Atla wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:29 am
Speakpigeon wrote: ↑Mon Feb 04, 2019 9:19 pm
Premise 1 - For all we know, somebody's conscious mind may be the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Premise 2 - What somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Conclusion - Therefore, for all we know, what somebody does may be determined by the conscious mind of this person.
Here I really tend to think that your argument is invalid.
You're being irrational here because my conscious argument has broadly the same logical form as my second argument in this thread. If one is valid so is the other. I will guess you really meant "not sound".
And in this case, it is up to each of us to make his mind (according to the state of some group of neurons in their mind) as to whether the premises are true or not.
Atla wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:29 am
"Conscious mind" is conrete and "state of a group of neurons" is an abstraction, so the argument is begging the question by pre-supposing a dualism.
???
I really don't see where I'm presupposing any dualism. In effect, the argument says it may be all the same thing, so quite the opposite of dualism.
What is not an abstraction about the physical world? The argument is merely suggesting that despite
appearances to the contrary, this may be, for all we know, one and the same thing.
And here is a formalisation of the argument:
P1 ◇ ∀a, ∃x / GNB(x, a) ∧ C(a) ≡ S(x)
P2 ◻ ∀b, ∃y / GNB(y, b) ∧ A(b) ≡ F(S(y))
C ◇ ∀c / A(c) ≡ F(C(c))
a and b are "
a person"; x and y are "
a group of neuron in a person's brain", C is the conscious mind and S is the state of the group of neurons x or y. A is what a person does, F is some function so that what a person does is a function of, or determined by, the state of a group of neurons.
Atla wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:29 am
I deliberately didn't do that in my formulation, I think your argument can't even be formalized, then.
I can, but, as for my conscious mind argument, that doesn't help.
Atla wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:29 am
Or maybe you really just mean that the neurons and EM fields etc. in the head
are the conscious mind, which I agree with.
I'm agnostic about what would be the particular state of a group of neurons, but using the word "state" suggests something like a physical state, as yet unidentified.
Atla wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:29 am
(Having said that, materialism also has a subtle form of dualism embedded in it. We need to divide the world into mental and material first, before we can discard the mental.)
Yes but you could go further. Materialism explicitly denies any ontological existence to qualia and subjective experience as "
an illusion". Consciousness according to materialism, is entirely the objective phenomenon as can be observed by scientists. However, we all experience our qualia, but since science says our qualia have no physically existence, we are led to admit of two substances, qualia and the physical, hence a Dualism a la Descartes. My argument suggests maybe not.
EB