True. At least within materialism.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat May 22, 2021 11:48 pmSo 3.5 billion years ago, there were no creatures with minds, right?bahman wrote: ↑Sat May 22, 2021 11:35 pmYes.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat May 22, 2021 9:40 am
When we plug data into our variables here, "F" is "minds" or "creatures with minds" and "x" is "laws of physics."
An argument against materialism
Re: An argument against materialism
Re: An argument against materialism
Of topic. The question is how could you (thought) move the electrons of your brain.
Re: An argument against materialism
Consciousness is not a claim that "YOU" could move an electron.
You are the electrons and neutrons and the protons, and the molecules they comprise, and the energetic state they prepresent, and the neurochemicals ad infinitem.
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Re: An argument against materialism
Do you believe there were creatures with minds 3.5 billion years ago?
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Re: An argument against materialism
Very good, sculptor. All these questions about, "moving electrons," assume conscious choice is some kind of physical process, not an attribute of an entire living organism.
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Re: An argument against materialism
Do you believe there couldn't have been?Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 12:02 pm Do you believe there were creatures with minds 3.5 billion years ago?
Unless you swallow the latest cosmologist's conjectures, why not?
Not that it would make a particle of difference one way or the other.
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Re: An argument against materialism
Either way is possible. Very few propositions are impossible; almost all are possible.
Hence why possibility isn't sufficient for belief, and why belief doesn't suggest (belief in the) impossibility of the contradictory proposition. And hence why belief typically has nothing to do with certainty. Certainty isn't something worth bothering with.
Re: An argument against materialism
This is like saying that most pieces of string are longer than this one which I am imagining.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 2:52 pmEither way is possible. Very few propositions are impossible; almost all are possible.
I can spend all day inventing impossible propositions.
My computer can run a four minute mile.
The possibilities are endless.
Certainty is worth considering, especially certainty of impossibility. It stops silly people making silly claims.
Hence why possibility isn't sufficient for belief, and why belief doesn't suggest (belief in the) impossibility of the contradictory proposition. And hence why belief typically has nothing to do with certainty. Certainty isn't something worth bothering with.
I'm not sure why the notion of conscious life existing before 3.5 billion years ago came up, but I think we can be sure that, with the reference to earth, and the framework from which the date derives, there was no life before that time.
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Re: An argument against materialism
In the context of bahman saying that:
(1) physical laws are mental phenomena only
(2) matter obeys physical laws
(3) if matter didn't obey physical laws, its "behavior" would be arbitrary
So I was asking him about, for example, the sun and Earth three and half billion years ago, to which his response was that the sun and the Earth "behaved" according to physical laws. I was trying to get him to see the problem with this in the context of his claims above.
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Re: An argument against materialism
Since when "control" (or lack of it) of the behavior of the electrons in my biological organism has anything to do with the relevance of consciousness to materialism. The cells from the central nervous system do their work and conscious experience is produced. What are we supposedly missing?
I don't know of nature not behaving naturally.
But saying that the properties of water are a function of the properties of its constitutive elements does not equate saying that the properties of water are the simple mereological sum of the properties of its constitutive elements. Clearly, hydrogen substance has some properties and oxygen as well, but water has other different properties not found in those substances, considered alone. I challenge you to never drink water again, just assimilate hydrogen and oxygen separately (actually this is a complementary therapy), and then tell me (when you're still alive) how it goes. Or drink hydrogen peroxide, instead, and we''ll see if the properties of hydrogen and gas have the same effect on you as water.
Re: An argument against materialism
What you are missing is the question that I asked. Can you control any part of the tissue of your brain by your thought? Yes, or no?Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 8:52 pmSince when "control" (or lack of it) of the behavior of the electrons in my biological organism has anything to do with the relevance of consciousness to materialism. The cells from the central nervous system do their work and conscious experience is produced. What are we supposedly missing?
Then you don't understand the question that I asked. If matter behaves correctly according to the laws of nature then how the mind can intervene. No need to say that to cause you to need to create energy. How else could you affect the matter? How thought can create energy?
Hydrogen and oxygen are not elementary particles. The right expression is that the properties of water are a function of the properties of its constituents, electrons, nucleus.Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 8:52 pmBut saying that the properties of water are a function of the properties of its constitutive elements does not equate saying that the properties of water are the simple mereological sum of the properties of its constitutive elements. Clearly, hydrogen substance has some properties and oxygen as well, but water has other different properties not found in those substances, considered alone. I challenge you to never drink water again, just assimilate hydrogen and oxygen separately (actually this is a complementary therapy), and then tell me (when you're still alive) how it goes. Or drink hydrogen peroxide, instead, and we''ll see if the properties of hydrogen and gas have the same effect on you as water.
Re: An argument against materialism
I know what consciousness is, it is the state of experience. I am asking how conscious state as thought can affect material?
Re: An argument against materialism
I think the problem here is the phrase " I was trying to get him to see ".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 5:24 pmIn the context of bahman saying that:
(1) physical laws are mental phenomena only
(2) matter obeys physical laws
(3) if matter didn't obey physical laws, its "behavior" would be arbitrary
So I was asking him about, for example, the sun and Earth three and half billion years ago, to which his response was that the sun and the Earth "behaved" according to physical laws. I was trying to get him to see the problem with this in the context of his claims above.
Good luck with that.
Re: An argument against materialism
As a physicist you know that energy can affect matter. What is the difference?bahman wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 9:52 pmI know what consciousness is, it is the state of experience. I am asking how conscious state as thought can affect material?
Re: An argument against materialism
Consciousness is not energy.