Does sweetness exist, really, or does it only taste that way to us?

[tonyrey]

I would think that sweetness is not a thoroughly physical phenomenon depending on what you mean by physical. There is an inexhaustible possibility for true descriptions of sweetness and all of them are on a par.

There are inexhaustible possible descriptions of sweetness but not of **true **descriptions. If all of them are on a par sweetness is entirely subjective and our perceptions have nothing in common.

Some of them may be categorized as physical and some as nonphysical, but none of them are any more the essence of sweetness than any other. The physical descriptions of sweetness don’t get any special privilege as to what sweetness really is over all the other true descriptions of sweetness.

I agree. If physical descriptions of sweetness are paramount sweetness becomes an illusion.

Why would they? All descriptions are only ever made because we humans have the needs and desires we have. No descriptions stand out side of our human concerns and get us past appearances to a God’s eye view of the Way Things Really Are. No particular type of description is the way that the universe demands that it be described.

If descriptions are made solely to satisfy our needs and desires they don’t take into account what is being described. They almost become figments of our imagination.

This is the fatal flaw in pragmatism. It replaces what the universe “demands” with what we demand. In other words **we **become the arbiters of reality…
.
Pragmatism is at the opposite pole from materialism - in which matter determines what we are. For the materialist we and our descriptions are simply manifestations of matter!

 

[Leela]

Sure. As I said to Betterave, a supernatural something explains anything, anything at all. So the only way we can exclude that, and come to rest on physical explanations – not just for this, but for any given phenomenon – is to just note that the supernatural/immaterial parts of an explanation are superfluous, and don’t add anything material [sic] to the explanation.

If all explanations are equally true, as you say, then by parsimony, we don’t need anything beyond the nominalist answer.

All descriptions are not true ones. But there are an inexhaustable number of true ones and all true ones are on a par. Any single description is unlikely to be sufficient for all purposes.

I don’t know what you mean by the nominalist answer.

Which is just a roundabout way of pointing out that “essence” is a meaningless term. There isn’t any referent for the term as used, there. It’s vacuous.

Yep, we are both anti-essentialists.

That being said, any and all descriptions are as “true” (or meaningless, is maybe a better way to put it) as any other. And again, all things being equal, by parsimony a physical explanation is the most economical.

But there isn’t just one physical description either. The issue isn’t economy–it isn’t a matter of finding a single minimal account that is adequate to the referant. Sweetness itself doesn’t have any right to make demands of us, so we needn’t be concerned about our descriptions being adequate to it. It is an issue of utility. Adequacy is a matter of fulfilling human needs, and our needs are many and varied.

No, because “really” isn’t a meaningful modifier, here. Your statement is true only insofar as we agree that the incoherence of “essence” and “really” makes all explanations a tie, all structurally broken.

Probably agree, but I don’t know what you mean by “structually broken.”

Sure, and agree. But this is the same reason we don’t adopt the belief in “water pixies”, those magical faeries that are required to assist in the formation of water – they help combine the hydrogen and oxygen atoms into H20, doncha know! Why would we adopt a “non-pixie” theory of water formation? You cannot, repeat CANNOT POSSIBLY show those water pixies don’t exist and aren’t doing something in the water formation process.

It is hard to imagine what purposes descriptions in terms of water pixies could serve. Without knowing what the description is for, we can’t say whether it is true or false.

We just understand that water pixies, interest as they are as an idea, are superfluous. They add nothing to our understanding of the process that we do not already have with a physical description. It’s parsimony, economy. If we didn’t use it, all explanations would be supernatural explanations.

-TS

I understand now that you were distinguishing supernatural from physical explanations. Supernatural explanations can have no value as science. They can’t help us predict and control, but perhaps they can do other things and serve puposes other than our desire to predict and control (we have lots of puposes besides doing science). I never find any need for supernatural explanations, but if the puposes they serve for others (giving life meaning?)can stay out of the way of other people’s purposes, supernatural explanations can peacefully coexist with physical explanations. The problems arise when people assert there private supernatural beliefs into the public project of doing science or making laws about how other people ought to behave.

 

[Leela]

If descriptions are made solely to satisfy our needs and desires they don’t take into account what is being described. They almost become figments of our imagination.

Why are descriptions made by humans if not to fulfill human desires?

This is the fatal flaw in pragmatism. It replaces what the universe “demands” with what we demand. In other words **we **become the arbiters of reality…

Saying that the universe doesn’t demand that we get things right doesn’t mean that we don’t have a need to create good descriptions or that one description is as good as another. The point that the adequacy of a desacription is a matter of it being adequate to fulfilling a human need or desire.

Pragmatism is at the opposite pole from materialism - in which matter determines what we are. For the materialist we and our descriptions are simply manifestations of matter!

I thought the opposite pole from materialism in your view is supernaturalism?

I am a materialist in the modest sense of the term in saying that everything can have a material explanation. That is not to say that everything only ever ought to have a material explanation or that material explanations are adequate to every human purpose.

 

[Betterave]

Well, before the problem was begging the question. Now it’s equivocation. I’m just responding to what I read.

LOL! You WISH that’s what you were doing! You are responding to bits of what you read taken out of context then distorted and reinserted into different contexts that you invent!

I’m not making a claim like you are. I haven’t made a statement like “no amount of physical facts even begin to portray sweetness.” I think the evidence points to qualia as epiphenomenal – a physical brain state catalyzed by sensory stimulus.

So what?! Whether or not qualia are described as ‘epiphenomenal’ is irrelevant to the argument I’ve offered!

A supernatural anything can explain anything, so there’s no way to rule that out. Such supernatural notions are just unnecessary, and the supernatural/immaterial parts superfluous.

What are you talking about? How is this supposed to be relevant??

Your claim isn’t like that, but is instead, categorical, prescriptive, which is why I objected to it as begging the question; your conclusion is synonymous with your premise – physical explanations can’t begin…

Your claim is not categorical and prescriptive? You assert the contrary of my categorical, prescriptive claim - therefore your claim is likewise categorical and prescriptive!

I don’t know if it would help, but have you ever studied logic/critical thinking? It might be a good idea for you.

Experience isn’t knowledge in the epistemic sense. We use “knowledge” in another sense in other context – as something like “familiar” or “recognized”, and that’s where I identify equivocation on terms in your response, switching from “epistemic knowledge” to “familiarity”. But knowledge as reasoned conclusions from the evidence isn’t experience. It relies on experience, but involves far more. So when I say “I know her”, I’m invoking a different concept for “know”, than when I say “I know force equals mass times acceleration”.

Right, romance languages even have different words for these two senses of know. But so what? You didn’t answer my question (surprise, surprise), which already implies that there are two senses of know (so you really don’t need to point it out as if you’re trying to teach me something I don’t already know ):

How do you manage to make “the epistemic sense of know” independent from “the experiential sense of know”?

Maybe it never occured to you, but the following propositions are equivalent in their content:

I know her. Je la connais.
I know that I know her. Je sais que je la connais.
It’s true that I know her. C’est vrai que je la connais.

So the point is, all familiarity claims are implicitly also epistemic claims.

I’m interested in how one would acquire/demonstrate the knowledge required to support “no amount of physical facts even begin to portray sweetness.” In the rigorous sense of “knowledge” of course, not the “familiarity” sense.

I already demonstrated that; hopefully you understand how that demonstration works now.

If you see straw men as a problem, perhaps consider just stating your case directly, so it’s clear and direct from the source – you. It’s curious to get into this pattern of enticing me to play darts – “no that’s not it, you missed again”, and I think tiring for any bothering to read. My interest is clear and the same as it was when I first objected – what is the basis for this:“no amount of physical facts even begin to portray sweetness.”?

That’s pretty straightforward.

Dude, I’ll tell you what’s pretty straightforward. “That’s a straw man” implies that you need to go back to the post you responded to and read it more carefully. I think what is tiring for anyone bothering to read would be your constant careless readings and failure to understand the arguments being made (your ignoratio elenchi).

Here’s your straw man:
“Knowing sweetness” as in familiarity has meaning in it own context, but it’s not what is at issue here – how do we know “sweetness” is a thoroughly physical phenomenon, or not? “I know it when I see it… I recognize it” just isn’t responsive to that.

Here was my argument:
I know this because I know what sweetness is like (I’ve tasted many sweet things) and I know what physical descriptions of brain states, chemicals, and “electrical patterns” are like (I’ve read about them, learned about them in school, etc.), and I know that they are not alike.

In case you were unaware, “I know that…” explicitly indicates an epistemic-knowledge claim.

 

[Betterave]

I am a materialist in the modest sense of the term in saying that everything can have a material explanation. That is not to say that everything only ever ought to have a material explanation or that material explanations are adequate to every human purpose.

LOL! What is *modest *about that sense of the term?

 

[Betterave]

Sure. As I said to Betterave, a supernatural something explains anything, anything at all.

That’s an idiotic claim, don’t you think?

So the only way we can exclude that, and come to rest on physical explanations – not just for this, but for any given phenomenon – is to just note that the supernatural/immaterial parts of an explanation are superfluous, and don’t add anything material [sic] to the explanation.

“So the *only *way…”, huh? Methinks ye’ve been a bit hasty in jumping to conclusions here!

Which is just a roundabout way of pointing out that “essence” is a meaningless term. There isn’t any referent for the term as used, there. It’s vacuous. That being said, any and all descriptions are as “true” (or meaningless, is maybe a better way to put it) as any other. And again, all things being equal, by parsimony a physical explanation is the most economical.

Of course, *all *terms are meaningless to those who don’t know (are not familiar with) their meanings…

No, because “really” isn’t a meaningful modifier, here. Your statement is true only insofar as we agree that the incoherence of “essence” and “really” makes all explanations a tie, all structurally broken.

It’s not so much that “really” isn’t meaningful here; it’s that it’s irrelevant.

Sure, and agree. But this is the same reason we don’t adopt the belief in “water pixies”, those magical faeries that are required to assist in the formation of water – they help combine the hydrogen and oxygen atoms into H20, doncha know! Why would we adopt a “non-pixie” theory of water formation? You cannot, repeat CANNOT POSSIBLY show those water pixies don’t exist and aren’t doing something in the water formation process.

We just understand that water pixies, interest as they are as an idea, are superfluous. They add nothing to our understanding of the process that we do not already have with a physical description. It’s parsimony, economy. If we didn’t use it, all explanations would be supernatural explanations.

Right…; which is all completely irrelevant to the case we are examining.

 

[Leela]

LOL! What is *modest *about that sense of the term?

You seem to be having a good old time with all your LOLs, but do they add anything to the discussion?

Anyway, I thought it would be obviously more modest (and not at all funny) to claim that everything can have a materialistic description than to claim that everything only ever ought to have a material description.

 

[Touchstone]

That’s an idiotic claim, don’t you think?

No. Take a look at all the things that supernatural entities have been invoked to explain. The Catholic God is a good example. He’s omnipotent as matter of doctrine. Need to explain, say, a universe? There you go!

Natural answers can’t hope to compete with supernatural answers, because they have the burden of accountability to nature, to our experience, to objective analysis and testing. Supernatural answers aren’t accountable to anything at all, and can be posited on a whim, whenever, wherever, however one wishes. This is one reason why methodological naturalism is required for real knowledge in science – supernatural explanations explain anything and everything without the slightest accountability to the real world.

“So the *only *way…”, huh? Methinks ye’ve been a bit hasty in jumping to conclusions here!

Well, what would be the reason to exclude a supernatural answer, in your view, then? Why would you discount a theory of water formation that included all the usual physical provisions (chemical bonds, etc.) and also required the assistance of supernatural “water pixies”? On what grounds would that be rejected over a physical-only explanation, if you would indeed reject the “water pixie” hypothesis?

Of course, *all *terms are meaningless to those who don’t know (are not familiar with) their meanings…

I wasn’t suggesting it was a matter of ignorance or non-recognition. Rather, that the semantics were incoherent, not grounded in real referents.

It’s not so much that “really” isn’t meaningful here; it’s that it’s irrelevant.

Didn’t understand that. If the “really” is irrelevant there, isn’t it then by extension meaningless. If “really” is meaningful, it’s relevant just by virtue of its meaning as part of the proposition.

Right…; which is all completely irrelevant to the case we are examining.

I don’t think so. The meaning of “water pixies” here is an analog to your “qualia pixies” in sweetness. Of course physical descriptions can’t BEGIN to portray… without the supernatural qualia pixies! There’s no way to disprove this, anymore than I can disprove water pixies, because they are beyond the reach of proof and testing by definition. So all that one can say is that the imagined “qualia pixies” just aren’t needed or probitive to the question of percepts and the integration of sense stimuli.

Maybe I needed to make the “water pixies” connection to “qualia pixies” more clear, there, I grant.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

All descriptions are not true ones. But there are an inexhaustable number of true ones and all true ones are on a par. Any single description is unlikely to be sufficient for all purposes.

I don’t know what you mean by the nominalist answer.

Preferring economy. If x+y provides just as much explanation and account as x+y+z, we understand that z is inert, a non-entity in terms of explanatory and accounting power. x+y is the “nominal” explanation, that beyond which nothing else offered adds value in terms of explanation.

But there isn’t just one physical description either. The issue isn’t economy–it isn’t a matter of finding a single minimal account that is adequate to the referant.

No, and I don’t suppose there is. Stephen Hawking uses an example I like, of the 2D map projections of the earth. There is no “one true projection” in 2D of the earth. Mercator, equatorial and other projections all have different areas where the maximize their performance, and others where they are more distortive – the typical “world map” you see makes a huge mess out of the arctic and antarctic regions, for example.

There is no “one true projection” in physics, either. Dualities abound, especially at the quantum level. Depending on your goal, looking at phenomena as particles is more effective, other times the “wave model” is more effective for the task at hand. And neither of these discredits the other.

Sweetness itself doesn’t have any right to make demands of us, so we needn’t be concerned about our descriptions being adequate to it. It is an issue of utility. Adequacy is a matter of fulfilling human needs, and our needs are many and varied.

Sure. The same can be said for “water pixies”. A need is a need and a desire is a desire. But if we are talking about knowledge, something objective and intelligible outside of a purely subjective claim, then the question changes dramatically from “what is my need or desire” to “what coheres objectively”. Maybe objective knowledge isn’t desirable or needed, fine. But if that’s what we are talking about dualism runs into all sorts of massive problems.

Probably agree, but I don’t know what you mean by “structually broken.”

There is no structure to test, nothing to bear the load of evidence or critical examination in any objective sense, is what I meant, there.

It is hard to imagine what purposes descriptions in terms of water pixies could serve. Without knowing what the description is for, we can’t say whether it is true or false.

Well, “God told me there are water pixies and I must believe him” is one purpose that comes to mind.

I understand now that you were distinguishing supernatural from physical explanations.

I was, but it’s not confined to supernaturalism. We might imagine that these water pixies are perfectly physical, just really, really small, invisible, and impossible to detect, even indirectly. Or that they are detectable in principle, we just don’t have the technology as yet. Whatever the case, the point holds beyond just supernatural claims.

Supernatural explanations can have no value as science. They can’t help us predict and control, but perhaps they can do other things and serve puposes other than our desire to predict and control (we have lots of puposes besides doing science). I never find any need for supernatural explanations, but if the puposes they serve for others (giving life meaning?)can stay out of the way of other people’s purposes, supernatural explanations can peacefully coexist with physical explanations. The problems arise when people assert there private supernatural beliefs into the public project of doing science or making laws about how other people ought to behave.

Agreed.

-TS

 

[Leela]

Sure. The same can be said for “water pixies”. A need is a need and a desire is a desire. But if we are talking about knowledge, something objective and intelligible outside of a purely subjective claim, then the question changes dramatically from “what is my need or desire” to “what coheres objectively”.

I take knowledge to be justified true belief. If you accept that definition, what distinguishes objective knowledge from subjective knowledge? I don’t think you can make a fruitful distinction in terms of which truths and justifications relate to human desires and which ones do not because they all do. Even if you attempted to make one, that distinction itself would be attempted only because you have the concerns that you do. There are no truths and distinctions that stand apart from such human concerns. Objective versus subjective is not a matter of nonhuman versus human.

The epistemic distinction between subjective and objective is not a dichotomy but a useful distinction–a continuum concerning the matter of ease of getting agreement with other inquirers. My knowledge that I have a headache is subjective but is no less true for the fact that I have no simple way to justify it to you.

Maybe objective knowledge isn’t desirable or needed, fine. But if that’s what we are talking about dualism runs into all sorts of massive problems.

I’m trying to dissolve your objective-subjective dualism as an epistemic continuum.

Objective knowledge is desirable, but only when we are engaged in public projects. We have a better chance of getting others to help us in such projects when we can justify our beliefs in public ways. Science is such a project. Romance is not a public project. Loving our children or our husbands or wives is a private project as are many of our creative endeavors.

Religion need not be a public project, but it is one when it is taken to be cosmology (as science) or history and when it is used to not merely explain one’s own values to oneself but also to try to impose those values on others. When we want to get other people to live according to our values, we will need objective justification to persuade them. In this pragmatic view, the problem is not with religion as such, but with theocracy. It is an issue of attempts at domination of one group over another rather than a democratic attempt to persuade. In theocracy we are expected to believe something because some authority says so rather than because their reasoning convinces.

It isn’t a matter of “subjectivity is bad, objectivity is good” any more than it is an issue of “religion is bad, science is good.” The issue is that domination is bad, persuasion is good. Subjectivity is fine for the purposes it serves. It’s just bad for governing people and bad for curing diseases and bad for making bigger flat screen tvs. Subjectivity may be just fine for giving life meaning, deciding whether or not to accept a marriage proposal, or writing a poem. It just ought not be used to tell others who they ought to marry, what ought to make their lives meaningful, and what poems they ought to like.

Best,
Leela

 

[Touchstone]

I take knowledge to be justified true belief. If you accept that definition, what distinguishes objective knowledge from subjective knowledge? I don’t think you can make a fruitful distinction in terms of which truths and justifications relate to human desires and which ones do not because they all do. Even if you attempted to make one, that distinction itself would be attempted only because you have the concerns that you do. There are no truths and distinctions that stand apart from such human concerns. Objective versus subjective is not a matter of nonhuman versus human.

Agree.

The epistemic distinction between subjective and objective is not a dichotomy but a useful distinction–a continuum concerning the matter of ease of getting agreement with other inquirers. My knowledge that I have a headache is subjective but is no less true for the fact that I have no simple way to justify it to you.

Also agree. If it helps, I do see objectivity, or rather the “objective epistemic weight” of any proposition as a continuum, a matter of degree. Even the observations that we would point to as “most objective” are just “more objective” as matter of degree.

I’m trying to dissolve your objective-subjective dualism as an epistemic continuum.

OK, I think you had me at “hello” on this, though, and was “pre-dissolved” on my end.

Objective knowledge is desirable, but only when we are engaged in public projects.

No, I don’t think that can hold. A relative a couple years ago was agonizing over a would-be fiance: do I really love him? That’s not a public concern, that’s her choice to decide, it’s a private project to use your term. But even so, we watched as she evaluated and checked her own actions, just by herself, but also solicited feedback from others as to their observations on her motives and reasons for what she was doing. She decided in the end, based on feedback from family and friends, that it was quite likely that despite her strong emotional impulses, that much of her reaction to him and their relationship was being driven by issues that would prove problematic and unsustainable.

I realize you can say “that’s making it a public project, then”, but that distinction then becomes blurry. If I feel I have a fever, I’m making the question a “public project” by consulting the feedback of a thermometer to take my temperature. No matter what the thermometer says, I feel like I have a fever (that’s why I used the thermometer in the first place), but my “private project” is now something that is incorporating a degree of objectivity; what does the thermometer say? I may be mistaken about the interpretation of my senses. I feel as if I had a fever, but outside, independent checks indicate that’s not the case.

If you suppose that using a thermometer, or checking one’s watch (“is my heartrate elevated?”) is making the question a “public project”, then I can agree with your statement. But given the rest of what you say in this post, I think you have something else in mind, some context for projecting the idea or claim outward to others as the basis for public. If so, I think you are mistaken, and suggest that objectivity is a routinely used resource, and a valuable one in our “private projects”. I don’t see any way to impeach the percept; I feel as if I have a headache, but that’s just where objective (name removed by moderator)ut has utility in going from there to interpretation. Do I have a headache? Or a fever?

We have a better chance of getting others to help us in such projects when we can justify our beliefs in public ways. Science is such a project. Romance is not a public project. Loving our children or our husbands or wives is a private project as are many of our creative endeavors.

How would you classify my sister-in-law’s deliberations on romance: does he really love me and will he be good to me? When she consults her sisters and friends, me on one occasion, is that then a “public project” for her? She ultimately makes the call, but in this case, she found feedback from friends and family persuasive towards a conclusion she thought plausible, but was hard to judge as a “private project” because of the biases inherent in her emotional responses toward him. That to me looks like the block-and-tackle work of a public project even in one of the most private and subjective areas of her life – do I love this man in such a way that I want to marry him? The interest is private, but she’s purposely reaching for evidence and feedback outside her own local sense as a way to better gauge what is really happening, or likely to happen in the future.

Either, again I agree on the virtues of science and objectivity as common grounds for people to work from in public discourse. And by extension, understand the limitations in the same sense of subjective claims.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Religion need not be a public project, but it is one when it is taken to be cosmology (as science) or history and when it is used to not merely explain one’s own values to oneself but also to try to impose those values on others. When we want to get other people to live according to our values, we will need objective justification to persuade them. In this pragmatic view, the problem is not with religion as such, but with theocracy. It is an issue of attempts at domination of one group over another rather than a democratic attempt to persuade. In theocracy we are expected to believe something because some authority says so rather than because their reasoning convinces.

I think “theocracy” gets at the problem, but I understand this to be primarily a function of cognitive dissonance. Man has an innate disposition toward teleology and overarching narratives and design. This impels him, naturally toward religion and magical thinking.

That’s the “byproduct” of a human psychology that is finely honed in those areas for practical reasons. Being “paranoid” and “design centric” is of great evolutionary advantage when it comes to hunting, politics, social interaction and other pragmatic projects that support survival and fecundity.

It produces this “god thing” though, this strong intentional stance that produces all manner of imaginations that are anodyne, therapeutic, emboldening, sustaining, etc., but which do not accord well with the evidence from the real world. This creates dissonance, and dissonance tends to produce anxiety that tilts the person one of two ways – resolution, or company in their misery. We can resolve our dissonance by acknowledging that these ideas indeed do not accord well with the world, but that is often more painful than the dissonance itself – it means relaxing a cherished death grip on one’s intuitions, and all sorts of psychologically valuable beliefs.

The other option is to get others to endorse your dissonance, to find “safety in numbers”. This is one reason (I suppose) that young earth creationists are often so adamant that others embrace and endorse “God’s truth” of a 6,000 year old earth. They can assuage their dissonance, and keep their precious intuitions intact, if they can get more people to join them in their views. After all, we all can’t be wrong on that issue, then, right?

So I see the “theocracy” thing as a kind of outworking of that fundamental dissonance. The religious mind cannot find satisfaction in the evidence, and rather than capitulate to the evidence, it seeks domination/companionship in dogma.

It isn’t a matter of “subjectivity is bad, objectivity is good” any more than it is an issue of “religion is bad, science is good.” The issue is that domination is bad, persuasion is good.

I agree, but understand that such a claim (“domination is bad”) is a subjective one, part of your private project (if we are framing this in your terms). I’m with you, but my convictions are just as subjective as yours. Someone else might claim that God is sovereign, and what is best is domination, as long as we have the right Dominator in place. A muslim friend of mine is regular at pains to make this point to me. I reject it, but the source of our disagreement obtains in the “private project space”. On his view, domination is good.

Subjectivity is fine for the purposes it serves. It’s just bad for governing people and bad for curing diseases and bad for making bigger flat screen tvs. Subjectivity may be just fine for giving life meaning, deciding whether or not to accept a marriage proposal, or writing a poem. It just ought not be used to tell others who they ought to marry, what ought to make their lives meaningful, and what poems they ought to like.

Best,
Leela

It’s odd. I think you see “private” and “public” as far more distinct and separate than I do, here. The irony doesn’t escape you, I’m sure, of your last paragraph being offered in a “public” context. I agree with the sentiment, but this is not a “public” point you are making, but a “private” one (see your use of ‘ought’). The kind of deontological claims you are offering are very much the very kind of “theocracy” I think you are decrying.

As an experiment, let me test it this way, playing the devil’s advocate:

(a).Subjectivity ought to be used to tell others who they ought to marry, and what poems they like!

For the sake of analysis, here, why should accept your last paragraph over (a), here?

Fascinating discussion, though, thanks!

-TS

 

[Betterave]

I don’t think so. The meaning of “water pixies” here is an analog to your “qualia pixies” in sweetness. Of course physical descriptions can’t BEGIN to portray… without the supernatural qualia pixies! There’s no way to disprove this, anymore than I can disprove water pixies, because they are beyond the reach of proof and testing by definition. So all that one can say is that the imagined “qualia pixies” just aren’t needed or probitive to the question of percepts and the integration of sense stimuli.

Maybe I needed to make the “water pixies” connection to “qualia pixies” more clear, there, I grant.

-TS

Leela (or anyone!),

Could you do me a favor and analyze this analogy for us. Do you think TS makes a good analogy here: are “water pixies” (as TS has defined them) epistemically analogous to “the quale sweetness” (as I have defined it)? Why or why not?

 

[Betterave]

You seem to be having a good old time with all your LOLs, but do they add anything to the discussion?

Sorry, I’m losing patience with what I see as the fast and furious silly dogmatic assertions being made here.

Anyway, I thought it would be obviously more modest (and not at all funny) to claim that everything can have a materialistic description than to claim that everything only ever ought to have a material description.

It’s funny because “not-as-extreme-as-it-could-be” is not the same as “modest.” Your claim is the former, it seems, not the latter. It’s also not clear what your claim even means. Do you mean that every description CAN be converted into a “materialistic description”? Or what?

 

[Leela]

It’s funny because “not-as-extreme-as-it-could-be” is not the same as “modest.” Your claim is the former, it seems, not the latter. It’s also not clear what your claim even means. Do you mean that every description CAN be converted into a “materialistic description”? Or what?

It isn’t a matter of conversion. I’m saying that whatever we want to talk about can be described in material terms. That is not to say that material terms are always adequate to whatever it is we are talking about. Adequacy in that sense is not our concern. Adequacy is a matter of whatever the papooses are that drive the need to describe in the first place.

 

[tonyrey]

If descriptions are made solely to satisfy our needs and desires they don’t take into account what is being described. They almost become figments of our imagination.

Do you include the need and desire to know the truth in that question?

This is the fatal flaw in pragmatism. It replaces what the universe “demands” with what we demand. In other words we become the arbiters of reality…

Saying that the universe doesn’t demand that we get things right doesn’t mean that we don’t have a need to create good descriptions or that one description is as good as another. The point that the adequacy of a description is a matter of it being adequate to fulfilling a human need or desire.

I think you will agree reality doesn’t exist for our benefit!

Pragmatism is at the opposite pole from materialism - in which matter determines what we are. For the materialist we and our descriptions are simply manifestations of matter!

I thought the opposite pole from materialism in your view is supernaturalism?

You are right. Pragmatism and supernaturalism need not be mutually exclusive. It depends on one’s other beliefs.

I am a materialist in the modest sense of the term in saying that everything can have a material explanation. That is not to say that everything only ever ought to have a material explanation or that material explanations are adequate to every human purpose.

Do you believe everything ultimately has a material explanation?

 

[tonyrey]

Leela (or anyone!),

Could you do me a favor and analyze this analogy for us. Do you think TS makes a good analogy here: are “water pixies” (as TS has defined them) epistemically analogous to “the quale sweetness” (as I have defined it)? Why or why not?

Sweetness is either imaginary or it is not. We all **experience **sweetness… unlike figments of the imagination…

 

[Leela]

Do you believe everything ultimately has a material explanation?

I don’t think that any particular sort of explanation has privileged status as “ultimate.” Explanations are judged relative to some purpose. Material explanations may not serve all our purposes, but the purposes that material explanations are created to serve (predicting and controlling) are often really served best by material explanations. Explanations invoking God for example can’t serve as explanations that help us predict and control.

 

[Leela]

Leela (or anyone!),

Could you do me a favor and analyze this analogy for us. Do you think TS makes a good analogy here: are “water pixies” (as TS has defined them) epistemically analogous to “the quale sweetness” (as I have defined it)? Why or why not?

What TS and I have in common is our anti-essentialism, but I don’t see what water fairies have to do with the anti-essentialist critique that I want to make on quail. Whatever TS is doing with his example of water fairies must relate to some other issue than the one I have with quail. The issue for me is skepticism. The concept of qualia is used to say that while language can capture some things, there is something about an experience like eating an apple that language just can’t capture. What is presupposed here is that language has the function of capturing or representing reality. I don’t see language as the sort of thing that fails to adequately capture because I don’t think it ever captures at all. I don’t think there is any essence of appleness that needs us to capture it so that we can really say that we know apples.

Having found the correspondence theory of truth to be problematic, I don’t see any important issue in the question of whether or not language adequately represents this or that phenomenon. We don’t have to worry, “oh my God, am I completely out of touch with reality?” when we don’t think of language as what gets us more or less in touch with reality by coming up with the right sentences to describe it. Language use is one way of using reality. So is eating. Using language to describe an apple and eating an apple are different practices, but I don’t think we have to answer the question of whether eating or believing sentences about an apple gets us more or less in touch with the true essence of appleness. Eating and talking are two ways of using things not of getting in touch with essences. From that view the skepticism of not being in touch with reality never becomes an issue.

Best,
Leela

 

[tonyrey]

Do you believe everything ultimately has a material explanation?

If no explanation has privileged status as “ultimate” all explanations about the origin of the universe and the origin of persons are equally cogent and acceptable.

Explanations are judged relative to some purpose.

How do you decide what your purposes are? Don’t you consider what you are?

Material explanations may not serve all our purposes, but the purposes that material explanations are created to serve (predicting and controlling) are often really served best by material explanations.

If material explanations do not serve all our purposes they are inadequate and materialism must be an inadequate explanation of human beings. In other words immaterialism must be taken into account.

Explanations invoking God for example can’t serve as explanations that help us predict and control.

In that case immaterial explanations like the self, self-control, purpose and free will can’t serve as explanations that help us predict and control.