Why should a person prefer hylomorphic dualism to competing positions in the philosophy of mind?

[Peter_Plato]

The danger of reductionism is as fr. Spitzer says trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Trying to force for instance immaterial thoughts into a physical process. In doing so we can commit errors of omission rather than commission. In a reductionist mentality we are losing something that could be of immense value.

Yes, like trying to ascertain the deep and profound meaning of a story by chemically analyzing the ink used to print it on paper.

Or getting at the incomprehensible beauty and richness of a piece by Bach or Mozart by mapping the frequencies of the sound waves produced by the symphony orchestra on an oscilloscope.

 

[balto]

This would be in principle of course, since reading thoughts at such a detailed level may never be practical.

Yes, this is an important qualifier. In theory we should be able to read thoughts off of neural data alone, but practically we not ever be able to do so due to sheer complexity or technical constraints.

In general, the null hypothesis is that all phenomena can be fully explained from what is observed. In studying the mind, this proposes that all mental phenomena are fully explicable in terms of the nervous system. Any phenomena which cannot be explained in those terms would be labelled immaterial and would disprove the null hypothesis.

I think that we are on the same page. Let me see if we can continue the discussion. The next step would be to ask whether, supposing all mental activity can be explained in neural terms alone, how could something like pattern recognition be determined by the neural facts alone. Let’s say we have two patterns:

Pattern 1: Given an integer, perform “multiplication by 10” by adding a zero to the right side of the integer.
Pattern 2: Given an integer, perform "multiplication by ‘quid’ " by adding a zero to the right side of the integer, if the integer is less than 1000, otherwise add a five to the right side of the integer.
(I realize that pattern 2 may not be useful for anything, but it is a pattern whose outputs would overlap with pattern 1).

I think we could agree that pattern 1 and pattern 2 are not equivalent. So if all mental activity can be explained by neural activity, then there should be a distinct neural process for both. The question is how to identify them.

One may say that they could be distinguished by outputs. For instance, if someone intends to calculate pattern 1, simply give them an integer greater than 1000 and watch the neural process. But that would only tell you that the observed neural process is not pattern 2. If you gave them, say, 10000, the process observed would not be pattern 2, but it could be pattern 3:

Pattern 3: Given an integer, perform "multiplication by ‘quid2’ " by adding a zero to the right side of the integer, if the integer is less than 100000, otherwise add a five to the right side of the integer.

The point that this exercise could be perpetuated indefinitely. But yet even if I am given the number 93 and return 930, I know that I intend to implement pattern 1 and not pattern 2 or any other pattern, and that I really know what it means to give the “right answer” in all circumstances for pattern 1.

So I think we could not use outputs to distinguish between pattern 1 and other patterns, even in the ideal “in theory” case. So it would have to be something else by which the patterns would be determinately identified (and they have to be able to be identified in theory since we are assuming that they can be expressed by neural activity alone and that I really know that I am implementing pattern 1 and not some other pattern).

Do you agree/disagree with the above before moving on?

 

[Peter_Plato]

So if all mental activity can be explained by neural activity, then there should be a distinct neural process for both. The question is how to identify them.

Even more vexing would be the problem – possibly – of whether the neural activity of one subject would match precisely the neural activity of another or every other subject experiencing the same thought process. If the same mental activity is not reducible to identical chemical/biological processes in every subject, then how can it be said that mental activity reduces to neural activity?

What does it actually mean to claim that mental activity is “identical with” or “reducible to” chemical or neural activity?

Beyond that, the question of whether personal identity (the locus of conscious awareness,) itself, can be reduced to a specific and continuous set of chemical processes locatable in space and time. Clearly, the nature of the chemical processes and the actual chemicals/molecules involved continue to change over the life of the conscious being and, yet, the certainty of being the subject or locus of those experiences remains – even when the experiences/mental process are wildly different and the chemical/biological processes do not remain in any real sense, the same.

 

[inocente]

I think that we are on the same page. Let me see if we can continue the discussion. The next step would be to ask whether, supposing all mental activity can be explained in neural terms alone, how could something like pattern recognition be determined by the neural facts alone. Let’s say we have two patterns:

Pattern 1: Given an integer, perform “multiplication by 10” by adding a zero to the right side of the integer.
Pattern 2: Given an integer, perform "multiplication by ‘quid’ " by adding a zero to the right side of the integer, if the integer is less than 1000, otherwise add a five to the right side of the integer.
(I realize that pattern 2 may not be useful for anything, but it is a pattern whose outputs would overlap with pattern 1).

I think we could agree that pattern 1 and pattern 2 are not equivalent. So if all mental activity can be explained by neural activity, then there should be a distinct neural process for both. The question is how to identify them.

One may say that they could be distinguished by outputs. For instance, if someone intends to calculate pattern 1, simply give them an integer greater than 1000 and watch the neural process. But that would only tell you that the observed neural process is not pattern 2. If you gave them, say, 10000, the process observed would not be pattern 2, but it could be pattern 3:

Pattern 3: Given an integer, perform "multiplication by ‘quid2’ " by adding a zero to the right side of the integer, if the integer is less than 100000, otherwise add a five to the right side of the integer.

The point that this exercise could be perpetuated indefinitely. But yet even if I am given the number 93 and return 930, I know that I intend to implement pattern 1 and not pattern 2 or any other pattern, and that I really know what it means to give the “right answer” in all circumstances for pattern 1.

So I think we could not use outputs to distinguish between pattern 1 and other patterns, even in the ideal “in theory” case. So it would have to be something else by which the patterns would be determinately identified (and they have to be able to be identified in theory since we are assuming that they can be expressed by neural activity alone and that I really know that I am implementing pattern 1 and not some other pattern).

Do you agree/disagree with the above before moving on?

Unfortunately I can see a number of problems here:

1. “I know that I intend to implement pattern X” involves introspection, which will alter the neural process.
2. You have no way of knowing which process you’re actually using as it happens outside of consciousness.
3. Every thought changes the paths, which is how we learn and remember. This also makes our responses less predictable (Jesus asks Peter the same question three times, and Peter’s response changes the third time).
4. The brain is supreme at parallel processing, and in practice for us to feel decided, a number of different paths may need to agree.

And possibly more issues too.

Sorry about that. Another way of proceeding would be to state your hypothesis in a way that makes a prediction which can be falsified if the hypothesis is incorrect. Or, if you want to say what you’re hoping to demonstrate, we could all put our minds to trying to turn it into a falsifiable proposition.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Yes, like trying to ascertain the deep and profound meaning of a story by chemically analyzing the ink used to print it on paper.

Or getting at the incomprehensible beauty and richness of a piece by Bach or Mozart by mapping the frequencies of the sound waves produced by the symphony orchestra on an oscilloscope.

Yes. If all we are is merely a collection of some things like a $1.75 worth of chemical reactions then we lose our inherent value. But, isn’t that what many young people are taught today? That we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals that somehow managed to organize themselves into staggering complexities through time and chance. It would be little wonder why we could not understand ourselves if this were true. How could you trust your mind to understand anything if it was merely the result of random events, with no intelligence behind anything?

 

[fisherman_carl]

I think the difficulty lies in the fact that we seem to understand that there is a subjective, first-person point of view which the means by which everyone comes into contact with the objective, external world, and then we erroneously try to interpret that knowledge in a reductionist framework. Materialism, idealism, and substance dualism seem to all rely on reductionist principles, as you noted. Materialism attempts to reduce everything to a fundamental objective unit, idealism attempts to reduce everything to a fundamental subjective unit, and substance dualism tries to reduce everything to either an objective unit or a subjective unit. As long as people are trying to interpret hylomorphism with reductionist principles, it will be difficult for them to understand hylomorphism. We are so tempted to reduce everything to some smaller unit because that is what we have been taught to do for so long. When we, for instance, analyze life at the molecular level, we are at a more abstract level of reality, not a more real level. I think Prof. Feser wrote about this tendency in an article entitled “don’t concretize the abstract”, or something along those lines.

Yes, and when they think they have discovered this fundamental objective unit then they say that is all anything is. Like for instance string theorists who say everything is just strings. Or cat theorists who say everything is cats.

 

[inocente]

We are so tempted to reduce everything to some smaller unit because that is what we have been taught to do for so long. When we, for instance, analyze life at the molecular level, we are at a more abstract level of reality, not a more real level. I think Prof. Feser wrote about this tendency in an article entitled “don’t concretize the abstract”, or something along those lines.

Yes. If all we are is merely a collection of some things like a $1.75 worth of chemical reactions then we lose our inherent value. But, isn’t that what many young people are taught today? That we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals that somehow managed to organize themselves into staggering complexities through time and chance. It would be little wonder why we could not understand ourselves if this were true. How could you trust your mind to understand anything if it was merely the result of random events, with no intelligence behind anything?

carl - No child is ever taught that a baby is bag of chemicals. In school each day they walk from math class to physics to chemistry to biology to literature to history to art, and in so doing learn there are many different ways to understand themselves and the world.

balto - I think the word you’re searching for is reification, as in capitalizing words like Truth and Beauty, which would seem more the province of romantics.

carl and balto - There’s a moral argument here, and I’m not sure many would agree that the ends justify the means, that hylomorphism justifies the rejection of science, the rejection of the most successful method for learning ever discovered. Because without raising children in a culture of inquiry and analysis, you can’t have the fruits: no more cures for diseases, no iPads, no new learning. I think you can’t give academic freedom in one area while withholding it in another, either there is freedom or there isn’t.

Still, I get it, nostalgia is not what it was, you don’t like modernity, the young people of today, don’t get me started on what they call “music”, in my day there was respect and we polished our boots, etc. etc.

 

[Peter_Plato]

carl and balto - There’s a moral argument here, and I’m not sure many would agree that the ends justify the means, that hylomorphism justifies the rejection of science, the rejection of the most successful method for learning ever discovered. Because without raising children in a culture of inquiry and analysis, you can’t have the fruits: no more cures for diseases, no iPads, no new learning. I think you can’t give academic freedom in one area while withholding it in another, either there is freedom or there isn’t.

Well, except that isn’t a “moral” argument at all. A moral argument would set down a valid understanding of “good” or Summum Bonum as an end and then argue from there to what the moral implications are.

What you have provided is a pragmatic or practical argument for why science shouldn’t be rejected. You have just assumed pragmatism is its own “moral” argument, but you certainly haven’t shown that it is. Nor have you fairly provided the negative consequences of science or the positive ones for rejecting scientism. Doesn’t appear that you are interested in making a fair assessment, just a promotional piece.

And either freedom is important or it isn’t. And THAT presumes the truth of the proposition “Freedom is important.” How do you determine that it is by reducing everything to materialism and causality OR by the scientific method alone?

You might want to educate yourself on why materialism can’t be true:

douglasgroothuis.com/2015/10/27/truth-propositions-and-materialism/

I suppose that …

balto - I think the word you’re searching for is reification, as in capitalizing words like Truth and Beauty, which would seem more the province of romantics.

…is, itself, a reification of whatever the reason you have for dismissing truth or beauty as the “province of romantics.”

What you have said here is pure rhetoric, nothing more. The real problem for you is that you can’t seem to recognize your own assumptions and prejudices or be at all skeptical with regard to those firmly held presumptions of yours.

 

[inocente]

Well, except that isn’t a “moral” argument at all. A moral argument would set down a valid understanding of “good” or Summum Bonum as an end and then argue from there to what the moral implications are.

What you have provided is a pragmatic or practical argument for why science shouldn’t be rejected. You have just assumed pragmatism is its own “moral” argument, but you certainly haven’t shown that it is. Nor have you fairly provided the negative consequences of science or the positive ones for rejecting scientism. Doesn’t appear that you are interested in making a fair assessment, just a promotional piece.

And either freedom is important or it isn’t. And THAT presumes the truth of the proposition “Freedom is important.” How do you determine that it is by reducing everything to materialism and causality OR by the scientific method alone?

That’s easy. It’s determined by the evidence. In this scientific age, there are a lot more people living a lot longer, in better conditions with better education. Go to this site and type in your annual net income, and see how rich are you compared with the rest of the world. Then go tell all those poorer than you that pragmatism isn’t a moral argument. Report back on your reception.

*You might want to educate yourself on why materialism can’t be true:

douglasgroothuis.com/2015/10/27/truth-propositions-and-materialism/*

He just being silly, even by blogger standards. And not a good choice as your champion against science given he argued that the “emerging discipline of Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific research program”. He wanted acceptance by science. He lost.

(Must admit I’ve never heard of him, but google is ace at finding evidence).

*…is, itself, a reification of whatever the reason you have for dismissing truth or beauty as the “province of romantics.” *

If you really couldn’t see any difference between truth and Truth, or beauty and Beauty, if you’re blind to the capitalization, then you wouldn’t understand why reification is a fallacy and should probably read the linked article.

What you have said here is pure rhetoric, nothing more. The real problem for you is that you can’t seem to recognize your own assumptions and prejudices or be at all skeptical with regard to those firmly held presumptions of yours.

Are you questioning the “assumption” that keeping people alive is more important than keeping an -ism alive? Or the “prejudice” for a greater number of longer, happier lives? Or the “presumption” that Christians should try to radiate encouragement and enthusiasm rather than moaning that the world has gone to the dogs?

Exactly where is your bejeweled moral argument against that rhetoric?

 

[Peter_Plato]

That’s easy. It’s determined by the evidence. In this scientific age, there are a lot more people living a lot longer, in better conditions with better education. Go to this site and type in your annual net income, and see how rich are you compared with the rest of the world. Then go tell all those poorer than you that pragmatism isn’t a moral argument. Report back on your reception.

I see. So you are offering pragmatism as the ultimate moral system even though “better” as in “better conditions” with “better education” depends entirely upon a defined telos or end which you presuppose is there merely by claiming for yourself the word “better?”

“Better” is a determinable function of the ends towards which those activities you cite are aimed. But you haven’t explained why those ends are the determinable best ends, morally speaking. You assume they are, but you haven’t shown that which is necessary to make a moral argument.

Living “a lot longer” may or may not be a good, in itself, if those longer lives are less meaningful as a result. So the mere duration of life does not make your argument for you unless you flesh out what it is that makes life worth living in the first place. In essence, you are arguing life is worth living because we now live longer. And that establishes what, exactly?

It doesn’t even begin to take into account that everyone, no matter how long they live will die in any case. So how do we make sense of that? Or that more people living longer will stress the capacity of the Earth at some point bringing into the issue the question of what happens when all those longer-lived people begin to seriously compete for limited resources? That will be a “better” world still?

I only have to point to what is currently happening on American university campuses to question whether more “education” is necessarily always better.

Again, what is the end good that your “better” world is so determinably headed for? Why is it better for individuals to be more educated? Because… well… they are more capable of bettering their lives by improving the conditions of those lives. For what end? Merely to improve the conditions of more lives? But why are those lives, themselves, important? To what end? Still the question is being begged if you answer to improve conditions for more lives or provide better education for more of those individuals. Why? To what end, ultimately?

That is when the “practical” question gives way to the “moral” question. And if you are honest, you know that we as humans simply have no answer to that without reference to a possibility that our destiny, our Summum Bonum, is not one that we can determine for ourselves without, as you say, a whole lot of “naval gazing” and question begging.

 

[Peter_Plato]

He just being silly, even by blogger standards. And not a good choice as your champion against science given he argued that the “emerging discipline of Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific research program”. He wanted acceptance by science. He lost.

(Must admit I’ve never heard of him, but google is ace at finding evidence).

It is also very good at locating information about logical fallacies.

Your assignment – should you choose to take it – is to figure out which fallacy (likely more than one) you have invoked in the paragraph above to dismiss Groothius’ argument for why materialism can’t be true. (Personally, I’ve decided that you and logic are like oil and water, which is why I leave the exercise of educating yourself to you – supposing, I suppose, that such an exercise will be more effective than it has been up to now .)

No matter how much I insist on the need to be logically sound you find a way to slip in the rhetorical and fallacious points you seem to think can legitimately be conjured from thin air. (I can see how you might confuse “conjure from thin air” with “being moved by the Spirit,” but you forget the Spirit is the Spirit of Truth –*yes, “reified” according to revelation.

 

[balto]

Unfortunately I can see a number of problems here:

Okay, let’s address them.

1. “I know that I intend to implement pattern X” involves introspection, which will alter the neural process.

Probably, but if you really are implementing pattern X, then there should be some common neural feature that is present every time you implement X. By “process” I mean some pathway that occurs in the brain. I don’t intend it to mean the entire state of the brain at any given time. There may be a lot of “noise” that makes finding that feature under different circumstances very difficult, but it should be there. If there is no common feature, then it would follow that we do not really recognize patterns after all, because there is nothing that is conserved between different instances of recognition of the same pattern. For instance, if I calculate 2+2 and 5+7, the state of the brain will be different because the numbers being summed are different, but since I am “doing addition” in both cases there should be a “doing addition” pathway that can be teased out from everything else, at least in principle.

1. You have no way of knowing which process you’re actually using as it happens outside of consciousness.

Right, but that would be an epistemological limitation and not an “in principle” one. There would be a conserved process even if it is not knowable by the human mind (it would be knowable in itself though).

1. Every thought changes the paths, which is how we learn and remember. This also makes our responses less predictable (Jesus asks Peter the same question three times, and Peter’s response changes the third time).

This seems to me to be reasonable. But like I said above, if we really are recognizing patterns, and pattern recognition really is explained without remainder by neuroscience, then there has to be some neural process that is conserved between different instances of recognition of the same pattern.

1. The brain is supreme at parallel processing, and in practice for us to feel decided, a number of different paths may need to agree.

This also seems to be reasonable, but the above “common neural element” would need to be present in a parallel processing system as well.

Sorry about that. Another way of proceeding would be to state your hypothesis in a way that makes a prediction which can be falsified if the hypothesis is incorrect. Or, if you want to say what you’re hoping to demonstrate, we could all put our minds to trying to turn it into a falsifiable proposition.

Well the hypothesis we are currently considering is that mental activity is completely explained by neural data. We also have the empirical observation that humans recognize patterns. The prediction that the hypothesis would make is that we would expect to have a conserved neural pattern every time the pattern is recognized. If such a conserved neural process could not in principle exist determinately (i.e. each and every pattern gets a process, however simple or complex, that is uniquely identified with that pattern and no other), then the hypothesis is falsified by the evidence. If this hypothesis is not adequate, could you suggest something that the above hypothesis would suggest that we both can agree on?

The hypothesis I would like to defend is that mental activity cannot be completely explained by neural data alone and requires some non-physical faculty to explain pattern recognition. I don’t think this claim can be falsified by any physical evidence, since it involves the postulation of a non-physical element. It could be falsified logically I suppose if the notion of an non-physical faculty associated with a physical body, or even the notion of a non-physical faculty itself could be shown to be incoherent. I intend to demonstrate the truth of this hypothesis by showing that the only alternative, the one we are currently considering, is false. If either A or B is true, but not both, and A is false, then B is true.

 

[inocente]

I see. So you are offering pragmatism as the ultimate moral system even though “better” as in “better conditions” with “better education” depends entirely upon a defined telos or end which you presuppose is there merely by claiming for yourself the word “better?”

“Better” is a determinable function of the ends towards which those activities you cite are aimed. But you haven’t explained why those ends are the determinable best ends, morally speaking. You assume they are, but you haven’t shown that which is necessary to make a moral argument.

Living “a lot longer” may or may not be a good, in itself, if those longer lives are less meaningful as a result. So the mere duration of life does not make your argument for you unless you flesh out what it is that makes life worth living in the first place. In essence, you are arguing life is worth living because we now live longer. And that establishes what, exactly?

In your first paragraph you remembered I said better conditions and education, then in the third promptly forgot as if I’d only talked of longevity.

By better I mean measurable things which parents want for their children, for example literacy, not being limited to dull manual labor, not going to an early grave due to overwork and malnutrition.

*It doesn’t even begin to take into account that everyone, no matter how long they live will die in any case. So how do we make sense of that? Or that more people living longer will stress the capacity of the Earth at some point bringing into the issue the question of what happens when all those longer-lived people begin to seriously compete for limited resources? That will be a “better” world still?

I only have to point to what is currently happening on American university campuses to question whether more “education” is necessarily always better.*

Sub-Saharan Africans don’t care what’s happening on American campuses. They can only dream of your living conditions, education and carbon footprint. Any argument that they should go without so the West can continue in its lifestyle is iniquitous.

Again, what is the end good that your “better” world is so determinably headed for? Why is it better for individuals to be more educated? Because… well… they are more capable of bettering their lives by improving the conditions of those lives. For what end? Merely to improve the conditions of more lives? But why are those lives, themselves, important? To what end? Still the question is being begged if you answer to improve conditions for more lives or provide better education for more of those individuals. Why? To what end, ultimately?

You can afford to ask such theoretical questions. Many poorer people can’t. When they’ve been raised up to the same level as us, they too will have the luxury of discussing the meaning of life. Either way, we don’t get to decide for them. They too are God’s children, they too have a right to be here, just as much as you.

It is also very good at locating information about logical fallacies.

Your assignment – should you choose to take it – is to figure out which fallacy (likely more than one) you have invoked in the paragraph above to dismiss Groothius’ argument for why materialism can’t be true. (Personally, I’ve decided that you and logic are like oil and water, which is why I leave the exercise of educating yourself to you – supposing, I suppose, that such an exercise will be more effective than it has been up to now .)

A fallacy is a faulty argument, but I never made an argument, I said only that his is silly.

Look back at your posts for Nov 11, and notice that one of them is missing and another edited. Then look at post #137. Now if you carry on which such remarks, you can’t say you weren’t warned.

*No matter how much I insist on the need to be logically sound you find a way to slip in the rhetorical and fallacious points you seem to think can legitimately be conjured from thin air. (I can see how you might confuse “conjure from thin air” with “being moved by the Spirit,” but you forget the Spirit is the Spirit of Truth –yes, “reified” according to revelation.

To be clear, I never said those things you put in quotes. Reification is the fallacy of treating an abstraction as concrete. Not sure whether you think the Holy Spirit is an abstraction.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You can afford to ask such theoretical questions.* Many poorer people can’t. When they’ve been raised up to the same level as us, they too will have the luxury of discussing the meaning of life. Either way, we don’t get to decide for them. They too are God’s children, they too have a right to be here, just as much as you.

Ah, but the reason you want to raise the level of prosperity still appears to be to improve longevity of life, does it not? Which still implies that you want to improve conditions in order to improve health in order to increase longevity. Which is how I phrased your argument.

Now you want to ADD into your narrative that the aim of all this “improving of conditions” is to afford poor people the opportunity to “ask such theoretical questions.” I see, so you agree with Aristotle that the contemplative life is the highest good for natural man, then?

A fallacy is a faulty argument, but I never made an argument, I said only that his is silly.

So your position – if I am reading you correctly – is that there is no need to address reasoned arguments; it is quite permissible just to stamp a “Silly” label them and THAT, by itself, gives you sufficient warrant to dismiss them?

In that case, my answer to you is: “That’s just silly.”

Well… what do you know? It works!

And the bonus is I am left with this tingly, smug feeling all over that I am right and can’t be possibly be wrong.

Why the need to even ask the “theoretical questions” or engage in the contemplative life when the possibility exists to live this blissful life of dismissive and smug self-satisfaction without the need to ask or answer any questions at all? I am surprised you didn’t propose this right off instead of even entertaining the possibility of asking “such theoretical questions.”

You are just humoring us, aren’t you?

Oh wait…
…now that I think about it, “You can afford to ask such theoretical questions,” was being smugly dismissive and sarcastic, wasn’t it?

Well, you’ve just gone and ruined my bliss.

Ah, but I am left to counter with my own smugly dismissive: “That is silly!”

Bliss regained!

Now that I understand your method and its proposed ideal for human life as “dismissive and blissful self-satisfaction,” I have, just now, caught a glimpse into why leftist socialism is currently regnant in American universities.

---

*I am baffled by the implication that asking “theoretical questions” was something one has to afford or pay for. I never – not once in my life – have had to pay to think about the really deep and significant questions. Now I am left feeling a little uneasy and guilty that, perhaps, I have stolen this ability somewhere and that I should go back to its proper owner/seller and pay my dues. You have – a second time this morning – ruined my bliss.

Ah, but that’s just silly. I don’t have to think about such things when I can smugly dismiss every thought as SILLY and remain blissfully self-satisfied!

Well, I’ll be darned…
… this must be enlightenment!

 

[inocente]

Probably, but if you really are implementing pattern X, then there should be some common neural feature that is present every time you implement X. By “process” I mean some pathway that occurs in the brain. I don’t intend it to mean the entire state of the brain at any given time. There may be a lot of “noise” that makes finding that feature under different circumstances very difficult, but it should be there. If there is no common feature, then it would follow that we do not really recognize patterns after all, because there is nothing that is conserved between different instances of recognition of the same pattern. For instance, if I calculate 2+2 and 5+7, the state of the brain will be different because the numbers being summed are different, but since I am “doing addition” in both cases there should be a “doing addition” pathway that can be teased out from everything else, at least in principle.

Re “there should be some common neural feature”, I’d like to see experimental confirmation rather than just assume. A computer program would be designed to parse a string and recognize a plus sign as meaning addition if there are digits on either side, but we don’t design our mind, the paths are learned, so perhaps 2+2 and 5+7 take different paths. For instance, if you’re an American carpenter, 5+7 might make you think 1 foot rather than 12 inches.

*Right, but that would be an epistemological limitation and not an “in principle” one. There would be a conserved process even if it is not knowable by the human mind (it would be knowable in itself though).

This seems to me to be reasonable. But like I said above, if we really are recognizing patterns, and pattern recognition really is explained without remainder by neuroscience, then there has to be some neural process that is conserved between different instances of recognition of the same pattern.*

Again I’d want evidence. When we first learn to drive or speak another language, we have to make a lot of conscious effort, since the paths are being learned. As they get laid down, they become more automatic. But at some point we may realize a connection between two things we learned separately, and the paths change again. That may make us confused about concepts we thought we understood, as if we’ve gone backwards (in line with what I think educators refer to as the learning cycle).

Well the hypothesis we are currently considering is that mental activity is completely explained by neural data. We also have the empirical observation that humans recognize patterns. The prediction that the hypothesis would make is that we would expect to have a conserved neural pattern every time the pattern is recognized. If such a conserved neural process could not in principle exist determinately (i.e. each and every pattern gets a process, however simple or complex, that is uniquely identified with that pattern and no other), then the hypothesis is falsified by the evidence. If this hypothesis is not adequate, could you suggest something that the above hypothesis would suggest that we both can agree on?

As above, I’m not convinced about these conserved neural processes. The basic issue is that we can’t design how we reason, the processes are learned, which means they may change.

Perhaps you need a less reductionist approach .

The hypothesis I would like to defend is that mental activity cannot be completely explained by neural data alone and requires some non-physical faculty to explain pattern recognition.

OK. A usual way of proceeding is that H[sub]1[/sub] proposes a link between two things, while H[sub]0[/sub] always represents the default position of denying any such link. (H[sub]0[/sub] is the null hypothesis, H[sub]1[/sub] is the alternate hypothesis).

For instance, H[sub]1[/sub] proposes that a new drug cures a disease, while H[sub]0[/sub] denies any connection between the drug and a cure. H[sub]1[/sub] needs to make a prediction, for instance that the drug will have a statistically significant effect compared to a placebo, and it stands or falls by the outcome.

Now I take it we agree there is a link between mind and brain - the question is whether there’s an additional link, to your non-physical faculty.

What you may want for H[sub]1[/sub] sounds similar to the proposal for dark matter, in the sense that it too states there are phenomena which can’t be explained by known, observable matter, and it too predicts the presence of some unknown factor, which it labels dark matter. H[sub]0[/sub], as always, denies any link, so H[sub]1[/sub] stands or falls on the detection of dark matter, for which there are various candidates.

The difference is that the dark matter hypothesis was only proposed after all other attempts to explain observations failed, while you want to justify your hypothesis by finding something you hope can’t otherwise be explained. I’d worry that your concern isn’t to explain but instead is to justify your hypothesis. That may predispose you to not search hard enough for explanations, so as soon as you publish you’ll get shot down in flames by people who looked harder (c.f. the history of supposedly irreducible complexity).

But let’s go back a step. Does hylomorphism require a non-physical faculty? (How then could you distinguish it from Cartesian dualism?)

 

[Peter_Plato]

But let’s go back a step. Does hylomorphism require a non-physical faculty? (How then could you distinguish it from Cartesian dualism?)

I would suggest that you are presupposing Cartesian dualism by asking for the “link” between physical and non-physical as separate substances or that hylomorphism must somehow account for any such perceived duality.

What makes you think they are necessarily separable to begin with? Obviously, it is your Cartesian frame of reference that depicts matter in a certain way and mind in a certain way.

What if it isn’t like that at all, but that the very nature of reality is grounded in Existential Intentionality that actualizes what it determines in the way it determines – i.e., Actus Purus? The human mind could then be a beneficiary of (and underwritten by) that Existential Intentiality in such a way that constraints (materiality or the physical as a “mode” of existence) are placed upon human minds as limiters of what humans can effectively intend. Thus, the “material” or the “physical” may simply be the limitations under which our minds operate and not separate substances, at all.

Your answer?

Let me guess…

… “That’s just silly!”

 

[Peter_Plato]

Now that I understand your method and its proposed ideal for human life as “dismissive and blissful self-satisfaction,” I have, just now, caught a glimpse into why leftist socialism is currently regnant in American universities.

It seems that the delicate creatures who started the protests at Yale hail from its Silliman College.

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=2053&pictureid=17307

 

[Richca]

But let’s go back a step. Does hylomorphism require a non-physical faculty? (How then could you distinguish it from Cartesian dualism?)

Hylemorphism is the doctrine that material substances are composed of form and matter. The substantial form and primary matter are the substantial principles which constitute the substance of some material thing. Material substances are also composed of accidents which are forms and which comprise the remaining nine categories of Aristotle’s ten categories of being. Substance is the first category and the substantial form and matter which are the principles of the substance are included in this category. Matter is the material cause of a material substance; the formal cause is the substantial form which is immaterial as all forms are including the accidents. If one takes physical to mean simply matter, then yes, hylemorphism requires a non-material principle which is called form. That material substances are composed of form and matter applies to all material substances whether animate or inanimate, living or non-living things.

Decartes posited that God created two kinds of substances, namely, spiritual or mind or intellect and material. For him, human beings are the only creatures in the material world that are composed of the spiritual and material, the rest of things are simply material substances. Descartes did not hold the view of hylemorphism, that is, that the substantial principles of material substances are composed of substantial form and matter. He did away with substantial forms so that non-human substances whether animate or inanimate is simply matter in different sizes, shapes, and motions. He identified quantity or extension, which is an accident of substance in Aristotlelian philosophy, with matter so that matter is extension, extension is the essence of matter. Quantity or extension for Aristotle, which is the first accident of material substances, is a form, it is not matter. Matter in itself is pure potentiality lacking all form. Qualities such as color, smell, taste which for Aristotle are accidents that inhere in a substance, Descartes thought to be purely subjective. For example, color is only in our mind and not in the things themselves.

 

[Richca]

Fesser speaks of hylomorphism as objectively true, while the thread is about philosophy of mind. It’s unclear whether hylomorphism is (a) a claim about objective reality, (b) a claim about how all humans subjectively see the world, (c) both of the above, (d) other. It would be useful if you, Peter, balto and (perhaps) Richa agree on what the claim is.

 

[inocente]

Ah, but the reason you want to raise the level of prosperity still appears to be to improve longevity of life, does it not? Which still implies that you want to improve conditions in order to improve health in order to increase longevity. Which is how I phrased your argument.

Now you want to ADD into your narrative that the aim of all this “improving of conditions” is to afford poor people the opportunity to “ask such theoretical questions.” I see, so you agree with Aristotle that the contemplative life is the highest good for natural man, then?

I don’t recall Christ saying the highest good is loafing around contemplating Aristotle’s navel.

*Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’*

So your position – if I am reading you correctly – is that there is no need to address reasoned arguments; it is quite permissible just to stamp a “Silly” label them and THAT, by itself, gives you sufficient warrant to dismiss them?

Nope, I joined the thread to discuss the OP, not the silly arguments of that ID fanatic.

*Well… what do you know? It works!

And the bonus is I am left with this tingly, smug feeling all over that I am right and can’t be possibly be wrong…]*

You’ve ignored the moderator’s warning yet again.

I would suggest that you are presupposing Cartesian dualism by asking for the “link” between physical and non-physical as separate substances or that hylomorphism must somehow account for any such perceived duality.

Errr… it was balto who hypothesized a “non-physical faculty” (post #150), nothing to do with me, talk to him.