Actually the best way to treat many chronic health conditions is to convince the mind/body to heal itself. In fact the reading material I sent you talks quite a bit about mind-body healing, the placebo effect, etc.

Sadly, the promised material never arrived.

The effects of various mental dispositions on the ability of the body are not to be dismissed, but to my mind they are evidence in favor of materialism, rather than against it. It is because the mind is made up of material processes that it can have material effects.

The only way intractable ones get made tractable is by progress in nasty old reductionistic, materialist science.

Actually the best way to treat many chronic health conditions is to convince the mind/body to heal itself. In fact the reading material I sent you talks quite a bit about mind-body healing, the placebo effect, etc.

The models of reductionistic materialism are pretty helpful when trying to build a computer chip. They are less helpful when trying to heal intractable, chronic health conditions.

Oddly enough, reductionistic materialism is quite successful in healing tractable health conditions, but less so for intractable ones. The only way intractable ones get made tractable is by progress in nasty old reductionistic, materialist science.

They are pretty much useless when trying to find meaning, value and beauty in your life

Most scientists would disagree. See, for instance, the recent discussion right here on "Endless Forms Most Beautiful".

Explaining consciousness by claiming it is ontologically basic is no explanation at all "” it's merely an excuse for not providing an explanation.

Science, and the mind in general, cannot "explain" anything.

All they can do is draw correlations between observations.

The mental concept known as "materialism" simply draws all correlations in reference to "physical" concepts, but is most certainly doesn't "explain" them. They are simply taken as axiomatic, as brute facts about reality.

What the idealists, mystics and some theists recognize, which the materialists do not, is that materiality is not the basis of our ontology about the universe. The basis is perception, and the foundation of perception is the awareness / consciousness in which perception unfolds. Materialism and faith in the model of an external, objective, physical world is actually a much more derived conceptual framework, it is not ontologically basic at all. And it is a framework that is pretty far removed from our fundamental being. That is why materialists say and believe things like:

Human life is. . . just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes. . . . It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe.

and

Man must at last wake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation, he must realize that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world, a world that is deaf to his muisc, and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering or his crimes.

It is not that "the world" is deaf to our music. It is that the conceptual edifice of objective / external / material reality is deaf to our essential nature as subjective beings.

The models of reductionistic materialism are pretty helpful when trying to build a computer chip. They are less helpful when trying to heal intractable, chronic health conditions. They are pretty much useless when trying to find meaning, value and beauty in your life, or to understand consciousness (which is the actual foundation of all ontology, even that of materialists). That is why so many materialists succumb to nihilism. . .

stunney:

Thank you for relieving me of any responsibility I might otherwise have felt about answering in a useful way your inane questions.

mt: Yet you went on to answer them, although whether in a useful way I can't tell.

That's a whoosh then. On we go…

I suppose I shouldn't have put in the gratuitous insult, but you've got a lot of brass objecting to that sort of thing.

Uh huh. On we go…

me: what is knowledge, what is thought, how does thought relate to reality, what are persons, how do we know what persons are? These fundamental questions are at the heart of Kripke's work.

mt: They are? The connection between those deep questions and whether water == H2O in the universe next door escapes me, but perhaps I'm dumb.

Could be. But on we go…

I appreciate the effort you are spending typing in long treatises but I'm afraid the whole thing makes just as little sense to me as when you started.

Awwwww. Poor baby. But on we go…

I asked to subtract out the philosophical jargon, but it's still there, making my eyes glaze over.

Awwwww. Poor baby. But on we go….

Here's my attempt to read some of your explanations:

Wahey! Wahey! mtaven's gonna try and think!

Wahey! But on we go….

By the way, are you ever gonna get to anything substantive?

me: Ever since Hume, philosophy in the English-speaking world divided up knowledge into purely formal truths known as analytic, and empirical truths known as synthetic. Analytic truths were necessary and known a priori, empirical truths were contingent and known a posteriori.

mt: Translation: there's mathematics, and tautological definitions, and then there's everything else.

Boy, you're sharp.

me: This division has major consequences, and in particular leads to a purely naturalistic ontology and epistemology; roughly the view that the only possible valid forms of substantive knowledge or rationally warranted belief are those yielded by the methods of the natural sciences, and that the only real entities are those which are posited by the natural sciences.

mt: The connection escapes me, but if you say so. Didn't you just contradict what you said a sentance ago, that that there's a priori truths as well as empirical truths? My head starts to hurt right about here.

Could you be a little more explicit? What contradiction?

Meanwhile, try some aspirin. Or ibuprofen.

Whichever. Ya know?

me: This statement, however, cannot itself be verified by the methods of natural science. So the first problem is self-referential incoherence.

So? I thought that we just granted that there was a priori knowledge.

We did. But—-and here's what you may have missed—that knowledge was purely formal, ex hypothesi. In other words, those were analytic truths. In other words, those propositions were true simply in virtue of their meaning. But—–and I know this may have caused your brain excruciating pain—–one cannot tell whether Cartesian souls can or cannot exist in any possible world just by looking at the meaning of the words 'Cartesian soul'.

Nurse! Nurse! Please bring mtraven some industrial strength morphine!

me: But there's another deeper one, and that is the statement's modal character. It's saying the only possible knowledge and the only possible entities are such-and-such. Putting it another way, it's saying knowledge is necessarily such-and -such, and that real entities are necessarily such-and-such. And putting it another way, it's saying there is no possible world in which knowledge = X, and there is no possible world in which real entities = Y, where X and Y don't fall under naturalistic categories.

mt: Sorry, you lost me.

Nurse! Nurse! Do you have that morphine yet?

If something is true in all possible worlds, then it's either a mathematical or a definitional tautology. But why is that interesting?

Not every necessary truth is a mathematical or definitional truth, mtraven.

You obviously haven't been paying attention. "The Morning Star is the Evening Star" is true in every possible world containing the planet Venus. Yet that—–and please pay close attention at this point—is neither a mathematical or definitional tautology. Likewise, if "Water is H20" is true, then in every world in which the referent of the first term exists, it's identical with the referent of the second term.

But yes, I realize you may not have been paying attention, what with your sore head 'n' all.

This is how we got started, with Kripke's amazing proof that if you define minds as equal to brains, then minds are equal to brains in all possible worlds. Stop the fucking presses.

It's got nothing to do with how anyone defines minds. It's all to do with what minds are really identical with.

You're so stupid, mtraven, it's actually funny to watch you. What makes it even funnier is that you are a 'bright'.

Oh well I could go on but as you see, I'm a hopeless dummy at this stuff.

You are indeed.

No doubt there are hugely profound truths about the nature of persons and the universe to found there, and I'm just missing them all.

Still, at least you shredded, if only for one brief glorious moment, Saul Kripke's famous argument, in your own mind.

And that's what counts, isn't it? You know, when all's said and done. You know?

me: Now, you asked what impact Kripke's views have had on the real world. I presume you would agree that the worldview one might call 'scientific naturalism' has had a huge impact on the real world"¦. Thus, the answer to the question of what difference Kripke's views have made is that the easy, smug versions of scientific naturalism which had a large impact on the real world through their filtering down the walls of the ivory tower came crashing down.

mt: They may have crashed within philosophy, although I doubt that even within that field it is quite as clear-cut as you say "” obviously there are plenty of naturalist philosophers still at large. But even so, has this had any impact at all on scientific practice, or anything else outside of philosophy? I haven't noticed.

You may not have. That's so very, very true.

Very true indeed.

Folks, in case anyone is interested,mtraven didn't notice.

Just so you all know. 'N' all.

Now, there are certainly interesting philosophical problems about the relationship of mathematical and empirical knowledge "” the kind of strangeness that Wigner noted in his famous paper, and Tegmark tries to account for by his mathematical metaphysics. Maybe Kripke has something to say that could clarify those mysteries. If so, it's going right over my head.

It may well have. That is, in fact, a very real possibility.

If I had to wager a large sum of money on the proposition, I'd wager it. And I'm not even a gamblin man. You know what ah'm sayin'?

It doesn't matter how often you tell them, mcromer. They will always say that anti-materialists cannot explain consciousness either. What they mean, of course, is that anti-materialists cannot explain consciousness in materialist terms, for to take consciousness as ontologically basic, as anti-materialists do, is unthinkable to them…

Stunney,

Explaining consciousness by claiming it is ontologically basic is no explanation at all — it's merely an excuse for not providing an explanation.

No wonder you're a fan of Plantinga.

Thank you for relieving me of any responsibility I might otherwise have felt about answering in a useful way your inane questions.

Yet you went on to answer them, although whether in a useful way I can't tell.

I suppose I shouldn't have put in the gratuitous insult, but you've got a lot of brass objecting to that sort of thing.

what is knowledge, what is thought, how does thought relate to reality, what are persons, how do we know what persons are? These fundamental questions are at the heart of Kripke's work.

They are? The connection between those deep questions and whether water == H2O in the universe next door escapes me, but perhaps I'm dumb.

I appreciate the effort you are spending typing in long treatises but I'm afraid the whole thing makes just as little sense to me as when you started. I asked to subtract out the philosophical jargon, but it's still there, making my eyes glaze over.

Here's my attempt to read some of your explanations:

Ever since Hume, philosophy in the English-speaking world divided up knowledge into purely formal truths known as analytic, and empirical truths known as synthetic. Analytic truths were necessary and known a priori, empirical truths were contingent and known a posteriori.

Translation: there's mathematics, and tautological definitions, and then there's everything else.

This division has major consequences, and in particular leads to a purely naturalistic ontology and epistemology; roughly the view that the only possible valid forms of substantive knowledge or rationally warranted belief are those yielded by the methods of the natural sciences, and that the only real entities are those which are posited by the natural sciences.

The connection escapes me, but if you say so. Didn't you just contradict what you said a sentance ago, that that there's a priori truths as well as empirical truths? My head starts to hurt right about here.

This statement, however, cannot itself be verified by the methods of natural science. So the first problem is self-referential incoherence.

So? I thought that we just granted that there was a priori knowledge.

But there's another deeper one, and that is the statement's modal character. It's saying the only possible knowledge and the only possible entities are such-and-such. Putting it another way, it's saying knowledge is necessarily such-and -such, and that real entities are necessarily such-and-such. And putting it another way, it's saying there is no possible world in which knowledge = X, and there is no possible world in which real entities = Y, where X and Y don't fall under naturalistic categories.

Sorry, you lost me. If something is true in all possible worlds, then it's either a mathematical or a definitional tautology. But why is that interesting? This is how we got started, with Kripke's amazing proof that if you define minds as equal to brains, then minds are equal to brains in all possible worlds. Stop the fucking presses.

Oh well I could go on but as you see, I'm a hopeless dummy at this stuff. No doubt there are hugely profound truths about the nature of persons and the universe to found there, and I'm just missing them all.

Now, you asked what impact Kripke's views have had on the real world. I presume you would agree that the worldview one might call 'scientific naturalism' has had a huge impact on the real world…. Thus, the answer to the question of what difference Kripke's views have made is that the easy, smug versions of scientific naturalism which had a large impact on the real world through their filtering down the walls of the ivory tower came crashing down.

They may have crashed within philosophy, although I doubt that even within that field it is quite as clear-cut as you say — obviously there are plenty of naturalist philosophers still at large. But even so, has this had any impact at all on scientific practice, or anything else outside of philosophy? I haven't noticed.

Now, there are certainly interesting philosophical problems about the relationship of mathematical and empirical knowledge — the kind of strangeness that Wigner noted in his famous paper, and Tegmark tries to account for by his mathematical metaphysics. Maybe Kripke has something to say that could clarify those mysteries. If so, it's going right over my head.

For God's sake, man, I'm not referring to any linguistic practices. What does it take to get that through your thick skull?

Thank you Raevmo for not insulting me. I know you're very quick to congratulate me when I don't insult you, so I don't want to be any less quick on congratulating you. When it comes to thickness of skulls, one can only settle such questions by empirical measurement.

Now, might there be some other substance in a different world that looks like water, and which has identical macroscopic properties to water, but isn't H2O? Yes.

Might the stuff we've called water turn out to be not H20? Of course. Nobody knew modern chemistry centuries ago, and so when its chemical composition was investigated, nobody knew what it was going to turn out be. And it's possible that it isn't H20 even now, because maybe modern chemistry rests on a mistake which nobody has realized is a mistake.

But as a wise man called Kripke once said: so fucking what, Raevmo? Water is whatever it is. The confusion you're making is precisely the one I mentioned, and which is typically made by 1st year philosophy students when they first encounter the causal theory of reference, rigid designation, and externalist theories of content.

Therefore, if water (in the sense in which we can measure its macroscopic properties, and there is no other way) is (a collection of) H2O (molecules) in this world, that does not imply that water is necessarily H2O in all worlds.

IF water is H20, it does, I'm afraid, because water is identical with whatever water is in every world in which there's water. It's not merely identical with itself in this world, Raevmo. It's identical with itself in every world that contains it, because a thing x being identical with itself is true for all values of x . I quoted this for your benefit before. I'd like you to read it very carefully and then meditate on it for at least ten years in a Tibetan monastery, especially the highlighted bits:

One interesting consequence of Kripke semantics is that identities involving rigid designators are necessary. If water is H2O, then water is necessarily H2O. Since the terms 'water' and 'H2O' pick out the same object in every possible world, there is no possible world in which 'water' picks out something different from 'H2O'. Therefore, water is necessarily H2O.

It is possible, of course, that we are mistaken about the chemical composition of water, but that does not affect the necessity of identities. What is not being claimed is that water is necessarily H2O, but conditionally, if water is H2O (though we may not know this, it does not change the fact if it is true), then water is necessarily H2O.

Let's assume we know nothing about what water is, Raevmo, other than it's whatever is the substance that we use the term 'water' to designate. And let's call the unknown nature of that substance, whatever it is, "substance no. 1". We just give its unknown nature a name, a mere label, just like 'Raevmo' is a name, a mere label, and leave the problem of finding out what water really is to future generations. Maybe 'Raevmo' designates a human being. But maybe it designates an alien, or a computer, or a talking fish. We just don't know at this point. Maybe 'water' designates H20, maybe it designates the tears of Paris Hilton, maybe it designates angelic ectoplasm. But whatever it designates, the thing designated will be identical with whatever it turns out to be not just in this world, but in every world in which that thing, whatever it turns out to be, exists. If it turns out to be H20, it will be H20 wherever it exists. If it turns out to be Paris Hilton's tears, it will be Paris Hilton's tears wherever it exists. If it turns to be angelic ectoplasm, it—-that thing we use the term 'water' to designate—- will be angelic ectoplasm wherever it exists.

And if the thing designated by 'Raevmo' turns out to be a human being, that thing will be a human being in whichever world that thing exists.

To answer another question, science presupposes a priori reasoning because it presupposes possible worlds and possible worlds are not empirical entities. Assume we all die tonight because the sun goes supernova on us. Hence no human ever falls into a black hole. But the following proposition is plausibly true: If Raevmo had fallen into a black hole, he would necessarily have been unable to escape What this appears to mean is that there is no possible world in which the human being called Raevmo exists, falls into a black hole, and escapes from it. As I say, this is plausibly true, and plausibly something we have good grounds for believing. Yet we never empirically tested it in this world, never mind every possible world. Hence we seem to know some substantive truth about Raevmo that is based on a priori. Another is that there is no possible world in which the thing called Raevmo exists and is an infinitely long cylinder of 3 inch diameter.

Not very important you might say. But it is, for here's another set of ideas that flow from those:

I don't think it's the concept of omnipotence that's the main issue, per se.

It's that we don't have perfect knowledge of what is, and what isn't, logically (or metaphysically) possible when it comes to mental states in relation to physical entities.

Can a piece of glass be in love? My intuition says no, and says, hence God cannot make a lovesick piece of glass.

My intuition also says that it might well be impossible for any physical things to be conscious unless they're endowed with brains like those of humans or animals, and it might well be impossible for such brains to exist unless the laws of nature are as they are in our world.

Electrons can't understand quantum mechanics, and pieces of glass can't be in love because they don't have brains. I think that's plausibly a necessary truth. And if so, it's possibly because it's also a necessary truth that all brainless matter can't, and only living brain matter can, possess mental states [in the domain of material being]. And it's possible that living brain matter cannot exist unless the physical laws of our universe obtain.

If non-brain matter can be conscious, then this is a) something that no-one has ever shown, and b) far from obvious.

Similarly, if living brain matter can exist with different physical laws in place, then this is a) something that no-one has ever shown, and b) far from obvious.

Given that we really don't know what is the case about this modal landscape, appeals to omnipotence by the POE proponent are beside the point.

Notice that you don't have to believe in God to reject the Problem of Evil argument on this ground. So "faith" per se is irrelevant to my position. An atheist might reject the POE argument as unsound because it makes a claim that there is a possible world that's better than this one, and an atheist might believe, or think it reasonable to suppose, that there is only one logically possible physics consistent with the evolution of intelligent life—the physics of the actual world. A number of physicists (e.g. Frank Tipler) have actually speculated that this might well be the case.

In other words, two atheists could disagree over whether there could be a better world. One is a determinist and holds that the laws of nature couldn't have been otherwise than they are, but exist of necessity. The other holds that another universe, with better laws of nature, is possible.

How could this argument be settled? At the very least, the supposed better laws of nature would have to be specified, and their consequences calculated. But even this wouldn't be enough to settle the issue of whether a better world is possible, because to compare the two worlds, we'd have to know much more than we do about the actual world. It might be the case that our universe contains billions upon billions of planets inhabited by trillions of tremendously happy beings.

Notice that the proponent of the Argument from Evil is assuming that there is another possible world containing sentient physical creatures, and it's better than the actual world.

Have you ever made that assumption, Raevmo? Have you ever relied on a priori reasoning about possible worlds and tried to draw from it a substantive conclusion about what really exists, Raevmo?:smile:

That's right, my response was that what water really is cannot depend on our linguistic practices. Water is wet, is used in showers, etc. The word 'water' by contrast is not wet, is not used in showers etc. Donkeys have four legs. The word 'donkeys' doesn't have any legs.

For God's sake, man, I'm not referring to any linguistic practices. What does it take to get that through your thick skull? I'm referring to the measurable macroscopic properties of the substance that we call water. We might be able to determine that those properties have a one-to-one correspondence to a fluid consisting of mostly H2O molecules in this world, but that doesn't guarantee that the same properties can't be held by some other substance in a different world. Therefore, if water (in the sense in which we can measure its macroscopic properties, and there is no other way) is (a collection of) H2O (molecules) in this world, that does not imply that water is necessarily H2O in all worlds. Maybe water is a bad example, but I get the feeling that one cannot reason about all possible worlds without a knowledge of what worlds are possible according to our scientific models. You yourself use scientific models all the time to argue that the universe is fine-tuned. Don't you see a conflict there?