Announcement

Collapse

Philosophy 201 Guidelines

Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less

Compatibalism

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
    It is a claim that’s not supported by factual evidence from the natural world therefore it is a “supernatural”...or non-natural claim if you prefer.
    On the contrary, hylomorphic dualism is based on natural observations.

    It is only logically coherent within your metaphysical bubble; it’s an academic word-game unsupported by empirical evidence.
    I see you like to repeat yourself instead of actually arguing your case. If it's coherent in any metaphysics then it's logically coherent. All that is required for logical coherency in a concept is that there are no contradictions within it. That is, you can't do a reductio ad absurdum argument against it.

    Metaphysics can only marshal the facts available to it,
    You're not saying anything here I disagree with.

    if it’s contradicted by verified scientific knowledge then it’s invalidated.
    Good, then show a contradiction. Anywhere. So far you've assumed that I have no arguments to support hylomorphic dualism, and I have refused to give them since it's not needed to demonstrate that it is not logically incoherent.

    How is this not true of the natural universe?
    The Fallacy fallacy, remains a fallacy no matter what kind of universe we live in. I don't have to defend the matter of the fallacy at all. If you're starting to question whether a fallacy is fallacious, then there's really no reason for me to try to have a rational conversation with you.

    Science assumes philosophical naturalism
    On the contrary, it's working principles assumes methodological naturalism. Even so, as hylomorphic dualism is not supernatural, this is no problem.

    Hylemorphic Dualism is motivated by prior theological dogma
    If you ever feel like actually getting educated instead of reading gnu atheist blogs and feeling clever about yourself, try picking up say On The Soul by Aristotle to get a feeling for the arguments he laid out. At no point in his work, or in subsequent scholastic works, was theological arguments put in place to argue for hylomorphic dualism. Rather such things would only be relevant in such a discussion when the topic came to what would happen to a human soul upon death, and the effects of sin and grace on a soul.

    You're really burning strawmen at full blast Tassman. It makes you come off as quite ignorant about the subject.

    and only makes sense if you accept discredited Aristotelian ontology.
    So far you haven't stated a single argument against it, other than you finding it unfashionable.

    There’s no scientific reason to think that the mind and consciousness cannot be reduced to the neurological function of the brain and nervous system.
    So what, such a discussion is not within the ability of science to make. Science is far too simple and limited in its methods, artificially so (in order to do what it does and be useful). It can't answer the question 'What is the mind? Is what the brain does the same thing as the mind?" Such a discussion belongs entirely to the philosophy of mind.

    Though like gnu atheists, you're scientistic and a philosophy denier. Compared to you I much prefer the feministic atheists I know. Try reading Skepchick for a bit to get a feel for a group of atheists who pretty much ditched the now entirely useless New Atheists.

    And read this article on why atheists should start to take philosophy seriously: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/27/jona...ense_of_humor/

    Our understanding of quantum physics is guided by probability. We can know only how things will behave on the average—but we know that very precisely.
    This answer is bordering on unintelligible: Do you, or do you not recognize that there are multiple interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, many of whom are indeterministic?

    The fact of the matter is that it's not a scientific fact that the universe is deterministic. That's a metaphysical claim that, while informed by empirii, can't be subjected to scientific testing, nor can it be falsified. Period.
    Last edited by Leonhard; 02-20-2017, 06:02 AM.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post



      So what, such a discussion is not within the ability of science to make. Science is far too simple and limited in its methods, artificially so (in order to do what it does and be useful). It can't answer the question 'What is the mind? Is what the brain does the same thing as the mind?" Such a discussion belongs entirely to the philosophy of mind.
      These are scientific questions, philosophy is not equipped to provide answers...it has no mechanism to test them. There's no reason to imagine that a physical brain has an interface with a non-physical realm of being.

      This answer is bordering on unintelligible: Do you, or do you not recognize that there are multiple interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, many of whom are indeterministic?
      ...and ALL of the “multiple interpretations” deal with the microscopic universe, whereas at the macroscopic level quantum physics is guided by probability. We know how things will behave on the average and we know that very accurately.

      The fact of the matter is that it's not a scientific fact that the universe is deterministic. That's a metaphysical claim that, while informed by empirii, can't be subjected to scientific testing, nor can it be falsified. Period.
      It is a philosophical proposition that every event, decision and action is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences and science has verified this proposition.

      It has NOT verified your notion of a “separate entity” which enables libertarian free will to occur as you proposed in #268: “ We can have good reasons for thinking that we have free will and that free will by necessity isn't determined solely by external past antecedents, but has also some internal component to the person namely their 'will'”. Until you can identify and verify this alleged “internal component” you have no argument.
      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
        These are scientific questions, philosophy is not equipped to provide answers...it has no mechanism to test them.
        The question of what the mind is, ought to be informed by the relevant facts, but science itself is incapable of even investigating the question. There is nothing testable about the notion of qualia, intentionality, aboutness. Science can basically only view responses and compare it to how the brain is affected. It can document psychological aspects, such as our biases, or mental anomalies, but science can't answer the question 'What is a good healthy mind?' It can't because it's limited entirely to empirical investigations, so answering abstract questions about our understanding of these questions is beyond it.

        You can't test what the notion of beauty means, only whether people report something as being 'beautiful'.

        Tell me then, how would science investigate 'What is the mind?' How do you plan to measure and weigh that question?

        There's no reason to imagine that a physical brain has an interface with a non-physical realm of being.
        Hylomorphic dualism makes no claim about such a thing, you're still comparing it to Cartesian Dualism. This is still an error.

        ...and ALL of the “multiple interpretations” deal with the microscopic universe, whereas at the macroscopic level quantum physics is guided by probability.
        You can't admit that physics can very reasonably be indeterministic, and then claim for a fact that physics is deterministic. It was you who claimed that it was a fact of science that determinism held. All I have to do is point out one single case in which it isn't a fact that the world is deterministic. I've done so, ergo I've defeated your argument.

        Your appeal to higher levels of 'average' behavior is special pleading. Though you're also containing the hidden premise the reductionistic materialism is true, and that definitely isn't a scientific fact.

        It's kinda ironic that in all these discussions you haven't used a single scientific argument, you've merely appeal to a certain metaphysics that you favor with bad philosophical argument in its support.

        It is a philosophical proposition that every event, decision and action is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences and science has verified this proposition.
        Be my guest and show how science has verified determinism.

        It has NOT verified your notion of a “separate entity” which enables libertarian free will to occur as you proposed in #268: “ We can have good reasons for thinking that we have free will and that free will by necessity isn't determined solely by external past antecedents, but has also some internal component to the person namely their 'will'”.
        I never talked about a seperate entity distinct from the form of the person. Their soul is their body.

        Until you can identify and verify this alleged “internal component” you have no argument.
        You originally said that libertarian free will was incoherent. That means you think, or you claim (or at least your argument does), that libertarian free will contains contradictions. It is self-defeating. I've called your bluff, asked you to show anything like that and you haven't. You've asked me for scientific evidence for a philosophical argument.

        Then, ironically, you use the worst kind of philosophical hamfisting and logical fallacious philosophical reasoning to support your own favored metaphysics, while calling it scientific fact.

        Do you have anything better to do?

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Leonhard
          It's kinda ironic that in all these discussions you haven't used a single scientific argument, you've merely appeal to a certain metaphysics that you favor with bad philosophical argument in its support.



          Be my guest and show how science has verified determinism.



          I never talked about a seperate entity distinct from the form of the person. Their soul is their body.



          You originally said that libertarian free will was incoherent. That means you think, or you claim (or at least your argument does), that libertarian free will contains contradictions. It is self-defeating. I've called your bluff, asked you to show anything like that and you haven't. You've asked me for scientific evidence for a philosophical argument.

          Then, ironically, you use the worst kind of philosophical hamfisting and logical fallacious philosophical reasoning to support your own favored metaphysics, while calling it scientific fact.

          Do you have anything better to do?
          This is the end of those who sneer and look down their noses at philosophy and metaphysics: they do bad philosophy and worse metaphysics
          ...>>> Witty remark or snarky quote of another poster goes here <<<...

          Comment


          • Originally posted by JimL View Post
            Okay, thats a little clearer I think. But so what, what does the form, and the properties associated with that form, have to do with a soul? I mean naming it a soul doesn't seem to change anything of its singular materialistic nature. The matter of a body in the form of a nervous system, a brain, has the property to rationaly compute. You say that therefore the brain acts in ways it otherwise wouldn't unless it had a human soul as if a human soul was something different than, and causative of, the properties of the material form. I guess what I'm trying to understand is in what sense do you understand hylomorphic dualism to actually be dualism.
            Leonard, you never got back to me on this, would appreciate an explanation.
            Last edited by JimL; 02-21-2017, 07:09 AM.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by JimL View Post
              Leonard, you never got back to me on this, would appreciate an explanation.
              Basic theory[edit]

              See also: On the Soul and Aristotle's biology
              Aristotle applies his theory of hylomorphism to living things. He defines a soul as that which makes a living thing alive.[16] Life is a property of living things, just as knowledge and health are.[17] Therefore, a soul is a form—that is, a specifying principle or cause—of a living thing.[18] Furthermore, Aristotle says that a soul is related to its body as form to matter.[19]

              Hence, Aristotle argues, there is no problem in explaining the unity of body and soul, just as there is no problem in explaining the unity of wax and its shape.[20] Just as a wax object consists of wax with a certain shape, so a living organism consists of a body with the property of life, which is its soul. On the basis of his hylomorphic theory, Aristotle rejects the Pythagorean doctrine of reincarnation, ridiculing the notion that just any soul could inhabit just any body.[21]

              According to Timothy Robinson, it is unclear whether Aristotle identifies the soul with the body's structure.[22] According to one interpretation of Aristotle, a properly organized body is already alive simply by virtue of its structure.[23] However, according to another interpretation, the property of life—that is, the soul—is something in addition to the body's structure. Robinson uses the analogy of a car to explain this second interpretation. A running car is running not only because of its structure but also because of the activity in its engine.[24] Likewise, according to this second interpretation, a living body is alive not only because of its structure but also because of an additional property: the soul is this additional property, which a properly organized body needs in order to be alive.[25] John Vella uses Frankenstein's monster to illustrate the second interpretation:[26] the corpse lying on Frankenstein's table is already a fully organized human body, but it is not yet alive; when Frankenstein activates his machine, the corpse gains a new property, the property of life, which Aristotle would call the soul.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism
              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                Leonard, you never got back to me on this, would appreciate an explanation.
                I definitely will! Sorry about that. Unfortunately tonight I'm busy writing job applications and messing with LXC container stuff.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                  I definitely will! Sorry about that. Unfortunately tonight I'm busy writing job applications and messing with LXC container stuff.
                  Hylomorphism is nonsense, based on antiquated pre-scientific metaphysics that's been refuted for years. It's all semantics at best.
                  Blog: Atheism and the City

                  If your whole worldview rests on a particular claim being true, you damn well better have evidence for it. You should have tons of evidence.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                    The question of what the mind is, ought to be informed by the relevant facts, but science itself is incapable of even investigating the question. There is nothing testable about the notion of qualia, intentionality, aboutness. Science can basically only view responses and compare it to how the brain is affected. It can document psychological aspects, such as our biases, or mental anomalies, but science can't answer the question 'What is a good healthy mind?' It can't because it's limited entirely to empirical investigations, so answering abstract questions about our understanding of these questions is beyond it.

                    You can't test what the notion of beauty means, only whether people report something as being 'beautiful'.

                    Tell me then, how would science investigate 'What is the mind?' How do you plan to measure and weigh that question?
                    This problem was brought up by grmorton and failed there too. You are justifying your view with an 'argument from ignorance' proposing that something exists, because science cannot explain the attributes of consciousness and qualia to YOUR satisfaction. Daniel Dennett would disagree with your conclusions. This does not take into consideration of future advancements in their ability to explain consciousness and the nature of Qualia. At present science can describe and attribute consciousness and Qualia to the brain, and no other source is apparent in the objective evidence.

                    Science an show changes in the brain physically by drugs, injury and age and how they can effect qualia, and trace where the injury and drugs effect the human mind.
                    Last edited by shunyadragon; 02-21-2017, 12:01 PM.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by The Thinker View Post
                      Hylomorphism is nonsense, based on antiquated pre-scientific metaphysics that's been refuted for years. It's all semantics at best.
                      Feel free to make a post actually demonstrating this, this was one is all bluster.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                        The question of what the mind is, ought to be informed by the relevant facts, but science itself is incapable of even investigating the question. There is nothing testable about the notion of qualia, intentionality, aboutness. Science can basically only view responses and compare it to how the brain is affected. It can document psychological aspects, such as our biases, or mental anomalies, but science can't answer the question 'What is a good healthy mind?' It can't because it's limited entirely to empirical investigations, so answering abstract questions about our understanding of these questions is beyond it.

                        You can't test what the notion of beauty means, only whether people report something as being 'beautiful'.

                        Tell me then, how would science investigate 'What is the mind?' How do you plan to measure and weigh that question?
                        You’re assuming that “mind” is separate from the material brain. There's no reason to assume this. And science is well equipped to study the material brain.

                        You can't admit that physics can very reasonably be indeterministic, and then claim for a fact that physics is deterministic. It was you who claimed that it was a fact of science that determinism held. All I have to do is point out one single case in which it isn't a fact that the world is deterministic. I've done so, ergo I've defeated your argument.

                        Your appeal to higher levels of 'average' behavior is special pleading. Though you're also containing the hidden premise the reductionistic materialism is true, and that definitely isn't a scientific fact.
                        Once again, quantum indeterminism functions at the microscopic level whereas at the macroscopic level quantum physics is guided by probability. We know how things will behave on the average and we know that very accurately...nature is demonstrably not capricious.

                        It's kinda ironic that in all these discussions you haven't used a single scientific argument, you've merely appeal to a certain metaphysics that you favor with bad philosophical argument in its support
                        Science functions successfully on the assumption that every event and action is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. If you have evidence this is not the case then you need to present it, otherwise you have no argument.

                        I never talked about a seperate entity distinct from the form of the person. Their soul is their body.
                        If their “soul is their body” there’s no reason to distinguish between the two, science is well equipped to study the material body. If you’re saying the body and soul is some sort of composite entity you need to provide evidence to support this claim and also how these two components interact.

                        You originally said that libertarian free will was incoherent. That means you think, or you claim (or at least your argument does), that libertarian free will contains contradictions. It is self-defeating. I've called your bluff, asked you to show anything like that and you haven't. You've asked me for scientific evidence for a philosophical argument.

                        Then, ironically, you use the worst kind of philosophical hamfisting and logical fallacious philosophical reasoning to support your own favored metaphysics, while calling it scientific fact.
                        Free will is logically incoherent in a determined universe unless there is some way to override the causal chain. You’re claiming the existence of a soul (or "internal component") that is able to do this. But you have yet to show the existence of this “internal component”. Until you do this, what you’re claiming is an unverified hypothesis of no practical value in understanding “mind”.
                        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                          Leonard, you never got back to me on this, would appreciate an explanation.
                          Exactly! This is the core of the matter and I await the answer with interest.
                          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                            Feel free to make a post actually demonstrating this, this was one is all bluster.
                            The burden of proof is really on you to show that it is correct. Here's a challenge to you: Demonstrate that people are more than just their physical body, and that if the mental exists, it has causal power on the physical.
                            Blog: Atheism and the City

                            If your whole worldview rests on a particular claim being true, you damn well better have evidence for it. You should have tons of evidence.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by The Thinker View Post
                              The burden of proof is really on you to show that it is correct. Here's a challenge to you: Demonstrate that people are more than just their physical body, and that if the mental exists, it has causal power on the physical.
                              Thinker, I believe you are moving the goal posts. Leonhard's main point was that his position was not logically incoherent as Tass was claiming.
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by The Thinker View Post
                                The burden of proof is really on you to show that it is correct.
                                No, you were the one making a particular claim here, or rather a set of claims mashed into one single sentence.

                                "Hylomorphism is nonsense, based on antiquated pre-scientific metaphysics that's been refuted for years."

                                It should be easy enough for you to demonstrate. And in fact, if neither you nor Tassman can do so, then my point stands 'There is nothing incoherent about hylomorphic dualism.'

                                Here's a challenge to you: Demonstrate that people are more than just their physical body, and that if the mental exists, it has causal power on the physical.
                                I might in another thread one day. So far I haven't found anyone who would be interesting arguing this with. I might do so with JimL, he seems to actually be asking questions worth putting effort into answering. Still working on the reply, but I'm getting a new refrigerator and I'm going to a meetup featuring Anita Sarkeesian as a speaker tomorrow. Plus there are those applications to fill out, and some hobby coding. Busy, busy, busy.

                                I'll get to you in time JimL!

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by shunyadragon, 03-01-2024, 09:40 AM
                                161 responses
                                510 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Started by seer, 02-15-2024, 11:24 AM
                                88 responses
                                354 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Started by Diogenes, 01-22-2024, 07:37 PM
                                21 responses
                                133 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Working...
                                X