I said there are memory illnesses.
And you said “I really don’t think that anyone here who believes that memory is “located” in an ISS will deny the reality of memory illnesses”. Which surely means that immaterial spiritual substances can become ill, otherwise you lost me.
Actually, for years I used the term “emergence” to talk about the new modes of interaction which appear when new systems are formed. But later I realized that it was an ambiguous term, because some people understood it as if I was saying that the more came from the less. I didn’t want to mean that, however I tried to see if there was a good foundation to use the word with that specific meaning. I did not see any. We can experience the interactions that were not in the past, but we don’t see them emerging. That moment of reflection is a divergence point, and whatever position one could take here has to be evaluated on its implications. As I have implicitly said, one of these positions is this: the more comes from the less, which is compatible with the idea that there is only one principle. Another position is that of Aristotle, who distinguished the formal cause from the material cause. There might be some other positions as well.
I think we’re getting into the finer points of different philosophical positions here. In the context of this thread, all I mean is the following:
- Take two hypotheses. H[sub]0[/sub], that oxygen can be explained in physical terms alone, and H[sub]1[/sub], that oxygen is an inexplicable immaterial substance.
- Oxygen is made from components. But it can’t be found in any of the components. Worse, none of its properties can be found in its components.
- Does that mean H[sub]0[/sub] is wrong and we must conclude that oxygen can only be explained as an inexplicable immaterial substance? No, of course not. It simply means that the physical components must be organized in a specific way, otherwise they’re just a jumble. I would say oxygen emerges from that specific organization.
Now, in the above, replace “oxygen” with “mind”, and “components” with “the wet stuff between our ears”. So H[sub]0[/sub] says that mind can be explained on the same basis as all other known phenomena. It’s an hypothesis so it might be wrong of course. But you guys are telling me don’t even bother, because you somehow know
a priori that H[sub]1[/sub] is right, and the mind is an inexplicable immaterial substance.
*From one of your previous posts I understand that for you logic is rigid. There is a set of logical forms, which are distinct between them. Given certain statements, others are derived when we use those forms. The derived statements are the same they were yesterday and the same they will be forever. I am sure you know that. And, as you say, we can build machines whose behavior resembles logical reasoning. The physical structures which allow such behavior are as rigid as those of logic. But you say also that human brain is characterized by its plasticity (which I haven’t denied). So, we have the following statements now:
Logic is a set of rigid rules.
The behavior of machines with certain rigid structures resemble the application of the rules of logic.
The human brain is characterized by its neuroplasticity.
Logic is an aspect of mind.
Mind is an emergence of the human brain.
How do you make them compatible?*
Not sure why you think they are incompatible. The basic question is: were you born knowing the laws of identity, non-contradiction, etc., or did you learn them. Learning = neuroplasticity in action.
There is the observation that there is meaning. There is also the question about how meaning is possible. To be a monist implies to think that meaning is ultimately reducible to the unique accepted principle, which for you is matter, isn’t it? What was the problem?
This sounds like the reductionist’s “pile of atoms” argument - that unless we believe in immaterial spiritual substances, all that’s left to believe in are piles of atoms. Thus supposedly the physicalist cannot love her baby son, because supposedly she can only see a pile of atoms.
Presumably, to the Cartesian dualist, in the absence of immaterial spiritual substances the son really
is just a pile of atoms, and the dualist can’t grasp that the physicalist doesn’t see it that way, he’s her baby son who she loves, and to her love isn’t a pile of atoms either.
So I think that argument is really about a crossed-wire in the dualist’s immaterial spiritual substances
. Apologies if that wasn’t your point, which it probably wasn’t but I’ve had a long day.
. If you was a Hindu you would instead have said that these meta-religious experiences don’t transcend Hindu beliefs, because we know experiences of this nature are contained in Hindu beliefs as testified to and experienced by some of the Hindu faithful. Or if you was a Muslim you would instead have said that these experiences don’t transcend Muslim beliefs, because they are testified to and experienced by some of the Muslim faithful. And so on.