Do we really have choice?

[GwJ]

How do you know it is not physically observable?

 

[GofG]

The thing about the zombie argument is, consciousness is directly observable in the brain. We can point at certain steps in the behavioral algorithm of human brains which do not simply indicate or imply the existence of consciousness, but define consciousness. Feelings are the same way. if the actual experience of feeling angry isn't something which is so directly observable, then such an experience could not exist. Just like consciousness. That is, if you copied my brain atom by atom, the new me would still be conscious because consciousness exists physically. Same with emotion. I am saying that the actual experience of being angry is physical and observable, because it doesn't "emerge" out of the chemical reactions, it is the chemical reactions.

 

[ElvenKing]

The thing about the zombie argument is, consciousness is directly observable in the brain. We can point at certain steps in the behavioral algorithm of human brains which do not simply indicate or imply the existence of consciousness, but define consciousness. Feelings are the same way. if the actual experience of feeling angry isn't something which is so directly observable, then such an experience could not exist. Just like consciousness. That is, if you copied my brain atom by atom, the new me would still be conscious because consciousness exists physically. Same with emotion. I am saying that the actual experience of being angry is physical and observable, because it doesn't "emerge" out of the chemical reactions, it is the chemical reactions.

You are wrong. You don't see the actually experience emerge at all. A pattern of activity is observed on a scanner then it is taken to be associated with a particular feeling. The feeling has no object itself. You never directly see it.

The point here is that there do exist things which cannot be empirically observed. Empiricism is inadequate to fully explain the nature of existence. That something cannot be directly observed as an empirical object does not mean it necessarily non-existent.

That the copy would be consciousness is true, at least I would say so, as I hold that we only feel things because it is produced as the result of a chemical reactions in the body. However, it is the case that feelings "emerge" from rather than "are" the chemical reactions. The presence of the chemical reactions can be required for there to be any feeling(i.e. no brain, no chemical reactions: no consciousness), but because the feeling itself is not seen as an object, there is always a separation between the functions of the brain(which can be directly observed) and that a feeling is present(which cannot be directly observed).

 

[Dre89]

Gw- If it was physically observable, you would be able to experience someone else's anger. It's the same as how you can't visualise someone else's thought. The other person's sensation of anger is not accessible to you at all, but if it was physical it would be.

Elvenking is right. There is a difference between the chemical process and the experience. If there weren't if you observed the process in another body you'd feel the anger yourself, but you don't. The process can be observed b y anybody, but the sensation can only be experienced by the person in that body.

Gofg the fact you're still saying things like 'if we copied my brain atom by atom I'd still be conscious' suggests to me you don't understand what we're saying, because we've acknowledged things like this plenty of times before.

As I showed before, they can't be the same thing because they don't have the same properties. One can be experienced by anyone, the other can only be experienced by the specific person. One is visually observable, one isn't (you don't feel the person's anger when you observe the process) etc.

It's simply logically impossible that they are the same thing because they have differing properties.

 

[GwJ]

What do you mean by experience? Can you elaborate more on what you're saying, because I don't think I agree with your statement.

 

[Dre89]

The experience is actually feeling angry, as in getting angry.

 

[GwJ]

I'm still not seeing how the fact that you can't feel someone else's anger makes it non-physical.

 

[ElvenKing]

I'm still not seeing how the fact that you can't feel someone else's anger makes it non-physical.

You don't even need to use someone else's for this example. You can use your own feelings. You feel angry. What object is this anger? Where is it? It isn't there. There is just a sensation.

You don't perceive any manifestation of anger as an object when you feel angry. You simply experience the sensation of anger. While it is perfectly possible that this sensation of anger is caused by an interaction of empirical objects that we can perceive, the sensation itself is by its nature not one of those objects, even if the sensation's very existence is completely dependent upon such an interaction of empirical objects.

 

[GwJ]

The sensation of anger IS anger. Anger is the combination of various chemical releases. You make it sound like if something is physical, you must be able to hold it in your hand.

 

[Dre89]

If they were the same thing they'd have identical properties, and I showed before that they don't.

Unless you want to rewrite the law of identity and argue that things with differing properties are actually the same, you have no way around that fact.

 

[ElvenKing]

The sensation of anger IS anger. Anger is the combination of various chemical releases. You make it sound like if something is physical, you must be able to hold it in your hand.

Yes, and that sensation is not actually observed as an object. There is an object, the brain and body, and where there is activity going. This activity is then associated with the presence of the sensation of anger. The actual sensation is never observed as an object.

Essentially, yes. If a relationship is going to be empirically observed directly, one must actually see that relationship play out in objects which are observed(e.g. that a dropped rock falls to the ground). Though it is misleading to describe anything that falls outside of this as being "non-physical" because it implies that empirical objects have no connection to it and no role in causing it, which is false. They can, indeed they can be the only cause there is(i.e. a feeling which is apparent results entirely from chemical reactions).

 

[GofG]

Can you name anything else that, like emotions, exists but somehow isn't physical?

 

[ElvenKing]

Can you name anything else that, like emotions, exists but somehow isn't physical?

Yes, mathematical truth, ethical truth(even if you are to argue that there is no truth of ethics, there is still a truth, that no ethical claim is justified, about ethics defined. A truth which cannot be seen as an empirical object) and of course there is the quality of truth itself(you might, for example, see a bee flying past, an empirical object, but when you say: "It is true I saw a bee" what object is "truth?" You saw a bee, it is there as an empirical object, but what is this "truth?" You didn't see an object of "truth" flying).

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I am confused as to how those truths and truth itself exists.

Sorry, I am kind of jumping in here, but I believe people are arguing whether anger exists? Well, it doesn't, but the sensation does and is physical. It seems unnecessary to say there is something nonphysical to explain it, it is already explained. The fact that you see the sensation, as mentioned in the previous page, does not mean you are undergoing the sensation. Thus you are not angry when you watch the sensation being transpired in someone else. The sight of the sensations makes no one angry, it is the feeling and movement in each individual brain that causes what we "label" as anger.

 

[GofG]

indeed, reductionism simply asserts that there is nothing besides the chemical interactions going on. it is not surprising that the also-entirely-physical system of your brain, which can make only rudimentary analyses of internal functions, would interpret 'being in a state of resiliency to new information, having high adrenaline, having low dopamine, having low serotonin', which often happen together because of the cascading effect they have, as being a single state, labeled 'anger', just as 'low dopamine, low serotonin, low adrenaline, having resiliency to considering new information', which also happens regularly and so gets clumped together into a single emotion 'sadness'.

Your brain is good at interpreting outside information because it evolved for a long time to be good at it, for survival reasons. But there is no reason why it would ever get good at introspection, particularly the interpretation of emotions. Looking at emotions in a rational way would be counterproductive to having emotions in the first place, which all exist for evolutionary beneficial reasons. It misinterprets various different chemical states as being distinct emotions. That's all.

Why do you think any sort of extra-physical 'experiencing' happens at all? it doesn't need to, knowing the fully reduced system is enough to explain every phenomenon involved in human neurobiology.

 

[Dre89]

But for the chemicals and the sensation to be the same thing, they need to have identical properties. I've shown in previous posts how the two are distinct.

So if you want to maintain that they are the same thing, you either need to show how my examples are wrong and that they do have identical properties, or you need to refute the law of indentity.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I'm a bit confused as to what you are trying to say. The properties of the reactions in our brain that causes the symptoms that we "label" as anger and the properties of the anger itself? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

 

[Dre89]

Gofg is saying that the sensation of anger (when you feel anger) and the physical process which leads to that anger are the same thing. I've shown they're not because they have differing properties.

So either you have to show that they don't have differing properties, or refute the law of identity.

 

[ElvenKing]

indeed, reductionism simply asserts that there is nothing besides the chemical interactions going on. it is not surprising that the also-entirely-physical system of your brain, which can make only rudimentary analyses of internal functions, would interpret 'being in a state of resiliency to new information, having high adrenaline, having low dopamine, having low serotonin', which often happen together because of the cascading effect they have, as being a single state, labeled 'anger', just as 'low dopamine, low serotonin, low adrenaline, having resiliency to considering new information', which also happens regularly and so gets clumped together into a single emotion 'sadness'.

Your brain is good at interpreting outside information because it evolved for a long time to be good at it, for survival reasons. But there is no reason why it would ever get good at introspection, particularly the interpretation of emotions. Looking at emotions in a rational way would be counterproductive to having emotions in the first place, which all exist for evolutionary beneficial reasons. It misinterprets various different chemical states as being distinct emotions. That's all.

Why do you think any sort of extra-physical 'experiencing' happens at all? it doesn't need to, knowing the fully reduced system is enough to explain every phenomenon involved in human neurobiology.

The first sentence is utterly wrong. You feel the sensation of anger without actually seeing the chemical retains that make it occur. You feel all your emotions without actually seeing the chemical reactions that make them occur.

This is your fundamental error. The feeling of such sensations is not a "mistake" being made by the brain at all. It is feeling that exists. Feeling that results from a chemical reaction. Chemical states are not misinterpreted as emotions. Emotions, feelings, are created by the chemical reactions.

It does need to: one feels the sensation of anger without seeing the chemical processes that are producing it. if what you were saying was true, we wouldn't feel anything, even the sense that there is nothing: we would not be conscious beings.

Knowing the system is enough to explain where feelings come from. It is never seeing the feelings themselves as an object.

 

[GwJ]

The first sentence is utterly wrong. You feel the sensation of anger without actually seeing the chemical retains that make it occur. You feel all your emotions without actually seeing the chemical reactions that make them occur.

Give me the tools to see where the chemicals come from and I WILL watch myself be angry.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Ohhh I see. And you say because the process can be replicated in a dead brain and lead to a different result, and thus you say they must be different? Or did I not read the right part?

 

[ElvenKing]

Give me the tools to see where the chemicals come from and I WILL watch myself be angry.

That won't absolve the problem. There will always be those people who are feeling angry without seeing any chemical reactions.

Furthermore, it doesn't actually remove problem at all. Even if you could see the process of the brain occurring, it doesn't change that the nature of feeling(the sensation of anger) is different to that of an empirical object(the process of the brain you see working). You actually have no direct evidence that they are related at all. You must assume that because a certain feeling is felt when a certain process is observed in the brain, that it is the brain processes that are causing the presence of the feeling. There is nothing wrong with this; it makes sense given that the feeling of anger has only been felt when there are certain process in the brain have been observed; however, this does not turn feelings into an empirical object. If you explanation from where feeling is coming from is accurate, you are still only seeing where feeling comes from(the chemical processes in the brain), not the actual sensation itself.

Ohhh I see. And you say because the process can be replicated in a dead brain and lead to a different result, and thus you say they must be different? Or did I not read the right part?

Doesn't work, there is not the same observed processes in a dead brain. The point of discussion here is brains in which processes which are taken to create feeling are observed.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I was referencing a post made by Dre.

 

[Dre89]

Ohhh I see. And you say because the process can be replicated in a dead brain and lead to a different result, and thus you say they must be different? Or did I not read the right part?

The dead body example simply shows that one could hypothetically occur without the other, thus making them different.

There's alot of examples I could have given because there's plenty of properties that they have in common.

Now that I've presented this argument, it's no good if people just say they're the same thing, the burden of proof is now on them to show either that their properties are identical, or that the law of identity is wrong.

 

[GwJ]

That won't absolve the problem. There will always be those people who are feeling angry without seeing any chemical reactions.

If somebody is angry without the chemical reactions, then it's not anger they're feeling.

You love saying things without any reason behind it. We know with a decent amount of certainty what causes anger. If somebody is feeling anger, but the reactions aren't happening, then it's not anger; simple as that.

 

[ElvenKing]

If somebody is angry without the chemical reactions, then it's not anger they're feeling.

You love saying things without any reason behind it. We know with a decent amount of certainty what causes anger. If somebody is feeling anger, but the reactions aren't happening, then it's not anger; simple as that.

I didn't say that at all. I said they are feeling anger without seeing chemical reactions, not that the chemical reactions are not occurring.

That is actually backwards. The feeling of anger is present in our knowledge BEFORE any knowledge of chemical cause is. Indeed, it must be like this for us to even suggest that chemical reactions are causing anger; if we did not know what anger was, we would not be apply to attribute its presence to chemical reactions which we see. If there was to be anger without chemical reactions, it would be the sensation of anger that was there and the chemical reaction wouldn't be occurring. What you mean is that if anger only results from chemical reactions, then the chemical reaction must be present when someone feels the sensation of anger, even if they cannot see the retains occurring.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

The dead body example simply shows that one could hypothetically occur without the other, thus making them different.

There's alot of examples I could have given because there's plenty of properties that they have in common.

Now that I've presented this argument, it's no good if people just say they're the same thing, the burden of proof is now on them to show either that their properties are identical, or that the law of identity is wrong.

Okay, and this is to show that there is something nonphysical about the brain?

 

[Dre89]

Yeah pretty much.

 

[GwJ]

Dre, I'm probably totally blind but I can't find your dead body example. Can you link the post or repost it?

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I am seriously confused as to how that example makes sense, let alone how that signifies something nonphysical exists in the brain. For example, the process tranpsiring in a brain that is dead because the body is dead. That "hypothetical" technology doesn't sit well with me. And even if it were to make sense, just because the process isn't causing the sensation in something dead doesn't mean that there is something more going on, that just means that the thing is dead and can't experience sensations.

Then there are the still unsolved problem of how a nonphysical agent interacts with a physical agent without it itself being defined as physical and thus detectable. If anything is going to move something physical, it is going through a physical process. Whatever is being the primary pusher in any movement has to be physical. It's a physical process, to be involved you have to be physical. A nonphysical thing can't do anything to a physical body. Everytime I pose this question, it either does not get answered or they admit what they are saying can't make sense but believe it anyhow. Not to mention, we are saying there is something nonphysical in (a spacial property, and thus physical) our physical brains. I am severely confused, am I missing something?

 

[Dre89]

Gw-

The chemical process of anger and the experience of the sensation of anger aren't the same thing because they don't have identical properties. For example the process can be visually observed, but you can't visually observe the sensation in the sense that observing the process in another body doesn't make you feel that person's anger yourself. You may both be able to observe the process in the body, but only one of you will experience the sensation.

They could also hypothetically be separated. For example with hypothetical technology you could imagine stimulating the process in a dead body, but the dead person does not experience anger because they are dead.

They are obviously heavily related, and one leads to the other, but they are not identical.

Holder- Gofg was saying that they were the same thing, therefore they both physical. I was just pointing out that they're not the same thing.

Assuming a the non-physical cant interact with the physical is assuming physicalism. In this case, accepting the non-physical becomes the most logical option because the sensation appears to not have physical properties. It's still a naturalistic phenomena, something can be naturalistic and non-physical.

At this point I think to insist that it's physical simply because you feel that the non-physical can't interact with the physical is assuming physicalism premmaturely.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

My point is that something nonphysical has NO way of interacting with the physical. If it were to, it would necessarily have to be in some way a physical force that is detectable just like everything else.

This still has not been explained to me.

Edit: And again, to say something nonphysical is IN something, sounds absurd to me. You can't apply any physical property, even spatial relation to something physical, to a nonphysical 'thing'.

 

[GwJ]

The chemical process of anger and the experience of the sensation of anger aren't the same thing because they don't have identical properties. For example the process can be visually observed, but you can't visually observe the sensation in the sense that observing the process in another body doesn't make you feel that person's anger yourself. You may both be able to observe the process in the body, but only one of you will experience the sensation.

Anger isn't technically a sensation. Anger isn't the result of the stimulation of an organ, so you're probably thinking of something different but thinking of the word 'sensation'.

They could also hypothetically be separated. For example with hypothetical technology you could imagine stimulating the process in a dead body, but the dead person does not experience anger because they are dead.

I believe it's safe to assume that to "feel" ANYTHING, you require the correct parts to do that. Of course you can't make a dead person "feel" anger. A dead person does not have a functioning brain.

They are obviously heavily related, and one leads to the other, but they are not identical.

You need to work on how you're defining this "sensation" of anger as separate from anger itself as well as your dead man argument.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Can you name anything else that, like emotions, exists but somehow isn't physical?

Dark and cold.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Those things dun exist. .___. The processes that alter physical temperature exist, and then there is the lack of physical light.

 

[GwJ]

Yeah, they don't exist. I hate the example, but remember that story that falsely sets Einstein in the place of a student talking to an atheist professor? Yeah, the story has a point even if it's misleading.