What's your position on the mind-body problem?

[Leonhard]

I don't know, I just think we should take the spoon as real.

'The spoon is real' the rallying cry of all us realists.

What is the Thomistic interpretation, if you could put it in a nutshell?

I feel like diverting the discussion about this to a long rant about why modern philosophy took a wrong turn with Descartes. However shortly, in thomistic metaphysics all things consist of a conjunction of actuality and potentiality: what they are, and what they can be. You might be drinking coffee at the moment, but later a decision might move your body to do this. Any potentiality is then actualised by something else. There are also four causes... but explaining all that will get a bit out of hand.

The only exception to this distinction is actually God, he's pure actuality. Interestingly this is derived as a result, and is both a proof of his existence, as well as showing that he's changeless. Anyway back to physics.

The laws of quantum mechanics describes the formal cause (as distinct from the material, efficient or final cause) for why something would happen, as well as the probability that a certain potentiality will actualised. That's it. The particles are real, the results are real, the laws of quantum mechanics are real, the behaviour is counter intuitive but that's unsurprising, it just means that the dynamics at the smallest level don't correspond to the dynamics of the large level. No alternate universes, moon-doesn't-exist-when-its-not-being-observed, reality is all mind.

That's the condensed version, I'd love to explain to you thomistic metaphysics some time. Especially how we can derive God's existence unfailingly and with complete certainty from it, as well as many of his properties.

If you like a good book that bashes new atheists while explaining all of this (except for interpreting quantum mechanics as the author is more interested in ethics), I suggest reading The Last Superstition by Ed Feser. Its brilliant, and very few atheists have actually considered these arguments, and those that do either fail to understand them or fail to deal with them.

[seer]

'The spoon is real' the rallying cry of all us realists.



I feel like diverting the discussion about this to a long rant about why modern philosophy took a wrong turn with Descartes. However shortly, in thomistic metaphysics all things consist of a conjunction of actuality and potentiality: what they are, and what they can be. You might be drinking coffee at the moment, but later a decision might move your body to do this. Any potentiality is then actualised by something else. There are also four causes... but explaining all that will get a bit out of hand.

The only exception to this distinction is actually God, he's pure actuality. Interestingly this is derived as a result, and is both a proof of his existence, as well as showing that he's changeless. Anyway back to physics.

The laws of quantum mechanics describes the formal cause (as distinct from the material, efficient or final cause) for why something would happen, as well as the probability that a certain potentiality will actualised. That's it. The particles are real, the results are real, the laws of quantum mechanics are real, the behaviour is counter intuitive but that's unsurprising, it just means that the dynamics at the smallest level don't correspond to the dynamics of the large level. No alternate universes, moon-doesn't-exist-when-its-not-being-observed, reality is all mind.

That's the condensed version, I'd love to explain to you thomistic metaphysics some time. Especially how we can derive God's existence unfailingly and with complete certainty from it, as well as many of his properties.

If you like a good book that bashes new atheists while explaining all of this (except for interpreting quantum mechanics as the author is more interested in ethics), I suggest reading The Last Superstition by Ed Feser. Its brilliant, and very few atheists have actually considered these arguments, and those that do either fail to understand them or fail to deal with them.

Thanks for the info and reference. I know who Ed Feser is but only read a few things on his blog in the past. I think I will order his book (update, I just ordered the book). You should start a thread on thomistic metaphysics either here or on Apologetics.

[Volt]

Right, so, first things first:

Seer, my apologies for vanishing for days. Guests stayed at the house and everything became far more time-consuming. It just had to happen when someone else joined the conversation too! I need to start leaving notice when I realize I won't have time to post for a few consecutive days.

I'll be quoting you and Leonhard in order, hopefully addressing everything in a somewhat coherent fashion.

Volt, I made a deductive argument for the trustworthiness of our perceptions starting with the first premise of a trustworthy, omnipotent God. Second, I would like to see a deductive syllogism for your position. In other words, can you deductively show that the life of your mind is actually creating or affecting reality?

Your premise is in question for the reasons we discussed. The ones I mentioned (mind and direct thoughts/perceptions exist) aren't by virtue of reflexive knowledge. Leonhard touched on this, see below.* I'll try to scrape together a syllogism (or something resembling one) at the end of this post.

The laws of quantum mechanics describes the formal cause (as distinct from the material, efficient or final cause) for why something would happen, as well as the probability that a certain potentiality will actualised. That's it. The particles are real, the results are real, the laws of quantum mechanics are real, the behaviour is counter intuitive but that's unsurprising, it just means that the dynamics at the smallest level don't correspond to the dynamics of the large level. No alternate universes, moon-doesn't-exist-when-its-not-being-observed, reality is all mind..

Just to clarify: I wasn't trying to use QM as a comprehensive set of evidence for Idealism, just as a confirmation. Then the conversation rolled into testing the claims of Idealism, which were stated at the end of the video linked waaay back in this thread.

You can make arguments that are completely fireproof and certain, without it being from deductively valid premises, but I think that's for another discussion. I still say you need to read Aristotle.

Aristotle wrote a good amount. Any suggestion where to start, in relation to this thread?

But how to do you get the premises? How do you uncover that its possible to do deductive arguments, if you didn't know it originally? First comes experience, and from experience we can abstract truths about the world. One of those discoveries was in fact logic itself. That's what this old white guy did.

* Bother. I didn't explicitly address this. In a nutshell: reflexive knowledge. I need to read more Aristotle.

Did you come this far from a discussion about the Copenhagen Interpretation? Granted in that interpretation objective reality really consists of the result of measurements, and what underlies those measurements is completely unknown. It makes it almost anti-realism, and is part of the reasons why I don't like it. The reason it enjoys widespread usage is that when you have to teach physics students what happens to a wavefunction after a measurement, it makes it so much easier "It collapses to a single eigen-value if discrete, or a dirac delta function if its continuous." Now that statement might not make too much sense, but its basically the selling point, because using this you get the right results.

See below.+

However you also get the right results if you use Bohmian wave mechanics (if you can live with information traveling faster than light), or the global variable interpretation (if you can live with global variables existing), or if you use Everett's multiverse interpretation (which has some odd problems as well), or... the point is that there's a bunch of mutually exclusive interpretations of quantum mechanics, one of them [Copenhagen Interpretation] can be taken as supporting anti-realism. However that's some fairly weak evidence.

Agreed, it's certainly not enough to elevate the reliability of Idealism's claims above other philosophies. At least to my understanding, though I think the video tries to imply it is?

Actually, there are premises which can't fail to be true.

* What I call reflexive knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, Leonhard. I'll freely admit I'm an amateur philosopher/logician at best.

Anti-realism, not 'anti-realistic', its a philosophical position, basically 'There is no spoon'. Some philosophers got tired of arguing about the metaphysical underpinnings of everything and decided that the weight and the piece of lead didn't exist, only the readout. That's the carricature of the position.

+ Judging by that description, no, I'm not holding to the Copenhagen Interpretation. I know little of physics, just two semesters' worth of the basics.

If its worth anything I think the Copenhagen Interpretation makes sense, its just that its lack of a stance on whether objective reality exists is bothersome among other issues. I prefer the thomistic interpretation.

I most certainly believe an objective reality exists. Now I'm even more set against this Copenhagen Interpretation.

That's actually what I want him to answer, since he seems to think that no premise can be known with certainty. This is a fairly untenable position for obvious reasons, it leads either to an infinite chain of justification or to circular logic.

My mistake for being unclear. Agreed, saying that absolutely no premise can be known with certainty leaves me in a clearly self-refuting claim. My stated exception to the rule was "reflexive knowledge," and implicit exception was all direct experience in and of itself.

If you like a good book that bashes new atheists while explaining all of this (except for interpreting quantum mechanics as the author is more interested in ethics), I suggest reading The Last Superstition by Ed Feser. Its brilliant, and very few atheists have actually considered these arguments, and those that do either fail to understand them or fail to deal with them.

Now on my reading list, though who knows when I'll get around to it.

You should start a thread on thomistic metaphysics either here or on Apologetics.

Seconded!


Seer, your syllogism:

1. Your own mind must exist (Proof: Reflexive knowledge)
2. Your thoughts* must exist (Reflexive Knowledge)
3. Your thoughts must be controlled and/or affected by your mind, i.e. will (Reflexive knowledge)
4. Your thoughts are a product of your mind (#2-3)
5. Your thoughts are dependent on your mind for existence, being a product of it. (#4)
6. Perceptions directly interact with your mind, i.e. are "in" your mind just like thoughts (Reflexive knowledge?)
7. Certain perceptions (e.g. your body) can be directly affected by your will just like thoughts (Experience)
8. Perceptions have the same "substance" as thoughts (#3, 5, 6, 7)
9. Your mind can and does directly affects perceptions(#6-8)
10. "Reality" refers to and can only be known as a certain set of perceptions, i.e. experiences (Experience)
11. Your mind affects reality. (#9, 10)

* "Thoughts" being defined as everything that you can completely control by will: sensations of all kinds in a lucid dream or daydream in addition to symbolic logic in the form of language.

I've re-read that list of statements enough times to get a headache, so I'll post it. That said, I'm almost sure I overlooked something, since it really isn't a completely self-contained syllogism in the proper sense, let alone in symbolic logic.

[seer]

Seer, your syllogism:

1. Your own mind must exist (Proof: Reflexive knowledge)
2. Your thoughts* must exist (Reflexive Knowledge)
3. Your thoughts must be controlled and/or affected by your mind, i.e. will (Reflexive knowledge)
4. Your thoughts are a product of your mind (#2-3)
5. Your thoughts are dependent on your mind for existence, being a product of it. (#4)
6. Perceptions directly interact with your mind, i.e. are "in" your mind just like thoughts (Reflexive knowledge?)
7. Certain perceptions (e.g. your body) can be directly affected by your will just like thoughts (Experience)
8. Perceptions have the same "substance" as thoughts (#3, 5, 6, 7)
9. Your mind can and does directly affects perceptions(#6-8)
10. "Reality" refers to and can only be known as a certain set of perceptions, i.e. experiences (Experience)
11. Your mind affects reality. (#9, 10)

* "Thoughts" being defined as everything that you can completely control by will: sensations of all kinds in a lucid dream or daydream in addition to symbolic logic in the form of language.

I've re-read that list of statements enough times to get a headache, so I'll post it. That said, I'm almost sure I overlooked something, since it really isn't a completely self-contained syllogism in the proper sense, let alone in symbolic logic.

I'm not sure Volt how you get to reality here. Back in post #80 I asked: In other words, can you deductively show that the life of your mind is actually creating or affecting reality? How can you possibly know that it is reality that your mind is affecting reality. That is not all, in the end, only in your mind. So I guess we need to flesh your #10 out a bit more.

[Volt]

I'm not sure Volt how you get to reality here. Back in post #80 I asked: In other words, can you deductively show that the life of your mind is actually creating or affecting reality? How can you possibly know that it is reality that your mind is affecting reality. That is not all, in the end, only in your mind. So I guess we need to flesh your #10 out a bit more.

In the bolded sentence quoted above, you're presupposing that there's something beyond perception. The assertion of #10 is simply pointing out that presupposition, stating that there's no basis for it. Perception is all that exists, no more, no less. Moreover, there's not even a way to describe what could beyond perception because we can only consider reality in terms of "a set of perceptions."

Moving the logic of your presupposition along even farther:

1. Let's say we're in the Matrix, perception set #1. We assume perception =/= reality, so there must be another, independent substance "underneath" Perception Set #1 that causes those perceptions in our minds, via light, particles of odor, etc.
2. Let's call this substance "A." Reality, as you call it.
3. Let's assume the impossible and say that there's some way to at least hypothesize about what A looks like.
4. As humans, we must consider reality as a set of perceptions. Since we know what A is, we have another set of perceptions that correlate to it: Perception Set #2. Or in other words, we now reliably know that A = #1 because we know that #2 = #1, and we've assumed that #2 = A
5. But perception is dependent on an independent reality, right? So even this Perception Set #2 must be caused by something, another underlying substance. Remember, only perception set #1 is caused by A; #2 is how we verify that A = #1, but #2 itself is unverified. It's just assumed.
6. In order to verify the reliability of Perception Set #2, and knowing that perception is dependent on reality, there must be another underlying substance: substance "B."
7. But how do we verify that B = #2 ?

You see where I'm going with this? It's an infinite regression of perceptions and "independent substances" causing those perceptions in order to trust the first set of perceptions, then the second set, then the third, etc.

My point #10 avoids the logical problem by simply stating that there is no underlying substance because perceptions are all we can de facto consider, think about, talk about, etc. It's all there is to our existence, and therefore our "reality." The concept of a completely independent, perception-causing reality is not only meaningless because it has to be thought of in terms of perceptions, but in order to trust it we create an infinite regression, a logical contradiction.

[seer]

In the bolded sentence quoted above, you're presupposing that there's something beyond perception. The assertion of #10 is simply pointing out that presupposition, stating that there's no basis for it. Perception is all that exists, no more, no less. Moreover, there's not even a way to describe what could beyond perception because we can only consider reality in terms of "a set of perceptions."

Moving the logic of your presupposition along even farther:

1. Let's say we're in the Matrix, perception set #1. We assume perception =/= reality, so there must be another, independent substance "underneath" Perception Set #1 that causes those perceptions in our minds, via light, particles of odor, etc.
2. Let's call this substance "A." Reality, as you call it.
3. Let's assume the impossible and say that there's some way to at least hypothesize about what A looks like.
4. As humans, we must consider reality as a set of perceptions. Since we know what A is, we have another set of perceptions that correlate to it: Perception Set #2. Or in other words, we now reliably know that A = #1 because we know that #2 = #1, and we've assumed that #2 = A
5. But perception is dependent on an independent reality, right? So even this Perception Set #2 must be caused by something, another underlying substance. Remember, only perception set #1 is caused by A; #2 is how we verify that A = #1, but #2 itself is unverified. It's just assumed.
6. In order to verify the reliability of Perception Set #2, and knowing that perception is dependent on reality, there must be another underlying substance: substance "B."
7. But how do we verify that B = #2 ?

You see where I'm going with this? It's an infinite regression of perceptions and "independent substances" causing those perceptions in order to trust the first set of perceptions, then the second set, then the third, etc.

My point #10 avoids the logical problem by simply stating that there is no underlying substance because perceptions are all we can de facto consider, think about, talk about, etc. It's all there is to our existence, and therefore our "reality." The concept of a completely independent, perception-causing reality is not only meaningless because it has to be thought of in terms of perceptions, but in order to trust it we create an infinite regression, a logical contradiction.

Volt, I understand why you are getting to infinite regression but how do you know what you are creating with your mind is real. A real wall for the blind man to run into, a real hole for me to fall in. And if perceptions cause/create reality what perception cause our minds? Where do our minds come from?

[Volt]

Volt, I understand why you are getting to infinite regression but how do you know what you are creating with your mind is real. A real wall for the blind man to run into, a real hole for me to fall in.

What we might be tripping up on here is the definition of "real." Loosely used, people say it in the sense that it is a.) objective, or able to be experience by multiple minds, and b.) not deceptive or confusing to our preconceptions, like a mirage. The average person will call a mirage "false," or "not real." Why? Because they see something, but can't touch it. They assume that a certain image, if seen, must also be able to be touched. The "reality" in this scenario is that there's nothing, that the image seen is somehow "fake," a figment of your imagination. The problem with that line of reasoning is that mirages are seen by multiple people. So it actually does qualify by condition (a) I mentioned above, just not condition (b), and (b) is really just our confusion, our feeling that something shouldn't be the way it is.

Maybe you already have this definition and the above paragraph was irrelevant, but it helps to be sure of our definitions. "Real" is strictly interpreted as "any perception that more than one mind interacts with." If you and I both see a tree, it's real. Likewise if we both feel the wind. But if I imagine a pink elephant, that's not "real" because you can't see it as I do. The implication from this definition is that one (human) mind can't create a real perception, because interaction between minds entails a battle of wills, as we discussed before.

For the reason above, I wouldn't strictly say that we solely create perceptions, and therefore have control over physical laws. More that our contact with the substance of reality--call it thoughts, perceptions, whatever you like--is fundamental in its formation, like a pot is made out of unformed clay. All that exists before perception is potentiality, as evidenced by QM.

And if perceptions cause/create reality what perception cause our minds? Where do our minds come from?

Perception would be required for existence of the mind only if minds were inseparable in nature from ideas. They're not. Minds are active, ideas inert. By evidence of your imagination, a mind can create an idea and maintain it in their thoughts, although those ideas cannot be qualified as real in the strict sense of the word.

That said, there is something important to consider: given our premises, a mind can be summarized, or boiled down to: a constant process of interaction with a set of perceptions real and remembered. Without those real perceptions, it's questionable whether our minds would exist, given that even our limited ability to create ideas is constrained within the conception of perceptions (color, odor, size, etc). We need a "framework" to crawl around on in order to exist at all, so to speak.

This is where God necessarily comes into the picture. He, unlike us, simply has greater power of creation. The "framework" of perception originates from him, brought into being and made orderly. He doesn't need a pre-existing framework of his own to exist (and therefore invoking an infinite regression) because his mind is fundamentally different from ours in terms of creative ability.

Moreover, there's a common trap for Idealists that ends in another infinite regression: God's thoughts. The line of reasoning goes that since God is omniscient, it means he is also aware of his own thoughts. But then he must aware of his awareness of his thoughts, and then aware of his awareness of his awareness of his thoughts, ad infinitum. Some try to escape this by saying that God doesn't think, but that just leaves him as a non-person, an inert databank or golden calf, since mental activity is the defining feature of a mind. The best solution I've ever stumbled upon is: time. Everything, everything changes from moment to moment in some way; our own perception always does. God's "thinking" is of a different variety than ours; it's not a machine that reviews information and decides on a course of action so much as just "mental motion" maintaining those changes in perceptions.

[JimL]

'The spoon is real' the rallying cry of all us realists.



I feel like diverting the discussion about this to a long rant about why modern philosophy took a wrong turn with Descartes. However shortly, in thomistic metaphysics all things consist of a conjunction of actuality and potentiality: what they are, and what they can be. You might be drinking coffee at the moment, but later a decision might move your body to do this. Any potentiality is then actualised by something else. There are also four causes... but explaining all that will get a bit out of hand.

The only exception to this distinction is actually God, he's pure actuality. Interestingly this is derived as a result, and is both a proof of his existence, as well as showing that he's changeless. Anyway back to physics.

The laws of quantum mechanics describes the formal cause (as distinct from the material, efficient or final cause) for why something would happen, as well as the probability that a certain potentiality will actualised. That's it. The particles are real, the results are real, the laws of quantum mechanics are real, the behaviour is counter intuitive but that's unsurprising, it just means that the dynamics at the smallest level don't correspond to the dynamics of the large level. No alternate universes, moon-doesn't-exist-when-its-not-being-observed, reality is all mind.

That's the condensed version, I'd love to explain to you thomistic metaphysics some time. Especially how we can derive God's existence unfailingly and with complete certainty from it, as well as many of his properties.

If you like a good book that bashes new atheists while explaining all of this (except for interpreting quantum mechanics as the author is more interested in ethics), I suggest reading The Last Superstition by Ed Feser. Its brilliant, and very few atheists have actually considered these arguments, and those that do either fail to understand them or fail to deal with them.

Leonard, could you explain what you mean by the wave function being the formal cause? Is the wave function the cause of future events or does it merely correspond with the future events?

[seer]

For the reason above, I wouldn't strictly say that we solely create perceptions, and therefore have control over physical laws. More that our contact with the substance of reality--call it thoughts, perceptions, whatever you like--is fundamental in its formation, like a pot is made out of unformed clay. All that exists before perception is potentiality, as evidenced by QM.

OK, so lets camp here. So there is "substance." Let's say the particles of the quantum world -correct? And these particles exist independently of our minds? Then how do our minds have influence over the quantum world, where is the connection. How do I cause particles to form into a tree for instance?

This is where God necessarily comes into the picture. He, unlike us, simply has greater power of creation. The "framework" of perception originates from him, brought into being and made orderly. He doesn't need a pre-existing framework of his own to exist (and therefore invoking an infinite regression) because his mind is fundamentally different from ours in terms of creative ability.

Ok, so God created my mind?

[Volt]

OK, so lets camp here. So there is "substance." Let's say the particles of the quantum world -correct? And these particles exist independently of our minds? Then how do our minds have influence over the quantum world, where is the connection. How do I cause particles to form into a tree for instance?

There's two methods of explanation: philosophical and scientific. Note that the scientific builds on the premises of the philosophical.

Philosophical: God brings ideas--the substance--into being in some form, and we perceive it in a certain way, according to the framework, i.e. physical laws. To put it in terms of an analogy, God doesn't necessarily pre-conceive the clay pot, so much as provide the molding. We fill the mold ourselves by virtue of interacting with the clay. Moreover, this mold isn't a rigid thing. E.g., if you put wood in a fire, it will burn. Perceptions change based on our actions, but only in a certain pre-determined--and therefore predictable--manner. Otherwise it would be like living through watching TV--any shared perception can't be altered in any way.

Scientific: Given the results of experiments with QM, we can say that the substance of the world only exists independently as a wave function, potentiality. Particles are the result, even retroactively, as soon as human minds interact with it. Note that this explains why you happen to step into a hole instead of a smooth path; regardless of your expectations, it will exist either as an absence of dirt or the presence of it, but only as soon as you interact with it by perception. There's no need for it to be one or the other until that occurs: just potentiality.

Ok, so God created my mind?

It's debatable, because the only reflexive knowledge we have for the mind is that 1.) it exists, and 2.) it is the only active process that can create or interact with inert substance. We can suggest that because our minds are so limited, they must also be perceived to exist (presumably by God). A universal, all-enveloping consciousness. Or we can suggest that our minds do exist independently, but in order to conceive of anything at all we must do so in the framework of perceptions--which are all provided by God. It's like trying to conceive of something in the absence of perception, an impossible task given how our minds work. So regardless of which option we prefer to believe, the result is effectively the same: human minds are dependent on a universal consciousness, God, in order to exist in reality as we know it.

[JimL]

Volt, what collapsed the wave function prior to the existence of observers?

[seer]

There's two methods of explanation: philosophical and scientific. Note that the scientific builds on the premises of the philosophical.

Philosophical: God brings ideas--the substance--into being in some form, and we perceive it in a certain way, according to the framework, i.e. physical laws. To put it in terms of an analogy, God doesn't necessarily pre-conceive the clay pot, so much as provide the molding. We fill the mold ourselves by virtue of interacting with the clay. Moreover, this mold isn't a rigid thing. E.g., if you put wood in a fire, it will burn. Perceptions change based on our actions, but only in a certain pre-determined--and therefore predictable--manner. Otherwise it would be like living through watching TV--any shared perception can't be altered in any way.

Scientific: Given the results of experiments with QM, we can say that the substance of the world only exists independently as a wave function, potentiality. Particles are the result, even retroactively, as soon as human minds interact with it. Note that this explains why you happen to step into a hole instead of a smooth path; regardless of your expectations, it will exist either as an absence of dirt or the presence of it, but only as soon as you interact with it by perception. There's no need for it to be one or the other until that occurs: just potentiality.

Ok, so there is "stuff" that exists independently of our minds. Even if they are just waves. So how do our human minds interact with this stuff? Where is the connection, how does our mind connect or influence?

It's debatable, because the only reflexive knowledge we have for the mind is that 1.) it exists, and 2.) it is the only active process that can create or interact with inert substance. We can suggest that because our minds are so limited, they must also be perceived to exist (presumably by God). A universal, all-enveloping consciousness. Or we can suggest that our minds do exist independently, but in order to conceive of anything at all we must do so in the framework of perceptions--which are all provided by God. It's like trying to conceive of something in the absence of perception, an impossible task given how our minds work. So regardless of which option we prefer to believe, the result is effectively the same: human minds are dependent on a universal consciousness, God, in order to exist in reality as we know it.

Ok...

[Volt]

Ok, so there is "stuff" that exists independently of our minds. Even if they are just waves. So how do our human minds interact with this stuff? Where is the connection, how does our mind connect or influence?

It connects in the same way our minds interact with ideas. I know that's not really saying much, but it's the best answer from a philosophical viewpoint. Another method of description would be to look at how a wave function turns into particles, which one could say is the "reaction" process of reality's substance when it comes into contact with our minds.

[JimL]

It connects in the same way our minds interact with ideas. I know that's not really saying much, but it's the best answer from a philosophical viewpoint. Another method of description would be to look at how a wave function turns into particles, which one could say is the "reaction" process of reality's substance when it comes into contact with our minds.

Again Volt, what collapsed the wave function prior to the existence of observers, or minds?

[Volt]

Again Volt, what collapsed the wave function prior to the existence of observers, or minds?

If I understand correctly, you're asking me to explain the mechanism of a black box of physics in philosophical terms?