Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Friday, March 22, 2013 1:15:58 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 3/19/2013 11:24 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 19.03.2013 19:17 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:38:21 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths If when skirt lengths changed there was ALWAYS a change in the stock market in the same direction, and when the stock market changed there was ALWAYS a change in skirt lengths that preceded it then its true, changing the length of skirts DOES cause a change in the stock market; and if humans don't understand how a connection between the two could possibly work that's just too bad, it wouldn't make it any less true. And if all of that were true then dress designers would be the richest people the world has ever seen. They're not. I already went through this with you with the vanilla ice cream example. Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, and I think that must be the case with neurological activity and subjective experience, where the third and fundamental system is sensory-motor capacity, or sense, from which the private and public subsystems are derived. In a way everything is just regularities. That's not where the laws of nature come from. We make up the laws of nature so they are consistent with the regularities we've observed. But the laws have to go beyond just encoding the know regularities, they have to have predictive and explanatory power. Otherwise they no better than a data list. We make inferences from the data list which make sense to us intuitively, logically, aesthetically, and continue to coincide without experience practically. Then eventually we understand more and recontextualize what we thought was 'law' into more of a 'really nice try', but by then 'we' aren't the same people as we were before. I would wager that this pattern turns out to be more of a 'law' than what we have learned from science, philosophy, or religion. Craig Brent For example a good short talk in this respect Where do the Laws of Nature Come From? (Bas van Fraassen) http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Where-do-the-Laws-of-Nature-Come-From-Bas-van-Fraassen-/1372 Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
This extract from Chesterton has little sense without what precedes and follows. 2013/3/16 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But, as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism… The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid… The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Tom Bayley tjp.bay...@gmail.com wrote: I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. Does the chain of questions what caused that? ever come to a end? If it doesn't then you can keep asking that question forever in infinite regress; however if it does come to a end, if A caused B and B causes C and C causes D and that's all there is then once we've said that C causes D we've said all we can say and we know that D is a fundamental thing in the universe; although it might not be the only fundamental thing, there might be other sequences of what caused that? questions that come to a different end. Most members of this list insist that consciousness is fundamental but it's clear they haven't thought it through because after saying that they demand to know how D causes consciousness. I think that D is information processing and once you say that consciousness is the way data feels like when it is being processed you've said all you can say about the matter because consciousness is fundamental. If that leaves you with a sense of dissatisfaction that's just in the nature of fundamental things, but I doubt you'd be any happier if the chain of questions what caused that? never came to a end and it was like a onion with a infinite number of layers with one mystery always inside another. And after all, the sequence either comes to a end or it does not, neither possibility is likely to leave you entirely satisfied. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:42:02 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Tom Bayley tjp.b...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. Does the chain of questions what caused that? ever come to a end? Yes. What causes cause? ends that regress. What causes cause is nested sensory-motor participation - which means that sensory-motor participation is not itself subject to causality. If it doesn't then you can keep asking that question forever in infinite regress; however if it does come to a end, if A caused B and B causes C and C causes D and that's all there is then once we've said that C causes D we've said all we can say and we know that D is a fundamental thing in the universe; although it might not be the only fundamental thing, there might be other sequences of what caused that? questions that come to a different end. The ability to read and write causes A through Z. Sense is always outside of any frame, as all frames are a sense of perceptual or conceptual inertia. Most members of this list insist that consciousness is fundamental Really? It seems like most people here are functionalists. but it's clear they haven't thought it through because after saying that they demand to know how D causes consciousness. I think that D is information processing and once you say that consciousness is the way data feels like when it is being processed you've said all you can say about the matter because consciousness is fundamental. But we know that data doesn't feel like anything. Bugs Bunny is data. He doesn't feel like Bugs Bunny, right? The assumption of naked representation is tempting, but ultimately can only be an extension of the pathetic fallacy as far as I can tell. If that leaves you with a sense of dissatisfaction that's just in the nature of fundamental things, but I doubt you'd be any happier if the chain of questions what caused that? never came to a end and it was like a onion with a infinite number of layers with one mystery always inside another. And after all, the sequence either comes to a end or it does not, neither possibility is likely to leave you entirely satisfied. This has nothing to do with satisfaction. It's about overlooking the fundamental context. Your metaphor takes letters of the alphabet for granted, it take the whole sense of identity and sequence, causality, coherence, relation, etc as givens. You are explaining the restaurant by pointing to the items on the menu - completely ignoring all of the tables and chairs, the waiters, the plates and silverware, etc. You are saying that we have to just accept that if we order something on the menu, that food always appears, so therefore the menu causes food...which I can understand, but the disturbing part is that when this is pointed out, you don't seem to mind this appearance of food, as long is it keeps us from looking away from the menu. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On 3/19/2013 11:24 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 19.03.2013 19:17 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:38:21 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths If when skirt lengths changed there was ALWAYS a change in the stock market in the same direction, and when the stock market changed there was ALWAYS a change in skirt lengths that preceded it then its true, changing the length of skirts DOES cause a change in the stock market; and if humans don't understand how a connection between the two could possibly work that's just too bad, it wouldn't make it any less true. And if all of that were true then dress designers would be the richest people the world has ever seen. They're not. I already went through this with you with the vanilla ice cream example. Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, and I think that must be the case with neurological activity and subjective experience, where the third and fundamental system is sensory-motor capacity, or sense, from which the private and public subsystems are derived. In a way everything is just regularities. That's not where the laws of nature come from. We make up the laws of nature so they are consistent with the regularities we've observed. But the laws have to go beyond just encoding the know regularities, they have to have predictive and explanatory power. Otherwise they no better than a data list. Brent For example a good short talk in this respect Where do the Laws of Nature Come From? (Bas van Fraassen) http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Where-do-the-Laws-of-Nature-Come-From-Bas-van-Fraassen-/1372 Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:44:02 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. BULLSHIT! If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two flowers bloom at sunrise every day without fail. Does one cause the other to bloom? Do the flowers cause the sun to rise? Instead of two flowers, think of one flower that blooms at sunrise, and something else that happens at sunrise that is completely unlike a flower - like a particular song plays. If we apply this metaphorically to consciousness, then the flower and the music are two perpendicular, correlated expressions of the sunrise. Our subjective consciousness is the music, and it is part of a history of music going back to the dawn of time, and the flower is what the music looks like from the outside, and it has a separate history of plants going back to the dawn of botany or matter. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. They can be unrelated except for their mutual relation to the third thing though, obviously. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 2:39:40 PM UTC, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:44:02 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comwrote: Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. BULLSHIT! If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two flowers bloom at sunrise every day without fail. Does one cause the other to bloom? Do the flowers cause the sun to rise? Instead of two flowers, think of one flower that blooms at sunrise, and something else that happens at sunrise that is completely unlike a flower - like a particular song plays. If we apply this metaphorically to consciousness, then the flower and the music are two perpendicular, correlated expressions of the sunrise. Our subjective consciousness is the music, and it is part of a history of music going back to the dawn of time, and the flower is what the music looks like from the outside, and it has a separate history of plants going back to the dawn of botany or matter. Hello, sorry to want to get involved ;-) I always hear an audible click very shortly after I see the light switch on. There is no direct causation, but the two phenomena are both related via the action of my finger, which if I am technologically unsophisticated may not be obvious (think of cargo cults.) Are you suggesting it might be a similar mistake to say that neural events cause qualia? i.e. there could be an as yet hidden cause for both. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. They can be unrelated except for their mutual relation to the third thing though, obviously. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two flowers bloom at sunrise every day without fail. Does one cause the other to bloom? I don't know, I'd have to perform some experiment's to find out. Do the flowers cause the sun to rise? If when X happens Y always happens AND when X doesn't happen Y never happens then we can say with great confidence that X causes Y because that's what the word causes means. Thus if when the flower blooms the sun always comes up AND when the flower does not bloom (such as when the experimenter ties the bloom closed) the Earth changes its rotational speed and the sun never comes above the horizon then we can say with great confidence that the flower caused the sun to rise because that's what the word causes means. We might not fully understand how or why botany and astronomy are related in this way but there would be no doubt that they are. However we DON'T get these experimental results in the real world so we say the flower does not cause the sun to rise. When the chemistry of the brain changes the conscious experience that the brain produces always changes, AND when the chemistry does not change the conscious experience never changes, thus we can say with great confidence that chemistry causes consciousness because that's what the word causes means. We might not fully understand how or why chemistry and consciousness are related in this way but there is no doubt that they are. We DO get these experimental results in the real world so we say that if matter is organized in certain ways it produces consciousness. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. They can be unrelated except for their mutual relation to the third thing though, obviously. Besides that Mrs Lincoln how did you like the play? I am unrelated to my sister except for our mutual relation to our parents, obviously. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On 20 Mar 2013, at 17:09, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two flowers bloom at sunrise every day without fail. Does one cause the other to bloom? I don't know, I'd have to perform some experiment's to find out. Do the flowers cause the sun to rise? If when X happens Y always happens AND when X doesn't happen Y never happens then we can say with great confidence that X causes Y because that's what the word causes means. Does this not imply that X causes Y if and only if Y causes X? In many-world terms it means that in all worlds where you have X you have Y, and in all worlds where you have Y you have X. In general we want X causes Y be different from Y causes X. More useful is saying just that when X happens Y always happens. In all worlds with X you have Y. X causes Y iff[] (X - Y), (and then there will be as many notions of causality that there are possible modal logics, and the causality appears to be a high level domain and context relative notion). Bruno Thus if when the flower blooms the sun always comes up AND when the flower does not bloom (such as when the experimenter ties the bloom closed) the Earth changes its rotational speed and the sun never comes above the horizon then we can say with great confidence that the flower caused the sun to rise because that's what the word causes means. We might not fully understand how or why botany and astronomy are related in this way but there would be no doubt that they are. However we DON'T get these experimental results in the real world so we say the flower does not cause the sun to rise. When the chemistry of the brain changes the conscious experience that the brain produces always changes, AND when the chemistry does not change the conscious experience never changes, thus we can say with great confidence that chemistry causes consciousness because that's what the word causes means. We might not fully understand how or why chemistry and consciousness are related in this way but there is no doubt that they are. We DO get these experimental results in the real world so we say that if matter is organized in certain ways it produces consciousness. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. They can be unrelated except for their mutual relation to the third thing though, obviously. Besides that Mrs Lincoln how did you like the play? I am unrelated to my sister except for our mutual relation to our parents, obviously. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 11:35:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Bayley wrote: On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 2:39:40 PM UTC, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:44:02 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comwrote: Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. BULLSHIT! If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two flowers bloom at sunrise every day without fail. Does one cause the other to bloom? Do the flowers cause the sun to rise? Instead of two flowers, think of one flower that blooms at sunrise, and something else that happens at sunrise that is completely unlike a flower - like a particular song plays. If we apply this metaphorically to consciousness, then the flower and the music are two perpendicular, correlated expressions of the sunrise. Our subjective consciousness is the music, and it is part of a history of music going back to the dawn of time, and the flower is what the music looks like from the outside, and it has a separate history of plants going back to the dawn of botany or matter. Hello, sorry to want to get involved ;-) I always hear an audible click very shortly after I see the light switch on. There is no direct causation, but the two phenomena are both related via the action of my finger, which if I am technologically unsophisticated may not be obvious (think of cargo cults.) Are you suggesting it might be a similar mistake to say that neural events cause qualia? i.e. there could be an as yet hidden cause for both. I would say that cause is not even an appropriate term to address it. Cause is a function of temporal sequence, memory, and inference, all of which supervene on awareness to begin with. Neural events coincide with qualia simultaneously. There is no converting homunculus or Cartesian theater where any causal transduction takes place. The neurology is the public view, the qualia is the private view. The human qualities of our our consciousness can be said to be caused by human history going back to the beginning of Homo Sapiens, and that history correlates to the structures of the human nervous system, but there is no cause and effect relation - qualia is not generate by anything, everything already is nothing but qualia. Neurological events can of course have an effect on our personal *access* to qualia. Craig Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. They can be unrelated except for their mutual relation to the third thing though, obviously. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Tom Bayley tjp.bay...@gmail.com wrote: I always hear an audible click very shortly after I see the light switch on. There is no direct causation, Yes but how do you know that, how can you prove there is no causation? It's easy, just buy another light switch of the same manufacturer but don't connect it up to any wires. When you flip the switch it will make a identical audio click, if the lights don't go on then you know it's not the sound of the click that makes the lights go on. Alternately you could get some soundproofing material and put it around your existing switch, the one already hooked up to the wires; now when you flip the switch you hear nothing and if the lights still come on then you know the sound does not cause the lights coming on. We say that X causes Y If when X happens Y always happens AND when X doesn't happen Y never happens, and we know for a fact that when the chemistry of the brain changes consciousness always changes AND when the chemistry doesn't change consciousness never changes, thus the conclusion is obvious. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:09:24 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:wrote: If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two flowers bloom at sunrise every day without fail. Does one cause the other to bloom? I don't know, I'd have to perform some experiment's to find out. I see that sophistry blooms and eclipses common sense as well. Do the flowers cause the sun to rise? If when X happens Y always happens AND when X doesn't happen Y never happens then we can say with great confidence that X causes Y because that's what the word causes means. I just showed you why that is not true. The purple flower always blooms when the orange flower blooms. Your great confidence is misplaced and your meaning for the word causes is inadequate. Thus if when the flower blooms the sun always comes up AND when the flower does not bloom (such as when the experimenter ties the bloom closed) the Earth changes its rotational speed and the sun never comes above the horizon then we can say with great confidence that the flower caused the sun to rise because that's what the word causes means. Then all we have to do is tie back all awareness in the universe and see if anything is still there - without using awareness to do it. We might not fully understand how or why botany and astronomy are related in this way but there would be no doubt that they are. However we DON'T get these experimental results in the real world so we say the flower does not cause the sun to rise. You are assuming that you know that the data you have access to and that you can control is all the data that there is. Certainly with consciousness that is not the case. You can't run a control against consciousness, since consciousness can never not be present. When the chemistry of the brain changes the conscious experience that the brain produces always changes, AND when the chemistry does not change the conscious experience never changes, thus we can say with great confidence that chemistry causes consciousness because that's what the word causes means. No, we can just as easily say that the conscious experience cause the brain to produce changes. Why do you arbitrarily privilege the chemistry? Cause has to occur before an effect. That is not the case with brain changes and awareness. We can decide to do something tomorrow and our brain will change tomorrow because of the cause we have set in motion today. We might not fully understand how or why chemistry and consciousness are related in this way but there is no doubt that they are. They are related by virtue of being synchronized and part of a larger whole. There is no way for any body to 'cause' an experience though. They can modulate access to experience, but experience cannot be caused any more than physics can be caused. We DO get these experimental results in the real world so we say that if matter is organized in certain ways it produces consciousness. That's because we are working backwards from physics rather than from both consciousness and physics to the common ground. It's a catastrophic mistake, as bad as religious fundamentalism makes. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. They can be unrelated except for their mutual relation to the third thing though, obviously. Besides that Mrs Lincoln how did you like the play? I am unrelated to my sister except for our mutual relation to our parents, obviously. Well, no, if all that was between you and your sister was the relation to your parents, then you would have never seen or heard her in your entire life. If you had a secret sister that you just found out about then you would be related by your parents and by knowing about her existence. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 12:22 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: If when X happens Y always happens AND when X doesn't happen Y never happens then we can say with great confidence that X causes Y because that's what the word causes means. Does this not imply that X causes Y if and only if Y causes X? The if-then operation as well as the very word causes implies a direction to time. If X then Y AND if not X then not Y then X causes Y. We could get into the question of why time seems to have a preferred direction if you like. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:37:54 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 Tom Bayley tjp.b...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: I always hear an audible click very shortly after I see the light switch on. There is no direct causation, Yes but how do you know that, how can you prove there is no causation? It's easy, just buy another light switch of the same manufacturer but don't connect it up to any wires. We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. When you flip the switch it will make a identical audio click, if the lights don't go on then you know it's not the sound of the click that makes the lights go on. Alternately you could get some soundproofing material and put it around your existing switch, the one already hooked up to the wires; now when you flip the switch you hear nothing and if the lights still come on then you know the sound does not cause the lights coming on. We say that X causes Y If when X happens Y always happens AND when X doesn't happen Y never happens, and we know for a fact that when the chemistry of the brain changes consciousness always changes AND when the chemistry doesn't change consciousness never changes, thus the conclusion is obvious. If a conclusion about consciousness seems obvious, then it is probably wrong. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. What the hell??? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:55:50 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. What the hell??? Books aren't neurological, right? There is no direct link between the author's brain and the reader's brain. Just like the light switch - you remove any connection between neurons, yet the words of one brain (or brain activity ostensibly associated with the words) are still transmitted from one to the other. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 , Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. What the hell??? Books aren't neurological, right? Right, but they are certainly material. There is no direct link between the author's brain and the reader's brain. There is never a direct link between one mind and another, there is always a material middle man, usually many, such as photons reflected off paper in a book, or air vibrations from vocal cords, or in chemical changes in the nerves of fingers, or whatever. Just like the light switch There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. you remove any connection between neurons, yet the words of one brain (or brain activity ostensibly associated with the words) are still transmitted from one to the other. When you write books I don't always read them AND if I don't read your book your book still exists, so I can say with great confidence that my reading of your books does not cause your books to exist. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 1:44:23 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 , Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:wrote: We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. What the hell??? Books aren't neurological, right? Right, but they are certainly material. They don't conduct potassium ions from the brain though. There is no direct link between the author's brain and the reader's brain. There is never a direct link between one mind and another, there is always a material middle man, usually many, such as photons reflected off paper in a book, or air vibrations from vocal cords, or in chemical changes in the nerves of fingers, or whatever. Then by your reasoning, since there is *always* a material middle man, then the middle man must cause consciousness of the book rather than neurochemistry. Just like the light switch There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. Now apply that to the brain. Chemical changes in the neurons cause...nothing but more chemical changes in cells. From our point of view however, our intention to stand up causes our body to stand up. you remove any connection between neurons, yet the words of one brain (or brain activity ostensibly associated with the words) are still transmitted from one to the other. When you write books I don't always read them AND if I don't read your book your book still exists, so I can say with great confidence that my reading of your books does not cause your books to exist. But all books that are read cause a similar awareness. Just like a neurotransmitter might cause a similar awareness. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 5:44:23 PM UTC, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 , Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:wrote: We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. What the hell??? Books aren't neurological, right? Right, but they are certainly material. There is no direct link between the author's brain and the reader's brain. There is never a direct link between one mind and another, there is always a material middle man, usually many, such as photons reflected off paper in a book, or air vibrations from vocal cords, or in chemical changes in the nerves of fingers, or whatever. Just like the light switch There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. It's tempting to believe that's because it's a complicated step, but there seems no obvious way to reduce it. So as far as I can see it is still only an assumption, with the hope/faith that some plausible explanation will one day be found. I'm not sure there are many other widely-held scientific explanations like this one? you remove any connection between neurons, yet the words of one brain (or brain activity ostensibly associated with the words) are still transmitted from one to the other. When you write books I don't always read them AND if I don't read your book your book still exists, so I can say with great confidence that my reading of your books does not cause your books to exist. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On 3/20/2013 4:51 PM, Tom Bayley wrote: There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. It's tempting to believe that's because it's a complicated step, but there seems no obvious way to reduce it. So as far as I can see it is still only an assumption, with the hope/faith that some plausible explanation will one day be found. I'm not sure there are many other widely-held scientific explanations like this one? I don't think you have considered carefully enough explanations that you do think are plausible: Did Newton explain gravity? Did Gell-Mann explain quarks. Is life explained by chemistry? An explanation is satisfying when we can used it to predict or manipulate. When we can build robots that act just like people and report their qualia to us - then we'll think we've explained qualia, and questions like Yes, but what is it really? will seem anachronistic. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 7:51:50 PM UTC-4, Tom Bayley wrote: On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 5:44:23 PM UTC, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 , Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: We can write books and other people can read them, so that must prove that consciousness is not caused by neurochemistry. What the hell??? Books aren't neurological, right? Right, but they are certainly material. There is no direct link between the author's brain and the reader's brain. There is never a direct link between one mind and another, there is always a material middle man, usually many, such as photons reflected off paper in a book, or air vibrations from vocal cords, or in chemical changes in the nerves of fingers, or whatever. Just like the light switch There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) Exactly. (singular of qualia is quale, btw. pronounced 'quall'). itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. It's tempting to believe that's because it's a complicated step, but there seems no obvious way to reduce it. So as far as I can see it is still only an assumption, with the hope/faith that some plausible explanation will one day be found. I'm not sure there are many other widely-held scientific explanations like this one? That's why the whole picture needs to be turned upside down. Begin with the certainty that there is no complicated step, no simple step, no step at all because no set of steps is any better than magic. There is clearly no functional justification for qualia, no matter how you try to squirm out of it, no programmer has every felt the need to create some universe of feelings and flavors and thoughts to act as a nebulous, epiphenomenal medium between two sets of precise data. All descriptions are private - only some are more basic than others. The descriptions which are beneath the privacy threshold of a given experience are said to be public or 'physical'. Craig you remove any connection between neurons, yet the words of one brain (or brain activity ostensibly associated with the words) are still transmitted from one to the other. When you write books I don't always read them AND if I don't read your book your book still exists, so I can say with great confidence that my reading of your books does not cause your books to exist. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 8:26:04 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 3/20/2013 4:51 PM, Tom Bayley wrote: There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. It's tempting to believe that's because it's a complicated step, but there seems no obvious way to reduce it. So as far as I can see it is still only an assumption, with the hope/faith that some plausible explanation will one day be found. I'm not sure there are many other widely-held scientific explanations like this one? I don't think you have considered carefully enough explanations that you do think are plausible: Did Newton explain gravity? Did Gell-Mann explain quarks. Is life explained by chemistry? An explanation is satisfying when we can used it to predict or manipulate. When we can build robots that act just like people and report their qualia to us - then we'll think we've explained qualia, and questions like Yes, but what is it really? will seem anachronistic. That isn't a rebuttal to the promissory functionalism which Tom and I point out. You are only saying that you don't care about our objections, because of your faith in the future of your particular view of science. What reason do you offer to share your optimism, completely blind as it is? What explanations do you accuse Tom of not considering carefully enough? Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:44:38 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 3/20/2013 6:37 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 8:26:04 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 3/20/2013 4:51 PM, Tom Bayley wrote: There is not a direct link between the light switch and the light going on either, the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire, the current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in the light bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the electromagnetic waves to be produced. I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that it has been explained. It's tempting to believe that's because it's a complicated step, but there seems no obvious way to reduce it. So as far as I can see it is still only an assumption, with the hope/faith that some plausible explanation will one day be found. I'm not sure there are many other widely-held scientific explanations like this one? I don't think you have considered carefully enough explanations that you do think are plausible: Did Newton explain gravity? Did Gell-Mann explain quarks. Is life explained by chemistry? An explanation is satisfying when we can used it to predict or manipulate. When we can build robots that act just like people and report their qualia to us - then we'll think we've explained qualia, and questions like Yes, but what is it really? will seem anachronistic. That isn't a rebuttal to the promissory functionalism which Tom and I point out. You are only saying that you don't care about our objections, because of your faith in the future of your particular view of science. What reason do you offer to share your optimism, completely blind as it is? What explanations do you accuse Tom of not considering carefully enough? It's not just my view. It was Newton's too which he expressed as Hypothesi non fingo. And it's not optimism. It's a recognition of the limits of explanation. I listed three for consideration. When we can build robots that act just like people and report their qualia to us - then we'll think we've explained qualia, and questions like Yes, but what is it really? will seem anachronistic That is not a statement of modesty, it is an empty brag. Yours is 'Hypothesi non dubium'. In my opinion, these assumptions will seem anachronistic, like the flying cars and vast space colonies of 20th century Sci-Fi. Craig Bret -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On 18 Mar 2013, at 21:15, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, March 18, 2013 11:33:17 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: G K Chesterton wrote: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. That is absolutely true, there are more ways of being wrong than of being right, so if you don't care if your ideas are self consistent or not (for example if you don't care that X is not Y and X is not not Y) and if you don't care what words mean (for example if you don't care that if changing X always changes Y and changing Y always changes X that doesn't mean that X caused Y) then you have much more freedom over what you can believe than a logical man does. The man who thinks he is logical is often just stubborn. There are many things related to consciousness which can't be defined in the terms we have learned from manipulating public objects. No state of awareness is uniquely one thing and not another. All phenomenology is multivalent and impacted by intention and expectation. I can make sense on this. If you want all the parts of your belief system to fit together the range of things you can believe in is severely limited. And finding ways all the parts of the universe fit together in a self consistent way is hard, very hard, so often the logical man must just say I don't know I'm not certain, they religious man on the other hand is always certain but seldom correct. The logical man is a man whose religion is logic. Not that I'm opposed to logic, it just can't penetrate to the cause of awareness. Logic is always an a-posteriori analysis of a sensory-motor experience. I can agree with this. But no more if your replaced logical by Turing universal. Machines and numbers are beyond logic. That is the unexpected lesson of the 20th century math, and which makes comp consistent with experiences. there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism… The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that a invisible man in the sky sent His son, who was also Him, to be tortured to death by humans even though he loved His son, who is also Him, very much because otherwise he could not forgive humans even though He is omnipotent. Even though He is omnipotent torturing His son, who is really Him, for the crime of eating a apple is the only way He could forgive the torturers. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that it makes sense that if I'm mad at you and then you torture my son to death I will no longer be mad at you. No argument there. I only disagree with you on religion in the sense that I don't think the fictions which have been created are arbitrary. They reflect metaphorical illustrations about consciousness itself, and when taken figuratively all myths can reveal important insights. It's only when people take them literally that it causes problems, and as long as physics refuses to take consciousness seriously, people will continue to take religion literally. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… I don't know when Chesterton wrote that but he lived until 1936 and by 1925 physicists, the ultimate materialists, did not believe that history or anything else was simply and solely a chain of causation; however it is unlikely that Chesterton ever knew this and like most self styled philosophers remained blissfully ignorant of all scientific and mathematical discoveries made during the last century or two. Are you referring here to the addition of randomness or probability to the chain of causation? Incidentally I found some more ideas of Chesterton. In 1290 Edward 1 expelled the Jews from England and Chesterton writes that Edward was a just and conscientious monarch and acted correctly because the Jews were as powerful as they are unpopular and the capitalists of their age so when Edward flung the alien financiers out of the land he acted as knight errant and was the tender father of his people. Even in 1920 Chesterton thought there was still a Jewish Problem in Europe. Hitler had his Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Even anti-Semites can have valid insights. Correct. An example is Henry Ford. He was correct on health, oil and hemp, but close to the nazis about the Jews. Clark argument was of course invalid. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Monday, March 18, 2013 8:15:39 PM UTC, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, March 18, 2013 11:33:17 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: G K Chesterton wrote: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. That is absolutely true, there are more ways of being wrong than of being right, so if you don't care if your ideas are self consistent or not (for example if you don't care that X is not Y and X is not not Y) and if you don't care what words mean (for example if you don't care that if changing X always changes Y and changing Y always changes X that doesn't mean that X caused Y) then you have much more freedom over what you can believe than a logical man does. The man who thinks he is logical is often just stubborn. There are many things related to consciousness which can't be defined in the terms we have learned from manipulating public objects. No state of awareness is uniquely one thing and not another. All phenomenology is multivalent and impacted by intention and expectation. If you want all the parts of your belief system to fit together the range of things you can believe in is severely limited. And finding ways all the parts of the universe fit together in a self consistent way is hard, very hard, so often the logical man must just say I don't know I'm not certain, they religious man on the other hand is always certain but seldom correct. The logical man is a man whose religion is logic. Not that I'm opposed to logic, it just can't penetrate to the cause of awareness. Logic is always an a-posteriori analysis of a sensory-motor experience. there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism… The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that a invisible man in the sky sent His son, who was also Him, to be tortured to death by humans even though he loved His son, who is also Him, very much because otherwise he could not forgive humans even though He is omnipotent. Even though He is omnipotent torturing His son, who is really Him, for the crime of eating a apple is the only way He could forgive the torturers. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that it makes sense that if I'm mad at you and then you torture my son to death I will no longer be mad at you. No argument there. I only disagree with you on religion in the sense that I don't think the fictions which have been created are arbitrary. They reflect metaphorical illustrations about consciousness itself, and when taken figuratively all myths can reveal important insights. It's only when people take them literally that it causes problems, and as long as physics refuses to take consciousness seriously, people will continue to take religion literally. What do you think John 5:19 is trying to say about individual free will? It seems to me to be confirming what non-dual traditions also assert: That there is no independent self and thus no agent to exercise free will. They talk about the universal Self, the unicity of existence, which somehow manifests as our apparent, but illusory, individual selves. This universal Self is the only actual entity and it has no independent parts. Independence/multiplicity is merely a feature of the world of concepts, which is ultimately unreal (a product of the Fall?) Free will and determinism are both concepts - in actuality it all happens the way it happens, and God says it is good, etc... The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… I don't know when Chesterton wrote that but he lived until 1936 and by 1925 physicists, the ultimate materialists, did not believe that history or anything else was simply and solely a chain of causation; however it is unlikely that Chesterton ever knew this and like most self styled philosophers remained blissfully ignorant of all scientific and mathematical discoveries made during the last century or two. Are you referring here to the addition of randomness or probability to the chain of causation? Incidentally I found some more ideas of Chesterton. In 1290 Edward 1 expelled the Jews from England and Chesterton writes that Edward was a just and conscientious monarch and acted correctly because the Jews were as powerful as they are unpopular and the capitalists of their age so when Edward flung the alien financiers out of the land he acted as knight errant and was the tender father of his people. Even in 1920 Chesterton thought there was still a Jewish Problem in
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 6:55:30 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Mar 2013, at 21:15, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, March 18, 2013 11:33:17 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: G K Chesterton wrote: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. That is absolutely true, there are more ways of being wrong than of being right, so if you don't care if your ideas are self consistent or not (for example if you don't care that X is not Y and X is not not Y) and if you don't care what words mean (for example if you don't care that if changing X always changes Y and changing Y always changes X that doesn't mean that X caused Y) then you have much more freedom over what you can believe than a logical man does. The man who thinks he is logical is often just stubborn. There are many things related to consciousness which can't be defined in the terms we have learned from manipulating public objects. No state of awareness is uniquely one thing and not another. All phenomenology is multivalent and impacted by intention and expectation. I can make sense on this. If you want all the parts of your belief system to fit together the range of things you can believe in is severely limited. And finding ways all the parts of the universe fit together in a self consistent way is hard, very hard, so often the logical man must just say I don't know I'm not certain, they religious man on the other hand is always certain but seldom correct. The logical man is a man whose religion is logic. Not that I'm opposed to logic, it just can't penetrate to the cause of awareness. Logic is always an a-posteriori analysis of a sensory-motor experience. I can agree with this. But no more if your replaced logical by Turing universal. Machines and numbers are beyond logic. That is the unexpected lesson of the 20th century math, and which makes comp consistent with experiences. I am happy to entertain the idea that Turing universal (hyperlogic? sense?) extends far beyond 'logic', even to a sublime degree, but what gives us a reason to see this plane of hyper-extension as the identical plane of subjective qualia? I don't see that Turing hyperlogic could or would evoke geometry, much less flavor, feelings, images, etc., and especially not realism. Instead, I see the extension of arithmetic truth as orthogonal to subjectivity - an invisible, intangible, web of infinitely narrow quantitative associations. Nested - sure, massively complex and multi-layered, veridical, predictive, bursting with proto-morphological wonders, definitely. What I don't see though is any aesthetic coherence. No room for experiential preference, embodiment, moral orientation, no presentation or presence of any kind. The mechanism of the Turing machine is arbitrarily conjured out of nothing - suddenly there is a phenomena which we know as 'read/write', and a local read/write head which interacts causally with this movable, controllable 'tape'. There is motion and control, continuity and memory, encoding schemas which bring arithmetic into local interaction somehow. The whole machine can be simulated on another machine only because the original machine includes this list of inherent capacities, which are to me, undoubtedly sensory-motor and pre-arithmetic. there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism… The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that a invisible man in the sky sent His son, who was also Him, to be tortured to death by humans even though he loved His son, who is also Him, very much because otherwise he could not forgive humans even though He is omnipotent. Even though He is omnipotent torturing His son, who is really Him, for the crime of eating a apple is the only way He could forgive the torturers. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that it makes sense that if I'm mad at you and then you torture my son to death I will no longer be mad at you. No argument there. I only disagree with you on religion in the sense that I don't think the fictions which have been created are arbitrary. They reflect metaphorical illustrations about consciousness itself, and when taken figuratively all myths can reveal important insights. It's only when people take them literally that it causes problems, and as long as physics refuses to take consciousness seriously, people will continue to take religion literally. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: The man who thinks he is logical is often just stubborn. If being ruled by your head rather than your gut or your crotch is stubborn then being stubborn is a virtue. There are many things related to consciousness [...] it's not just consciousness, there are many things related to EVERYTHING and if one wishes to fit all those parts of the jigsaw puzzle that is the universe together into a self consistent whole then logic is the only tool available; maybe it will turn out that logic is insufficient for that task but its all we've got and so we'll just have to do the best we can. The logical man is a man whose religion is logic. Wow, calling a guy know for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. Not that I'm opposed to logic Your posts tell a very different story. If it already supported what they wanted to believe nobody, absolutely nobody, would dispute the logical fact that if X is not not Y then X is Y. If it already supported what they wanted to believe nobody, absolutely nobody, would dispute the logical fact that if changing X always changes Y and changing Y always changes X then X and Y are intimately related. But if what you want to be true and what you logically know must be true come into conflict then logic is just going to have to go away and you are left with the pleasant but imbecilic idea that if you want something to be true hard enough you can make it be true. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… I don't know when Chesterton wrote that but he lived until 1936 and by 1925 physicists, the ultimate materialists, did not believe that history or anything else was simply and solely a chain of causation; however it is unlikely that Chesterton ever knew this and like most self styled philosophers remained blissfully ignorant of all scientific and mathematical discoveries made during the last century or two. Are you referring here to the addition of randomness or probability to the chain of causation? No I am not. I'm referring to Quantum Mechanics, the TITANIC revolution in science that happened in the mid 1920's. In particular I'm referring to the discovery of the Schrodinger Wave equation and Heisenberg's equivalent matrix formulation. On reflection I shouldn't be surprised at your confusion, after all I just said that modern philosophers pay no attention to recent developments in science or mathematics; and by recent I mean stuff that happened in the last 200 years. Even anti-Semites can have valid insights. Yes but it does call into question ones claim to be a expert on morality, and morality is what G K Chesterton most liked to write about. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 12:34:20 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: The man who thinks he is logical is often just stubborn. If being ruled by your head rather than your gut or your crotch is stubborn then being stubborn is a virtue. I prefer to rule all three to the extent that I can, but also to be open to what all three have to offer. There are many things related to consciousness [...] it's not just consciousness, there are many things related to EVERYTHING and if one wishes to fit all those parts of the jigsaw puzzle that is the universe together into a self consistent whole then logic is the only tool available; maybe it will turn out that logic is insufficient for that task but its all we've got and so we'll just have to do the best we can. It's not all we've got at all. We've got intuition, sensitivity, aesthetics, experience, practical or common sense... logic is very limited. We have a whole other hemisphere of the brain that is used, not just by us, but other animals as well. Logic is useless without the other faculties of reasoning and evaluating. The logical man is a man whose religion is logic. Wow, calling a guy know for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. That's because the man restricted to logic often sees his own sentimental attachments and confirmation bias as part of an objective truth, and all that conflicts with that is painted as religious. The irony needs to be pointed out again and again that this is in fact the very psychology which he objects to in religion. Not that I'm opposed to logic Your posts tell a very different story. If it already supported what they wanted to believe nobody, absolutely nobody, would dispute the logical fact that if X is not not Y then X is Y. X and Y are figures. They are imaginary. They have the qualities that you assign to them. We can just as easily define X and Y as a superposition of superposition and anti-superposition and you wouldn't bat an eye if it came from some theoretical physicist that managed to get a peer reviewed paper published. Your logic is prejudice. If it already supported what they wanted to believe nobody, absolutely nobody, would dispute the logical fact that if changing X always changes Y and changing Y always changes X then X and Y are intimately related. Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths and other spandrel-type indicators. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/stock-market-indicators.asp But if what you want to be true and what you logically know must be true come into conflict then logic is just going to have to go away and you are left with the pleasant but imbecilic idea that if you want something to be true hard enough you can make it be true. Wanting something to be true has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of recognizing that logic is only one epistemological source - there are others, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… I don't know when Chesterton wrote that but he lived until 1936 and by 1925 physicists, the ultimate materialists, did not believe that history or anything else was simply and solely a chain of causation; however it is unlikely that Chesterton ever knew this and like most self styled philosophers remained blissfully ignorant of all scientific and mathematical discoveries made during the last century or two. Are you referring here to the addition of randomness or probability to the chain of causation? No I am not. I'm referring to Quantum Mechanics, the TITANIC revolution in science that happened in the mid 1920's. In particular I'm referring to the discovery of the Schrodinger Wave equation and Heisenberg's equivalent matrix formulation. On reflection I shouldn't be surprised at your confusion, after all I just said that modern philosophers pay no attention to recent developments in science or mathematics; and by recent I mean stuff that happened in the last 200 years. Not to interrupt yet another irrelevant display of ad-hominem vanity, but what specifically does QM add to the chain of causation which does not fall under the category of randomness or probability? Smaller link in the chain? So what? Even anti-Semites can have valid insights. Yes but it does call into question ones claim to be a expert on morality, and morality is what G K Chesterton most liked to write about. It has been said that people often teach what they most need to learn. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths If when skirt lengths changed there was ALWAYS a change in the stock market in the same direction, and when the stock market changed there was ALWAYS a change in skirt lengths that preceded it then its true, changing the length of skirts DOES cause a change in the stock market; and if humans don't understand how a connection between the two could possibly work that's just too bad, it wouldn't make it any less true. And if all of that were true then dress designers would be the richest people the world has ever seen. They're not. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:38:21 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths If when skirt lengths changed there was ALWAYS a change in the stock market in the same direction, and when the stock market changed there was ALWAYS a change in skirt lengths that preceded it then its true, changing the length of skirts DOES cause a change in the stock market; and if humans don't understand how a connection between the two could possibly work that's just too bad, it wouldn't make it any less true. And if all of that were true then dress designers would be the richest people the world has ever seen. They're not. I already went through this with you with the vanilla ice cream example. Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, and I think that must be the case with neurological activity and subjective experience, where the third and fundamental system is sensory-motor capacity, or sense, from which the private and public subsystems are derived. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On 19.03.2013 19:17 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:38:21 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths If when skirt lengths changed there was ALWAYS a change in the stock market in the same direction, and when the stock market changed there was ALWAYS a change in skirt lengths that preceded it then its true, changing the length of skirts DOES cause a change in the stock market; and if humans don't understand how a connection between the two could possibly work that's just too bad, it wouldn't make it any less true. And if all of that were true then dress designers would be the richest people the world has ever seen. They're not. I already went through this with you with the vanilla ice cream example. Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, and I think that must be the case with neurological activity and subjective experience, where the third and fundamental system is sensory-motor capacity, or sense, from which the private and public subsystems are derived. In a way everything is just regularities. For example a good short talk in this respect Where do the Laws of Nature Come From? (Bas van Fraassen) http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Where-do-the-Laws-of-Nature-Come-From-Bas-van-Fraassen-/1372 Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 2:24:40 PM UTC-4, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 19.03.2013 19:17 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:38:21 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Intimate relation is not causality. The stock market has been famously been related to skirt lengths If when skirt lengths changed there was ALWAYS a change in the stock market in the same direction, and when the stock market changed there was ALWAYS a change in skirt lengths that preceded it then its true, changing the length of skirts DOES cause a change in the stock market; and if humans don't understand how a connection between the two could possibly work that's just too bad, it wouldn't make it any less true. And if all of that were true then dress designers would be the richest people the world has ever seen. They're not. I already went through this with you with the vanilla ice cream example. Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, and I think that must be the case with neurological activity and subjective experience, where the third and fundamental system is sensory-motor capacity, or sense, from which the private and public subsystems are derived. In a way everything is just regularities. For example a good short talk in this respect Where do the Laws of Nature Come From? (Bas van Fraassen) http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Where-do-the-Laws-of-Nature-Come-From-Bas-van-Fraassen-/1372 Nice. I agree with everything they are saying (well, mainly because it agrees with what I have been saying...especially about symmetry :) Thanks, Craig Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: Correlation, even 100% correlation, does not equal causation. BULLSHIT! If when X is changed there is ALWAYS a change in Y in the same direction, and when Y changes you can ALWAYS find a change in X that preceded it, then X causes Y. IT'S WHAT THE WORD CAUSES MEANS! Two unrelated systems can both be related to a third, If they are both related to the same thing then they are not unrelated. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Monday, March 18, 2013 11:33:17 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: G K Chesterton wrote: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. That is absolutely true, there are more ways of being wrong than of being right, so if you don't care if your ideas are self consistent or not (for example if you don't care that X is not Y and X is not not Y) and if you don't care what words mean (for example if you don't care that if changing X always changes Y and changing Y always changes X that doesn't mean that X caused Y) then you have much more freedom over what you can believe than a logical man does. The man who thinks he is logical is often just stubborn. There are many things related to consciousness which can't be defined in the terms we have learned from manipulating public objects. No state of awareness is uniquely one thing and not another. All phenomenology is multivalent and impacted by intention and expectation. If you want all the parts of your belief system to fit together the range of things you can believe in is severely limited. And finding ways all the parts of the universe fit together in a self consistent way is hard, very hard, so often the logical man must just say I don't know I'm not certain, they religious man on the other hand is always certain but seldom correct. The logical man is a man whose religion is logic. Not that I'm opposed to logic, it just can't penetrate to the cause of awareness. Logic is always an a-posteriori analysis of a sensory-motor experience. there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism… The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that a invisible man in the sky sent His son, who was also Him, to be tortured to death by humans even though he loved His son, who is also Him, very much because otherwise he could not forgive humans even though He is omnipotent. Even though He is omnipotent torturing His son, who is really Him, for the crime of eating a apple is the only way He could forgive the torturers. The Christian is not allowed to admit the slightest speck of doubt that it makes sense that if I'm mad at you and then you torture my son to death I will no longer be mad at you. No argument there. I only disagree with you on religion in the sense that I don't think the fictions which have been created are arbitrary. They reflect metaphorical illustrations about consciousness itself, and when taken figuratively all myths can reveal important insights. It's only when people take them literally that it causes problems, and as long as physics refuses to take consciousness seriously, people will continue to take religion literally. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… I don't know when Chesterton wrote that but he lived until 1936 and by 1925 physicists, the ultimate materialists, did not believe that history or anything else was simply and solely a chain of causation; however it is unlikely that Chesterton ever knew this and like most self styled philosophers remained blissfully ignorant of all scientific and mathematical discoveries made during the last century or two. Are you referring here to the addition of randomness or probability to the chain of causation? Incidentally I found some more ideas of Chesterton. In 1290 Edward 1 expelled the Jews from England and Chesterton writes that Edward was a just and conscientious monarch and acted correctly because the Jews were as powerful as they are unpopular and the capitalists of their age so when Edward flung the alien financiers out of the land he acted as knight errant and was the tender father of his people. Even in 1920 Chesterton thought there was still a Jewish Problem in Europe. Hitler had his Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Even anti-Semites can have valid insights. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On 3/16/2013 3:13 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But, as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism… The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid… The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation… Like most philosophers Chesterton did keep up on the science of his time and so writes as though Lagrange was the last word. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism
On Saturday, March 16, 2013 6:41:58 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 3/16/2013 3:13 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But, as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism� The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe, but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. But the materialist�s world is quite simple and solid� The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation� Like most philosophers Chesterton did keep up on the science of his time and so writes as though Lagrange was the last word. I think that this list shows that the view that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation is alive and well in the 21st century. Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
