What are concepts according to materialism?

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raw_thought
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What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by raw_thought »

Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
If I understood everything about Einstein's brain,would I understand Relativity?
Does a light switch in the "on" position know that the light is on?
The concept "book" does not refer to an object that has a specific size,shape,weight,language,title or any quantified property. * If only physical objects exist,then the concept "book" is meaningless because it does not refer to a physical object.
If knowledge is only a physical pattern, does that mean that a book that no one ever reads knows something?
* In other words a book can be any size,weight...etc.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by raw_thought »

Ironically "materialism " is a concept. What tangible physical properties does it have?
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

raw_thought wrote:Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
If I understood everything about Einstein's brain,would I understand Relativity?
Does a light switch in the "on" position know that the light is on?
The concept "book" does not refer to an object that has a specific size,shape,weight,language,title or any quantified property. * If only physical objects exist,then the concept "book" is meaningless because it does not refer to a physical object.
If knowledge is only a physical pattern, does that mean that a book that no one ever reads knows something?
* In other words a book can be any size,weight...etc.
Yes.
Concepts are brain structures. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, and all activities of the human mind, have corollaries, in the physicality of the brain. That is the configuration of matter and electrical energy.
This included coded pathways, electrical impulses, and the structures that are formed of the neurones.
These can be demonstrated to operate with PET scans.

Damage to the brain structures results in loss of memories, concepts and cognitive abilities. This more than implies strongly that the existence of a concept relies on the healthy activity of the brain.

There is even a body of study where the notion that these concepts are transmittable from one brain to another by learning, and have their own Darwinian imperatives. Memetics is that study.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by raw_thought »

I agree that concepts supervene on brain states. However, if concepts = (are and only are) brain states then we get a tautology, brain states are brain states. In other words there are no such things as concepts.
If I knew everything about Einstein's brain would I understand Relativity? Does an "on" switch know that the light is on? Does an unread book know anything? My point is that a physical pattern (no matter how complicated ) cannot know anything.
I agree that brain states can cause concepts. However, brain states are not equivalent to knowing something. I can know that 1+1=2 without knowing anything about the brain state that facilitated that knowledge.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by David Handeye »

raw_thought wrote:Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
If I understood everything about Einstein's brain,would I understand Relativity?
Does a light switch in the "on" position know that the light is on?
The concept "book" does not refer to an object that has a specific size,shape,weight,language,title or any quantified property. * If only physical objects exist,then the concept "book" is meaningless because it does not refer to a physical object.
If knowledge is only a physical pattern, does that mean that a book that no one ever reads knows something?
* In other words a book can be any size,weight...etc.
Well I think you are making a bit of confusion, for materialists do not believe that concepts have a physical and tangible existance of their own, in this way they are nominalists. Materialists believe only matter exists, and concepts are brain products, namely matter products, so that they exist only within a brain, not of their own. The concept "book" refers to the object book.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by hammock »

raw_thought wrote:Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
A non-transcendent concept is an information structure. It can be realized as and stored by physical patterns ranging from artificial words, symbols, manipulatable objects, electronic circuitry, etc to natural biological organizations, waves, etc. When such arrangements also possesses dynamic potential, that framework can trigger and guide actions which can be construed as a rule / principle / model / scheme being executed. Complex systems of the latter can finally result in information chunks being dissected or meaningfully interpreted and understood.

Thoughts are sequences of ideas which are privately shown as introspective manifestations, as opposed to the aforementioned publicly available extrospective affairs (material phenomena) which likewise can instantiate concepts. Thoughts may correlate to neural processes, but of course are of very different appearance (i.e., one's "mental" stream of voices and images doesn't resemble wetware, electrochemical activity or its measurements, etc).

Often such information structures represent a generalization of particulars; or (again) a system of rules / qualifications for deciding whether or not an object / event can become a member of that category or umbrella concept. Even the minds of monkeys shift to synoptic strategies when they're overloaded with too many specific details to memorize: How the brain assigns objects to categories.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

raw_thought wrote:I agree that concepts supervene on brain states. However, if concepts = (are and only are) brain states then we get a tautology, brain states are brain states. In other words there are no such things as concepts.
If I knew everything about Einstein's brain would I understand Relativity? Does an "on" switch know that the light is on? Does an unread book know anything? My point is that a physical pattern (no matter how complicated ) cannot know anything.
I agree that brain states can cause concepts. However, brain states are not equivalent to knowing something. I can know that 1+1=2 without knowing anything about the brain state that facilitated that knowledge.
There is no tautology, except definition. What we have is the same thing described different ways. A four wheeled vehicle is still a car or a bus. There are brain states which are emotions, others which are ideas or memories. A description is never completely exhaustive.
I fail to see what you problem is, unless you are so absorbed by the standard endemic assumption of the mind, body dichotomy, and the notion of the immaterial soul that you can't accept the physicality of the world?

Aside from that, your analogies are false ones. The brain is not an unread book, it is active. The brain is a highly complex organ with trillions of energetic connections. It is continually being read, re-read and written.

If you say that brain state cause concepts - you are making the mistake. The concept is the brain state. There is no other way to express it.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Ginkgo »

raw_thought wrote:Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
If I understood everything about Einstein's brain,would I understand Relativity?
Does a light switch in the "on" position know that the light is on?
Yes, this is the basis of the materialist explanation for consciousness. Materialists explain consciousness as nothing more than matter in motion. So yes, it it physical. In terms of tangibility, the argument is that if you can touch the brain you are touching the mind. Mind and brain are one and the same.

On this basis the materialist argument for consciousness tells us that the brain/mind can always be explained in terms of computations. On this basis, the potential to understand relativity is plausible provided your brain has the computing power. However, people such as Roger Penrose would no doubt add an important proviso. That proviso being the ability to understanding relativity is completely different to coming up with the idea of relativity. Coming up with the idea in the first place is something that is non-computational.
raw_thought wrote:
The concept "book" does not refer to an object that has a specific size,shape,weight,language,title or any quantified property. * If only physical objects exist,then the concept "book" is meaningless because it does not refer to a physical object.
If knowledge is only a physical pattern, does that mean that a book that no one ever reads knows something?
* In other words a book can be any size,weight...etc.
The above is really a move away from a materialist/physicalist explanation for consciousness. You example is really a move into metaphysics. Metaphysical explanations for consciousness are not compatible with physical explanations
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Ginkgo wrote:
raw_thought wrote:Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
If I understood everything about Einstein's brain,would I understand Relativity?
Does a light switch in the "on" position know that the light is on?
Yes, this is the basis of the materialist explanation for consciousness. Materialists explain consciousness as nothing more than matter in motion. So yes, it it physical. In terms of tangibility, the argument is that if you can touch the brain you are touching the mind. Mind and brain are one and the same.
No. This is where the non-materialist makes the straw man. If I touch the runner I am not touching the race.
The mind is what the brain does. Materialists are not claiming that the brain is the same as the mind at all.

The mind is what we call the activity of the brain. Obviously a disembodied brain is not mindful, it requires the brain to be flushed with blood which gives a continual supply of oxygen and fuel to allow the functions to continue.

You are coming from the endemic assumption that the soul/mind thing is separate from the body, and thus you impose an idea that the mind has thingness. The mind is not a separate entity; physical or otherwise. When you press your and on the ground you do not feel "England", you just get dirt on your hand. When you sit in a car you are not sitting in the journey. "Mind" is a conceptual abstraction , not a discrete object.

Mind describes what the brain is capable of; it is not the brain, but the active structures of the brain, constitute what the brain does; in the same way that the activities of its people constitute the abstract notion of "England".

You are confusing a thing with a way of talking about it.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Ginkgo »

raw_thought wrote:Ironically "materialism " is a concept. What tangible physical properties does it have?
The materialist would argue that if something is identical to itself then it must have the same properties as itself. This is Leibniz's Law. So the materialist would probably want to say that we are not talking about qualitative properties, we are actually talking about something that has properties that are identical to itself. Consciousness is identical to brain processes.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Ginkgo »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Ginkgo wrote:
raw_thought wrote:Do materialists believe that concepts are physical and tangible?
If I understood everything about Einstein's brain,would I understand Relativity?
Does a light switch in the "on" position know that the light is on?
Yes, this is the basis of the materialist explanation for consciousness. Materialists explain consciousness as nothing more than matter in motion. So yes, it it physical. In terms of tangibility, the argument is that if you can touch the brain you are touching the mind. Mind and brain are one and the same.
No. This is where the non-materialist makes the straw man. If I touch the runner I am not touching the race.
The mind is what the brain does. Materialists are not claiming that the brain is the same as the mind at all.

The mind is what we call the activity of the brain. Obviously a disembodied brain is not mindful, it requires the brain to be flushed with blood which gives a continual supply of oxygen and fuel to allow the functions to continue.

You are coming from the endemic assumption that the soul/mind thing is separate from the body, and thus you impose an idea that the mind has thingness. The mind is not a separate entity; physical or otherwise. When you press your and on the ground you do not feel "England", you just get dirt on your hand. When you sit in a car you are not sitting in the journey. "Mind" is a conceptual abstraction , not a discrete object.

Mind describes what the brain is capable of; it is not the brain, but the active structures of the brain, constitute what the brain does; in the same way that the activities of its people constitute the abstract notion of "England".

You are confusing a thing with a way of talking about it.


Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Despite the apparent simplicity of materialism, say, in terms of the identity between mental states and neural states, the fact is that there are many different forms of materialism. While a detailed survey of all varieties is beyond the scope of this entry, it is at least important to acknowledge the commonly drawn distinction between two kinds of “identity theory”: token-token and type-type materialism. Type-type identity theory is the stronger thesis and says that mental properties, such as “having a desire to drink some water” or “being in pain,” are literally identical with a brain property of some kind. Such identities were originally meant to be understood as on a par with, for example, the scientific identity between “being water” and “being composed of H2O” (Place 1956, Smart 1959). However, this view historically came under serious assault due to the fact that it seems to rule out the so-called “multiple realizability” of conscious mental states. The idea is simply that it seems perfectly possible for there to be other conscious beings (e.g., aliens, radically different animals) who can have those same mental states but who also are radically different from us physiologically (Fodor 1974). It seems that commitment to type-type identity theory led to the undesirable result that only organisms with brains like ours can have conscious states. Somewhat more technically, most materialists wish to leave room for the possibility that mental properties can be “instantiated” in different kinds of organisms. (But for more recent defenses of type-type identity theory see Hill and McLaughlin 1999, Papineau 1994, 1995, 1998, Polger 2004.) As a consequence, a more modest “token-token” identity theory has become preferable to many materialists. This view simply holds that each particular conscious mental event in some organism is identical with some particular brain process or event in that organism. This seems to preserve much of what the materialist wants but yet allows for the multiple realizability of conscious states, because both the human and the alien can still have a conscious desire for something to drink while each mental event is identical with a (different) physical state in each organism.

Taking the notion of multiple realizability very seriously has also led many to embrace functionalism, which is the view that conscious mental states should really only be identified with the functional role they play within an organism. For example, conscious pains are defined more in terms of input and output, such as causing bodily damage and avoidance behavior, as well as in terms of their relationship to other mental states. It is normally viewed as a form of materialism since virtually all functionalists also believe, like the token-token theorist, that something physical ultimately realizes that functional state in the organism, but functionalism does not, by itself, entail that materialism is true. Critics of functionalism, however, have long argued that such purely functional accounts cannot adequately explain the essential “feel” of conscious states, or that it seems possible to have two functionally equivalent creatures, one of whom lacks qualia entirely (Block 1980a, 1980b, Chalmers 1996; see also Shoemaker 1975, 1981).

Some materialists even deny the very existence of mind and mental states altogether, at least in the sense that the very concept of consciousness is muddled (Wilkes 1984, 1988) or that the mentalistic notions found in folk psychology, such as desires and beliefs, will eventually be eliminated and replaced by physicalistic terms as neurophysiology matures into the future (Churchland 1983). This is meant as analogous to past similar eliminations based on deeper scientific understanding, for example, we no longer need to speak of “ether” or “phlogiston.” Other eliminativists, more modestly, argue that there is no such thing as qualia when they are defined in certain problematic ways (Dennett 1988).

I am not supporting any type of reductionist explanation for consciousness. I am just using posting it as an example of consciousness theory.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

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The short answer to your text is "yes".

Concepts, like anything else, refer to things in the real world, and the mechanic by which they do this is what makes them physical. As the brain stores, records and reacts against itself, its environment and the world at large, a part of that reactivity and dynamic will be what we call "concepts".

The only problem in physicalizing "concepts" is whether or not you can get peope to agree on what "concepts" are. So it is with anything else. Whenever we talk about things which appear to not be objects in the natural world which we can point to, the problem is not making them into something physical, but getting people to agree on what in the physical world is best representing what we think of it as.

It's easier to see the same thing if it's right in front of you, than to see the same thing in each ones head where our biases, our mental discipline and our incapacity for direct comparison to others are strong barriers to unification.

As for your comment on books knowing anything... well no, no reasonable person would consider a book to know anything because knowing is defined from human experience and there would be no reason to think a book as having human experience as it doesn't look like us, doesn't act like us and doesn't relate like us. Only things very close to humans are worth considering as having human-like features, including consciousness.

I must remind you that when we say a book contains "huge amounts of knowledge", we are talking about the book acting as a medium for other people communicating their knowledge to us, we do not mean it literally. Because if for instance we were to scratch the text on the back of a pig, it would be preposterous to say that "now the pig knows the story/poem/scientific work". The pig knows the pain we bestowed upon it, and other pigs might take notice that this pig is slighty different, but we have no reason to assume they know how to use this information, or are even capable to use it in any meaningful manner like we do. In the same way it is preposterous to say a book contains knowledge, just because it happens to be a bit material we carved or painted symbols onto. We humans use the book, and in the process accumulate knowledge. The book is a mere tool, a mere medium for information exchange.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by David Handeye »

Ginkgo wrote:Yes, this is the basis of the materialist explanation for consciousness. Materialists explain consciousness as nothing more than matter in motion. So yes, it it physical. In terms of tangibility, the argument is that if you can touch the brain you are touching the mind. Mind and brain are one and the same.
Yes? Yes what? Are you really saying materialists believe that touching Einstein's brain they're touching Einstein's mind? Are you serious?
I don't think materialists could be as ingenuous as you're describing them.
The point is that idealists do believe concepts really existing, somewhere out of the world or inside objects; materialists don't. For materialists concepts are flatus vocis, just names, every materialist is a nominalist. No reasonable materialist could really think that touching a brain he\she could touch also the thoughts stored in it.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Ginkgo »

David Handeye wrote: Yes? Yes what? Are you really saying materialists believe that touching Einstein's brain they're touching Einstein's mind? Are you serious?
Not completely serious. If you read my Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy post would we can see that it is a bit more complicated. I do have an aversion to materialists conceptions of mind. However, I did make reference to Leibniz's Law and the problem of identity. Identity theory taken within a particular materialist explanation can claim mind states and brain states are identical. I think this is Dennett's position, but I tend to think the is confusing a reductionist account with an eliminationist account.
It depends on how we are prepared to interpret identity theory in relation to materialist explanations. Anyway, that's how I read it.
David Handeye wrote: The point is that idealists do believe concepts really existing, somewhere out of the world or inside objects; materialists don't.
I would say idealists want to claim concepts actually exist, but not in this world. For example, Plato's Forms. Forms do not exist in this world. It is the materialist that reject this idealist claim and say the only things that exists are physical things. There exists a one to one correspondence between physical things and mental things. A type of casual connection between things out there in the world and the words we use to explain such things.
David Handeye wrote:
For materialists concepts are flatus vocis, just names, every materialist is a nominalist. No reasonable materialist could really think that touching a brain he\she could touch also the thoughts stored in it.
I guess my above explanation is saying the opposite. I am suggesting the big influence on consciousness studies in the last eighty years has been referencing theory.
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Re: What are concepts according to materialism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

raw_thought wrote:Ironically "materialism " is a concept. What tangible physical properties does it have?

Materialism, as a concept, comes in many forms. It is expressed in this Thread, can be found in many books, and on the Internet in various textual,audible, and visual forms.
It is by these means that transmission of this meme is achieved. When perceived by humans, the concept is encoded in physical memories of neural pathways.

I don't think this is ironic.
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