep trying to sneak them in?

  2. keiths: Thinking about black swans invokes in us concepts which are less certain and have not always been agreed upon. If someone believes that black swans are just mythical creatures then I would say that their concept is false and needs to be amended. The concept of a swan is connected to so many other concepts, bird, animal, flight, organism, swimming, eukaryote, growth, evolution and so on. I

    keiths:
    walto:

    keiths:

    walto:

    What’s relevant is whether it failed, not whether Bruce agrees that it failed.

    Your view that you are an appropriate arbiter of whether or not an argument “fails” or whether it has been made “better than it was” is precisely why I think you should fuck off.

  3. walto: Your view that you are an appropriate arbiter of whether or not an argument “fails” or whether it has been made “better than it was” is precisely why I think you should fuck off.

    I guess someone has zero shits to give.

  4. Mung: Superman, who never existed before, became something physical and real, in their brain. Somehow their brain, a physical thing, managed to reach into the realm of non-existence and create superman from nothing. What interaction problem?

    Or, a bunch of physics and chemistry happened, and superman was born. Fully physical. Fully real. In someone’s brain

    No no no. Superman came from Krypton gets sick when near Kryptonite and has a thing for Lois Lane. Ideas, even of Superman have none of those things. Intentionality has been stumping you for years, mung! Ideas do not have the features of their referents.

  5. walto: Intentionality has been stumping you for years, mung! Ideas do not have the features of their referents.

    Ideas have been stumping me for years! Especially the physical ones.

  6. walto,

    Your view that you are an appropriate arbiter of whether or not an argument “fails” or whether it has been made “better than it was” is precisely why I think you should fuck off.

    Heh. That’s basically the same dumb argument that Bill Cole has been making:

    colewd:

    This is an assertion you continue to make. You’re putting yourself as the judge and authority. A logical fallacy which renders the statement meaningless.

    keiths:

    By Bill’s inane logic, no one can ever decide that someone else is wrong. That would be a logical fallacy. So when Bill criticizes evolutionary theory, he is, by his own standards, spouting fallacious nonsense.

    Bill couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.

    Walto, when you find yourself making a dumb Bill-Cole-style argument, it’s time to reassess.

    Skepticism makes you feel vulnerable. You don’t like it. That’s OK. The rest of us aren’t obligated to come to your rescue or to tiptoe around your insecurities.

    This is The Skeptical Zone, and it’s entirely appropriate for me to express skepticism of Bruce’s argument. I’ve laid out my reasons in great detail. In the unlikely event that you have a rebuttal, you’re welcome to present it.

  7. Mung:

    Does keiths just not get it?

    Oh, the irony.

    All that exists is physical and real. Everything produced by the physical world is physical and real. There is no place in his reductive physicalist ontology for things that are not physical and not real.

    Correct. That’s why I don’t include them in my ontology.

    So why does he keep trying to sneak them in?

    I don’t. Dude, where do you come up with this shit?

  8. keiths,

    FWIW, I love all your posts that include “This is the Skeptical Zone.” I’ve made an album. They have sections like “Why it’s always OK for keiths to make silly remarks” “Favorite keiths brags about himself” (with and without self-linkage sub-groups) And my personal favorite batch: He really must think “skeptical” means “stupid”!

  9. Kantian Naturalist: I suppose this is where I see the value of following Sellars’s lead, and distinguishing between (i) what we can talk about and (ii) what we can interact with.

    I’m not sure that there’s an important distinction there.

    I expect that most mathematicians would say that they do interact with numbers and other mathematical objects.

  10. Mung,

    Whatever the physical world produces is physical, and real. Including superman and middle earth.

    The physical world doesn’t produce Superman and Middle Earth. Superman and Middle Earth don’t exist, and they don’t need to be produced.

    What the physical world produces are representations of Superman and Middle Earth, among many other things.

    Write this out until it sinks in:

  11. keiths: The physical world doesn’t produce Superman and Middle Earth. Superman and Middle Earth don’t exist, and they don’t need to be produced.

    What the physical world produces are representations of Superman and Middle Earth, among many other things.

    I’m inclined to disagree.

    The world (really the social world) produces Superman and Middle Earth as social constructs. Yes, there are also representations. But the social constructs are not the representations and the representations are not the social constructs.

  12. Neil,

    The world (really the social world) produces Superman and Middle Earth as social constructs.

    Those social constructs are just representations writ large and shared among many people.

    Consider a thought experiment: Physically remove every Middle Earth representation and reference from the world. That includes memories, maps, depictions in literature, film, art, etc. What’s left of the social construct? Nothing. It has no independent existence.

    You’ve said that you aren’t a physicalist. Do you think that those social constructs are non-physical? If so, how are they able to causally influence the physical world?

  13. keiths: Those social constructs are just representations writ large and shared among many people.

    I disagree. If somebody acts as superman in a school play, he is not acting as a representation.

    Consider a thought experiment

    It doesn’t prove anything.

    It has no independent existence.

    Well, of course, a social construct is dependent on the activities of the social group.

    You’ve said that you aren’t a physicalist. Do you think that those social constructs are non-physical?

    It doesn’t matter to me whether you think they are physical. To say that they are physical is just to wave one’s hands and say nothing much at all. If you cannot pin them down to particular physical components, then there isn’t any point in saying that they are physical.

  14. Neil:

    The world (really the social world) produces Superman and Middle Earth as social constructs.

    keiths:

    Those social constructs are just representations writ large and shared among many people.

    Neil:

    I disagree. If somebody acts as superman in a school play, he is not acting as a representation.

    He is not acting as a representation, but his acting is a representation of Superman, just as DeNiro’s acting was a representation of Jake LaMotta.

    The actor is not Superman, nor is he a social construct. His physical performance is a representation of Superman, and it’s informed by representations of Superman present in the larger culture. That is, it’s informed by the social construct of Superman, which is ultimately physical.

  15. keiths:

    Consider a thought experiment: Physically remove every Middle Earth representation and reference from the world. That includes memories, maps, depictions in literature, film, art, etc. What’s left of the social construct? Nothing. It has no independent existence.

    Neil:

    It doesn’t prove anything.

    Sure it does. It shows that the social construct supervenes wholly on the physical.

    Well, of course, a social construct is dependent on the activities of the social group.

    Right. And after all the physical representations and references to Middle Earth have been purged from the world, the activities of the social group no longer have anything to do with Middle Earth. They can’t. No one remembers Middle Earth, and there are no longer any representations to consult. The social construct has vanished.

  16. keiths:

    You’ve said that you aren’t a physicalist. Do you think that those social constructs are non-physical?

    Neil:

    It doesn’t matter to me whether you think they are physical.

    That’s not what I asked. I asked whether you think they are non-physical.

    It matters, because if you do think they are non-physical, then you face the problem of explaining how they exert a causal influence on the physical world. It’s the same problem faced by those who want to believe that a non-physical soul exerts a causal influence over our physical bodies.

    To say that they are physical is just to wave one’s hands and say nothing much at all.

    No, to say they are physical is to make an important claim. Philosophers want to know whether physicalism is true. The existence of something nonphysical would falsify it. If social constructs are physical, then the hypothesis of physicalism has survived yet another potential falsification. That’s important.

    If you cannot pin them down to particular physical components, then there isn’t any point in saying that they are physical.

    False. As I just explained, the truth of physicalism depends on whether social constructs are physical. This remains true whether or not the “particular physical components” have been identified.

  17. keiths: That’s not what I asked. I asked whether you think they are non-physical.

    Neil does not think in ontological categories at all. He is a nominalist. He thinks in nominal terms.

    Plenty of mathematicians are nominalists, because they think in terms of sets. And sets, for them, are made of zeroes. And zeroes are inherently empty. That’s nominalism at its purest. Don’t you enthusiastically affirm empty sets too, keiths?

    Neil Rickert: It doesn’t matter to me whether you think they are physical. To say that they are physical is just to wave one’s hands and say nothing much at all. If you cannot pin them down to particular physical components, then there isn’t any point in saying that they are physical.

    From here it seems that to Neil it matters whether you can pinpoint the component. Substances and ontological categories like physical, material and immaterial do not matter. For Neil the categories are arbitrary like sets in mathematics. Or maybe they are like sums made of components.

    Neil Rickert: The world (really the social world) produces Superman and Middle Earth as social constructs. Yes, there are also representations. But the social constructs are not the representations and the representations are not the social constructs.

    On the other hand, epistemologically useful categories like “social” etc. are okay for Neil. Probably because everybody necessarily construes them in various ways (this is what it means to be a human in the sense of social animal) and is therefore qualified to argue about them.

    Whereas ontology is for physicists only, I guess. It certainly is not an object of interest for nominalists.

  18. Erik,

    Neil does not think in ontological categories at all. He is a nominalist. He thinks in nominal terms.

    To be a nominalist is to “think in ontological categories”.

    Nominalism is itself an ontological position, and there are at least two varieties of it. Both affirm the reality of particulars. One denies the existence of universals, while the other denies the existence of abstract objects.

    And by rejecting physicalism, Neil stakes out an ontological position. Namely, that reality includes nonphysical entities. He does seem more comfortable asserting that position than defending it, however.

  19. Erik,

    Whereas ontology is for physicists only, I guess. It certainly is not an object of interest for nominalists.

    That’s doubly silly. First, as I explained above, nominalists are in fact concerned with ontology.

    Second, a concern with ontology is hardly restricted to physicists. It’s hugely important to scientists and philosophers of all stripes. Do you seriously think that metaphysics isn’t concerned with ontology?

  20. Erik,

    Plenty of mathematicians are nominalists, because they think in terms of sets. And sets, for them, are made of zeroes. And zeroes are inherently empty. That’s nominalism at its purest.

    That’s completely backwards. Nominalism in mathematics involves the denial, not the affirmation, of the existence of mathematical objects such as sets.

  21. keiths:

    Here’s a counterexample to [Charlie’s claim that]

    a) a potential thing that is not limited in size is “realer” than something that is limited;

    Real french fries are limited in size, due to the fairly small size of the physical potatoes from which they are cut. Imaginary potatoes have no such limits. I can conceive of a potato one mile long or even longer, producing french fries of equal length. Due to its unlimited size, is the imaginary potato “realer” than the physical potatoes and their physical french fries? Obviously not. It’s imaginary, not real.

    CharlieM:

    This counterexample just shows me that you are working on a limited conception of potato.

    Quite the contrary. I have expanded my conception of potato, at your urging, and am now considering imaginary potatoes of unlimited size. According to your criterion, they are “realer” than ordinary, physical potatoes. Are you getting cold feet?

    If you want your thinking to accord with reality a potato cannot be conceived without the organism to which it belongs and the environment in which it grows. So obviously your imaginary potato does not accord with reality.

    That’s easily handled. To my imaginary mile-long potato, add a giant imaginary potato plant and a giant imaginary field in which the potato can grow.

    I’ve met your criteria, yet the mile-long potato is obviously not “realer” than the physical potato.

    Back to the drawing board, Charlie.

  22. CharlieM:

    An imaginary unchanging unicorn is certainly less real than a physical horse.

    Why, when changelessness is supposed to make something more real, according to you?

  23. Neil Rickert: I’m not quite sure Kaufman would agree with that “over and above” part.

    I was hoping to test my understanding of Kaufman by explaining his viewpoint here, but after reading his blog posts, I did not understand him well enought to try to do so.

    I think he rejects privileging the Scientific Image over the Manifest Image, saying that each has an equally valid ontology, with things like contacts, money, Missouri, all being real in the Manifest Image without any need to re-express them in the Scientific Image. In particular, there is no need to relate their reality to the Scientific Image using token physicalism, as I understand Keith to be doing.

    Kaufman’s rejection of token physicalism is the reason I asked about something being “over and above” physical dispositions (although as Walt points out, “dispositions” has its own issues in physicalism due to modal issues).

    But where he loses me is in the nature of that separate ontology, eg how to avoid dualism. Put another way, how does he get around the causal closure of the physical which means we should privilege the Scientific Image?

    At one point on that blog, I believe you comment something like “all reality is institutional.” I take that as a restatement of (my understanding of) your view that there is no Scientific Image without human conceptions. But would such a view mean there would have been no dinosaurs without humans to conceive of them?

  24. walto: If he agrees with this, I don’t mind your post. Otherwise, fuck off.

    I have no opinion — to express a view on who won would be to violate my norm of being-the-change-you-want-to-see. Plus, it would just be another way of revisiting that thread.

  25. Bruce,

    I have no opinion — to express a view on who won would be to violate my norm of being-the-change-you-want-to-see.

    Why not just be open and honest? TSZ is about discussing ideas. Suppressing discussion for reasons of face-saving or sensitive egos seems counterproductive to me.

  26. Mung:

    All that exists is physical and real. Everything produced by the physical world is physical and real. There is no place in his reductive physicalist ontology for things that are not physical and not real.

    I have not read all the repartee exchanged between you and Keith, but if your sarcasm is meant to express the view that intentionality is a problem for physicalism, then I agree with you.

    According to SEP, it’s number two with a bullet on the top hits of problems of physicalism.

    As various commentators have indirectly said, the usual approach to reconciling intentionality with physicalism starts with saying intentionality is mental representation. So the issue for physicalists is to explain mental representation using scientific language. In particular, how do representations come to have their content? And then how to avoid that content being epiphenomenal since all the causal work is done by neural processes?

    On the issue of having content: Almost everyone agrees that a simple, causal description fails to explain how representations get their content, because it fails to to specify how the exact content is determined and because it fails to deal with misrepresentation. We need to add norms to deal with issues like these.

    How can we express norms in scientific language? Standard approaches rely on biological function: incorrect content is determined by misfunction, and correct function depends on biology.

    The long exchange between KN and me above was about which of the attempts to naturalize content explains those norms in a way that accords best with science. Those pushing second-order resemblance say their approach is better because it only relies on current causal powers, as does science, whereas other approaches rely on causal history (as expressed by what was selected by evolution). As a bonus, they say their account eliminates epiphenomenalism (see above exchange with KN for details).

    All of that was to naturalize representations with contents targeted at existing objects! The further problems with non-existent objects, like Superman, have had much less attention from those involved in naturalizing, AFAIK.

  27. Bruce,

    (although as Walt points out, “dispositions” has its own issues in physicalism due to modal issues).

    Could you elaborate on that? I don’t see the problem. I asked walto about it but didn’t get a response.

    Here was the exchange:

    keiths:

    As was the case for dispositions, the shorthand cashes out in physical terms: the physical person, in certain physical situations (in which dumb ideas are being presented to him or her), will respond in certain ways (by adopting those dumb ideas, which amounts to a change in brain state), all due to the laws of physics.

    walto:

    Maybe, but they’re obviously weird. I mean, first we have to suppose it’s a “will” there.

    keiths:

    What’s wrong with that?

  28. Mung:

    All that exists is physical and real. Everything produced by the physical world is physical and real. There is no place in his reductive physicalist ontology for things that are not physical and not real.

    Bruce:

    I have not read all the repartee exchanged between you and Keith, but if your sarcasm is meant to express the view that intentionality is a problem for physicalism, then I agree with you.

    Actually, no. Mung is just confused. He thinks I am obligated to include nonexistent things in my ontology (or worse, that I am trying to sneak them in), when of course their nonexistence is a reason for leaving them out, not for including them.

  29. keiths:
    Bruce,

    Why not just be open and honest?TSZ is about discussing ideas.Suppressing discussion for reasons of face-saving or sensitive egos seems counterproductive to me.

    Well, expressing a lack of interest is not the same as suppressing, IMHO. You are free to post whatever you want. But I don’t feel any obligation to post on stuff on I not interested in.

    ETA: just to explain the “be-the-change you-want-to-see” bit of my post. For topics I am interested in, I am happy to discuss the relative merits of arguments. But my personal values say discussions of winners and losers have no place at TSZ.

  30. Bruce,

    Well, expressing a lack of interest is not the same as suppressing, IMHO. You are free to post whatever you want. But I don’t feel any obligation to post on stuff on I not interested in.

    You were very interested in the discussion while we were having it, and it went on for quite some time. (And it is an interesting topic.) You’ve also been discussing closely related issues in this thread. Your claim to be uninterested in the topic isn’t plausible.

    Again, I think it’s counterproductive to suppress discussion because of concerns regarding face-saving or egos.

    ETA: just to explain the “be-the-change you-want-to-see” bit of my post. For topics I am interested in, I am happy to discuss the relative merits of arguments. But my personal values say discussions of winners and losers have no place at TSZ.

    The problem is that when ideas are debated, some of them will prevail over others. People being people, this will be perceived as victory not only for the prevailing ideas but also for the people holding and defending them. The losing ideas will likewise impute losses to their holders/defenders. These phenomena simply aren’t separable, given human nature.

    So if your goal is to avoid any appearance of winners and losers, you will have to suppress debate altogether. That’s obviously not practical or desirable.

    Far better to encourage open discussion, even if egos are occasionally bruised.

  31. keiths:

    Instead of continuing that , here is a thought experiment for you to mull over:

    Joe lives on Earth. T-Joe lives on Twin Earth and is a molecular duplicate of Joe. The Putnam conditions obtain: water, twin water, the state of scientific knowledge, etc.

    Suppose Q-Joe is created by some quantum fluctuation on a third planet and is another molecular duplicate of Joe. Immediately after Q-Joe comes into existence, Joe and T-Joe use interplanetary internet chat to conduct a Turing test of Q-Joe. That test includes questions involving the word ‘water’.

    Both Joe and T-Joe conclude Q-Joe is intelligent and speaks meaningful sentences (although that second conclusion is beyond Turing’s original purpose of the test, I believe).

    But, under externalism, they differ as to what Q-Joe means for sentences involving ‘water’.

    Which, if any, of Joe and T-Joe is right about the meaningfulness of Q-Joe’s use of ‘water’?

    Possible answers I can see (note that 1-4 assume Putnam externalism including causal history for natural kinds).

    1. Neither is right. Q-Joe has no causal history, hence there is no fact of the matter of the meaning of his ‘water’ utterances.

    2. We cannot know. It depends on the planet on which Q-Joe was created.

    3. Both are right: the meaning of Q-Joe’s utterances depend on which of them Q-Joe is chatting with; Q-Joe’s meaning is parasitic on his interlocutor’s environment and culture.

    4. Whoever chatted with Q-Joe first is right, because that establishes the relevant external context for Q-Joe’s utterances.

    5. The whole thought experiment is pointless because meaning is not external; it is completely in the mind. Since all the Joe’s share the same mind/brain, they all mean the same thing.

    6. Putnam’s argument is the better one philosophically, but understanding meaning requires a naturalistic explanation. Externalism seems to conflict with scientific approaches to causation. Hence no answer can be justified until we have a better understanding of linguistics and cognitive science.

    7. The thought experiment is pointless because meanings do not exist. Rather, there are only successful or unsuccessful interactions involving language behavior of different people.

    8. To demonstrate one is using words meaningfully, external behavior is sufficient. Q-Joe passed the Turing test, so Q-Joe is using words meaningfully. It is unscientific to ask about mechanisms underlying that successful behavior.

    I defended 1 in previous thread but I am no longer interested in it; instead, answer 6 is the one that I defended in this thread.

  32. keiths:
    Bruce,

    Could you elaborate on that?I don’t see the problem.I asked walto about it but didn’t get a response.

    The issue is for metaphysics: how to understand scientific talk involving modality. The issue arises if laws are considered to necessitate events in their domain, or if causes necessitate effects, or in the possible worlds associated with dispositions.

    Humeans like David Lewis say “all there is to the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one little thing and then another.”. Hence there is no role for modality. Instead, he uses a best system account to explain away the modal language in science.

    Others are quite happy to say laws do necessitate, or causal powers are real and necessitate effects, or to to say dispositions are real despite the modal implications. (I think you only need to accept one of these to being to make the others a consequence of whichever you select).

    My point about it being a poor choice of words was that none of this seems related to the norms and science issue I was trying to explain.

  33. BruceS,

    At first blush, I prefer 1 to 6. It may be because 1 seems to me to simply require a putnamian ‘causal’ history for determining referential identity–whatever science comes to finally determine about what the hell ’causes’ are, while 6 suggests that the science is more fundamental than the philosophy even in the determination of how we understand meaning and reference. I think meaning externalism needs to accomodate the eventual science–but I don’t see why it couldn’t.

  34. keiths: The problem is that when ideas are debated, some of them will prevail over others. People being people, this will be perceived as victory not only for the prevailing ideas but also for the people holding and defending them. The losing ideas will likewise impute losses to their holders/defenders. These phenomena simply aren’t separable, given human nature.

    Are you really satisfied with this psychological explanation of why everyone must be an asshole on the internet? It’s not only pop-psych bullshit, it’s malevolent.

  35. Alan Fox:
    BruceS,

    have a look at this brief animated TED talk by Iain McGilichrist.

    Iain McGilChrist

    I enjoyed the video, although I am not clear on how it related to other comments I made in this thread.

    Based only on this video, I did get the impression that McGilChrist was speculating well beyond what the science would support.

    But I suppose one could say exactly the same about the philosophy involving PEM.

  36. Fair Witness: Oh, I don’t know about that. Maybe you think the isosceles tetrahedron is the ideal tetrahedron. Maybe I, on the other hand,think that the semi-orthocentric tetrahedron is the ideal. Maybe Walto thinks the isogonic tetrahedron is the ideal.

    Man, that ethereal realm of possibly-ideal things is really crowded. isn’t it?

    I explained the ideal tetrahedron here. The essential nature of tetrahedra does not include being isosceles, semi-orthocentric or isogonic. The ideal tetrahedron is not a mental picture of a tetraherdon.

  37. keiths:

    The problem is that when ideas are debated, some of them will prevail over others.People being people, this will be perceived as victory not only for the prevailing ideas but also for the people holding and defending them.The losing ideas will likewise impute losses to their holders/defenders. These phenomena simply aren’t separable, given human nature.

    I think I mentioned this above, but episode 1 of Sean C’s mindscape podcast as well as a whole series of podcasts by Arthur Brooks cover how to hold productive discussions in light of these concerns with human nature. I am sure there are plenty of books about that as well; I have not checked.

    Out for the rest of the day; back tomorrow, same bat-time, same bat-station.

  38. BruceS: Out for the rest of the day; back tomorrow, same bat-time, same bat-station.

    I think it was “bat channel.”

  39. Neil Rickert: We don’t compare concepts.We use them.We may compare how we use them.But we don’t compare concepts.

    Surely it depends on what we are aiming to do. If we are having a debate we are comparing concepts.

  40. walto,

    Are you really satisfied with this psychological explanation of why everyone must be an asshole on the internet? It’s not only pop-psych bullshit, it’s malevolent.

    It’s none of those things.

    Trigger walto’s insecurity, and out come the histrionics.

  41. keiths: That’s not what I asked. I asked whether you think they are non-physical.

    No, I don’t think that they are non-physical. I also don’t think that they are physical. There’s no need for me to make a decision as to whether or not they are physical.

    We have some “object” and you are insisting that I paint it with invisible paint. Or maybe you are asking whether it is already painted with invisible paint. It does not make any difference.

  42. J-Mac: CharlieM,
    Do not allow any of the bored to death narcissists here to influence your health…
    Just take your time… I really appreciate your thoughtful comments even though I don’t necessarily agree with them all thetime… I really appreciate your deep feelings involved…

    Thank you J Mac. I enjoy have discussions with those who disagree with me, I find it helps the learning process. So keep on sharing your disagreements.

    I really should have put a smiley face after the comment about lying down. It was my lame attempt at humour.

  43. keiths: Nominalism is itself an ontological position…

    This much is correct, but the essence of nominalist ontology is to deny as many things as possible, be it universals, substances, categories, concepts, etc. Only particulars remain at best, making nominalism approach atomism. They strongly prefer talking in epistemological terms over ontological terms, and the epistemology is through and through non-committal musing, only engaged in for the joy of annoying the discussion partner.

    As to the rest of what you say, I can put it this way: I don’t get nominalists. Nominalism makes no sense to me. However, I accept that nominalists exist and we have to get along with them as best we can, annoying and silly as they are.

    You (keiths), on the other hand, think nominalists should not exist. You keep bugging Neil, trying to force him into making claims that are not in his nature to either affirm or deny. You keep pointing out so-called contradictions that may very well be contradictions under your system, but cannot be contradictions for Neil. Because Neil has no system under which they could be perceived as contradictions.

    Anyway, keep freudening him. It’s what you do best. And he doesn’t deserve any better.

  44. keiths:

    CharlieM: This counterexample just shows me that you are working on a limited conception of potato.

    Quite the contrary. I have expanded my conception of potato, at your urging, and am now considering imaginary potatoes of unlimited size. According to your criterion, they are “realer” than ordinary, physical potatoes. Are you getting cold feet?

    What you are failing to consider is the essential nature of potatoes. Growth and decay are concepts that belong to potatoes, these are part of their essential nature. They are part of what it means to be a potato. Your mental picture of a potato is not the same thing as the concept potato. The former is subjective the latter objective.

    Size has nothing to do with the concept tetrahedron.

  45. keiths:

    CharlieM: If you want your thinking to accord with reality a potato cannot be conceived without the organism to which it belongs and the environment in which it grows. So obviously your imaginary potato does not accord with reality.

    That’s easily handled. To my imaginary mile-long potato, add a giant imaginary potato plant and a giant imaginary field in which the potato can grow.

    I’ve met your criteria, yet the mile-long potato is obviously not “realer” than the physical potato.

    Back to the drawing board, Charlie

    Again your imaginary mile-long potato in your imaginary field is your own subjective mental image and has nothing to do with the essential nature of potatoes.

  46. BruceS: I think he rejects privileging the Scientific Image over the Manifest Image, saying that each has an equally valid ontology, with things like contacts, money, Missouri, all being real in the Manifest Image without any need to re-express them in the Scientific Image. In particular, there is no need to relate their reality to the Scientific Image using token physicalism, as I understand Keith to be doing.

    Yes, that seems to be about right. I think Kaufman might even want to privilege the manifest image over the scientific image, at least in the sense that in ordinary life it is the manifest image that matters to us.

    But where he loses me is in the nature of that separate ontology, eg how to avoid dualism. Put another way, how does he get around the causal closure of the physical which means we should privilege the Scientific Image?

    Kaufman probably does not see that as an important issue. The concept of “cause” has its own problems.

    But would such a view mean there would have been no dinosaurs without humans to conceive of them?

    It’s hard to explain my position on that. But I’ll try.

    No, there would be no dinosaurs. All of the same stuff (whatever it is that dinosaurs are constituted of) would be there. But for a dinosaur to exist is for a particular collection of stuff to be singled out and considered a thing. And that’s the part that requires humans.

    Of course, other organisms likely also single out parts of the stuff and consider them things. But what those other organisms take to be things might be different from what we take to be things.

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