[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[ian glendinning]

Inserted ...

On 12/13/05, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> Ian,
>
> Ian said:
>
> Scott, if you're using materialism as a broad naturalism /
> physicalism, then no problem. But the word has narrower "substantial"
> connotations for most people, in common usage.
>
> Scott:
> I assume you are not referring to the non-philosophical meaning of
> materialism (as in, seeking happiness by having lots of material goods),
> since that certainly isn't dead. So I still don't know what you are
> referring to when you say "materialism is dead". Most people are mind/matter
> dualists.

[IG] I know, and I think part of the problem is the "substantial"
connotation behind the word material in any of it's uses, even in
carefully guarded philosophical ivory towers. It's the word that needs
killing off. Language evolves. Meanings are never usefully reserved
for long. Materialism is dead in the sense it no longer has any value.

>
> Ian said:
> Given that broad view - I would say it also covers "mental" too. All
> the things we know and love in common sense as material or mental,
> evolve from the same natural physicalis
>
> I am self-proclaimed a "physicalist" in this sense.
>
> Scott:
> And I am not.

[IG] I know you're not, but you said I seemed to be .... it's never
been a matter of seeming - it's what Im banging on about. (But this is
a dualist issue, see the closing Dennett remark below.)

> Out of curiosity, since you seem sympathetic to Dennett, does
> this mean you reject Chalmers? I ask, since Dennett seems to me to be the
> most prominent example of someone who Chalmers would accuse of "not taking
> consciousness seriously".

[IG] - My main project at the moment is to resolve Dennett / Chalmers
differences. I have a lot of time for both of them. Dennett for me
falls far short of explaining consciousness (what it is, how it
works), despite staunchly supporting the neo-Darwinist explanation of
how it evolved naturally. His best explanation (like Blackmore) seems
to be that what we call consciousness is just an "illusion". That I
don't buy.

Chalmers on the other hand - I agree with the proposition that the
"subjective aspect" of consciousness remains to be explained (the
so-called hard problem). I also agree with him (like Deutsch) that a
high-quality explanation may not look much like the traditional
reductive logical causal chains of reasoning some conservative people
would hope for. What I don't buy from Chalmers are his Zombie thought
experiments - I'm still struggling with "supervenience" and with
"possibility" (metaphysical, conveivable, logical and physical) (also
considered by Deutsch) - but for me Chalmers' thought experiments beg
all the key questions in their initial assumptions, so I believe they
simply mislead.

Interestingly, I'm just reading Dennett's "Sweet Dreams". Unlike me
Dennett is very anti what he sees as "new-age physics" providing
answers to ancient philosophical questions. He's right in the sense
that anyone claiming that uncertainty or non-locality or entanglement
explains the mysterious mental-stuff amidst all the matter-stuff. What
I think Dennett has missed, is that this stuff is gradually explaining
that there is only one stuff of nature underlying all evolved levels -
mental or material - I call it "information" (after Deutsch and all
the latest Dirac interpretations). (Hence my aversion to the
misleading word material...)

The basic building blocks of both material and mental have been around
as long as the building blocks have been around - (which implies a
first cause issue, I'll grant you, in a single closed universe - but
Deutsch addresses that - time and causality are the seriously weird
issues getting in the way of common sense explanations here.).

Evolved forms of consciousness and living-socio-cultural-intellectual
patterns have both emerged together - in fact consciousness and
intellegence etc, are just such evolved patterns. The MoQ is spot on,
Where's the problem ?

>
> - Scott
>

[IG]
Regards, Ian