[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[ian glendinning]

Scott, Case, inserted ....

On 12/15/05, 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.
>
> Scott:
> Well, I see the problem in that there are two meanings to the word
> 'material' and to the word 'physical' -- but since they are often used
> interchangeably, I'll focus on the latter. The first meaning, call it
> physical[1] means what we sense with bodily sense organs (to leave out, say,
> 'sense of value'). The second, physical[2], is what physics has formulated
> as models to explain and predict what happens in physical[1]. The thing is
> that before quantum physics these were pretty much the same, that
> hypothesized atoms, for example, were taken to be the same sort of thing as
> dust particles, just much smaller. They existed in spacetime in the same
> way, for example. And of course all that changes with quantum physics.

[IG] Agreed. Let's not get pedantic. 2 meanings, multiple meanings,
whatever - all I'm saying for the fourth time is that despite the
arrival of quantum physics the very root of the word material carries
ancient and mis-leading connotations of something substantial. That's
all.

>
> The thing is, when you conclude with statements like
>
> "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?"
>
> the problem is that this whole mind set of emergence came to be when
> 'physical' meant 'physical[1]'. But with quantum physics, one cannot assume
> the Newtonian view of space and time as being an objective basis for
> understanding origins. That is, if, as you quote Deutsch: "but Deutsch
> addresses that - time and causality are the seriously weird issues getting
> in the way of common sense explanations here", all the Darwinian business
> becomes questionable as well.

[IG] - It might provide such doubt, true, but there has been plenty of
stuff since that simply re-inforces the evolutionary fundamentals - so
the doubt is dispelled. I buy ths idea that time and causation may be
seriously more weird than our folk-views, but I don't buy the idea,
that all ideas of process of change over time will therefore be
totally invalid. Disbelief remains suspended (for now), but as you go
on to say, that would be no argument anyway. I can't believe your
prior-consciousness-based arguments would be any less undermined by
such a twist of time and causality than my natural physics ?

> Granted, that does not in itself provide
> license for the sort of thing I am espousing, but it does highlight that
> Darwinist explanations of consciousness have no evidential basis either.

[IG] Says who ??!!?? Are you denying Darwinian evolution per se ? Are
you suggesting homop-sapiens didn't arrive later in evolution than say
dinosuars ? Are you suggesting humans don't have any higher level
qualities of consciousness than dinosaurs. None of it conclusive or
perfectly explained (nothing ever is) but don't deny evidence
entirely.

> (For more on why I do espouse what I do, see the companion post).
>
> Scott said:
> > 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.
>
> Scott:
> Good.
>
> Ian continues:
> 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.
>
> Scott:
> The thing I would question about Chalmers is: if the problem is so hard, why
> not question the presupposition that makes it a problem in the first place?
> That presupposition, of course, is the belief that consciousness is an
> addition to a world that existed without it (and would revert to a world
> without it if all life forms were extinguished). Hence the need on Chalmers'
> part for diving into supervenience and such.

[IG] Doh !!! So let me get this right. A philosopher would not have to
explain consciousness if he he could sleep happy with the idea that it
pre-existed anything else ? Sounds like the God sky-hook to me. (The
whole problem with this is there is no "it" to use in the above
sentences - as we've stumbled across many times elsewhere in this
correspondence - there are many varieties / sub-types and components
of consciousness - we're using a very broad loose word here covering a
wide range of concepts. Anyone suggesting the whole of this
pre-existed anything else seems to have a lot of explaining to do. A
lot more than any humble physicist. I though we were having a serious
debate ?

>
> Ian continued:
> 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...)
>
> Scott:
> Yes, QM does not explain consciousness. But then Dennett and Chalmers both
> start from the position that consciousness needs explaining, an attitude
> that originated back when materialism was NOT dead, that thought that the
> perceptual contents of consciousness (physical[1]) were the the one true
> objective reality.

[IG] Agreed, as a statement of historical fact. But the fact that the
felt-need to explain consciousness pre-existed even Newtonian physics
is not changed by the fact that modern physics has arrived, even if
the potential explanations available may have changed - a total
non-sequitor. And that's why the MoQ moves the combination of
Evolution and GoF Physics onward and upward.

Do you have any interest in the MoQ Scott ?
Ian

>
> - Scott
>
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