Mentat said:
All nonsense. You still haven't defined "experience" (in spite of having been asked, more than once) and so its use in the definitions is only an obstruction to clarity, nothing more.
There is no "experience" that is common to hallucinating and seeing your co-worker. To see requires visual stimulus. However, to believe that see something that you do not actually see, requires only internal stimuli.
I will not work with these definitions, as they have been added ad hominem, and as yet have no coherent meaning.
I have to assume you're terribly thick-headed and simply can't figure out what I mean when I talk of this experience, or the experienced thing (the image). It is the common things you see (or at least think you see) when you see', imagine, hallucinate, and dream. Either that, or your sophistic approach to this topic won't let you understand. I asked my 14 year old sister if she understood what I'm talking about when I talk about the common image in those four situations, she understood with no problem. The sophist in you is demanding a definition for something a 14-year-old has no trouble understanding. Fliption also indicated that he knows what I'm talking about. Didn't we already go over the fact that we don't need such definitions to understand each other? Either you're too hard-headed to understand me (or if it's a language problem, I apologise), or you're your unwilling to understand.
However, unless someone can explain to me why there should be such a "final product" of perceiving, and what use it would serve, I will not hold that it is there at all.
What use does it serve? It is exactly what you see. If there were no final product of perception, there would be nothing to perceive. Perhaps my doctor can argue, "Unless I know why you were kicked in the back of the head, and what the purpose of you being kicked in the head was, I have no reason to believe you were kicked in the head, and I will not treat you." You're focusing on something entirely irrelevant.
For the last time, you do not see your cortex, and I never claimed that you did. You do not have eyes inside your head, or any other such apparatus which would allow you access to the inner workings of your cortex.
You don't get it, and you're really not paying attention. Assuming that there is a common image/experience in those four situations (see'ing, hallucinating, ...), then the object of the experience is certainly not the physical thing, since there is no physical thing when you hallucinate. But if it were the activity in your cortex, then activity in your cortex would be a green shirt, but it's not. You see a green shirt, not your cortex (nor the light entering your eyes, nor the physical object, since you can see - not see' - a green shirt without it being physically there). So whatever it is you see is none of those physical things.
And there are no purple shirts elsewhere either. You seem to be missing the fact that your assumptions will eventually lead one to the conclusion that everything you believe in must have some kind of existence, or else it would be impossible for you to believe in them. But this is preposterous! A person who believes in Zeus does not expect Zeus to become real simply because of that person's belief. They think they are talking about something that was already real. However, to follow your reasoning, every time I believe I am perceiving unicorns or gods, these must come into (some form of) existence in order for me to be able to believe in them.
I'm not just conceptualizing these images, I am seeing them. I can be certain of these images, and in fact can't be certain of the brain I think is causing them, or the physical objects that they represent. Simply conceiving a unicorn doesn't make it exist, but the image of a unicorn thus exists, or rather, the concept. And the concept is not physical. Your belief must exist in order for you to believe it, and your belief is not physical because you may have some beliefs about what is in your drawer, but your brain and the chemical reactions aren't about anything, they are just physical processes. If you have a hallucination of a red shirt, nothing in your brain is a red shirt, so the hallucinated shirt is not some part of the brain, or brain activity, etc.
So, what? The fact remains: you could not know about redness or hotness had you not first processed such things cortically.
Right, cortical processes cause the mind to experience these qualia. But cortical process are not identical to qualia since cortiacl processes are neither red nor hot. They cause qualia corresponding to redness or hotness, they aren't identical to them.
Actually, I would like you to try to "feel" hot, right now, if you please. Without outside stimulus, attempt to make any part of your body "feel hot".
I don't have that power of imagination, but if I were hallucinating, I could. There have certainly been times when I felt much hotter than I actually was. There was a time when I was sitting at my computer and a spider was crawling up my leg. It surprised me, and I for the next few days, I often got the feeling that spiders were crawling on my legs, even though I was feel'ing no such thing. Sometimes people will claim to hear things when there is nothing to hear'. My sister will sometimes tell me I smell like smoke when it is impossible for her to smell' smoke on me, as there was no smoke on me for her to smell'. People have sensations identical to sensations' even though their causes are different. Something is common to both situations (whether you're sensing or sens'ing) even though the physical causes are not. That common thing is the experience, or the thing you "think" you sense', or the thing you imagine you sense'.
No, that is wrong. Science has never suggested a relationship (causal or otherwise) between brain activity and "experiences". Science doesn't even suggest that there are "experiences", let alone what they are related to.
When a scientist pokes a certain part of my brain, I experience some change in what I see (not see'). What I see is what I experience. Science shows that activity in the brain effects what I experience. The only way you could deny that is to do what Fliption said, and tell me that I don't have experiences. This is only true to you because you're either hard-headed or sophistic, but everyone else in the world, including my 14-year-old sister, knows exactly what I mean when I talk about those experiences.
I wish you'd post that in my "Wrong Turns" thread. The concept of mind-body distinctions, and the difference between "images of the mind" and their related objective stimuli, were devised specifically to establish that about which the speaker could be incorrigible. But such incorrigibility will never be found in any meaningful sense, and that is why I think the inventing of these empty terms was a mistake.
I do not, however, deny that the terms exist. So, your reference to the dictionary will change nothing. I know that these terms exist and are in wide use. My confusion springs, not from an unfamiliarity with the terms, but from an unfamiliarity with anything to which these terms might conceivably refer.
You are indeed familiar with these things. In fact, these things are the only things with which you are undeniably, directly familiar. Everything else you know of you know from inference. The existence of the computer in a physical world independent from what you happen to see is something you infer from the image you have of the computer. You infer that there is something independent of your perception, and that it causes your perception, and that the thing in your experience (the computer) corresponds to some independent physical object. That's a rather reasonable inference, but an inference nonetheless. You need to make no inference to know that you see a computer, you must make inference to think you see' the computer.
You are familiar with these things, and either you are uncapable of noticing it, or, more likely, you are unwilling to admit it.
You missed the point completely. I'm sorry if I'm explaining this badly, but I can't think of any better ways. But hear me out...
You only devised the distinction between "see" and "see' " because you want to hold on to the concept that something (though not physical) must exist whenever you believe you are perceiving it. After all, it would be shameful indeed to be wrong about what you are perceiving. However, belief is indeed the most important part of this discussion. Whether or not you believe that you "see' " her is irrelevant. That you believe you "see" her in any way is the root fallacy.
No, it is the root of the argument, it is a true premise, and the argument is sound. Your belief that I don't "see" her in any way is the root of your problem. Everybody else understands what I mean when I say that I see her
in some way. Clearly, "see" does have some meaning in this context if everyone understands it. It is distinct from see', and I don't see' her in any way, but I do see her in some way. What does "see" mean in this context? Well, everyone else seems to know what it means, so either you're unwilling or unable to understand what it means.
No, it doesn't. I do not mean to construct strawmen, I have indeed given the opportunity for others here to give a more generous definition of "ontology". That you did not do so until now is (once again) not my problem. My definition of it does make seem more blatantly absurd than it would otherwise, but that doesn't change the absurdity of the actual cases. For example: physical/non-physical.
If this is all it is, then I can choose a sufficiently generous definition of ontology such that the problem goes away. Solid and non-solid can interact, because they are of the same ontology, but that depends on how "ontology" is defined. Let's just define "ontology" such that it is little different from "state of matter" so that of physical ontology can interact with non-physical ontology.
If an action/entity is physical, and it wishes to interact with something non-physical, it will not require some other physical thing to connect it with that non-physical one. Nor will it require something non-physical, as it would have equal difficulty interacting with that non-physical entity as the previous. It would require something that was neither physical nor non-physical, which is obviously (semantically, logically, etc) absurd.
Just as a solid cannot interact with a non-solid. Of course they can interact, there is nothing in the definition of "solid" that makes it so that solid and non-solid can interact. All I'm asserting is that mind is non-physical, and just as solid and non-solid can interact, so can physical (body/brain) and non-physical (mind). Either categorize mind as the same ontology as physical things, or categorize them of different ontologies, but define ontology such that ontologically distinct things interacting is as problematic as solid and non-solid things interacting. Of course, I can do either of these things because it depends
entirely on how I define ontology, and since you seem to define ontology in a completely arbitrary, unconventional manner for the sole purpose of making your argument work, I shall do the same thing so that my argument works.
Between a proton and an electron? No. Their interaction is to do with their opposite electrical charges.
Isn't this still action at a distance? There is no medium that passes the interaction from one thing to another, the two things are separate and just happen to have an effect on one another. If this is acceptable, then Newton's gravity shouldn't be problematic either. Two separate masses just happen to have an effect on one another. Anyways, an electron and proton interact with each other without any thing connecting them, and so do mind and body, or if you want, duct tape connects them, it really doesn't matter.
Both a proton and a neutron (as used in my example) are of the same ontology.
So what? What's so big about being of the same ontology that allows them to interact, but if they were of different ontologies, they couldn't? That ontologically similar things can interact and that ontologically distinct things can't interact is a baseless assumption you make.
I know that. But it cannot serve as an intermediary between waves and particles any better than a wave or particle could on its own (though, this is clearly distinct from ontological difficulty).
Of course it can. An electron can collide with a proton (particle) and then later on interfere with a wave, thereby intermediating between particle and wave.
When I spoke of the problems with mixing ontologies, I was speaking of the fact that either the third ontology was created by a previous interaction of the two, or else it was as distinct from the others as each of them are from one another.
Aside from the fact that a "mixed ontology" would imply something composed of parts that cannot interact (as per my aforementioned problems of ontological interaction), which is a worse problem than any I've posed, think of this: The third ontology is just that, a third ontology. Why should its being composed of parts that are of different ontologies make it a good bridge?
What would prevent it from being a good bridge? It is a third ontology, and
it is partially both previous ontologies. You seem to think that since it is of a third ontology, the underlined stuff is irrelevant.
Let A be the set of all only-English speakers
Let B be the set of all only-French speakers
Let C be the set of all English-and-French speakers
Clearly, C is distinct from A and B, the intersection of any two sets is empty, so in that sense, C is a third, distinct thing from the other two. But in another sense, it is like a mix of the previous two, and people in set C can interact with both A and B, and perhaps act as translators and facilitate interaction between A and B, mediating some discussion. Metaphysical duct tape does the same thing.
Anyways, I'm done with this discussion. Your argument is based on a bunch of nonsensical assumptions and definitions of ontology, interaction, reaction, and a number of other things. Moreover, you either can't or won't understand something that my 14 year old sister, and probably everyone else who speaks English, understands, and unfortunately, understanding this thing is the root of understanding my argument. I didn't have to convince my sister or explain anything to her, she understood what I was referring to, it was very natural. It's not as though we are all referring to something we believe exists, but really doesn't, we are reffering to something that we can't help but believe exists. We are in fact referring to something we can't doubt exists.
We can't, but somehow,
you can. Anyone who is so thick-headed and/or sophistic as to be able to doubt such a thing is not worth arguing with. Pages and pages of posts won't make this plainly simple thing any clearer. Once it becomes clear, there will be nothing left to debate, but since you seem to be uncapable of seeing this thing clearly, I won't waste any more time.
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). I don't reduce things to semantics because it helps me in any way, or because I really care about words. I talk about words in order to elucidate the views that my "opponent" thinks s/he holds, and then to see if they hold any water beyond "mere semantics".
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