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Topic: Mental Realism: Rejecting the Causal Closure Thesis and Expanding our Physical ...
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Micah Sparacio
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Member # 6
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posted 22. January 2003 10:53
Rex,
I'll get back to you in a few days. I've got a response, but not the time to type it up.
Jules,
Eliminativism
http://www.iscid.org/dictionary/Eliminativism
Identity Theory
http://www.iscid.org/dictionary/Identity_Theory
To be brief, eliminativism is the most extreme form of reductionism that you will find. Even hardcore eliminativist are starting to realize that their position is incoherent and are switching sides (e.g. Stephen Stich). One of the problems is that your must assert eliminativism and assertion requires belief which eliminativism rejects. This might not be the strongest critique, but to be an eliminativist you have to think that the way our mental life appears to us is illusory and that a vocabulary of neuroscience will eventually replace our talk of beliefs, desires, sensations, etc.
Regarding Identity Theory, the position is distinguished from eliminativism in that identity theorists would believe that there is a one to one correlation between mental properties and physical properties. So under identity theory, mental properties aren't illusory -> they have very definite physical correlates and just are physical properties. Whereas the eliminativist would reject the idea that there is a definite set of physical properties that make up a specifically demarcated belief, the identity theorist would state that such a definite set exists.
Hope that helps.
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Jules
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Member # 181
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posted 23. January 2003 22:03
So Behaviorism would be a form of Eliminativism?
And what is Functionalism?
Under Emergent Dualism, are mental events also physical events? Or would they be in a separate category? If so, how would Emergent Dualism differ from Substance Dualism?
And, again, does Chalmers favor a form of Emergent Dualism?
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Jules
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Member # 181
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posted 24. January 2003 16:05
Also, I've been reading (well, more like crawling through) Evan Harris Walker's The Physics of Consciousness. I'm only a third of the way through, but it sounds as if Walker wants to argue that physical reality is not as independently objective as we might think, but depends upon a conscious observer.
When I combine this with Heil's off-hand comment that Idealism would easily solve the problem of mental causation, it makes me wonder if there are any serious philosophers who are re-considering Idealism.
Further, wouldn't Idealism also solve the problem of method of causation for Theistic ID?
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Mark Szlazak
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Member # 391
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posted 25. January 2003 14:06
Hi Jules and all rationalists out there,
I'm sympathetic to idealism and there are various forms, but some give the view that our conventional consensus reality is an illusion and this suffers from the pragmatic problem that we don't live this life like it's an illusion. Getting hit by a car is a problem.
Panpsychism to me is a "middle ground" between this extreme form of idealism and materialism. Some view panpsychism as a form of idealism and there are many forms of panpsychism.
Evan Harris Walker's ideas predate Henry Stapp and there is much overlap. You can read more on him in this excellent book that all rationalists should read from cover to cover,
"The Trickster and the Paranormal" by George P. Hansen.
A scholarly work that touches on many issues related directly and indirectly to consciousness, causation and more ![[Wink]](wink.gif) . The book may be slow going because of the detail and the multiple threads that pull from many directions but one could skip to the end if the message gets lost. Anyway, the detail is well worth the effort.
[ 25. January 2003, 14:15: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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Jules
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Member # 181
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posted 26. January 2003 13:59
Thanks, Mark. I'm still inching my way through Walker's book, so it may be a while before I can get to another one. But I'm open to any views, right now.
[ 28. January 2003, 20:07: Message edited by: Jules ]
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Keith Chandler
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Member # 1059
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posted 06. January 2004 12:36
Micah Sparacio: As "Philosopher of Mental Realism" (see http://www.keithchandler.com) I was surprised when I searched for "mental realism" on the Web to see your paper and invite you to look at my alternative. Your paper is well argued with respect to the dogma of causal closure but I canot accept your view that "mental properties are emergent from complex physical systems." Simply naming them "second order" properties is no more explanatory than is John Searle's similar proposition. More importantly, you fail to distinguish between the two modes of "mental properties," viz., consciousness, i.e., experiencing, and thought, including volition. Many people, such as Roger Sperry, have argued that there are genuinely "emergent" levels that "supervene and outclass" lower levels but they have not tried to argue that higher levels alter the properties specific to lower levels. Your mental realism appears to consist principally of adding another level to physical realism. A thorough mental realist must go all the way to argue that the objective universe itself, as Eddington and Jeans maintained, is a psychic or thought process and that consciousness is not emergent but primordial. I have argued these points in my books, most comprehensively in The Mind Paradigm but in subsequent ones as well. I admire your paper but invite you to consider it in a more comprehensive context.
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