Quining qualia.

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No contradiction. Perhaps a metaphor will help you understand. An EM is like someone that says that water does not exist *, only H2O. An epiphenomenalist says that water does exist but supervenes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervenience on H2O. In other words an EM says that qualia do not exist. An epiphenomenalist says that qualia exist but supervene on brain states. In other words it is not a dualist position.
* There is nothing that is slippery, clear etc..

“Anyways since nobody else can ever know whether your 'concept of unicorn' exists or not, your 'unicorn' is just as meaningless nonsense as 'vhidv'.”
01001100
???? So if my house is off limits to everyone except myself, and I say, “there is a blue chair next to the TV” that is as meaningful as saying, “vhidv”?
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“Just your definition. Not the definition used in fictionalism. In other words, your ignorance.”
0100110
OK, what is your definition of a fiction? If you say something facile like,” it is something that does not exist”. What is “it”? Here I will make it simple, how do you define unicorn and what does “doesn’t exist” mean to an EM ? I define a fiction as a concept* that was never instantiated.
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“Source please.”
01001100
YOU! You said that people have beliefs! A typical example of an EM using a term he thinks is gibberish. Scroll back and you will also see yourself saying that "beliefs" are as absurd as demons. It is really hard debating someone like you!

PS; I really wish you would answer my questions with more than “You’re philosophy is outdated.... In other words your ignorance.” There are many more rants but I do not have the time to collect them all. Ad hominums make it look like you are mad because you are losing the debate.
Is it possible for you to answer ; if I know the pattern that Einstein’s neurons are firing in when he is thinking about relativity, do I understand relativity? If I know the pattern 0100110’s neurons are firing in when he is thinking about eliminative materialism, do I understand eliminative materialism? If pain does not exist does that mean you have nothing against torture? If you do have something against torture, explain why causing C fibers to fire is wrong. I am not talking about some Platonic realm of morality. Are YOU against torture and why?
* Perhaps you object to the word "concept". What do you suggest as a replacement? Proposition? Statement? If that is what you intend to do I will show how proposition and statement are also problematic for an EM.

“The term “fictionalism” is defined in many different ways. The most common definition is along these lines: fictionalism about a discourse claims that the sentences of the discourse are useful but does not claim that they are true. Typically, fictionalists will deny that sentences of the discourse are true. Thus a fictionalist in the philosophy of mathematics may say that mathematical sentences (such as “2 + 2 = 4”) are useful but false: numbers are (in some sense) “useful fictions.” Fictionalists will typically recommend that we should carry on using the sentences in question, accepting them without believing them.
FROM
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/vie ... 7-0034.xml
In case you think that is from a questionable source, its the Oxford University press.

PS; OK, you are not claiming that eliminative materialism is true, only that it is a useful fiction. Sure, I'll accept that as a compromise. Peace!

Agree.


Then you contraficted what you said above.[/quote]

Not sure how I contraficted myself there. Feel free to outline how you think I have done that. Although, I would remind you that there is an additional step involved in getting to eliminative materialism that is not evident in normal materialism. If you wish to reject the subjective as being something which cannot be accounted for by materialism, then you need to make your case.

qualia = subjective experience
Unless you are making things up, rejecting qualia = rejecting 'the subjective'.
In your first quote you said EM accept mental function. In the second you claim EM think mental function refer to nothing. That is contradictory.

What do you mean by water not H2O? Are you saying a cup of water has something more then H2O? One can describe the behavoir of electromagnetic waves in H2O. It makes sense to say H2O is clear.

There are other blue chairs and TV outside your house, and it is agreed that when you say blue chair and TV in your house you mean something similar blue chairs and TV outside.

Your analogue fails when I use “vhidv” to refer to some unique object in my house.



Now you read other sources on what a philosophical fiction is. The whole point of a fiction is that we can never define every words. We can only pretend to understand 'unicorn' within whateven fiction mentioning unicorn. Outside the context of the fiction, 'unicorn' is meanlingless.


I said people believe. I did not say people have 'belief qualia'. Again you are not paying attention.


If you are given any question regarding relativity, you HOW Einstein's brain would process the question and given. You just copy the algrothm. How can you say you don't have the functional understand of relativity?


Read 'moral non-cogtivism first'.


Indeed we are using mental terms in different senses and you keep conflating. How about you use 'concept qualia' and I use 'functional concept'?

@91

Argument against subjective experience:
P1) By defintion, subjective experience (of some object X) is unitrary, non additive, non divisible, and private. i.e. the experience is for the entireity of X, and nothing outside.
P1') It follows in order for X to be meaningful said to have subjective experience, X must have a natural boundary, so that 'part of X' and 'outside X' are well defined.
P2) According to materialism, physical human bodies does not have natural boundary (is your sweat, the air in your lug, etc. part of you?).
C) If materialism is true there cannot be subjective experience of 'human bodies'.

"I said people believe. I did not say people have 'belief qualia'. Again you are not paying attention. "
010011
Actually, you are not paying attention. As we agreed before, any belief contradicts eliminative materialism, even a belief in eliminative materialism, not just a belief in qualia. Similarily the existence of any concept proves eliminative materialism wrong. Or have you forgotten your own posts where you compare a belief in concepts and beliefs with a superstitious belief in demons?
Fictionalism (which you embrace) bit the bullet and accepted that meaning is impossible for an EM.* In other words eliminative materialism is not true,it is only a useful fiction.
* Which I already proved. However, it is nice to see the elite in your own camp (fictionalism) agreeing with me.

Last edited by wittgenstein on 25 Jun 2013, 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ironically, a belief that eliminative materialism is a useful fiction is a belief. Even Fictionalism cannot rescue eliminative materialism from its self contradictory sillyness! Also, (scroll back to the Oxford University Press article) using such words as "should" contradicts eliminative materialism.

This is not an argument in favour of your position, it simply presupposes it's own truth. But to breakdown your argument. The first premise is untrue, subjective experience is unitary because it is generated within the human brain, it is certainly divisible because we know those with significant brain injuries can both lose and gain function. It is certainly not transferrable (aside from the ship of Thesusus question), on Materialism it is wholly the product of the brain. Further, it is not private, since we can see people's thoughts on an EEG. This gives us significant evidence in favour of the standard Materialist account of brain function, it might be reductionist towards the subjective but there is evidence against the eliminative position.

P2 is also untrue. Boundaries between components are obvious, the heart and its functions produce the functions of a heart. You seem significantly confused about the nature of objects in philosophy. There is no issue in the Materialist account of the mind with saying that the mind is a property or series of properties of an object. The mind is wholly contained within the Brain. Hence my use of the hardware/software analogy. But you cannot be serious in putting P2 forward as an argument, is dust within my computer a component of my computer or is the coffee my coffee machine makes part of the machine. Does this really mean there can be no such object as a computer? Or is it more likley that you have misunderstood how to identify objects and formulate a proper discussion of their properties? We are looking at functions of objects. Is the brain capable of producing a function, if yes, then it accounts for that component of subjective cognition. The simple fact is that there is no whole theory of mind yet (hence the eliminative case is premature in its claim that we ought to discount that which is intuitively obvious to a thinking human being) but there is ample evidence to think that the discoveries we have made using functions of mind and finding them within neuroscience to favour the Materialist account over the Eliminative Materialist account.

My coffee machine makes coffee. My brain processes information and if you look at any EEG you can see that when you think about something, you can see the activity. Further Materialism no doubt scales back its expectations of Qualia, thus your definition of the subjective in C does not follow from your argument. The fact that you think, or at least I hope you think, should be sufficient rebuttal to the person who says there is no subjective. The idea that the mind is a fiction to evidence, is at the very least a hugely premature conclusion. The fact that we can see the functions of the mind as they occur should also give provide empirical grounds for rejecting the present formation of eliminative materialism. The idea that the empirical, accessible refers to nothing is not easy to digest, that fact that it needs to be digested at all and that you keep arguing, with what in the view you are putting forward are mental fictions, should also stand as evidence against your conclusion. The view you are putting forward, in terms of rationality cannot be rationally accepted because it does not actually establish what you want it to.

Unless the reader of your argument 'buys in' as it were, to the tautologies underlying the propositions then they will not be convinced by it. When constructing an argument you need to outline why someone should embrace your underlying assumptions. You can place them within the argument and support them elsewhere or some other way but they need to be rendered evident and convincing. Presently the two propositions that I mentioned you need to justify remain totally unresolved. There is no reason to think that the subjective cannot be accounted for through materialism because the definition of subjectivity is left more or less undiscussed except to define in ways that don't work. Further, why this then cannot be accounted for is also not outlined. The assumptions you are making, seem to be just arguing tautologies that there is something inaccessible about the self and that there is something inexplicable about the self. A materialist would dispute those assumptions.

Last edited by 91 on 25 Jun 2013, 5:28 pm, edited 4 times in total.

“If pain does not exist does that mean you have nothing against torture? If you do have something against torture, explain why causing C fibers to fire is wrong. I am not talking about some Platonic realm of morality. Are YOU against torture and why?”
ME
“Read 'moral non-cogtivism first'. “
0100110
That is why I specifically said that I was not talking about an objective Platonic realm of morality. Perhaps you should read http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/ * So your entire explanation as to why you are against torture is that it is because your neurons are firing in a particular pattern?
* FROM that site “Furthermore, according to non-cognitivists…Rather they are expressing non-cognitive attitudes more similar to desires, approval or disapproval.” In other words , terms that contradict an eliminative materialist’s position.
XXXXX

“The whole point of a fiction is that we can never define every words.”
010011
??? A word without a definition is meaningless. I can define a unicorn. It is a horse with a horn… “Horse” and “horn” are defined. I can also say that they do not exist. They are not instantiated. However, for you, since you believe that "unicorn" cannot be defined because they do not exist, you cannot say that unicorns do not exist. Let "X" represent an undefined term. It makes no sense to say that "X" does not exist.
XXXXX

“If you are given any question regarding relativity, you HOW Einstein's brain would process the question and given. You just copy the algrothm. How can you say you don't have the functional understand of relativity? “
0100110
Thanks for the direct answer. You believe that if I know (and only know) what pattern your neurons are firing in when you are thinking about eliminative materialism, I understand eliminative materialism. Obviously, I disagree.

In case anyone forgot what fictionalism is!

But what does "useful" * mean for an EM? "Useful" implies "purpose" and matter has no purpose. True, it is short hand to say,for example,"giraffes evolved their long necks to eat food from higher trees". However, a believer in evolution ( I believe in evolution ) is not implying purpose.
* as in "useful fiction".

You think Qualia is not private? Then you are confusing the easy problem and the hard problem of consciousness.
http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html
The easy problem concerns the explanation of mental functions. The hard problem concerns the non-functional aspect of consciousness i.e. subjective experience / qualia. Eliminative materialism does not reject mental function and all your talk about mental function is irrelevant.

Yes.


Exactly what do you mean by 'meaning'? How do you distinguish between meaningful words and nonsense?

Unicorns refer to concept of unicorns.
Batman refer to concept of Batman.
Freedom refer to concept of freedom.
Neveov refer to concept of neveov.
Bvievivhe refer to concept of bvievivhe.
...